Author: Joshua Kochis

Well I’ve been reading about Dharma Bums, which are actually different than your everyday lazy hopeless bums; these ones hide in shacks near the feet of mountains and live intentionally and somewhat modestly and quite studiously, with big orange crates full of wise books, crates that double as low tables to kneel on straw mats at. Occasionally they take up towering backpacks with pots and pans and spring run whistle up the mountain, not a care in the world but for falling off (which is impossible), and therefore staying away from cliffs and following the true gleaming river up to its deep lake source. Past the lake, up to where you can see infinite pits of blackish indigo within the big still pool of fresh and clear blue water, where its depths stretch to buried geyser springs, up to the mountain’s plateau to yell and dance in the howling music wind. And not a second after they’ve gotten their kicks it’s back down the rock face, leap-running in bounds over thickets and rolling tumble stones at a fairly steep but not deadly incline.

The other day, as I roiled over a missed opportunity for good karma I contemplated whether passing up good karma is bad karma and I looked mostly down to keep the snow shards out of my eyes (I was outside in blizzard) and noticed on either side of me was a small white mountain range, an endless scale model of valleys and peaks and white sediment, jagged cliffs and vast plains that stretched for small miles. I felt large and swift as I traversed the horizon in bounds, occasionally hurdling summits to cross the street or stepping right into them leaving monstrous craters in the untouched frontier and I felt like discovering something. It was at this exact moment that I came across the largest snow mountain of them all in my squinting giant eyes which were now wide open and full of snow crystals going supernova on the surface of my contact lenses and before I knew it I was up the side, messy climbing and my steps sinking in to the soft clean frigid rock but after about twelve lunges I was at the top, up on the roof of the world, my world, or at least Ann Arbor which is a bubble, and the air was definitively crisper and a little sweet and very dry. I looked around from my cold shining precipice and there was a furtive man in the distance, probably a hundred small miles away but I could see him clear as day with his leather jacket and one of those plaid lumberjack caps with the earmuffs attached. Thinking he was a fellow adventurer I yodeled to him what I thought his name might be which was Johnny Dean and he looked around scared and didn’t even see me I was so high up. I said it again, this time waving my arms and jumping off the ledge, not a reckless jump but more a jump-step, a Dharma Bum jump descent is what I had in mind and I made it a good half-three quarter way down in this manner when I hit a soft spot and my foot sunk up to the knee in cold rock powder. I swayed and fell in a large poof of fallen frozen stars, which aren’t as sharp as you’d think, and it didn’t even hurt and I laughed the whole way down. I made a sleeping angel laying right where I had landed and looked around for Johnny Dean to help me out so that there’d be no handprint in the middle, but he was long gone so I harrumphed and said so long to my brief memory of him and his frightened eyes, and bounced on down the slick sidewalk while my angel slept on, a little marred, but I didn’t mind and neither did he.

Before I knew it I was passing the southern range of small white landscapes, open empty fields bordered by spinal crags that spilled their excess stardust in little flowing tributaries down to rolling flats. It was almost a shame to step inside the echo stairwell into steaming hall of strange odors, I wasn’t cold at all in fact I was sweating, into my apartment where I promptly disrobed and lay on the floor face down, arms up meditating on my journey for exactly twenty one seconds. I felt certain that my Dharma Bum pals would be proud of this enlightenment which I didn’t even plan or meditate for, it just happened and such are the juiciest fruits of this dry life.

 

 

Last week’s Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series lecture at the Michigan Theatre brought UK artist Antony Gormley to town, who is redefining sculpture as we know it. His vast amount of work was accurately portrayed by the few installations he discussed, exploring the relationship between human beings and the spaces we interact with.

 

Drawn introduces us to this particular “genre” of spatial figure sculpture, flipping the roles of art and viewer upside down – and sideways. The eight identical bodies cast with modern industrial techniques shrink into the corners of the gallery as far as possible, avoiding the probing stares of visitors, who become the real vehicles of Gormley’s concept.

