Artists for presentation

For Graduate Seminar in Metal, we've been asked to prepare a twenty minute presentation that focuses on three artists whose work we admire. I've chosen Monika Sosnowska, Susan Collis, and Los Carpinteros. Below are some of the images I plan on using.

-------------------------------

Value systems

the creation of artwork is an assertion of value

In the case of Susan Collis' work, perhaps she is using a shared value system to validate a personal value system.

Introduction:

Quote: "Artists orient themselves not to objects but to their predecessors. And if we can still conceive of an artistic programme of 'imitatio' or 'realism', it will have to be pursued very differently, and more successfully, than it was in the past. But the programme of does not represent an autonomous autopoietic system either, but is merely a misunderstanding of the latter. For simply attempts to turn the system itself into a programme within the system and thereby fails to grasp the elementary fact that autonomy, far from undermining all relations to the external environment, precisely presupposes and governs them. The autopoiesis of art is actually destroyed if dependency is effectively interpreted as the negation of dependency." (Art in theory, 1080).

-to cut off art's access to the world is to ensure its eventual demise; art is part of the world

-doesn't that mean that everything is art? because if autopoiesis is self-sustaining creation, then it could exsis

For a discussion of value in the art world, there is no better place to begin than the post office.

As artists, we negotiate the question of value every day in our studios. We encounter this again in the dispersion of our work. Apart from gallery and market considerations, even shipping artwork is problematic. For many shipping companies, in order to send artwork, it must be insured, and in order to insure it, the value of the piece must be declared. The question how much is it? versus how much is it worth? becomes a problematic difference.

So how do we assess value in a work of art? Value in art is tricky to define, because it relies on reified value and conceptual value, both of which are important considerations in a work of art. I would answer that value in a work of art is constantly changing, and is a negotiation between the reified value and conceptual value of a work. The mediation between these two hinges on a common theme: rareity

rareitey, that which cannot be replaced, that on which we are willing to spend our time, our lives

But then again, maybe value can be assessed in a point of view, a reorientation towards the world, a change in perspective, that, as adults, we experience very rarely.

Some threads of connection between the work:

-value is explored through their choice of materials

-value is placed on: the everyday, the discarded, the intimate object, the architectural fragment, using conventions we are familiar with to encourage us to see the world anew

-All concerned with interior space, objects that are commonly seen in domestic space while not overly nostalgic

-The artists all approach their subjects with the detached fascination one would expect to see from an anthropologist interpreting an ancient culture

-all exhibit a flare towards the fantastic (especially in the work of Sosnowska and Los Carpinteros (compare to Damien Ortega)

------------------------------------------------------

Susan Collis

"Visitors stop being viewers and become associates, intimately linked to the artist by a shared secret." (artinfo.com, 1)

Collis' work is marked by its obsessive attention to detail; the amount of time and effort devoted to the creation of these banal objects becomes devotional- it is proof of a belief system. Belief in what? Her relationship to material is a defining quality in her work. She recreates construction scenes with precious materials, using the finest hardwoods in the place of pine, silk embroidery thread in the place of house paint splotches, and white gold in the place of stainless steel screws. Collis' courage to submit to the possibility of being misunderstood is admirable. Despite the deft use of materials, her work is not flashy, nor is it particularly eye catching-- her work demands stillness, time, and contemplation. Only the dedicated viewer who leans in for a closer look or one who reads the list of materials from the wall tags will benefit from Collis' work. She runs the risk of being seen as another unmonumental sculptor, working with the discards of a consumer society.

Collis is a maker not only of individual pieces, but of situations. The gallery is a perfect location for these closely composed still lives; they are a naturally occuring part of building repair that is carefully kept behind closed doors; they expose the fragility and transience of the gallery. Collis valorizes these brief, individual moments of banality, and by proxy, she invites us to contemplate the quiet, quotidian still lives that surround us. Her work exists in a state of post-function, as if we are happening upon a scene where someone has just finished working.

While her work is enticing, her use of materials is not innovative or even surprising, once we are accustomed to her formula. A screw made of white gold and set with a diamond works within a well established value system; Collis uses our expectations of screws and contrasts them with our expectations of gold. This is not at all a novel strategy; jeweler and artist Caroline Gore, as well as Lisa Gralnick both use this strategy in their work. While adding gold and diamonds to a piece obviously increases its market value, the more elusive question that comes to mind when viewing this work is whether or not it increases its artistic value. Is there a correlation between artistic and market value?

In the case of Susan Collis' work, perhaps she is using a shared value system to validate a personal value system.

The concentration Collis' approach to materiality is in many ways antithetical to Tara Donovan, who monumentalizes everyday materials through repetition, creating a sense of wonder through disassociation from their context of use. Donovan's creations have an epic sensibility to them; although the are made from glue and buttons in the case of "Bluffs," or of a sea of disposable plastic cups as in "Untitled (Plastic cups)," our attention is drawn to qualities of these banal objects of which we were formerly unaware. The clear plastic cups, once cheap, and utilitarian, becomes luminous, ethereal,.and otherworldly.

