Pedro Cabrita Reis - «Foundation» at the Gulbenkian Foundation

Foundation is, of course, the Gulbenkian Foundation. I have myself had the chance to discover some of the Foundation's warehouses and storage rooms, and it was an impressive experience. The average visitor has no idea that the two buildings, seperated by a medium-size, beautiful park with a pond in the middle, are actually connected underground. And I suppose that's where most, if not all, of the material for Cabrita Reis' work comes from. Neon lights, glass plates, old tables and shelves, cables, more cables, boxes, fragments of stairs, marble bases for sculptures, huge stones... The guts of an institution renowned for its clean, effective approach. The entrails we shouldn't be seeing, impressed as we like to be by the harmonious landscape designed to be seen from the outside, never from the inside. What is the impression now? How does it change our perspective, our view of the basis? The Gulbenkian Foundation can afford this self-irony. It is generous enough, and has good enough taste.

Is this ridiculous? Shouldn't we be analyzing something else? After all, Foundation is, of course, not just this foundation, but the foundation of something, the basis, the beginning, the rule - what Germans call Grund. Knowing Cabrita Reis' work to be often focused on the art world and museum institution as such, this might be the foundation of art, the real foundation of art, apparently chaotic, meaningless, or at least incomprehensible, often unaccessible (we can walk on some parts of the installation, but in an arbitrary way it is decided by the guards that we cannot walk on other parts), complicated, complicated, overwhelming... and yet, somehow harmonious, fitting, as if there was space for us, as if there was space for what we do, for our creation and our appreciation, for free-associating and even squatting on a stone, if we insist (although I haven't tried that, the guards might react).
If all this can be dwelved into, then why do I prefer to describe the Gulbenkian warehouse? Maybe because the one thing that's difficult to comprehend is how direct this link is. We are there, at the Center for Contemporary Art of one of 10 richest foundations in the world. And yet, this is the way it works. This is the foundation. It is a complex game of basic elements. Of course, with a Corot stuck somewhere to a wall.

Technorati: art installation, installation, visual art, fine art, art, contemporary art, vvoi

On Performance Art, In Lisbon

At last! Some good quality theoretical debate about performance, in Portugal! This is a very unexpected early Christmas gift.
With artists such as Rui Horta and Pedro Tudela, and among the curators, Isabel Carlos and the Portuguese star-curator Delfim Sardo, this is going to be a delicious series of conferences. Considering performance is one of the crucial languages of today's art, this is a must-see.

This series of lectures takes the practice of performance in visual arts as departure point, with a view to covering certain thematic extensions that contribute largely to the definition of the individual nature of each performance.
In addition to an historical approach, the lectures will concentrate on these thematic extensions, thanks to the contributions of a group of speakers from different fields, work areas and artistic domains.

More on the Culturgest site.

WHATCHA GOT UNDER THAT TATTERED COAT?

[This is not my last digression into the difference between illustration and abstract art. It is probably not even my second to last digression. But take heart, because the end is definitely in sight.]
_________________________________________

The inspiration behind abstract art was bold and brilliant. As Holland Cotter wrote about the invention of cubism:

The day of pure optical pleasure was over; art had to be approached with caution and figured out. It wasn't organic, beneficent, transporting. It was a thing of cracks and sutures, odors and stings, like life. It wasn't a balm; it was an eruption. It didn't ease your path; it tripped you up.

The problem is, once artists cast off the shackles of the old standards, there was no consensus on new standards by which to determine quality. By 1918, the Russian painter Malevich, seeking the ultimate essence of painting, produced an all white canvas:




Fifty years later, the American painter Reinhardt improved on Malevich by unveiling an all black painting:



For peasants like you who might question the value of this kind of art, Reinhardt explained: "A fine artist by definition is not a commercial... or applied or useful artist. A fine, free or abstract artist is by definition not a servile or professional or meaningful artist. A fine artist has no use for use, no meaning for meaning, no need for any need." Got it?

