The Eureka Effect
I recall a professor of sculpture recounting with joy her first realization that Donovan's Haze, 2005 was in fact composed of transparent plastic drinking straws. The revelatory experience of the materials was the most important aspect for her, given her perspective as an artist; her small hands lovingly gesticulated in the air as if such movements would aid in understanding Donovan's straw-wall.
Haze is certainly a work of beauty and cleverness, but there is this aforementioned aspect of the work that may be separated from its other qualities, one that gives 'revelation' such as the professor experienced. It is the sudden dawning of knowledge that the lovely hazy scene on the wall is composed of objects mass produced, mundane and, most importantly, inconceivable in such an attractive light by the everyday viewer.
Revelation as a special experience may be found in the sciences as well. Mathematicians have been known to call the 'elegant' proofs covering their chalkboards beautiful, while researchers in a lab may also wax that the results of their inquiry, or the performances through a series of trials, are beautiful. That such individuals use the term 'beautiful' does not mean that it is the appropriate term, but clearly they are having an elevated experience, much like Newton supposedly exclaiming 'Eureka' upon his conceptualizing gravity.
Using 'beautiful' to describe such experiences does not elevate them; it merely waters down the term 'beautiful.' The term 'beautiful' traditionally referred to an experience in which the soul of an observer feels repose and elevation in a phenomenon. It is easy to recall sunsets and Monet paintings as banal examples, yet they continue to enchant despite their near artistic negation in commercial over-reproduction. Its brethren, sublimity, has traditionally been the opposite, and is also not suitable for the aforementioned moments. For the sublime, the beholder feels the immensity of a phenomenon and is humbled by its force. So one feels while reading the Iliad, enduring a tempest, or standing before the opus of Michelangelo.
There is this third principle quality of experience not covered by classical philosophy (but of great interest in contemporary aesthetics, such as Heidegger's seminal The Origin of the Work of Art), which has crept into art especially in the past century: it is the joy in grasping truths. A truth, loosely defined, is a concept, a law of nature, or, as I have shown above, some kind of revelation about a given phenomenon. 'Epiphany' may be an appropriate term for such a joy, since the word refers to an epi-phenomenon, but we would need to be wary of its religious connotations (conceptual art makes its appeal to this kind of experience for which we have thus far difficulty naming, for revelation appears primarily through one's contemplation; however, conceptual art is usually not revelatory in a material sense like in Donovan's work). Perhaps we find something 'interesting,' or 'curious,' or we use other such words that refer to a process of ideation. If we only refer to a work of art as 'interesting,' it can be either a vague compliment or slightly demeaning (such as calling the person of a first date as just 'nice'). Whereas, if we say something is 'intriguing' or (in rare instances) 'enrapturing,' the work has achieved more. Likewise, a work may fail to be beautiful, and feel merely 'pretty' (Immanuel Kant would have used the term 'charming'). A work may not be sublime but merely shocking. Art is a play of all three of the above principle qualities - that which we traditionally refer to as beauty, sublimity and this third under discussion, truth - in ways our imagination may grasp but that our intellect - geared for only the 'Eureka effect' of phenomenon - has long stumbled to understand.
In this light, though, not all of Donovan's works successfully appeal to revelation as well as Haze. Her cubes (see image above), for example, are composed of glass, toothpicks and pins. This may be striking to some viewers at first. But unlike Haze, there is nothing about these cubes that is really gained by the materials. The toothpicks could well have been buttons (such as used elsewhere) or some other small mass produced object; in the end we would still have a cube that as a form is not transformed by the material it is composed of. Haze is beautiful because it is made of straws and revelatory for such insight in the material; the cubes are cubes, and happen to be made of glass, toothpicks and pins. Noone gasps 'Eureka!' near them.
In December, the Weston Art Gallery hosted Dietrich Wegner and Althea Murphy-Price, two artists that have worked with unusual materials for revelatory effects. Their artworks offer light on these considerations and may be used for a comparative analysis with Donovan's work.
Dietrich Wegner's large installation in the lobby, Playhouse, 2006-8, first strikes the viewer as a nuclear mushroom cloud. The form is unmistakable, and the scale lends also to the interpretation. Only the curious ladder hanging from the upper region makes the representational assumption tenuous. But the aspect that moves the viewer into a deeper narrative is the material he used. The 'cloud' is composed of the stuffing used for children's toys. The association of a lethal weapon of destruction with children's toys is shocking; this theme is furthered by the rope with a tree-fort effect. Wegner is conscious of this; in his artist statement he strives for an art that is 'safe and unsettling, abject and beautiful.' If this particular installation had been shown in Nagasaki or Hiroshima (through some curatorial choice of bad taste), the reception would have been different, unless the artist makes claim to critique consumer culture or the aestheticization of violence. I am unsure how such a claim would go over.
The transmittance of revelation is very different between the works of Donovan and Wegner. Unlike Donovan's works, the material of Playhouse is not visibly understood as toy stuffing; one learns this from reading about it. Hence the Eureka Effect of Wegner's Playhouse gets delayed. In Donovan, the Eureka Effect is nearly immediate, and usually exciting and joyful; in Wegner's work it is disturbing. Revelations before Donovan's work remain in the visual sphere, which is her strength; in Wegner's Playhouse, it is lodged firmly in the intellectual. This is also, curiously, his strength. Her works tends towards the beautiful; his work tends toward the sublime.
Downstairs in the Weston was another artwork using revelatory materials by artist Althea Murphy-Price called Love Affair with Pins and Needles, 2008. When one first encounters the work, it seems to be a merely decorative form, similar to a mirror frame. Upon closer examination and reading the description, one learns that it was composed of synthetic hair and corsage pins. This is revelatory and changes the perception, and hence appreciation, of the object. The form, which reminds one of a mirror frame, becomes a critical reflection on beauty, externalities and the materials we use for such. The hair and pins, folded together into flower-like forms, were previously unrecognizable before learning about them (at least for someone of a similar background as this writer). The revelatory element in her work is both visual and intellectual; it attracts us as viewers in both spheres.
These artists make choices in their use of unexpected materials and the extent to which each relies on revelation. Donovan leaves her materials relatively untouched so that the viewer may visually experience revelation. Wegner seeks (or sought, as per the date of the installation) depth and criticality using a material opposite of what his representational form would otherwise suggest, whereas Murphy-Price directly relates her material to both the form and theme. There are many more artists that use unusual materials and idiosyncratic mixings of both them and the themes for effects; for example, recently the Cincinnati public saw another installation of Voss Finn's 'repurposed' objects (see our review of it by clicking here). The artist must choose between what is gained and lost from how he or she treats these materials and their revelatory aspect; a failure to extend depth to the composition and the transformation of the material may result in an eventual disinterest in the superficiality of the artist's opus. Perhaps an exaggerated juxtaposition of material and theme over-relies on the Eureka Effect. Once revelation is experienced, the viewer needs other qualities, like beauty or sublimity, or will not return to see the artwork a second time.
Tara Donovan at the Contemporary Art Center, Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art, 44 E. 6th Street, Cincinnati, OH, Feb. 7, 2009 - May 3, 2009. For more information, visit their site by clicking here.
Homeland: Sculptures by Dietrich Wegner, and Supplemental Ornament: Sculptures and Prints by Althea Murphy-Price, showed at the Alice F. and Harris K. Weston Art Gallery, 650 Walnut St,Cincinnati, OH, Nov.14, 2008 - Jan.10, 2009. All works were courtesy of the Carrie Seecrist Gallery, Chicago. For more information, visit the Weston Gallery site by clicking here.
