MIRANDA JULY WEEK PART THREE
A couple months ago, I went to Target Free Friday at MoMA. Little did I know, I was to be accompanied by swarms of lens-happy tourists who seemed to enjoy having their lens-happy friends take pictures of them in front of the art rather than actually looking at the art. My rage knew no bounds.
Enter the lovely Miranda July whose piece “Eleven Heavy Things,” a set of eleven (really, wow?) outdoor sculptures, shown at the Venice Biennal depends upon this very phenomenon: people taking pictures of themselves with the art.
“The cast fiber-glass, steel-lined pieces are designed for interaction: pedestals to stand on, tablets with holes for body parts, and free-standing abstract headdresses. A series of three pedestals in ascending height, The Guilty One, The Guiltier One, The Guiltiest One, ask the viewer to ascribe their guilt relative to the people around them. A large flat shape, hand-painted with Burberry plaid, hovers on a pole, waiting to become someone’s aura. A series of tablets invite heads, arms, legs and one finger: This is not the first hole my finger has been in, nor will it be the last. A wider pedestal for two people to hug on reads, We don!t know each other, we’re just hugging for the picture….
“July assumes and invites the picture — these are eleven photo opportunities, in a city where one is always clutching a camera. Though the work begins as sculpture, it becomes a performance that is only complete when these tourist photos are uploaded onto personal blogs and sent in emails — at which point the audience changes, and the subject clearly becomes the participants, revealing themselves through the work.” (via)
P.S. To you lens-happy tourists: just because you are supposed to take pictures of yourselves with this particular piece of art, you should not consider yourselves justified in taking pictures of yourselves with any piece of art. Especially if I am within a ten foot vicinity. I will break that fancy-schamncy camera, rip your fanny-pack from your over-inflated waist, and unleash my wrath on your New York City guide book. Consider yourselves warned.