Malevich and Reinhardt were conceptually interesting, but modern art had already turned down the path toward its current dead end. Years later, High Performance Magazine, the avant garde journal of post-modern performance art, published the following goofy article on the work of performance artist Teching Hsieh:

Since July when Hsieh announced that for a year he would not do art, look at art, speak about art or think about art , we have been unable to find out any more information.... Friends speculate that the piece grew out of the frustration he experienced trying to organize a one year torch carrying piece that required a minimum of 400 participants. Even after running full page ads in the East Village Eye and other publications, Hsieh was only able to come up with around 200 interested people, whereupon he dropped the idea and announced his "no art" piece. Fallout from the piece has been that he refuses to visit old friends because they have too much art on their walls, and avoids Linda Montano, his friend and collaborator for his last year-long piece in which they were tied together, because Montano is doing a seven year "art/life" piece in which everthing she does is declared art."

Don't believe me? Look it up. Issue no. 32



Obviously, neither Malevich nor Reinhardt nor Teching Hsieh ever read a poem by Stephen Crane (1871-1900):

If I should cast off this tattered coat,
And go free into the mighty sky;
If I should find nothing there
But a vast blue,
Echoless, ignorant--
What then?

Many artists have disrobed in the hope of consummating a relationship with the existential void, only to discover that the existential void ain't interested.

I agree with Clement Greenberg, one of the earliest supporters of abstract art, who wrote:

The nonrepresentational or abstract, if it is to have aesthetic validity, cannot be arbitrary and accidental, but must stem from obedience to some worthy constraint.

Without the constraints of subject matter, objective standards, technical skill, or even the limitations imposed by dealing with a physical object of any kind, the floodgates were opened to charlatans, profiteers and others who dilute the meaning and pedigree of art.

Next: the solution

Both pictures are by Margi Geerlinks, at the Aeroplastics gallery in Brussels.
Her works seem very uneven, some are simple "surrealist" plays with meaning, others are quite clever social commentary, others yet - really freaky stuff, way out there. But one thing is sure - she doesn't stop herself from going after what the mind's eye sees. Of course, that might not always be good.
I really liked both the works above. The first one, because making simple yet sustainable statements is extremely difficult. The second, because... what in the world is that? Extremely aggressive, yet organic, what starts off sexy ends with a scandal. And then, why is the scandal a scandal? This reminds me of elephant man, the figure/state and the film. But it's... controversial. In the litteral sense - it goes against the flow. The shock is not in the ugliness. It is in the denial of prettiness. What's wrong with us? What's wrong with us? Why is pretty so pretty? Why is not pretty such a problem? Say it's pretty, believe it's pretty.

There are other works in Margi Geerlinks' portfolio which I simply didn't dare to put here.

Technorati: photography, fine art, visual art, art, contemporary art, vvoi

MORE ABOUT ABSTRACTION

A few of you have wondered just what the heck I was yodeling about in my last posting on abstract art.

Let's start by acknowledging that abstract art is outside the scope of this blog and outside the scope of my competence. However, I do like some abstract art. If you're willing to take a stroll with an uneducated man into a complex field, we may discover some interesting things together.

In my view, much of today's fine art scene is self-indulgent nonsense. The Museum of Modern Art in New York contains some great works of art, but the ratio of money to talent there is downright asphyxiating. Dollar for dollar, the art at the Society of Illustrators a few blocks away has more nutritional content. But there is no clear dividing line between art that illustrates a message or idea on the one hand and abstract art on the other. Here are some splendid illustrations that are not very different from the abstract paintings in my last posting:


Illustration of the descent of the divine power through a the symbolic fish-incarnation (from a 17th century Yogic manuscript).


Illustration of the evolution and dissolution of cosmic form from a 19th century Rajasthan book.


Vase painting from Athens in the 5th century BC


Cave painting circa 17,000 years ago.

Clearly, abstract art is no modern invention. It began when art began-- in the upper paleolithic period (from 35,000 to 12,000 years ago). More artistic and technological progress took place in those 25,000 years than in the previous 2 million years combined. That era saw the first explosion of symbolic (abstract) thinking and the accompanying birth of art. The designs and heavily stylized drawings scratched in the walls of ancient caves share a lot in common with today's abstract art. But unlike modern abstract art, which often seems detached and irrelevant, paleolithic art was close to the core of what it meant to be human. It was life-or-death relevant.

I have always liked Anthony Burgess' characterization:

Art is rare and sacred and hard work and there ought to be a wall of fire around it.

Abstract and conceptual art, when it is good, can satisfy that high standard. And since I've blabbered on too long today, I'll offer some thoughts next time on what "good" means to me in abstract art.

