The New Museum "2015 Triennial:
Surround Audience" is a building-wide exhibition that showcases a variety of
artistic practices. A piece that stood
out to me was New York-based French artist Antoine Catala’s Distant Feel, which was a rather weak
attempt at devising a more effective expression of the feeling of empathy,
which he symbolizes using two “E”s facing each other. It is difficult to tell
whether the piece is an installation or a sculpture, but Catala and The New
Museum call it a “communication campaign”.
In the piece, the two “E”s are
submerged under water in a fish tank and live coral are growing on them, which is the artist's attempt to literally give it life, which I find it to be an all-too-easy method for
executing the concept. The piece is
accompanied by the interactive website distantfeel.com, which is supposed to act
as complementary material, but again the concept has been cut short by poor
execution – the problem being the way the idea is presented. There is too much
reading involved, and the message is too direct and obvious for the viewer to actively
participate in the formulation of ideas. It is common knowledge that ad campaigns are supposed to be either direct or impressionable, – or maybe the campaign was meant to be tongue-in-cheek (in which case it fails at being one) – but this project is neither. Distant Feel is an example of a piece that is trying to be too many things at once. It could have been successful if the entire concept was contained in one installation.
Image courtesy of hyperallergic.com
(REVISED)
I cannot figure out why you think this work was poor. I think this work attracted people's eyes and interest enough. Before you just argue the work showed bad execution, you had better articulate and analysis what points of the artist's work aren't well presented in detail. Also you can think about historical context, meaning, and influences of campaign-style artworks in contemporary art field, and also how the historical artworks and this installation work were different in terms of execution, which you want to focus on.
ReplyDeleteHey, Issac.
ReplyDeleteIt was really fun to read because your review is quite different from any other. Usually people mentioned some works that they were interested in but you wrote a critical point of view which I thought really good. This artwork is beautiful but that is all I remember about it. It means I did not like it either and I did not get many information of this. So your review is helpful to understand about the entire concept of the work and also side material of the work, however, I think this review is little bit casual and need more explanation of your point of view.