Our venture to Minneapolis last week was equally enjoyable and informative. I was impressed with the works displayed at the Walker this month. Modern art is being pushed as far as possible, in so many intriguing directions now, it seems. Of course the main goal remains, and that is to generate a particular feeling within the viewer. For example, Haegue Yang's "Yearning Melancholy Red" was captivating and overwhelming. This is achieved by combining all sorts of stimuli and interaction for the viewer to meander through and form their own conclusions. I was impressed on many levels by this installation.
However, I choose to speak about another piece that created a stronger reaction of a different sort for me. I discovered "Empty Room" while looking at a piece close to it, and noticing a faint light underneath the second set of stairs in the first two galleries. Getting down on hand and knee to peer underneath, I thought at first I was looking at a mess left about by museum workers, or left over artist supplies. This ordinary curiosity that I felt right away turned into a humorous realization that it was all fabricated specifically to generate that 'ordinary' feeling. It was incredibly intriguing that I felt a feeling that the artists completely intended me to feel!
Peter Fischli and David Weiss are the two collaborative installation artists that created "Empty Room". They had a production at the Walker in 1996 that created this particular mess in the basement. It was this random assortment of supplies scattered about that gave them the idea for this piece. They intended to celebrate the ordinary, overlooked, or undervalued in our lives by using the concept of trompe l'oeil to create the illusion that the viewer is simply seeing a scattered, left over mess. In fact, each of these objects is fabricated from polyurethane, every box, book, board, bucket, paintbrush, hammer, nail, lighter, cup, q-tip, and piece of garbage! They have fabricated a perfect mess.
My shell was difficult to find. I've narrowed it down to be most similar to a busicon whelk. The family classification is Melongenidae. Found all over the east coast and the UK, they are generally a solid cream color, but the busicon whelk in particular has tan and white stripes. The structure is long and spiral, with a rounded spiraling head, and a long siphonal canal (the name of the opening along the side). They also have tubercles that develop larger and larger as they grow, and they have radula along the straighter sides. Radula are the file-like ridges that the animal used to move. The animal that used to inhabit this shell was a carnivorous sea snail that scavenged for dead marine animals. The only discrepancy I have is that this shell is known to be the largest species of whelks, ranging from 8-40 cm. Mine is, unfortunately for me, smaller that a quarter. In fact, this is not a picture of my shell, but one found that looks the most similar. After trying and failing, I could not focus in on my shell. I suppose I need micro-focus. :)
