M.T. Karthik

b. India 1967

M.T. Karthik has conducted performance work as art-in-practice in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New Orleans and Austin over three decades of sociopolitical engagement with the U.S. of A.

Naturalizing as a citizen in 1981, matriculating Baccalaureate in 1989 and Masters in 1993, Karthik has also conducted performance for FM radio and documentary audio projects. Indeed, most of Karthik's work involves sound collection and engineering and his print work and objects often include an audio element or soundtrack. Karthik's books, audio pieces, text pieces, limited editions and uniques have been placed by Booklyn in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Getty Museum, the Milwaukee Public Library, Smith College, Stanford University, New York University, The Otis College of Art and Design, Occidental College and in other archival, educational and private collections.

As an author, Karthik has been published by AYP, Conde Nast and Hachette-Filipacchi and in the Source, *surface and other mags, rags, newspapers and zines in the United States and Canada.

IN PROGRESS:

"Audible Palestine" [2004]

SM-58 microphone, MiniDisc recorder, laptop, sound editing software, and twelve days in the Occupied Territories immediately after the launch of the Geneva Accords. The Audible Palestine Project is a Revolocien Wreckidz Remix of the Reality Tour of Palestine organized by Global Exchange to take place in December 2003.

check out the links ... great interviews of critical voices

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND SELECTED COLOPHONS

"Discourse on the Polarizing Events"
Part One: The Polarizing Events (2004)
Part Two: The Division of Society (in progress)
Part Three: The Discourse Recast (in progress)

[with A.P. Ferrara]

acrylic, ink, blood, photocopied text, reprinted e-mails, white-out, digital media

An immense journal of original reportage containing a huge selection of writings - including more than 2,000 pages collected by Karthik and Ferrara - that document and schematically analyze media coverage of the events of 09112001 and their aftermath, including documentation of various demonstrations and international reactions to the events.

With text and images of e-mails and speech transcripts from September 11 - December 20 of 2001, the 'exhibited work in progress' was a magnet for readers! Published by Fifty Foot Pine Tree Press, these three massive compendia have been on tour with the ...even the birds were on fire...exhibit. The collection of Discourse contains:

"The Big-Time Pitch" (2003)
acrylic, oil, blood, ink, type, video cassette, CD, photocopied text

A complete breakdown of the pitch for war made by the Bush administration from 9:00 am to 12:40 pm Eastern time (US) on Sunday September 16, 2001, including transcripts of television appearances by Cheney (Cheney's first public appearance after being invisible for five days), Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Giuliani, Powell and others. This book simultaneously documents, analyzes and critiques the real-time call to arms that the vengeance-seeking administration posed just five days after the Polarizing Events of September 11, 2001. The codex is accompanied by a VHS cassette which includes footage of a staged-phone-call from NY Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to Ehud Olmert, then the unratified Mayor of Jerusalem, currently Vice Premier of Israel. The tape and transcript reveal that the call could not have taken place as broadcast internationally on CNN and includes the toss to the call in which host Paula Zahn clearly fumbles, exposing a power struggle in establishment media at the height of the 9/11 fervor! The Big-Time Pitch contains a copy of The New Yorker piece from Nicholas Lehmann's scheduled interview with Karl Rove from September 13 and various clips of text from the Internet and print journals at that time. The book also contains original drawings by witnesses to the tower collapse and poetry by the streets of New York. The Big-Time Pitch contains the antiwar zines "AWM" (2001) and "26 Days" (2002) [colophons below] as well as the original 4"x 4" unique entitled ...

"US=THEM" (2001)
ink, marker, white-out and acrylic on cotton paper

a small handmade book from October 2001 which contains excerpts from Moliere, a map of lower Manhattan including POV of author during the Polarizing Events, original poetry in English and French and the only flag the author made or waved in the autumn of 2001 or since. A single 4x2 inch page of this book hoists this flag which reads: "fin"

"26 Days" (2002), edition of 26
[with B. LaFore and T.R. Watson]
acrylic, marker ink and inkjet print on cotton paper

The centerpiece of this golden-colored 7" x 4" antiwar zine is a letter from former U.S. President Jimmy Carter to the New York Times dated April 2002 - shortly after violent Israeli incursions into the West Bank cities of Ramallah, Jenin, Nablus, Hebron and Jerusalem, but 6 months before Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize - in which Carter proposes ways in which the sitting U.S. President can take steps toward peace in the middle east. An intensely detailed set of 8 maps of Israel and Palestine - researched, composed and graphically designed by B. La Fore - emerge from the centerfold of this letter. 26 Days contains a pull-quote from Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohammad and writings by Phillip Knightley, Francis Boyle, Dr. Firoz Osman and from an e-mail by a group of Palestinian doctors and intellectuals in Nablus.

