New exhibition opens at Western Bridge this April of installation work by some of
the significant names in the global installation environment/interactive works culture.
Namely, Olafur Eliasson and Christian Marclay. Having seen a number of the 'major'
works by Marclay and Eliasson, including the "Take Your Time" exhibition at MoMA
last year, I'm curious what these 'minor' works entail. Much has been said in recent
local art press concerning Eli Hansen, who's work I have yet to see in person. So this
show will hopefully bring the known established big names and unknown/lesser known
together through a conceptual thread as many of the most successful curatorial 'themes'
that Western Bridge has presented in the past have.
Link to Western Bridge "You Complete Me" Exhibit siteFrom Western Bridge:
"You Complete Me” mixes conversations around interactive art and relational aesthetics in
a series of works that are less viewed than experienced. Works include Martin Creed's "Work
No. 360: Half the Air in a Given Space," a room half-filled with silver-gray balloons, Mungo
Thomson's skyspace in the form of a bounce house, Andreas Zybach’s “0 — 6.5 PS”, a long
tunnel which uses visitors’ weight to generate hydraulic pressure. The exhibition also includes
a commissioned poster by Jordan Wolfson and a commissioned sculpture by Eli Hansen and
Oscar Tuazon, and makes local introductions of the work of Mungo Thomson and Mark Soo".
"Let’s think about what has resulted from one hundred years of artists working to activate
the passive viewer. We are familiar with art asking something of us; we have allowed it to
make these requests, though we may at times regret giving up our separation from the work.
Our position of passivity was also perhaps a position of autonomy. Was there some coercion
involved as we relinquished voyeurism for a more engaged role? Does interactivity make art
more democratic, or can it also be a kind of tyranny? Can open forms result, as per Nicolas
Bourriaud, in the creation of “micro-utopias,” or should the work retain the potential to
express or generate antagonisms and conflict?"
