Modern & Contemporary Art Practices
A Manifesto of Art as Art, September 14 - October 7, 2021, Sprague Gallery
ReadyMade, September 23, 2:45-4 p.m., Shakespeare Theater
Monochrome, October 12, 2:45-4 p.m., Hixon Courtyard and Strauss Plaza
Performance Happening, October 28, 2:45-4 p.m., Olin Patio
Video Art Video, November 11, 2:45-4 p.m.
TechNo, December 2, 2:45-4 p.m.
Another Manifesto of Art as Art, December 9, 2:45-4 p.m.
*Pop-up locations include Hixon Courtyard, Liquidambar Mall, Olin Patio, Platt Lawn, Shakespeare Theater, and Strauss Plaza.
Students of Art 2 HM Modern & Contemporary Art Practices (Fall 2021)
“A Manifesto of Art as Art” (installation views). Sprague Gallery, September 14, 2021.
The series of exhibitions by Modern & Contemporary Art Practices (Art 2 HM, Fall 2021) begins with A Manifesto of Art as Art, for which hundred and thirty students each writes their own manifesto of art and attaches it to the gallery using blue tape.
Closing Remark for A Manifesto of Art as Art:
October 7, 2021 – A Manifesto of Art as Art is the third exhibition of the same kind (initially titled “A Definition of Art as Art” in Spring 2019 and changed to the current title in the following semester) that is presented on site by Sprague Gallery and that uses physical attachment of works using blue tape. Each time, from the moment of knowing that there will be a manifesto exhibition to the moment of seeing the final installation in the gallery, there is a certain suspense that is felt. It is never possible to know what the 100+ works will be nor what the exhibition will look like. And waiting in suspense is only appropriate for such immediate transfer of thoughts from the mind of the artist to the body of the gallery. Or would traverse be a better word than transfer? Here, all it takes is a piece of blue tape.
So what is art?
While we don’t have access to a single, true definition of art, we can pick up a recurrent one pondered by the artists in this exhibition: art is a thing that either is or is in touch with the infinite, the metaphysical, the eternally evolving, and the immortal, with some reference to the beginning but never with an end. One remarks: "It can be created but never destroyed."
Coincidentally, Edward Krasiński (Poland, 1925-2004), who unified – and in a way manifested the infinity of – the world using blue tape, also made a piece in 1969 called “J’AI PERDU LA FIN!!!” (I Have Lost the End!!!). What a cosmic loss! But this loss of an end, in other words, is an entrance into the infinite. And here, too, what is lost is not the beginning but the end.
Edward Krasiński, J’AI PERDU LA FIN!!!, 1969. Eustachy Kossakowski Archive, The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw.
Edward Krasiński’s studio in Warsaw. Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. “He once remarked: ‘I place it horizontally at a height of 130cm everywhere and on everything. I encompass everything with it and go everywhere.’” (Edward Krasiński published by Tate Liverpool, 2016, on the occasion of the exhibition at Tate Liverpool and travelling to Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam)
“A Manifesto of Art as Art” is now closed. The gallery prepares to be blank again, for its art will follow the blue tape artists will pull and take.
