Recently, the Zero Gravity interns have been writing and recording our own audio tours for viewers to use as guides throughout Life on Mars. I think that this was a good project because it forced us  to articulate our personal interpretations of some of the pieces in the exhibition without requiring us to structure our ideas in a formal essay. This gave me much more freedom to express all of my ideas about a piece; I didn’t find myself limited by a single thesis.

My audio tour script:

Hi, my name is Margaret, and I’m a Zero Gravity intern.

To me, one of the most interesting aspects of this year’s International is the exhibition’s ability to really involve the viewer. Whether I’m taking a screen-printed ribbon from Rivane Neuenschwander’s “I Wish Your Wish” off the wall and tying it on my wrist or simply walking down a narrow hallway in order to experience all of Barry McGee’s mixed media installation, I somehow feel more personally immersed in a work than if I’m just observing a painting hanging on a wall. While exploring Life on Mars, I discovered that the pieces that forced my participation were also some of the most memorable and thought-provoking. In this guided tour, I will be sharing some of my personal responses to and observations about the show’s immersive or interactive pieces.

Rivane Neuenschwander’s “I Wish Your Wish”

I love this piece because it makes me turn both inward to look at myself and outward to think about my connection to other people. By asking me to make my own wishes when knotting the ribbon I choose to wear and to leave a written wish in the wall, this piece is asking me to be introspective, to stop for just a moment during my busy day and reflect on who I am and what I want. It’s also like a collective self-portrait of people of all different backgrounds. That the wishes are written in different languages—including English, French, German, and Portuguese—repeated on different colors but all hanging together in an even, aesthetically pleasing rectangle on the gallery wall gives the piece an inclusive feeling, as if it’s saying we are all different but part of the same community.

The viewer’s interactive experience with this piece reinforces and is the central part of this message. The process of scanning the ribbon wall for a wish that someone else articulated but that you connect with or can personally identify with enough to wear it on your wrist until it falls off allows the viewer to actively participate in the human experience of making connections with other people. When I first looked at the wall and found a wish written in French, “I wish to live by the sea,” I felt a certain kind of excitement, the kind I experience when I discover that a new acquaintance also loves coffee ice cream with chocolate sprinkles or knows another friend of mine; I felt connected both to the piece and to this person who I have never met and probably never will, but who also wishes to live by the sea.

This piece also resonates personally resonates because it makes me think of the Western Wall in Jerusalem. I was recently in Israel and participated in the holy tradition of visiting the one remaining wall of the old temple and leaving a written wish or prayer wedged between the ancient stones and the wishes left by other visitors who come from all over the world and speak all different languages.

Barry McGee’s “Untitled”

Barry McGee’s “Untitled” installation bombards you with images and colors on every surface but for the carpeted floor, a reminder that you are still in a museum despite the artist’s incorporation of graffiti.

Walking through a narrow hallway, the walls of which are plastered with brightly colored, geometric wallpaper, collaged with tightly clustered arrangements of framed illustrations and photographs, and bulging into your personal space as if “pregnant,” as one viewer commented, you really get the feeling that you are walking down a street in a crowded urban city.

McGee is one of the most interesting artists in the International because he splits his time between creating art for museum galleries and for outdoor, public spaces. The artist likes working in the street because there, his art has the capacity to reach a larger, more diverse audience. Working in this environment allows him to challenge the idea of ownership and boundaries regarding public space, to compete with the billboards and advertisements that contaminate the landscape and are arguably more visually and politically corruptive than graffiti.

Thomas Hirschhorn’s “Cavemanman”

My experience with Hirschhorn’s piece has been one of the most meaningful during my exploration of Life on Mars. The first time I wandered through the cave, I felt overwhelmed by the symbolic potential of all the different artifacts, icons, and materials. There seemed to be so much going on in the piece that I struggled to make sense of it.

Each time I enter the display, however, I notice different things that bring meaning to “Cavemanman.” The section of the cave in which the walls are covered with posters of pornography and pop culture icons and lined with textbooks reminds me of a college boy’s dorm room. To me, this part of the piece depicts, through a critical lens, what an alien or person living in the future might discover if they found a cave containing the defining aspects of human life today. I also have noticed how this is the only piece in the exhibit that completely takes you to another place outside the museum. Hirschhorn takes the gallery space he was given and completely transforms it.  He converts the alienating white gallery cube into a welcoming environment through familiar materials: packing tape, cardboard, and aluminum foil. These materials, democratic in character and used in mass to create the cave structure, embody the message of the graffiti on the cave’s wall: “One man = one man.”

Kai Althoff’s “Untitled”

In contrast to the other three pieces discussed in this audio tour, Kai Althoff’s “Untitled” is immersive but makes me feel uncomfortable and unwelcome. I’m intrigued by the piece’s capacity to evoke such discomfort. Despite the warm red color of the walls, the space is cold—emotionally distant. The glossy, plastic, ultra-sleek aesthetic of the curved wall and geometric grid structure surrounding the female doll draped in an awkward-fitting orange gown suggest some kind of intimidating, creepy clothing store where I wouldn’t dare try anything on.

Posted by Margaret