Why I like Elizabeth LeCompte

Wooster Group, Hamlet (2006). Photo Paula Court

Everything I come up with in my head, I put it on stage. But in 90% of the cases it doesn't work, precisely because it's in my head.


I think about what the audience will think. Every single moment. I want to be there, every evening, and observe what people do when they watch the play. If I feel them disengage or feel uncomfortable, it forces me to think about what I really want.

- Elizabeth LeCompte, artistic director of The Wooster Group, in an interview with the French review Mouvement (no.41, oct-dec. 2006). (my translation)

Do the above two quotes appear innocent to you? If they do, you probably don't have much contact with contemporary performance. These two sentences are sure to shock a lot of the avant-garde purists out there. The second sentence is simply a shocker: a seemingly avant-garde artist thinking about the audience? How dare she! She is supposed to be focused on art, on her experience, on the stage, on the essence, or on the periphery, but hers and hers only. The public should be the witness of something beautiful, not a criterium of artistic choice... Oh, how tremendously, absolutely silly. How pretentious, snobbish, irritating. How old and tired and, silly, just silly. And naive.
Notice LeCompte doesn't say the public's opinion decides. She doesn't say she changes everything if the public doesn't like it. But it makes her rethink. In her own words, "it forces" her. She doesn't feel there is really any choice. Is there? Certainly. You can turn your back to the ignorant multitudes and do your own thing your own way for your own self. You can have an inner voice that says this or that. You can be forever faithful to this voice. It's up to you. Or you can have a little modesty. And listen. And respond. Or not. But listen.
The first quote has to do with creativity on stage. LeCompte has no problem saying she has ideas first, then she comes into the rehearsal space and tries them (all!) out. Instead of doing it the traditional, "new" way, devising everything together in one pretty melting pot. Instead of making everything appear out of improvisation, as is expected from a performance group. And if that were not enough, she admits that yes, 90% of her ideas suck on stage. And she doesn't see any problem with that. And it works.
(at least I hope it does. if you want to confirm - go see The Wooster Group's Hamlet at the Festival d'Automne in Paris, Nov.4-10 at the Centre Pompidou.)

Technorati: performance, performance art, theatre, theater, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Fixing theater

In the next couple of years I'm determined to make a couple of independent short films. I' m disappointed by a great deal of theatre. I love it, but I am beginning not to like its transience; as I get older I want to do something fixed.

- Pete Brooks
found here, along with a couple of other great quotes from the book On Directing.

Technorati: theater, movies, theatre, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Videoart contest

Magmart | International Festival of VideoArt | 2nd edition

"Is now starting, till February 2007, the 2nd edition of Magmart | video under volcano, international festival of video art.
The festival is a production of studio tad, with partnership of Casoria Contemporary Art Museum, GenomART and Computer Arts magazine (italian edition)."

Enrico Tomaselli
festival staff
info@magmart.it
http://www.magmart.it
Skype: MetaArt

Technorati: visual art, movies, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Aram Bartholl is playing with your life

Aram Bartholl, First Person Shooter


Pretty self-explanatory. Among Bartholl's projects there are several ones playing with the idea of an "online" gaming world. It is all light-hearted, smart material. Taking oneself just seriously enough, but for heavens' sake, not too seriously! See, for example, this charming film from the WoW project:


(if nothing appears, see here)
Notice that the first work shown here seems to be created by someone protesting against the violence in video games. But discovering the artist's portfolio makes us realize he is rather someone who has been working (among others) on the crossing between real life and the gaming reality. This hides a very interesting and delicate issue: the spectator usually expects the artist to have some sort of an agenda, a declared ideology that he would be pursuing (here, it could be pacifism). Instead, artists often work on a vocabulary, a particular language, rather than an idea(l). Matter forms itself in a certain way and the artist, like the first spectator, discovers its dynamics and its possible readings. Especially in the world of theater (though not only), this makes a lot of people uncomfortable. The idea of an artist as someone entirely in control, like some mad scientist who knows what he is inventing (!) makes it difficult for many artists to assume: this is what I discovered, I'm not sure what it is, but I like it, and I hope we can all find out more about the potential vectors of this...thing. As Goat Island puts it, "we have discovered a performance by making it".

