This project aims to explore the changes
that occur in transition from private to public through the art making process. When the artwork moves from the
private domain into the public domain, complex transformations occur. Without
any physical change occurring to the work itself, the work takes on not simply
different contextual readings but a shift in the construct of the work itself.
In the exploring this transition, the project has separated into two - Work Producing
and Gap Fixing.
Work Producing
The
body, as the most private property of the self, was used as the medium to
generate work and resulted in a large number of experimental photos and videos
have been produced. Almost all of these works were done in and remain private. As
a result, they will not be discussed in any further details.
Gap
Fixing
These works
were then isolated from the audience by bridging the gap between the works
produced and the idea of it remaining private by showing nothing. “The artist
ends by choosing between two inherently limiting alternatives. He is forced to
take a position that’s either servile or insolent.” (Sontag, 1969) The insolent
way was been chosen for this project. Having produced a significant amount of
works, it would have been much easier to show them rather than showing nothing.
Presenting works publicly is a perceived limitation of the art making process,
as it completely eliminates the possibility of showing nothing. Thus, the
decision to show nothing was made in order to open the gap that towards the
transformation from private to public. It is this gap between the private
generation of work and the public consumption where these works are located. It
calls on the conviction of the artist and the trust of the spectator, in the
absence of any artifact and construct to define the work.
The best
way to show nothing is to produce a work of “nothing”. This could result in two
outcomes. The “nothing” could not be produced, as Sontag (1969) insisted, “genuine
emptiness, a pure silence, are not feasible – either conceptually or in fact”.
Alternatively, the “nothing” might be transferred into audience’s imagination
into something else. Either approach fails to bridge the gap between the work
and the idea of showing nothing.
Using
silence or emptiness artists such as John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, Tom
Friedman and Yves Klein have explored the concept from different perspectives.
Their works were all absent in some way that prevents the audience from seeing
the work. Instead of the works, there were visible “containers” for the
nothingness. The “container” is the object like the white canvas of
Rauschenberg’s White Painting, the blank paper of Friedman’s 1,000 hours of
Staring and the empty gallery of Friedman’s The Void. All of which question the
possibility of materializing nothing as they grapple with the implicit
contradiction of the concept. Cage (1961) insisted that, “there is no such
thing as silence”. Sontag (1969) also suggested that, “to look at something
that’s “empty” is still to be looking, still to be seeing something”. When the
audience cannot see the work, then what they have perceived through the
“container” become the work, which could be the lighting, environment, space or
even audience themselves. The “container” exists in the space between the
private production by the artist and the public perception by the audience.
A
written announcement operates as the “container” for this work in a manner similar
to what Robert Barry’s Closed Gallery work in which an announcement on the
closed gallery door stated, “During the exhibition the gallery will be closed”.
The written announcement becomes a suitable “container” for the work, which also
providing strong evidence for the existence of the work.
Showing
nothing could be just a strategy to isolate the work from the audience. In this
way, the gap is bridged and the confusion about nothingness is eliminated. For
instance, Tehching Hsieh’s Earth piece that he announced he would make art but
not show it publicly for 13 years from 1986 to 1999. At the end of 13 years, he
only gave out a statement, which says “I kept myself alive, I passed Dec 31,
1999”. The statement is the “container”, which not only isolates the work from
the audience, but also provides evidence for his work. In contrast to his work,
my decision to show nothing was to explore the gap between private and public.
Eventually, the whole working processing which includes Work Generating and Gap
Fixing could be seen as the work. In this way, the production of the works and
the decision of showing nothing are only components inside the piece. Everything
is nothing and should be seen together as a whole.
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