#intersections551

Zaha Hadid passed away this year as one of the most beloved women architects of our time. She was born in Iraq and began her own practice in London in the 80’s. She is known for always pushing the boundaries of architecture and urban design. She experiments with new spatial concepts that intensifies the existing urban landscaped. She’s well-known for the Mind Zone at the Millenium Dome in 1999 and also the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in 2003. One major architectural development that she is known for is the London Olympic Aquatic Centre. The concept was inspired by the fluid geometry of water in motion and it creating spaces and a surrounding environment with the river landscape of the Olympic Park. The rippling roof sweeps up from the ground to represent a wave and it encloses the pools of the Centre with a unifying gesture. This development speaks with such eloquence and fluidity. It is one of the most sophisticated ways of creating a structure for an indoor pool.

In the modern and contemporary period, the common quality of non-representational and figurative sculptures is that neither is true to life. It is only a matter of how much the real life is manipulated and for what purpose. Giacometti and Newman are both said to be dealing with existentialism and spirituality in their art, yet Giacometti’s sculptures are easily recognized as stylized figures, while Newman’s absolutely geometrical and non-representational. Interestingly, as sculptors, they both seem to have continued the same style of their painting. Comparing their works Man Pointing, 1947 and Here 1 (to Marcia) 1950/62, one obvious similarity is the slim and elongated silhouette, as if deprived of all extra flesh but left only the core, the simple fact that it exists in space.

Dia:Beacon  (alternate blog for week 8′s topic on female artists)

The very first art work I saw was Walter De Maria’s 360˚ I Ching/64 Sculptures and I had no idea what I was supposed to get from it. That was probably why through out the rest of the visit I was thinking about the question “how much does an artwork relate to the audience”. It was an interesting aspect to explore especially in a museum largely filled with minimalist and conceptual art. Also it has been a persistent question for me since I came from a non-artistic background but somehow got to be exposed with highly professional art critics and ways of thinking during college. Even though I get excited sometimes finding myself writing sentences that sound a little bit like those we read, you know, the established ones, an original part of me always wants to jump back to an outsider who has not been trained or looking at art for years. Is this art comprehensible? In more neutral words (so as to clarify an elite artist is not authority and it is not the audience’s fault when they do not “understand” or like something ), is this art attractive? Does it matter or get to me? Is the artist being too smart and too exclusive that he is not meaningful anymore to the majority? This is obviously a very subjective side to stand on, for to me art is the most valuable when it talks useful things to people, instead of just a high-end game played by a few.

So, I was walking with my eyes wide open, trying not to have presumptions in mind but simply observing what my eyes are drawn to and for how long (which should to be distinguished from only reacting to aesthetic, since in a quick second the mind is already linking the visual to its thoughts and feelings). It was interesting to find out that intuitively Blinky Palermo’s color combinations in the same frame made more sense (in other words mattered more) to me than the colored pieces cut into different shapes. I suppose those shapes were to a certain degree too random to bring anything feeling to me, so my reaction was not as strong. In the color combination, it is easier to follow what is going on, as you might be choosing your favorite one, or experiencing different feelings emitted from the various combinations. Also I recalled the experience of choosing colors in a store like Ikea or Muji. My logic self tells me that this has nothing to do with the art. But deep down I am really trying to bring in attention how much effect during art looking is caused by subjective memories, and if you are not forced to look at art with a certain purpose, the real experience would really be something more like a constant action of linking random thoughts and emotions.

Richard Serra’s work turned out to be more adorable than I always assumed. I had always had a hard time understanding why necessarily that material, or why necessarily that shape, why block people on their way. The works exhibited in the museum however, all made sense in person. There is a vivid motion in the static metal sculptures. The slope placed in front of windows, especially, looked like something I or my vehicle have stepped onto many times in real life. It was a little hard to distinguish these from Joseph Beuys’ brownish sculptures, for they looked similar and both really talked about industrial materials, materials of our life. His stacks of mat were made with rubber, the identical material, but with a few “fake” ones in metal mixed within them. An absurdity was created when an unfamiliar material replaced the original one together with its original functionality.

Gerhard Richter’s installation did not seem like a very humane piece from far away. However I ended up staying there the longest looking at my reflections from different angles, seated, standing, or moving. It weirdly felt like a chance to see how other people look at me. As I kept moving and looking at the same time I also picked up the feeling I used to experience when editing movies. After a while a couple arrived and marked their location with selfies in front those black stone mirrors. And the stones just watched us without words.

Robert Smithson’s work was to me exceptional - accessible, interactive, intelligent, yet aesthetically pleasing. The dual qualities of lovely and fierce, fragile and strong, simple and abundant made them irresistible.

One could say that “understanding” is simply “being related to”. And since everyone is a unique being, there is no need to force yourself to “understand” something within the artist’s intention if it does not matter to you. And there is nothing wrong about being more attracted to an air-conditioner or the garage doors that are not intended to be part of the art exhibition. In the end no one is judged by solely a certain standard. It is the experience and the initiated thinking process that matters to an individual observer.

