| YOUR SPACE HERE. click for advertising info |
| Copyright 2006 Art History Chicks LLC Contact Us |
| susceptible to images |
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |
| | | | | | |
In Favor of Stratifomis
An Interview with Mark Lawson
In a continuing reflection on public art (see also Debra Brehmer's
article Putting the public into Sculpture), Susceptible to Images sat
down to talk with Mark Lawson, Gallery Director at the Milwaukee
Institute of Art & Design (MIAD), to hear his view on “Stratiformis” by
Jin Soo Kim. The sculpture has attracted a variety of opinions, many
negative, but Lawson provides an opposite position, and explains
the significance of the piece and its relevance as a public artwork.
MARK LAWSON: I think a lot of what the sculpture is about can be
explained by the whole idea of the rust belt, the kind of industrial
base of Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland and all those Midwest cities –
it’s all disappearing as jobs are in going to Malaysia and whatever.
And that’s what it [Stratiformis] looks like – it looks like something
that you’d find in a field down in the Menomonee river valley and I
think that’s really what she [the artist, Jim Soo Kim] is after. It’s
about the disappearing industrial business of the Third Ward.
I don’t think she started out to make it that way; I think she had a little
different idea when she started going around talking to people, and
that was that story that intrigued her, this sort of vanishing world of
people that work in factories. I think part of it was her meeting
Isabelle Polacheck at Reliable Knitting and seeing their operation
there which was really a nineteenth-century kind of thing – this
knitting mill which closed soon after, or its been moved…it’s in its
final days.
And a lot of the materials in there [Stratiformis] is the actual
machinery from Reliable Knitting. To me, it looks really nineteenth-
century; I don’t know when they were made but it doesn’t seem like
contemporary factory mechanisms; it’s really old-school stuff.
I think that’s what she wanted to capture. It’s not really pretty, it’s not
entertaining or soothing, and I think for a lot of people that’s really
unpleasant for them. They just see it as this ugly thing and that’s
kind of the point.
There were a lot of sculptors that did that kind of work in the 20s and
30s. It was sort of the early days of found object construction.
Picasso was a pioneer, and people just hated that; the general
public despised it. And it’s the same thing – they just see it as a
bunch of stuff, they don’t understand the idea of the transformation
of everyday materials into art.
SUSCEPTIBLE TO IMAGES: Why do you think people miss the point
and don’t see what it’s really intending to show?
ML: I think it’s what people expect to get from art, in a way. They
want to be entertained a little bit, especially with public art. They
want it to be enlightening, uplifting or beautiful, part of the
beautification of the city, and I don’t thing that’s really it’s purpose at
all. It’s to make people think, too. And that’s what this piece is
supposed to do – make people think, stimulate thought or feeling. I
think there’s more emotion in this piece than anything else. I think
the artist Jin Soo Kim was really deeply moved by this sort of
disappearing world. She felt a kinship with the workers, and from
the time she started this project to the time she finished there was
an enormous amount of construction and transformation on site
around her. The building across the street changed from a factory
building to this incredibly high-end condo development while she
was working. That was all part of her experience of making this, and
I don’t think other people necessarily have that kind of experience.
It’s really hard to translate that.
If the piece was in a museum it would be regarded completely
differently. If it was at the contemporary museum in Chicago or
somewhere like that, people would see it and it would become this
artifact of art. It would instantly be in this ‘other world’ and you
would grapple with its meaning in an art space, trying to understand
it. But when you come upon it in the park…I think people just want to
be entertained somehow.
STI: Do you think Jin Soo Kim’s sculpture will be “claimed” or more
accepted by the city in another fifty years? Do you think that it just
takes time for people to warm up to these things, that it will become
an icon of the Third Ward?
ML: I honestly don’t know. I tend to think that it’s like the things it
represents, and will eventually crumble away because it’s not made
to last forever. Rust and weather will wear on it, [whereas] more
monumental thick steel sculptures won’t fade away. But this is
made of wire, and the materials are more transitory. I think it will
disappear before twenty years, and at some point, it will not be worth
keeping because it’s falling apart or will need to be restored or
rejuvenated in some way, and I don’t know if that is the spirit of it. I
guess it would be up to the artist.
I think that if you compare this with some of the safe, watered down
and monotonous sculptures that have been appearing in county
parks lately, this one sticks its neck out. It’s edgier, it’s intellectual,
and trying to do something with meaning, not just some clunky
object “enhancing” the landscape. That kind of experimental way of
approaching art is not always neat and tidy, and pretty, and
thoroughly successful. It’s an evolving thing. Maybe the next one
she does in a series may be brilliant. You learn while you’re making
things, that’s what happens sometimes. I think it’s a noble effort.
