I’m a big believer in the inevitability of things, both in art and outside of art. The piece below touches directly on this - it’s inevitable that someone would construct it at some point.
The above photo is an image of Show Card a site specific installation/solo show by Anna Leigh Gold (label here), a student at Cal State Long Beach. It’s entirely made of “show cards”, the postcards that galleries or artists produce to promote exhibitions and events (I’m betting we only see them in use for 5-10 years, before the whole deal goes online, enjoy them while you can). I seem to recall another student, possibly a CSULB MFA, doing a similar project several years back, but the show solely consisted of the cards, which were mailed or distributed.
I’ve got two thoughts on what might be happening here.
a) The artist, either fresh out of ideas, or struggling to compete in an environment where novelty trumps all other values was unable to “come up with anything new”, and hit the wall, so to speak.
b) The artist’s work is the keen analysis that much of the “value” in the art world today is defined by hype and advertising, by reducing the mechanical component of the artwork to the advertising medium, makes a powerful statement about the nature of that world and its values.
Regardless of the motivation, I love the piece, and I wish I had a bigger picture, as it took over the whole room. The cards were meticulously arranged in a way that suggests real planning, precision and hard work, a direct counterpoint to the potential laziness or cynicism one might infer from the concept of the work. The regular element of the scale and design of the show cards gives it a painterly effect, and I loved how it extended all over the floor, and was meant to be walked on. When the artist has total disregard for the longevity of their work, I tend to be much more sympathetic to it, I guess.
