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Considering
the questions "What is art for? What are museums for? What are you
for?,"  Wiley
and Webster intend to open assumptions about the nature of art and
the word "artist" and to intervene into museum and art world conventions.
Working with the museum collections and collaborating with
the staff to assemble their exhibitions -- and inviting many artists
to join them with art objects, commentary, performances, conversations,
or interactions with visitors -- the team will question the roles
and relationships of museums, artists and museumgoers. The installation
pursues the search for relevance in art, recently expressed by Marcia
Tucker, director of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York,
as a longing for "a sense of connection between the art they [museumgoers]
see and their everyday lives."
Nearly one
hundred artists, 12 collaborative teams of two to three artists,
and 11 affinity or community-based groups have accepted Webster
and Wiley's invitation to participate.
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The works in What Is Art For? are grouped by themes of spirituality,
imprisonment, nature, death, beauty, society and history.... |
The intervention
process transforms the museum from a sanctuary where art is exhibited
as a self-contained aesthetic experience to a platform where more
plastic definitions of art are formed in a broad social context.
Within the past decade, a growing number of museums have experimented
with non-traditional approaches to installing art or artifacts.
Like the OMCA, responsive museums strive to expand public accessibility
and to increase the number of "voices" within the museum that interpret
art, material culture or social issues.
The works in
What Is Art For? are grouped by themes of spirituality, imprisonment,
nature, death, beauty, society and history, as well as in special
sections devoted to the museum staff and to the California Prison
Focus collective. The 7,500-sq. ft. gallery will include a "Stage
of Evolution" where artists, speakers and performers will create
a series of 50 special events to echo the themes and issues of the
intervention.
Ann Weber
and William Wareham, "To Market, To Market," 1999
Steel, wood, cardboard 12x10x6 feet.
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Nearly all
conceivable media, including unannounced performances by Willard
Dixon and Tom Marioni, are represented. The range of media and artists
represented in the exhibition include drawings (e.g., Bruce Nauman,
Connie Smith Siegel); performances (e.g., Kazuaki Tanahashi, Wiley
& Webster, Elise Dirlam Ching, Shelley Cook); interactions (Kazuaki
Tanahashi), including many for children (e.g. Real*Magic, Debra
Koppman) and a celebration for elders (Fariba Bogzaran and Daniel
Deslauriers); video installations (Peter Cole with Julio Morale
and Daniel Gorrell); computer installations (e.g., Barbara Kyne
and Sally Larsen); sculpture (e.g.,Clayton Bailey, Sharon Chinen,
Robert Hudson); mixed media (e.g., Zea Morvitz, Richard Kamler,
Dorothy Nissen). In addition to these media, works in painting,
photography, digital images and installations are included. While
many works are by artists whose names are readily recognized, there
are also works by less well-known artists. As part of the exhibition,
Wiley has drawn upon his extensive collection of works by former
students, including Richard Shaw, Deborah Butterfield, Terry Allen,
Robert Arneson, Nathan Oliveira and Wally Hedrick.
Art critic
Thomas McEvilley will join the exhibition on Friday, April 23, at
7 p.m. in the OMCA's James Moore Theatre. Admission will be $8 for
general public and $6 for OMCA members. McEvilley, formerly a contributing
editor to Artforum magazine and now a Distinguished Professor in
Art History at Rice University, is a recognized authority on art
and art criticism. His talk, inspired by this project, will address
the changing functions and definition of art and the transformation
of museums from "temples" to "forums." McEvilley has published hundreds
of articles and over 30 books and monographs on contemporary art
and artists around the world.
The exhibition
includes The Changing Studio (10x20 feet) where six artists will
work and display successively over the course of the exhibition.
The Changing Studio artists are Linda Connor (On the Music of the
Spheres, March 5 - 28); Leigh Hyams with friends (Drawings and Paintings
by Human Beings, March 29 -April 25); Willard Dixon (Our Everyday
Life is Like a Movie, April 26 - May 2); Robert Ortbal (Navigating
an Echo, May 3 - 30); Shelley Cook (Changing Room, May 31 - June
27) and Susan Englebry (Dropping the Torch in Arizona, June 28 -
July 25). All the artists are invited to participate in Inconclusive
Acts, a participatory event in the James Moore Theater on Friday,
July 16 at 7 p.m. The exhibition ends with a performance on Sunday,
July 25, at noon, by Wiley and Webster and titled "Dejeuner on the
Boat."
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March
6, 1999 to July 25, 1999