Anish Kapoor

We all know the famous Cloud Gate (or "The Bean") that is just up the street. We have probably all seen thousands pictures that look exactly the same that shows the warped reflection of blue sky, the surrounding buildings and the group of tourists all standing around in amazement. Unfortunately, due to the extreme abundance of imagery, this sculpture has turned into nothing but white noise to most of us living in this city. Despite all of this, I am going to write about Anish Kapoor. Most of Kapoor's work is not outside in the public. Here are a few of his works that I was unaware of until now:

Svayambh, 2007. Wax

untitled, 2010. stainless steel and resin

Yellow, 1999. fiberglass and pigment

As if to Celebrate I Discovered a Mountain Blooming With Red Flowers, 1981. wood, cement, polystyrene, pigment

Although none of this really has much to do with the city in a direct way, he takes this way of working and brings it outside into the public space.

Sky Mirror, 2006. stainless steel

Cloud Gate, 2004. stainless steel

Tall Tree & The Eye, 2009. stainless steel over carbon

Kapoor's public works have a great deal of ambiguity to them while simultaneously consisting of primarily their surroundings. The public space directly affects the work. I am particularly interested in the back side of Sky Mirror. While the front is angled towards the sky and gives the viewer a disruption of the urban space and a intrusion of the sky, the back side is directed towards the viewer offering a view of the public space.

This idea of a commissioned art work designated for the public space is very intriguing. Kapoor's public works are much more pleasing and entertaining than his works that are not outside. The public works are more theatrical and are attractive to a very wide audience. The direct use of the mirror reflects the idea of the homogeneous public. What can be more homogeneous than a mirror? It shows what is already there in a matter-of-fact form. His public works would probably have a much more diverse response had he replaced Cloud Gate with Shooting Into the Corner or Hive.

Shooting Into The Corner, 2008-9. base frame, barrel, air receivers, compressor and air lines, projectiles

New York, Beside Itself

This reading looks at how contemporary artists use the city as a space as an existential being. They use it similar to a human being in that it is a living, breathing entity that also has "physical and emotional expressions". Johanna Burton begins the essay by addressing a writing from Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick describing her experiences of walking through Manhattan after 9/11. The writing described how Sedgwick felt shame every time she would turn in the direction of where the towers once stood. The artists that were written about in this chapter not only use the city as an existential being but also look to the history of significant events within it.

There is very little documentation from Joan Jonas's Delay Delay, a performance done in 1972. There is one image, however, in particular that has captured the attention of Burton and has changed her view of Manhattan ever since. I think that what Burton is describing is that through Jonas's portrayal and use of Manhattan, Burton's view of the city is altered. The image that Jonas created is considered in experiencing the actual city.

Another artist that was brought up in the reading was Tom Burr. In Burr's Deep Purple, he references Richard Serra's Tilted Arc, a 1981 steel sculpture installed in Federal Plaza in New York City. After a big controversy, Serra's sculpture was removed because it was a 120 foot long wall in the middle of a public area and people did not want to have to walk all the way around it. Regarding the complaints of Tilted Arc, Serra stated "The viewer becomes aware of himself and of his movement through the plaza. As he moves, the sculpture changes. Contraction and expansion of the sculpture result from the viewer's movement. Step by step the perception not only of the sculpture but of the entire environment changes." (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/flashpoints/visualarts/tiltedarc_a.html)

Richard Serra, Tilted Arc. 1981.

Tom Burr, Deep Purple. 2000

Burr's Deep Purple is made of wood and is much more movable. Unlike Serra's piece, this one is not site specific. This piece is not necessarily as interested in obstructing the viewer's path (though that is still a part of it) but is more concerned with presenting a shield, which may or may not have illicit activities going on on the other side. It is about the visual uncertainty of what lies ahead within the public realm. In Burr's In Loving Memory of: An American Garden (for Frank O'Hara, "meet me in the park if you love me", addresses his unhappiness with the consistent ending of public cruising zones. Here he has collaged paper and photographs and under plexiglass, adhered them to a wooden box.

Tom Burr, In Loving Memory of: An American Garden (for Frank O'Hara, "meet me in the park if you love me"). 1993/2007

Urban China

In 1989 citizens of China were seeking social reform with aspirations of a more free society. Doctors, journalists, mothers, students, migrant workers, etc. were demonstrating. They wanted to encourage free speech. In response, the Chinese government sent a large number of military troops to control the demonstrations. After the troops started to physically ram the barriers made from buses, cars, or any other obstruction that the citizens placed in the streets to keep the troops from getting in to the city, chaos began to erupt.

The military troops began to open fire on unarmed citizens leaving thousands killed. The Chinese government was killing its own citizens in order to maintain control and authority. After all of the commotion from the night died down, parents of the students involved in the demonstration all came out to confront the military who were still heavily patrolling the area. That morning, once again, the military began to open fire resulting in people running for their lives. The military killed anyone who was not a part of them, including ambulance drivers. 

While all of this was taking place, Chinese officials were very adamant on maintaining control of not only the people, but the imagery as well. The military were very persistent to make sure that the amount of imagery documenting the events was kept to a bare minimum. The way that the government officials treated imagery is reflective of the way in which China divides itself into sections. As shown in the exhibition at the MCA, Urban China, China sections itself off from the world to a certain extent. Within this gated off country there are also numerous, smaller, sectioned off zones.

