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Curator's Statement
Introduction
Last and Universal: the Semantics of Judgment
Thought Through Images
Seduced by Freedom of Thought
Art in the Age of Short-Term Memory
A Call to Artists and Audience
Seventeen Modern Tales
Pages 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Seventeen Modern Tales, pt. 5
The
difficult relationship between man and nature resurfaces in the work of
Robert
Gschwantner. Erika 0050E is an 87 x 37-inch Oelteppich.
The German word describes both the oil carpet and the ecological disaster
caused by gigantic oil slicks.
When the oil tanker “Erika” sank on December
12, 1999 off the French coast, causing one of the worse environmental disasters
ever to occur in Europe, Gschwantner went to Brittany. There he collected
oil sludge. Once it was dissolved, he mixed it with seawater and used it to
fill the transparent PVC tubing that he patiently wove into a carpet. Today,
the responsibility for the disaster has still not been ascertained. The carpet
is folded and hung as a towel on the wall as a memento. It waits for the viewer
to touch it, to feel the smooth and oily texture of the surface. You can wash
responsibilities off your hands, but there is no way to escape the consequences
of your actions.
Chris
McMullen presents us very tangible choices between blood
and oil, humanity and business. Estimate works with the simple
mechanism of the balance scale as a millennia-old symbol of justice. Via
this symbol he involves the audience in action that fosters conscious
ethical reflection. If judgment is discernment, the choice between the
two ethical principles is left to the audience entirely. But McMullen
impresses upon us the importance of weighing our decision with great care.
In dramatic contrast to the cultural model of entertainment as diversion
from responsibility, Estimate stresses the momentous nature of
making decisions.
Seattle-based artist Alan
Rushing highlights an incommensurable gap between us and
the unknown forces in charge of our lives. Bull’s Eye projects
shooting targets over the figures painted on the canvases as well as the
people entering into the dark space of the installation. There is no choice
to be made here. Rushing manages to create a confrontational situation
and yet brilliantly hide one of the two elements of the confrontation.
The emotional impact of the work resides in the very invisibility of the
active agency: Who’s aiming? Who is deciding about our lives? Is
it God? Is it a sniper? Is it fate? Or nature? Is it public opinion? Bull’s
Eye taps directly into the human fear of the unknown and foregrounds
the human desire for control.
