exploring ‘self’ as an art experience

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“Exploring ‘self’ as an art experience” Manu Sharma M.Arch | Post Professional | Winter 2014 Arch-566 – Cultural Landscape McGill University

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Visual experience of artist Anish Kapoor's 'Cloud Gate'.

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Page 1: Exploring ‘Self’ as an Art Experience

“Exploring ‘self’ as an art experience”

Manu Sharma M.Arch | Post Professional | Winter 2014

Arch-566 – Cultural LandscapeMcGill University

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Page 2: Exploring ‘Self’ as an Art Experience

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In 2006, two years after the grand inauguration of Chicago’s Millennium Park, an

artwork was displayed for public, which became a key to success for the Park. The

artwork looked so perfect with its reflective gleaming surface, giving its viewers a

second thought for its creation in this world. The fascinating sculpture created and

named “Cloud Gate” by World-renowned artist Anish Kapoor, soon became iconic

symbol for the skyscraper city Chicago. Cloud Gate, a public artwork residing in an

open public space has a different impression on its audience than the artwork in

the museums. In museums, the absence of lived with, daily environment and

cultural context results in fading of art experiences. The paper explores the

questions, what could the art situated in regular life contribute to having an art

experience? How we can engage with public space through integration of Public

Art? How public art has been perceived as an aspect of cultural domination? The

paper revolves around the artwork ‘Cloud Gate’ as a case study and the active

engagement of public with it. The study mainly focuses on the interpretation of art

experience of the case study, with the writings of American Philosher John Dewey

and art curator, author Mary Jane Jacobs. The perception of the artist towards the

artwork is also taken into consideration for understanding the forces behind the

evolution of such an expressive magnetic appealing piece of public art.

In order to understand the perception of art experience in the environment,

the question arises, what is public art? It’s a visual artwork that is accessible to all.

Public art enriches a community and place, celebrates an area’s past, present and

future and engages response from the viewers, hence public art can be defined as

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publically accessible original art that enriches a community as it suggests meaning

in the public realm. Public art is lot different from museum and classic art, due to

various reasons, like the wide variety of audience, the need to generate harmony in

the surrounding space and sociological influences. Public art generates a sense of

ownership, the connection between the citizens, city spaces and places through

which affection could be constructed. Art experience cannot be perceived without

the role of public in it. Perception was essential in the modern period of art, as

artists became more conscious in the late nineteenth century of the way the eye

works, of the way the paint can capture light. Recognizing the potential role of the

public, of the content and the perceptions they can bring to a work and their

experiences that can enhance art’s meaning, artists began to operate quite

differently in public space starting around the mid 1980’s.1 They became visible to

the public, sharing the process and seeking the involvement of others in the

conception and execution of works, this lead to the development of new public

practices with the emergence of collaborations between artists and non-artists.

Significantly, it resulted in an enlarged role for the public as maker, informer,

participant, as well as spectator. The artist’s mind-in-making is not just the result of

lessons, knowledge or skill acquired, it is constantly determined by the actual

process of making and the depth of understanding one brings to bear during that

process.2 This understanding is what moves outside the known for the self, for the

viewer, audience and potentially for the society or culture at large. The work of art

derives its “presence” from this sensitive understanding from the artist’s presence

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!Mary!Jane!Jacobs!!“In!the!space!of!art”!2!Ibid.!

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of mind. The audience may be outside the art world, they can understand a work

that enters their environment in ways not even imagined by the artist. They can

contribute to the meaning of work in public space and can contribute to its making.

In the beginning of 20th century, John Dewey called museums an invention

of capitalism, and he exempted their claims to be proper home for art, set apart

from common life.3 Dewy argued that art is kind of experience rather than an

object. The authentic work of art is what the object or thing does with, and in

experience.4 To deeply understand these words, one has to use them in practice

again and again like artist Anish Kapoor. Kapoor has never failed to astonish and

inspire his audience with his artwork that establishes an appeal with physical and

psychological shapes creating different illusions, scale and perspectives. Earlier

work’s of Kapoor, whether it be the fabrication of raw materials, stone or polished

metals could be named “objects as thresholds”. His concepts of turning the world

upside down, ideas of ‘void’ and presence of ‘nothing’, makes one think how does

he ‘see’ these forms where none seem to exist and to express them not only with

the mathematical precisions of an architect, but with the aesthetics of a poet. Mary

Jane Jacob argues about the process of art making in which the artist does not

know the outcome, what the work of art will look like, or even be. It is a process

with shifts and changes, of concurrently seeing and finding a new way, staying

open to what you don’t know and haven’t seen. This space of art is a mental space

in which we see things as if for the first time.5 Kapoor’s art objects suggest the

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!3!Mary Jane Jacob “Art in Public Space”, On practicing in public, 37!4!ibid.!!