26 Days was first exhibited at "US=THEM" (2002) at 33 1/3 Books and Gallery, Los Angeles. With cover art by T.R. Watson, this book can be read at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, NY at The Getty Museum and The Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, CA and seven of the remaining 26 editions found homes in educational institutions around the country.

"AWM" (2002), edition of 17
inkjet on paper, with screened denim cover

a staple-bound collection of printed e-mails by Raj Balas, a South Asian man murdered in Brooklyn, NY in the days following the Polarizing Events. These E-mails, entitled "Anti-War Movement", and numbered 1 - 6 were sent to dozens of publications and institutions between Sep. 11 and Sep. 24, 2001, the collected emails compose a haunting posthumous plea for sanity in a time and place when vengeance-madness took the life of the author. Text on the denim reads, "J'accuse létat". The screened fabric is fashioned into a slip-cover designed by T.R. Watson. Also in the collection of the MOMA and Getty and at Occidental College in LA and other educational institutions and private collections.

"eleven" (2002), edition of 29
[with Booklyn]

details and colophon available on Booklyn Exhibitions page

"The USA Sucks" (2003) edition of 500

it sucks more oil, water, energy and resources than anyone else anywhere else, ever. So begins this small zine created from the transcript of an editorial aired by MTK on Pacifica Radio station 90.7fm in Los Angeles, KPFK, July 4, 2002.

"El Toro Corrido" (2002)

[for and with TIFA and containing art by: Rigo02, M. Weber, A. Noble, B+, G. Jehan, T. Krahn, G. Slay, A.M. Watson, A. Roma, AP, Drs. M. Bates and M. Dwight and the very first print work of O.M. Milan]

photographs, ticket stubs, marker ink, acrylic, oil, color copy, white-out

Begun possibly on the night of conception -El Toro Corrido is a journal, a novel, an essay, a guidebook and a preface to the lifetime of our son. This book was composed from ticket stubs, photos, flyers and other items found and created during a year of pregnancy and delivery.

"Soon" (2002)
acrylic, ink, white-out, ticket stubs, cardboard, paper made from cotton, twigs and leaves, black felt cover

This rumination on loss starts with a lesson on the politics of suicide bombing and ends in an audio cassette recorded from within the Alamo Dome in San Antonio, Texas, during the final pro basketball game played there by the San Antonio Spurs. The Alamo Dome is an example of the public swindle of stadium-building that took place all over the US in the 1990's. The game is lost to the Los Angeles Lakers when Laker guard Kobe Bryant, in the final 2.3 seconds, cuts through the lane, steals an offensive rebound and sticks-back the ball for the victory to eliminate the Spurs from playoff contention in 2002. A 35 mm photograph of the court at this exact moment from a perspective that includes the Jumbo-Tron monitor hanging over the court, captures the instant before Bryant cuts through the lane from two separate angles in one shot - the ball is frozen in midair rebounding off the rim. This very unique and very American book was composed on the Greyhound bus running between Los Angeles and San Antonio - a distance of some 1800 miles. It contains a poetic reference to and quotations from Charles Mingus, created as the bus passes his birthcity of Nogales, AZ. In the centerfold, a drawing entitled, "Portrait of the 20th Century" is accompanied by a quote from collage and book artist C.K. Wilde.

"Marathon" (2001), edition of 101
color copy, ink, gold vellum, inkjet, compact disc

This audio magazine appeared as an edition of Karthik's books with soundtracks. In this case, the sound of literally tens of thousands of runners approaching the hill at the halfway point of the New York City Marathon on the Pulaski Bridge between Queens and Brooklyn. The book contains poetry and prose on marathoning in New York at the end of the 20th century. But the cd is the real artifact here - a work of endurance and grace, Marathon (2001), contains sustained sequences of runners at their limit and in their element. Engineered and produced by M.T. Karthik and mastered by A.J. Tissian. The cover features an image of mic position during the 2000 Marathon by Brooklyn photographer M. Lethem. Graphic Design by A.E. Williams.

