The Site of Art - Essay Example

The Site of Art The site of art has become increasingly important to artists as a means of deepening and expanding the messages they are attempting to convey in their work. Rather than simply existing in a blank, generic space, artists are seeking ways of having the surrounding environment work with their art to avoid the relatively blasé attitude toward works found in many museums. Visitors walk past blank white walls into an area of art, give a cursory glance at the works and then walk on by to the next exhibit often without giving the work any serious consideration or reflection. Yet, to fully appreciate the impact of art, the viewer needs to be able to hear the environment speak through the piece. To do that we must stop, look and listen to what the work is trying to say. Art practices in the modern age have been strongly influenced by what is termed the “politics of representation.” This term distinguishes between the content of an image and the form of the image, or the sublime versus the visual, both of which are affected by the environment in which the art exists. The reason for this is that art is not static, but is instead interactive with its audience, the political and social ideas they hold, the symbols inherent in the forms used and the environment in which the work is placed. These are all elements of the postmodern movement. “The political and the aesthetic are inseparable, simultaneously present, faces of the postmodern problematic” (Burgin, 1982). It is because of this postmodern problematic that artists such as Tom Otterness and Jenny Holzer consider the site of their work to be an important element of the work itself. The 1960s was a time of turbulent change for America, the naturally rebellious attitude of sculptors served to establish this as the art form of the people. “Sculptors have preferred inscrutability to compliance with the values of a world increasingly influenced by marketing and entertainment. The sheer variety of materials and forms that have been presented as sculpture … makes it clear that sculpture has not been regarded as a stable concept with fixed boundaries” (Causey, 1998: 7). With grand public works such as the land art or earth art movement of the 60s and 70s, sculpture emerged as “an attempt to connect art to the world around them” (Peter Murray, founding Executive Director of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park quoted by Kaufman, 1999) and established the importance of environment, or the site of the art, to the meaning of the art itself. This is an idea well realized by sculptor Tom Otterness who has often worked to create public works of art that have significance because of their content and location. The sculptor is perhaps best known for the unusual sculptures he has scattered throughout New York City in both permanent and temporary displays. Greatly concerned with the direction our society has taken, these sculptures often have something biting to say about the modern world. Although friendly, approachable and often displaying a great sense of fun, most of these sculptures speak with a negative voice about the Western world’s overwhelming preoccupation with money and the effect this has had. Their location in New York City, the capitol of capital, thus has profound significance. His concern is reflected even in work designed for a children’s playground located in Battery Park entitled “The Real World.” Installed in 1992, “The Real World” is envisioned as a map of the world beyond the playground, exposed for what it really is – a bunch of pint-sized individuals running around chasing after the penny that looms ever-large in their perspective, blinding them to other pursuits. Each of the characters portrayed within the park are designed to bring delight and enjoyment to the children who visit. At the same time, they make serious social comments to the parents watching their children play, at once forcing the adults to stop, look and listen to the sculptures and entertaining visitors in an interactive environment that contributes to the messages intended. This is done through the careful creation of a series of vignettes found in areas such as the “food chain” and the fountain. The food chain consists of a series of small bronze sculptures that follow a familiar pattern. An almost friendly-looking bulldog stands in erect attention with all of his concentration focused on a cat crouching on a nearby wall. His stillness is explained by the formidable chain strapped around his neck and attached with a lobster-claw catch around the base of a drinking fountain. The flat back of the dog serves as a handy stepping stool for small children wishing to get a drink while it also emphasizes man’s superiority over the other creatures and his position at the top of the food chain. The cat, crouched low and ready on the wall, is equally absorbed in the contemplation of a small, geometrically composed bird perched at the corner, inching his way closer to a fatly wriggling worm just ahead of him. The worm is being held up by one of Otterness’ Lilliputian figures, who often serve to represent the common man too often overlooked in the capitalist society. By placing this person at this point in the chain, Otterness gives the impression that the tiny man is offering the worm to the bird as a substitute for himself, suggesting the necessity for the common man to sacrifice his fellow creatures for his own survival. The central fountain provides another allegory, this time centering around the idea of what happens when greed gets out of control. The fountain features the portrayal of a very rickety construction of a tower, representing the tower of Babble or perhaps the state of disrepair that can occur when a man grips too tightly to his money rather than investing in the world around him. Perched at the top of this tower is a Humpty-Dumpty type creature who has become fat on his