Our last ARTLab, Fill This Space!, included bubbles, projectors, and yarn.
I think everyone had fun, because how often do you get to play with
bubbles in a museum, or a real overhead projector? I think people should
carry bubbles with them wherever they go.
During this week’s ARTLab, I want you to experience the joy (or perhaps anxiety) of defacing and destroying an object in an artistic way. We’ll be subtracting instead of adding!
I’m taking inspiration from permanent collection piece Trespass by William Anastasi for this ARTLab. This piece is so subtle that I wonder how many people actually see it. He took a rock from outside and scratched away at the wall in a deliberate way to create this:
He calls this type of drawing a Wall Removal.
When I look at it, I think about the ways we make art. The artmaking process can include addition or subtraction. When we add, we may be adding a pencil line to a piece of paper, a paint stroke to a canvas, or gluing a googly eye to a paper bag puppet. When we subtract, we may be whittling a piece of wood, we may be carving linoleum to make a block print, or, we may even be adding and subtracting simultaneously when we play with a big blob of clay. Those are all safe artistic mediums that we expect to consume and use for an artistic purpose. When you start to intentionally mark up or scratch into something that is whole and perfect, how do you feel about that? Is it art?
Let’s find out this weekend!
As always, ARTLab is free with museum admission, and is open to all ages, kids and adults! In addition, this Saturday will include our very first drop-in tour at noon! We’ll visit William Anastasi’s work in addition to Kathleen Montgomery’s new installation over at 1414 Monterey, and then we’ll head back to the main building lobby for ARTLab!
ARTLab programs are open to all ages and are FREE with museum admission!
-Karen Forney, Museum Educator
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