Arcadia University’s Spruance Gallery presents Perpetual Inventory: A Ruminative Installation by Scott Kip

An easily missed sign by the entrance reads, “Upon entering this installation, guests will encounter changes in floor height, steep stair walls, and narrow passages.” All true. If it sounds like too much, take heart: an accessible route is available for the asking.

Corridors and mirrors

If you can, take the stairs into a space suffused with the fragrance of wood construction. (Kip repurposed material for the project from two local buildings, a cathedral, and a defunct grocery store.) Consisting of an inner display encapsulated in a network of viewing corridors, Perpetual Inventory is an extension of previous work employing the artist’s belongings. Constructing it took Kip and a team of helpers all summer. Long in the planning, the project caps the Arcadia career of Richard Torchia, former director of exhibitions, now serving as guest curator. (This project was supported by a grant from the Edna W. Andrade Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation.)

As your eyes adjust to the dim, unfinished space, you see … yourself in a mirror, looking perplexed. Below that, a magnifying glass perched on a metal slide is begging to be touched. Move it. The mirror groans eerily and recedes, revealing what appears to be an attic, but a dreamy kind, with disconnected walls and floors that quit in midair. The mirror partially blocks the view, so you nose up to the window. A stack of moving boxes teeters, a cheese grater clings to a wall, a ceiling fan spins. There are things you can’t quite see and things you don’t recognize. The attic is bright, but you’re in the dark.

Slide the magnifier farther. The mechanical music resumes, the mirror returns. Try again, and it recedes at a new angle, reflecting a blueprint, maybe a columned building. (Not quite: according to the inventory, which you can access before, during, or after visiting, it’s a cyanotype of the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ. Kip, a restoration woodworker, is a technician for the instrument.)

Mysterious encounters

Move along a zig-zag hallway to see what appears to be a drawing of an owl’s eyes, staring intently. Actually, it’s a rubbing Kip made of Étant Donné, an enigmatic work by Marcel Duchamp. Whether you know that or not, the effect of coming upon it in a darkened passage is the same, transforming observers into the observed.

The passage narrows, bringing you to a worn rolltop desk, and again, your perspective is off. It’s a child’s eye-level view, level with the work surface, on which are scattered metal pieces, delicate tools, and books referencing the Willards, a family of clockmakers. It seems the craftsman has just stepped away.

Information is scarce as you proceed: no signs, exhibit tags, or a single arrow to guide steps. Gallery notes are available but aren’t thrust into your hands. Before starting, consider how much information you want—whether, for example, you want to know Kip’s biographical details or what the objects are. Perhaps you’ll wait, opting for a more impressionistic, mysterious encounter.

Find your way

With or without information, unnerving questions ricochet through even the most level head: This feels intrusive. Have I missed a turn? How much farther? Is anyone watching me? Would anyone hear if I called for help?

Take a breath, think logically. Spruance Gallery isn’t that large—1100 square feet. The exit can’t be far. Keep going. Then you come to a square cut in the floor and a ladder going down. It looks precarious. Doubtfully, you descend to find a small, windowless room the size of a packing crate. You hesitate, seeing you have to bend at the waist to enter. What to do?

There are no windows in the crate room, only the opening you entered. Push gently on the walls. Surely, there’s a secret release. No. Look up into an airshaft telescoping to a small patch of daylight three stories away. What now?

It isn’t an attic we enter in Perpetual Inventory, but a box of memories, the kind we all carry, the kind that make us who we are. The farther we go in Kip’s rumination, the more deeply we ruminate on things that are kept, what they mean, and what continues to elude us.

At top: Perpetual Inventory is a display space wrapped in viewing corridors that took months to construct. (Image courtesy of Scott Kip and Arcadia University.)