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By the end of the animation, the form of the design changed completely.
Going back to the Ship of Theseus example, the question here is when did the design change so much it became something else? (personally, I'd say around the end of stage 3)

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The flower is meant to represent the core of the person, its strength. Viewers are supposed to root for the flower, it holding on.
Although that does not happen. The last few moments as the last few parts are disappearing are longer for the dramatic effect.

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as the last flower disappears, it is clear the battle has been lost

everything familiar is gone, we're left with this newly formed chaos

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jarring cut, white slash across the design takes a big chunk

extreme changes accelerate, the form is starting to be lost

some little elements are trying to come back, trying to fit into their original place. a few elements are standing strong unchanged. how long are they going to hold on?

new sharp shapes appear. they don't belong there, what's happening?

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the changes are more noticeable and raise concern

the original form is still intact, maybe it could be repaired?

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subtle changes, small parts are slowly going away, almost unnoticeable at first

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design deteriorating over time until it's unrecognizable

represents loss - memories, sanity, will to live
losing the fight, the loss takes over

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I don't want to include colours but I wanted to see what it would look like. Although it's striking, it's not something I need right now.

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I made a design loosely inspired by ornamental tiles. This is something somewhat familiar to me, it reminds me of the décor of my childhood home.
This has a perfect amount of intricacy, overlapping, structure. Any small changes should be able bring the entire design into question.

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I wasn't sure what kind of design to go with. I wanted something relatively intricate and diverse in terms of shapes. This would offer me many possibilities when it comes to stripping down some elements or changing them.
I wasn't sure where I was going with this design, so I decided to try something else.

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The Caretaker - Everywhere At The End Of Time - Stages 1-6 (Complete)

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Photoshop - designing the base and altering it
Premiere - putting everything in a sequence

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I decided not to make the piece interactive. It is going to be an animation instead. This decision makes the most sense because of accessibility. I assume everyone will be able to view it online but there's probably a big chunk of people who wouldn't be able to use it in person, and would watch a video of it anyway.

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This is still recognizable, the core is there. I want to explore changes in that core.

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I don't have an actual design yet, I found an old design I made to explore composition.
Here's the general idea of stripping away elements, the original design fading away.
I would do this a lot more intricately and change it slightly more than only deleting parts (such as misplacing some).

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This potential change reminds me of this Sensory Objects (Year 1) short group brainstorming session exercise.

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The only potential issue is timing/amount of button presses. I would like to do slow, gradual changes. Pressing a button once and having almost nothing change is underwhelming. If I want to have this approach I'd either have to make it move forward using an absurd amount of triggers for small changes to reach the end OR have the changes be a little more noticeable and jarring.

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Many, if not most, of the artwork that inspired me, is participatory art. I'm second-guessing my idea of having an animation simply play out in front of the viewer. Having some kind of feeling of participating, moving the piece forward would have more impact. Each button press would take a small piece away from the design, the viewer would be encouraged to push it once to 'take a piece with them'.
I could do this by coding it in Processing.org and any mouse/keypress would trigger it OR add Arduino to it and have an actual singular button. I think that would make the process a lot more straightforward.

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"Nedjar, who was born 1947 in a village near Paris, grew up amidst stories about the horrors of the Holocaust, where many members of his family had lost their lives. "I identified with the corpses. I felt the violence," he said after watching "Night and Fog" on television. He channeled his dark visions into disturbing dolls that appear to be part cocoon, part fetus, part alien, part decaying roadkill, part nightmare. "This is not the decay of a fruit or a rose, as in the vanitas still lifes of the Dutch 17th century," Katherine Lieber wrote of the works. "This is not even the decay of an animal, like a gull found dead on the shore. The poupées reflect the dereliction that underlies human existence: the fragility of the body of that which is intelligent, thinking and self-aware, and the fact that it will decompose and rot quickly, once the spirit has fled." "

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MICHEL NEDJAR
(1947 | FRANCE)

Michel Nedjar was born in Soisy-sous-Monmorency (France) in 1947. Third of seven children, his family is Jewish and linked to Ashkenazi and Sephardic traditions: his father, algerian Sefaradi, was a tailor, while his mother, polish Ashkenazi, settled in Paris in the early 1920s to escape the pogrom. Much of his family has disappeared in concentration camps.
During his childhood, Michel secretly loved playing with his sisters' dolls, also making clothes for them; he also helped his grandmother sell rags at the Paris flea market. This textile passion was indulged so much that, at the age of fourteen, he was taken as an apprentice in a clothing store. At that time, he watched Alain Resnais's film "Nuit et Brouillard" and became aware that most of his family had disappeared or exterminated during the Holocaust. This experience remains the most tragic event of his adolescence and his life.
A few years later he left for a trip to India, Asia and Mexico, where he came in contact for the first time with traditional magic rites and Kachina dolls capable of casting spells.
Upon his return to Paris in the Seventies, Michel began producing the first "Poupées", fetish dolls with pieces of fabric, rags and plastic bags, further personalizing them with feathers, wood, straw, string and shells. Many were bathed in a mixture of water and dye, mud or blood, then hung to dry, to obtain an aged and also obscure effect.
Subsequently he begins other series of dolls: Purim (related to the traditional Jewish holiday) and leather dolls. Burned corpses and mutilated bodies are the main themes of his production.
In the late 1990s, the dark aura gave way to lighter, less frightening forms. In 1998, Michel started creating a series of "travel dolls" that underline the artist's love for travel and global discoveries.

