Extra Event II: Making Strange: Gagawaka + Postmortem by Vivan Sundaram

The exhibit is a rather dimly light room in the Fowler Museum. Mannequins dressed in recycled medical material scatter the floor, each one with their own spotlight. The red velvet partitions only add to the ominous nature established by these eerie creations.

Proof of attendance, featuring couture fashion mannequins

Mannequin draped in hair

Bodybag with pills

Walking around the exhibit was an experience resembling that of the main

character in a horror movie. I was very much drawn to these alternatively couture mannequins, but at the same time, harbored the feeling that they might just come to life. They were chunky and inelegant from afar, but up close there was much admiration to be had for the attention to detail. The garments were usually uniform, made out of facemasks, hair net, and even just hair. Each garment was successfully constructed so that hundreds of these items were made to look
like one cohesive item.

Some of my favorites included a body bag decorated with multicolored pills, a hair mannequin, and a corset made from facemasks. The hair mannequin, although somewhat grotesque to me, really drew my attention for its use of different hair colors, types, and braids. The facemask corset was intriguing because Sundaram utilized these mass produced items, not made for aesthetics as much as for purpose, to construct an elegant piece of clothing. I appreciate how Sundaram challenges the idea of beauty by using recycled items that aren’t regarded as such, if not already associated with connotations of illness and death.

Facemask corset

While most artists experimenting with science have created art from scratch, Sundaram’s work explores art that is created from the leftovers of science. The Postmortem part of the exhibit is on the surface a follow up to the Gagawaka half. Once the mannequins have lived their “lives,” they proceed to be cut up and examined. However, Sundaram takes the hollowed case and adds to it, be it taping an entire doll on the back or just adding a limb, essentially creating a new life for the mannequin. This ambiguous duality of life and death manifests itself in science as well. In a more complex manifestation, Schrodinger’s cat paradox claims a cat in a box is both alive and dead, but reality causes the perception of the cat being alive or dead.

Collection of postmortem creations

I would encourage students to go see Making Strange because it challenges conventional ideas of beauty and blurs the boundaries of what we define as life and death.

"Making Strange: Gagawaka Postmortem by Vivan Sundaram | Fowler Museum at UCLA." Fowler Museum at UCLA. Web. 7 June 2015. <http://www.fowler.ucla.edu/exhibitions/making-strange-gagawaka-postmortem-vivan-sundaram#>.

"Making Strange: Gagawaka Postmortem by Vivan Sundaram." YouTube. YouTube. Web. 7 June 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=286&v=jt8_2hKhv68>.

"Vivan Sundaram's "Making Strange" - April 19-September 6, 2015." YouTube. YouTube. Web. 7 June 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=84&v=9DRX4dlBA-w>.

Extra Event I: Singular Spaces: From the Eccentric to the Extraordinary by Jo Farb Hernandez

Singular Spaces was a collection of photographs by Jo Farb Hernandez of homes in Spain modified by the artists inside, essentially an intersection of art and life. What stuck out the most for me was that most of the art created in this series was not created in a predetermined artistic environment, such as a museum, or by conventional artists. Rather, they were works that manifested from the creativity of those who did not necessarily have artistic backgrounds or influences.

Vila during construction of tower

My favorite works were those by Peter Buch and Joseph Pujiula i Vila. The aesthetics of Buch’s work immediately commanded my attention because of the colorful yet intricate tiles. I liked how at first glance his sculptures were bold, but also very molded to the original shape of the building. Likewise, Vila’s work was also very intricate. He utilized tree branches to construct elegant yet elaborately complex towers and domes. I do feel like the setup of this exhibit could’ve been better executed. The photos lined the hallway around Fowler Museum, but because they directly opposed the courtyard, there was often so much glare the details of the photos were lost.

 

Buch's whimsical dragon abode

Intricate dome constructed by Vila

Aside from the use of technology to capture these art structures, most pieces were constructed by hand and there doesn’t exist a direct relation between Singular Spaces and technology. However, I do believe that many of the themes driving technologically influenced art are present in this project. For example, the idea of singular spaces is described by the exhibit as, “spaces… constantly evolving, and at the same time they are always complete.” This parallels the idea of infinity, especially as observed in Robert Gero’s work, in which the core structure remains constant, and its modifications grow and shrink. I also think the lack of artistic training manifests itself in this project in the same way as in biotech or robotics and art. They use the creativity cultivated by their initial disciplines to approach art from a different angle. While engineers and scientists have thought to use their bodies and scans as canvases, the absence of conventional artistic tools have led the fishermen and average villagers of Spain to use their home as canvases.

"Singular Spaces: From the Eccentric to the Extraordinary in Spanish Art Environments | Fowler Museum at UCLA." Singular Spaces: From the Eccentric to the Extraordinary in Spanish Art Environments | Fowler Museum at UCLA. Web. 6 June 2015.

