Uklanski

Piotr Uklański, Untitled (Dance Floor), 1996

This work is now at the Guggenheim's show called the Shapes of Space. When I was an intern I got to watch them installing the dance floor and the artist was there to supervise it. He was wearing a grey suit, pink shirt unbuttoned, and pointy shoes. He had an entire team of Polish helpers installing the work while he fiddled with the computer program that runs the floor.

The piece is a dance floor that has been transposed into the architecture of the museum. It is meant to fit differently into each new space. There's pop music playing, and the music is adapted for each location to be whatever songs are popular at the moment. The floor lights up and people are supposed to dance.

No one danced (except for children).

The purpose of the work is to show us the difference between the social and interactive space of a dance floor and the subdued institutional space of a museum. The work creates a space that is not quite completely dance club because you still remember you are in a museum. The aura of the museum overpowers any attempt at a complete transposition of a dance hall.

It reminded me of the Saturday Night Fever dance floor, and then made me think about how much art and entertainment is being blurred now a days. Is a museum supposed to entertain? And further, just what kind of a space is the museum? It's social in the sense that you go with friends, but you don't really meet other people like you could potentially do in a bar or club. It's educational, but not a concrete education like a class, because ultimately if you like something or not is a matter of taste. It could also be a private experience with an artwork. It's like a library in that people don't really speak loudly and they tread carefully. But there also is a certain level of entertainment, even if it is on the basic level that people just like to look at things. It's a strange mixture one that is unique to a museum. (But even within museums there are subtly differences in the spaces, the Guggenheim building seems to invite more interaction just because of the ramp, while the Metropolitan Museum is more conducive to wandering around and finding rooms with no other visitors in it. I'll leave it at that.)

Yves

Yves Klein, Leap Into The Void, 1960

This is one of my favorite photographs. When I saw it for the first time, I must have stared at it for two full minutes, which is a long time to stare at a photograph. He was a follower of an obscure Christian sect that believed that spirits would be liberated from their bodies and people would exist without form, and objects would levitate. He thought he could exist as a pure color which for him represented infinity. Klein thought that he could fly, and wanted to prove it to the non-believers by documenting his flight.


I later found out that the photograph is in fact, faked. He had some friends hold out a sheet to catch his fall. He then edited the friends out of the photograph in the darkroom. Nevertheless, the photograph represents Klein's acceptance of the void, and his desire to become immaterial. Unfortunately another artist in Japan tried to imitate Klein and leaped to his death.

For me, I had a total Barthes 'punctum' moment. Something about the insanity of jumping from a building to prove your point, to show that you aren't afraid of the void has really stuck with me.

His monochromatic Pure Color ultramarine blue paintings are ironically being appropriated as a new color in fashion, sans spirituality. Maybe he would have liked it. Maybe it would have been for him as if you're becoming the color. But somehow I doubt it. I think people sometimes forget that all the arts are connected to each other.

Jil Sander & Givenchy

An Introduction

I have been wanting to do this for a while now. Check back for updates.