Friday, March 2, 2012

Silent 'Sound wave'


Artists often  use a finished product for the piece of art,  ‘found objects’ for example. No matter which object you choose, the original material will be present, sometimes inconspicuously.

The exhibition at the museum of Art and Design in 2008 featured this installation of  Jean Shin, made of old vinyl plates. It looks like a Hokusai picture, but the artist named  it  ‘Sound Wave’ underlying the connection between the object(plate), material(vinyl, still used in music industry) and the idea that the viewer would have looking at it. (photo NY Times)


Another thought-provocing installation of Jean Shin – ‘Chance city” where she built a city of ruined dreams and lost hopes by using discarded lottery tickets.

The sheer amount of similar objects could make a strong impression, especially when artist uses these objects in an unexpected way.

'Long-term parking' by Lorent Mutzig 


Another example, the installations of Matej Kren, and Tom Bendtsen  known for their book-staking art.  Being a bookish person I was greatly impressed by the massiveness of the paper-made construction and the huge amount of books gathered together for this purpose. Strangely, this use of books didn’t arouse any protest inside, though in my parents’ home no book could have been treated disrespectfully. No page could have been thumbed with a wet dirty finger and no pencil was allowed for making notes on the margins.  The fact that all the  precious books were removed from the circulation and degraded to the state of bricks didn’t bother me anymore when I saw familiar covers stacked in the forms of pillars and walls. The associative sequel went all the way from paper- (light, perishable)-book (source of knowledge and emotional experience)-stack of books (heavy, very heavy) to a massive construction (stability, thick walls) and back to thousands of books and amount of unattainable knowledge hidden in this unusual building looking like a medieval fortress.  



 www.jeanshin.com
http://www.matejkren.cz
http://www.tombendtsen.com/


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