Chief curator of the ICA Boston, Nicholas Baume says of Donovan,"Tara's work isn't ironic. It actually takes up the discourse of Minimalism. It's about creating a system, using a structure, and repeating incremental units that can go from the finite to the seemingly infinite." (Kino 2). Perhaps it is the sense of the infinite, the loss of connection to everyday things that Susan Collis' work so conspicuously lacks.

Susan Collis, Untitled

2010, Dustsheet, embroidery thread, Variable dimensions, Unique

© Cedrick Eymenier, Courtesy Seventeen Gallery

London & galerie frank elbaz, Paris

Susan Collis, Decent International

2010, Pencil on fabriano paper construction, 40 x 50 x 50 cm, Unique

© Cedrick Eymenier, Courtesy Seventeen Gallery, London & galerie frank elbaz, Paris

Susan Collis, Continue Whispering

2010, Walnut (wood), lapis, Cigar box cedar, macassar ebony, Iroko, white holly, oxidized silver (hallmarked), sterling silver, mother of pearl, pearl, white gold, aluminium, gold leaf...

Variable dimensions, in six parts, Unique

© Cedrick Eymenier, Courtesy Seventeen Gallery, London & galerie frank elbaz, Paris

-------------------------------------------------------

Monika Sosnowska

Dream like quality to her work, engenders a suspension of disbelief (similar to los carpinteros) Also similar to Los Carpinteros is her material choices; she chooses materials that closely emulate her source material-- she does not rely on material transformation as subject matter.

What I'm most drawn to in Sosnowska's work is the gestural quality of the iron structures. This gestural quality runs contrary to the intended function of the architectural fragments. The curves and crumples she creates speaks to a material that is either under pressure from an exterior force such as gravity or is obeying its own mysterious logic-- in either case, the material looks as though it i

Monika Sosnowska

The Entrance
2003
steel, MDF, paint, light

Monika Sosnowska

The Staircase

Installation view: K21 Dusseldorf

2010

Monika Sosnowska

The Staircase

Installation view: K21 Dusseldorf

2010

Monika Sosnowska

The Stairway

Herzliya Museum for Contemporary Art

2010

Monika Sosnowska

Maquette for The Hole

2006

--------------------------------------------------------

Los Carpinteros

Los Caprinteros is a decades long collaboration between two Cuban artists Marco Antonio Castillo Valdés and Dagoberto Rodríguez Sánchez

Feels familiar and unfamiliar at the same time

The forms are familiar; a bed, a rack of men's suits, a pool, but each piece seems to freeze an object in a state of transformation, cutting open the proverbial chrysalis to reveal a liminal subject. When is a bed not a bed? What basic features must an object have in order to be considered a roller coaster?

They create a dream world where the tightness of their craftsmanship allows for the suspension of disbelief.

Work many times is overcome by its own cleverness, reduced to a pithy one liner that prevents the any deeper contemplation.

Like Collis' work, Los Carpinteros relies on our understanding of the signifiers placed in each piece; without this understanding, the meaning is lost. Collis relies on our collective cultural agreement that diamonds, gold, and ebony are signifiers of wealth. In La Montana Rusa, Los Carpinteros relies on our understanding of a roller coaster as a signifier of childhood and innocent fun.

Los Carpinteros

La Montana Rusa

2008

Los Carpinteros

Piscina Casa

2006

Los Carpinteros

16m

2010

So perhaps the most successful work has an ambiguous relationship to value; it keeps us guessing, defies our expectations

Bibliography

Kino, Carol. "The Genius of Little Things." The New York Times 23 Sept. 2008.

Milliard, Coline. "In the Studio: Susan Collis." Art+Auction March, 2010. 52-53. Print.

Niklas Luhmann "The Work of Art and the Self-Reproduction of Art"

Imagining possibilities for change in the space

what are some ways that the space could change? it could evolve, show its potential, decay, crack

make piles of paint chips, create a fiction of the space molting

expoiting the seams in the walls; create cracks where there are none

activate more aspects of the space, use more walls, more floor space

the plugs have the possibility of outlining, activating the space

have the suggestion that the space is behaving like an organic thing; that it is growing, changing, obeying a logic that is self contained; that it is invested in its own survival

the plugs are simultaneously part of and separate from the space; they are powered by the space

if, as gaston bachelard says, different kinds of domestic space are representative of varying states of mind, then what kind of mental state does the oppressive whiteness of a gallery elicit? it is meant to elicit nothing; it is meant to be seen as neutral, entirely bland, a bowl of plain oatmeal. it is a means to an end, and seeks constant self-effacement. this is partially a pragmatic decision; if visitors are paying attention to a particularly well-decorated room, they will have less time and energy to spend on the paintings adorning the walls. but this decision is also a denial of the body; a denial of the gallery space as a lived space; it is as if the space were saying 'i'm not really here- you're not really here for that matter, you're floating in a sea of nothingness, all that exists is the art'.

there is a power in the fragment; trying to view an object differently by looking at the pieces that compose it. in my most recent piece, fragments of outlets are cast in plaster duplicates of their whole counterparts, illuminating both the piece and the whole simultaneously; it is reminiscent of archeological digs that present pottery fragments or bits of friezes in the orientation they eould have in their complete form.

my work is an exploration into the points of connection between viewer and the built environment.