Comments? Email comments@susceptibletoimages.com
An Interview with Mark Lawson
In a continuing reflection on public art (see also Debra Brehmer's
article Putting the public into Sculpture), Susceptible to Images sat
down to talk with Mark Lawson, Gallery Director at the Milwaukee
Institute of Art & Design (MIAD), to hear his view on “Stratiformis” by
Jin Soo Kim. The sculpture has attracted a variety of opinions, many
negative, but Lawson provides an opposite position, and explains
the significance of the piece and its relevance as a public artwork.
MARK LAWSON: I think a lot of what the sculpture is about can be
explained by the whole idea of the rust belt, the kind of industrial
base of Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland and all those Midwest cities –
it’s all disappearing as jobs are in going to Malaysia and whatever.
And that’s what it [Stratiformis] looks like – it looks like something
that you’d find in a field down in the Menomonee river valley and I
think that’s really what she [the artist, Jim Soo Kim] is after. It’s
about the disappearing industrial business of the Third Ward.
I don’t think she started out to make it that way; I think she had a little
different idea when she started going around talking to people, and
that was that story that intrigued her, this sort of vanishing world of
people that work in factories. I think part of it was her meeting
Isabelle Polacheck at Reliable Knitting and seeing their operation
there which was really a nineteenth-century kind of thing – this
knitting mill which closed soon after, or its been moved…it’s in its
final days.
And a lot of the materials in there [Stratiformis] is the actual
machinery from Reliable Knitting. To me, it looks really nineteenth-
century; I don’t know when they were made but it doesn’t seem like
contemporary factory mechanisms; it’s really old-school stuff.
I think that’s what she wanted to capture. It’s not really pretty, it’s not
entertaining or soothing, and I think for a lot of people that’s really
unpleasant for them. They just see it as this ugly thing and that’s
kind of the point.
There were a lot of sculptors that did that kind of work in the 20s and
30s. It was sort of the early days of found object construction.
Picasso was a pioneer, and people just hated that; the general
public despised it. And it’s the same thing – they just see it as a
bunch of stuff, they don’t understand the idea of the transformation
of everyday materials into art.
SUSCEPTIBLE TO IMAGES: Why do you think people miss the point
and don’t see what it’s really intending to show?
ML: I think it’s what people expect to get from art, in a way. They
want to be entertained a little bit, especially with public art. They
want it to be enlightening, uplifting or beautiful, part of the
beautification of the city, and I don’t thing that’s really it’s purpose at
all. It’s to make people think, too. And that’s what this piece is
supposed to do – make people think, stimulate thought or feeling. I
think there’s more emotion in this piece than anything else. I think
the artist Jin Soo Kim was really deeply moved by this sort of
disappearing world. She felt a kinship with the workers, and from
the time she started this project to the time she finished there was
an enormous amount of construction and transformation on site
around her. The building across the street changed from a factory
building to this incredibly high-end condo development while she
was working. That was all part of her experience of making this, and
I don’t think other people necessarily have that kind of experience.
It’s really hard to translate that.
If the piece was in a museum it would be regarded completely
differently. If it was at the contemporary museum in Chicago or
somewhere like that, people would see it and it would become this
artifact of art. It would instantly be in this ‘other world’ and you
would grapple with its meaning in an art space, trying to understand
it. But when you come upon it in the park…I think people just want to
be entertained somehow.
STI: Do you think Jin Soo Kim’s sculpture will be “claimed” or more
accepted by the city in another fifty years? Do you think that it just
takes time for people to warm up to these things, that it will become
an icon of the Third Ward?
ML: I honestly don’t know. I tend to think that it’s like the things it
represents, and will eventually crumble away because it’s not made
to last forever. Rust and weather will wear on it, [whereas] more
monumental thick steel sculptures won’t fade away. But this is
made of wire, and the materials are more transitory. I think it will
disappear before twenty years, and at some point, it will not be worth
keeping because it’s falling apart or will need to be restored or
rejuvenated in some way, and I don’t know if that is the spirit of it. I
guess it would be up to the artist.
I think that if you compare this with some of the safe, watered down
and monotonous sculptures that have been appearing in county
parks lately, this one sticks its neck out. It’s edgier, it’s intellectual,
and trying to do something with meaning, not just some clunky
object “enhancing” the landscape. That kind of experimental way of
approaching art is not always neat and tidy, and pretty, and
thoroughly successful. It’s an evolving thing. Maybe the next one
she does in a series may be brilliant. You learn while you’re making
things, that’s what happens sometimes. I think it’s a noble effort.
Comments? Email comments@susceptibletoimages.com
| All images this page: view and details of Stratiformis by Jin Soo Kim. Catalano Square, Milwaukee. |