Fischli and Weiss

   The show of Fischili and Weiss at the Guggenheim was my favorite art exhibition among all that I have been to. It resonates with me to such a degree that bothers, making me wish to have been born earlier and been part of the collaboration. I recognized this resonance first with the drawings of structures, which is how I have always been thinking about the universe but doubt if we can actually do that to understand the whole. And then through out the many sections there is an overall plain, neutral but compelling tone, that of a documentary of real life. The presentations of life are barely manipulated, which usually are for the purpose of becoming art, yet made dramatic simply by focusing on the insignificant scenes that are not “interesting” or “special” for an art project. It becomes clearer to me as I see the TV installation playing multiple mundane scenes at the same time and later the clay sculptures, that there is a notion that we are always looking for something higher or someone we should better become from elsewhere, but what is valuable is what we really are, what we do. We produce the collective knowledge as we experiencing things, subjectively assigned with good or bad feelings. But the collective knowledge from above is really nonjudgmental, unlimited, accepting everything that exists.

   The video of how things go makes such a theatrical version of a physical experiment. As there is no man involved it bears a neutral feeling, as if “so these happened but then what”. However at the same time many of the objects seem to have feelings and characters, as you see the tire rolling down shaking or a balloon being filled and approaching explosion, which makes it kind of a metaphor of a human life, how continuous but curious all the experience happens.

   The “subjective sculptures” are a collection made for everyone, scenes from everyone’s life, so there is just so much to relate. In the sculpted scenes, which are of course inevitably only examples from way too many, there are anonymous people living their lives, some looking stupid, failing at their intention, and some enjoying happy moments they happen to be in, and (there is the artists’ intention to include) people guessing about the origin of their lives and the universe, aliens, significant figures within philosophy science, the higher thing. I saw everyone reacting to these sculptures fully in their own way, linking their previous memories, unlike perhaps in other art exhibitions trying to line up with what they are supposed to understand and judge on. Scenes within the sculptures appear almost not filtered or edited. In other words when they are scenes in one person’s life, they are wanted, unwanted, happy, sad, exciting, disappointing, significant, boring. These are reactions added to the initially neutral stories. As the collection draws all the knowledge into one place, people revisit many old memories, experience other individual’s stories, be reminded how big the universe is, or perhaps experience a glimpse of what a collective knowledge feels like. There Iies the dual of existence as individual and the whole. Within the plain titles there is a sense of observing life experience from far without the habitual judging, but with more acceptance and compassion.

With the notion of unedited life scenes, it was also an extraordinary experience for me to watch the picture slides on the two big TV screens and people’s behaviors around me. Everything comes into the art, in other words the boundary of what is being observed. After a while of watching, a Chinese man says “this size of the tv should fit perfectly in our living room”. An old couple hold hands and sit down next to me, chatting some useless words back and forth. A restless guy gets bored by the sightseeing photos and walks away. I see the Forbidden City and remember waiting in line under a burning sun, but my feeling bad is really just an illusion attached from the past.

   The dark room with projected questions is the last thing left to see. It feels crazy what I have been reading and thinking is somehow all coming closer together here, being with the two artists with a similar quest, even though the questions we ask do not 100% overlay. Why do we experience what we experience? How do things work? Why do we suffer or feel happy and are they meaningful? Among the millions of thoughts in my mind what are the ones pointing at something and what are just garbage? And in their words, “Is the world there when I'm not? How much resistance does truth take? Can I punish the world by ignoring it? Is resistance useless”, among many more.

The Dia Foundation, devoted to the preservation of minimalism, conceptual art and earthworks, opened its Dia:Beacon museum in 2003 to showcase its collection of works in these genres. Interestingly, the foundation worked closely with artist Robert Irwin, the subject of the featured exhibition, to convert the former Nabisco factory into a museum. As site-specificity and environment are defining features of these artworks, the museum shows a careful consideration of the relationship between architecture, artwork and experience. Upon entering the exhibition space, one immediately becomes aware of the spacious galleries and suffusion of natural light. In addition, there are no wall labels to mediate between work and viewer; information is provided on laminated cards placed just outside each gallery. Overall, the consideration of space seemed to enliven minimal artworks that have at times acquired a reputation as cold and distant.

While there were many iconic works on view, I will briefly discuss a few that successfully highlight the relationship between sculpture and environment. Richard Serra’s Torqued Ellipses, gradually twisting forms fashioned from the artist’s signature Cor-ten steel, virtually fill the gallery’s entire width and height. Thus, the viewer is unable to fully perceive their space and volume from any single point; his or her sense of space perception and bodily orientation is distorted. As the viewer circles around the ellipses, he or she eventually notices a small opening in each one that allows entry into the interior of the form. The curvature of each form varies, from a simple opening to the center of the ellipse to a claustrophobic, spiraling pathway, hardly wider than the human body. Serra’s surfaces have varying shades of rusted patina, which give the works a textural appeal and color that shifts with the natural light.

Another work which unsettles our bodily relationship to space is Michael Heizer’s North, East, South, West, a 2002 re-creation of a 1967 work. Heizer inverts the concept of sculpture as a solid form occupying positive physical space. Instead, he creates a series of geometric voids — negative spaces — that are directly cut into the floor of the gallery. While the descriptive cards indicate that the forms are a cube, a cone, a triangular trough, and an inverted truncated cone, each 20 feet deep, a physical barrier prevents the viewer from approaching and ascertaining the depth of the negative space. Thus, the pits feel potentially bottomless: because of their scale and placement, they evoke an absence that is not only physical, but visceral and existential. Heizer works with the architectural confines of the museum to evoke a similar feelings of awe to the natural spaces in which he is accustomed to working.