Lingual Tremors

Whimsy at the Whitney

We went to the Whitney Biennial the first weekend it opened in New York and I've thought about it all spring.  The biennial has become an annual tradition in the Lingual household.  It's something that we talk about for the intervening years between shows and often sets the standard by which we experience other shows. 

This year's biennial has already been panned (NYTimes, The New Yorker), and I'm surprised.  The first two biennials I saw (2004 and 2006) were distinctly political--taking on large themes.  I thought they were great (and they were my introduction to New York art).  This year's biennial was distinctly different; it was whimsical and apolitical.  Now, I'm a big fan of political art (see my Sex and the City post from earlier this week), but the Whitney Biennial left me wondering:  do we need a little whimsy?

Where past shows have been dominated by overtly political themes, this year's show was not.  My three favorite pieces were:

• Mika Rottenberg's Cheese (2007)
  • A video installation with multiple monitors that retold the Rapunzel story, based on sisters with long hair who milk goats to make cheese.
• Javier Tellez's Letter on the Blind for the Use of Those of Us Who See (2007)
  • An amazing film that captures several blind people describing an elephant as they touch it.
• Olaf Breuning's Home 2 (2007)
  • A bizarre film about the world's most culturally insensitive tourist.

Usually, I skip the videos.  Lingual Y and I disagree about this.  He often watches all of the videos, where I am more interested in the photographs and sculptures.  This time, however, the videos, more than the other pieces, really captured my imagination.  Put together, this series of three films really challenges everyday reality.  In Cheese, the sisters use their hair to make the cheese (a complex series of milking and straining the milk through their long hair).  In Letter on the Blind... we "see" an elephant as if for the first time through strikingly intimate camera angles as the blind touch and describe the elephant.  Unsettlingly, the film is shot in an empty swimming pool in urban & angsty Brooklyn.  The gritty urban background, coupled with the detailed shots of the elephant and the blind people's hands, was amazing.  And, Home 2 was disturbing, funny, and weird as a "tourist" made his way through several different exotic locations, poking fun at "bad tourists" as he made every faux pas possible.

Each of these pieces was unexpected.  The thing about political art is that too often, it doesn't lead to larger truths.  It often preaches to the already converted, offering some wryly intellectual or painfully explicit commentary on the present.  Instead, these three pieces were whimsical in their approach and they made you see the world in new and unexpected ways.  Yet, in their whimsy, they were not devoid of thought.  I have carried these pieces with me in my imagination and memory for months since seeing them.  The description "blind people in an empty pool with an elephant" sounds like the precursor to a bad joke;  instead, Letter on the Blind... was one of the most haunting pieces I've seen recently.  The depth and texture of the film was almost 3D as you tried to imagine what they were feeling.

I think people are tired.  I think they are tired of the war, tired of a bad presidency, tired of politics, tired of the economy, tired of all of the ways our society seems to be falling apart at the seams.  And, instead of capturing that ennui and melancholy, the Whitney Biennial challenged us to see the world a little differently, a little more whimsically, and to be open to the unexpected.   

More!

Forget the art, what were they wearing?
Who goes to the museum?
Cerebral Challenge
Ramshackle Riddle

Olafur Eliasson: Take Your Time. Indeed.

So, for the next few postings, Lingual Tremors will take on a decidedly art-focused view.  I have been meaning to post on the Whitney Biennial and last year's Brooklyn Museum's Global Feminism exhibits and now I have two more exhibits to talk about so, let's just call this "art week", eh?

So, the fabulously cool and hip P.S. 1 art museum (MOMA's smaller, cooler younger sibling in Queens) plays host from now until mid-June to several large installations by Olafur Eliasson, he who will bring the Waterfalls project to New York's Harbor later this summer.   Not being in the art world, I'd not heard of Eliasson, who is evidently a major up-and-coming international artist.  I went to P.S. 1 for the last day of the "Wack!  Art and the Feminist Revolution" exhibit and literally stumbled into one of the rooms where Eliasson's work was displayed.  I had seen ads for "Take Your Time" on the subway--a jumble of movie studio lights,mirrors, and movable walls that didn't excite me.  In fact, I thought the title of the exhibit was a little corny:  "Take Your Time!"  (i.e. Look at My Art!  Relax, Crazy New Yorkers!  Take Five Minutes Away From Your Crackberries to Enjoy Art!  Hello!  Real Art!).  In short--not high on my list of "to do" exhibits currently in the city.

If you've not been there, P.S. 1 is in an old school--replete with "Boys" and "Girls" separate side entrances.  Stumbling around the old staircases, into classrooms transformed into gorgeous gallery spaces with large windows and fabulous natural lighting, I always feel like I'm a kid again.  The gallery space is a perfect combination of nostalgic emotions about school coupled with the excitement and desire for new knowledge and intellectual stimulation (okay, okay, I'm a geek.  I *get* that not everyone feels that way about school!). 

