Taking a brief break from the heavy stuff this week. Here is something that I think many of my readers would enjoy, especially the artists in the group. You might find an affinity between your practice and that of the artist I introduce here.
What is contemporary art made of? Or, what can it be made of?
My first three Making & Meaning posts, "When is a Chair Art?," explained how the different agents and institutions of the Art World make objects, such as an ordinary chair, into art. Recently, I came across a video interview produced by the Lousiana Museum of Modern Art that provides an excellent counter-point to those articles. In this interview, a maker of art objects, Jessica Stockholder, eloquently explains how she turns ordinary stuff into art.
Stockholder is a Canadian/American artist working in Chicago. Her art education began at the University of Victoria where she studied with sculptor Mowry Baden. Stockholder's material is anything that can be re-purposed and re-shaped to form a composition. She builds, collages, and paints on these objects which, once assembled, never tell a straight forward story. Rather, her objective is to "disturb the meaning" of everyday objects while at the same time offering the viewer a sense of pleasure and beauty. Yes, she uses that word "beauty!"Â
Enjoy!
Finally getting to this. Ha. I liked her manner. I think she would be a cool person to have a conversation with. I think her approach is very spontaneous and intuitive. Very apolitical. She is interested in understanding as opposed to advocacy. For eg: the comments she made about plastic were very non judgemental. Its just whats there and that is interesting enough for her.
She wants the viewer to interpret meaning, as opposed to there being some meaning ascribed to it by the artist, like many others we have looked at...where context and background is so important.
Her intent is exploratory, not research based. She wants to generate feelings in the viewer. It is not an intellectual exercise (very much the opposite of the artist we are discussing this upcoming week whose work seems very cerebral.)
The work is very much about the materials. She is playing with materials. Geography is the west...lots of plastic for one thing.
Some of what I wrote here may need to be put in categories by you Marie. I can't quite remember what mode of production was about....and not sure how Subect fits in here. To me she almost has no subject! Although maybe the repurposing of objects?