SPACES (FALL 2023)

[woundgallery]

Mona Hatoum, Exodus, 2001, Cardboard, metal, human hair, wax, 49.60 x 75.50 x 80.00 cm

[woundgallery]

Doris Salcedo, Untitled, 1998.

[aliftinax]

IRENE STRENE

[artsnquotes]

“Sculpture is for the touch, painting is for the eye. I wanted to make a sculpture for the eye and a painting for the touch.”

— Richard Artschwager

[jordi-gali]

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A post shared by Nico Kok (Dutch, b.1954) (@nicokokartinspiration)

Trudy Moore

[amare-habeo]

Sigmar Polke (German, 1941-2010)

Untitled, 1965

Felt pen and pencil on squared paper, 21 x 14.5 cm

[pacegallery]

Earth Day with David Byrne: David Byrne‘s Tight Spot, presented under the High Line in 2011, is an inflatable audio installation of low frequency pulses, tremors, and rumbles which emanate from the 40-foot globe. Byrne has commented on the phenomenon of “humans squishing their planet,” noting that Earth is no longer a “planet of clouds, deep blue oceans, beige deserts and swaths of green jungle.” Read more about Byrne’s installation here. 

[nobrashfestivity]

Unknown photographer Bernd and Max Becher, Kintzel Coal Company, Big Lick Mountains, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania 1978 Chromogenic print 4 3/8 × 3 7/16 in. (11.1 × 8.8cm) Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, represented by Max Becher, courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – Bernd & Hilla Becher Archive, Cologne

[garadinervi]

Howardena Pindell, Untitled, (mixed-media assemblage, acrylic paint, canvas, grommets, and stuffing), 1968-1970 [MCA – Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL. Mott-Warsh Collection, Flint, MI. © Howardena Pindell]

Exhibitions: Howardena Pindell: What Remains To Be Seen, Curated by Naomi Beckwith, Marilyn and Larry Fields (MCA), and Valerie Cassel Oliver, Sydney and Frances Lewis Family (VMFA), MCA – Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL, February 24 – May 20, 2018. Then VMFA – Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, August 25 – November 25, 2018

[parsasadjadi]

Final Index

12. QCQ #3: Structural Tension

13. A Structure Within a Structure: Research (1, 2, 3)

14. A Structure Within a Structure: Materials in the World

15. A Structure Within a Structure: Final

16. QCQ #4: Concrete Blonde

17. Negative Fragments

18. Negative Fragments: 25lbs

19. Positive Fragments: Research (1, 2, 3)

20. Positive Fragments: Final

[parsasadjadi]

A Structure Within a Structure

11/11/2023

I lost the video demonstrating its function. But the idea was that this picture frame would be dangling unstraight. After showing some disappointment, I would ask anyone if they would like to take care of the job (since I would be too depressed to do it myself). I would direct some courageous sucker to step up and grab this rusty, uneven ladder in this narrow space between the desk and a cutting machine, and against some electric wires. Despite any hesitations from them, I would direct them to climb on the thing and straighten the frame out.

After reading Julian Rose’s article “Structural Tension” for the QCQ, I was fascinated by the idea of making something that looked unfinished or uneven while still serving its intended function (if not subverting from it). I’d also read about Bruce Nauman’s installations where they would invite audience participation, only to make the audience feel uncomfortable. So that was another thing I wanted to incorporate. But how could I do it?

Empty bookshelves and crowded desks came to mind, but I couldn’t figure out how those could make participants *truly* feel stressed. And a steel toilet just felt too difficult for my time constraints. Eventually, I settled on a ladder. How about that? A piece of furniture we have to climb on to reach certain heights. But if the material looks too stained or rusty, if any of the steps weren’t so straight, if it has holes from steel melting (which were accidental), if there are a lot of edges where the steps could come off, and if it looks too amateurish…would you trust it? 

Then I needed something to serve as the motivation to climb on it. That’s where the picture frame came in. A STEEL picture frame. It complimented the ladder very well. To top this, I would insert an unflattering portrait of myself (aptly drawn by myself in 5 minutes) looking down on the participants, further pushing their discomfort. I was told afterwards that the drawing would’ve been cooler if it was 3D and popping out of the frame. Why couldn’t I think of that?!

The dangerous and narrow space, chosen on the day of the presentation, pushed that even further. I made sure that the frame was high enough so that reaching it without the ladder would be too challenging. The playout seemed a bit simple, but after the feedback of my last project being too stuffed, this was probably necessary.

While the piece and the idea did get a positive reception, I was kind of disappointed with it. I really wanted to push someone who was too unsure with the task (and preferably short). But then Natasha just stepped up and did it rather quickly without hesitation. It didn’t drag out as long as I would’ve wanted. What a pity. I couldn’t be as evil as I wanted to be! >:(

[parsasadjadi]

QCQ #3 - Structure Within a Structure

"So how could modernist structural expression be confronted other than rhetorically? When deconstruction and anti-architecture arrived in the ’80s, buildings were designed to look fragmented, unstable, incomplete—“cuts” were carefully engineered into walls, gaps introduced into floors, and columns twisted to produce an image of structure on the verge of collapse. Yet as the shock of the new wears off (it has now been more than twenty years since the epochal “Deconstructivist Architecture” show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York), it is all too easy to recognize the only destruction here as Semper’s “visual” one."

This quote from Julian Rose's article "Structural Tension" pertains to how artists like Oscar Tuazon deliberately embrace an unfinished aesthetic in their installations. Pieces that only look broken and malfunctional, yet still serve their purpose. Thinking back to the first QCQ involving making viewers uncomfortable, both ideas could go hand in hand as some nerve-wracking experiences. As in, a viewer could go inside a minimalist structure that seems to be on the brink of collapsing on top of them, and yet it's still standing. That's something Tuazon has explored, and it's a very intriguing idea.

I wonder what other artists have explored both ideas specifically. How else can one "defy logical appearance" to make viewers uncomfortable? And in what other extremes?

[parsasadjadi]

Negative Fragments - Rocks

11/13/2023

[parsasadjadi]

A Structure Within a Structure - Materials in the World

10/30-11/5/2023

[parsasadjadi]

Final Index

12. QCQ #3: Structural Tension

13. A Structure Within a Structure: Research (1, 2, 3)

14. A Structure Within a Structure: Materials in the World

15. A Structure Within a Structure: Final

16. QCQ #4: Concrete Blonde

17. Negative Fragments

18. Negative Fragments: 25lbs

19. Positive Fragments: Research (1, 2, 3)

20. Positive Fragments: Final

[parsasadjadi]

Clay Idea #3 - Air Conditioner

[parsasadjadi]

QCQ #4 -

"I would argue that House is fictional in the way that [Paul] Ricoeur defines the term, because it does not refer in a reproductive way to something that is absent, rather it represents the thing, showing something about it that was previously unknown or undiscovered."

In the article, Joanne Merwood references philosopher Paul Ricoeur's belief that "images" feature something that isn't around, while "fiction" doesn't have a productive reference. Rachel Whiteread's "House" sculpture references the insides of a house, but its intended usefulness is absent. Thus, viewers can see those insides in a different light. Casts of objects tend to focus on their bare textures (warts and all), without any of the implemented sparkles. So I think that allows us to see those objects in different ways.

I would like to ask if there are any casts of objects that come to mind with that thought. Is there anything else about those casts that one may otherwise not have seen?