"The Very Idea" (2001)
100% cotton paper, acrylic, oil, plane ticket stub, water and multicolored variants of marker ink in silk box.

This 4" x 7", 400-word English narrative began as "The Very Idea Corporation," became a gorgeously elegant anti-TV sentiment and moved into a suspenseful moment in the air between a 40-something-year-old man and a 13-year-old girl that never resolves...

"Europe" (2001)
plane, train, bus and metro ticket stubs, ink, acrylic, oil

A narrative collage of text and various scraps found in Europe [Madeira, Azores, Portugal, France, Amsterdam] December 25, 2000 - January 25, 2001. The book is handmade from leaves and bound with twigs in Indonesia.

"The Shut Up Book" (2000)
ink, acrylic, white-out, oil, blood, cassette tape

A 4"x 5" unique that contains as its centerfold a photo of a 5' x 6' anti-death-penalty graffiti mural tagged by the author onto a police station in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The book was exhibited at Phoebe's Coffee Shop two blocks from the site of the mural in summer 2000. The Shut Up Book contains a personal, pithy and playful anti-death-penalty poem with an audio magazine on cassette tape that includes Jimi Hendrix Axis: Bold As Love, Pacifica Station WBAI's coverage of the execution of Shaka Sankofa in Texas (June 2000) as well as a mix of ambient sound and music from radio in turn-of-the-century New York City.

Available with box.

"Thousand Year Wu" (1999)
[with C.K. Wilde and Eric Weil]
Algerian goat leather cover with cast plates. Fabriano cotton wrapped in Seikishu Japanese mulberry, India ink.

This very large (18" x 14") book was "made a thousand years ago." Drawings of forms from Tai-Chi Chuan, Kung-Fu and other disciplines are accompanied by pictographic text elements literally thousands of years old. Cotton paper wrapped in Japanese mulberry gives the appearance of a faded, well-traveled instructional text with an "evident" patina from use. Source material for the graphic elements included the more than 700-year-old Mustard Seed Manual of Painting. The original Chinese text by M.T. Karthik consists of variations on the theme of decrying the rational to favor the transcendental in engagements. This book was commissioned by the performance artist RZA (Wu-Tang clan) for use in a digital film project.

"Yankee Gone Home Run" (1999)
[with C.K. Wilde and M. Weber]
Ticker tape, buy/put/sell cards, confetti, Yankees ticket stubs, plastic, ink

The pages of this wickedly colorful book are composed of ephemera collected from the "ticker-tape parade" in New York City for the 1998 New York Yankees that have been plasticized into independent collages of remarkable detail. The pages play host to an original poetic rumination by M. Weber in the spirit of the game. This book can be read at the Milwaukee Public Library's rare book room.

"Symphony with one rest" (1998)
[Artichoke Yink Press]

"Mood, a novel" (1997)

"Truthful Conceits" (1997)

"Sucka Free" (1997)

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS & PERFORMANCES

"Visible Palestine" [with M.E. Gonzales]
Echo Park Film Center, Los Angeles, CA
Feb. 25, 2004

...even the birds were on fire...
University of New Hampshire, Durham
Mar. 11-May 11, 2003

"That's for Hiroshima! That's for Nagasaki!"
Track 16 Gallery, Los Angeles
Jan. 27, 2003

"US=THEM" featuring
"1984" a performance reading
of Orwell's novel on 9/11/2002
33&1/3 Books, Los Angeles
Sept. 11 - Oct. 7, 2002

"Rare Books of The Future"
[with Booklyn Artists]
Center for the Book Arts, NY
Jan. 25 - Apr. 02, 2002

...even the birds were on fire...
Hokin Center, Columbia College, Chicago
Feb. 12, 2002

...even the birds were on fire...
Track 16 Gallery, Los Angeles
[performance with M. Weber]
Nov. 14 - Dec. 4, 2001

"Books by Artists"
Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, NY
Spring 2001

"The Voting Chamber"
Movements Gallery, Austin, TX
Feb. 20 - Apr. 20, 2000

M.T. Karthik has lived in the United States and Asia and traveled extensively. He is the proud father of O.M. Milan, b. Los Angeles 2002.

This page is maintained by M.T. Karthik.