Week 7: Permanence

We were told by our professor that this week would be the most difficult to comprehend and in a way, she is right. So many themes have been criss-crossing our thoughts, but since I promised in my very first blog entry that I would attempt to discuss an overall idea each week, the main theme I feel that I should discuss is the idea of permanence.

We as human beings exist in nature. There is no way that we cannot exist in nature. However, we have been led to think of art as this eternal force, some mighty entity whose holiness exists beyond time and nature. When I was very young and first introduced to art, I was provided the generic examples of what "art" is: Greek statues of figures with slender movements and blank stares. The "Mona Lisa," forever preserved in a glass shrine sitting in the Louvre. All the examples I was first introduced to all had one fundamental thing in common: They existed in the seemingly timeless context of the gallery space. The white space of a gallery evokes the aura of the eternal, an environment outside of nature. However, this is a very conceited way of looking at the art. The reality is that someday all the art we see now will all be gone; the Greek statues will crumble, the Mona Lisa (despite the best efforts on the part of preservationists) will discolor and disintegrate. Even the buildings that house these works will eventually return to the earth. Many contemporary artists have understood this fact and have explored making work that is cognizant of being part of nature.


Robert Smithson was a sculptor who often worked in nature. His best known work is "Spiral Jetty", an artificially bulldozed rock formation off the coast of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. He specifically chose the site to near Golden Spike National Historic Site, the location of the famed golden railroad spike symbolizing the connection between West and East. The location of the jetty on the Great Salt Lake is barren and void of life, as though time has stood still. However, the tide still comes in and out and sometimes the jetty is submerged and sometimes it is visible from shore. This process erodes it over time and inevitably it will disappear. The work remains permanent as an idea but is only temporary in its execution.


Another artist who collaborates with nature in his work is Andy Goldsworthy. Goldsworthy really experiments with the idea of impermanence in his work. Every material he uses is found in nature; no man-made material is used to attach organic pieces together. He is not committed at all to the idea of preservation. The only remaining evidence left of his work is in photographs. As an artist one of the most difficult undertakings is to be indifferent to the fate of work and embrace the transitoriness of the natural environment. Andy examines this notion in his work every day.





There was an excellent documentary created about his work called "Rivers and Tides". This is a trailer for the film:



French literary theorist and philosopher Roland Barthes wrote a pivotal essay challenging the glorification of the author as a permanent fixture in literary work. Though it was originally written in the context of literary criticism, it also applies to the artist and artwork as well and has been adopted by the art community. In it, he proposed that "to give writing its future, it is necessary to overthrow the myth: the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author." This can be interpreted in many ways, and has been strongly debated by both the art and literary community since it was written in 1977. What it means to me is that in order for the reader to completely appreciate the work, the work must become about the reader. The author must relinquish their position as sole interpreter of the work and distance themselves from it so that the work can stand independently on its own. While I do agree with Barthes that the age of the glorified author is on its way out, it is sometimes knowing who the author is adds invaluable information to the work. This is especially relevant to work of a political nature, where the identity of the author is wedded to the work. I believe that what he is disputing are the egotistical tendencies of the author to his work and advocating for greater accessibility of the work for the viewer. This essential text is something that I will continually be referring back to as an art student.


Thinking about the art that we have seen this week has made me contemplate my transitoriness in the world. Everyday I walk through campus and see that I am only one of thousands of other students, all of whom are at this university for very similar reasons, with very similar goals and aspirations; whose parents have probably said similar words of encouragement to help them while pursuing their education. I am a part of this environment like everyone else and I struggle to establish what sets me apart from everyone else here. I have been struggling with this for quite some time. I found a quote from William Kentridge in the documentary, "Anything is Possible" that really hit close to home for me. In this scene, Kentridge was recalling a conversation he had with a friend where he was asking his friend what he should do with his life. He quoted his friend as saying,

"You're now 25, 28. You have never had a job. You are unemployable. Stop talking about someone giving you a job. No One will give you a job. Do what you're doing and make a success of it, or a failure of it, but stop imagining that there's going to be a different trajectory for you."

I have always known that I will be doing something with my life that involves art in some capacity. Hearing this made me realize that I shouldn't be reliant on the traditional path of employment that so many other students struggle with. I might as well make my own path like William Kentridge does. In the end, that is what will set me apart from other students here.