So, I stumbled into a totally darkened room--this is something I've become accustomed to since moving to New York.  Previously, the idea of willingly walking into a pitch black room without knowing what was in there would have been unimaginable.  And yet, all too often, I throw myself into these now-traditional New York art spaces, excited for the "what's to come" anticipatory giddiness.  The room was set up with a wall--like walking into a movie theater--that didn't allow you to see the room.  You had to walk in and around the wall to get into the room itself.  What waited beyond the all was one of the most tranquil, relaxing, and truly beautiful art exhibits I've seen.  Entitled "Beauty," the installation piece is a large curtain of misty water that flows from the ceiling as it is spotlighted by soft lights that create an undulating rainbow.  Against the black backdrop, it looks simultaneously like a curtain, like silk flowing in the wind, like that perfect moment when you are pulling taffy when the sugar takes on a shimmering effect, like a well groomed cat's silken coat.   This was art as beauty, art as meditation, art as a physical space for relaxation and thinking.  Simultaneously cerebral and experiential, this was art as experience.

(Picture via SFMOMA)

This room is opposite "the vault," a brick-lined exhibition space where "Reversed Waterfall" trickles away.  From "Beauty," you can hear the waterfall's pitter patter.  P.S. 1 is a popular "alternative" gallery, but unlike MOMA or the Met, it's possible to hit there at times when the crowds are thin.  This was one of the those days.  I was utterly alone, able to sit and meditate on the curtain of water and the ways in which the subtle changes in the flow created new and interesting arcs in the color of the rainbow's sheen.  I had time to think in extended metaphor--piling association on top of association--and to really enjoy the piece itself.  No lines, no snarky "artier than thou" critics and students loudly evaluating the piece, no self-absorbed cell-phone gallery talkers (on a par, in their evilness, with the cell-phone-bookstore-talkers, both a special category of wretched humanity). 

I walked away feeling refreshed, focused, and relaxed.  And that, in and of itself, was a totally different art experience for me.  I am often interested in immersive art environments because I like how they force you to see the world differently.  I like the expansiveness of imagination, the interactive expectation, and the transformation of the ordinary (see my previous post on "Ashes and Snow" here).  As someone who is very sensual, I like exhibits that engage as many of my senses as possible;  for that reason, multi-media installations capture more of my imagination than just a painting or a sculpture or a photograph.  And if I can touch it?  Even better!

All of this brought back to me again, my own maturing sense of what art is for:  although I am deeply invested in the role of the political in art, increasingly, I find that I turn to art and music for shelter and rejuvenation, something that makes for a different relationship and expectation in art.  I remember that when I was a child, my mother would often seat me on the floor with crayons and paper and invite me to "draw what I heard" as she played different classical songs for me.  I would be occupied for hours at that task;  the collocation of color and music, the whimsy and emotion of music turned into illustrations. 

Sometimes, I lose sense of that idea of play and imagination as I push forward in my career, become wrapped up in personal dramas, and try to address the needs of the people and world around me.  The world is such a tough place, that when I come across something like "Beauty," I am reminded that one purpose for art is to soothe the aching soul, to place before it a succor for what ails it. 

Eliasson's other pieces were interesting;  I highly recommend the entire exhibit, but "Beauty" was just what I needed.  What a lovely and unexpected serendipity:  the right art at the right time in the right place.  "Take Your Time," indeed.  "Beauty," without question. 

Read On!
Interview with Eliasson
"Beauty" (At San Francisco MOMA, with links to other exhibits as well)

SEEing Water Bottles: Eduardo Srur's PET Project

Brazilian artists Eduardo Srur's latest project is bringing some startling visual awareness about water pollution to Sao Paulo.  He has placed 30 inflatable sculptures of giant 2 liter soda bottles along the Tiete River, one of the most polluted rivers in Sao Paulo.  This great picture from Mega Environmentalism encapsulates the impetus for the project:

The large sculptures (which also light up at night) are meant to raise awareness about pollution and clean water.  Just where do all of those plastic bottles we use everyday go?  And, what are the ramifications of this consumption?

From Para ver e pensar's Picasa gallery

See more of the project:

• Here (Srur's official site)
• Here (Blog's Monologue)
• Art Knowledge News

On Water Pollution in Brazil:

Urban Water Pollution (via IPS)

What to do with water bottles? Make an aquarium!

Miwa Koizumi's PET Project

It seems that Earth Day this year will be a big deal.  Even Macy's Department store is sporting a huge inflatable world at its front entrance to call awareness to Earth Day. 