☟

Michel Nedjar nasce a Soisy-sous-Monmorency (Francia) nel 1947. Terzo di sette figli, la sua è una famiglia ebrea legata a tradizioni aschkenazi e sefardite: il padre, algerino Sefaradi, era un sarto, mentre la madre, polacca Ashkenazi, si stabilì a Parigi all'inizio degli anni Venti per sfuggire dal pogrom. Gran parte della sua famiglia è scomparsa nei campi di concentramento.
Durante la sua infanzia, Michel amava giocare segretamente con le bambole delle sue sorelle, realizzandone inoltre i vestiti; inoltre aiutava la nonna a vendere stracci al mercato delle pulci di Parigi. Questa sua passione venne assecondata tanto che, all'età di quattordici anni, venne preso come apprendista in un negozio di abbigliamento. In quel periodo, guardò il film di Alain Resnais "Nuit et Brouillard" e divenne consapevole che la maggior parte della sua famiglia era scomparsa o sterminata durante l'Olocausto. Questa esperienza rimane l'evento più tragico della sua adolescenza e della sua vita.
Qualche anno dopo partì per un viaggio in India, Asia e in Messico, dove venne a contatto per la prima volta con riti magici tradizionali e degli incantesimi delle bambole Kachina.
Ad suo ritorno a Parigi, negli anni Settanta, Michel iniziò a produrre le sue prime "Poupées", bambole fetish con pezzi di tessuto, stracci e sacchi di plastica, personalizzandole ulteriormente con piume, legno, paglia, spago e conchiglie. Molte furono immerse in una miscela di acqua e tintura, fango o sangue, quindi appesi a seccare, per ottenere un effetto invecchiato e pauroso.
Successivamente incomincia altre serie di bambole: Purim (legate alla tradizionale festa ebraica) e bambole in pelle. Cadaveri bruciati e corpi mutilati sono i temi principali della sua produzione.
Alla fine degli anni Novanta l'aura oscura ha ceduto il posto a forme più lievi e meno spaventose. Nel 1998, Michel iniziato a creare una serie di "bambole da viaggio" che sottolineano l'amore dell'artista per i viaggi e le scoperte globali.

☟

Michel Nedjar in his atelier in Saint-Martin © Pierre-Emmanuel Rastoin

Since 1980 he has also created drawings on wax and paintings on recovered supports, such as old colored rags, newspapers, packaging, together with bas-reliefs in plaster or papier-mâché.

Dubuffet discovered his works and started collecting his dolls. This was an opportunity to introduce Michel Nedjar to the world of Art Brut: this meeting was so enthusiastic that he himself started looking for new artists, to collect their works and, in 1984, to co-found - together with Madeleine Lommel and Claire Teller - L'Aracine collection: reaching 3500 works it was donated in 1999 to LaM in Villeneuve d'Ascq (therefore the first art brut museum in France).
Michel Nedjar currently lives in Paris, where he continues to work on his creations.

☟

Dal 1980 realizza inoltre disegni su cera e pitture su supporti recuperati, come vecchi stracci colorati, giornali, imballaggi, insieme a bassorilievi in gesso o cartapesta.

Dubuffet scoprì i suoi lavori e iniziò a collezionare le sue bambole. Fu l'occasione per introdurre Michel Nedjar al mondo dell'Art Brut: questo incontro fu talmente entusiastico che lui stesso iniziò a cercare nuovi artisti, a collezionare le loro opere e, nel 1984, a co-fondare - insieme a Madeleine Lommel e Claire Teller - la collezione L'Aracine: arrivata a 3500 opere venne donata poi nel 1999 al LaM di Villeneuve d'Ascq (considerabile dunque il primo museo di art brut in Francia).
Michel Nedjar attualmente vive a Parigi, dove continua a lavorare alle sue creazioni.

☟

Untitled, between 1976 and 1982, sculpture of scrap rags, strings and various materials coated with mud, 40 x 50 cm, © Collection de l'Art Brut, Lausanne

Untitled, c. 1983 mixed media 96.52 x 55.88 x 27.94 cm © Outsider Art Fair website

Untitled (Belleville), 1985-1986, papier mâché, pigments, plaster, chaff, 19.99 x 19.99 x 14 cm, © Christian Berst Gallery

Untitled, 1984, coloured pencil on paper, 29,7 x 21 cm, © Collection de l'Art Brut, Lausanne

Useful Links:
Collection de l'Art Brut, Lausanne
Michel Soskine Inc, New York
Christian Berst Gallery, Paris
Outsider Art Fair

Art Brut France Lam Michel Nedjar Poupées Sculptures

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MICHEL NEDJAR - Outsider Sculpture in France - Outsider Art Now

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MICHEL NEDJAR(1947 | FRANCE) Michel Nedjar was born in Soisy-sous-Monmorency (France) in 1947. Third of seven children, his family is Jewish and linked to Ashkenazi and Sephardic traditions: his father, algerian Sefaradi, was a tailor, while his mother, polish Ashkenazi, settled in Paris in the early 1920s to escape the pogrom.

