Disqus - Latest Comments for nchiarella

Re: Discussion: The Pearl

nchiarella — Wed, 09 Oct 2013 18:46:45 -0000

John,

Thank you for these thoughts on the birds and the fox. I also don't know that I can add much to your sense of memory as having the dual actions of transformation and fixation, though I want to clarify: are you saying that the exhibit, in its multiplicity of figures and guises, presents two distinct operations: longing and repetition? In other words, is The Pearl both about how we reach for the past from now and how the past is present with us in our reaching? Would the latter be a motion of transformation, an artistic movement that surpasses nostalgia to locate once-past objects or moments in the present? Or am I confounding matters?

Re: Discussion: The Pearl

nchiarella — Tue, 01 Oct 2013 15:50:13 -0000

Crockett,

Do you feel that having some sense of biography or meaning attached to a particular image limits our ability to interact with it, to engage with a piece? I wonder if knowing the end to a particular moment or story is really a limit to, as you call it, "self-realization." At the same time, is there a tension or frustration that comes with knowing too little, of not having enough to go on? How do you resolve these questions in your own work?

I am also really interested in your concept of the poem as a method for bundling concepts, when you say, "it helps him gather all of the many metaphors and themes that he is working into one installation." How does poetry gather what another medium might leave aside?

Re: Discussion: The Pearl

nchiarella — Tue, 01 Oct 2013 15:37:35 -0000

John, I really enjoy thinking about materials as “guises”—do you think there are particular meanings to be found within the shifting between guises and figures from scenario to scenario? I ask because I am not sure whether what is at play for Celaya is pathos alone, or if we are meant to engage both with the contents as they trigger our “insights” and with the way that the various media employed in the show represent their subjects. I am not so much concerned with the show as supports an abstract reflection on media and representation, but I wonder if shifting from guise to guise is a way of characterizing the actions of memory. In other words, I can see The Pearl as distinctly personal, whether a figure like the dog has a distinct biographical meaning to Celaya, or is instead a universal archetype, a shared concept of “dog,” as Crockett sees. However, I can also see The Pearl as an artwork which is also more deeply concerned with the way that memory changes the objects it contains: here ephemeral and shifting on a screen, there codified into ceramic or again made heroic in oils. Is this suggestive of how, on our own memory loops, remembrances move between particulars and generalizations? Do you gather any particular meaning or feeling from seeing the shifting between porcelain and painted birds, for example?

Re: Discussion: The Pearl

nchiarella — Tue, 01 Oct 2013 14:05:18 -0000

John says, “the best art explains itself in experiences of felt insight,” and Jenny says, “one of the best things about any type of poem is that if it gives you pleasure, you have "gotten" it.” The sense in which art is working, the way in which one can “get” a piece, will almost always hinge on this personal experience. Within this context, Celaya’s suggestion of the installation as a poem is a way of opening our dialogue with the piece—a way of orienting ourselves. A viewer is always free to ignore these suggestions on the part of the artist, and a work can certainly become weighted or suffocating if we must rely to heavily on outside explanation. (I think of Richard Hugo telling his students, “You owe reality nothing and the truth about your feelings everything.”)

I cannot pretend that considering the piece as a poem provides an entirely clear framework for generating understanding—Crockett clearly takes use of “poetry” as a metaphor when he says, “I remember walking all the way towards "The New Comer" being pulled in by this painting. This to me was poetry and being pulled in by this large painting was uncontrollable.” There is no defined rule set for poetry that says poems must create movement in the viewer (especially physical movement), but in the context of Celaya’s piece, that element of poetry comes forward for Crockett. This brings me to one of Matthews’ original questions: “how does the installation work as an access point or threshold for other discussions rather than a contained experience?” We might say of the work and its breathing, as pointed to in Matthew’s review and in John’s response above, that The Pearl inhales and exhales, draws viewers toward its internal working as a place of meaning and feeling, and also pushes the viewer outward, into a position of reflection on the orchestration of materials and the conceptual unity which ties them together. If any work lacks this process of reciprocation, it will suffocate

Jenny’s suggestion of how this external poetic framework expands the possibilities of viewing the internal workings of the piece are really helpful: “When I think of the poems I have loved most, that I can return to again and again, image, metaphor and language all operate on multiple levels.” John and Crockett lots of exciting entry points into the piece—considering individual works and how they relate to one another, how the show integrates with or alters the gallery space, and how the piece calls forward and shapes particular metaphors. If Celaya were to call this piece music, all of these elements might still come into discussion, but the way we speak, and more importantly, our expectations and the way we offer up our consideration can change in exciting ways—ways that relate to any particular piece and to how we converse, think, and feel about artworks at all.

Re: Discussion: The Pearl

nchiarella — Sat, 28 Sep 2013 00:28:27 -0000

I might like eventually to address in this conversation what it would mean for Celaya's The Pearl to be a piece on "nostalgia", a longing toward home. I might even want to identify what has been deemed in the show "preciousness". Both terms in present day usage are at least slightly pejorative, though, and are as of yet only impositions--outside readings. However, before tackling such heavy language in the midst of the show's inner workings, I would like to take an unburdened stroll through the space itself, beginning with Celaya's words at the threshold. The Pearl is identified as a poem, so we are invited to become readers of the poem, to seek out its literal or metaphorical language. Literal language is kept to an absolute minimum in the piece, so I assume Celaya intends the latter; I must comprehend the physical materials of The Pearl as constituting its language: sculptures, paintings, music. My instinct is to then take identifiable representations in the show and treat them as words, so that I can in some way start to begin to access, or read, the exhibit. But when language is shunted into mediated physicality, how am I supposed to read?

I see in this question two problems: the first material and the second syntactical. Is a dog always a dog, or do I need to think differently about a dog when here it is the live animal traced in video and there it is the projection of dog into ceramic or paint? Secondly, if I can identify the language used in the show, how is it used? Is there a story which draws me through the space, or is the piece comprised of looser strokes aimed at impressions and feeling?

Re: The Hipstervore's Dilemma

nchiarella — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 00:19:32 -0000

hipsters? academic riff-raff, cultural dandruff, all of it. the localization of the marketplace will snuff this kind of snuff. learn to make the things you love. no one else will.