Symphysis
Kinnari Thakker's Personal BlogThe beauty of a list.
Two weeks ago, I went to the beautiful Morgan Museum and Library to view an exhibition on lists. (My very cool internship allows me to do these fabulous things in the middle of the day in the name of research)
A little background on the exhibition – there were a number of different kinds of “lists” — to-do lists, thoughts, inventories, collections—all made by famous personalities such as, Franz Klien, Picasso, Elaine de Kooning etc…. from the Smithsonian’s Archives on American Art. A wonderfully curated show, with a fabulous sense of humor.
The idea that resonated with me the most was the metonymic nature of the lists. The reductive aspect of communicated large, relevant, deep, intangible ideas through a list of words, pictures and colors.
A beautiful list by Joan Snyder represented her response to the question, “What is feminist art?”. There are several definitions of the idea, but the simplicity and the wholeness with which she distills the complexity of the idea into a few essential points is like magic.
What is Feminist Art? The list goes:
“FEMALE SENSIBILITY IS LAYERS, WORDS, MEMBRANES, COTTON, CLOTH, ROPE, REPETITION, BODIES, WET, OPENING, CLOSING REPETITION, LISTS, LIFESTORIES, GRIDS, DESTROYING GRIDS, HOUSES, INTIMACY, DOORWAYS, BREASTS, VAGINAS, FLOW, STRONG, BUILDING, PUTTING TOGETHER MANY DISPARAGING ELEMENTS, REPETITION, RED, PINK, BLACK, EARTH FEEL COLORS, THE SUN, THE MOON, ROOTS SKINS, WALLS, YELLOW, FLOWERS, STREAMS, PUZZLES, QUESTIONS, STUFFING, SEWING, FLUFFING, SATIN, HEARTS, TEARING, TEARING, TEARING, TYING, DECORATING, BAKING, FEEDING, HOLDING, LISTENING, SEEING THRU THE LAYERS, OIL, VARNISH, SHELLAC, JELL, PASTE, GLUE, SEEDS, THREAD, MORE, NOT LESS, REPETITION, WOMEN CRITICS, WOMEN, WRITERS, WOMEN ARTISTS, EITHER NOURISHING US OR EATING US UP ALIVE, TOKENISM, CURATORS, UNIVERSITIES, TOKENISM, FEAR OF OTHER WOMEN TO AKNOWLEDGE FEMALE SENSIBILITY, HOSTILE BOY ARTISTS, ACCEPTING MEN ARTISTS, SEPARATING THE MEN FROM THE BOYS, DIVIDING WOMEN, PIECE OF PIE-ISM, MONEY, ART, SEX, BREASTS, LAYERS, SYMPHONIES, MULT-IROLED, MULTI-PART, STORIES, NARRATIVE, PAINT/FLESH, SERIOUS, OVERWHELMING, SOFT, HARD, WOMEN WORKING, WORKING WOMEN, HANGING, DANGLING, BREAKING, BEING FRUITY, ANGRY, NAIVE, BORN AGAIN AND TRYING TO DESCRIBE HOT WHITE FLESH TIES..”
Attached below are some of the lists on display – if you are in the city, its a must see show!
{I wasn’t allowed to photograph inside, so all the images here are linked from google search results.}
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On Beauty and Being Just – first chapter notes
What does it mean for designers if visual events prompt behavior change? That huge, right? And we all know that to an extent, things that we design impact people and cause them to change their actions—and that’s exactly why design is such a powerful thing.
But what does that mean exactly for me? When I think about it, i think of my designs as my responsibility – behaviors that i am causing to change in the world out there, in big and small ways. Actually small… very small—i don’t think I have impacted many people really. But coming from a country where fundamental needs such a food, shelter, safety are still striving to be met, maybe I just understand the word responsibility as social action and social needs—its difficult for me to understand it in a nuanced way I think. Oh and I also blame that on my Design for the Real World book, which I held on to very tightly during undergrad.
Elaine Scarry in her book, On beauty and being just—(I JUST started reading it, recommended by Suguru for my thesis) makes a thoughtful point when she says beauty prompts a copy of itself. This can mean that a visual event experienced may be reproduced as a touch or a drawing, which may be reproduced again as a visual event which may again become an acoustical event—its like that game right, Chinese whisper (as I have known it) or telephone, grapevine whatever youmacall it.
Not only do I practice that, by looking at artifacts, but I also cause it when others conceive what I design. Does that add to my responsibility then? I mean, if im gonna leave a little something behind for future generations then do i really wanna leave a perfume tester bottle holder?
What will we do?
I just finished reading Bruce Mau’s Massive Change – this sentence is just stuck in my head. “Now that we can do anything, what will we do?”
It very nicely represents the dilemma of current times, where we have made available—many tools, amazing sets of ideas, diverse skill sets; but what are we gonna do with all of this?
– cheap technologies, fast processing computers (which would consume rooms and rooms of space in other times are now on our tables, for each one of us), search engines that can find anything (including abandoned log cabins on Forbes Avenue in the middle of Pittsburgh city) social networking which enables connections over time, geographies and cultures, renewable energy (proliferating through more and more communities by the day) fast updating information at our finger tips; here are all the tools of change—now, what are we gonna do.
*I remember Geetha Narayanan using the Mau question in her conversations with me and others – but till now I never truly got it.