Horizon Field Hamburg and One and Other reinforce audience interaction as the door to Gormley’s “open space of art”, operating as two different approaches to the relationship between individual and collective responses. Horizon Field Hamburg explores the lack of control a single person can have in public spaces with a large, black-mirror platform suspended thirty feet in the air by six metal cables. The platform is capable of swinging six feet in any direction, which is constantly influenced by viewers moving around on the glossy painted surface. Conversely, One and Other highlights the power of the individual, by quite literally placing its singular form on a pedestal. Volunteers signed a schedule securing their one-hour on the plinth, which also stood at thirty feet tall. Coincidence? I think not. These brave “living sculptures” were given complete creative control, and the perfect stage to make a statement of their choosing. The crowd that gathered at the base of the plinth was subject to whatever the person decided to show them, whether it was an act of humor or sincere emotion.

  

Installations like Breathing Room, Blind Light, and Model directly challenge the viewers’ perceptions of space and self by initiating a more intimate conversation with the senses. By constructing architectural forms intended to be occupied, the form of these sculptures is both vital and secondary at the same time, emphasizing the fact that art doesn’t “happen” in objects or images themselves, but in the creative spaces of the mind. The sculptural objects – or “systems” in Gormley’s case – are only there to lead the viewer’s wandering thoughts in the right direction.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

The importance of these works is in the way they highlight the transformation of an art object into an art experience, defined by the appropriation of the power inherent to public sculpture. Gormley is able to transcend the traditional techniques of expression through the figure, exploring its place in an age of mechanization. His work embodies the transition from an object that relies on the coherent story of representation, and towards “objects” that are spaces to be explored creatively and critically.

 

 

To me, Antoni Gormley is one of those artists whose work you discover and experience the excitement of finding a new major influence, with an undertone of jealousy for having made such incredible objects (or experiences). I’m currently in my “making other people” phase of figure sculpture, and bumbling through the mess that is oil paint, so Gormley’s approach to “recycling” the traditional elements of art really struck a cord with me. We have to look back to move forward. We have to know our context in this strange creative space of culture that art occupies, in order to continue making relevant work. The way that Gormley simultaneously refers to and contradicts the traditional notions of space help to place him in conversation with his ancestry of sculptors, but also with everyone who is alive to experience his work in the present.

 

The entire hour of Antony Gormley’s lecture is available here:

Penny Stamps Lecture Series Antony Gormley

 

But due to the length and some technical difficulties, I’d recommend watching this one explaining Model instead, to get an equally enlightening understanding of what this guy is all about.

Model

 

Sitting on my favorite circle, I am bent

And dangling over a square, with holes

On the sides, a lateral plane in white space, built

With white bricks and white pipes, I sit

Under white lights, listen to white fans

Breathing white air onto my white hands, my

White face. I’ve been throwing white paint

 

At triangles for hours, dripping

And flowing, there are pockets of air for one moment when

I splash at them and snuff

Them out. They go without one word, not

One wet plea, a last will, a sore thumb

Against their fate, a full blink, it must be so fulfilling

To be globular; made of light and true float, lucid

Beads of soap in an iron sink

A glowing ring on the end of a wand

in a child’s hand, pockets

Buried underwater, motion stirring them from

Sleep. I want to effervesce and fill myself

And claim one square inch of air, it’s mine

And I will disperse it amongst my form

And I will become spherical. I will be even

And luminous and brimming like

A perfect white, like an even coat

Thrown on canvas or panel, wall

Or window? I am standing in a field

Of white grass before the frontier, I hold color

In one hand, light in the other.

 

I muse on the Creator (standing on the far side

Of the field) making his first circle, discoid

Enough that he surprised himself, and saw that it was good so

Drawing in the deepest breath of all time and curling

His forefinger and thumb into a loop he blew

The most triumphant breeze of all time and all the planets

Went forth expanding into spheres, some landing near

Others of the same charge

And they began to sway, orbit and dancing,

Sonorous all the while expanding

In an everlasting exchange of force

And swelling verve! I like to think of the Creator

As the first Abstract Expressionist, who’s just

Trying to find the true nature

Of his medium, this time on spheres because

Flat surfaces had grown dull. I like to think

He was on a roll and surprising himself and planning

For his spherical masterpiece when he

Looked closely at the green and blue one and it

Was moving. And the Creator

Was so bemused with the little moving things that he

Forgot about his masterpiece.