– Julia Hong
Artists:
Ayman Abdellatif, Elena Anderson, Raja Batra, Adam Beckwith, Arpita Bhutani, Meredith Bloss, Victoria Brooks, Jorge Canedo, Nicholas Casanas, Matthew Chalk, Richard Chang, Jacinda Chen, Jesse Chen, Megan Chen, Ashley Cheung, James Clinton, Adam Cohan, Esther Cohen, Audrey Cole, Diana Contreras, Nestor Coria, Sarah Covey, Linna Cubbage, Shaheen Cullen-Baratloo, Kaeshav Danesh, Rosalie Didcock, Nicolas Espinosa Dice, Myles Fabre, Ammar Fakih, Alex Fay, Aldrin Feliciano, Ellen Ferranto, Emily Fok, Samuel Freisem-Kirov, Robert Fulton, Skylar Gering, Jake Gill, Benjamin Ginsberg, Alekzander Grijalva-Moreno, Kathleen Gull, Rin Ha, Henry Hammer, Julia Hayes, Brayden Hedrick, Tejas Hegde, Lauren Henson, Isaac Hershenson, Dylan Hou, Tristan Huang, Erina Iwasa, Emanuel Jarquin, Justin Jiang, Tristan Johnson, Eve Kazarian, Zoe Kedzierski, Ellie Kim, Jessica Kwok, Swamik Lamichhane, Lauren Le, Jae-Hyun Lee, Kacie Lee, Lillian Lee, Michelle Lee, Huijie Li, Megan Li, Jose Liera, Ki-Pheng Lim, Noah Limpert, Samuel Litle, Amy Liu, Bryan McNair, Amber Means, Mehek Mehra, Manuel Mendoza Manriquez, Maximilian Mingst, Jason Misleh, Camilo Morales, Keizo Morgan, Ruth Mueller, Gillian Murdock Gardner, Felix Murphy, Cole Nagata, Htoomyat Naing, Yury Namgung, Tanis Nielsen, Jaime Pacheco, Danila Pasiada, Kaitlyn Paulsen, Caetano Pérez-Marchant, David Pitt, Elijah Rejto, Cassandra Ruedy, Vani Sachdev, Sabine Salles, Henley Sartin, Anirudh Satish, Manjari Senthilkumar, Limnanthes Serafini, Tarush Sharma, Ava Sherry, Avishka Silva, Abigail Steele, Martin Susanto, Nicholas Tan, Shinnosuke Taniya, Annabelle Teng, Daniel Torres, Matthew Tran, Jeremy Tsai, Lucien Tsai, Aryana Villela Mugnatto, Nicholas Waalkes, Huaxiaoyue Wang, Katie Wang, Jacob Weber, Rachel Willson, Theodore Wismar, Georgia Witchel, Nathaniel Worley, Alexa Wright, Jiyuan Wu, Siqi Wu, Chang Xie, Qing Yang, Yuan-Wei Ying, Jacob Yoo, Sabrina Yu, Amy Yuan, Mengjun Zhao, Emilia Zientara
Selected Statements:
Art should run a 9 second 100 meter dash, run a 3 minute mile, and swim across the Atlantic. Art should fly to mars, reach the earth’s core, and communicate with aliens…. art is to be infinitely explored. Each piece in its own universe, with planets, stars, atmospheres, and life we will never comprehend…. Artists should be chefs experimenting with dishes that remind you of your mother’s lasagna and me of my grandma’s chocolate chip cookies…. The brush, the clay, the paper, the oil, the parchment are steps on an evolutionary journey forced not by natural selection but by our selection, a break from nature into the unconscious of the human mind.
Dear future Amy, I wonder what you’ll think “art” is when you do this again at the end of the course…. [the manifesto continues]…. So, uh, future Amy, let me know if that changes. Best, Amy
Art never belongs to us,
But flowing around the universe.
It can be created, but never destroyed
But flowing around the universe.
It can be created, but never destroyed
The Book [initially referred to by mathematician Paul Erdős and reconsidered by the artist] is a place: a garden formed by the collective consciousness of an art piece’s audience…. If you point to a painting as the art, you are stupid. A painting has no purpose, no objective, no interaction with the environment. The audience does; the audience feels; the audience reacts; and the audience changes course. And it is this global audience, not the local one, that births the Garden of Collective Consciousness….
Art is neither the painting nor the audience
But our vehicle of voyage to the Garden,
Even if only for a brief moment
Before our mortality exiles us
To the confines of the physical.
Art is neither the painting nor the audience
But our vehicle of voyage to the Garden,
Even if only for a brief moment
Before our mortality exiles us
To the confines of the physical.
Action Reaction Action Reaction
Art doth not develop from the corrupt thought of man, because art is the pure creation of God.
Art – the way to connect to one’s soul.
what is art? from an artist’s perfective… or from a piece of art’s perspective?
Art is the ghost just around the corner
I glimpse him now and then
…
He touches everything in life
…
Immortality is best achieved
When art is a friend you have.
I glimpse him now and then
…
He touches everything in life
…
Immortality is best achieved
When art is a friend you have.
Art imitates life imitates experience imitates feeling imitates action imitates art imitates people imitates eternity imitates the unknown...
Curated by:
Professor Ken Fandell and arts director Julia Hong of the HMC Department of Humanities, Social Sciences, and the Arts