MULTIPLICITY. It seemed so simple at the start….
by Sabine Rothman.
We came down to Florida for two shows: Art Basel Miami Beach and Design Miami. Or so I thought. At the end of our four-day trip, I could totally identify with the woman I heard wailing: “It’s almost over, and I haven’t seen everything yet!” Of course, we’d seen a lot, but with the proliferation of art and design exhibits—Pulse, Scope, NADA, Aqua, Photo MIAMI, Zones, Casa Décor, etc., etc., etc.—there was no way to do it all. Which got me thinking about multiplicity. Often, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. With that in mind, take a look at some of the installations and pieces that struck our fancy…
Steve Powers’ Signarama, a collaboration with Studio Gangster, presented by Deitch Projects and Paper Magazine.
and…
An untitled installation of line drawings by French artists Jean-Francois Moriceau and Petra Mrzyk at French Kissing in the U.S.A, an exhibit of work from the emerging art scene in France
And, what we saw in Miami makes me think of:
Barry McGee, another of Jeffrey Deitch’s artists
and…
Urs Fischer’s Jet Set Lady, a tower of drawings installed to stunning effect at Franois Pinault’s Palazzo Grassi in Venice
Hi Sabine,
This is so true with these events. The same happens when the Venice Biennale comes along. You see so much, and yet at the end of it all, you start wondering if you saw it all, and what you indeed saw. If you truly saw it or grasped it. That’s why I love buying catalogues, or taking pics, just to make sure something sticks with me, especially because a lot of these works are more and more produced only for shows, so the feeling of “now and never again” is always present. What usually sticks with me is the connections I make, the recurring themes, noticeable in more than one installation or any kind of work. But one can definitely grasp how difficult it is to maintain an archive or some sort of document of what happenned. Curators depend on photography, even videotaping it all…
It’s all visual saturation and perishing. Though it’s clearly visible how deeply preoccupied the artists are with actuality.
Dear Marko,
Thanks for your comments. I too can’t stop collecting catalogs and pics—it’s pack-rat city around here! I’m curious for a little more explanation of what you mean by actuality, and how the artists’ preoccupations come to light. I figure you’re referring to some of Hegel’s concepts, but haven’t read much of him in a long, long time!!
Hi Sabine,
Yeah, actuality, basically looking around yourself first (instead of just looking forwards and backwards), and exposing your surroundings, be it private or public. It’s not merely a social commentary, just exposing can be enough, throwing what we have today out of itself, creating distances to the everyday - at least that was most discussed during the Venice biennale. Of course, that is not the only theme or topic, if those are the right words.