Felix Gonzales Torres

Untitled (Death By Gun), 1990


Untitled (USA Today), 1990

First of all, let's acknowledge the contradiction in naming something untitled, and then having a more specific title in brackets.

Anyway,

The works have a very minimalist form in the photos I've seen, but they are meant to change as they go on. The audience is invited to take from the exhibition the candy in the piles or the printed posters, effectively changing the work over time. There are several works that incorporate candy each with a different meaning.
USA Today seems to me both a celebration and criticism. Made with the colours on the US flag, it's very bright and cheerful, but it's also seems to be a comment on consumerism. But while it is a criticism, viewers are invited to take from it.

Cornelia Parker (contradiction)

Breathless, Brass Instruments, flattened, 2001

I researched Cornelia Parker earlier this semester to look at the titles in relation to the work. 

I love the imagery the title 'Breathless' creates in this work - it's quite poetic, and draws attention to the former life of these instruments that have now been flattened. Before someone would have 'breathed life' (to take poetic liberty) into the instruments, now they're Breathless.

Mona Hatoum

[link]

 
Grater Divide, 2002                                                 Cage-a-deax, 2002

 
Doormat II, 2000-2001                                            Daybed, 2008


Untitled (Wheelchair), 1999

It's really interesting how Mona Hatoum pairs home, comfort and safety with danger and violence. The visual contrast between familiar forms and the visible display of discomfort - the knowledge that utilising any of these things would be uncomfortable or painful is striking.

Richard Wentworth

“Yellow Eight testifies to Wentworth's affection for the mundane: two galvanised steel buckets have been cut and soldered together to produce a hybrid, figure-of-eight object that is both single and double. An impression of water inside the buckets is created by the reflective surface of a highly polished brass sheet inserted just below the rim. Wentworth has frequently used buckets in his work. His decision to do so is prompted by a disdain for monumentality and a penchant for the everyday. His approach typically involves taking a mundane utilitarian object and transforming its role and identity. He establishes a double role for such everyday, manufactured objects as ladles, chairs and disrupts their conventional significance. While he is always careful to retain the defining characteristics of the objects he works with, Wentworth's subtle alterations block their usual functions. Everyday household objects thus assume new identities as works of art, embodying thereafter both the familiar and the unfamiliar.” [link]

 
Yellow Eight, 1985


Plume, 2012

World Soup, 1991

Contradiction

Romans 7:15-19 (NIV)

¹⁵ I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. ¹⁶ And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷ As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. ¹⁸ For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 

I remembered this passage because it's repetitious, and basically a tongue twister if you read it out loud; (it goes on for longer with more 'do not do's).

So this is talking about sin, but it applies still to all the things that we tell ourselves we shouldn't do, but do anyway. And it's a testament to the continuity of human nature, as this was written 2000 years ago.


It's something that's brought up often - people talk a lot about giving things up: quitting smoking, alcohol, drugs - and now there are trends around dieting - quitting sugar, certain carbohydrates etc. often though we relapse anyway. That's the example that is most recognised, at least in common social interactions, but probably has more to do with a physical desire - withdrawal.

There are other behavioural things, though that people will often decide not to do something - or even to do something - become better, but can't ever seem to resist breaking the vow we've made with ourselves. Obviously it's because people aren't perfect, this isn't a question I'm asking, rather, I'm assessing this nature of ours. It's a contradiction

Maybe I could explore this observation - I think it's good for people to assess their own nature, to understand themselves better, A lot of people aren't very self aware.

I can think of ways that text and imagery could communicate this idea, and I have taken an interest in text art -

Project 4 Hard /Soft/Contra

Compose a sculpture /installation that involves contradiction in its concept, material and/or form.  A contradictory form might make an object self-defeating, a “defeat object” that has an implied contradictory action.

A combination like hard material with soft can create a tension in the contradiction and can attract the viewer through sensory engagement.

You might choose another kind of contradiction that occurs through concept (with a title) like safe danger, or artificial nature etc.

Because I've known about this project all semester I've done a little bit of thinking about it already, and in research for the other assignments even came across a couple of potential ideas.

I was drawn to a few artists who used industrial materials in their work. I've wanted to use cement for a while in some way. I've had experience with rendering, and find the textures you can create visually pleasing, and working with the material is also fun in a sort of satisfying way.

Doris Salcedo - incorporates found objects (furniture) as well as the cement. I'm unsure of what her intentions are with this sculpture, but the cement seems to defeat the purpose of a cabinet.

It seems that cement is popularly used with themes of rendering things useless, or to contrast against an object. In my research I found an artist who had gathered a series of glass vessels - wine glasses and the like - and filled them all with concrete. This made me thing of the various ways I could take away the uselessness of various objects using cement, whether by dipping (a broom, or variety of makeup brushes, or even items like spoons that are meant to be smooth an sanitary) or by filling (garden hose, sink etc.). It would've been a fun project, but I wasn't satisfied with the depth of the ideas - taking away the utility of an object is a pretty worn concept. See Marcel Duchamp.

In ideas unrelated to cement:

Olivia Erlanger, Material Studies II

A series of collected images used as inspiration pt 2

These ones are mostly just pretty - only a few of them have specific things about them

Click on the image - there's a faint superimposition of fencing over the portrait

Ephemeral - water on concrete

geometric shapes (uni sa architecture)

accidental (but beautiful) lens flare

light contrast

unrendered wall

they didn't even try to keep it neat

the rectangle is a three dimensional object in the space

layered wallpaper, paint and an unrendered wall

structure

inclusion of space