In-between Expectation and Experience
Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe @ The Guggenheim
Review by Heidi Marston Aishman

When I went to the Cai Guo-Qiang exhibit I Want to Believe at the Guggenheim I thought I knew what kind of experience to expect. After having seen his work at Mass MOCA and the MET, I expected the museum to be filled with large-scale projects that overwhelm the viewer with the complexity of how they were executed. I was not disappointed, as you enter the museum you are immediately thunderstruck (no better word could be used) by the installation of the piece Inopportune: Stage One, nine cars suspended and spiraling up the center of the rotunda with lights exploding out of them. Thomas Krens, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, described the piece as "maybe the best artistic transformation of the Frank Lloyd Wright space we've ever seen." As you wind your way up the circular space you have to walk through the piece Head On, an arc of 99 life-size replicas of wolves that appear to be leaping head on into a glass wall and falling in a pile to the floor. This piece is truly effective because you are forced to become part of the pack as it races to its end. Throughout the exhibit there are video projections of Guo-Qiang’s gunpowder performances accompanied by various gun power drawings and plans for unrealized pieces. The Guggenheim is a unique space and this work utilizes the circular architecture perfectly. Exploring themes of cycles of violence and peace, creation and destruction, the circular layout of the show makes these themes more poignant. Reviews of the show have all discussed the pieces that have had the expected response of shock and awe and many of the subtler pieces have been overlooked.

In contrast to the shooting lights and arrow-impaled animals is the installation piece An Arbitrary History: River. In one of the Guggenheims’ galleries that is about half way up the spiral and off to the side through a fairly small hallway is an installation incorporating a resin and bamboo riverbed filled with water, a yak skin and wood boat, and other drawings, sculptures and sounds. In this space is a snaking river with a small boat that visitors could get into and take a ride. Regardless of the mass of kids pushing in line to take get a turn in the boat, the space was very quiet and meditative. As I walked around looking at every aspect of the installation, a security guard asked me if I going to take a ride in the boat and I replied, “ Is there an age limit?”

So I got in line with the other 5 to 12 year olds and anxiously waited my turn. While I waited a man who was there with his son asked me which kid was mine, to which I replied, “None! I’m getting in the boat.” We began to talk about the exhibit as the number of kids between me and my ride dwindled. I asked Jack (the son) what he thought of the show and he paused, answered that he thought it was cool, thought about it a little more and added, “It’s also creepy.” I asked him what he meant and he said that he thought the tigers were awesome, but creepy because the arrows were sticking right into their throats. We began to talk about his favorite types of exhibitions he had been to at museums all over the world. Jack proceeded to tell me all about how he like the engineering part of shows, “like how they got the cars to go up the center of the museum at all different angles”, and how he talked to the museum staff about how hard it was to build a river in the gallery “because water can cause a lot of damage if it leaks”. As Jack was talking it became clear that he had no expectation of what he was going to see when he goes to a museum, he was just excited to look and find something interesting. I began to wonder why I go to exhibitions expecting something, expecting anything, then feeling somehow disappointed if my expectations weren’t met?

Jack took his ride in the boat and when he got out, the first thing he said was, “its weird because the boat is lined with animal skin,” he showed me by touching the inside of the boat and making a disgusted face, he turned to leave, said, “see ya” and off he went. As I pulled myself around the riverbed, I thought about how cool it was to be actively engaged in one of the artists installations. I had just gotten in a small 4’x2’ boat, and was taking an arbitrary ride on a man made river in the Guggenheim. An Arbitrary History: River, is a piece about taking a moment to stop and look. I never expected to have such a fun conversation with a boy from Belfast, Ireland. Jack inspired me go back out into the main space and take a different look at the way the cars were angled, then go look again at how truly creepy (and awesome) the tigers are in Inoprtune: Stage Two.

I didn’t write this review so that those who may read it will know what to expect if they intend to see the exhibit. Art reviews often create expectation, I wrote about this show because of the experience I didn’t expect and it made the show have more impact. Cia Guo-Qiang’s work talks about creation growing out of destruction, and by dismantling my expectations an opportunity was created to see the exhibition from Jack’s perspective. So while many critics may think that Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe is about the first impression “WOW” factor, I think that it is about seeing what is in between. It is about finding that riverbed in the midst of the hype, stopping to experience it and looking without expectation.


Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe is on view until May 28, 2008
http://www.guggenheim.org/exhibitions/exhibition_pages/cai.html

Bronze Pour with Allen Peterson

It's Great to Know We Are Not Alone

What’s good about the Art Fairs? Here is one thought, you get to meet a lot of people who are interested in looking, making and collecting stuff. The stuff we are talking about is artwork or objects made by people who want to share it with who ever will look. There are pieces we like some we don’t but there is always something for everyone and people are always willing to tell you what they think of it. I have gone to Miami and New York a few years in a row to go to the art fairs like Scope, Pulse, Bridge, Basel and the Armory and what puzzles me is that a lot of artists I know always ask me “Why do you go?” never “What did you see?” (Until after I answer the Why question).