I think that thinking about the environment is important everywhere, but in New York it has a particular importance.  Obviously, we do not, as a large urban community, take care of our own garbage.  We rely on other land and people to deal with the massive amount of trash and recycling thrown out everyday.  A general lack of awareness about the environment is perhaps bred by the industrialized nature of the city with its emphasis on concrete over green spaces.  Even today, you can sometimes walk for blocks seeing only concrete and no green space.  And, many people are far too casual about trash, tossing their litter in people's yards, on the streets, and on the subway tracks.  So, enter New York artist Miwa Koizumi who takes plastic water bottles and transforms them into underwater sea creatures.  See images of the creatures, like jellyfish, here.  And the "aquarium" here.  Read more about the artist here.

Moral Turpitude and the Curious American Obsession with Morality

"I love America,"..."Everybody gets a chance in America. In England, success only inspires envy, but in America it inspires hope." ~Sebastian Horsley

The next time you have the luck to find yourself bound abroad, do take a moment to stop in Customs and cozy up to your friendly neighborhood Homeland Security Agent to ask for a copy of the brochure that explains "Section 212 (a) (2) (A) (i) (I) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, as amended."  Oh, alright. I'll do it for you.  Click here. Scary stuff, eh?

I sincerely hope the likes of Eliot Spitzer and any other politician who has had a party in his pants with a prostitute doesn't try to leave the U.S. to visit Europe.  Because in Section 212 (a) (2) (A) (i)(l) (who the ***&&^%%^&* ever thought all of these parentheses made any sense???) of the "Classes of Aliens Ineligible for a Visa", prostitution ranks higher than terrorism.  I mean that quite literally--prostitution is item 2 (D) and Terrorism is 3 (B).  Guess philandering with whores is a bigger deal than threats to American security.  Perhaps someone ought to teach legislators the fine art of rhetorical organization.  The farther down on the list, the less important, no?

Anyway, how did I miss this story?  Self-identified London dandy & all around gleefully self-absorbed bad boy author & artist Sebastian Horsely was denied entry to the United States at Newark Liberty International Airport (get the irony?  Huh?  Huh?  Get it?  "Liberty"??? Get it???) on the basis of moral turpitude.  Translation?  He engages in activities considered offensive to the prurient & morally superior interests of the U.S. public.  Yeah.  Like Horsely is going to be a worse role model for us than our own elected politicians?  Than our own movie stars?  Than our own writers?  Than our own journalists?  Dare I continue...

Photo Essay Sequel: What's Old is New and Cool

As a follow up to last week's "What's Old is New," here are a few amazing photos of some street art.  An earstwhile reader sent me a link to 5 Pointz, located in Queens.  I didn't know about it, so I decided to head over.  I was completely blown away.  Here are a few shots (more up on flickr, here).  Currently headed up by graffiti artist Meres, this space exists for kids to learn how to become artists.  It's an amazing space--almost an entire industrial block of warehouses across from MOMA's P.S. 1 Museum.

Photo Essay: Graffiti--What's New is Old

 

When I first moved to New York, the streets were remarkably free of graffiti.  This is no surprise, since I moved to New York in the Guiliani years and after the controversial 1995 Anti-Graffiti Task Force/Quality of Life crime enforcement.  And, in particular, in my neighborhood, there was no graffiti whatsoever.  Lately, however, a group of kids have been tagging in my neighborhood and it's really given me pause.  I have always been a fan of graffiti that makes me think, that interrupts the urban landscape, that poses questions, problems, and challenges.  In short, graffiti as political protest and graffiti as subversive commentary speaks to me. 

From the Brooklyn Museum:

Forms of graffiti have been discovered on ancient Roman and Mayan architecture and like today were both illegal and a form of communication. Modern graffiti, which is associated with hip-hop culture and spans all racial and economic groups, began in the mid- to late 1960s; it made its way to New York City and quickly became a phenomenon. Urban youth used the sides of subway trains and buildings as their canvases, reclaiming sections of their neighborhoods by "tagging" them with stylized renditions of their names or the names of the groups they formed. The self-taught graffiti artists turned the walls of public (and sometimes private) buildings into giant panoramas and subway cars into moving murals.

I "get" the history of graffiti, and I think it's an important form of social commentary.  For example, early on in my New York life, I got lost trying to get to the BQE.  I ended up on a street in Brooklyn, lodged between a police depot and a large urban housing project.  On the wall of one of the buildings was an amazing piece that said "Ain't no fuckin' co-op here."  Thus, the beginning of my awareness about housing issues in New York.

