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.

Judy Pfaff -- google search

the whole space, doodle/curvilinear, painting into sculpture/sculpture into painting

Hans Haacke -- google search

Tara Donavan -- Google Search

organic, biomorph

Sigh, and more on accumulation/conglomeration.

Sigh. Feeling passed and disconcerted today. A few years ago, I sent out proposals for a fishing line web piece that was about interfering with and framing perception of drawing in space. Unfortunately, the proposals were not successful.

Material World, at MassMoca, features seven artists using accumulation and other strategies with non-art materials to occupy and take over space/environment. Looks like an excellent show, though I probably will not get to Boston to see it.

One of the artists, Tobias Putrih, uses monofilament to occupy the space with finely tuned reflectivity and optics bordering on invisibility. The optics aspect reminded me of a piece I saw by Jesus Rafael Soto ages ago in Paris. The near invisibility of this piece (at least from the photo and description) strikes me as the most intriguing of the work because it's subtle. From the Catalogue link (black and white, unfortunately), most of the artists seems to take over through shear scale -- monumentally and literally occupying the space -- a not so surprising tactic.

One can accumulate any object/set of objects and scale up; one can string anything, including the "strings" themselves. Work through these means and methods has varying degrees of success, from little or none to a lot to arresting to unforgettable, same as any media.

Place in Context

I hope -- expect -- that art work itself succeeds in reaching the audience without the need for words to explain or place it.

Submission for opportunities, however, often is by jpeg and not all artwork is jpeg friendly. Some is more jpeg friendly than the artwork itself, although I have never seen "accepted" work rejected when delivered. The submission process also usually asks for explanatory words - an artist statement and/or an exhibition proposal beyond "I make and propose to show the work shown in the attached images").

Perhaps I should try "I propose to show the type of work reflected in the attached images" as a proposal.

Many likely use some combination of intention and hindsight reflection when presenting art work. Intention and hindsight can but do not often merge seamlessly: discovery lies in between.

One way to deal with the question of where one's art sits in the larger Art, cultural, etc., context, is to ignore it. How persuasive will that be in a proposal, in which one usually is expected to concisely place the proposed work?

Some are great at talking in circles. One can go ahead and illustrate (accepted?) jargon, however convoluted, nonsensical, contradictory, circular, dressed-up it may be. The work ends up pretentious even when successful (accepted?), unless the work manages in the discovery phase to move beyond illustration (in which case, intention and hindsight are not merged).

Hindsight reflection is unhelpful when writing proposals for work that has yet to be made: the verbiage has to come before the work. A continuous body of work in the middle of development can be examined with hindsight intermittently and proposals written with plenty of hindsight.

I resort to containment. Discourse and how past and current work and ideas fit or do not fit within it is something to consider and think about before and after, and to forget when making the work... forget, as in excise from the front of the mind and the tips of the fingers (or production tool). Or the work only illustrates discourse and does not move beyond it or all that well within it, as least not in any way that differs from a verbal discussion. Visual interplay should not be simply a platform for verbal discussion or a diagram of it.

Caffeine IV opened last night at Murphy Hill Gallery, work by 47 artists with the Artists' Breakfast Group. Good turn out, good conversations. Lots of excellent art.

I spent the week-end questioning my direction, principally as always its ephemeral essence, and the reality that I don't always succeed at achieving the impression I am after. There's probably a way to fabricate the same visual effect and balance between drawing and scupture that I am after, out of more durable materials, some sort of plastic to sculpt (without melting)? But conceptually, I would lose the prior identity of the material as a thing to push away from yet retain.

Saw a workable display option at McDonald's of all places -- an acrylic light box type display they had placed in front of the cash registers to advertise their new drinks. This looks like what they used, except they must have lowered the price by buying in bulk.

Artprize 2010: Variations and Lessons

I spent four days working on my Artprize installation, the first time I migrated Materia Incarnation to the outdoors. The original intended location of the work in trees/bushes, coming over concrete barriers by the trees/bushes at the site (based on photos of the site), did not work out: the trees and bushes I could get to were not strong enough to support the bottles, which when amassed end up being heavier than I had thought. So, I had to adapt. I ended up pretty far from my own aesthetic, which in itself, is something for me to think about as I look back on the experience now and later.