Technorati: art installation, installation, internet art, net art, performance, performance art, visual art, art, contemporary art, vvoi

ART TO MAKE YOU YODEL

My numerous unkind remarks about modern art have led some to conclude that I am opposed to all such art. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am opposed to bad art, and it is easier for bad art to hide amongst contemporary art than amongst art that requires talent or skill. But I love lots of modern art. Here are some of my favorites. These almost set me to yodeling:













credits: the art above is by, in order, Gottlieb, Miro, Motherwell, Miro, Dubuffet, Goldsworthy

Since we're on the light side

Visitors to Paul De Marinis' installation A Light Rain (Helsinki, 2004) were given an umbrella to walk into the rainbow and listen to the music played by water.
De Marinis is also known as an electronic music composer, and a recent installation of his was featured at we-make-money-not-art. Personally, I like this one more - it's technically much simpler, but to the point.
Also, I really wouldn't need any music, and think it might fit better in the middle of, say, Lisbon, where the summer heat would be enough of a motivation to dive into the rainbow - no need for umbrellas or such. I know the umbrellas serve as speakers, but it looks like more of a gadget than anything else here, there is something wrong about it in this case. Maybe it's the isolation from the rainbow? Or maybe umbrellas simply have a sad relation with water.
(via)

Technorati: art installation, installation, visual art, art, contemporary art, vvoi

ONE LOVELY DRAWING, part eight

This lovely little drawing by Robert Fawcett appeared in Look Magazine in the 1960s. It was just a spot illustration, about 2 inches across. It is not likely to be reproduced ever again.

In the 1960s, illustration went wild. Innovators used psychedelic colors and bold new styles to create increasingly abstract work. Representational art was declared obsolete. Fawcett, who was trained in a rigorous traditional style, remained unperturbed. In fact, he was amused by the "misconception that abstract qualities are new to contemporary painting, whereas they have been the comparision of excellence since painting began."



Today, all those daring 1960s illustrations with the LSD-inspired paisley designs seem quaint and dated. But if you revisit this tiny little drawing by Fawcett, you will see art that is wild in a more lasting, meaningful sense.



Fawcett often drew conventional subjects using conventional media. He was known for scenes of cultured people in English libraries. But don't be fooled by his subject matter-- he drew them with a powerful, vigorous line. This little drawing is like a DNA sample of the pagan force in Fawcett's drawing. It remains far more wild and frightening today than much of the work that "revolutionaries" such as Peter Max or Bob Peak were producing with the "new freedom" of that era.

Carsten Höller at the Tate: Are we having fun yet?

A rose is a rose is a rose. Only each time it appears in a different light, in different hands, in different eyes, the name of the rose changes. If the above statement was as obvious as we would like it to be, if it encompassed all possible interpretations (of the world, of art), the world would be boring. Relativity only goes that far. Fortunately, things have a tendency to take shape. To taste, to appeal, to be somethings. And I wonder if this is not exactly why a lot of contemporary art works so well for me: this tendency to be defined - and not the opposite tendency to be all-relative or blurred!- is what gives it the tension, the controversy, the attraction and power.
A slide, in art, can hardly be a slide, can it?
We feel its tendency to be a slide, but it's this very change in definition, this provocation of designing it as something-else, something-more, some sort of hidden being, that brings about the blush of art experience.
There are several reasons why this slide can't just be a slide. 1) It is set at the Tate Gallery Turbine Hall; 2) It is considered a sculpture by its author; 3) It is considered a sculpture by the art milieu; 4) I feel like seeing it as something else (a sculpture, a performance, a social experiment, an undefined set).
Each of these reasons has an entire theory attached to it. Points 1) and 3) are closely related, they belong to the "institutional definition of art". Points 2) and 4) are both part of the "subjective definition of art", with some important differences.
But why bother defining? What does it matter? Can't we just enjoy the ride?
We can. Yet, we don't need to. And since art is to be an enriching experience (even if not always and not necessarily a pleasant one), why limit ourselves? Thus, the art amateur will know (what a scary word!) what he is dealing with. He will take pleasure in discovering all the undiscovered worlds that a quasi-ready-made (post-ready-made?) gives us. He will be extatic about the many directions, readings, he will talk about verticality, and danger, exhilaration, and pleasure... It has to do with enthusiasm and letting go, with laughter as an aesthetic experience, be it of the one laughing or of the one watching others laugh. The problem is, the deeper we go into the theory, the more concepts we use to describe the slide, the further we seem to get from the first purpose of the slide - to make us slide. Sure, we can consider it a wonderful performative installation, we can stay contemplative and look at how grandiose and imposing it seems. But all this would be nothing if there wasn't the sliding.
It seems only logical that the installation be presented at the Turbine Hall. This is another turbine, a machine that we fuel. By forcing ourselves to forget the conceptual grid, with its heavy chunks of grey cell mass, and diving in. Only then does it seem possible to believe in the

utopian vision of a world in which slides are a means of getting from one place to another, an alternative to stairs, lifts and escalators.

