When the Parts Untangle

© Yashua Klos. Image courtesy of the Ruth and Elmer Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton,…

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Artist/Maker Yashua Klos (American, born 1977)

Date2022

MediumWoodblock print on muslin and oil-based, relief block ink on canvas, acrylic, spray paint, Japanese rice paper, mounted on drop cloth

DimensionsOverall: 8ft. 11 1/8 in. × 24ft. 1 1/2 in. (2.72 × 7.35)

Credit LineProduction and purchase supported by the Daniel W. Dietrich ‘64 Fund for Innovation in the Arts

Object number2022.4

Not on view

Description"This work was created with the helping hands of seven Hamilton College students. I found an exploded diagram of a nondescript model Ford car. It looked to me like an abstracted map. I carved and printed the car parts in blue ink on the left side of the canvas. Following this “blueprint,” the team of students reprinted each car part in black, assembled them to fit together, and attached the full car to the right-hand side of the canvas. We worked on this as a group might on an assembly line: carving, inking, printing, cutting out, and, finally, mounting directly onto the canvas. A small team would complete one stage of the process and then turn it over to the next team to develop further. Although this is only my second work that has no representational human form, I’m thinking of this car as a “body,” and the migrating body of Black folks escaping the violence of the Jim Crow South for jobs in the Midwest. The word “sprawling” comes to mind, as it’s used to describe both migrant populations and the persistent growth of vines and weeds. The assembled car rests in an interior domestic space, sitting among wood floorboards and Art Deco wallpaper. The exploded car on the left remains in a less certain imagined space, maybe from a time forgotten, or one not yet realized. The seven students who assisted with this work printed their signatures on the wildflower sprouting in the bottom right of the work. Thank you all, my assembly line team: Shelly, Irene, Jane, Chris, Emma, Satchell, and Maddie." —Yashua Klos

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