Friday, April 22, 2011
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Experience Cutting Across Medium
Installation art is experiential, right, the experience of being in/within the work, as opposed to viewing the work? The work, however, are still viewed (the phone and computer on the desk next to the stapler and tape dispenser are viewed) and can be dissected down to its elements. Each viewing offers a different experience, sometimes within a close continuum and sometimes more broadly ranging.
The best drawing pulls in the viewer, holds the wall, and strives to be experienced immersively. Sclupture holds the space (the spot and air and context where its installed) but can dominate the room/landscape to varying degrees, offering different experiences.
Degree of scale moderates the experience of a piece or set of pieces. One large piece like the mountain overwhelms. A lot of smaller pieces on a wall can be like votive candles or a series of windows or marks in themselves accumulating to the larger experience of a composition on the wall. A bruise. A scar. A tattoo. A mask. An adornment. A combination of some or all of these.
The best drawing pulls in the viewer, holds the wall, and strives to be experienced immersively. Sclupture holds the space (the spot and air and context where its installed) but can dominate the room/landscape to varying degrees, offering different experiences.
Degree of scale moderates the experience of a piece or set of pieces. One large piece like the mountain overwhelms. A lot of smaller pieces on a wall can be like votive candles or a series of windows or marks in themselves accumulating to the larger experience of a composition on the wall. A bruise. A scar. A tattoo. A mask. An adornment. A combination of some or all of these.
Collage and Review
Fallen off, lately. Tomorrow, I will listen to a grants panel review my latest work. It will be interesting to hear their thoughts, as this is something one often does not get from a group audience. I have to sit silent and just listen, which means it will just be their reaction to the work (and my brief write up, I suppose) rather than to interactive discussion, influenced by back and forth dialogue with me. The intent, to the extent relevant, will by definition have to stand out from the work itself.
So much is and has been collaged that it's interesting to watch a viewer be distracted from the image quality by the fact that the image was collaged from a bunch of different materials that the viewer was not necessarily expecting.
Collaging is it's own way of thinking and piecing together images, first and foremost because the bits ("marks") carry with themselves their own image references to be emphasized and/or deemphasized and second, because in the end pasting bits is quite different physically and emotionally from boldly striking a line across a page with graphite or paint or shaping a clay vessel. While adding bits conceptually does nto stray that far from accumulating dots and other marks, the collaged bits ("marks") are preselected rather than simply made as a collage bit must be collected and/or cut. Applying/adhering/compiling the bits involves the hand but separated from the paper or other surface upon which the pieces are attached/adhered.
Collage like method does get evaluated differently. Perusing the web in a current moment of procrastination, I have started to think more about the issue of whether relelatively mediocre work -- in the sense of the ultimate imagery -- gets a leg up by being done with novel or different means or method. The post it or push pin face is not judged by how amazing a portrait it is, but rather how "amazing" it is that it was made of post-its or push-pins, even if, in the end, the same image painted would be rather innocuous, perhaps in some cases rather badly rendered.
So much is and has been collaged that it's interesting to watch a viewer be distracted from the image quality by the fact that the image was collaged from a bunch of different materials that the viewer was not necessarily expecting.
Collaging is it's own way of thinking and piecing together images, first and foremost because the bits ("marks") carry with themselves their own image references to be emphasized and/or deemphasized and second, because in the end pasting bits is quite different physically and emotionally from boldly striking a line across a page with graphite or paint or shaping a clay vessel. While adding bits conceptually does nto stray that far from accumulating dots and other marks, the collaged bits ("marks") are preselected rather than simply made as a collage bit must be collected and/or cut. Applying/adhering/compiling the bits involves the hand but separated from the paper or other surface upon which the pieces are attached/adhered.
Collage like method does get evaluated differently. Perusing the web in a current moment of procrastination, I have started to think more about the issue of whether relelatively mediocre work -- in the sense of the ultimate imagery -- gets a leg up by being done with novel or different means or method. The post it or push pin face is not judged by how amazing a portrait it is, but rather how "amazing" it is that it was made of post-its or push-pins, even if, in the end, the same image painted would be rather innocuous, perhaps in some cases rather badly rendered.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
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