Jarrod Beck Introduction

Hello Con-Generates. I'm Jarrod, an architect turned printmaker and back again. (Installation Artist?) I remake spaces by introducing a degree of entropy into places that have been "cleaned" to challenge the architectural frame of order. I use banal materials associated with the trade of the design/builder: drafting film, silver mylar, lath, plaster, light, and exact ideas of memory, loss, distance on them: the mylar collects the remnants of a painted wall, becoming the formwork for a poured plaster piece, which breaks, but not before it takes the information with it, and is rested carefully on a table, and then packed away. All these pieces add up until finding a new space to generate the next piece.

I've just finished packing all the bits of my last installation into my studio, so I'm hoping to unpack it again with all of you.

Below is the sign posted to the door of my last piece at the South Street Seaport Museum. A twisted frame:

Welcome to Visitor Center. Yes, we’re open. It’s free and open to the public Wednesday - Sunday, 11-5., through February 21st.

Visitor Center is a temporary installation that began with a question:
What could happen if you built a visitor center for many landscapes at once, a space far removed from the landscape(s) it was meant to frame?

The structure of the piece is influenced by visitor centers typical to national parks and historic sites. A model, or large scale map is shown in the center of the space, with artifacts, artist illustrations, images, moving and still displayed to give context for the visitor attempting to understand the journey on which they are about to embark. Here, architectural elements, or framing devices, have collided with material chaos: namely plaster, paper, plastic, ink and dye.

To build the model, plaster was cast into flexible plastic molds on wooden horizontal planes that filled the gallery. Vertical elements: paper, plastic and thread were hung from the rafters to define a labyrinthal path around and through the plaster piece. Last week, the structure of the piece was removed, causing this “landscape” to collapse. Elements are now being pulled from the rubble and displayed as artifacts along the perimeter of the gallery space.

The installation changes everyday: you are invited to come in and be a part of the process, or simply to walk through and sit for awhile. Ultimately this is a space for contemplation, akin to the bench found perched on the edge of a natural vista. Tea and hot cocoa are available (free of charge), just ask.