Vito Acconci 'Adjustable Wall Bra' 1990-91. Plaster, steel, canvas, light, lightbulbs, and audio equipment, Overall installation dimensions variable
Students in any art institute today are taking courses known as 'Art Theory'. These courses are primarily set up to open the viewers mind to the newest art forms out there today and to learn how to appropriately appreciate them. Key word being 'appropriately'. The viewer must be able to see the work for its intention not it's beauty or it's vulgarity. The image itself is not the artwork, the intention or the emotion evoked is the true art. My argument is - If the physical work is not the art, why should anyone need to wrack their brains to come up with a way to restore it, why not write the description on an info card next to a blank spot on the wall and cut out the guesswork?
Now that I live in the great city of New York, I frequent the marvelous museums the city has to offer. On one of these trips to the MOMA, a friend and I found that the crowded galleries were those without the guesswork. I can imagine a docent's ability to explain Cezanne is more valuable than their capability to explain Adjustable Wall Bra by Vito Acconci, whose explanation is simple but unconnected with the physical piece; "I want to put the viewer on shaky ground," Acconci has said, "so he has to reconsider himself and his circumstances." I am of the training where art is the sum of all its parts: the stroke, the colour, the composition, the craftsmanship. I see the piece for what it is: a mega bra carefully suspended with tension wire. The beauty may be in the sculptural capability of the artist but the emotion evoked in me has entirely missed the mark of what Acconci intended.
So what are we left with? An entire generation of artists fighting to create something that will evoke a new unfelt emotion in the viewer as opposed to creating an image of a moment in time that may not carry with it the limitations of the artists own emotional intentions.
Now that I live in the great city of New York, I frequent the marvelous museums the city has to offer. On one of these trips to the MOMA, a friend and I found that the crowded galleries were those without the guesswork. I can imagine a docent's ability to explain Cezanne is more valuable than their capability to explain Adjustable Wall Bra by Vito Acconci, whose explanation is simple but unconnected with the physical piece; "I want to put the viewer on shaky ground," Acconci has said, "so he has to reconsider himself and his circumstances." I am of the training where art is the sum of all its parts: the stroke, the colour, the composition, the craftsmanship. I see the piece for what it is: a mega bra carefully suspended with tension wire. The beauty may be in the sculptural capability of the artist but the emotion evoked in me has entirely missed the mark of what Acconci intended.
So what are we left with? An entire generation of artists fighting to create something that will evoke a new unfelt emotion in the viewer as opposed to creating an image of a moment in time that may not carry with it the limitations of the artists own emotional intentions.
Paul Cezanne 'Still Life with Apples' 1895-98. Oil on canvas, 27 x 36 1/2"
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