I had to attach the bottles to a fixed object -- or they would fly away in the first breeze. I used a light pole and brought the bottles up and around the poll. I did not have enough to go up the whole pole, or a good way to attach the bottles with gaps between them (which would be more in keeping with their intended installation), and I had to use too much wire to make the bottles secure from the weather; the form morphed with the weather -- a storm took away some bottles. Several people who saw me installing really wanted the bottles to go on every light pole -- that would have looked so much better and integrated the site more completely. I did not have enough bottles or time.

I learned so much. At first, I thought I'd never try working outdoors again; now, with a little time passing after the installation, I'll take what I learned and put it to good use for the next outdoor installation. Some parts of the piece work really well and just as I envisioned -- the bottles catch sunlight and project colored shadows when the sun comes out; adapting the work to the site produced conceptual direction -- the bottles circle a pole as a fixed center, like a sundial -- that was not present in my original conception for this migration of the Materia elements.

Social Engagement, Private Creation

How does art that takes human relations and social context as its modus operandi translate to independent and private space, where all audience but one (the artist) is absented – the object and subject of long meditation rather than momentary experience? And visa versa, engagement of the world by a piece created in very private space out of very private thoughts? Is translation possible?

The first is theoretically judged on the inter-relations (conceptual and emotional) represented, produced, prompted, communicated, provoked, and perhaps -- at its deepest either unerringly harmonious, a echo precisely and unflinchingly in tune, or critically divisive, even shunned, not merely thought or shock inducing, the envelope precisely and aggressively pushed. It aims at the external, social relations being by definition external to any one individual, and if it fails to provoke conversation, it would seem it fails.

Judgment of the second on relational terms is less direct as it may not purport to care one wit about social constructs, and dialogue beyond the artist’s dialogue with himself or herself may not be within its creative considerations. It aims at the internal, the individual by definition being only one part of social relations. It is not necessarily Utopian, and indeed may positively or darkly reflect unacknowledged social constructs that have become a part of a person. If it enters into no dialogue beyond its private beginnings, it is the tree falling in the forest with no one there to see it fall. We may still go to the forest the next day and discover the felled tree and make assumptions about how it must have fallen – a construct. Or not.

Upcoming Installation and Exhibition

Installing at the Palette & Chisel tomorrow night --

Hub: Converging Divergence opens on Saturday, Oct. 17, 2009 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Palette & Chisel in Chicago.

• Opening Reception - Vernisage ...
  Palette & Chisel - 1012 North Dearborn, Chicago, IL...
  Saturday, October 17 at 5:30pm
• Presentation/ Panel
  Palette and Chisel
  Thursday, October 22 at 6:30pm
• Closing Event
  Palette and Chisel
  Saturday, October 24 at 5:30pm

Location:

1012 North Dearborn

Chicago, IL, 60610

Phone:

312-642-4149

Mon - Thurs:

10:00 am - 6:00 pm

Fri:

10:00 am - 5:00 pm

Sun:

12:00 pm - 3:00 pm

Study and the Influence of One Element in Creating the Next Element

I am still working on elements for installing on dark green walls. I have two now.

My identically shaped elements based off the same reference icon or image typically are interchangeable, with minor and likely non-apparent differences inherent in being individually cut. But in this case, since I am building the interior color blocks, the elements differ and will differ in which parts of each will blend into the wall.

Once made, the first element existed, and I chose not to ignore it as I made the second element. Although I visually laid out the second with the first in mind, as I filled in areas with pieces, I moved the second form out of my line of sight to the first, relying on memory of the visual decisions I made to loosen the bias the identity of the first element had on the second.

With the elements created, I will play with different orientations and interactions.

UPDATE: The walls were not nearly the near Hunters green shade they took on in my head: they were a much grayer green, especially under the track lighting. The net result was less fading into the wall than imagined in the making of the pieces but still a demarkation of the dark areas as part of the darker complex of the wall compared to the lighter or brightly hued areas.

