I’ve tried to connect to last 4 posts with each other. It started with the new course Art Histories we developed at the University of the Arts in Utrecht, the University I recently got my master degree in art education. The following post I wrote with a pencil because I didn’t have my computer to type. Then I connected that post with the pencil from ‘I, Pencil: the movie’ which connected me with John Baldesari’s pencil and via Baldesari’s dots with the ‘I’m sold’ red dots at Cees de Vries’ exhibition.
So here I am at gallery Arte Damiate on the Kuipershaven in Dordrecht, the Netherlands. I look around and see Cees’ paintings with textcards with red dots. To make the next step one criteria narrows down the connections; it has to be an art connection and I have to use Tate Modern’s ‘Ways of Looking’ to make the connection. This means I can connect via:
- the object
- the subject
- the context
I could connect one of the works via the proces of Cees’ work by showing you the “art in progress’ video I made of one of his last paintings:
The above video shows the step (a week) by step ‘making of’ the painting.
My goal of today was to connect with Bruce Nauman’s work and especially his Oliver Ranch Installation “Untitled”, 1998-99 (Cast concrete staircase).
I connected the ‘step by step’ proces I showed in the video with the different sized steps of Nauman’s cast concrete staircase. Why? Because yesterday I shared this work with my three Nature Capital co-workshop designers. I shared it because I think it is an brilliant (stair)case of how to make use of the natural surrounding resulting in an absolute mindful walk in nature. Or like Nauman says:
“You’re very aware as you walk up or down that your body has to make an adjustment at each step. And so, you have to figure when you can change your weight, and where your foot is going to be placed, and how high you step, or how far down you step. And nothing is so great that you have to struggle with it, but everything is a little bit of an adjustment. So, you’re kept a little off-balance all the time, adjusting yourself.”
Asking Nauman what makes this stairway a work of art and not just a bunch of stairs, Nauman replies:
“I guess it’s the intention that changes it from a stairway to a stairway as a work of art—because I said so! (LAUGHS).”
You can read the whole interview here and the connections I’ve made so far here:
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