Taylor has developed a solid reputation for his accomplished and humorously ironical bronze sculptures. Now he wishes to dislodge himself from his previous comfort zone in terms of sculptural techniques and materials, and in so doing, hopes to strip away the polished surfaces of the finished piece to reveal the physical and mental processes involved in its making.
Taylor works from the premise that deduction gathers a valid conclusion from a more general premise to a more specific. The process of induction involves drawing general conclusions based on a limited and specific inference. Thus, in a technocratic culture that favours simulation and speed over real-time relationships, people and things are reduced to quick-time taxonomies.
Deduction implies the opposite. To deduce involves reasoning from the general to the particular, underscoring the need to engage with culture in terms of its flexible morphology. In this body of work, Taylor attempts to peel away the surface of his art to explore its innards, forcing the viewer to engage with the process of art making. He says in this regard: “Information overload causes the domination of inductive reasoning. I am presenting the sculpture or an idea in aspects, perspectives or in different mediums. By showing a sculpture in repetition but a variant with different defined parts or perspectives I am forcing the viewer to assemble the whole from different aspects. One gains access to the part in considering the whole. The collective defines the individual. For, in the words of Meyer Vaisman, ‘…there is nothing more meaningful than taking meaning apart”.
In this way, the induction / deduction binary is conflated in Taylor’s work which, as a collection is both scopic and expansive. Together, his use of a traditional medium like bronze with the plastic form of LED lights pokes fun at old and new canons. This exhibition, in other words, plays with the cultural and art-historical tropes of meaning making in contemporary Africa.
Taylor works from the premise that deduction gathers a valid conclusion from a more general premise to a more specific. The process of induction involves drawing general conclusions based on a limited and specific inference. Thus, in a technocratic culture that favours simulation and speed over real-time relationships, people and things are reduced to quick-time taxonomies.
Deduction implies the opposite. To deduce involves reasoning from the general to the particular, underscoring the need to engage with culture in terms of its flexible morphology. In this body of work, Taylor attempts to peel away the surface of his art to explore its innards, forcing the viewer to engage with the process of art making. He says in this regard: “Information overload causes the domination of inductive reasoning. I am presenting the sculpture or an idea in aspects, perspectives or in different mediums. By showing a sculpture in repetition but a variant with different defined parts or perspectives I am forcing the viewer to assemble the whole from different aspects. One gains access to the part in considering the whole. The collective defines the individual. For, in the words of Meyer Vaisman, ‘…there is nothing more meaningful than taking meaning apart”.
In this way, the induction / deduction binary is conflated in Taylor’s work which, as a collection is both scopic and expansive. Together, his use of a traditional medium like bronze with the plastic form of LED lights pokes fun at old and new canons. This exhibition, in other words, plays with the cultural and art-historical tropes of meaning making in contemporary Africa.