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fullness and emptiness that concurrently exist in all things, literally their being and

nothingness. His art making is meditative and as peaceful as his beliefs in

Buddhism, we can imagine how he seeds an idea and nurtures it meditatively, till

the time it yields to conclusive form.

The ultimate threshold, Cloud Gate is a space for being and for becoming

an artwork with interaction. It is considered no place, while containing all space.

The sculpture is the centerpiece of the AT & T Plaza in Millennium Park, serving

thousands of visitors each day. The 110-ton elliptical sculpture, thirty-three feet

high and sixty-feet long rests on a retaining wall above railroad tracks, restaurants

and underground garage. According to the artist the artwork Cloud gate is a

poetical work, which represents an access point for the city, or possibly a portal

Figure!1!!>!Kapoor, Anish. Cloud Gate.

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towards the sky.6 The reflective metallic surface acts like what Kapoor calls ‘skin’,

splitting the sculpture from its external space. The artwork forms 12 feet high arch,

which acts as a “gate” to the concave chamber underneath the sculpture that

attracts visitors. The sculpture made of 168 prefabricated stainless steel plates

welded together, was assembled on site in the Millennium Park that took a period

of two years.7 The highly polished surface not only provides splendid views of

Chicago’s skyline, but also encourages viewers to interact with their own

reflections. The reflections from the sculpture bring down the skyline and

environment together giving the viewers a new spectacle for appreciating sky and

context together. The way it distorts the reflection creates a different way of seeing

an environment and the perception of the spectator’s about the background in

which it is placed. The fascinating thing about the artwork is not that it is simply a

sculpture placed in an environment; the artwork would not exist without the

environment. The artwork demands interaction and would be nothing if it has

nothing to reflect. The full realization of the art is based on the central role of the

public as an active participant in the art experience. Dewey set a foundation for

understanding the casual nature of art, what causes art to arise in the artist and

hence to be created and what causes art to affect the viewer and thus to be re-

created.8 Dewy considered the place of the viewer as central. A work of art is art

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!6!Crone, Rainer, Alexandra Stosch, and Anish Kapoor. Anish Kapoor: Svayambh. Munich: Prestel, 2008. Print, 42 7!A. Hermann, “Cloud Late: Bean Busts Budget” Chicago Sun Times, 26 May 2005 http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_20050526/ai_n14651576!8!!Dewey, “Art as Experience,” 285.

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when it lives in some individual experience and is recreated every time it is

esthetically experienced. Without this act of re-creation the object is not perceived

as a work of art.9!

It is art’s distinctive aura that draws us in, our attention and motivating us

to look more deeply. The spectator's reaction to a work’s presence is occasionally

reliant on the work’s familiarity; it resonates with our own experience. Yet

sometimes its unfamiliarity has the deepest impact on our experience. Elizabeth

Kelley, the curator for the public art of City of Chicago’s Department of cultural

Affairs reports about the Cloud Gate, “ it is very personal interaction. The

constantly shifting and moving visual images can be considered in the same guise

as the art of today- video art and media art. The reflections are never twice the

same”10 Observing it with the variation of the time of days, years and with the

weather, it totally can never be perceived the same way twice and neither the

sculpture nor the iconic downtown skyline reflection can ever become too

recognizable. Any familiarity is further destabilized by the experience of standing

beneath the interior “omphalos” (Greek for ‘navel’), where one sees the reflection

being shattered into infinity.11 The Funnel-shaped hole, the portion where the

outside of the surface seems to be its inside pulls the ambiance into the gaping

void of the sculpture, consuming everything from images to rays of light and even

the gaze of the spectators.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!9!!Dewey, “Art as Experience,” 28 10!Interview of Elizabeth Kelley, 7 December 2006.!11!Crone, Rainer, Alexandra Stosch, and Anish Kapoor. Anish Kapoor: Svayambh. Munich: Prestel, 2008. Print, 42!