And only then does this whole affair appear as fun, appealing, and something that actually works, rather than as a funny but futile game. (Unless, of course, we accept art as being futile anyhow.)

Is there a difference between this slide and any other slide in the world? Any substantial difference? Not to me. Which doesn't in the least take away the value of this particular work, as art and as slide. Because thanks to this one, I will cherish watching slides, and sliding, even more. It brings a new starting perspective, like a paradigm that allows to see things with a previously unfelt freshness. I could hardly expect more from art.

There is a lot of time to visit the installation: Carsten Höller's Test Site, as the work is called, will stay at the London museum until April 9, 2007. More about the work: good article, excellent interview with the artist, medium article with a flash/podcast presentation, medium article but with the only note of criticism, original Tate site. Finally, the source of the photos.

PS.: A friend pointed out that to go on the large slides one needs a free ticket. Now that's a way of making you feel you're sliding art.

Technorati: art installation, installation, performance, visual art, architecture, design, art, contemporary art, vvoi

A HERO'S ROLE AWAITS THE RIGHT ARTIST

At the start of the 20th century, artists and designers were excited by the prospect of a new era filled with miraculous inventions such as telephones and cars. Science promised a world where humans could begin to create their own environment. But artists with vision recognized that there was also a danger: a man-made world could easily devolve into an industrial wasteland of purely functional objects unless artists were up to the task of creating new designs and forms suited for the machine age. Only designers could preserve beauty in an era when industrialization and mass production began to replace nature. Perhaps the greatest visionary of this period was Peter Behrens, an illustrator for the magazine Jugend, as well as a designer, architect, typographer, teacher and author. He has been called "the first industrial designer."





Behrens designed buildings, stationery, electrical appliances, silverware, typefaces, furniture and environments. He served as the design advisor to one of the world's largest manufacturing concerns, helped to found the German Association of Craftsmen and taught classes that would later become the conceptual underpinning for the Bauhaus. Most of all, he nurtured young apprentices who went on to become the titans of modern design, including Mies van der Rohe, Gropius and Le Corbusier. Behrens said he designed for the modern world by returning to "the fundamental principles of all form creating work."



Behrens also designed several typefaces that became standards for the 20th century.



When designing type, he compared the process of the human eye reading text to

watching a bird's flight or the gallop of a horse. Both seem graceful and pleasing. But the viewer does not observe details of their form or movement. Only the rhythm of the lines is seen by the viewer, and the same is true of a typeface.

We all owe a debt to Behrens for helping to preserve a place for design in the human enterprise during the machine age.

But now the 20th century is over. Today's artists and designers face the new challenges of the 21st century. Who will be the new Peter Behrens who develops an aesthetic for the information age?

Information technology has deluged us with more data than we can assimilate-- a capability so dazzling that information has supplanted the role of wisdom or knowledge. As Karrie Jacobs noted,

Computers have seduced us into thinking about ideas-- the intangible stuff that comprises our culture, our mental universe, our homegrown organic realities-- as information. Information has become the end product, rather than the means to achieve that end.

Just as Information can overwhelm our ability to convert data into knowledge, it can overwhelm our ability to process sensory input in aesthetic form. Information streams are added one on top of the other, like ornaments on a Christmas tree.



The typical modern TV screen has a "crawl" with a message along the bottom, a "bug" identifying the station in the lower corner, and pop ups announcing the weather or the next show or the late breaking news. Anyone who has witnessed a message promoting the Gilmore Girls superimposed on the closing poignant moments of The Godfather knows that the domain of aesthetics has been overwhelmed by information. The same could be said of the cacophony of gateways to databases on websites, or even the designs appearing in many magazines. They are not integrated into our lives in an organic or intuitive way.

For those artists who feel that the glory days of art and design are behind us, here is a challenge: whoever finds the artistic vision to apply "the fundamental principles of all form creating work" to the new information age will earn our undying gratitude.

