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Hawkins Headquarters is pleased to announce its seventh exhibition and first groupshow. Featuring works from Kate Burke, Charlie Goering, Scott Keightly, Mo Costello and Niel Hancock in the exhibition 1,400,000,000 - 4,000,000,000.
Every year in the United States on average between 1,400,000,000 - 4,000,000,000 birds are killed each year by cats. A number so large that you only really start to comprehend it when all 20 characters are fully written out in front of you. Grasping the sheer volume of the carnage only by the length of the number fully displayed on the page;1,400,000,000 - 4,000,000,000. This statistic comes with a high and low estimate so great that it's even hard to comprehend that the range of the unknown is 2,600,000,000 avian lives. Written language performs in a visual way at the point where the length of the statistic helps you understand how catastrophic the wreckage is. The many ways text operates outside of language is the emphasis of this exhibition.
Language and art have always had a relationship with one another, from as early as illuminated manuscripts and as recently as graffiti, pop art, and propaganda; text in art has always presented a crucial crossroads in communication. The utility of text depends on its perceived function in language; the exhibition 1,400,000,000 - 4,000,000,000 groups together six artists whose practice at times explores text in various ways. Sheet music from Schubert String Quintet 5, text that only makes sense to those trained to play it, text from computer captcha that serves as a turing test to your destination. Symbols, punctuation and typography, lend new meaning to images when removed from text and language. The works in this exhibition elucidates the multifaceted roles of text beyond its linguistic functions.
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