Sunday, February 11, 2007
QUESTIONING ASSUMPTIONS
Water and oil do not mix, therefore plaster (that forms through a chemical reaction with water) and tar (an oil based product) should not mix. A positive times a positive is positive. A negative times a negative is positive. A positive times a negative is negative. Why? How is this like tar and plaster? How is this like my internal nature of goodness and shadow? So I set out to mix the tar and plaster. I built a simple mold, a cube, to test my questions. The tar and plaster mixed but didn’t mix. Wrestling within the cube, within the light and shadows, an emergent beauty, an odd sense of wholeness and redemption surfaced. I built a better mold into which I could pour 18 cubes at a time. More was better. I explored the relationship of the cube to the self—the open self and the closed self; the compartmentalized, fragmented self and the whole self; the empty self and the saturated self.
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The hegemony of the artist practiced on the materials (tar/plaster = oil/water)is a wonderful metaphor for the middle east. States such as Iraq, which was arbitrarily created by the English, have remained intact because hegemonic forces such as the British and later Saddam (a puppet of the west for most of his reign) unified it through military force.
I realize you art isn't explicitly politics, and I'm not suggestion the cubes are. It's personal. I know. Nevertheless, a political interpretation is possible.
I view social relations (ind to states, state to state, etc.) as often nothing more than personal relations writ large.
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