Cults of Transparency, Dan Graham, Josephine Meckseper
I find is very fascinating that the mirror has multiple roles in art in the context of art aesthetics. I see the mirror as Meckseper's work as a kind of protection for valuable objects and as also as a form of seduction by allowing the viewers see the objects within the transparent glass which holds the fetishized items. In the context of transparency, the mirror becomes a metaphor for the process of having access to other cultures. I think of that cultural consumerism in the museum context of art or even in global context of anthropological study. We are always feeling the necessity to embrace new and multiple cultures, as an integument of civilization.
Josephine Meckseper Tout Va Bien, 2005 (Saatchi Gallery)
At the beginning of contemporary art, the term commodity had become an inspiring tool in the production of art. The decision for consumers and as spectators and the control of the market which tended to influence artist, began the change the meaning of art and value. Today, art in its aesthetics has inevitably become political.
Sarah Lookofsky said, "The viewer is caught quite literally by the mirrored backing in Meckseper’s vitrines, which causes a disorienting doubling of the objects on display as well as viewers’ inclusion among them". Meckseper’s vitrines give a critical response to this issue. Dan Graham’s half square is fascinating in terms of how the architecture of the glass tends loose its protective ideology and yet functions in a different context as it makes viewers see themselves in the reflection. I see Dan's glass as a statement of that culture is accessible but it is also commodified. The reflection of the spectators contextualized as the way the people as a society could see themselves shaped by cultures. The author quoted Paul Scheerbart, "Our culture is to a certain extent the product of our architecture".
Dan Graham, Half Square/Half Crazy 2004 (Source, Chaotic Entity)
Odd Lots: Revisiting Gordon Matta Clark's Fake Estate and Reinvesting in Fake Estate - White Columns New York (October 15) and Nancy Princenthal
The article explores Matta Clark’s idea that he used to purchase a plot for projects that were never realized became embraced by a group of artists who decided to activate the space by producing work in the context of marginalized histories and the ambitions of Matta Clark. This reminds me of Robert Smithson’s idea of the Amarrilo Ramp project which he wasn’t able the realize before he died but was later completed by his wife Nancy Holt and artist Richard Serra. In this context, the authorship of a work becomes complex. The question is, does Robert Smithson still hold authorship to the work or Nancy Holt and Richard Serra? In the context of conceptual art, Robert Smithson is the author of the work because he designed the project.
A visitor to Amarillo Ramp approaches the earthwork’s highest point. Photo: Gianfranco Gorgoni, © Holt/Smithson Foundation/Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York
The Cabinet editors Jeffrey Kastner, Sina Najaii and Frances Richard and a contributing artist such Mark Dion took the project on the level as a source of inspiration from the urban design by Matta Clark to produce work which could be viewed as art responding to historical issues, ideas and cultural experiences. The author stated, "Involving maps, receipts and photographs that relate to the purchases of the lots, three of the 14 collages assembled by Matta-Clark’s widow Jane Crawford appeared at the Queens Museum along with Jaime Davidovich’s 1975 documentary video, Queen Project" (Nancy Princenthal)
Discotheques, Magazines and Plexiglas: Superstudio and the Architecture of Mass Culture
Ross K. Elline
In Ross Elline's view, architecture needs to conform to human need before it is considered as the
functional to the society. The Superstudio tends to be a radical intention of
using architecture as tool to reform the expectation of the society through the
realization of the mass culture, and popular culture. In 1960s the writer Mario
Tronti influenced the Italian artists and architects with book, Workers and Capital where the theory impacted the artists and architects’ decisions in
terms of how to be self critical about objects and images.
BLOX Copenhagen designed by Rm Koolhas
The
super studio uses the identity of place and mass production to explore the
logics of modern architecture as a commodified object. It gave rise to the
critical speculation of life and freedom in resonance of architecture as something that
defines the symbolism of a city - a way through which an expected life could be
fully experienced. Art institutions invest highly into renowned architects to
build museums that would even be interacted as an object. The author mentioned
that, with the super studio, architecture is based on system of the capitalist
market. This makes me see buildings not only as monuments but also as objects
with seductive capabilities of pulling consumers for the culture with which that
building holds.
Guggenheim Museum designed by Frank Lloyd Wright
JUSTICE: The Rise of Forensic Architecture by Andrew Curry
It is fascinating that the forensic architecture is an involvement of critical analysis of movement, perception, smelling and hearing. The architect needs to be creative along with logics and understanding as source of inspiration for the design project. This reading makes me think of the speculative design by Anthony Duane and Fiona Raby where the designer becomes creative in the way that, with the space he or she creates, the viewer tends to contemplate between the real and unreal while reimagining the experience of the space in terms of the past, present and the future. The author quoted, to “ground truth” or verify the computer model’s accuracy, FA built the café replica". Wiezman’s work is also a restaging of a space just like Thomas Demand but architectural design approach like Thomas Demand.
Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Vault (detail)
2012
C-Print / Perspex
Courtesy Taka Ishii Gallery, Sprüth Magers Berlin London, Esther Schipper, Berlin, Matthew Marks Gallery© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn / VISCOPY, Sydney
The architect Eyal Weizman’s is not just an architect but also thinks as an artist by constructing architectural model as an art that gives one an access to interact with the created space and reimage an action in the context of a past experience. Weizman says. “On the one hand they open up new political or technological possibilities and on the other, they are relevant—they are where the political edge is.” I see Weizman’s forensic studio approach as a combination of architecture and art in terms of how it contributes to social roles in a community as it explores the nature of justice for humanity in a critical manner.
Courtesy @ Forensic Architecture
Emmanuel, I like the way you are weaving the readings together and considering artistic intentions in response to cultural conditions. All of these projects share way(s) in which ideas, sites, and designs are brought into a larger collaborative process whereby authorship is shared or explored to solve a problem or realize new possibilities. The age of mechanical reproduction (and digital reproduction) has allowed images, sites, and objects to be explored and shared with greater ease and complexity. Perhaps this all could be looped back into the redefining of the "ever-expanding field."
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