Sunday

New Material as New Media


AuthorStroud, Marion Boulton
TitleNew material as new media / Marion Boulton Stroud ; foreword by Anne d'Harnoncourt
PublishedCambridge, Mass. ; London : MIT, 2003









Chris Burden
Installation of L.A.P.D. Uniforms and America's Darked Moments at Gagosian Gallery, New York, 1994

L.A.P.D. Uniforms, 1993. Wool serge, metal, leather, wood, and plastic. 88 x 72 x 6 inches (223.52 x 182.88 x 15.24cm) each. Edition of thirty. Collection of The Fabric Workshop and Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

America's Darker Moments, 1994. Figures: cast tin with enamel. Vitrine: wood, plexiglass, glass, and florescent lights. 56 1/2 x 36 1/2 x 36 1/2inches (143.51 x 92.71 x 92.71cm). Edition of 3. Collection of Yale University Art Gallery

Edition of 30 LAPD uniforms, designed to fit a 7'4" officer.
Overbearing symbols of power and authority
in the context of the 1992 LA riots, where the police where accused of unnecessarily beating Rodney King.

The sculptural work in the centre is a separate work often exhibited with the uniforms. "This pentagonal vitrine encapsulates miniature, painted tin castings that look very much like toys. The five vignettes depict significant moments in American History, where violence played a significant role--the John F. Kennedy assassination, the killings of students at Kent State University by National Guardsmen, the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam, the bombing of Hiroshima, the murder of Emmett Till at the start of the Civil Rights era." (p.60)


Felix Gonzalez-Torres
"Untitled" (Perfect Lovers), 1987-1990. Wall Clocks. 13 1/2 x 27  x 1 1/4 inches (34.29 x 68.58 x 3.18cm) overall. Edition of 3. Private collection.

" '...all these pieces are indestructible because they can be endlessly duplicated' (Felix Gonzales-Torres, A.R.T. Press, Los Angeles and New York, 1993). Inherent in his enigmatic and poetic works of art are questions about context and meaning, the nature of authority and power, and ideas of beauty and loss." (p.106)




Lee Mingwei
The Letter-Writing Project, 1998, (detail). Wood and glass. Three booths: 114 x 67 x 91 inches (289.56 x 170.18 x 231.14cm) each. Collection of Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the YAGEO Art Foundation, Taipei.

Inside each booth is a space to "stand sit or kneel--the three positions of meditation in Ch'an Buddhism. Viewers are invited to enter the booth of their choice and compose a letter to a person, either living or dead, reflecting on events that have inspired feelings of gratitude, insight or forgiveness--themes that correspond to the meditation positions." (P.162)
The letters are placed inside the booth (as in photo) where others can read them, or they may be sealed for privacy. During the exhibition letters with addresses where mailed weekly, the others were kept by Mingwei, who currently has about 15,000 unsent letters, a number which grows as the exhibition moves. Most of these letters are to the deceased.



Tim Rollins and K.O.S.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (After Harriet Jacobs), 1997. Satin ribbons and books pages on linen. 64 x 52 inches (162.56 x 132.08cm). Collection of the artist.

Based on Harriet Jacobs autobiography by the same name.
"The colourful ribbons were selected by K.O.S. to express 'the colours of joy,' a reference to a passage from Jacobs' book when the narrator glimpses the brilliant festive coloured ribbons worn by local Christmas revelers from the window in her grandmother's attic." (p.240)


Ugo Rondinone
Lowland Lullaby, 2002. Installation at the Swiss Institute, New York, 2002. Hand-printed automotive paint and polyurethane on wood. Foreground: Swiss artist Urs Fischer's Untitled sculpture. Dimensions vary with installation.

"Lowland Lullaby is an interactive visual and sound installation in the form of a stage onto which gallery visitors can walk.The piece was first exhibited at the Swiss Institute in New York, as part of a collaboartive installation between Rondine, Swiss artist Urs Fischer, and spoken-word poet John Giorno. Forty speakers embedded throughout the floor played Giorno's readin of his poem 'There was a Bad Tree'. This provided a platform for Fischer's drawing and sculpture, which dangle from the wall and lean onto the platform, contributing to an environment of flux and unrest." (p.244)

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