But lately, I've been annoyed in my neighborhood because a tagger/group of taggers have taken to scribbling on every possible surface, including the wall of a local preschool.  And I hate it!  Seriously?  The poor janitor for that school is perpetually painting over the word "srry."  Can you imagine a lifetime of erasing sorry?  It's just obnoxious and I find myself wanting to find the kid who keeps doing it and slap him/her silly.  So, I've been struggling with what that means.  In response, I've spent the last few weeks taking pictures of graffiti.  My eye is definitely drawn to the more colorful pieces.

And it makes me feel like some of today's graffiti is just derivative.  What's the point now, I wonder, after the graffiti art of the 1970s, in making the same statement?  For me, that applies to taggers like "srry" and "2hips" above.  It's just, well, annoying and feels a little like someone scribbling on the wall with a paint can. 

On the other hand, I feel like the other pieces above are visually, politically, and intellectually interesting.  I love the truck (Union Square farmer's market) and the murals and graffiti on the Mars Bar on the Lower East Side.  I love the murals.  They're complicated, they're intricate, and I get lost in the color and narrative of the paint.

But I'm not just "anti-tagging."  While I know that I am more drawn to pieces and murals, because of their complexity, I can also understand the simplicity of a quick "message to the world."  In another part of my daily life, I walk over a bridge that has been tagged repeatedly over the last two years.  Every formerly plain surface is now tagged and there's not much visually interesting about it.  I find their work interesting because the taggers are often in dialogue with one another and I like to read what they've written and how they literally talk to one another in words.  "Fuck Ciara Has AIDS" is from that walk and every day I think, yeah, "fuck."  I connect to what I read as a desperation to communicate in that simple, scribbled statement. 

Graffiti artist Coda says, ""To pour your soul onto a wall and be able to step back and see your fears, your hopes, your dreams, your weaknesses, really give you a deeper understanding of yourself and your own mental state."  I get that and when I see a lot of graffiti I can see that--I can see how it functions as not just an internal exercise for the artist, but how it rises to the level of engagement with the viewer--it acts on us just as it acts on the soul of the artist. 

And so I've arrived at the not-so-brilliant conclusion that not all graffiti is equally impressive.  I've been inspired by the Graffiti Report Card to begin rating graffiti in my own head as a way of making distinctions between different kinds of graffiti.

(Graffiti Report Card from Brandon Thomas Baunach)--See also Graffiti Critique from the Wooster Collective

Design Crack explains of the report card:

It’s a project I started a couple of months ago after seeing my neighborhood (The Mission District of San Francisco) receive an amazing amount of ugly, large, and talentless graffiti. I wanted a way to combat the ugly graffiti while at the same time give praise to the talented graffiti writers who I feel make the streets more beautiful. It occurred to me, that many of our local taggers don’t realize how ugly and talentless their graffiti is, so I wanted to give them some feedback.

There are certainly many people who understand the history and politics of graffit better than I do (see links below), but I wanted to spend some time thinking about my own reactions to what I was seeing and to interrogate and challenge my assumptions.  Think of this as a "visual thought" exercise.  See the whole set of photos here.  (I'll add to them as I find other examples I like).

Read On:

• Art Crimes:  The Writing on the Wall
• Art Crimes:  Best Graffiti Sites
• NYC Crews
• Graffiti Playdo
• Graffiti on Flickr
• Brooklyn Museum Exhibit (2006)
• Graffiti Research Lab (graffiti + digital technology)--Seriously cool
• Graffiti Artists Need Not Apply
• Graffiti In Its Own Words
• Love Graffiti
• Graffiti Planet
• Graffiti Report Card
• Garage Magazine

Call for Artwork--Queer Latina/Latino Art Exhibit

I received a request to publish this call for artwork. This looks like a wonderful exhibit. Please consider submitting, if your work is applicable!

CALL FOR ARTWORK & APPLICATION FORM TO PARTICIPATE IN THE
2007 QUEER LATINA/O VISUAL ARTS EXHIBIT

PERSONAL SECRETS - PUBLIC SPACE, an exhibition in conjunction with the
Queer Arts Festival / SF, CA

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: May 18, 2007

EXHIBITION DATES: June 3 - 28, 2007
at SomArts Cultural Center, San Francisco

How much of your private self is revealed in public? What do you choose to conceal? How interconnected or separate do you keep your online persona and your "real life"? How do your high techgadgets affect the way you interact with people? Many of us walk around in public plugged into our ipods or PDA’s. We find dates on line, choose restaurants based on online menu availability, google friends, co-workers and potential lovers. Civic and social participation happens from "convenience of your computer". We consider networking web sites personal, yet they are intensely public spaces. This exhibit will use the queer Latina/o body as the locus for a dialogue on the dynamics of public and private identities. You are invited to submit work that includes but is not limited to examining: virtual and physical spaces that shape/define our urban experiences in public and private, personal secrets, private property, public space, internalized isms, borders, boundaries and dialogue about actively engaging everyday life.