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Motoi Yamamoto - "Return to the Sea: Saltworks"

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Motoi Yamamoto - "Return to the Sea: Saltworks"

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"This Japanese artist painstakingly creates installation artwork out of salt, in honour of his sister who died aged 24 of brain cancer. His intricate works use between 400 pounds to seven tons of table salt each, arranged in various patterns resembling lace, sea foam, or blood vessels.

At the end of every exhibition, Yamamoto invites people to scoop up handfuls of the salt and take it back to the sea, returning it to where it came from. The whole artistic process has helped heal his grief he says, explaining: “It’s a rebirth. It’s about connecting the people and the ocean and continuing the process of healing.” "

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Return to the Sea: Saltworks by Motoi Yamamoto

Detailed Information
Project Name

Saltworks

Posted in
Sculpture
Artist
Motoi Yamamoto

A pioneering contemporary artist, Tokyo-born Motoi Yamamoto carves monumental two dimensional sculptures of entire oceans, shattered planets, typhoons, mountain ranges, fractured staircases and vast plains of brain-like coils using just the one medium: SALT. Although striking, his works are far from being merely aesthetic. Every one of the artist's saltscapes is an experience in its own right, and one of a highly metaphysical nature for the artist as well as the viewer. Yamamoto's works have been shown across the world from Russia to the United States and his most recent salt Labyrinth will be on show until 9th Novembe 2014 at the Parisian gallery La (Deuxième) Galerie Particulière.

Regarding his work, the artist has said that: ''Drawing a labyrinth with salt is like following a trace of my memory. Memories seem to change and vanish as time goes by; however, what I seek is to capture a frozen moment that cannot be attained through pictures or writings. What I look for at the end of the act of drawing could be a feeling of touching a precious memory ...'' For Motoi Yamamoto, his saltscapes act like a frequency that allows him to tune out of everything around him. Almost like a meditation that is actually part of a never-ending healing process following his sister's death due to severe brain cancer at the tender age of 24, it seems that it is also the artist's way of never letting go of this 'memory' he speaks of.

While he draws his poetic scapes, Yamamoto seems to enter a trance that takes him far into the depths of his consciousness and into a world of peace and tranquility; in fact, while he creates, he appears far removed from reality, no matter how many observers surround him. Each installation is a metaphysical experience, one that hypnotises the viewer, and that puts the world on hold, a restful and peaceful experience where the viewer is completely absorbed in the repetitive ritual of the artist's hand and awakens only once the final image appears as a whole.

Motoi Yamamoto's repetitive and very precise ritualistic sweeps of the hand while he traces the patterns on the floor recall the repetition of a monk's chants during prayer. His works clearly physically recall Tibetan monks' mandalas, which are colourful sandscapes, also loaded with symbolic importance and intense emotion. Unrushed, the artist seems to trace for the sake of tracing, almost as an obligation in order to remain sane.

The only artist to use salt in this way, Yamamoto's choice of material isn't a coincidence. In Japanese culture salt is a highly significant symbol for the source of life as well as being a purifying element and is often used in ceremonies celebrating life and death. Reminding of the temporality of life, regardless of the number of times the artist repeats his saltscapes, the experience remains a transcendental one that is as magnificent as it is temporary.

In fact, after each show, the artist always takes the salt back to its origin, back to water, in a ceremony entitled Return to the Sea, which for him is just as important as creating the work itself. The salt goes back to the sea, just like a body goes back to the earth after death, thereby symbolising the evanescence and transience of life.

Motoi Yamamoto has been applying himself to his brilliant-white salt sculptures since 1994 and has dazzled the world - a world that is in constant motion and upheaval - with his diligence and serenity. Transcending external movement and his own internal turmoil, he continues to pour himself entirely into this perpetual exercise, which so far, has lasted two decades.

Motoi Yamamoto's latest Labyrinth will be on show until 9 November 2014 at La (Deuxième) Galerie Particulière, 11 rue du Perche, Paris 75011.

Watch the ' Return to the Sea ' documentary about the artist's incredible labour intensive works with commentary from the artist himself

Return to the Sea: Saltworks by Motoi Yamamoto

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Return to the Sea: Saltworks by Motoi Yamamoto | Yatzer

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Skip to main content You are reading Detailed Information Project Name Saltworks Posted in Sculpture Artist Motoi Yamamoto A pioneering contemporary artist, Tokyo-born Motoi Yamamoto carves monumental two dimensional sculptures of entire oceans, shattered planets, typhoons, mountain ranges, fractured staircases and vast plains of brain-like coils using just the one medium: SALT.

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I looked into the theme of loss and how it's presented in art. I want to include some kind of real feeling into my piece, something that makes sense - natural progression. This research will help me develop the visual side of my design.

