#83 - Yes, No, Maybe So
The artist Karin Schneider -- who once slowly filled her gallery show with smoke-machine mist until viewers could hardly see their hands before their faces, never mind the paintings on the walls -- remarked at a recent panel on the Tropicalia exhibition that she was interested in work that said yes and no at the same time.
Her fellow panelist, artist Ernesto Neto, seemed to be saying the same thing by showing a photograph of his fabric sculpture "Nao/No," which he made in collaboration with the weaver's collective, Coopa-Roca.
The sculpture's sensual white fabric is stitched together and stretched over metal bars. Full of light, open to its surroundings, affirming life, the sheer fabric and the framework of metal poles asserts yes. But scrawled over it are graffiti-like markings that declare no.
Could this be a rule: great art says yes and no at the same time, while bad art says maybe?
Maybe so.
3 December 2005
Image courtesy of Galeria Fortes Vilaca.