Studies

Creating work first without a wall and then against a white wall in the studio when the elements will be installed against a dark green wall for exhibition pushes the need to visualize which parts will blend into the wall, becoming less visible, perhaps barely visible, and which will pop out and call attention to themselves as almost independent shapes. Dropping a green background in digitally for studies is useful, though deceptive as edges end up highlighted even on parts that are likely to blend into the real green wall, making the whole shape pop. I should shift around a Color-Aid.

Study

I will be doing an installation in a space that has very dark green walls. I had not seen the space for over a year and had forgotten how dark the walls were. I have to consider different visibility strategies that are conceptually consistent with my work. Differences in the installation spaces help the work develop.

Transplanted Drawings (Hares in Forms)

First: placement

Second: enlargement of one

Dissect: How Definitions Applied

• form: "1. a. The shape and structure of an object. b. The body or outward appearance of a person or an animal considered separately from the face or head; figure. 2. a. The essence of something.b. The mode in which a thing exists, acts, or manifests itself; kind. *** [11] b. The resting place of a hare."

applied: display case, borrowed shapes

• 
  
• concept: "1 : something conceived in the mind : thought, notion; 2 : an abstract or generic idea generalized from particular instances."

applied: relocation, numerical delineation, permeability

• context: "1 : the parts of a discourse that surround a word or passage and can throw light on its meaning; 2 : the interrelated conditions in which something exists or occurs : environment, setting.

applied: display case, arrangement, physical boundaries, reflection out of space.

Art Fair Viewing

Chicago had its major art fair this weekend at Merchandise Mart. The piece I most remember when asked what I saw -- a giant, green sea creature made of balloons -- probably says something about me and about the fair.

Some intriguing pieces did make me stop, look and think: Jose Cobo's wall crawling babies (these felt somewhat derivative of Juan Munoz), John Saparagena's sampled magazine pages (painstaking labor), and a small installation by Tony Oursler of a talking baby doll on a stack of pillows, with a projection on to the blank face of a doll as the source of talking, come to mind.

There was a little bow to spectacle: an artist encouraging patrons to wrestle in polymer jelly seems to have garnered the most attention in the small number of write ups about the fair; an ice cream truck at least occasionally doling out ice cream (though not when I was there) may come in second for situational bid to grab attention.

Generally, it felt like the galleries played it relatively safe and nothing felt groundbreaking or jaw dropping or overtly profound. Perhaps groundbreaking, jaw dropping, overtly profound are too high an expectation to set. With a lot of art under a giant roof, on multiple floors, even with the much improved, greater sense of open space and air at the fair this year, there's bound to be overload, and subtle work may get lost in the volume. I'm sure I missed some.

Art Phraseology: "Performance of Viewing"?

As I was listening to some online audio art dialogue snippets, a phrase new to me -- "performance of viewing" -- made me stop and think about how the convoluted language that gets used to describe art descriptively or conceptually can feel congratulatory, and often self congratulatory. The phrase, "performance of viewing", struck me as an incredibly distanced, perhaps even aggrandized, view of what viewers do, which is to look at and perhaps feel or think about the artwork.

To me, the phrase refers to the artist taking into account, while making and exhibiting art, considerations about how viewers takes in art presented by the artist, or perhaps said more broadly, the role of the viewer in the meaning of the art. But why think of the viewer as performing? Another word comes to mind: puppet-master. Can/should art be set up to anticipate and choreograph or manipulate every move by the viewer? What if the viewer does not cooperate and veers off predicted behavior or response? It's clear that meaning for viewers is derived by viewers based in how they each perceive and consider the artwork and words used to talk about, describe or place the artwork in context (words that are often in long winded, post-creation artists statements and explanatory text). But do we really want to think of this as performing?

I googled the phrase to see what came up, and landed on a chapter by titled, "Performance of Viewing" in a 2001 book called, The Sculptural Imagination, By Alex Potts, which I will have to read further. The use of the phrase there was rather benign, discussing approach to sculpture by 1960s artists, Morris in particular, with two possibilities for the role of the viewer -- one recognizing the artist in making the art object views the developing work while engaging in making it and one imparting meaning to the art through the social interaction of viewers engaging and experiencing the art. The author concludes that Morris tended toward the first, rather than the second, and was more focused on translating the world of the artist to the world of the viewer, rather than having objective viewers' interactions with the work impart the work's meaning.

