I found this week’s topic one of the harder ones for me to engage in. I don’t have much knowledge or experience with Fibers but I did find a lot of the works we looked at very interesting. Sarah showed a wide range of work and some of the pieces I found to be very beautiful. I especially loved the works of Doho Suh in which he constructed rooms and houses out of silk. His work was so elaborate and well crafted. The way the silk looked when it overlapped in some areas was really beautiful. I also loved what Sarah pointed out about the seams and how they almost gave a sense of a line drawing. One of the overarching themes I noticed in a lot of the work Sarah showed was the idea of the exploration of the everyday and everyday things. Suh used silk to make an apartment. Liza Lou took a 100 square foot kitchen and covered the entire thing with beads. In “Knitta, please” random objects around cities all over the world were graffiti-ed in knitting. I found it very interesting that by taking an everyday object and covering it in something else it can make it beautiful and interesting and less mundane. It can call attention to something that would otherwise be overlooked.
One of the videos I liked the most of this weeks multimedia was the “Myein” installation. I thought that not only was the whole concept and idea extremely powerful but the way that it was constructed was powerful as well. The visuals of the piece were very beautiful and it made me want to go see the piece in person. At first it was hard for me to see this as fibers but when I looked at it more it made more sense to me. The whole installation is very tactile, being written in Braille. The materials as well could also be tactile. Another piece from this weeks multimedia that struck me was Cai Guo-Qiang’s wolf piece. I think visually it is very beautiful and immaculate but as I looked at it more I struggled with the question of “Why? What does this mean?” What could a group of wolves soaring through the air and then landing in a heap on the ground possibly mean? Maybe there is no inherent meaning but then again what would strike Guo-Qiang to create such a piece? Either way I liked the piece because of the fact that it made me think and wonder.
The strongest connection I can make between this week’s materials is the concept of the exploration of the everyday. From Liza Lou’s kitchen to Doho Suh’s silk rooms to Cai Guo-Quiang’s wolves there is the repetition of the everyday. Ann Hamilton also created a piece in which she has a wooden desk in the center of a silk organza room. I am not sure why this is such a re-occurring theme in the Fibers pieces I’ve seen so far but it fascinates me. I think it partly has to do with the fact that Fibers is very culturally driven and very rooted in culture. I especially loved the beaded kitchen that Liza Lou created. To take something so mundane and make it so special and beautiful was incredible to me. This week’s materials were really a struggle for me to make connections however something Cai Guo-Qiang said really stuck me. He talks about how with time you get to know the materials you are working with very well and I can really understand how that is a big part of fibers. In fibers it’s all about materiality and how materiality can change in different conditions and over time. It seems like a very important aspect of Fibers and something that is very special to the media.
The piece of work I chose to share this week goes along with the theme of exploring the everyday. It is a house that a group of artists changed to make like it got sucked into a wormhole.
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