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Artist Suzanne lacy coined the term ‘new genre public art’ to define what

she saw as a new course where public art include critical and conceptual work with

a focus on collaboration, interaction, context and process.12 John dewey tells us,

through the perception ‘our own experience is re-oriented and it is this experience

that is more effective because it enters directly into attitude’. So the experience of

art can have different variations in experience. 13On stepping towards the Cloud

Gate’ for interaction, the reflection compresses, expands or gets inverted. Stepping

sideways the image slowly dissipates and finally vanishes. A disconnection is felt

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!12!Mary Jane Jacob “Art in Public Space”, On practicing in public , 37!13!John Dewey, “Art as Experience,” in Stanley Rosen, ed., The Philosopher’s Handbook (New York: Random House, 2000), 274.!

Figure!2!!>!“Omphalos” beneath the interior Cloud Gate. 2010.!

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between what the body is experiencing and what the logic of reflection it dictates.!

The sculpture also warps viewer’s perception of time by changing the speed of

movements such as the passing of clouds. The gleaming surface connects us with

itself by its unceasing moving reflections but what does it mean if something is

stagnant in front of it? What remains constant is its relationship with the physical

presence of the body. Indeed when looking upon at this expressive organic shape

reminds us that this abstract shape do already exist in the real space but we

assume its deepest meaning when we internalize and reflect our body’s experience

upon it. Thus the artwork becomes, what we call ‘human body’. The interaction with

the artwork is a view to explore into ‘self’, the experience something of what is

beyond the ‘self’. Its mirror-polished surface erases its own originality, and acts like

a mind, in a sense the mind observes the space and reproduces within itself. The

delicate contract of the piece is between the lightness and mass, as it seems to

float almost weightless.

Figure!3!!>!Skyline of Chicago and notion of Weightless in the Cloud Gate!

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Encountering with this artwork requires us to step outside the time, to stay

and appreciated its ultimate logic, to confront the experience of our own

disappearance. The City of Chicago becomes simultaneously more and less itself.

Everyday thousands of people move around it, So that it rapidly gets absorbed into

the experience of everyday life and its location, Millennium Park. It allows us to see

that the city is not eternal by giving a sense of visuals that could be other than what

they are. We are pulled into the bigger space that is greater than we can realize, its

emptiness dissolving us and even rejecting us. What ever we call it, Spiritualistic,

poetic or metaphysical, we feel overwhelming and dizziness mixed with awe when

faced by the force and magnitude of its immeasurable beauty. The other

achievement of the artwork is how it internalizes the thrust of Frank Gehry’s

architectural vocabulary by acting as a threshold for getting inside the Stata

Center, which is next to the sculpture in the Millennium Park. The public took an

instant liking to it, affectionately denoting it to as ‘The bean’. Its perfect mirror finish

and infinite reflections makes it desirable to photography but permission from the

artist or the City of Chicago is required for any commercial reproduction of the

work. By looking at the success of the Cloud Gate, Dewey now would have

appreciated the changes that occurred in public art in the later 20th century, which

is more complex and delicate ways of joining with the audience and a direct ways

of working with the public.

Many people would argue that traditional gallery spaces are public in their

openness to interested viewers, while conversely others would insist that the

privatization of public space has meant that the art placed in the public spaces is

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necessary for all. Thus public art is an art which has its objective, a desire to

absorb with its audience and to create spaces, whether physical, virtual or

imagined within which people can identify themselves, perhaps creating a renewed

reflection on community, on the uses of public spaces or on behavior with them.

The city and its public spaces are the ground to form public art. Not only has Cloud

Gate been created for the city but it is also the result of the city-related patterns

and needs of its citizens for social interactions. Unlike classic art, which expresses

the artist’s personal worries, and in other word’s, is author-centered, public art

seeks to respond to needs and requirements of its own field. Due to the fact that

the public art looks unique and distinct from a visual perspective, it takes more

symbolic role and manifests itself in city identification and legibility, when it is

designed and created in reliability with its area and location specifications. It can

improve the city’s liveliness and can intensify social interactions through

establishing a connection with citizens and associating the place with citizen’s

mind. The perceived potential of public art to work on multiple stages and its

adaptability gives it such cultural viability. Public art not only contributes to the

visual attractiveness of the city but also has the ability to aestheticize urban

spaces. Listing the policy studies institute’s summary of the contribution that public

art can make in a number of contemporary urban issues like contributing to local

distinctiveness, attracting investment, boosting cultural tourism and enhancing land

values.14

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!14!Joanne Sharp, Venda Pollock and Ronan Paddison, . Just Art for a Just City: Public Art and Social Inclusion in Urban Regeneration, 1004!