ELIGIBILITY: Self-identified Latina/o Queer artists. Artists in any media are welcome to submit work, space is available for large installations, projections, or performances.

SUBMIT THE FOLLOWING: 1.) application form (postmarked by Saturday, May 18, 2007. 2.) a brief biography (~75 words) in English or Spanish. 3.) Slides, digital files or photographs of artwork, and/or performance proposal. Email your submission to quelaco@raza.org.

Art must be ready to install at drop-off, including sturdy frame & hooks (no unfinished art). Send entries to: QueLACo, P.O. Box 40792, San Francisco, CA 94140 or email this form with your digital images to: quelaco@raza.org

Name:
Address:
Phone:
email:
best time to reach you:

ABOUT THE ART:
title:
medium:
dimensions:
for sale: yes no
retail value $

Please use the back of this sheet if you submit more than one piece, and complete the needed information for each piece. Send this application with Slides, digital files or photographs of artwork, and/or
performance proposal. Slides will not be returned. If you do not have slides or photos, your works will have to be previewed in person by the Curator (please submit your application no later than May 1st if this is the case). Artists are responsible for safe shipping and handling of their artwork to and from the SomArts Gallery. If you need more information, please contact QueLACo’s 2007 Visual Arts Exhibit Curator, Rebeka Rodriguez, at quelaco@raza.org.

Founded in 1998, Queer Latina/o Artists' Coalition (QueLACo) builds community by organizing arts events that authentically explore the Queer Latina/o experience.

Subversive Knitting...

When I was in the seventh grade, I had an unfortunate encounter with knitting.  My Girl Scout leader, well intentioned, brought in horrible pastel yarn and needles with the intention of wanting us to learn how to knit baby blankets.  I wasn't much into babies.  At that age I either had my nose in a book or I was climbing the tree in the front yard.  I thought I'd be an astronaut or a marine biologist.  While I knew that my mother and my grandmother both knit, neither of them did so at the time.  They were both heavily involved in their careers at the time.  My grandmother was traveling the world and my mother was starting her dissertation.  So, I was bored by the very notion of knitting.  Girl Scouts didn't last much longer.

So, when I started knitting two years ago, I entered a little dubious.  By then, both my mother and my grandmother had returned to knitting, and we had collected many other people who knit along the way.  They were all cool, doing things like buying amazing yarns and making sweaters, bags, hats, and gloves.  And I couldn't participate much, so I jumped into the frey.  Two years later, oodles of hats and scarves and 2 bags later, I'm hooked.  I spend my free time in yarn shops and I have more yarn than I have time to knit.

So today, when I went to the Museum of Design to see the Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting exhibit, I was really excited by the yoking of politics and knitting.  Of course, in the meantime, radical protests like the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt had also changed my understanding of art and protest. 

The exhibit features an internationally diverse group of artists seeking to challenge traditional expectations of textile arts.  I was most excited by Althea Merback's micro-knitting on medical needles and by Sheila Pepe's installation, "Midtown."  Pepe's installation, which stretches the length of the room is two to three layers deep of floor to ceiling blue and white and black cords knitted together.  It's the single best representation of New York City ever!  I love the sensation of webs encompassing you from every direction.  It's the sense of the city I have when I walk, the interconnectedness, the all encompassing nature of the environment.

It's an excellent exhibit and one that really presented many visual and textual challenges to the traditional notions of knitting.  If you're in New York before June, it's a must see!

Some artists featured in the exhibit:

Anne Wilson

• Hildur Bjarnadóttir 
• Dave Cole
• Liz Collins
• Janet Echelman
• Sabrina Gschwandtner
• Elena Herzog
• Yoshiki Hishinuma
• Cal Lane
• Ruth Marshall
• Edward Mayer
• Cat Mazza
• Althea Merback
• Freddie Robins
• Niels van Eijk
• Erna van Sambeek
• Eugène van Veldhoven
• Henk Wolvers
• Barbara Zucker

• Good Article on Feminist Art in Feminist Forum

I'm Not From Colorado, So You Probably Don't Care About My Opinion...

Pandagon had a good entry last night on some recent controversy in public art.  Apparently our new Mapplethorpe is artist, Tsehai Johnson, whose sculpture entitled "Twelve Dildos on Hooks" was purchased with $5,000 in Colorado state funds.  The sculpture has been deemed, of course, offensive.  It seems to me, as to many others, that this is a wonderful illustration of "What's in a Word?"  The sculpture is alternatively titled Twelve Implements on Hooks.  Take away the offensive word "dildo" and you have some aesthetically pleasing white sculptures hanging from hooks.   The allusion to sexuality by naming the implements "dildos" brings us into the realm of the risque and the offensive.  Because really, the sculpture itself, while beautiful, couldn't be less innocuous. 

