This week I'd like to focus on Thinking with an Agentic Assemblage in Postman Inquiry. This to me was a powerful response to a powerful work of art, Emma Sulkowicz's Carry That Weight. Until beginning this blog post, I had completely forgotten that I actually got to briefly witness this performance piece in person! I happened to be in NYC at Columbia's Open Studios with a few friends. While standing outside some of the studio spaces, we saw a young woman carrying/dragging a large blue mattress through the hallways. I had heard about the project through several news sources, but it took a minute to register what we were really seeing. It was a powerful moment to say the least.
This writing talks a lot about the role of material, and I love the phrase "Thing-power". As artists, the materials we choose to work with, and ultimately represent to viewers are hugely important. All art, unless purely conceptual, takes on some sort of physical form, and materials are employed. In the writing, the authors reiterates this importance of material and it's effect on us, as well as our effect on the material. They state "The mattress becomes vital to making these things happen, and not always in a figurative or representational sense. Everything in a collective carry is full of vibrant matter: the mattress itself gestures pieces of humans and nonhumans as it is picked up, carried, dragged, dropped-accumulating skin, dirt, dust and sweat, and perhaps taking on different shapes as it is handled and squeezed into tight spaces", We as artists ultimately choose materials and what we "do" with them, but that's not where the piece ends. We as a collective continue to have an influence on the materiality of a given piece, either purposefully or accidentally. The piece that Sulkowicz conceived was so much more than just a mattress. It was the ability for the material object to interact and live in our world, and for our world to enact itself upon it.
This reading also made me think about Tracey Emin's piece entitled "My Bed". As an artist who often works with installation as well as making the private public, Emin's decided to put her unkempt bed on display in a gallery setting. After what has been described as a deep bout of depression where she remained in bed for several days, the bed was a remnant, a recording, of that period of time and mental state she experienced. I often think about what it means to take "everyday" materials and re-present them in a gallery setting? What happens to their materiality and the way they are perceived? How do they enact and are enacted upon?
This writing talks a lot about the role of material, and I love the phrase "Thing-power". As artists, the materials we choose to work with, and ultimately represent to viewers are hugely important. All art, unless purely conceptual, takes on some sort of physical form, and materials are employed. In the writing, the authors reiterates this importance of material and it's effect on us, as well as our effect on the material. They state "The mattress becomes vital to making these things happen, and not always in a figurative or representational sense. Everything in a collective carry is full of vibrant matter: the mattress itself gestures pieces of humans and nonhumans as it is picked up, carried, dragged, dropped-accumulating skin, dirt, dust and sweat, and perhaps taking on different shapes as it is handled and squeezed into tight spaces", We as artists ultimately choose materials and what we "do" with them, but that's not where the piece ends. We as a collective continue to have an influence on the materiality of a given piece, either purposefully or accidentally. The piece that Sulkowicz conceived was so much more than just a mattress. It was the ability for the material object to interact and live in our world, and for our world to enact itself upon it.
This reading also made me think about Tracey Emin's piece entitled "My Bed". As an artist who often works with installation as well as making the private public, Emin's decided to put her unkempt bed on display in a gallery setting. After what has been described as a deep bout of depression where she remained in bed for several days, the bed was a remnant, a recording, of that period of time and mental state she experienced. I often think about what it means to take "everyday" materials and re-present them in a gallery setting? What happens to their materiality and the way they are perceived? How do they enact and are enacted upon?