Levels

The new work by Verónica Conte is called Stratification. It is what I would call a 10-day sculpture, or rather, an evolving sculpture captured in a picture. More frequent visitors to this blog will immediately recognize that I am hinting here at the dramatic - and yet so necessary - moving from object to picture. That actually puts the virtual spectators in a great position: it admits the value of the experience of seeing a picture of a thing, like a document, instead of a real thing.
But what is the real thing? Or rather, what is the value of the real thing? It is barely the touch, the touch that can be done in so many ways. Of course it matters. Take, for instance, other pictures from the same series, only re-mastered by me:
This seems like an entirely different universe. It is leading us towards a different experience. The neutrality of the object is gone, as is its distance. It is now an intimate shape, a playful image, a play with sense and senses where what is shown is just hidden enough to be curious. It looks pretty - but also somehow fake. The lack of context takes away the pleasure of believing that it's real. Sure, it's a nice idea, but not much different from a drawing, or a photomontage. And as such, it might be too little to actually hit the soft spot. But take another example (also a Vvoi remastering):

The intimacy is blatantly clear. But more than that, the link to the ground is there. The egg is just an egg-shape, it suggests, but doesn't really reveal. This could still be happening. Then, there is the gel, here in the form of a mass, maybe like boiling water? And then, where is the secret? Is it deep down? Or is it in the dark zone between the tender leaves?
There is one last detail these particular pictures don't show: there is a root coming from under the egg. Nice touch. The Grund - reason, grounds, basis - is here. Nearly transparent. But not quite.

Technorati: installation, art installation, photography, visual art, fine art, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Good news

I am absolutely delighted to inform you that the project Hamlet Light, which I direct, is one of the winners of Jovens Artistas Jovens, a contest/cultural program produced by the Centro Cultural de Belem and 14 other theater venues across Portugal.
picture by José Manuel Soares

Technorati: theatre, theater, performance, performance art, art, contemporary art, vvoi

The Aftermath - looking for a reaction

The student, Wojciech Pustoła, has been studying sculpture for several years. He openly rejects the more avantgarde sculptors currently playing with art in Poland. He thinks they are rarely more than bluffing baffoons. He likes wood. He likes the texture, maybe, and certainly the idea that it's already there, that you have to deal with it, like you deal with anything you actually handle. A conversation, maybe, but a concrete one. Taking away the matter. Forming the form, shaping the shape. Finding the hidden layer. Maybe.
Wojciech Pustoła likes tension. He is an avid listener of Shostakovich - and not of the pretty fugues of the composer's last period. No. He likes when the guts are spilling over, when the pain isn't even sublimated, when it's there, bare. He sculpts dogs. Various positions, sizes. There is a nervousness in the form, an irritating intensity, like when someone keeps the flashlight pointing to your eyes.
Wojciech Pustoła prepares his final presentation - the one that will correspond to an academic thesis. The dogs are ready.
But he doesn't wait till the day of presentation. Instead, he organizes a vernissage a few days earlier. He invites the broadest range of people possible: art curators, family, security guards, businessmen, construction workers from a site nearby, distant relatives...




There is, of course, an opening ceremony...

...during which the artist speaks about everything one expects him to - and more...



...then everyone procedes to see the sculptures



While the spectators are discovering the works, a few people with microphones circulate, asking questions.


Some of the questions are: Can you descroibe the best work here to someone who isn't seeing it? Why is it so dark in here? What texture do you like objects to have? Why? Do you ever feel like touching objects? Do you think it depends on you or on the objects? Doesn't this pink wall irritate you? Why dogs? Is there any work you don't like particularly? Can you describe it to someone who isn't here?
The jury is also invited. I haven't received any information on whether the jury was present or not. But this is not the presentation. The presentation, as I mentioned, comes a few days later. The jury arrives. You guessed it: the room is empty. Not a sculpture in sight. There are a few speakers spread through the space. Each of them has fragments of the recorded interviews. And that is all the jury gets.
Here is what happened:
"it all went great, very human, people started talking and having conversations, the jury was completely blown away, all these simple folks discussing about the meaning of art, like children"

Like children. This is what I like about it. What could have become a somewhat annoying conceptual work about absence became a reminder of the experience of art. Of our contact with it, and how much an unfinished dog with square legs can mean to us. Even once its gone.

Technorati: art installation, installation, performance, performance art, visual art, art, contemporary art, vvoi