Exercise 1:
- Example of another artist who connects with audience through their work’:
Mark Dion is an artist who was recently brought to my attention. Below you will find a video of Mark’s approach and closely looks at a unique art installation as part of a collection called ‘Neukom Vivarium’:
In this video the viewer follow Dion on a journey during which he brings a ‘nurse log’ – a fallen Hemlock tree which is home to a wide variety of flora and fauna – into the heart of Seattle. The tree is put into a structure that is carefully designed to create the exact environment for the fauna and flora on the log to flourish. Highlighting the complicated environment that nature is able to achieve. The finished hybrid space – a showroom, classroom or laboratory where people can come to experience and Alice through the rabbit hole effect.
He tries to affect the viewer through the sense of the marvelous and wonderful. Emphasising nature as a process and encouraging people to ask different type of questions. I think there is a juxtaposition of this fallen tree yet only half of it’s life is over sine it is now giving life to fauna and flora. I think this is a very bold statement piece that very much brings the viewers into an enchanting environment. Mark also collaborated with many specialists and teams in order to create this installation. I can image many relationships were built and that Mark would have had to give away some ownership. His position he says is not the type of art who ‘spends a lot of time imagining a better ecological future but rather holding up a mirror to the present. We’re at a moment in time where we have a great test ahead of us. If we pass the test, we get to keep the planet.’ ‘I’m not interested in nature. I’m interested in ideas about nature.’
Mark Dion’s way of curating inspires me and he summarises his relationship to science so well in the following statement:
While he often uses scientific methodology in his work, Dion said the artist has other tools available to them that scientists can’t use.
“Science is bound by certain rules, and if you’re a scientist, you can’t really speak ironically, you can’t use humor, you can’t use metaphor and all of these allegory, all of these things that are really like the bread and butter of artists,” he said. “We can work on similar things, but we come to it with very different vocabularies and with a very different focus. We’re not in any way the same thing. And certainly, I always think we’re allies because we have the same enemies—small mindedness, fundamentalism, prejudice, all of these kinds of issues. That’s what potentially could bind us together. We’re both involved in inquiry, and we’re both involved in sort of exploding conventional perception and finding new things.”
Source: https://newsroom.unl.edu/announce/artsatunl/13576/78431 accessed 22 May 2024
Two examples of ways artists have created experiences for the viewer/audience that extend beyond the work itself.:
- Tania Bruguera one such artist. In her work Surplus Value (2012), it is a sculptural work whose activation includes the intervention of the audience which may change the appearance and finishing of the sign by working with the aid of an electric sander. This participatory work as part of the Immigrant Movement International. In order to enter Surplus Value, museum visitors waited in a long line, and some were randomly allowed to enter, while others were submitted to lie detector tests asking about their travel history.
I feel that the participation of the audience holds a lot of power, because I believe the viewer turned participant will certainly gain empathy and insight into the mind of the artist and that which she advocates for through their embodied experience.
‘Surplus Value’ begins with the piece of news published on December 2009 by the press on the theft of the metal sign at the entrance to the Auschwitz concentration camp – now a museum to the memory of the holocaust, with the well-known words “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work Makes You Free) which has become the emblem of Nazi cynicism – by a criminal gang with the purpose of selling it in the black market for historic and antique gadgets. The Polish police found the sign hidden and divided into three parts. Successive information pointed out that the robbery had been commissioned and the agreed price was 150 000 euros.”
(Sourced: https://taniabruguera.com/surplus-value/#:~:text=Surplus%20Value%20is%20a%20sculptural,aid%20of%20an%20electric%20sander. 22 May 2024)
2. Suzanne Lacy and her ‘Silver action’ in 2013, sees herself as a facilitator of a process and does not see the work as her own. “In a large room you see this very expansive tableau of women (over 60 years of age) sitting around yellow cloth tables. The audience comes in and is then drawn into the sphere of the visual they are also part of the performance. Each projection on the wall has in front of it a person sitting at a computer taking the time to listen to someone. That person is transcribing their personal narrative as they write themselves into history. I should say very clearly this is actually not a project about aging and not a sentimental project about older women and no isn’t that nice house that we should take care of them this is a project about discrimination and inequality”
What I loved about this piece of performance art is the projector showing as someone types live. To me it speaks about being listened to and heard, about honoring those who have lived longer and have wisdom to share and perspective on life. I’ve never come across such a performance. Not only were they able to collect all these stories and insight from these ladies in order to address discrimination but they’ve created and space where the audience walk between these tables and what they see on the projections are almost like reading the mind of the person listened to. The audience becomes part of the performance, because it’s about being heard and understood.
