Social Proactivity: thinking outside the box

"Creativity can produce solutions to social problems and concerns. It is at work in the architect who provides affordable and environmentally friendly living solutions, the village woman whose pottery is providing for her family and keeping a cultural tradition alive, and the designer whose consultation helps the village woman to produce a marketable product. Art can inspire hope and beautify environments. We see this in the community art project that brings people together for a common cause, the innovative design that allows us to live more consciously, the handmade plates and bowls that draw family and friends away from the television to sit at the table and talk, and the exhibition that inspires the visitor to take personal action. These examples are a starting point. The need in our world is great, but as creative individuals we can be proactive, with tremendous potential to bring hope through our unique talents and innovative ideas."

(selection from my article that was published in studio potter last Summer Thinking Outside the Box: Social Proactivity and part of the manifesto I am working on)

Art and the Quotidian Object (thoughts)

1. Why must we suppress desire in regard to art? Why must we view it in an disinterested way?

What is the point? I appreciate art that awakens desire and that I can experience with my emotions.

2. "there are 3 different types of interest: ethical, instrumental, and appetitive" p 46

While at the armory show I was asking myself what is it that attracts me to a work of art. What essence must it have to make me want to spend time with it? What is it that gives a work value?

3. "what is being described here is an art practice that tries to circumvent selfish desire, power, mastery, possessiveness_the whole complex of relations that normally governs our lives. This is called disinterestedness." p46

So maybe I have misunderstood what the author of this article meant by disinterestedness. . . I like this definition I think. . .

4. The found object is often an object that has once had a function but in the museum has been stripped of its function, or given a new function as a found object so that it becomes autonomous, separet from the world. In this way we might look at it in a new light, see it differently. But how interesting is this really? There are some cases that I find it interesting. When the artist creates a new composition with it and use the objects in a way that exhibits craftsmanship.

Reed Seifer

SPRAY TO FORGET is a conceptual and functional product based on the possibility that “a substrate to physical reality exists, and that it can be deterministically altered and influenced by human intention.” – Duncan Laurie, The Secret Art

SPRAY TO FORGET functions as a beneficial editor for one’s consciousness, removing undesired memories from the user’s psyche via supported intent. Reed Seifer proposes that “in order to forget, we must remember something else. Spray to Forget acts as a conceptual sideways-elevator, nudging the unconscious to release a difficult memory and replace it with a more appealing one, or to create a new memory through experience… It also happens to smell quite good.”

While based in concept, SPRAY TO FORGET utilizes well-researched ingredients in support of its function. An aesthetic olfactory experience is provided through a blend of essentials oils selected for their reputed aroma-therapeutic benefits in grounding and elevating the emotions. Herkimer diamonds and black tourmaline, crystals believed to metaphysically assist in the elimination of tension from the body, were steeped for several days in the purified, magnetized water used to create the spray.

SPRAY TO FORGET, handmade in an edition of 500, is available in a 2 ounce (60 mL) glass bottle. The beautiful letterpress label is signed and numbered.

(text taken from artists web site)

ReedSeifer.com

Rina Banerjee

"artist's comment of exhibition 'lure of places'
in an unnatural storm a world fertile, fragile and desirous, polluted with excess pollination, hungry to seize an untidy commerce also gave an unknowable size to some mongrel possessions, excreted a promiscuous heritage, sprayed her modern love, breathed deeper than any one place arching her back threw new roots that would light, sparkle and glitter on hard ground, make fire of crown, empire, religion bathe unseasonable hope to alter what could not be warm.
--
artwork curated by obadia gallery, france" (text taken from design boom web site)

designboom.com

Paola Pivi

I Wish I am Fish

"Eighty goldfish touched down in a chartered Whisper Jet at Auckland International Airport Saturday 21 March.

Renowned Italian artist Paola Pivi has conceived I Wish I Am Fish as part of the nationwide ONE DAY SCULPTURE series. Each transported in their own glass bowl and allocated their own seat, the goldfish were flown over the Tasman creating a remarkable filmic event capturing the tilt of water during take off and the luminous light of high altitude skies. The video of their flight was screened at Freyberg Square from 9pm that evening.