I fall in between. Since it's inevitable that one views the work while making it (absent a blindfold, though even then one would "view" through other senses, like touch), I consider how I am viewing work as I make it, as well as directions/points of view from which viewers are likely to engage the work, with my eye as an imperfect proxy for the viewers' eyes. I also think that meaning for viewers comes from how they ultimately engage and perceive the work. I am interested in convergence and divergence of their perceptions and derived meanings from the perceptions that I intended; that is the conversation.

I remain put off by thinking of the viewer as performing, however. I think it devalues their participation and reflects that the creation of spectacle has become a more dominant part of art making.

Long Term Engagement

While web surfing, I came across the pages for MOMA's color chart exhibition earlier this year. The MOMA exhibition did not focus so much on the delights of playing with color interaction, but rather focused on conceptual approaches that see colors as standardized -- colors as ready made cloaks.

Among the artists included, Niele Torono has, since the 60s, systematically "painted" by pressing a painted laded No. 50 brush onto surfaces (e.g. walls, etc) to make monochromatic imprints repeatedly at perpendicular 30 centimeter intervals, using pre-existing variations in architectural context and added variations in framing context (meaning the dimensions and placement of the pictorial box) to produce a surprisingly wide variety of work. The volume and range is more interesting to me than is any particular piece.

The MOMA site includes a video interview, in which Torono's speaks about the subtle variations in the brush shaped marks -- no two marks are exactly alike. The marks are individually produced, so the hand remains involved, albeit heavily constrained by the systemic approach. But because the paint application is so limited, the works for me end up being about the alteration of context, and not so much about painting. It would be incredibly difficult, impossible actually, for me to constrain my forms that much for more than a few explorations. I need to come at contextual inquiries from both directions -- varying forms within context and varying contexts around forms.

I wonder how many artists starting out today will be exploring the same processes, systems, or conceptual idea thirty years from now. Apparent originality or ironic appropriation/referential regressions are in vogue. But there is another option, which Torono has adopted -- long term, in depth exploration and engagement -- as did Cezanne and others.

Object

I am jotting down what I am sure are a few obvious notions about object in art.

Objects moved from being seen as the elements depicted in the artwork to the physical work of art itself to including the artist and/or viewer to being summarily elements installed in a presentation space, which works of solid art always have been, whether specifically viewed that way or not. Objects change a space.

With a video in a monitor, the monitor comes across as a primary object, just as a stretched canvas comes across as a primary object. It's hard for me to view the video shown within the monitor as an object. However, within the duration of projection, I can view a projection not contained within a physical object (or projected onto a shaped physical support), as an object, even if it is less materially solid, because no physical support detracts from it as an element in the presentation space.

(Re)Treading Old Ground

Judgments about Identity are influenced by context, in large measure because of expectations. Context then helps define identity? Does sticking a frame around something transform the something from what it was into Art? Plenty of artists, critics, etc., would think it silly to still be asking. Didn't we settle this -- art is Art so long as the artist intends it to be Art?

Empty frames hanging on the wall may offer the illusion of art on the wall: the visual impression plays with long ingrained expectations; if it's inside a frame, it's art. But it's an illusion. Beyond the initial play on expectations, the section of the wall inside the frame offers no more to viewers than the section of wall outside the frame.

A vase on a table in a house is taken as a container for water and flowers, although a particularly elegant, distorted or otherwise visually interesting vase will also feel like Art, or at least, Decor. A vase under lights on a pedestal in a gallery is taken as art. It helps if the vase looks more than functional, that is, if the form is either elegant or distorted or otherwise visually interesting. Simply setting an ordinary object inside a gallery or museum space with a clever or not so clever label conveys the expectation of art but it does not transform the ordinary object. On the other hand, an object or objects can be the "materials" for art and set in a way that transform the whole into something that offers more than functional objects.