Condition of a Woman I

It has been several years since I have become, not to say obsessed - but let's say intrigued, or increasingly convinced by - the idea that a person's garbage can be quite surprisingly revealing about the person's personality, character, and/or personality.

Today, in a quick browse through the Still Life/Object gallery of the Tate Modern, I found that someone has beaten me to exploring that idea. Arman (Armand Fernandez) had collected the contents of his first wife's trash can, enclosed it in a glass case, and mounted it on an ornamental base, in a sculpture called "Condition of a Woman I".

The objects included: loads of rolled up grimy cotton wool, an old brush, what seems like discarded boxes of tampons, a broken hand mirror etc.

The little placard on the side of the work stated:
"Arman first presented debris as art in his poubelle (dustbin) works in 1959. The objects in this piece are from his first wife's bathroom and are mounted on an ornamental base from his father's antique shop. Objects of intimate personal use have been selected precisely because of their base quality, and are literally 'elevated' on a plinth to become art.* Arman raises questions about value, bringing private life into the public domain. Here, he also examines the image of woman constructed by society."
_{(* the bolded emphasis is my own)}

The piece made me think of someone I know, who has a utilitarian view of Art. (Correct me if I'm wrong) From what I gather, he believes that Art (fashion, toys...) must be useful, in addition to, and not merely, being new. I on the other hand, sometimes find commendable if an artist can come up with an innovation in presentation, design - or in the context of fashion: perhaps an original way of combining elements to create a eyebrow-lifting twist on a stale design.

As I contemplated the work, I suddenly realised something about my current view of Art that I have not been able to pin down and define. I realised that I now have a more open view of Art - I can now accept as Art weird installation pieces or sculpture, so long as they provide a new perspective, a fresh way of looking at something familiar, or if they reveal Life.

Life, as in: the contents of someone's trash can, the preserved arrangement of a makeshift table hung vertically like a picure on the wall (there was such a piece in the Tate Gallery), strips of photos of a particular person/scene taken over the course of 24 hours, or across a year (a photography exhibition I had seen in Scotland a year back).

Still life = stilled life. A snapshot. A slice. A peek.

Isn't Life itself beautiful? The world is filled with billions of people all living their own lives. Like a huge seething, surging mass of worms. Pluck any wriggling, writhing worm out from that mass, and one surely can find something interesting about, or something to learn from the person. Even if the person has lead the most amazingly boring life ever, never budging from her couch since the day she was born - that would still be interesting, albeit in the hmmmm-it's-interesting-how-she-has-managed-to-survive-such-a-boring-life kind of way. - It would certain indicate SOMETHING about the human psychology (or the human ability to withstand the state of doing nothing for an extended period of time).

There is probably nothing more beautiful or intriguing than a slice of a random part of Life. And if an Artist can create an object/ arrangement of objects that can bring that to me, then that is Art.

Isn't that what the blogging phenomenon about anyway? Creating a journal out of words or pictures, projecting part of our lives (what we see, hear, do) into the world, reading and absorbing other lives, other creations. We are in all in the process of creating Art in our own way.

Hmm... how far my view of Art has evolved from the days when I poured scorn on that famous piece of installation art/sculpture that consisted of a single rose in a measuring cylinder (anybody have any idea what it's called or who it's by?).

Incidentally, a couple of links about blogs:
from wikipedia
from Harvard Law