The Uselessness of Categories
Tonight I’m going to be an ornament.
That is, my wife has some sculptural work that is going to be shown as part of a show called "Breaking the Habit". There are some other people I know who will also be showing work (videographer Christine Olson is a longtime friend and occasional collaborator of mine), but it’s hard to categorize the work.
My wife, now, she’s simple. It’s sculpture, right? Except it’s not your basic wood and stone and clay; no, her work is created using the leftover technology from our society, and the simple use of it as a medium makes it a political statement.
Except, of course, that my wife is also a huge fan of the Dada movement, and she would probably say that the reading of too much meaning into her use of materials would be taking it far too seriously.
Then there’s also the fact that there have been sound and performative aspects of her other works, and that she’s actually an accomplished performer in her own right. So while yes, you could call her an sculptor, in reality I think her preferred sobriquet of "artist" is far more descriptive.
Well, that and my beautiful, intelligent, resourceful life-partner and a DAMN fine piece of woman. But then, I’m biased, and this IS supposed to be a critical blog…
Tags: art, sculpture, performance, stereotype
1 Comment
Hey, I’d like to see some pics of her work. This sounds interesting.