Craig Deppen Auge (Kansas City, MO) | Exchange (Kansas City) | August 2021

Inspired by a single blue, shear stocking found on the first night in the museum, this work is an exploration of color, texture and transparency, while playfully referencing the “spirit energy” experienced by many. This installation of collection knee-highs directly responds to the Ghost Room, and various supernatural references through the museum, including a large spirit board in the stairwell. The legs appear to be dancing up and down the wall, having perhaps been summoned to life through the some accidental conjuring during the act of art-making. This is not a frightening invocation, but is rather vivacious and light-hearted. We are witnessing a spirit party, or more likely, the manifestation of the energy Elsewhere’s previous inhabitants through the years. This work also highlights the fashion of a particular era, and generally honors the variety of collection garments found in the Transformatorium.

Craig Deppen Auge (Kansas City, MO) | Exchange (Kansas City) | August 2021

This series of 20 sculptures and interventions incorporating textile scraps, collage, metal grid form, and other various collection materials can be viewed as For the most part, the artist has committed to using scraps and parts “as found” with no additional manipulation, just a focus on composition, constructed intuitively. This series of works is the most closely connected to the artist’s current body of work outside of the museum. Within this setting, these are abstract poems honoring all who have drifted, and will drift, through Elsewhere; from previous residents all the way back to the boarding house days. In that broader sense, these may speak to our independent, yet collective, journey through this life, on this planet, and the “getting lost” elsewhere along the way. Other questions emerge, as the artist continues to think about the grid as the symbol of existing social structures, or more broadly, and the fabric as ourselves and how we navigate these systems. Then we can ask: are we dancing with the grid or fighting the grid? Are we caught in the grid or escaping the grid? The placement of these pieces and proximity to each other also begins to suggest they carry individual personalities, and are themselves transient beings, resting mostly in the Alone Zone and drifting down the hallway.

Craig Deppen Auge (Kansas City, MO) | Exchange (Kansas City) | August 2021

This series of 24 individual “sign posts” and/ or “flags” placed in the garden and spread throughout the museum explores the concept of way-finding and personal journey. Linked conceptually to one of the the artist’s other projects, Drifters, these embody the themes of the sojourner, “finding yourself,” or unexpectedly finding yourself “elsewhere.” These clusters of lean, wordless directional or distance markers are similar, but abstracted versions, to those you might find on an old, wooded footpath. The difference being that there is no explicit direction, only a formal, coded visual language speaking of what is on the path ahead, or what lies behind. These works were constructed intuitively and urgently, using only collection scraps and hardware, giving them a folksy, southern yard-art quality. The artist is interested in the concept of the nexus, and Elsewhere certainly acts as a nexus for community and creativity. But it remains open to interpretation, and its direction is ever-changing. This project suggests all of that; a sculptural play on the puzzling, multi-vocal outlooks found at Elsewhere, perhaps pointing to a multitude of other "elsewheres."

Craig Deppen Auge (Kansas City, MO) | Exchange (Kansas City) | August 2021

This work, which spans across the top of the front and back stairwells to the second floor, is an exploration of form, pattern and scale, as well as a contemplative remark. Images of these chairs were cut from a collection of 60 Italian furniture catalogs which were sourced from the Records Room Archive. They exist as remnants form the Carolina Sales Company, one of the latter day businesses here, predating the museum. The crosscut pattern itself acts as an invocation, perhaps inviting roaming spirits a place to rest, similar to the “haint blue” as a There is also a reminder here to take time and just be still with yourself amongst the dazzling cacophony of the collection, though ultimately that rest and meditation is illusive. The work also reminds us to stay aware of the many multiples found within the collection, and that, in fact, multiples of an object or image are the very definition of a collection.