Sick of running to the store for spare parts during DIY crafts hour? Sad because your favorite shirt has been sitting in the closet for months without a complete set of matching buttons? Wish you could mount an exact replica of Mozart’s bust on your mantle, but lack the time or the technical ability to do him justice?

 

Well you can, with a simple SolidWorks CAD file and a 3D printer – which has actually been a thing for a while now. But thanks to recent price cuts and media attention, you can do it FROM YOUR OWN HOME with YOUR VERY OWN PRINTER, for about $400 and a computer modeling class or two. The revolution is coming, and from the looks of it, nothing will ever be the same.

 

The possibilities of this newly accessible technology are said to reach every aspect of our interaction with consumables, from the production of fully functional firearms to electronic prosthetic ones. We’re talking recyclable cars with interchangeable parts you can fabricate and install without the folks at the auto shop. We’re talking fully customizable accessories and jewelry, minus the overpriced market retail. We’re talking a full-scale replica of Michelangelo’s David in my backyard.

 

Sounds great, right? Everything will be so much easier and cheaper, and independently operated. We won’t have to count on Wal-Mart for discount appliances and utensils. Say goodbye to the days of making multiple trips to Home Depot while remodeling the kitchen. No more lines and entry fees at the museum for our daily dose of culture; every sculptural masterpiece ever made will be right there at our fingertips. We’ll never have to leave the house again!

 

But wait… I feel a drawback coming on.

 

Like the loss of hundreds of thousands of retail and assembly jobs, or even less human contact than we already experience with social media and online shopping, or the lack of sufficient regulation, leading to even more stuff being made out of even more questionable materials. Because the thing we need most is more stuff.

 

Maybe this isn’t all good – just like, oh I don’t know, every other revolutionary technological discovery we’ve ever come up with? I suppose it’s a given that someone(s), somewhere(s) will abuse this exciting development to the extent of their malevolent imaginations. On one hand, it would open up all kinds of creative opportunity, increase the amount of freedom and personal connection we have with our objects, and give us a much-needed excuse to begin the departure from commercial industrialization. But for every positive aspect, there seems to be at least one less-than-positive catch-22. At least we can safely say the day is still a ways off that every home will have its own 3D printer, and we can hope to figure out how to prevent the most disastrous of possibilities before they happen – because we’ve been so good at the whole “foresight” thing in the past. Regardless of the potential good and evil that could come from this soon-to-be revolution, one quote keeps ringing in my ears: “With great power comes great responsibility.” I wonder if we’ll be able to make Uncle Ben proud, when the time comes to put our newly developed “superpowers” to use.

Piet Mondrian: a name associated with straight lines and primary colors, whose famous compositions many would consider as the epitome of abstract art. Today we can buy Mondrian furniture, tablecloths, T-shirts – you name it. He’s widely considered one of the most important somewhat contemporary painters in the Dutch tradition. But he didn’t always work with the vigorous control and machine-like technique of his later years, which has been brought to attention by the Amsterdam Museum’s current exhibition of the artist’s early work.

 

Mondrian had his beginnings in the Impressionist era, resulting in paintings that could be likened to Van Gogh or Cezanne. His colors were bold, his strokes gestural – yet even here we can see a kind of foreshadowing in his stress on vertical and horizontal lines that segment the representational composition, as well as the use of primary colors.

But he didn’t focus on integrated landscapes for very long, quickly turning to the singular tree for inspiration. Here the use of color is still based on dramatic contrast between complementaries like blue and orange, and the negative space of the tree becomes the central motif of this time period for the artist.

Even without bold colors, we can see that ordered segmentation of space within the web of branches is clearly what drives each painting. These interior pockets begin to look geometricized, imposing what is still clearly a tree onto a suggested framework that shows the beginnings of a grid-like format.

And that’s about the last we see of real trees from Mondrian. His work continues to evolve (or devolve, depending on your point of view) by way of breaking down the composition into shapes that look more and more geometric. Curved, black lines suggesting organic form delineate most of these color swatches, but those on the outskirts of the canvas are allowed to bleed and blend into one another.

It is here that any semblance to natural representation is lost, and Mondrian’s paintings begin to look decidedly abstract. The majority of lines have been straightened out, and each canvas is made up of variations on two or three central colors. Yet these compositions are still dynamic, coming into focus towards the center of the almost-grid, and a sense of space is apparent.