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But, we still recognize this general shape despite changes. Does this mean our perception affects other's form? Something might be technically wrong, but we can still recognize this object/being as "correct".

When does that recognition stop?

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Technically, by the definition, only 1-4 were proper circles.

"A circle is a simple closed curve that divides the plane into two regions: an interior and an exterior."

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I took this circle and made a few changes. When does it stop being a circle?

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I chose to do a P5/Processing sketch OR a 2D animation. Observing this piece on a screen makes the most sense, and it could go to my advantage.
"Did those few pixels over there change, or are my eyes playing a trick on me?"

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Going back to the question I asked earlier, at what point is an object something entirely else? What are the limits of this?

I.e., can a person change so much they become someone else?

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I want to create a 2D geometrical design with subtle changes as the viewer looks at it. Some changes would be noticeable immediately, some would be barely visible at first.

As I'm exploring identity in form, I want to simulate a person changing by losing a part of themselves. This could be their freedom, a loved one, mental illness taking a toll on them. Some of these things are sudden and intense, while others, much like ageing, happen gradually.

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"The album also plays into metatextual ideas about the death of the artist. When the last stage of Everywhere was released, Kirby announced that it represented the official “death” of The Caretaker moniker — by his count, he’ll never release an album under that name again. As a result, the album isn’t just a process of disintegrating music, it’s also the disintegration of a persona.

Which might be why it sounds quite so terrifying. Everywhere is an album about the eradication of identity; about what happens to us when the things that make us special are gradually stripped away. Almost always, we hold hard onto our notion of individuality and personal identity. We believe, strongly, that who we are matters. Everywhere At The End of Time proves that it does not."

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"As the album progresses, shapes grow vaguer and vaguer. What once was clearly defined, if a little eerie, breaks down into its most composite and basic parts. To listen to the work in one go is to feel the world slipping out of focus; to experience what it’s like when textures fuzz and blur."

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"As the album progresses, each stage gets increasingly degraded. The recognisable melodies get chewed up. There’s more interference; more noise. Eventually, by the sixth stage, the album becomes a mess of horror and chaos, eventually plateauing out into long, fuzzy waves of sound.

And that’s because Everywhere At The End of Time is not just an album. It’s a creative replication of what happens when you begin to lose your memories."

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Based on my research so far, changes in form are often related to time. Losing parts or getting new ones, deteriorating or growing, etc. Most of these changes happen over some time. I need to consider the timing for my outcome. I want to replicate the natural pace but have the form change enough to look decently different.

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The Caretaker - Everywhere At The End Of Time - Stages 1-6 (Complete)

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"Felix Gonzalez-Torres's piece, "Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), is a 175-pound pile of wrapped candies from which museum-goers are encouraged to take and eat pieces. The 175 pounds is meant to represent the healthy bodyweight of the artist's partner, Ross Laycock, before he died of complications from AIDS. The diminishing aspect of the pile represents Laycock's decline. In 1996, Gonzalez-Torres also died from AIDS at the age of 38."

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"Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.)

Date:

1991

Artist:

Felix Gonzalez-Torres
American, born Cuba, 1957-1996

Related

Related

About this artwork

Felix Gonzalez-Torres produced meaningful and restrained sculptural forms out of common materials. "Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) consists of an ideal weight of 175 pounds of shiny, commercially distributed candy. The work's physical form and scale change with each display, affected by its placement in the gallery as well as audience interactions. Regardless of its physical shape, the label lists its ideal weight, likely corresponding to the average body weight of an adult male, or perhaps the ideal weight of the subject referred to in the title, Ross Laycock, the artist's partner who died of complications from AIDS in 1991, as did Gonzalez-Torres in 1996. As visitors take candy, the configuration changes, linking the participatory action with loss-even though the work holds the potential for endless replenishment.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Contemporary Art

Artist

Felix Gonzalez-Torres

Title

"Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.)

Place

United States (Artist's nationality:)

1991

Medium

Candies in variously colored wrappers, endless supply

Dimensions

Dimensions vary with installation; ideal weight 175 lbs.

Credit Line

Gift of Donna and Howard Stone

Reference Number

2022.343

Copyright

© The Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation.

Extended information about this artwork

David Pagel, "World of Gonzalez-Torres. Testers on Joy and Despair," Los Angeles Times (Nov. 7, 1991), section F, p. 6 (ill.).

R. J. Merrill, "Rituals and Allegories. Felix Gonzalez-Torres at Luhring Augustine Hetzler," Artweek (Nov. 14, 1991), p. 14 (ill.).

Nicola White, Simon Watney and Vito Russo, Read My Lips: New York AIDS Polemics, exh. cat. (Glasgow: Tramway, 1992): 49 (ill.).

Nancy Spector, "Felix Gonzalez-Torres," in Felix Gonzalez-Torres, exh. cat. (New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1995), 150-51, 222-23 (ill.).

"Felix Gonzalez-Torres (Album)," in Blocnotes, Sept./Oct. 1996, p. 87 (ill.).

Gerhard Mack, "Am Fusse des Kulturpalastes," in St. Galler Tagblatt (October 30, 1996), n.pag. (ill.).

Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Catalogue Raisonné, exh. cat. by Dietmar Elger (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 1997), cat. 168 (color ill.).

Lisa Stein, "What a concept: Museums try to preserve art when it goes beyond objects," Chicago Tribune (October 22, 2000), section 7, 14 (ill.).

Elena Carotti, Terry Piazzoli, and Joy Ledgister-Holness, eds., Il Dono: The Gift (Milan: Edizioni Charta, 2001), 195 (ill.).

Nancy Spector, Cream 3: 10 Curators, 100 Contemporary Artists, 10 Source Artists, (London: Phaidon, 2003), 426 (ill.).

Jean Sousa, A Guide to Looking at Art: Faces, Places and Inner Spaces, (New York: Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2006), 32, 46 (ill.).

Bernhard Fibicher and Susanne Friedli, Six Feet Under: Autopsy of Our Relation to the Dead, exh. cat. (Bielefeld/Leipzig: Kerber Verlag, 2007), 187, 188, 194 (color ill.), 212, 216.

"Gallery One: Felix Gonzales-Torres," Queer Cultural Center On-Line Programs,

http://www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/FelixGT/FelixGallery.html.

James Rondeau and Judith Russi Kirshner, Contemporary collecting: the Donna and Howard Stone collection, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 16, 62, 63 (color ill.), 142 (ill.).

Tine Engel Mogensen, I Love You, exh. cat. (Aarhus: ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, 2010), 88 (color ill.), 89.

Mark Rosenthal, Marla Prather, Ian Alteveer, Rebecca Lowery, Polly Apfelbaum, John Baldessari, Vija Celmins, Chuck Close, Robert Gober, Hans Haacke, Alfredo Jaar, Deborah Kass, Alex Katz, Jeff Koons, Julian Schnabel, Robert Trecartin, and Luc Tuymans, Regarding Warhol : sixty artists, fifty years, exh. cat. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art; New Haven, CT: Distributed by Yale University Press, 2012), 41, 45, cat. 78 (color ill.), 290.

Björn Geldhof, Olga Rudneva, and Pavel Piminov, Where There's a Will, There's a Way, exh. cat. (Kyiv: Pinchuk Art Centre, 2013), n.p. (color ill.)

General Reference:

Suzanne Perling Hudson, "Beauty and the Status of Contemporary Criticism," October 104 (Spring 2003), pp. 124-26.

Caroline Culp, Alexis Bard Johnson, Yinshi Lerman-Tan, Gigi Otálvaro-Hormillosa, Natalie Pellolio, Missing Persons, exh. cat. (Stanford: Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University, 2015), 6 (color ill); 12 (color ill), 67.

Los Angeles, Luhring Augustine Hetzler Gallery, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Oct. 19-Nov. 16, 1991, no cat.

Pully, Switzerland, Musee D'Art Contemporain, Post Human: New Forms of Figuration in Contemporary Art, June 14-Sept. 13, 1992 CAT. INFO. PENDING; Rivoli, Italy, Castello di Rivoli, Oct. 1-Nov. 22, 1992, Athens, Deste Foundation for Contemporary Art, Dec. 3, 1992-Feb. 14, 1993, Hamburg, Deichtorhallen, Mar. 12-May 9, 1993, Jerusalem, Israel Museum, June 21-Oct. 10, 1993.

Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario, Works on loan from the Collection of Vivian and David Campbell, Jan. 21-Aug. 6, 1993, no cat.

Hovikodden, Norway, Sonja Henie-Niels Onstad Art Center, Tema Aids, May 8-July 8, 1993, CAT. INFO PENDING; Bergen, Norway Museum, July-November, Hagen, Germany Karl Ernst Osthaus-Museum, Dec. 1, 1993-Jan. 9, 1994, as Thema: Aids.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Present Tense: Nine Artists in the Nineties, Sept. 13, 1997-Jan. 13, 1998, cat. 9.

Barcelona, Museu d'Art Contemporani, Artificial: Contemporary Figures, Jan. 21-Mar. 15, 1998, no cat. no.

New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, The American Century: Art and Culture 1900-2000, Sept. 26, 1999-Feb. 13, 2000, no cat. no.

Musee d'Art Contemporain de Montreal, Culbutes Oevre d'impertienence/Head over Heels into the Millennium, Nov. 18-Apr. 23, 2000, no cat. no.

New York, Luhring Augustine Gallery, Untitled (Sculpture): Kendall Geers, Martin Kippenburger, Reinhard Mle ucha, Rachel Whiteread, Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Robert Gober, Tunga, Steve Wolfe, Jan. 8-Feb. 12, 2000, no cat.

Philadelphia, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, s(how): ICA Art History Project, May 3-July 27, 2003, no cat.

Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Universal Experience: Art, Life and the Tourist's Eye, Feb. 12-June 5, 2005, no cat. no.; London, Hayward Gallery, Oct. 6-Dec. 11, 2005; Museo de Arte Moderna e Conteporanea de Trento e Rovereto (MART), Feb. 10-May 14, 2006, no cat. no.