--Insert Sarcastic Music Here--

If you're offended, then may I suggest that you stop attending public events, cancel your cable, your Internet, and stay home and paint yourself some nice Black Velvet paint-by-numbers kitty cats?

If you want your kid (and I'm assuming the offense factor comes because we don't want children exposed to "controversial" art) to grow up nice and innocent, cancel your cable, your Internet, throw out your XBox and Playstation, cancel subscriptions to any magazines that have Britney or Jessica in their "underwear" day wear, and buy your kid some picture books that have been vetted by a nice group like the  American Family Association.

What I like about art--what I've always liked--is the way it challenges you to see something differently;  good art should push you to reconsider the world you live in, to stop and think for a moment.  At the heart of it, all good art should be controversial because it should challenge you intellectually, aesthetically, politically, & artistically.  If it doesn't push you in those ways,  it's milquetoast and then, what's the point? 

Of course the other point of controversy here is that Johnson's piece is  public art paid for with public dollars.  So, public art, the argument goes, should provide the least amount of offense to the greatest number of people.  I couldn't disagree more.  In a democratic society, public art should push us all to think in new and different ways, to be prepared to encounter the unexpected, and to find new ways to appreciate what's different. 

Finally, I want to say that I think Johnson's piece--titled as twelve dildos and not twelve implements--is also interesting in an era of increased public prudery because it encourages women, in an era of loss of control over their bodies and their choices, to take control of their sexuality in visible ways.       

I also really like Voelz-Chandler's point, in the Rocky Mountain News, that conservatives have said "Art=Waste" to which we must mount a vocal and energetic response:  Art=Good and Sexuality=Good!

Read Up!
Johnson's Gallery
Are Culture Wars Inevitable in the Arts?
Public Art:  The Power to Provoke
LAX Art Spurs Flap Over What is Proper
The Art of Controversy

And a little fun for the over 18 women crowd...
The Toys in Babeland Site... 

I'm Not Dumb... I Get Orientalism and You're Still Missing the Point

Ashes and Snow is all the rage at work.  We've been discussing and debating the show.  The current complaint is "Orientalism."  Several people who have seen the show dismiss it as rampant colonization.  Now, I'm as good a student of Said's work as any respectable graduate student in the last decade, so it's not as if I don't understand the charge.  However, I went to Ashes and Snow again today and I still find the transformation of the urban landscape compelling.  I think the issue of "gaze" and "representation" are important lenses to invoke in thinking about artwork.  Critical thinking begets differing opinions.  I also recognize the claims of feminism in critiquing the show.  The women are enacted upon--rather than enacting.  However, despite these criticisms, I still think, as I mused in Urban Ataraxia, that the show offers many challenges to our conception of urban spaces. 

Urban Ataraxia

Perhaps following up on "The Trouble with Public Art," today's newsflash is about Ashes and Snow, Gregory Colbert's amazing exhibition in his "Nomadic Museum" at Pier 54 in NYC.

Now, let's face it:  the single best thing about living in New York is the art.  This often ugly and stinky city is filled with splendorous things to look at in both public and private spaces.  I've had the privilege to visit some of the best art museums in the world, but there's nothing quite like transforming a beautiful March day into the unexpected by immersing yourself in some good art right in your own home town.

My three most favorite art shows so far (excluding for the moment of this narrative the Whitney Biennial which is simply put, beyond brilliant and a must-do every two years) have been Chen Zen at P.S. 1, Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle (yes, I know feministas!  pero esperate un momentito), and now, Colbert's Ashes and Snow.  What these three shows share in common is a passionate, riveting vision.  As an activist, academic feminist, I often tire of the seemingly continual leftist agenda of critique without vision.  You have to be working toward something, not just deconstructing something.

In each of these three shows, the viewer is transported into another world, whether it was the connection to others by playing the drums in Chen Zen's Jue Chang or marvelling at Barney's ability to turn the stodgy Guggenheim into his personal playground.  I like art that is bold, seeking to literally take you into its vision and change your sense of reality for just a little bit.  I want to walk in a different world as a way of challenging my own everyday assumptions.

Today's visit to Ashes and Snow was more than I expected.  With all of the jet-setting I've done in the last two months, I'm desperately behind on trendy NYC and I didn't even know the show had opened.  So, I set off today to see what it was all about.

