Lisa Kokin
Where Do I Begin? #2, 2012
Thread
24 x 16.5 in
Thread, text.
In Kokin’s most recent body of work, thread occupies a magical place between these two, becoming the matrix for its own messages. These texts — and there are actual words in the majority of these floating webs of thread — are, for the most part, the utterances and writings of Kokin’s mother Mollie in the last part of an extraordinarily long life which ended In December of 2011, only a few months short of 100 years.
"My name is Mollie Kokin." Seeing the text in her failing handwriting becomes a reminder that all who came before us had a name and a story. By remaining faithful to the exact text and the way it was set down, Kokin is able to freeze a moment which is at once an assertion and the evidence of decline - all in thread.
