STOP MAKING SENSE

rosemary showed us this video last semester in my digital class and i just re-discovered it. thought i’d share it with everyone else…

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

VMFA lecture on Sol Lewitt’s Wall Drawings #541

Thursday, Feb.26, 2009

Pauley Center at 2:00pm.

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts presents “Sol LeWitt, Wall Drawing #541: A Masterpiece of 

Conceptual Art?,” a lecture by John Ravenal, VMFA’s Sydney and Frances Lewis Family 

Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.  Gallery renovations at VMFA required the removal 

of one of the icons of VMFA’s collection: Sol LeWitt’s “Wall Drawing #541.” Now freshly 

reinstalled, LeWitt’s monumental work is once again in place. Its bold, colorful forms and 

saturated, fresco-like surfaces exemplify the work of a 20th-century master. Can we then call 

the work a masterpiece, even as it subverts this very concept? Ravenal will discuss the art of 

Sol LeWitt, the making and remaking of the wall drawing, and the concept of the masterpiece. 

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts 

Boulevard & Grove Avenue !Richmond 

www.vmfa.museum 

Statement of Intent

This wall piece is a combination of two sections of foam board embedded with straight pins and safety pins. It measures roughly 36” X 18” and wraps inside the corner of one wall.  The pins’ placement on the surface expresses fine detail in direct contrast to the paint handling and ripped borders

Four 18” diameter circles are lined up along the wall in a horizontal fashion. The balance of the red and blue primary colors incised with white lines recall the artworks from the De Stijl art movement of the early nineteen hundreds. Both pieces explore the possibilities of foam board as a material.

My piece Dan McCarroll’s Space Adventure measures 38” by 30” and consists of two panels of five layer plexiglass, wax, acrylic paint, and newsprint. The work though largely abstracted: has two levels of dripping wax and several large blocks of textured wax. There are also two prominent blocks of text the first oriented to the right that reads: “THATS RIGHT YOU HAVE TO TWIST YOUR HEAD OCCASIONALLY” and the second completely upside-down that reads: “EVEN IF YOURE MAKING A SILLY ASS OF YOURSELF”. 

I strove to infuse the work with sharp movement to echo the twisting of the viewer’s head; the dripping wax, the slanting lines, the use of the horizontal- all attempt to put the piece in motion. Through the use of wax and newsprint, the work also strives to comment on the ephemeral nature of words, ideas, thoughts-much along with the mantra ‘here today, gone tomorrow’. 

My piece primarily addresses the breaking and re-attachment of objects. It is 72” by 70” and made entirely of plastic. A shower curtain adorned in an 18” x 36” space of cut-up plastic hangs from shower curtain rings, and is altogether suspended with string from nails on the wall. The 18” x 36” area is covered in various types of plastic, arranged to look as if shattered in one area. Each of the pieces of cut-up plastic comes from something now broken down—shampoo bottles and plastic report sleeves. The individual pieces are then reassembled to make a complete sculpture, which actually represents a shattered whole. The piece plays again and again with juxtaposing complete and incomplete, old and new, and fixed and broken.

Caitlin Gordon

My first piece, Once you’ve gone, consists of a wall hanging measuring 18.5 inches x 96 inches. It depicts a blue bathtub and a pink washcloth embroidered with embroidery floss onto various pieces of constructed linen which are then attached to the wall with small nails. My second piece, entitled Brand new is 13 inches x 17.5 inches x 5 inches and is a composition of twelve mason jars arranged in a 3×4 grid. The first eleven mason jars have simply plain squares of white linen sandwiched between the top of the jar and the outside ring of the lid. The twelfth jar has the same set-up except onto the linen is embroidered the words “Brand new.” in pink embroidery floss. Both these pieces rely heavily upon both the traditional process of embroidery and the use of text and while they reference each other through these similarities, they should be viewed as separate pieces. These works are both autobiographical and draw heavily upon personal sentiment and experience. While preparing for these embroideries I looked at the work of both Elaine Reichek and Tracey Emin. Reichek uses the traditional technique of embroidery yet creates untraditional images, much like my bathtub in Once you’ve gone. Emin also utilizes embroidery but her influence came more through the heavy use of text in my pieces, which she also often uses in her work. I drew inspiration from both these artists for my pieces.

1.

This piece, measuring 6″x108″ is created from paper coated in white household paint, dyed hemp rope, pencil, black tempera paint, and china marker.  These materials were chosen because of their availability and hurried implications.  The formative process involved a great deal of blind exploration of line and form.  The linear aspect creates a meandering collection of contours that propose time line or storytelling.  Figures emerge from the road-map of seemingly endless marks that transition from 2-dimensional to 3-dimensional.  When addressing presentation of the piece, I employed the area immediately surrounding the 3-dimensional aspect and created a design that not only referenced the original section of the piece, but activated the space around the piece and extended this part down to the floor, therefore violating the viewer’s space.  This creates an invasion of the relationship between the viewer and the work itself, and disrupts the manner in which a wall piece is traditionally viewed. 

Exaggerated and jagged figures reference the drawings of Egon Schiele, however, stylistically, the placement of the piece and the dimensions are strongly related to selected works by Nancy Spero and Barry Mcgee, who remained influential throughout the formation of the piece.

Activating the space of roughly 10’x2’, this sculpture establishes close relationships between nature and commercialized nature through materials, construction, and presentation.  Wood stylized contact paper has been arranged diagonally grained to the wall in various circular sizes in relation to the processed wooden balls or beads that are mounted to the upper right edge of the contact paper.  The balls and beads have had one surface section dipped in acrylic brown paint and then partially overlapped with acrylic gloss medium.  With the balls, the painted portions are towards the wall while the beads’ are positioned towards the viewer.  Evoking associations with spores and growth, the piece extends around a corner to the upper left of the next wall and then gradates diagonally down to the lower right.

    Measuring approximately 14 1/2” X 6 1/2’ this piece is composed of hand knitted T-shirt scraps and a broken chair.  Knitting needles are used to knit a panel roughly the scale of floor runner for a hallway.  Its placement on the chair suggests an action that is unfinished, one that may have been interrupted.

Occupying a space of 38″x15″x14″ the second phase of the series incorporates the repainted chair with a black rotary dial telephone.  The skewed placement of the furniture and almost symmetrical white stripes give the chair a gestural quality.  Lost time is emphasized by the outdated dusty telephone sitting precariously at the back corner.

With variable dimensions, this piece consists of a painted chair, streamers, and 3-layer cake with white frosting.  On the cake are twelve unlit pink birthday candles.  Given the title “Done,” it doesn’t quite make sense why the candles aren’t exhausted.  However twelve is an age most of us have passed; now the cake is consumed.

For my most recent work, found objects are read as a sculptural display.  Trash, a glove, earrings, an old paintbrush, and bits of discarded wood and plastic  are all part of the wall collection.  Their aesthetic arrangement shows basic composition and design.  More importantly the piece allows everyday things to be admired and appreciated for their artistic value.

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