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Most public art, however, are more modest in its intervention and scale and

its economic contribution is often original and typically indirect. Art advocates have

argued that public art can intervene and help severed social connections, both by

promoting community discovery and awareness and by directly enhancing social

connections. It has also been claimed that public art can act as a medium through

which a ‘sense of community’ can be established and promoted. We recognize’

Sense of community, in this context, to refer to an awareness of social body

occupying a shared space with connections reducing some common identity,

values or culture. The aim of public art in this context is to articulate and strengthen

the bonds between people and place. Consequently much public art attempts to

promote consensual readings of place around which communities might come

together. According to art and design column from New York Times, “Cloud Gate

has been involved with near-rapture by Chicagoans, who gather to see their

skyline in its polished surface (‘Lets be frank’, The Chicago tribune wrote, “ the

bean is hot”).15 Although the unexpected delay and increased budget caused

controversy, press articles on cloud gate have made fronts, showing how deeply it

has embedded into Chicago’s spirit. It is now one of the most beloved public

artworks in Chicago, The sculpture has transformed into a civic icon of the city,

appearing in postcards and city guides.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!15!R. Kennedy, “A Most Public Artist Polishes a New York Image”, New York Times, 20 August 2006 !

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Bibliography

Anish Kapoor / Homi K Bhabha and Jean De Loisy London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2009 ‘Anish Kapoor: the bean and the big apple’ / article by Zoe Ryan (New york awaits Anish Kapoor’s Sky Mirror) in Blueprint no.248 November 2006 / Anfam, David, Johanna Burton, Richard Deacon, and Salvo D. M. De. Anish Kapoor. London: Phaidon, 2009. Print. ‘Atmospheric pressure: new etchings by Anish Kapoor’ / article by Sarah Andress in Art on Paper vol.13 no.5 May/June 2009 ‘All & nothing’ / article by Martine Gayford (interview with the sculptor Anish Kapoor) in Apollo vol.167 no.555 June 2008 A. Hermann, “Cloud Late: Bean Busts Budget” Chicago Sun Times, 26 May 2005 http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_20050526/ai_n14651576 Baas, Jacquelynn, and Mary J. Jacob. Buddha Mind in Contemporary Art. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. Print. Bina Sarkar Ellias,!Anish!Kapoor:Essence!and!Absence, Visual arts Web. http://www.eastonline.eu/attachments/article/643/east%2048_Anish%20Kapoor%20Essence%20and%20Absence.pdf Crone, Rainer, Alexandra Stosch, and Anish Kapoor. Anish Kapoor: Svayambh. Munich: Prestel, 2008. Print. Cloud Gate, see: http://www.anishkapoor.com/works/gallery/2004cloudgate/index.htm 1 November 2009. Dewey, John. Art As Experience. New York: Minton, Balch & Company, 1934. Print. Jacob, Mary J, and Jacquelynn Baas. Learning Mind: Experience into Art. Chicago, Ill: School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2009. Print. Joanne Sharp, Venda Pollock and Ronan Paddison, . Just Art for a Just City: Public Art and Social Inclusion in Urban Regeneration. Diss. Urban studies, 2005. Web. http://usj.sagepub.com/content/42/5-6/1001.abstract

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Kurke, Mary A. “Public Park and Recreation Land Availability in the City of Chicago.” M.A. thesis, Western Illinois University. 1976 Miles, Malcolm. Art, Space and the City: Public Art and Urban Futures. London: Routledge, 1997. Print ‘Modern sublime: a conversation with Anish Kapoor’ / article by Ina Cole in Sculpture (Washington, DC) Nicholas Baume, “Floating in the most peculiar way”, Anish Kapoor: Past, Present, Future, MIT Press, 2008 Partha Mitter, “History, Memory, and Anish Kapoor”, Anish Kapoor: Past, Present, Future, MIT Press, 2008 Stefan Gaie, . Public Art And The Space. Diss. university of oradea, 2010. Web. Tim Hall & Iain Robertson,!Public Art and Urban Regeneration: advocacy, claims and critical debates. Diss. Urban studies, 2001. Web. http://www.nettuno.unimib.it/DATA/hot/469/Materiali%20laboratori%20on-line%202009_2010/TORNAGHI/3_hall%20and%20robertson.pdf Figure 1 http://anishkapoor.com/110/Cloud-Gate.html Figure 2 http://www.publicartgreenart.com/images/wow-cloud_gate3.jpg Figure 3 http://alierturk.deviantart.com/art/Chicago-Cloud-Gate-I-141793401