Free Energy
Tao Lin, Alina Perkins, Idris Salaam
July 30 - August 27, 2023

Zodiac Pictures is thrilled to present Free Energy, a group exhibition featuring works by Tao Lin, Alina Perkins, and Idris Salaam. Free Energy is the inaugural show at the gallery’s new location, 145 Bay Street #9, Santa Monica, CA 90405. The exhibition will be on view from July 30 - August 27, 2023. An opening reception will be held Sunday, July 30th, from 4-7pm.

The disputed “Salvator Mundi” has, since the first time I saw it, echoed in my mind as an imago of creation, regardless if it was executed by master or student. In it, Jesus is placid, focused, lucid, generous, and radiant, holding in His left hand a translucent orb and gesturing with His right towards the heavens with a sign of fearlessness. It seems to me that that translucent orb is the mystery of creation. It is the locus of all that is, defined against that which is not, held by the Creator and offered to His creations. Not until Chardin’s soap bubbles do we begin to wield this gift, albeit with a profound sense of wonder and lack of mastery. As Christ with His world-creation depicts in macrocosm the artist with his artistic creation, so too the boy reflecting on his bubble is an image of the artist at work—the artist that plays and creates fearlessly. 

There is a hypothesis which threatens to revolutionize the paradigm of our creation myth. It posits that gravity, Einstein’s ace in the hole, is not, after all, the most important creative force in the universe. The universe wasn’t created with a bang. There is no dark matter or dark energy. There is no vacuum, only aether. Light is a wave. This hypothesis looks to electricity as the creative principle of material reality. It proposes that the universe is rhizomatic and scalar; it has no beginning and no end, neither in space nor in time. The details of this scientific postulation are available to any curious reader. One of its many implications is what Nikola Tesla termed the “infinite energy field,” which is presumably similar if not identical to what other practices have termed the “unified field.” From this boundless vista comes endless and irreducible energy; one need only learn how to utilize it. Whether this is a literal aspect of artistic creation or merely a useful metaphor for articulating the dynamic process of artistic activity, I will not venture to pass a conclusive verdict. 

In any case, it seems that the artist, in creation, must learn to dissolve thinking into doing. The creative act is spiritual in the sense of being evasive, ghostlike, and spectral. One must surrender to an inner kineticism—must “become a conduit” as has often been said. The essence of the creative act is lodged within the finished work with a similar slipperiness. Adorno wrote that pursuing the truth-content of a work of art —what we experience as beauty — is like pursuing a rainbow: it slips away as one approaches it. Like a translucent orb, its presence is only articulated by the reflection and refraction of what it is not. Like a bubble, it threatens at any moment to pop, to dissipate. But it never seems to depart entirely. Matter is irreducible, merely transformed by energy in time. Why shouldn’t energy be irreducible too? The play-drive of the artist ignites a faculty of thoughtless doing, allowing the aesthetic contours of an experience to become etched into matter, objectified for others to experience. This is the basic principle of artistic creation. It is art’s unique gift, accessible to all who will accept it. It is a kind of free energy.

- Grant Tyler

Tao Lin (b. 1983, Alexandria, Virginia) is a writer, poet, and artist. He received a BA in journalism from New York University. His work includes Leave Society (2021), Trip: Psychedelics, Alienation, and Change (2018), and Taipei (2013). Lin’s mandala drawings were the subject of a recent solo exhibition organized by Nick Irvin at Ka-Vá Kava & Kratom Bar, New York (2022). He is working on a nonfiction book, Self Heal: How I Cured My Autism, Autoimmune Disorder, Eczema, Depression, and Other Health Problems Naturally. He lives and works in Hawaii.

Alina Perkins (b. Buenos Aires, Argentina) practice consists of painting, sculpture, installation, and performance. She studied at Licenciatura en Artes Visuales, Buenos Aires, and most recently with Monika Baer at the Städelschule, Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Frankfurt, Germany. Recent group exhibitions include SALON, Amor Corp, Los Angeles (2022); Love Song, Sarah Brooke Gallery, Los Angeles (2021); TEKNOLUST: OBJECTOPHILIC FUTURES, Woaw Gallery, Hong Kong (2021); Bar, Commercial Street, Los Angeles (2020). She lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.

Idris Salaam (b. 1996, Brooklyn, New York) is an interdisciplinary artist working in painting, drawing, and video. He received his BFA from the Fashion Institute of Technology. He recently had a solo exhibition at Bungalow, London (2022). Group exhibitions include True Love sometimes requires a little lying, Cooper Brovenick, New York (2023); Bungalow, Westbeth Gallery, New York (2022); First Impression, Anonymous Gallery, New York (2021). He lives and works in New York City.