Art 21: Art in the Twenty-First Century

PBS had a pretty cool series called Art 21: Art in the Twenty-First Century. It’s available on DVD and has a companion volume, as well. The series is worth watching. You see the artists (or sculptures, whatever they may be) at work, putting together a project, and they talk about it.

As for the companion volume, it turns out that the one I’ve had kicking about the house here, checked out from the library forever, is #2, whereas I guess the two episodes I saw on TV were from Part One.

Looking through the book was a lot like looking through one of my favorite magazines: Art in America. I’m like, crap, crap, crap, wow!, crap, crap, wow!, crap, crap.... It was mostly crap. But two artists stood out for me. The most interesting by far was Gabriel Orozco, who seems to be mostly a photographer, but who does some things you could call sculptures or something. Orozco says:

Another way is to deconstruct a cultural icon, because it is also a machine that has a function, and to remake it on its own logic.

Well, when Orozco deconstructs something, he does it literally, taking apart a Citroen, removing its center, and putting the two sides back together! This view, in particular, was striking:



There is a lot of thought behind his photographs, as when he creates a simple terra cotta sculpture, and then takes a two-part Cibachrome of it:



[My Hands are My Heart, 1991]

He does all sorts of stuff. Here, he adds a digital touch to a photograph:



[Light Through Leaves, detail, 1996]

Orozco:

A photograph might or might not become a work of art. In a way, it’s irrelevant because I think photograpy is a necessity for documentation....for memory. First it’s a necessity. Then, some of these photographs might generate enough thinking and contemplation to be exposed for consideration. But I don’t take photographs thinking they are going to be art. I take the photographs thinking that I need to keep the moment....



[Cats and Watermelons (detail)(1992, Cibachrome)]



[Cats and Watermelons (detail)(1992, Cibachrome)]

There is slideshow of Orozco’s works at:

http://www.pbs.org/art21/slideshow/?artist=58

The other artist who caught my eye was Korean-born Do-Ho Suh, who does a variety of installations. I liked his sculpture composed of dog tags...



[Same/One, 2001]

and his description of the dream that led to it:

I walked slowly, but I went into the stadium on the ground level. And then I saw this reflecting surface and I realized I was stepping on these metal pieces that were military dog tags. And they were vibrating slightly, vibrating and touching each other.... I saw central figure in the center of the stadium. It tried to go out of the stadium but it couldn’t because the train of its garment, which was made of dog tags, was too big.

A begin being blog.