Redwood City Pages Curatorial Statement

Lance M Fung, Curator, Fung Collaboratives

December 2017

Discovering a new artist brings joy to every curator and learning about Brian Taylor’s expansive approach to photography created my desire to work on a project together.  Taylor’s photographs are significant artworks in their own right, yet the artist often embeds them into handmade book sculptures denying the viewer the pleasure of touch and discovery.  It’s almost painful since each and every page is strategically and suggestively “almost” on view.  In fact, in a seductive manner, the artist sometimes encases his precious objects under glass making the tactile artwork further from one’s grasp.  In homage to the masterpieces of Anselm Kiefer’s installations and book sculptures, Taylor addresses the same concerns of context, social conditions, and formal aesthetics.

I still recall my first studio visit in 2016 where I felt just shy of breaking the glass vitrine in order to peek and touch one of Taylor’s paginated sculptures.  It is with Taylor’s innate sense of humor and intellect that as all great artists do – he controls the viewer’s perimeters while providing an open-ended experience.  The multitude of interpretations for his work illustrates how the artist pushes the boundaries of what a photograph is and can be.  Without judgment, the artist embraces the analogue quality of traditional photography while utilizing his other skillful methods of collage, drawing and painting.

As luck would have it, Redwood City Parks and Art Foundation and the Sesquicentennial committee were seeking commemorative projects.  Over a series of conversations with Brian, we eventually decided to put a proposal together.  Initially, his concept was relatively simple.  Brian would spend three quarters of a year exploring Redwood City, taking photographs that would be bound into a large hand made book displayed on a table stand.  As is the case with all relevant art projects, things change and evolve with new information as do the artistic goals and techniques.

In this case, Taylor wanted Redwood City Pages to bring people together.  The project presented over twenty-five cyanotype, paper making, and book making workshops free to the public.  Amazing local artists were hired to help implement the summer long community engagement activity. Taylor took the challenge further and left behind his signature book-style format and leapt into a new and elliptical public art approach; one that I have not seen realized anywhere until this project.  Each page evolved into single artworks: twenty to be exact.  With an inventor’s approach, Fung Collaboratives fabricated a new presentation structure allowing each artwork to individually hang and turn so the viewer can interact with the installation from a distance and also literally enter it to rotate the panels.  The experience feels like one is entering a film reel viewing each image up close, and we can step back from the surrounding scene to gain a greater sense of the overall context.

After culling through thousands of his photographs, Brian created the twenty backdrops to eventually collage and overlay additional historic images leaving a sense of legacy and history behind.  The permanent site of the downtown library also liberated the artist from creating an overly didactic or literal narrative.  Rather, the artist’s goal of Redwood City Pages is to leave a trail of breadcrumbs of the past and present for future visitors to discover, question and study. We hope that this permanent artwork provides the same sense of inclusion, community and sense of curiosity that the city parks and libraries foster.  Each panel / artwork is a glimpse into Redwood City through the eyes of a trained artist inspiring both residents and visitors alike to embark on their own personal explorations through the local library, museum, public spaces, and most importantly, to physically rediscover Redwood City on foot.  Each of us has the ability to create our own stories and add to the significant history of Redwood City, as we step forward toward our hopeful future.