Take casts off folds in the body and incorporate into the plastic outlet covers.

Artist Statement

My most recent artist statement detailing the beginnings of the installation I have planned:

------------------------------------------------

For my thesis, I propose a gallery installation composed of deftly integrated objects that mimic functional hardware used in the gallery space. The altered hardware will morph into bodily shapes, textures and groupings, highlighting the similarity between the corporeal body and the built environment.

The planned installation will be a continuation of my investigation on the nature of the body and its boundaries.

Artist Statement:

The gallery is a temple constructed to take us out of time and place, to make us forget, if only momentarily, that our bodies are in a continual state of decay. But if death is the absence of life, a stillness of mind and body never realized in the process of living, then it is in the process of dying that one is most alive; it is in the throes of death that entropy is most apparent. The finely crafted façade of the gallery presents us with an idealized death; a death free of entropy. Within the white walls of the gallery lies the inevitability of change. Paint chips, baseboards curl, revealing the subtle wounds inflicted by time. My thesis work resurrects the dead body of the gallery, to present this fictive space as a dying body, struggling against and yet ultimately succumbing to decay, mimicking the state of our corporeal bodies. Functional hardware of the gallery is altered, evolving into a state of dysfunction; outlet covers stretch, fold and slump like a swelling waistline. Plug tines wilt, replaced by new growth that imitates their transformed outlets. The gallery space is morphed to reflect the function and dysfunction of our lived bodies. Its unsullied trappings are peeled back in a tragic, melancholy celebration of the beauty of life as it races toward its own un-becoming.

New Directions

Last week, I was graciously permitted a few hours alone in the Chandler Gallery. I spent it taking photos, messing with the lights and jotting down notes, trying to find ways to respond to a space that I will not be allowed to change in any way-- putting holes in the walls is not permitted, the use of adhesives is questionable, and anything hung from the ceiling must be less than 15 lbs. I then jetted off to balmy Boston for the weekend, taking along with me a mounting sense of panic at the task I had set myself.

But in considering my notes and looking at my pictures, I realized that significant opportunities lie in the architecture of the space; in its redundancies, points of connection, and openings. Cracks in the baseboards, chips in the paint, five stray nails resiliently clinging to the floor in a far corner like moss growing in the cracks of a city sidewalk. A group of 20 light switches on one wall, and 10 outlets spread out along the walls and columns.

Despite the general desire of curators the world over to cut off their white cubes from the realities of the outside world, we are given clues into the life of the Chandler Gallery and we are able to relate the gallery to other, more habitable spaces we encounter in everyday life.

For the last few days, I have been concentrating my efforts on creating slightly mutated outlets and plugs for installation into the space. This will be part of a larger installation encompassing the entire space. It will make use of the outlets already in the space, as well as adding around 50 more. Most of these outlets will be connected to one another via long cords (either black or white) that plug into both outlets. Some plugs will be unplugged, revealing both the altered plug and the altered outlet. Some of the altered found objects will be subtle, just different enough that their mass production seems possible. Others will be more obviously altered, as if the hardware has taken on a life of its own, evolving according to an ambiguous set of rules.

While this may seem to be a large departure from my previous ideas for my thesis show, I firmly believe that this is a more natural extension of my original idea to define, penetrate, expose and interrogate the boundaries of the body. I have consistently tried to bring a bodily aesthetic to my work, but in the last few weeks I have come to realize that the body is already present in the space. I don't need to bring the body to the work; the space IS the body.

We require predictibility from our spaces- a changlessness that we cannot find in our daily lives. when the spaces we inhabit fail to fulfill our demand for order, we are left faced with the harsh realities of the exterior world, whose lack of order is beyond our control.

Photos of the Dorsky

Are Gentle Observations Enough?

I've been trying to incorporate the idea of place, of site related-ness into my thesis work. Using the logic of the space and confounding it, hopefully resulting in a strange, gradually arresting experience for the audience. I'm thinking of adding more light switches and outlets to the the space, remaking them in a dysfunctional way, while suggesting the possibility of function and possible evolution.

But I'm still not comfortable calling what I'm doing Art. Maybe, just maybe art, but certainly not Art. Part of this reasoning comes from, as I began to understand in London, the deep-seated feelings I have regarding gentle observations. Many artists today use Selection and Choice as their primary tools. Gabriel Orozco's photographs are a perfect example, as are his Yogurt Caps. (See below, Crazy Tourist, 1991).

Akin to the casual style of the above Orozco work is that of Neil Drabble. I saw a show of his work at the GOODEN Gallery in London. It was called The Great Masturbator on Holiday, and was filled with small, impromptu pieces created during the artist's recent vacation, using only materials on hand.