To see the following video you should enlarge it (double-click once playing).

The above is a compilation of works by the Swiss artist Zimoun.

1. Funny, one keeps telling oneself, enough of the minimal already, somehow feeling that less is a bore should be embraced, and the outrageously overflowing art of the recent years – appreciated and encouraged. And then, something like this appears, and it’s irresistible. We’ve seen things from this universe before, also on this blog, and yet, the simplicity, yes, the damn purity takes over again.

2. I had a chance, recently, to visit several large factories. There were wonders there that could probably match most of the things on this video. Yet there was one thing they couldn’t do: be useless. It’s the sheer uselessness of it that gives it the power. We are not attached to anything but the thing. Art as the thing-that-cannot-be-used? Not necessarily, not in some purist sense. Great industrial design is to be cherished. And yet, there is a level of insanity here, of out-of-this-world-ness, that takes us to an exotic land, allowing for the silliest and most delicious connections to be made.

3. Luxury requires waste. A truly luxurious lifestyle is one where perfectly good things get wasted, as if to outplay their natural use and dying away. The true master of luxury seems to be saying her opulence is so great, the very perseverence of things is no match – they lose their original function and only exist to the extent they are participating in this out-of-this-world-ness of luxury.
You know what I’m aiming at? Here’s the hypothesis:

4. This, this minimalist joyful pleasure-making, is the true luxury. Not the apparent richness of the new complexities. In the world of useless purity, everything only serves the joy of simple aesthetic pleasure. More complex works are not quite like that – they have an inner game to play. The elements enter a dialogue, start relations and societies, with their conflicts and functions and disruptions. Here, there is only the ping of a shot of pleasure. This engine moves nothing. It is here to make me smile (or bring inspiration, or scare) – and I turn it off as soon as I have. And don’t be mistaken – if I had one of those and got bored with and could afford it, it would go to waste.

4a. Ah, you might say, but the truly great art is one we don’t get bored with. Possibly. Yet how often do we actually go back to contemplate (not just think about or admire or analyze) a work of contemporary “minimalist” art? Does it mean it’s because it’s not that great? What if it’s about something else? What if it is an element of luxury, a game we play with ourselves, to feel the exquisite taste of the sophisticated dish, and then to ditch it as soon as we’re fed up? It wouldn’t be a question of bluff, of fakeness, of shallowness. It would be a question of use. Of why we crave it, this new. Of how we make it useful after all.

David Foldvari, Wrestler

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The Minimum Wage Machine (work in progress), by Blake Fall-Conroy

The minimum wage machine allows anybody to work for minimum wage. Turning the crank will yield one penny every 5.04 seconds, for $7.15 an hour (NY state minimum wage). If the participant stops turning the crank, they stop receiving money. The machine’s mechanism and electronics are powered by the hand crank, and pennies are stored in a plexiglas box.

Contrary to some other art experiments on work (I’m thinking of some of Santiago Sierra’s early projects, but had I any memory, I’m sure a dozen other works would come to my mind), this, here, is not about objectifying labor. It takes the paradox of work-as-product in a somewhat different direction. If there is a minimum wage, any job should be paid the minimum wage. So turning the handle should actually always give you this result.

You can read a technical description of how it was constructed (didn’t understand half of it) here.

Sonnet 44
If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,
Injurious distance should not stop my way;
For then despite of space I would be brought,
From limits far remote, where thou dost stay.
No matter then although my foot did stand
Upon the farthest earth removed from thee;
For nimble thought can jump both sea and land
As soon as think the place where he would be.
But, ah, thought kills me that I am not thought,
To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,
But that, so much of earth and water wrought,
I must attend time’s leisure with my moan,
Receiving nought by elements so slow,
But heavy tears, badges of either’s woe.

(Shakespeare)

One more thing: The bone in the film is a wishbone:

The wishbone, known in anatomy as the furcula, is a sternum bone found in birds which is shaped like the letter Y. It is used as an attachment point for the wing muscles. It is so named because of a tradition: Two people pull on each side of such a bone, and when it breaks, the one who gets the larger part is said to have a wish granted.

The mechanical sculpture in the film is by Arthur Ganson. Some of his stuff is really awe-inspiring. Check this Machine with Artichoke Petal #2

Of course, it may bring to mind other art machines (Rebecca Horn, but also manyothers), but what I really appreciate here is the simplicity. Modest art is something to be cherished. It also reminds me of some of the musical experiences by the Portuguese musician Nuno Rebelo:

Even the really simple ones are really something: Machine with Chinese Fan

Is it kitsch? I don’t care.
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Audience by Chris O’Shea. A very interesting technical description can be found here.

Apparently, the National Railway Workers installed a handrail on Richard Serra’s sculpture in Duedingen, Switzerland. Why would anyone want the autonomy of the artist?

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Looking for the above gorgeous image by Francesca Woodman, I came across Lucilees post where she asks the ever-recurring question about appropriation vs. plagiarism, in the context of the two works below:

Cattelan’s installation, untitled, from 2007.

Woodman’s photo, untitled, 1977.

