Looking at Looking
I’ve taken to seeing who is seeing as I visit museums and galleries. Below is an image taken at the St. Louis Art Museum in an exhibiton featuring Kehinde Wiley. In a way the museum itself becomes a painting, my camera frame frames the composition, the walls become a space, and the frame of the artist another space. I’m collaboraitng with the architect adn the builders and the artist and the viewers who have curated their outfits and attitudes to reveal something about who they are through how the perform what they are looking at. Inspired by and thinking of Thomas Struth’s project about looking at looking in public spaces. Everyone becomes part of Marcel Duchamp’s definition of the Creative Act.
Man viewing Kehinda Wile painting at St. Louis Art Museum, December 2018
Couple in black clothing observing Kehinda Wiley painting at St. Louis Art Museum, December 2018
Man photographing woman and child in front of Kehinda Wiley painting of three women, St. Louis Art Museum, December 2018
All in all, the creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the
The Creative Act, Marcel Duchamp
spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by
deciphering and interpreting its inner qualification and thus adds
his contribution to the creative act. This becomes even more obvious when posterity gives a final verdict and sometimes rehabilitates forgotten artists.
Lecture at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, October 19, 1961.