Kunstmuseum Bern, Six Feet Under: Autopsy of Our Relation to the Dead, Nov. 2, 2006-Jan. 21, 2007; Dresden, Deutsche Hygiene-Museum, Sept. 22, 2007-Mar. 30 2008, no. cat. no.

New York, Apexart, Let Everything be Temporary, or When is the Exhibition?, Jan. 10-Feb. 17, 2007, no cat. no.

Brussels, WIELS Centre d'Art Contemporain, Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Specific Objects Without Specific Form, Jan. 16-May 2, 2010, CAT. INFO PENDING; Basel, Foundation Beyeler, May 21-July 25, 2010; Frankfurt, Museum fur Moderne Kunst, Jan. 28-Apr. 25, 2011.

Aarhus, Denmark, ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, I Love You, Mar. 27-Sept. 12, 2010, no cat. no.

Art Institute of Chicago, Contemporary Collecting: Selections from the Donna and Howard Stone Collection, June 24-Sept. 19, 2010, no cat. no.

Washington, D.C., National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, Oct. 30, 2010-Feb. 13, 2011, CAT. INFO PENDING; Brooklyn Museum of Art, Nov. 18, 2011-Feb. 12, 2012, Tacoma Art Museum, Mar. 17-June 10, 2012.

Chicago, Smart Museum of Art, FEAST: Radical Hospitality and Contemporary Art, Feb. 16-June 10, 2012, CAT. INFO PENDING.

New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years, Sept. 18-Dec. 31, 2012, cat. 78; Pittsburgh, Andy Warhol Museum, Feb. 3-Apr. 28, 2013.

Chicago, Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, Could Not Bear the Sight of It: Contemporary Art Interventions on Critical Whiteness, Oct. 23-Nov. 21, 2012, no cat.

Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Ackland Art Museum, More Love: Art, Politics, and Sharing since the 1990s, Feb. 1-Mar. 31, 2013, CAT. INFO PENDING; Nashville, Cheekwood Estate and Gardens, Sept. 21-Dec. 31, 2013.

Kyiv, Pinchuk Art Centre, Where There's a Will, There's a Way, Nov. 16, 2013-Jan. 5, 2014, no cat. no.

Palo Alto, Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University, Missing Persons, Nov. 11, 2015-Mar. 21, 2016, no cat. no.

New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible, Mar. 18-Sept. 4, 2016, CAT. INFO PENDING.

Shanghai, Rockbund Art Museum, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Sept. 30-Dec. 25, 2016, no cat.

Arhaus, Denmark, ARoS Arhaus Kunstmuseum, Objects of Wonder, Oct. 12, 2019-Mar. 1, 2020, CAT. INFO PENDING.

The artist; sold through Luhring Augustine Hetzler, Los Angeles, to Vivian and David Campbell, Warren, VT by Mar. 21,1992 [email from Zachary Boozer, Luhring Augustine Gallery, Jun. 3, 2022; copy in curatorial object file]; sold through Luhring Augustine, New York, to Donna and Howard Stone, Chicago, Nov. 10, 1995 [invoice in curatorial object file]; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, Sept. 13, 2022.

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"Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) | The Art Institute of Chicago

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"One day, after gazing at a pattern of red flowers on the tablecloth, I looked up to see that the ceiling, the windows, and the columns seemed to be plastered with the same red floral pattern, I saw the entire room, my entire body, and the entire universe covered with red flowers, and in that instant, my soul was obliterated … This was not an illusion but reality itself."

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"After being given sheets of colourful dots, visitors to "The Obliteration Room" are encouraged to transform the space together, covering the walls and furniture in stickers. Over the course of the installation, it changes from a blank white space to a multi-coloured playroom."

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The obliteration room 2011 revisits the popular interactive children's project developed by Yayoi Kusama for the Queensland Art Gallery's 'APT 2002: Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art'. In this reworked and enlarged installation, an Australian domestic environment is recreated in the gallery space, complete with locally sourced furniture and ornamentation, all of which has been painted completely white. While this may suggest an everyday topography drained of all colour and specificity, it also functions as a blank canvas to be invigorated - or, in Kusama's vocabulary, 'obliterated' - through the application, to every available surface, of brightly coloured stickers in the shape of dots.

As with many of Kusama's installations, the work is disarmingly simple in its elemental composition; however, it brilliantly exploits the framework of its presentation. The white room is gradually obliterated over the course of the exhibition, the space changing measurably with the passage of time as the dots accumulate as a result of thousands and thousands of collaborators.

Interactivity became an important component of Kusama's work in the mid to late 1960s, when her solo public performances expanded into participatory happenings. A product of the postwar Avant-garde, which almost immediately crossed over into popular culture, or at least underground counter culture, happenings developed as unconventional performance events increasingly relying on audience reaction and direct participation. Kusama's happenings, known as 'body festivals' - or 'orgies', as they were often sensationally reported in the mainstream press - typically provided platforms for spontaneous and improvisatory behaviour within conceptual and aesthetic frameworks determined by the artist. Often involving public nudity - the artist hoped to contrast the beauty of the youthful human body with the violence of the US-Vietnam War - they challenged prevailing moral frameworks.

