Due Nov. 2:
Artists are always trying to change our perspective. Their art is an attempt to get us to see and experience the world in new ways.
How did the Starn twins (Big Bambu), Katrin Sigurdardottir (Boiseries) and the contemporary photographers (Beyond Here and There show) change our perspective –on the city, on the museum, on definitions of art? What strategies did they use to alter our perception of time and/or space? What did we–the spectators–see anew as a result? Give at least one example from each artist/show.
Karen Sigurdardottir’s “Boiserie” was probably the most intriguing to me of the 3 exhibits we saw at the Met. Entering the gallery and being hit with the first installation (the “replica” of a room from the Hotel de Crillon) was kind of weird, to be honest. I thought is was odd and interesting that she chose to replicated a room and then stick it in the center of another room (if that makes any sense). I don’t know if it was her intention or not, but it made me consider just how strange it is to view a room in a museum as an object. The sculpture itself was fascinating, with the one-way mirrors through which one would view the actual room. While the interior was similar to those of the Hotel de Crillon, this viewing method was very different, because you are actually outside looking in, as opposed to being partially inside the room, as you’d view the actual period rooms. The perspective was weird, because it forced to view a room within another room – she really worked with space in the installation. The actual interior, with it’s pristine, all-white upholstery and furniture, and the repeating mirrors, created a very creepy, very eerie effect, which isn’t a feeling one typically gets when looking at 18th-Century interior design. Her other sculpture, where she starts out with a full-sized wall with door and window holes but gradually shrinks down was my favorite. The way she played with proportion and size and ended up with a tiny replica reminiscent of a dollhouse felt wonderfully Alice-In-Wonderland to me.
Big Bambú, however, was not so much my cup of tea, but I could appreciate it’s scale and magnitude. Standing under it and looking upwards, I was little more than underwhelmed. I’ve seen bamboo used as scaffolding before; so from that angle, the installation didn’t look new to me at all. I think taking a step back and out from under it helped – viewing the swooping lines of the waves was interesting, especially since it was set in the very industrial skyline of New York City (because it itself is very organic-looking). They chose to use their setting – the roof of the Met and the New York City skyline – to work with the piece. I suppose I don’t quite know how I feel about temporary art in general – like Big Bambú or the Gates in Central Park. I suppose people like this type of art because they capitalize more on the experience of art than permanent works of art do, but I just don’t know. I just don’t see the point most of the time.
The photography exhibit, “Between Here and There,” dealt much with the theme of displacement, with subjects ranging from a refugee girl to photos from NASA. Many seemed to deal with the passage of time, such as Dijkstra’s series of portraits of the Dutch refugee girl and Kawara’s “I Got Up” series of postcards. One photo in particular stood out to me: a mosquito on the skin of a person, and the caption for the photo read something to the effect of once that mosquito bites you and sucks out your blood, and flies away, a part of you is airborne with it. I don’t know if the science of that quite works out, but I thought it was an interesting and thought-provoking concept.