Who puts a bent glass door on the museum floor as art?
"Untitled"1 (one among many obects). Installation view. Museum of Science and Technology. 2016.
Photo credit: Bernard Akoi-Jackson
Who puts a bent glass door on the museum floor as art? This question has a sarcastic curiosity to it; and one might be equally ridiculous and say 'Kelvin Haizel'. But inherent in that question is also the search for meaning; what is this? While going through a number of images from the exhibition,i could project this question unto one of the blue boys who visited the museum of science and technology, during the Cornfields in Accra art exhibition. He sat on his heels next to the [un]familiar object and keenly observed.
I wonder, What might he have thought?
The label next to it doesn't point to anything outside of the object either: It reads "Untitled"1 (one among many objects). 'Where is/are the clue(s) to unpack this? Could it be in the phenomenological experience? Or in its materiality? Perhaps the various layers of artisanal and industrial processes might offer something here. How about the seemingly recognizable image of drugs accompanied by surgical gloves? But come to think of it, if its a door, then might it have some relationship to architecture? Why is it detached and made to sit on the bare floor? Was it ever attached to any structure in the first place? The rollers in the dents suggest they might have been! If so why is it unhinged? Has it moved from one place to another? Will it move from here to another? well there seem to be so many questions.
To begin with its specific physical and social properties, it is recognizable as a door with a sticker on it. The point of departure from identifying it as what we might know it has to do with function. A door in its simplest function is what opens you into or out of a building. Usually hinged to the frame of the building; it occupies a position between an entry and exit, it is neither outside nor inside, it only mediate the two spaces. When it is unhinged, it no longer bear its function, it is no longer a door, it becomes an object among many. By removing its function which is associated with design the object enters into the realm of art. In other words, it decouples itself from usefulness and asserts its position as a pure form entering into the realm of aesthetics. Boris Groys writes "In the art context to aestheticize the things of the present means to discover their dysfunctional, absurd, and unworkable charactor...the goal of design is to improve the status quo -- to make it more attractive. Art also accepts the status quo -- but it accepts it as a corpse, after its transformation into a mere representation." To align my thoughts with Groys', if we consider the object at the exhibition as a door, then we only do so in acceptance of it as corpse. On the other hand, if we engage with it as an object that shares the literal space with all other objects (as it has been installed in the museum) then it opens up the collective subjectivity of meaning making. The dysfuntional and desacralized object further enters into the politics of the now shared space -- the ground.
These concerns will be expanded in my subsequent posts, but for now, let's journey through the exhibition with blueboy.
"Untitled"1 (one among many objects). Installation view. Museum of Science and Technology. 2016.
Photo credit: Bernard Akoi-Jackson
'O, snap! This video and that first work share something in common. Ahhhh...it is a an oware board with pills as the members to play with. Well whatever! I can't stand here all day watching the entire game. I need to go see all the other interesting stuff too.'
Just when he straps his bag, Selorm Kudjie (one of the curators) come by. 'Ok let me listen to this curator for a min. He might know what this work means. His rasta though! Ei! I here he is an Odade3 oo.'
The same artist had this other installation at the top of the atrium as well. A 12 channel video projection that temporarily converts the glass screens -- through which natural light enters the atrium -- into a sort of moving stained glass. The rigid glass screens are covered with flaccid paper-fusing to make the reverse projection seen from the inside. And yes I realized the oware game that i already know is here dematerialized in this video form and rematerialized in the many monumental and object form through the projection, screened on television or as photographic stills on defunctionalized glass door. what is all this koraa aah!
#blaxTARLINES #Cornfieldsinaccra #sultanhaizel #kelvinhaizel