Great Wall - Sections off China from the World

Guangzhou wall - Sectioning off the City

Courtyard Houses - Sectioning off Private Life

This way of sectioning off and dividing public from private space is both part of the physical environment of China as well as the political ideology. The Chinese government controls imagery in order to maintain control. The government officials did not want people taking photographs or making videos during the Tiananmen Square massacre because imagery of the events would disrupt the wall separating citizen from government control, in that, the imagery can be used as a sort of ultimate moral police. The Chinese government did not want the use of imagery because this way, they could do whatever they felt was necessary to control the situation while still maintaining the position that the government is doing what's best for its people. Imagery is a sort of evidence that can later judge the actions of those in control to supersede their decisions. The image gives more power to the citizens which the Chinese government views as a threat. 

This idea of control and censorship is still happening today. The web censorship in China has recently increased based on the protests that have been happening in the middle east. There is an article here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=135083029 that talks about Google's current relationship with Beijing and censorship issues. The Chinese government is still controlling the information and imagery that enters the gates of the country while simultaneously constructing gigantic megalopolises within. 

Within these walls, there is something that is very odd about the economy of this country. The country is divided into China A (the upper class) and China B (the lower class). There is no middle class. Major cities are constructing and developing at an incredible speed of about 9% every year for the last 10 years. Although all of this growth is taking place, why is it that the majority of the country is working for such small wages. China's economy is booming but it is because of the large amount of workers that are willing to work for incredibly small wages. If the wages increase, the U.S. and Europe will start sending business to a different country thats willing to work for even smaller wages.

Shanghai

With all that has been happening in China since the Tiananmen Square Massacre (booming economy, rapid urban growth, digital imagery and information censorship), it is interesting to view the contemporary Chinese art within context. 

Beijing

Zhan Wang's rocks are copied from original rocks that he finds outside specific locations within Beijing. He then makes a replica of the rock using stainless steel and buffs the surface to give it a mirror-like effect.

Xu Zhen - In Just The Blink Of An Eye

Xu Zhen made a performance/installation piece titled In Just The Blink Of An Eye in which he creates the illusion of migrant workers tilted to where it looks as though they have completely lost balance and are just about to hit the ground. These are actual migrants from Chinatown who lay on a hidden steel frame which supports them. The piece creates the question of if this person will ever stand up or will they eventually fall and relates it to current issues regarding the state of migrant workers in China.

Performance & Intervention II

The readings for this week were generally regarding how artists intervene with the public space of the city. This tactical way of working is a form of disruption within social order. It is slightly manipulating the strategies of the urban planners, in that it alters the image of the city based on the ideas of those who dwell within. The most direct ways to alter this image is through graffiti. In this way of working, the artist's marks literally remain on the public space until someone else intervenes by removing or painting over it. 

Jean-Michel Basquiat's graffiti art is a form of protest by using the public space as his own to exclaim a message.

Here we have a very direct message addressed to the public. Basquiat was specifically addressing the "hegemonic forces within the art world" and uses the public space as his way of protesting. The images we see of Basquiat's art are simply representations. The work is intended to be seen by the general public. 

While Basquiat's graffiti art is more about the message and its actual space, Robin Rhodes interventions are more about creating the image.

Robin Rhode intervenes and interacts with the public space to create an image. Without the presence of the artist in the photograph, the drawings on the wall would not make any sense. While this form of art making is similar to graffiti, it is less concerned with making a statement to the public and more about using the public space as a canvas to create an image with. Here is an image by Rhode, with bad photoshop representation of what the space might look like after he is gone.

compared to:

Once Rhode is not in the space, it becomes entirely different. Rhode's art is primarily the image; it is the documentation from a specific perspective to represent his interaction with his drawing. This would be related to more of a counter culture than a protest culture. Rhode is not using the public space as a way of making claims or statements to the public. Unlike the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, there is not a direct or confrontational message that remains on the space after the artist has left the site. 

Rhode uses the literal public space, performance, and the photograph to create his work. Another form of intervening with the imagery of the public space is through Andy Warhol's Birmingham Race Riot in which he mass-produced an image of police setting their dogs on protesters.

It is still a form of intervention within the public space but it is through wide-spread imagery and not the literal, physical public space. The public space goes beyond the sidewalks within a city. Warhol is intervening with the image-circulating public space of news and media. In relation to the distinctions between the protest culture and the counter culture, Birmingham Race Riot seems to be a part of both. The way in which Warhol mechanically produced the work would relate more to a counter culture, in that it is an art making practice that, at the time, was very oppositional since the artist was not physically creating the work. The content that Warhol is working with, however, is at the top of protest culture - an actual protest that has led to violence.

In attempt to further understand the differences between the protest culture and the counter culture through performances and interventions of the public space, I have made a diagram including some of the artists in these readings and where I think they would fall in these categories.

In the more performative works such as David Wojnarowicz and Nikki S. Lee, there is a difference between intervening with the public space and the public audience.

Although there may be other people in the images or around the masked figure, Wojnarowicz is much more concerned with the space than those who are in the space. The figure is not addressing the public audience but is addressing the camera. The two-dimensional mask is clearly aligned with the camera. Similar to Robin Rhode, Wojnarowicz is making an image where he is using the public space, he is not confronting public space when the image is made.

In Nikki S. Lee's photographs, the artist is interacting and intervening with an unknowing public audience. This performance, though still not directly confrontational, would be closer to the protest culture because it is directly including the public audience. This is similar to the graffiti art of Jean-Michel Basquiat in that it seems to be less about the construction of the image and more about the performance and the relation with the public audience.