My ‘Concepts’ Installation: Materials/Methods
The space I’ve chosen to display “excess consumerism” in the University Lofts installation is the first floor bathroom. I will collect disposed water bottles around DU campus and dump them in the apartment’s bathroom. The amount should be 600+ water bottles and should overwhelm the viewer with disgust. The bottles will likely not reach over half of the vertical space and I will contain them with a Plexiglas barrier, cut to the size of the door. I will also post photos of the locations from where I collected these bottles, as well as fact sheets on the waste of disposable water bottles.
Response to “Ways of Seeing”
I believe the meaning of the art of the past belongs to those who can apply it to their own lives, but a part of it also belongs to the cultural hierarchy of relic specialists. I enjoy applying historical works of art to my life. I also like to gain knowledge of the works’ history. Who painted it and why? What was going on around that person’s life to inspire them so? These are the questions that can be answered by the specialists. And herein lies their crucial role in the history of art.
I value a piece of work for what it means to me… as much as I value it for being the work of an artist who created it with intention. When approaching art, first I form an opinion based off of sight. I can love something or hate it on first impression. I find that my opinion can be changed after learning the facts about it’s production, intent and context as told by the artist. For an example that is familliar to everyone, in this article, we saw a painting and we formulated our opinions. Then we saw the same painting with the caption “This is the last picture Van Gogh painted before he killed himself.” My first impression represents this work of the past belonging to me personally, whereas the information presented in the caption is provided by the relic specialists. So which way do I prefer to have art presented to me? Both ways. I think it is healthy to have a balance of both approaches. Healthy and necessary. Sometimes I love the history of art and sometimes I love the naked sight without further knowledge. I can appreciate either approach deeply and luckily for me, the world contains both these processes for me to explore. Not all art will be accompanied by facts, but a huge amount that was at one time deemed ‘valuable enough’ by someone, somewhere, will be.
