I knew you would do it anyway! This was just an introduction, to set the background as this post is going to relate to a few artwork that use the 'emptiness' in a way or another as a medium.
I had the idea of talking about this while reading an article about the music composer John Cage.
John Cage
One of his masterpieces: 4'33", composed in 1952 and made of three movements which are performed without a single note being played. 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence then? Not exactly... Frequently erroneously perceived as silence, John Cage describes it as consisting of the sound of the environment that the listeners hear while it is performed. Is that funny or genius or crap? I ll leave that to you. But let me paste something found on wikipedia that I found extremely funny and interesting:
Cage himself refers to it as his "silent piece" and writes; "I have spent many pleasant hours in the woods conducting performances of my silent piece... for an audience of myself, since they were much longer than the popular length which I have published. At one performance... the second movement was extremely dramatic, beginning with the sounds of a buck and a doe leaping up to within ten feet of my rocky podium." (in John Cage: Silence: Lectures and Writings).
This would mean that you spent most of your life, listening to John Cage?! I like this idea...
You will also notice that I did not enable the music player on this page for you to listen to John Cage's track while reading the blog...
Talking about 'emptiness' and appropriation leads me naturally to come back to Yves Klein and the blue monochromes. A monochrome is a painting realised with one color only... What's the point? In the case of Yves Klein the color used is not a random blue; It is called IKB (for International Klein Blue) and is patented! Basically Yves Klein patented something which is purely natural... a color... 
Yves Klein
Do you want to use it to paint your bedroom? You may have to pay royalties...
Is that shocking? Perhaps, especially in the context of the 1958's... Nowadays nobody cares anymore! Pepsi-Cola tried to patent his Pepsi-Blue, Coke his Red Coke (remember that father christmas is red because of a coca cola advertisement), Harley-Davidson tried a couple of years ago to patent the noise of their motors... Did you hear about that? Probably not... I told you, nobody cares anymore. One of the pioneer reader of this blog recently told me that I should not display a photo of 'Blue Monochrom' in the previous post called 'Pride and Prejudices and Stereotypes'. Her argument was that there is no point, displaying it as it is a specific blue that could only be appreciated once you are properly in front of it. Well, she is right, I found out that International Klein Blue is outside the gamut of computer displays, and can therefore not be accurately portrayed on a web page.
That is exactly what Yves Klein tried to communicate at his time. Other ideologically similar artworks were 'empty spaces' that he sold in exchange of gold that he threw in the Seine river in Paris.
The empty space may in fact be something really valuable. Isn't it in the empty space of a house that we build our intimate life, for example? That was Rachel Whiteread thesis for her famous 'house' in 1992, an artwork displayed on a public place. 
House (1992) Rachel Whiteread
Back in the context, in the east part of London, a huge demolition process takes place, targetting specifically the Victorian houses that stand on the 'urban reorganisation' map. Erasing progressively a part of the city history. A history of the people, not necessarily ponctuated by exceptional events on an international scale but full of personal memories and very local events. An architecture of another time, a life of another time... What happens when someone does something beneficial for the city or a country? Usually, people erect a statue to celebrate the heroes memory.
Well that is what Rachel Whiteread did. She did a cast of the empty spaces of the last Victorian house of the eastern London; a kind of 'house in negative' presented in the exact place where the house used to stand.
House (1992) Rachel Whiteread
The artwork was unfortunately destroyed shortly after its presentation, provoking huge local and international debates and receiving many prizes including the now famous Turner Prize.
To conclude and to show that 'emptiness' can arouse passions I would like to relate to what happened in a French Gallery in Avignon for a Cy Twombly exhibition:
On July 19, 2007, police arrested artist Rindy Sam after she kissed one panel of Twombly's triptych Phaedrus. The panel was an all-white canvas, and was smudged by Sam's red lipstick. She is to be tried in a court in Avignon in October for "voluntary degradation of a work of art". Sam defended her gesture to the court: "J'ai fait juste un bisou. C'est un geste d'amour, quand je l'ai embrassé, je n'ai pas réfléchi, je pensais que l'artiste, il aurait compris... Ce geste était un acte artistique provoqué par le pouvoir de l'art" ("All I did was a kiss. It's a gesture of love, when I kissed, I wasn't thinking, I thought that the artist would've understood... This gesture was an artistic act provoked by the power of Art"). The prosecution calls it "A sort of cannibalism, or parasitism", while admitting that she is "visibly not conscious of what she has done"; asks that she be fined 4500 euros, compelled to an assorted penalty, and to attend citizenship classes. The artwork, which is worth an estimated $2 million, was on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Avignon.
Read the full article here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21211300/
Cy Twombly exhibition in Avignon
Next time you go to London to see Van Gogh's 'sunflowers'... Please drench them, they look like they need fresh water!
1 comment:
Wow, Mean blog bro. I like it. (Stumbled over it when I was looking up stuff about Andy Warhol for my assignment.)
That story you gave is rather silly isn't it. If Rindy Sam kissed it, I think it makes it more valuable, since now its something, and now its also something with a huge story. I would rather look at that than a blank canvas. If it was a new canvas, like, straight from the shop to the wall I would probably say at most she should just buy em a new one, and put it up, and let him claim it. Lol.
Anyways, I had more to say but can't be bothered now, cause I really do need to do this assignment. Laters.
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