Christine Corday: KNOUN installed at 14th Street Bridge

December 28, 2020

The 14th Street Bridge is a historic closed-spandrel arch bridge built in 1921 recently renovated into a pedestrian bridge and the site for Christine Corday’s work KNOUN—part of her Protoist series. KNOUN reveals itself as a two-pillar Form sited by the body of the viewer in relation to the work. Spanning 13 feet in both height and length, the KNOUN explores the moment in between sensory perception and definition and investigates balance and gravity. Though sculptural, Corday approaches these Protoist Forms with the mentality of a painter using the heat of a plasma torch in place of the paintbrush. Protoist is a term coined by Corday describing the intermediary state between the known and the unknown—the suspension of a moment between sensory perception and definition. 

The 14th Street Bridge is a historic closed-spandrel arch bridge built in 1921 recently renovated into a pedestrian bridge and highlighted by the WC Bradley Riverfront Place project. 

The bridge crosses over the Chattahoochee River connecting Columbus, Georgia to Phenix City, Alabama. Pedestrians will encounter the work as a permanent installation on the Columbus Georgia side of the 14th Street Bridge. The installation of this Protoist Form to note is one between material and geographic states. 

There is a history of Protoist works within relic infrastructures such as UNE––Corday's first sculpture at the New York High Line 508 W. 25th Street in 2008. KNOUN was previously included within the solo museum exhibition Protoist Series: Selected Forms at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2014-2015).

The installation of KNOUN was overseen and organized by WC Bradley as part of the Riverfront Place development project.