civilized ku # 908 ~ art with relevance / makes a contribution
Thursday, April 14, 2011 at 11:51AM 
Canstruction / Nemo ~ NYS Museum - Albany, NY• click to embiggenOn Monday's entry, civilized ku # 907, Swen W (no limk provided) wrote:
Apropos your topic of "being relevant to the wider world", I received an invite to see the play "Red" based on an episode in the life of painter Mark Rothko ... I did some digging on the 'net and found entries in Wikipedia, Google Images and a YouTube taken from Simon Schama's history of Art. The latter suggests Rothko wrestled with the idea of whether or not Art was relevant / made a contribution.
While it may not seem so to regular readers who have come to expect at least a picture a day here on The Landscapist, I have been making pictures at my normal pace which is more than a picture a day on average. As I type this entry, there is a backlog of 17 pictures on my desktop just waiting to be posted. However, as previously mentioned, I have been lacking the will to do so because, at this point in time, I don't seem to have a lot to say, re: the picture making medium.
That said, there is another factor at work behind the lack of motivation to post - in light of the current political / economic / societal mess we find ourselves in here in the good 'ole US of A, I find myself to be: 1) mildly depressed due to a feeling of helplessness that results from an inability to do anything about the mess we're in, and, 2) I also find myself to be hung up on the fact that my pictures don't have any relevance and hence no ability to effect any of the aforementioned mess.
I have given considerable thought to the idea of picturing - without repeating what has already been done - the greed, ignorance, and divisive hatred that has settled in across this country. But, as of yet, I haven't really been able to chart a path or course of action.
In any event, Hugo and I (he's on his Spring break) spent the last couple days in Albany, NY - the capital city of NYS where, amongst many things, we came across a Canstruction event. Canstruction, INC. is a ...
... nonprofit organization that holds annual design and build competitions to construct fantastic, giant sized, structures made entirely out of canned food. In each city after the structures are built and the winners declared the creations go on view to the general public as giant art exhibits. At the close of the competitions all of the food used in the structures is donated to the local food banks for distribution to community emergency feeding programs.
Since Canstruction's 1992 inception, their events have raised and contributed over 15 million pounds of food to community food banks all across the US of A.
What an idea. Art - you might even call it edible installation Art - that makes a contribution to real life.
Reader Comments (1)
An important thing to remember when faced with the feeling of helplessness and anger and "the inability to do anything about it" is that one has to start somewhere. Grass roots is the way almost any really meaningful change happens. It's just hard to remember that, but it happens over and over. Example: civil rights. This is simplifying greatly, but one woman bucking the status quo on a local bus in Alabama was the pebble rolling down a hill that started a landslide (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_parks).
One could start by picturing the greed, ignorance, and divisive hatred one sees anywhere in their community or sphere of travel. As the work progresses, themes will emerge.
One thing that I've always thought effective is showing opposing sides together; it's often more powerful and intriguing than just showing the one viewpoint. So pictures illustrating peace, love, nature and nurture would contrast sharply with the pictures of greed, ignorance and divisive hatred. For example, a diptych of the two such pictures of the negative and the positive draws the viewer in with the incongruity of the two sides together and presents a dilemma to be resolved in the head of the viewer. Different ideas and feelings come to mind about the two images. It may (should) be that the viewer's feelings and opinions are pushed in favor of the positive side and against the negative side. Of course the opposite may happen, but for extremists their mind is already made up--it's the general populace (the "bread and circus" crowd you referred to the other day) it might be a little nudge in the right direction. Add up the nudges and we begin to see effects on behaviors...