The work seemed like a clear quote to me, but I searched a bit more.
Cattelan presented the installation in 2008 at his Bregenz Kunsthalle (the site seems to have almost no working pages) exhibition. It was on the highest floor of the building, and it looked like this:

Impressive. It’s quite interesting, though, to see to what extent the presentation of a work can obscure/transform its dynamics. The first picture of Cattelan’s piece without this second one creates a significantly different framework. (According to one commentator, this was the first time Cattelan used someone else’s architecture to stage his piece.)
My Polish coleagues have linked Cattelan’s work to feminism and eschatology. Crucifiction, yes, but what is beyond? Also, the white nightgown suggests a patient, eternal patient, hysteric person…
Although Iza Kowalczyk is right to point out that this work stresses the crucifiction more than the hanging in Woodman’s version (where the chair in the front created a classic reference to this way of committing suicide), there is something in both these installations that I found crucial, and missing in the comments: the portrayed woman is not crucified. She is suspended by her own arms. It is a very uncomfortable position and requires significant effort.
There is a play going on here between victimization, self-victimization and empowerment. The subject self-objectifies thus getting higher.
One other thing, concerning a discussion on one of the sites, about eroticism. Is this too pure to be erotic? To me it seems to bring about the right amount of frustration by being so unbearably decent, and yet stretched to the limits . This is much more explicit in Cattelan’s work – an installation, bringing about a specific, ambiguous visual perspective. This frustration of power, which plays namely on the the relation between the viewer and his subject, is a trademark of many of Cattelan’s works. It’s what often irritates me. And what makes me come back.

The San Francisco LAB just closed their 25th-year-anniversary exhibition called PastForward, where they made an open call to young artists to respond to works of the established ones who came out of The LAB. The result seems to have been quite exciting – you can take a look at some pictures at this site (with some great jazz playing on the site – which unfortunately can’t be turned off…).
My favorite work, especially given the distant perspective (I’m in Warsaw now) is the Viewing Platform by Ellen Babcock:

Perfect for any vernissage! (And after all, what would contemporary art be without the vernissages!) It plays with an essential trait of contemporary art: centrality. You are taller, you see further, and as if by chance you are hence appreciated. You become the spectacle. Very tiring indeed. And fun, if you forget the impossibility of an intimate contact with the remaining works. I know, the people become the work, and still…
I would love to create a portable version of this. Like a small podium with railings that you could carry around the opening (wheels?), or rent, or receive if you are a VIP guest. Or just have one of my own, though the most enjoyable part might be having several people on this higher level, among the crowds. And believe you me, at the exhibition openings of the main Warsaw art centers, it would come in handy.

–
Here is what the curatorial note says:

Ellen Babcock responds to Lauren Davies with a sculptural installation
that addresses Davies’ engagement with representations of the natural world. Based upon Babcock’s visit to a tiny museum in Twillingate, Newfoundland – a visit Davies herself had made prior to Babcock – the sculpture teases out the differences between the two artists’ approaches to the tropes of natural history display. Encountering a stuffed polar bear in the museum, Davies responded with a gently mocking mixture of humor and pathos meant to remind us of the absurdity of the way taxonomies simplify and freeze the fluid mysteries of life. Babcock, on the other hand, found the quasi-encounter visceral and beautiful. While she sees Davies as opening up a space for the Real in an iconoclastic rejection of the traditions of natural display, Babcock looks for vestiges of the Real in the moment of encounter when disbelief is suspended.

From Chicago’s pride, the Millenium Park, comes a cruel, yet fascinating, story of public art gone wrong.
BOTH of the public sculptures it opened recently, one by the Van Berkel atelier, and the other by Zaha Hadid, got damaged by the all-too-loving public.
Looks quite nice from above, doesn’t it? If you go to ground level, it’s even more inspiring. Here’s a look at Hadid’s work:

The entire structure, made of aluminum, is covered with cloth. Now let’s take a look inside this spaceship.

Get the picture?
One of the key statements of the manifesto of a group of artists presenting the exhibition Unusually Rare Events is that the artist does not need to think about the spectator when creating the work. Agreed. However, when creating a public work of art (mind you, to some extent any work of art is public), he might want to consider that his work will possibly not only be appreciated like this:

but also like this:

And those, of course, are the “nice” visitors.
The question arises: should we stay with “public-proof” solutions? Hire teams of guards to keep the aura going? Or maybe consider every mark and hole as part of the (pardon the pun) holistic concept of the work of art?

Now I wonder how these marvellously designed shoes by Zaha Hadid feel:
Not to mention the London Aquatics Centre, to be one of the main venues of the 2012 Summer Olympics.
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It’s my birthday, so today I’m leaving you with some new art that was not meant to be art, made by a scientist in collaboration with ants… (Don’t mind the off-screen commentary and enjoy the visual ride).

(If you’re interested in the ant-not-art part of it, you can see the 6-minute documentary episode here)
(Thanks Pusty!)

Master, placid are
All the hours
We lose,
If, in losing them,
Like in a vase,
We put flowers.

(fragment of a poem by Ricardo Reis, aka Fernando Pessoa)

Tommi Toija, the author of the above sculptures, has an exhibition at the Institut Finlandais in Paris until the end of June.