Messy Verses Clean 3-D Models

Is it fair to compare?

The MCA in Chicago currently is exhibiting R. Buckminster Fuller and Olafur Ellasson (as well as drawings and an animation by William Kentridge), and both exhibits include models. Often, I find myself drawn to sketches and models -- the lines and forms have more immediacy than final constructions. But, in Ellason's case, I wish the exhibit had excluded the models, and I wish the Buckminister Fuller had even more models than were displayed. Ellasson's models were sloppy on craftsmanship, while the Buckminster Fullers' models were very well crafted.

I found some of Ellason's larger works (the final constructions were well constructed) to be sublime, particularly the light projected on mist in a darkened room and the circular room in which the light cast on the all white surface of the curved walls changed colors, a change which also caused a color change in the negative space of the open upper plane, where a roof would be if the structure were fully enclosed.

I'm most interested in the way he uses light; so, why would it matter if his models are messy? It mattered to me because the messiness caused the models to be uninteresting objects. Other people perhaps would prefer the messiness. Sometimes, messiness or absence of perfected craft can suggest points of interest, perhaps even lend meaning. Here, for me, it did neither. The models felt awkward and detracted from the sublime experience of the large installations that played with light.

In contrast, the Buckminister Fuller the models were themselves objects of interest, three dimensional realizations with beauty and presence, and have held up well to time; I wanted to see more of them. 

Fuller was prolific, and the exhibition is heavy with writings and drawings.  It takes time to focus in, read and absorb the individual writings and diagramatic drawings or blueprints. Consequently, the exhibition felt like parts, rather than a whole.   This feeling results from the volume of writings and from presentation decisions, not the drawings themselves.  The Buckminster Fuller drawings that were exhibited on a wall at Art Chicago this week-end felt like a whole, rather than parts, because the drawings covered the whole wall.