Installation view of The obliteration room 2011 as part of 'Yayoi Kusama: Look Now, See Forever', Gallery of Modern Art, 2011 / © Yayoi Kusama, Yayoi Kusama Studio Inc. / Photograph: Mark Sherwood

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The obliteration room 2011 revisits the popular interactive children's project developed by Yayoi Kusama for the Queensland Art Gallery's 'APT 2002: Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art'. In this reworked and enlarged installation, an Australian domestic environment is recreated in the gallery space, complete with locally sourced furniture and ornamentation, all of which has been painted completely white.

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"Slovakian artist Roman Ondák asks for visitors to record their first name and the date of the measurement at their height line. Over time, the installation transforms from a blank space into an art piece representative of thousands of people. "

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Viewers play a vital role in the creation of Measuring the Universe (2007), by Slovakian artist Roman Ondák (b. 1966). Over the course of the exhibition, attendants mark Museum visitors' heights, first names, and date of the measurement on the gallery walls. Beginning as an empty white space, over time the gallery gradually accumulates the traces of thousands of people.

The inclusion of viewers in the process of art making has a long tradition in the history of performance-based art. By inviting people to actively participate, artists attempt to overcome traditional divisions between art objects and spectators, and production and reception.

Measuring the Universe turns the domestic custom of recording children's heights on door frames into a public event, referring through its title to humankind's age-old desire to gauge the scale of the world. The process creates a work of art with a multitude of participants, merging art with everyday life in a confluence that is at the very center of Ondák's artistic practice.

The Performance Exhibition Series is organized by Klaus Biesenbach, Chief Curator, and Jenny Schlenzka, Assistant Curator for Performance, Department of Media and Performance Art.

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Performance program. Jun 24-Sep 14, 2009. Viewers play a vital role in the creation of Measuring the Universe (2007), by Slovakian artist Roman Ondák (b. 1966). Over the course of the exhibition, attendants mark Museum visitors' heights, first names, and date of the measurement on the gallery walls.

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similarly to taking elements away, adding them can change the entire piece as well

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"inspired by the practices of Catholicism and Japanese Shinto prayer walls, invites visitors to enter a private booth where they can write down their confessions on a wooden plaque. Chang then arranges the anonymous plaques on the gallery walls. The display of confessions features everything from "I eat too much cheese" to "I'm afraid to die alone."

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Confessions is a participatory installation that explores secular spaces for catharsis and consolation. Inspired by Japanese Shinto shrine prayer walls and the practices of Catholicism, Chang invites people to write and submit a confession on a wooden plaque in the privacy of confession booths. The anonymous plaques are then hung on the gallery walls.

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a very subtle difference over a long period with expected natural progression (aka knowing how humans age or how nature changes) is a change of physical form, but it's not very jarring.

what about shapes and objects? we don't expect them to change over time at all

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AGE 12 TO MARRIED – I Took A Photo Every Day

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The Ship of Theseus is a thought experiment about whether an object which has had all of its original components replaced remains the same object. According to legend, Theseus, the mythical Greek founder-king of Athens, rescued the children of Athens from King Minos after slaying the minotaur and then escaped onto a ship going to Delos. Each year, the Athenians commemorated this by taking the ship on a pilgrimage to Delos to honor Apollo. A question was raised by ancient philosophers: After several centuries of maintenance, if each individual part of the Ship of Theseus was replaced, one at a time, was it still the same ship?

In contemporary philosophy, this thought experiment has applications to the philosophical study of identity over time, and has inspired a variety of proposed solutions and concepts in contemporary philosophy of mind concerned with the persistence of personal identity.

A Fresco from Pompeii depicting Theseus and Ariadne escaping from Crete. According to Plutarch, the Athenians preserved the ship that Theseus used to escape, by replacing the parts one by one as they decayed.

In its original formulation, the "Ship of Theseus" paradox concerns a debate over whether or not a ship that had all of its components replaced one by one would remain the same ship. The account of the problem has been preserved by Plutarch in his Life of Theseus:

The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned from Crete had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their places, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same.

Centuries later, the philosopher Thomas Hobbes extended the thought experiment by supposing that a custodian gathered up all of the decayed parts of the ship as they were disposed of and replaced by the Athenians, and used those decaying planks to build a second ship. Hobbes posed the question of which of the two resulting ships, the custodians or the Athenians, was the same ship as the "original" ship.

For if that Ship of Theseus (concerning the Difference whereof, made by continual reparation, in taking out the old Planks, and putting in new, the sophisters of Athens were wont to dispute) were, after all the Planks were changed, the same Numerical Ship it was at the beginning; and if some Man had kept the Old Planks as they were taken out, and by putting them afterward together in the same order, had again made a Ship of them, this, without doubt, had also been the same Numerical Ship with that which was at the beginnings and so there would have been two Ships Numerically the same, which is absurd... But we must consider by what name anything is called when we inquire concerning the Identity of it... so that a Ship, which signifies Matter so figured, will be the same, as long as the Matter remains the same; but if no part of the Matter is the same, then it is Numerically another Ship; and if part of the Matter remains, and part is changed, then the Ship will be partly the same, and partly not the same.

