new work (in progress)

nathalie miebach lecture

I was glad to have attended the Nathalie Miebach lecture last Thursday, if only to be reminded of the importance of remaining objective in the face of creating a body of work. I remember seeing Miebach’s work in the Godine gallery last year, and being intrigued by the concept of weather statistics informing design decisions. During the lecture, I was most struck by Miebach’s collaborative, music-based projects dealing with similar concepts. The audio she shared titled, “Hurricane Noel” was chilling. I found her comment on the powerful nature of music to be valid. I believe she said, “I’ve found that it is so easy to move people through music, and so hard to do this through sculpture.” This idea stuck with me throughout the rest of the lecture, and I found myself trying to imagine what her baskets would sound like if they were translated to a musical score.

I am interested in the idea of using musical tablature as a drawing medium. I’ve seen other artists do this, Louis Bourgeois, for one. I feel like adding the collaborative element of music-making must have required a lot of courage from Miebach, who seems very much involved in her processes to the point that perhaps she’s a little out of touch with her audience. She alludes to the notion of “performance” when she talks about her work, referring to her installation space in the American Craft museum as being “theatrical”. She said her intentions were to make work to make the viewer feel like an actor on a stage, but I don’t know if this was achieved? I suppose I just had to have been there. I’ll take her word for it?

When I consider my own work in relation to that of Miebach’s I can see some similarities. We both make conceptual work, anyway. Miebach kept saying that every design element of her baskets was symbolic for something - every angle, every color, every bead. Everything was intentional, and nothing was decorative. At first I was totally on board with her when she said this: yes, here is contemporary art that is visually striking but conceptually driven – she came up with a working formula! She’s done what I strive to do! But then, after she mentioned this a few more times, I began to wonder: why isn’t there a decorative element? Where is the ambiguity? I mean, it’s there for the viewer upon seeing it: what is it I’m looking at? Why this shape? What is this thing’s function? But, after hearing Miebach talk about the work, I was a little sobered. She seemed to have an answer for everything, which made me wonder, what drives her to continue making this work? I feel like after a certain point, it would get boring! If it were my place to advise her, I would suggest to her to continue exploring the element of “play” she alluded to when she briefly spoke about childhood, and toys. I feel like this would be rewarding for her, as an artist, to maintain objectivity but not to the point where the work loses ambiguity.

Thursday, March 3rd. Observation Hours: 4.

ICA, mark bradford and gabriel kuri (nobody needs to know the price of your saab)

I enjoyed Bradford’s work in video more than his collages. Maybe I’m just too lazy to “read” a collage. I spent more time reading the labels on each of his pieces than I did looking at the pieces themselves. I was more interested in the “what” (materials) than the “how” (technique/skill involved). I went to the ICA with my mother, who was visiting from out of town. This is always a great experience, seeing contemporary art with my mother who knows nothing about it. Maybe I didn’t care that much about the collages because my mother loved them. She said they were, “beautiful”. I’m wary of any art my mom can declare “beautiful.” The videos were readable to me. I guess I just understand the language of video better than that of painting or collage.
Gabriel Kuri is my new love. The title of the show itself grabbed my attention, and the work did not let me down. Kuri is an artist working in Mexico City who holds on to every receipt of every purchase he makes, ever. I, too, do this - although, I never thought to incorporate it into my art. Kuri makes sculptures using receipts. He makes fiberglass sculptures of greasy food he once ate and has the receipt to document. He has woven tapestries of the receipts of expensive, life-changing purchases. I make drawings of bar codes and cheap furniture. Kuri’s work speaks to me on many levels.

Monday, February 21st. Observation Hours: 3.

gallery-going

On Thursday evening, I stuck around for the openings of three new shows in the Arnheim, Bakalar and Paine galleries. They were, respectively, For Emily, Astatic, and Inside the Painter’s Studio.
The first of which, For Emily, struck me for the artist's use of hair as a drawing material. The work was very personal, and very tragic. The artist invited us into something that was obviously very dear to her and very painful, and it was done delicately and with tact. It was a very respectful exhibition.
The second show, Astatic, struck me for it’s melding of animation with installation - which drew me into the work a lot more than some gallery animation shows I’ve seen. I once went to see an animation show at Harvard, and you could tell that the curators had a hard time trying to make it interesting/appealing to the audience, in these respects. I think the decision to include physical objects in the gallery changed the space entirely, and that having that additional dimension made the entire exhibit function better as a whole.
The last one was a cool; I’ll give it that. Inside the Painter’s Studio left me wishing that Fig would recreate the studios of other kinds of artists - artists working in a wide range of media, for example. I feel like that would be more interesting for me to see, personally. The concept of documenting the artist’s experience in making art is very interesting to me, and something I might explore in my next series. In many ways it was like a small-scale open studios, in an imagined space where all these artists were linked together. Very cool stuff.

Thursday, February 10th. Observation Hours: 1.