Art as Energy / Energy as Art, continued...

Good morning.  After a bit of a delay in posting, I am back to continue our discussion of art and energy - inserting it into a discussion about objects, materials, and surfaces included in PLEASEtouch. 

Had an interesting conversation with a visitor who brought her 3 year old in with her to explore PLEASEtouch.  She said her son, Jack, had a marvelous time touching until he came to an artifact from the installation skin - Water Offering.  He reached out to touch the pedestal skinned in burned monkey fur (more on why I skinned the pedestal in monkey fur later), physically recoiled, looked up at her and said "Scary".  She said he would not tolerate going near Water Offering again.  

Do objects hold energy?  Does the concept of entanglement inform our perceptions - on a conscious level? A subconscious level?  Are we aware of it?  Can we be aware of it?

Jack was.

Where we are in our own awareness certainly informs it.  How open are we?  How conscious are we? How aware are we - are we willing to be?

Images of Water Offering as it stood in the installation skin - still smelling of burnt fur.

Water Offering is an artifact from the installation skin - a work about our war (the US) with Imperial Japan (WWII).  By contrasting and comparing events, I told the story of how we moved forward, to the dawn of our nuclear history.  skin was the first installation in a series of work called My Manhattan Project.  

skin was not an installation about facts, although the facts, as they were revealed to me through research, were horrific. Facts informed the story.  I visually discussed those facts in terms of experiences - the very sad, terrifying, tragic experiences of the many people who were forced to participate in horrific actions against one another by the few people who insisted on it.  For whatever reason.  

I presented the experiences as beautifully as I could.  An odd choice indeed - but one I felt necessary in order to avoid the kind of recoiling Jack experienced in PLEASEtouch, so that visitors would see, hear, smell the story.  I tried to make it accessible - even when it was horrific.

All wars just pull the rest of us along (although some refuse to participate), finding ways to secure our agreement and alignment with whatever it is the few are trying to attain.  Then we will feel justified in what we are asked to do. Especially when those we love are harmed - in terrible ways.  

I remember my mother (a Brit, born and raised) talking about her feelings when the Germans attacked England by air.  She would watch the dog fights between German and Brit planes.  She said, in the beginning, she felt as horrible when the German planes went down as she did the Brits - knowing that that pilot had family and friends - that his life had been cut short and ended in a terrifying way.

Until her beloved cousin was shot down.  Then every time she saw a German plane go down, she cheered.

For Water Offering I chose a standard, cast plaster pedestal - an everyday object referencing grand marble architecture of our distant past, as well as the displaying of art objects in museums pre contemporary times.  A sort of pop art choice of the everyday referencing grander times - grander art.

I skinned the pedestal (overlaying one material over another) in monkey fur, found in the form of a coat in a thrift shop.  Monkey fur coats were very popular in the 1920s, 30s, even 40s - a choice anyone today would find unacceptable.  I chose monkey fur because monkeys share around 90% DNA with humans - and as such, are our closest mammal relative.  I then burned the fur.

Many of the people who died on Oahu during the attack on Pearl Harbor (and our air bases), including civilians, and even enemy attackers, died from fire, not water (drowning).  Those who did not die instantly in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki died from water not fire (burning / incineration).  When irradiated, human beings are consumed by their craving for water (a craving shared with burn victims).  As such many who did not die instantly in the atomic attacks threw themselves down wells and into rivers, where they drown.

The punch bowl sitting atop the pedestal skinned in burnt monkey fur was my recognition of their sacrifice and loss - on Oahu, on Honshu, on Kyushu. Water Offering was my peace offering to all who died in all three horrible events, as well as all others who died during the war.   This was one of the first times I used water in this way - as an act of recognition, reconciliation and healing.  I have since realized that my connection to water is an important one - one that I would work with more and more in my art, and my life.  PLEASEtouch helped me to see how water has been an active participant in my work since I started making work over thirty years ago.

Jack connected with the fear I attempted to bring to life, the horror of the story, without reading about it, or being told about it.  He just knew.  And being in a stroller, face to face with the material (the burnt fur), not able to reach the water above his head, he only knew, and was scared by, the energy that object and material in front of him held.

 

 

Images of Water Offering as it stands in PLEASEtouch today.  Accompanied by Water Font, an artifact from Tended Primitive Emergence - an installation about the preciousness of water.

Yesterday a visitor to the installation placed his hand in the water sitting in the bowl atop Water Offering, rubbed it along the bowl's rim, and made it sing.

In my next posting let's talk Art vs Artifact - in which I will include a guest essay by the Curator of History at the Loveland Museum/Gallery, Jennifer Cousino.  

Thank you for joining me.  Have a wonderful mid-October Monday.

Images:

skin installation images of Water Offering by Steven Maas.

PLEASEtouch installation images by Robin Snyder.