Sparse and succinct, every item in the diary consists of recurring elements the weather or the temperature and one or two short sentences that surmise the events of the day. Recorded until an abrupt halt in June, the format of each entry had a quality that reminded the artist of the Japanese poetic form, Haiku. Separated by narrow monthly inner sleeves, the book includes regular entries jotted down by an unknown hand. And it was the contents of another book that led to the work “Accidental Haiku” (2009).īought from a thrift store in upstate New York, the artist happened upon a diary from 1975. Somewhat biographically, “63 Objects Taken from My Son’s Mouth” (2014) was a visual catalogue that she made into a limited edition artist book. In a work called “Sculpture for Keyboards” (2015), the artist replaced the keys on a typewriter with objects that corresponded to tactile qwerty counterparts from quinoa to M & M’s, rendering the typewriter unusable. In 2014, Clayton sent a packaged boomerang from Pittsburgh to Australia and back again via airmail.

By bestowing an object with a new designation, she presents us with a new object. Taking note of an article’s character and its details, sometimes guiding the viewer by non-visual cues, her slight artworks intervene to show the ease with which the act of classification takes place. By re-categorising found objects brushed aside by others, the artist nudges our attention towards how we ascribe meanings to the stuff that surrounds us. Lenka Clayton’s portfolio is an inventory of material encounters that she has reassigned.

Lenka everything at once japanese