Heidegger used the word “Zuhandenheit” to refer to objects that one only notices when they go missing. New York-based artist Zak Kitnick makes a practice of bringing these objects to the fore, forming his work from switch plates, linoleum, Venetian blinds, fencing and shelving units in order to “draw attention to the easy to use and easy to ignore objects that structure our daily existence,” as he puts it.
Kitnick is indeed the best authority on his own work, but he wants the viewer to understand it as well. “It’s important to me is that the work is not a game of charades,” he says. “The work is not about trying to guess what I’m thinking. The idea of charades is like the idea of illustration. If I had something simple and singular to say, I would say it. I do think of a lot of the work like a text, but a text that is read all at once. I wish that I could talk that way. I wish that I could say everything at once. The work is a like a text, except it has to be more like a poem. It’s asking what do you think. It has questions.”
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