The work has been commissioned by Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki curator Natasha Conland for the nationwide ONE DAY SCULPTURE series on the occasion of Auckland Festival 2009." (text taken from one day sculpture web site)

onedaysculpture.org

Rashid Rana

Rashine Rana takes photographs of a certain street throughout a specific day capturing the action and lighting changes throughout the day and night. He puts the small images together in a large composition of the street scene.

http://sites.asiasociety.org/hangingfire/rashid-rana/

TINO SEGAL at the Guggenheim

ON THE BUS YESTERDAY I MET AN ART HISTORY PROFESSOR, WHO HAD JUST PARTICIPATED IN TINO SEHGAL'S PIECE CURRENTLY TAKING PLACE AT THE GUGGENHIEM MUSEUM OF ART. IT HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH CONVERSATIONS ON PROGRESS AND WAS PARTIALLY STAGED BUT NOT SCRIPTED WITH INTERACTIONS THAT INVOLVED MUSEUM VISITORS. A CHILD WOULD ASK A MUSEUM VISITOR A QUESTION, "WHAT IS PROGRESS?"THE CHILD WOULD THEN SHARE THE RESPONSE WITH AN ADOLESCENT. A YOUNG ADULT WOULD LISTEN IN ON THE CONVERSATION AND WOULD THEN TRANSMIT THE IDEA TO AN OLDER ADULT. . . EACH PART WOULD TAKE PLACE ON ANOTHER LEVEL OF THE MUSEUM.

Tino Sehgal

"THERE’S TOO MUCH STUFF IN THE WORLD—THAT’S THE CONTENTION OF TINO SEHGAL. SO THE BERLIN-BASED ARTIST CONSTRUCTS EXPERIENCES, NOT OBJECTS, THAT CAN NEVERTHELESS BE BOUGHT AND SOLD. IN ADVANCE OF HIS UPCOMING SOLO SHOW AT THE GUGGENHEIM, SEHGAL GIVES AN INSIDE LOOK AT HIS UNORTHODOX METHODS".
article on Tino Sehgal wmagazine.com

El Anatsui

http://www.jackshainman.com/artist-image417.html

Olafur Eliasson: Child-like joy!!

Exhibition at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery: February 11- March 20, 2010

This exhibition is beautiful! Colorful lights project shadows onto the walls. It is so much fun!!!

As experience oriented work, Olafur is creating an experience, a journey for the audience.

http://www.tanyabonakdargallery.com/artist.php?art_name=Olafur%20Eliasson

no visible traces

p84 Tino Sehgal recruits actors to interpret his interactive scenarios, he requests that no visible traces be left behind. . . “the insistent on the here and now”

ephemeral entities

“It must be admitted that each of us now intuitively perceives existence as a collection of ephemeral entities, far from the impression of permanence that our ancestors, whether rightly or wrongly, formed of their environment”

Nicholas Bourriard

Generative Art

“Does this new object that has entered that artistic bubble generate thought and activity or not? Does it have an influence on this space-time, and if so, what sort of productivity does it generate? These are the questions, it seems to me, that are more pertinent to ask of a work. Whether or not it holds up and has a story to tell, coordinates, produces. . . Does something pass or come to pass? Let’s set aside the reflexes of the policeman and the legislator and look at art through the eyes of a curious traveler, or those of a host receiving unfamiliar guests in his or her home?

Nicholas Bourriard, Radicant 105

What is radicant aesthetics? (an outline)

What is radicant aesthetics?

1. movement, dynamism of forms

2. precariousness, volatility, lifespan of the object is becoming shorter

3. All trends coexisting. . . in the past (until the 1980s) fashion in clothing and music had time to develop before giving way to another that was equally distinct

4.“the precarious against the solid, the flea market against the shopping mall, ephemeral performance and fragile materials against stainless steel and resin” (Bourriard, 82)

5. the era of commitment is past

6. space and time specific. . . thinking about space in terms of time. . . using time as a phenomena and a place for us to travel in we can shift back and forth in . . . not as linear

7. potentially moveable

8. not a terminal object but merely a moment in a chain

9. the journey has become an art form in itself

10. the collection of samples and information along a path

11. the experience of exploration, rather than the image of exploration

12. post-medium, not based on any specific disciplinary practice

13. the indeterminacy of art’s source code, resisting hyper-formating.