So here it is, I go because I make artwork and the fairs are an opportunity to see what hundreds of thousands of other makers are doing all over the world in the span of a four days. When I answer this way most of the time I get the response of, “I would just rather go galleries to see work, the fairs seem so commercial.” I have to admit I don’t really understand this response mostly because I usually don’t ask them “Why don’t you go to the fairs.” I guess people who haven’t gone seem to think that going to the fairs is like going to a street market where people are yelling at you from all angles trying to get you to buy some art. I can assure you this is not what happens.

In the last issue of Big Red one of our editors posed these questions:
What I wonder about, though, is what appears to be a growing dependence on the art fairs to increase visibility and profits.
I'm not against the art fairs, but it seems like some of the galleries who participate in a lot of fairs changed over time to show more fair-friendly work.
I just wonder what kind of impact the art fair market is having on the small, privately owned galleries.

After having been a looky-loo at the fairs and working for a gallery during the fairs, I actively see the importance of asking these questions. It is true the art fairs have become the place where collectors go to buy work all in one place because going around to all the galleries is getting harder and harder as people get busier and busier. It does help galleries increase visibility and profits, and it also helps artists increase visibility and income. Some galleries have tried to show more fair-friendly work and many of them have realized there is no such thing. At fairs like Pulse and Bridge, most of the work would not be what I would think of as fair friendly, many of the galleries take a real risk by showing installations and other things that are not “cash and carry”. Galleries have tried toning it down, some have hyped it up, and there is no formula that shows how this has affected their sales. There is no rhyme or reason because fair goers all go for their own reasons and are all looking in different ways. Some galleries bring work they think is less conceptually challenging and often they realize that what is easily digestible to some is really spicy to others. What happens then? The fairs become a place to find anything and everything and your gallery may or may not have what is on the menu that day.

One of the major benefits to the art fairs is that in many ways it levels the playing field. While the blue chip galleries are usually at the Armory, the other fairs offer an opportunity for established artists and galleries to be along side newer galleries exhibiting emerging and mid-career artists. In September of 2007 Eli Klein Fine Art opens its doors on West Broadway. The opening exhibition included well-established artist Alexander Calder alongside modern, contemporary and emerging artists. This year Eli Klien participated in the Bridge Art Fair in New York and they had an exciting and eclectic booth. The booth had work ranging from paintings of Chinese artist Liu Bolin about the current state of transition in China, the contemplative photography of Boston based artist Judith Larsen, to the sculptural plant forms with skulls growing out of them by Shen Shaomin. When I talked with the Director, Rebecca Heidenberg she said it had been really interesting talking with new collectors and introducing their artists work to people from all over the world. The owner of the gallery, Eli Klein talked with excitement about exhibiting many different artists at different levels as a way to highlight new ideas and aesthetics in emerging art markets. Later that evening I went to an opening at Eli Klein and the artists in their gallery spanned three decades of art making from all over the world. Seeing the booth at the fair and then going to the gallery highlighted the importance of both experiences.

Another common question about the art fairs is “What art people buying?” This is a really hard question to answer because people buy anything, everything and nothing. What I would buy someone else hates and what some fair-goers can’t get enough of many people don’t even notice. We all know it is easier to find something you want when you have a lot to choose from, so when I think about the impact the art fairs have on the small, privately owned galleries I realize one can’t deny that there is an impact. It is very expensive to participate in the fairs and many smaller galleries get left out. However, not being in the fair doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t get the benefits of their existence. Many of the galleries from lesser known places like Richmond Virginia (if you are ever in that area check out ADA Gallery), would say how they are part of growing gallery communities and took the fairs as an opportunity to talk about their location, not just talk about themselves. So while smaller galleries may not always have the ability to have a booth in the fairs, the galleries that do seem to realize that standing alone doesn’t make you look better, it makes you look alone.
So what’s good about the art fairs? It is a different experience than going to galleries and there are important factors for both. I go to galleries to see a particular show or artist. I go to art fairs to see things I would normally not have access to from around the world. Going to the fairs doesn’t give you the magic answer to what people like, what collectors are buying, or what galleries are selling the most. It is just a larger scale perspective on what is happening in different art communities everywhere. So now when people, who are clearly skeptical about the art fairs, ask me, “Why do you go?” I answer, “ Because it’s great to know we are not alone.”

Eli Klein Fine Art

Bridge Art Fair New York 2008

Pulse Art Fair New York 2008

SCOPE New York 2008