(Source: https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/tate/participation-performance/participation/v/suzanne-lacy-silver-action, Accessed 22 May2024)
Exercise 2:
Two artists working in a way that connects to my own work and ideas (one physical exhibition and one digital):
Mark Dion:
Mark Dion would be one artist. I am not only drawn to his work because of my love for collections and the curiosity cabinet but also agree with his tendency to question the objectivity and authoritative role of the scientific voice in contemporary society. As well as the agendas and ideology that creep into public discourse and knowledge production.
Physical exhibition: THEATER OF EXTINCTION 2022. What I take away from looking at this exhibition is the uncluttered white space that he uses. Each piece is able to speak without other work distracting from it. Since I will also be doing a selection of sculpture, drawings/2D work and then some video projection, this exhibition really relates to what my exhibition could feel like. In this exhibition, Mark Dion uses his work to investigate systems of knowledge production and presentation, and to critique the underlying assumptions that determine how disciplines like science, geography, and art classify, organize, and display information.
(souced: https://www.tanyabonakdargallery.com/exhibitions/634-mark-dion-theater-of-extinction-tanya-bonakdar-gallery-los-angeles/. Accessed 22May 2024)
Online/digital exhibition: I struggled to find an online exhibition of Dion. Luckily I came across this one called: Melangcholy museum that presents very well. Although there are no bells or tricks to the online presence of this exhibition, I appreciate how clearly it communicated through photos (showing context as well as close up details, there are video’s and various links/tabs you can click to follow links to more details of objects etc. It is almost like a web-page entirely dedicated to this exhibition. I think it is clear, unpretentious and well designed.
(Sourced: https://museum.stanford.edu/exhibitions/melancholy-museum-love-death-and-mourning-stanford. 22 May 2024)
William Kentridge:
Physical exhibition: William Kentridge at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston: ‘In praise of shadows’ is a physical exhibition that I came across (see source below). In this article, this show, curated by Ed Schad showcased the work of Kentridge. In the heart of the space was a video-room playing 11 films made between 1989 and 2020. This was highly praised for its use of humour, sound and music along with narration that kept the viewers attention while portraying the dark parts of history.
As my exhibition will also involve sculpture, drawing and video, it was very inspiring to see how this was curated.
(Source: https://glasstire.com/2023/08/01/seriously-playful-william-kentridge-at-the-museum-of-fine-arts-houston/. 22 May 2024)
Online/digital exhibition: The link below takes you to documentary of the artist called: ‘Anything is possible’. I have always admired William Kentridge as well as stop motion animation. He links his animations with his understanding of life as process and not as fact. The moving image was a perfect fit for him. I love how the documentary was designed with his art, animation, music and narration by die artist. His aim is to recreate the passion of the emotion. The music together with the visual is powerful.
(https://art21.org/watch/william-kentridge-anything-is-possible/full-program-william-kentridge-anything-is-possible/. 22 May 2024)
Exercise 3:
For my exhibition I will be curating my work with a combination of the following concepts mind: The curiosity cabinet (visual and concept), museology/scientific presentation (visual influence), ecological expedition and documentary (style video).
I would like to display my work in and alongside a curiosity cabinet. The curiosity cabinet/vitrine/apothecary was often used in the 16th and 17th centuries by collectors to establish socioeconomic status but also as conversation point. It is fair to say that any curiosity cabinet, museum showcase or vitrine was representative of what its curator valued most.
The rational for using such a cabinet to display my own work is twofold. It communicates what I care about/value most. Instead of the materialistic nature of the typical curiosity cabinet, my display will portray the implicit and ethereal/unseen in combination with natural foraged items and also with items that resemble an apothecary or alchemical cabinet. I feel this will be a good fit for they alchemical processes of material making but also echoing the alchemical transformation of psyche that happens in the material and art making process, relating to theory. The second reason would be that it allows me to display parts of my raw materials and process.
As a physical outcome for the exhibition, I would like to use a space that I have already identified – An historical building in the heart of Jonkershoek valley where I do all my runs/hikes from which my inspiration comes. I would like to use the walls to display frames drawings alongside curiosity cabinets filled with my material and the natural items found during each run. I would then like to set up a projector and screen for the purpose of showing my documentary and process. Additional material will involve various sensory experiences for my audience in the form of things they can smell, touch, taste and move. OR codes next to each work could provide links to sound and location where the work was made.
For an online outcome, I would like to create a page on my website which will be titled MA Fine Art exhibition and will include the following:
- A video documentary of my position as an artist and my process.
- A walk/fly-through of the physical exhibition space along with narration and sound-scapes made in nature.
- A catalogue in PDF format with a short description of each artwork. This is necessary so that my online audience can pause in from of an artwork for as long as they want to.
- QR codes will also ensure that my audience will have access to sound experiences along with the work as well as location.
Starting to look forward to it all coming together. Looking at these artists was very helpful and inspiring!