Event III: Breathing Light by James Turrell

James Turrell holds similar credentials to those of Robert Gero, having graduated with degrees in art, mathematics, perceptual psychology, and astronomy among others. Breathing Light seemed to incorporate a little bit of each discipline, whether it was the technicality of its construction or the way that one felt inside it. At the beginning you must take off your shoes and put on disposable socks before ascending a set of stairs into an undulating, softly lit, but colorful room. It’s a little hazy inside, enough to make it hard to discern where the boundaries of the room lie. In the front is what appears to be a screen, but is actually a drop off that happens to reflect the light behind you. If you walk a little further into the room and turn around, the entrance appears to have turned into another wall, the color of which vaguely resembles the lighting outside.

Looking back you see the neon light bordering the entrance, but nothing outside.

Turrell calls his art “nonvicarious,” and Breathing Light is a great example because while the physical qualities of the room can be described, it is hard to convey the feeling of being inside without actually attending the exhibit. I’m glad that I was able to attend after the Space + Art unit because given the knowledge of how other artists worked with space, I felt like I was better able to understand what Turrell was aiming for. Like Xu Zhen and Darzacq, Turrell explores how we occupy space. However, Turrell goes even further, using a theme similar to the one observed in Arthur Wood’s Cosmic Dancer by redefining how we understand “space.” While Breathing Light is well defined from the outside, the inside feels limitless, similar to the more palpable architecture in Gero’s Infinity Structures. Turrell constructs his own space, one vastly different from what we experience in everyday life. The fogginess made it hard to tell how away you are from everyone else, and though I found this slightly disorienting and uncomfortable, it was also one of my favorite parts of the exhibit. It required me to surrender the comfort associated with the certainty in knowing what’s real, an experience that can only be understand in that room.

The fogginess inside

Technologies like Oculus Rift and holographic projection illustrate the changing world of art, and like Turrell’s Breathing Light, not only redefine space but the idea of reality as well. Although these different “realities” are contained, they play an integral role in how our world is changing, something that I want to incorporate in my final project. Breathing Light was my favorite exhibit yet, and I would definitely encourage everyone to go experience it for themselves. 

Hylton, Wil. "How James Turrell Knocked the Art World Off Its Feet." The New York Times. The New York Times, 15 June 2013. Web. 2 June 2015. <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/magazine/how-james-turrell-knocked-the-art-world-off-its-feet.html>.

"Step Into the Light: James Turrell @ LACMA." CultureShockArt. 24 Sept. 2013. Web. 2 June 2015. <https://cultureshockart.wordpress.com/2013/09/24/step-into-the-light-james-turrell-lacma/>.

Failing, Patricia. "'It's Not About Light-It Is Light'" ARTnews. 4 Sept. 2013. Web. 2 June 2015. <http://www.artnews.com/2013/09/04/assessing-james-turrell/>.

Event II: Infinity Structures: Paradoxical Spaces by Robert Gero

I attended Robert Gero’s exhibit expecting something similar to Kathy High’s exhibit: a collection of diverse components playing to a major theme. Therefore, I was quite surprised and even a little perplexed at the overall simplicity of Infinity Structures. Just standing at the doorway you could see the whole exhibit: an intricately designed maze of white Styrofoam beams highlighted with pillows propped up in random corners, no explanation in sight. In the background played a low rumbling but unobtrusive audio track.

View from the entrance

Source of inspiration

I realize that using “simplicity” to describe the overall exhibit discredits the intricacy of the architecture and composition. Gero aimed to create a finite infinity, or a constant container housing infinite permutations of repetition. He utilizes props and draws inspiration from the scene of his exhibitions. The pillows were taken from a back room in the CNSI building, and the staircase outside inspired the very contents of the room. 

Section most resembling stairs

As a math major, I really enjoyed the geometric intricacy of the exhibit, the sharp edges contrasted with the soft formless pillows. A panning light highlighted this, creating infinitely more geometric shadows on the wall. The audio created a pulsing feeling, a feeling that when combined with the panning light created the impression that the structure was growing and shrinking within its confines.

A infinite pulsing feeling

Formless accent pillows 

 There are elements of philosopher Spinoza’s thoughts in Gero’s work. Spinoza considered infinity not necessarily as a numerical infinity, but rather a totality (Shein). Gero incorporates this by creating one unchanging structure, “totality,” but an infinitely changing interior. This intersection of the two cultures is something I want to see more of in future art and science. As a math major, I have realized the omnipresence of infinity and practical importance of being able to visualize it. In physics, infinity can be observed in black holes. In academia and applied sciences, long-term effects are often predicted by imposing a limit on infinity. I believe the increased presence of science in art will allow those who aren’t trained in the discipline to understand the otherwise highly technical work.

Shein, Noa. "Spinoza's Theory of Attributes." Stanford University. Stanford University, 3 Feb. 2009. Web. 2 June 2015. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza-attributes/>.

"EXHIBITION: Infinity Structures: Paradoxical Spaces by Robert Gero | UCLA Art | Sci Center Lab." UCLA Art | Sci Center Lab. Web. 2 June 2015. <http://artsci.ucla.edu/?q=events/exhibition-infinity-structures-paradoxical-spaces-robert-gero>.