Nelson Saiers

quick sketch of an installation im looking to do most likely called Breaking Donald judd's heart in the Tate. For Judd his modular sculptures were not representations. I go the opposite way. This is one of two sketches of an installation about representation (mathematical and art), abstract . included in the work are references to ideas from the proof of Fermat’s ladt Theorem including, representations Modular forms, 3-5 switch, Tate modules etc The goal was to display this for 30th anniversary of its proof. in 2024 as a sister bp[iece to this, but due to technical ones was unable to.

One of two sketches of an installation about representation, abstract art, through the lens of Fermats last theorem. included in the work are references to Fermats famous inscription, ideas from its proof including, representations Modular forms, R=T, theorems, weight (modular forms), etc The goal was to display this for 30th anniversary of its proof., but due to technical ones was unable to. For clarity this is a simple sketch top lay down some of the high level ideas. when really installed it would be more a stream of conscience wall writing where i would flush out more of these ideas. also for clarity the colorful cubes would really look like industrial grade modular cubes like ones you might see in a Donald judd sculpture. as i said this is a quick sketch to get down some basic placement of the ideas and materials that would be displayed. the 2 pointed to the scale means the scale would register 2. the the below image shows what would be printed on one patch of the wall.

The imagery starts with pioneering pop artist Richard Hamiltons 1956 work “Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?” which iniatiated POP art. Richard Hamilton, the mathematician of the same name, developed an important concept called Ricci Flow (which is imitates the heat equation partially motivating the title, Hot, of my work). In 1956 it was shown the generalized poincare conjecture was false. 50 years later another genius built a program starting with Ricci Flow that proved the original version of this conjecture. In particular one of the problems with Ricci Flow is you can get barbell shapes that eventually “pinch”. The solution to this problem was to perform surgery on the manifold before the “pinch”. The bodybuilder with the lolipop barbell says “cant pinch an inch”. Both individuals are well physiqued attractive people which points to the title Hot as well. A suppressor on a gun is sometimes called a “can”. Here that is represented with Pop artist Warhol’s Iconic Campbells Soup can. In one version the words “Suns out guns out baby”. The rest Ill leave for the reader to unpack

This work starts with Homer and Alexander. Homer was blind hinted at by the word “fairest” in gold (and colored) “braille” positioned circles. The Trojan war was started by a contest over who is the fairest. Others lived in Odysseus’ house, and he was known for devising brilliant schemes eg the Trojan horse and his actions with the cyclops. Alexander Grothendieck developed a foundational object called a scheme in algebraic geometry, and its is said many mathematicians live in Grothendieck’s house. A scheme is locally a spectrum of a ring. A manifold is locally a Euclidean space. To understand gravity…(write later)

the marroon background stems from homer’s choice of color to describe the sea. Atlas as calypso’s father abd a atlas isf undamental toa manifold.

Rough draft. You can read the descriptions of many of these in the related sections especially WS1 for Wall Street themed ones:

1. BTC Rat in Oct 2018 at NY Fed and Talking to secret service outside DC Fed in Nov 2018

2. Black Friday in the Moma Black Friday Nov 2024

3.. Modified BTC at Jekyll Island where the FED was “birthed”

4.. Fake brochures at the Info booth at the Met on the last week of the Degas/Manet retrospective Jan 2024.

5. Black Friday Special in the Met on Black Friday Nov 2018

6. Lost and Found at the Moma

7. July 28 2026. Mini cake placed at Banksy’s Hammer Boy on his supposed “Birthday” assuming Reuters reporting is correect about his identity.

8. Cheap Money is Out of Order. (several times) Fall-winter 2021

9. Rug Pull in front of NY SEC Sep 2023.

10. Gamification on the 5 year anniversary of the GME short squeeze

High quality signed and numbered lithographs are available on this piece.

Ship of Theseus (2014). is a playful yet sinister work commenting on the state of the international art market, which is both volatile and – like any bubble – a fragile ecosystem that must be treated delicately to survive. But it also speaks to the heightened philosophical language often used to describe what would otherwise be thought of as quite mundane art. In this work its done with the iconic Ship of Theseus riddle.

Here, a translucent bubble optically encases a quote by Isaac Newton written in Braille: “I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men." (uttered after losing a fortune on the South Seas Bubble burst). The colorful braille marks resemble spots on Damien Hirst's paintings.

Dots that match the Braille in the bubble form a pictorial Ship of Theseus, which precariously floats atop the bubble itself – threatening to collapse it at any moment. Its ominous presence brings into question the impermanence of all art, but especially of the current market environment, where art’s monetary value is hiked almost daily past unprecedented levels. More presciently, this work questions the definition of original art, recalling again the mimicked permanence of Hirst's The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, in which a shark is suspended in formaldehyde: In reality, the shark deteriorated even within the tank intended to preserve it, and had to be replaced. If indeed the market is a bloated mass, then its greatest threat may be the refute of originality. 

Notes: there are several variants of this work. One in particular has mold on it. This version in my opinion is the most interesting as thre “decay” literally speaks to the Theseus paradox. Here the original is featured on page 7 of Bloomberg Brief from Nov 11, 2014. The variant (with black dots) created several years after the original includes, well, black. the black was chosen as it has supposedly only been used once by Hirst but more importantly Blackl often hints at a crash eg Black Monday.

2014

Depicting the Braille text for “Love,” this painting brings into focus the true meaning of the word. The painting appears here with white marks on a black ground with an off-center spot revealing a red blemish. The workʼs title, “Love is Blind,” is here disproved: Love in reality is all-seeing yet deeply accepting— recognizing the imperfections in others, and at the same time choosing to bear them joyfully. Here, the white spot is in the process of covering the imperfection of the red spot, demonstrating perfect love.

Notes:

Several other variants were made including the Blue version displayed in HG contemporary in 2014 and me in front of it installed the Plaza Hotel Edwardian Room in 2017.