Pier 54 is unremarkable.  The rotting piers, the dark waves of the Hudson, the occasional piece of  trash drifting by, the early season runners and bikers and rollerbladers whizzing by on the bike path. 

From the moment I stepped into the exhibit, however, I left that ordinariness behind.  I couldn't name where I was, but I recognized the difference of the space, marked by color, music, temperature, and sight.  Every element of Colbert's exhibit is carefully orchestrated.  The "nomadic museum," designed by Shigeru Ban, is a cathedralesque space built of storage containers and cardboard columns that reach up into the vaulted ceiling.  Call it pomo-environmentalist Gothic.  Curtains of recycled tea bags and sepia lighting create an ataraxia.

I think those of us who live with the constant noise and bombardments of city living are always seeking some form of tranquility.  Here, you walk along a wooden aisle  On either side, the floor is filled with smooth, white stones and the pictures are suspended by wires from the tin ceiling which reflects the shimmer of the Hudson outside the walls of the exhibit. 

Unlike going to see an exhibit at the Met, which never changes its physical space--or like last month's over-rated Aztec exhibit at the Guggenheim with its cheesy "serpentine" decor--this space is designed for the exhibit and will travel with it from port to port.  I love that.  No matter where someone sees Ashes and Snow, the experience will be the same, independent of a particular museum or gallery's physical space.  Here,  space is pivotal to the experience.  You are both in nature--the chill of the March air seeping inside the containers--and away from the city.  Colbert has achieved a fully integrated environment.  Everything about the exhibit flows and transports you to another world where sensuality, music, rhythm, animal, water and nature create a meditative synergy.

As I walked down the right hand side of the aisle, I felt like I was on a spiritual pilgrimage.  Everyone was silent, taken in by the pictures and the music.  The disjunction of public worship:  we were communal and individual.  Looking up, I was aware that we were walking toward something, but I wasn't sure what.  I felt like I was walking in someone else's imagination.

The photographs put humans and animals side-by-side in a sensual, sexual union.  I have never particularly liked elephants.  Today, however, their eyes looked wizened and their bodies graceful as they curled around their human counterparts.  The whale and human caught in a caesura before breaking through the surface for a breath were stunning.

The aisle ended in a makeshift movie theater where we watched an hour-long film of sepia-tinted images.   I loved the whales and water images the most.  I loved the transgression of sexuality as woman, man and animal were joined as one, as gender, age, and racial lines were blurred.  I felt peaceful.  I felt like this was a moment of grace.

While I was in the moment, I knew that we would analyze it on our way home--the cheesiness of the voice over in the film, the ordinariness of the film's ending, the way that women were objectified--but I didn't care.  I wanted to be immersed in the moment, swept away on the wave of Colbert's vision. 

Unlike last week's encounter with public art and the intrusions of others, this was an encounter with the sacred urban, the possibilities of union with nature, the challenge to urban consumption to pause and immerse yourself in natural divination.

Further Reading:

Check out Eleanor Hartley's overview of Chen Zen's work in Art in America. I'm particularly jazzed by his interactive piece Jue Chang (50 Strokes           to Each) which features 100 drums made out of chairs and beds that visitors are always encouraged to touch and play! 

For more on Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle, check out this site with an overview of the whole cycle.   Try and think past the accusations of misogyny and consider, for a moment, the enormity of Barney's vision.  I am awed by it at the same time I can critique it.

The official site for Ashes and Snow, including some of the beautiful elephant imagery.  I truly have never thought of elephants as graceful before.

The Trouble With Public Art

On a gorgeous President's Day, I set off with a small group into Central Park to see the Gates.  I had just returned from Siquirres, and was still in the post-vacation haze where NYC didn't quite make sense again.  I was feeling cowed by the rampant commercialism of walking down the streets;  the bright windows of stores didn't make me want to go in an buy things;  I felt attacked by them.  They served to remind me of what I had just seen in Costa Rica, of what the community I had visited didn't have.  So, the gates came at a good time for me because they served the function that much public art should--it allowed me to reconsider my physical surroundings and see them in a new way.

We tromped through the snow and the saffron colored gates stood out against the still-unsullied white landscape.  As my group and I were swinging on the swings near the pinetum, the gates flowed in the breeze.  It was quiet, tranquil, and for the first time in a long time made me want to be in the park.  I often avoid Central Park because when I have the most time to go to the park--during the summer--it's hard to find a quiet space.  I hate the rampant competition for a piece of grass.  Yet, while I normally eschew crowds (I know, I know--what could I possibly be doing living in the city?), I loved the idea that here, on a cold, snowy, February day, the park was filled with people. 

