Participatory Art

I went to hear Gabriel Kuri at the Friday event today. I did not know much about his work before this event, having only read a brief introductory paragraph about him in the GI guide. Nevertheless, I had been intrigued to find out more as I was interested in his formalist approach to materials and his predilection for found, discarded or quite utilitarian materials like concrete, steel and glass. Although I am not naturally inclined to want to work with discarded material, I do like the idea of working with raw, unfinished materials like plywood, concrete and glass as I feel they would 'ground' my work in real life. A lot of my interest is in capturing the more ephemeral experiences in life and I think incorporating these materials would in some way give it a more tangible connection to daily life. 

Image source: Art Comments Blog

Anyhow, going back to Kuri's work. Aesthetically, I do enjoy the formalist qualities of his work but it was the participatory nature of some of his works that really caught my attention, namely the piece Items in Care of Items, a four part metal sculpture created for the Berlin Biennale in 2008. The piece was created as a kind of coat check system where visitors to the exhibition would be issued magnetic numbers and would place their number and their own items on the sculptures itself. I think it is always a nice change to be able to touch a sculpture in an exhibition, but more importantly, what I really like is what he said about the work, that the work began with the viewers interaction with it (i.e. placing their items on it), and was not just the forms.  In the past I have always enjoyed works that required some level of audience participation as I feel this is what makes art accessible and potentially more impactful.  Enough said for today I think.