electric blanket and text; electric blanket folded
‘The objects created by John Knight insert themselves into the familiar, the quotidian, the domestic spaces of consumption and decoration. At the same time, they distance themselves both from the legacies of the readymade and Pop art, from the common recourse to the object that occurred in the 1980s. This stance does not entail the détournement of the benign functional object. Rather Knight’s objects retain their potential use value. His objects remain purveyors of sciences and domestic functions, but these functions are at once overexposed and dispersed – evidenced in his work by carpenters’ levels, plates, mirrors, lounge chairs, carpeting, magazine subscriptions, bicycle bells. Nevertheless, these incongruous objects, stemming for the most part from the realm of design, eventually may enter a private collection. They question the insidious moment in which art and non-art coincide, private and public spheres merge and separate – that very locus at which an object can become a fetish.’ – Excerpt from Birgit Pelzer, ‘The Irresistible Appeal of Utility’, in October Files, 16, 2014; translated by André Rottmann
