Work in Art

Janet Koplos gave a lecture at our school on Thursday night. Since Koplos is an art critic, she brought many examples of artists' work, which really helped her presentation. Had she spent too much time on a few pieces—or worse, a single piece—the majority of the audience would've passed into a coma.


After her introduction, we watched a video of a man who would walk into a room with a wood sculpture in it. He proceeded to kick the sculpture, and it of course fell down with a pleasant crashing sound. This event repeated several times, with differently shaped sculptures built from the same wood pieces.


Her main point was that in some art, the work done to create the piece is a part or the whole of concept. Koplos showed us slides of works that made us wonder if the artist had lost his or her mind while creating. In cases, this was half-true, as she stated a few of the masterminds behind these pieces were checked into mental institutions. Because the artists checked themselves in, they were allowed to create art and have assistants come in to work, as well.

Just a few of the people she spoke of: Jackie Winsor, Adolf Wolfli, Yayoi Kusama, Gary Lang, Wolfgang Laib, Ralph Bacerra, Josiah McElheny, Martin Puryear, Tara Donovan, Tim Hawkinson, and Tom Friedman.


I agree with the point she made; I've always been an advocate of good art that maybe doesn't have a universal, political, complicated, outside-of-itself concept. I believe that work can be great on its own.