Ian Kiaer: Endnote, tooth

‘Endnote, tooth’ is a project Ian Kiaer began several years ago and whose configuration changes with the circumstances. Drawing on the notion of marginal endnotes in books, it references the utopian concepts of the Austrian American architect Frederick Kiesler (1890-1965). In the late 1940s, Kiesler – an atypical figure whose writings were a significant influence on postwar art, architecture and design – came up with the (unrealised) Tooth House, a residence modelled on the human tooth and integrated into its environment.

Guided by his reading of art history and architecture, and by the structural concerns underlying his own ideas, Kiaer has been developing an approach to painting as a «minor form». Each of his installations has a title linking it to a thinker, architect, philosopher or utopianist, with everyday objects and found materials assembled in such a way as to raise the question of their use and their appearance.