Event #3 - Singular Spaces

"Singular Spaces" is a series of photos from Jo Farb Hernandez. It is mentioned that the spectacle seen in the photos are the work of eight artists and shows the importance of different styles coming together to create a single art piece. “Their creations are generally monumental in scale or in a number of components and are intended to be viewed and experienced as a whole...”

The exhibition shows Julio Basanta Lopez’s "House of God", a house that is surrounded by many statues that seem to resemble demons.

"House of God," protected by demons

The house to me is a jumbled mess of figures and statues that even though look stylistically similar, don't seem to mesh with each other well at first glance. I believe that each figure or group of figures is unique since they have their own meaning and representation as well as made of different materials.

Regardless, I do think that their differences are important because all the statues and figures were made for the same purpose which is, according the description, to ward off demons. Their collective power creates an even greater power than what they could accomplish alone. It’s interesting that even though these figures were not created with the intention of being artwork, can be interpreted in this way. The collaborativeness seen in the photos is similar to the exhibition in Event 2, highlighting the importance of different fields working together to create and discover more than what they could do apart. I like that it has the subtitle "From the Eccentric to the Extraordinary," because of how this person superstition became an informative piece of artwork,

Event #2 - Making Strange: Gagawaka + Postmortem

In this exhibition, “Making Strange: Gagawaka + Postmortem,” by Vivan Sundaram, there are two different styles of artwork that come together in this one exhibition showroom. On one side, we have Gagawaka, in which we have multiple pieces of clothing and accessories that are all made of recycled material  or medical supplies. On the other side, we have Postmortem, sculptures created using and manipulating anatomical models.

"Pill-Fill "

"Spine 2"

Both sides are examples of being that third culture in between two seemingly opposite sides. Sundaram made beautiful and interesting pieces of wearable art out of either material to be thrown away or important medical equipment. I would not think that such items could be made using these resources. With the anatomical models, Sundaram combined them in interesting ways that I wouldn’t expect.

"Immunity Cover" - Made out of surgical masks

From assortment of large/small shelf objects

The exhibition is described as “[capturing] the tension between beauty and illness, pleasure and pain, life and death.” These contrasts are seen through the different elements and materials that the artworks are made out of. What’s cool about this exhibition is that it uses these contrasts to create something interesting. I was both interested and confused in why these two sides come together in this showroom. The exhibition can help us understand the importance of two cultures and how it through the intersection and collaboration of the two cultures to make a new third culture in between. It was perfect to explain to the audience straight out that this exhibition is the combination of styles because it highlights the importance of their differences and how they can be connected of compared. I recommend this exhibit to those interested in the different ways the third culture arises in art and wanted to explore the results of these different collaborations.

Event #1 - Infinity Structures

In this exhibition, we see art made through the use of math and technology to make an art piece that would describe the possible look of a multidimensional room. As we know, people live in a three dimensional world and we could only perceive a three dimensional without the use of computers so to attempt to create a room that emulates a room with more dimensions is not an easy task.

The artist and I

The artist’s name is Robert Gero and he used mathematics and computers to create the schematics of how the room would look and then through the use of styrofoam, he constructed his room. He would rotate, shrink, and position wire versions of the room and use those different pieces to overlap the actual room.

You can see the video overlapping the structure

Gero was able to impose more dimensions in the room with a few different tools. He would have a projector to screen another form of the wire intersections that would rotate as well as played sounds in the background that I can’t really describe. These features I liked a lot because it breaks our understanding of what these higher dimensions could contain. One thing that stood out to me were the pillows that were placed around the sculpture in which he explained were to make the room seem familiar by using props from the museum.

The seemingly out of place pillow has an importance of creating familiarity

Similar to the Flatlanders in Flatlands (mentioned in unit 2), we are inherently unable to understand greater dimensions that what we experience with our own lives, but unlike them, we are encouraged to figure out the mystery of these higher dimensions. There can be so many different interpretations of higher dimensions so it’s great to see one viewpoint as it will only spark more ideas and stir questions in others as well. The art piece was definitely able to create a conversation between its audience, mostly with the artist himself, so I believe that this is what makes it a compelling piece of artwork. I enjoyed this exhibition and it would be interesting to explore other’s view of a world in higher dimensions and the artwork they would create with that vision in mind.