-  Hobbes, "Of Identity and Difference"

Hobbes considers the two resulting ships as illustrating two different definitions of "Identity" or sameness that are being compared to the original ship: 1) the ship that maintains the same " Form" as the original, that which persists through complete replacement of material, and 2) the ship made of the same " Matter", that which stops being 100% the same ship when the first part is replaced.

The Ship of Theseus paradox can be thought of as an example of a puzzle of material constitution - that is, a problem with determining the relationship between an object and the material of which it is made.

Constitution is not identity

According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the most popular solution is to accept the conclusion that the material out of which the ship is made is not the same object as the ship, but that the two objects simply occupy the same space at the same time.

Temporal parts

Another common theory put forth by David Lewis, is to divide up all objects into three-dimensional time-slices which are temporally distinct, which avoids the issue that the two different ships exist in the same space at one time and a different space at another time by considering the objects to be distinct from each other at all points in time.

Cognitive science

According to other scientists, the thought puzzle arises because of extreme externalism: the assumption that what is true in our minds is true in the world. Chomsky says that this is not an unassailable assumption, from the perspective of the natural sciences, because human intuition is often mistaken. Cognitive science would treat this thought puzzle as the subject of an investigation of the human mind. Studying this human confusion can reveal much about the brain's operation, but little about the nature of the human-independent external world.

Following on from this observation, a significant strand[who? ] in cognitive science would consider The Ship not as a thing, nor even a collection of objectively existing thing parts, but rather as an organisational structure that has perceptual continuity.

In Europe, several independent tales and stories feature knives that have had their blades and handles replaced several times but are still used and represent the same knife. France has Jeannot's knife, Spain uses Jeannot's knife as a proverb, though it is referred to simply as "the family knife", and Hungary has " Lajos Kossuth's pocket knife". Several variants or alternative statements of the underlying problem are known, including the grandfather's axe and Trigger's broom, where an old broom or axe has had both its head and its handle replaced, leaving no original components.

In Japan, the Ise Grand Shrine is rebuilt every twenty years with entirely "new wood". The continuity over the centuries is considered spiritual and comes from the source of the wood, which is harvested from an adjoining forest that is considered sacred.

The ancient Buddhist text Da zhidu lun contains a similar philosophical puzzle: a story of a traveler who encountered two demons in the night. As one demon ripped off all parts of the traveler's body one by one, the other demon replaced them with those of a corpse, and the traveler was confused about who he was.

In The Three Basic Facts of Existence, Piyadassi Thera uses the teachings of Dharma to suggest that nothing in the universe is ever the same.

The French critic and essayist, Roland Barthes, refers at least twice to a ship that is entirely rebuilt, in the preface to his Essais Critiques (1971) and later in his Roland Barthes par Roland Barthes (1975); in the latter, the persistence of the form of the ship is seen as a key structuralist principle. He calls this ship the , on which Theseus was said to have sailed with Jason; he may have confused the Argo (referred to in passing in Plutarch's Theseus at 19.4) with the ship that sailed from Crete ( Theseus, 23.1).

Blackburn, Simon, ed. (2016). "Ship of Theseus". The Oxford dictionary of philosophy (Third ed.). Oxford. ISBN 9780191799556.

Chomsky, Noam (2010). Chomsky Notebook. Columbia University Press. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-231-14475-9.

Chomsky, Noam (29 January 2009). Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini; Juan Uriagereka; Pello Salaburu (eds.). Of Minds and Language: A Dialogue with Noam Chomsky in the Basque Country. Oxford University Press. p. 382. ISBN 978-0-19-156260-0.

Grand, Steve (May 2003). Creation: Life and How to Make It. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-01113-7.

Hobbes, Thomas (1656). "On Identity and Difference". Elements of philosophy: the first section, concerning body. London: R & W Leybourn. pp. 100-101.

Huang, Jing; Ganeri, Jonardon (2021). "Is this me? A story about personal identity from the Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa / Dà zhìdù lùn". British Journal for the History of Philosophy. 29 (5): 739-762. doi:10.1080/09608788.2021.1881881. S2CID 233821050.

McGilvray, James (25 November 2013). Chomsky: Language, Mind and Politics. Polity. pp. 72-. ISBN 978-0-7456-4990-0.

Rea, Michael Cannon, ed. (1997). "Introduction". Material Constitution: A Reader. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-8476-8384-0.

Wasserman, Ryan. "Material Constitution". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

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The Ship of Theseus is a thought experiment about whether an object which has had all of its original components replaced remains the same object. According to legend, Theseus, the mythical Greek founder-king of Athens, rescued the children of Athens from King Minos after slaying the minotaur and then escaped onto a ship going to Delos.

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if I deleted one of the lines you could tell something's wrong, some designs completely fall apart - lose their form

does changing something's shape turn it into something different?

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my overarching theme for this year

exploration of form in terms of identity, at what point is an object something entirely else

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contact form

my web design background caused this inspiration

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bring together parts or combine to create (something)

abstract 3D designs or sculptures

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a particular way in which a thing exists or appears

examples from nature

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the visible shape or configuration of something

geometrical 2D designs

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What does this word mean to me?