own horde and is now under attack by a large dinosaur intent on cleaning house. When the Humpty Dumpty creature finally falls, he cracks open just like his namesake character, or perhaps like a child’s piggy bank, and spills out all the pennies he’d been working so hard to hold onto. The former workers hurry to roll the pennies away for their own safekeeping, failing to learn the lesson just provided. Yet the pennies have suddenly become gigantic compared to their own station in life, suggesting that they will have to come across an improbable number of lucky incidents such as this one before they will ever attain the status once enjoyed by the Humpty-Dumpty figure. All of these messages are those that can be followed by simply following the natural story order of the sculptures, each leading the eye to the next and all serving to illustrate the same storyline, that of the corporate world overshadowing and constantly oppressing the common man. Another artist that considers the site of her art to be just as important as the content of it is Jenny Holzer. It was her Truism series that brought her fame as she took her art out of the context of the lengthy text, image and interior spaces of the museums to introduce it to the streets in bold, clear, concise statements. “The ‘Truism’ dramatized a depersonalized and amoral information landscape through juxtapositions. Holzer has since produced a variety of texts with points of view ranging from inflammatory manifesto to feminist or parental concern to bleak resignation. In all of her work she links ideological statements with the forms and meanings of architecture” (Stuart Collection, 1992). Although she lives and works in New York, her work is known throughout the country for its biting reflections on political issues of the day coupled with her blatant attempt to involve the average consumer in the interaction. In her work, Holzer attempts to defamiliarize reality from within accepted symbolic systems. Rather than presenting images as truth, Holzer works to present words as truth by resorting to culturally adapted slogans through her abbreviated Truisms, an exhibition she started in 1977 and which continued to be displayed as late as 1990 in special exhibitions such as the one she placed at the Guggenheim Museum. The spiral walkway of this museum well-known for its tendency to push intellectual thought took on special tri-color LED displays in 1990 to display Holzer’s slogans. However, Holzer normally displays these works in the public sphere, often in locations typically occupied by commercial advertising rather than within the halls of a museum. In this respect, she challenges the ideas that art must be preserved within enclosed spaces for a select few before she’s even said a word. By using many cliché-type slogans in her digitized electronic sign display, Holzer visually challenges her audience to ‘hear’ these culturally accepted sayings that have been thrown about since childhood, but largely ignored. What isn’t explicitly written out, but is understood, is that one is expected to think about what these slogans mean, introducing one level of the sublime into the public sphere in which she displays her work. This can be taken a level or two deeper by introducing the idea that perhaps not all of these slogans are considered a cliché. Because she uses occasional statements such as “Extreme self-consciousness leads to perversity” (“Jenny Holzer”, 2008) that aren’t necessarily an accepted societal view but more an individual view, Holzer also introduces the idea that although we might think we all originate from a single background, the fact is that even siblings do not live their lives with the same assumptions regarding the topics Holzer addresses. After challenging the notion that all words in the public sphere are meaningless and that the clichés of childhood have ceased to carry wisdom, Holzer adds the ideas that we are not all culturally identical and that wisdom can also be found in the words of others. However, the only words ever printed are the slogans themselves in as minimalist a form as possible with only slight changes in voice based on the limited range of the electronic board and the font styles available. For both of these artists, the site of their work is an important element in conveying the sublime elements of their meaning through the physical content of their forms. Otterness creates a play area for children at the same time that he makes a strong statement to financially-conscious adults about the true nature of their pursuit of money in the heart of a city designed for the money market. Forcing adults to reflect on these ideas as they watch their children play serves to deepen the meaning of his work as the environment does not encourage one to simply view the sculpture, nod politely and then pass along to the next gallery space. Similarly, Holzer surprises the public spaces in which she exhibits simply because she works in an area most often dominated by advertising. Her site is carefully selected so as to force new realizations about the spaces we inhabit, what their meaning is to us and how this serves to affect us with our behaviors. In both cases, the site of the art is as important as the content of the art in making its more sublime meaning understandable to an often busy and not fully attentive audience. References Burgin, Victor. (March, 1982). New Jersey: Humanities Press Intl. Causey, Andrew. (1998). Sculpture Since 1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press. “Jenny Holzer”. (2008). Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art. Kaufman, Leslie. (October 1999). “Sculpture Parks and Gardens Conference.” ISC Web Special. International Sculpture Center. Retrieved April 7, 2010 from Otterness, Tom. [Professional Webpage Portfolio]. Retrieved April 7, 2010 from Stuart Collection. (1992). “Jenny Holzer.” San Diego, CA. Retrieved April 7, 2010 from Read More