The last few changes that had to occur before he’d reach the most “Mondrian-esque” paintings happen surprisingly slowly. First was the introduction of a complete grid made up of only vertical and horizontal lines containing quadrilaterals in solid colors:

Followed by the disappearance of any color besides red, blue, yellow, black, white, and grey.

This change was further constricted by the use of primary colors for squares, black for the lines that separated them, and white for seemingly “empty” boxes in the composition. It is here that Mondrian reaches his most well known form in the search for the perfect abstraction.

 

Further development resulted in more lines and boxes of color that didn’t have to be surrounded by black.

The last painting created by the artist marked a proportionally huge jump in this fundamental structure that had become his bread and butter. The black lines that had functioned as the spine of each painting were finally omitted in favor of colors differentiated only by the contrast between adjacent squares.

And thus, we have the evolution from natural representation to purely abstract form, demonstrated by a collection of paintings that represent the real evolution of Mondrian’s perception. While it can be said that his work grew more visually simple as his ideas developed, it was a necessary transition as well as the only path to painting accurate generalities rather than specific gestures. By breaking down each composition into its most basic elements of line and color, Mondrian strove to make work that would be understood by everyone, whether they knew why they “got it” or not. This evolution was also representative of his ideas that modern man would become more and more disconnected from nature, something as obvious in today’s society as it was in his paintings. Regardless of at what stage his work was most interesting to look at, it must be said that he clearly wasn’t wrong in his understanding of simplification as abstraction, nor of the logical connections that take place inside the human mind.

By now, everyone knows who Banksy is. Well, everyone knows that nobody knows, at least. We’re familiar with his playful and sometimes sharply poignant street art, ranging from simple stencils to elaborate installation; we’ve probably heard of his critically debated documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop. And if we keep up with the Times, we may be aware of his current stay in the Big Apple, described in his own words as “an artist’s residency on the streets of New York” (banksyny.com). It’s titled Better Out Than In, and he’s promised to procure one piece of street art for every day of the month this October. That leaves us 28 artworks in, having witnessed the true variety of Banksy’s creative language. We’ve seen his classic layered stencils, plain stencils, stencils that span across cars and walls, stencils for sale in Central Park; a garden growing in the back of a truck, sad stuffed animals trapped in the back of a different truck driving around the meatpacking district, and a 1/36^th scale model of the great Sphinx of Giza made from smashed cinderblocks. He’s even published an article in the New York Times as a replacement for an op-ed column. In essence, the city has been Banksy’s for the past four weeks – as a temporary shelter, hideout, workspace, and playground all at once.

I could talk all day about Banksy. Everything he does challenges the very function of art in today’s society, as well as the role of the artist. He’s an outcast and likes it that way; he’s clearly not in it for the fame or money (neither of which are honest representations of creative success anyway), and he lets the work speak for itself. This is evident in the way he’s gone about “practicing” art in his own distinct, playfully intelligent manner, as well as how he’s acted upon and publicized this self-imposed exhibition. It’s the exact opposite of a traditional “residency”, wherein the artist applies for a position in a studio or university and is either accepted or rejected based on whatever criteria are set by the institution. In this case, the artist is in control of his own fate, avoiding every formality that has come to follow an academic approach to creative work. The only price he has to pay is that of the law, which is easy to forget when we’re talking about street art these days.

Amidst all of the creative bounds that Banksy has leapt throughout his career as a vandal, it seems as though he’s on the verge of a new transformation. While the majority of Better Out Than In has still been expressed in his native tongue, the weight of the exhibition rests on the sculptural and performance-based installations like the trucks and mock gallery spaces. In fact, more than one of his posted stencils had me wondering if they were really his work – they seemed as afterthoughts, sentences left hanging in bits across town. They feel like the filler for these larger “happenings”, in a sense, which one would assume require a larger amount of planning and preparation. What can we expect next from the most famous tagger to date? A spectacular finale on the 31^st? The grand unveiling of his (or her, just so we’re clear) identity? One thing is for certain: the city will miss the attention when (s)he’s gone, if (s)he was ever really there in the first place…