Much of the criticism surrounding the Gates revolved around the "spectacular factor."  It wasn't a wrapped island, like the Surrounded Islands in Biscayne Bay, Florida.  It wasn't the running fence from Sonoma County, California.  It wasn't the wrapped Pont Neuf.  But a wrapped building or structure in New York wouldn't cause much furor at all.  Christo and Jeanne-Claude knew that.  Many people probably would have just walked by it, or on it, or over it.  What was spectacular about the Gates was the immersion factor.  You were IN it.  New Yorkers need something to literally take over their lives.   

So, the park hadn't been abandoned to winter, resting until the sun bunnies spread their blankets all over the newly emerged spring grasses, but instead, it was alive with people walking amid the gates, talking about the gates and sharing in a communal experience in the park.  People who don't normally go to the park flocked there.  People who walk through the park everyday had a chance to see the park in a different way.  People weren't so much staking out their little piece of ground, but talking with one another and trying to take it all in.  Kudos to Christo and Jeanne-Claude.  Thanks for the Gates.

More on Christo and Jeanne-Claude

Public Art, Part Deux (a long and circuitous narrative about the trouble with public art):  New Yorkers are Prepositionally Challenged

On Friday, I took a walk through Union Square.  For the past three years, I have become increasingly consumed by the anceint structure of the labyrinth.  My mother first introduced the labyrinth to me in her on-going attempts to find something (anything!) to calm me down.  (Lingual Y says my blog should be called www.monkeymind.com).  While the biofeedback monitor, fish tank, various assorted pets, knitting, rock tumbler, dance, etc. didn't go very far, the labryinth seems to have stuck.  She and my dad gave me a finger labyrinth of Chartes to use as a meditation tool.  As is generally the case when I get "into" something, I have been reading histories of labyrinths, looking at architectural designs, and most recently, I have even started to read about the sacred geometry associated with labyrinth construction.  Lauren Artress calls the labyrinth a "wide and gracious path" that allows its seekers a center in the midst of finding "a balance between our work, sleep, family and friends, leisure and attention to our spiritual lives."  Clearly, this was something that called to me as I struggled with the often overwhelming demands of tenure.  And, yes, my first tattoo is a classic three-circuit labyrinth on my inner ankle (LOOK:  while I would have loved to do the Chartes labyrinth, the 11 circuits complete with labyrs and lunations seemed a little painful given how long my 3 circuit labyrinth took...). 

So, with that as background, I have wanted to see Diana Carulli's public labyrinths in Union Square Park for some time now.  They are, from the pictures, spirited approaches to the labyrinth with vines and flowers and an invitation to rethink the demands of "the concrete jungle."  However, it seems that whenever I have free time to visit Union Square, the labyrinths are inevitably covered by the farmer's market or a public protest (which I'm generally a part of).  So imagine my delight late Friday afternoon to discover the labyrinths uncovered.  I had a little bit of time to kill before meeting Lingual Y for dinner, so I dropped my bag and prepared to enter the labyrinth. 

For those of you who haven't walked a labyrinth, there is a 3-part meditative structure that you can use:  purgation, illumination, union.  Although the past few weeks have been delightful with travel and friends, I had a few issues that I wanted to worry a bit, so I anxiously neaded in with "the vine between my feet."  However, as I began circling the labyrinth, people kept bumping into me.  I had not followed Diana's instructions for one of the best times to walk;  instead, I jumped into the serendipity of free time and an uncovered labyrinth.  So, as I was winding my way through my spiritual path of the day, I was repeatedly slammed into by Starbuck's waving, PDA-poking, cell-phone ranting New Yorkers frenzying their way into Friday night fun.  I tried to recenter myself by looking at this as a challenge:  one of the reasons I am drawn to the labyrinth is because I have so much trouble stilling the outside world.  This, I reasoned, was a metaphor.  And yet, metaphor  is an awfully abstract idea for the woman standing on the edge of the labyrinth talking on her cell phone saying "what the hell is she doing?"  Of course, this might or might not have been about me;  yet it was sadly enough to end my labyrinth walking.  Sigh.  I chalked Friday up as a Nietzsche day, "You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star."  But, I also offer this second entry into the epistles on public art.  Shouldn't public art make you stop and reconsider your surroundings?  It's kind of hard to do when your cell phone keeps ringing every two seconds, your hand is getting that warm sweat from a too-hot cup of coffee, and you're late for your next 4 appointments.  Sometimes, you don't even notice what you're walking on, in, over, around,or by. Consider this a call for prepositional public art.

For more on Diana Carulli's cool New York City labyrinths, check out her website:  http://www.dianacarulli.com/labyrinth1.html.

Random Public Art Reference:

Thanks to B for her tongue-in-cheek invitation after my musings about the Gates and public art to "see the Gates in a new way":  "The Crackers"