aesthetics of joy

“Sunrise” by Georgia O’Keefe. Featured in the exhibit Dove/O’Keefe: Circles of Influence at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass. The exhibit traces the mutual influence and development of early American abstract painter Arthur Dove and the very famous Georgia O’Keefe.

O’Keefe’s work is usually perceived to have sensual overtones (all those unfurling flowers) but there is also a naively, viscerally joyful quality to her work as well. Dove’s work, too, speaks to me of a certain joyful spirit as well, particularly this painting.

To me, the aesthetics of joy really come alive in abstraction. Removed from clear representation, emotion is carried by color, form, texture, light, and gesture. If the artist can replicate the emotional response s/he felt on first experience, or even intensify or modulate it, using form unmoored from its object, it is an enormous statement on the power of aesthetics as emotional language.

NYT: “Partners in Abstraction, Viewed in Tandem”
Thanks, Dad, for the tip

Colorful installation by Jessica Stockholder called Flooded Chambers Maid in Madison Square Park playing with the innate geometries of nature and the tension between man-made and natural in an urban park. Stockholder narrated a nice audio slide show offering her inspirations and interpretations. Not sure I’m feeling a cohesive logic here (the half-buried plastic drums?) but Madison Square Park is one of my favorite parks in the city (not just for Shake Shack) and I like the way this installation alters the energy of the space.

It departs this week so get there by Saturday if you want to check it out!

Thanks to Maggie for the tip.

Image: 16 Miles of String

Let the Outside In from Caitlin Parker on Vimeo.

Oh wow. I love this weird, whimsical look into a world we usually pay no attention.

via @design_sponge

I discovered William Eggleston, the iconoclast whose super-saturated prints brought color photography into art world’s mainstream, at the recent show at the Whitney Museum. The retrospective is now at the Corcoran in DC, bringing him back into the spotlight again and giving east-coasters who missed it in New York a second chance to see this wonderful body of work.

What’s joyful about Eggleston’s work? The unexpected hits of color, for starters. In this piece on NPR, Claire O’Neill writes about the transformative power of his color vision:

Although he doesn’t quite understand what people mean when they tell him, “You changed the way I see the world,” the fact remains that he has. Perhaps the living legend is an accidental genius, but before his lurid color prints hit the gallery walls, few people would have found beauty in their own rundown suburban backyards. Whether or not he meant to, and whether or not he cares, Eggleston has taught us to open our eyes and see the wide spectrum of colors around us. He says he doesn’t think much about it. But a few subtle winks and a glimmer in his eye tell me he knows exactly what he’s doing.

The article makes clear this approach was born out of Eggleston’s pure joy at seeing his world in vibrant color. Looking at his photographs, the energy seems to bleed off the print, an irrepressible vitality that stretches beyond the borders and makes each image feel hugely alive. But it also suggests Eggleston has the mischievous spirit of a kind of benign provocateur. Playfully transgressive, his goal is not to destabilize, but simply to liberate art from arbitrary rules that limit us from beauty in our own backyards.

Eggleston’s subjects are not always joyful; indeed, they often have a sort of forlorn or derelict beauty that inspires sad nostalgia rather than joy. Others are wonderfully weird, with an internal tension that asks you to consider joyful aesthetic elements — symbols of childhood, fluffy clouds or cotton candy, holiday motifs—in all their bizarre beauty, almost without emotion.

But regardless of the specific elements featured, to me the body of work as a whole exudes joy, arising as it does from the mind of a man who revels in color. In the audio slide show that accompanies the NPR piece, the final question is, “Do you dream in color?” There is such savory delight in the laugh that punctuates his response: “Oh yes. Wonderful pictures that don’t exist. I would love to print every single one of them. So. . . brilliant.”

From NPR, via tipster-extraordinare: Dad

I have a post in draft form (that I hope, eventually, will see the light of day) about universal vs. individual aesthetics of joy. Of course everyone has different things that bring them joy, but they don’t necessarily conform to what would be defined culturally as joyful aesthetics.

My project generally focuses on the more general, more universal aesthetic patterns because it makes it easier to draw lessons that can be applied broadly to design. But occasionally I come across what I would call a “counter-aesthetic” of joy: an object or space that on the surface looks to be the very opposite of joy, yet someone has managed to wring delight from it.

The trigger nearly always has to do with personal experience, as is the case here, with these photographs of the Gowanus Canal by José Gaytan. Gaytan, a Brooklynite who grew up in Juarez, Mexico, was attracted to the canal by a familiar smell. “That aroma is embedded in my brain,” he says, “a mix of sewage, kerosene and oil.” Which doesn’t sound so appealing, except that it reminds Gaytan of his handyman grandfather, and the junkyards he used to play in while he was alongside him on jobs.

This illuminates one of the true marvels of emotions in the brain. Aromas, colors, textures, sounds — all of these things can become associated with positive or negative feelings through experience and memory. Especially aroma. Current research suggests that smell is processed differently in the brain from the other senses, and may therefore have a stronger link to long-term emotional memories. So a smell (stench?) that for most of us might connote filth in need of a Superfund cleanup, for someone else evokes the joy of childhood.

Where this gets interesting is art. To feel joy where others don’t is wonderful, yet limited. But to try to shine a light on your joy and share it with the world, especially when it involves overcoming preconceived notions, is a powerfully transformative act and deserves a place in the schema of aesthetics of joy. A success in this regard is to make us see a place with fresh eyes. As Barbara Wing, curator of the Brooklyn Public Library’s exhibit of Gaytan’s photographs, says, “He really looks at details we don’t notice. The colors are fantastic, almost painterly.” Just as long as they don’t come with the smells. . .

Thanks for the tip, Dad!

Exhibit, at the Brooklyn Public Library, now through August 29th
NYT story

HappyHappy is a site-specific installation designed by the Korean artist Choi Jeong-Hwa for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, as the prelude to an exhibit entitled “Your Bright Future: 12 Contemporary Artists from Korea.” Choi is considered the father of Korean pop art, and over time has demonstrated a strong interest in creating art from recycled plastic materials, though the containers used in this installation are from local 99c stores. Near the entrance to the museum, visitors can walk through the installation and are free to touch as they pass by. You can see a slideshow here.

Being free to touch makes things much more joyful. Deepening the sensory experience ensures that people relate to an object or a space in a more immersive, complete way. And of course, in a museum, there is always the transgressive pleasure of touching the artwork, as this commenter notes. It’s also telling the way people react in the space, which in at least for the person above is with a joyful exuberance seemingly absorbed from the bright, saturated colors. I love the whimsy of the way ordinary objects (like the wiffle balls, below) are transformed by abundance and scale.

My only ambivalence is plastic. The benefit of plastic is that it allows for such wonderful colors and is relatively lightweight. But aside from its environmental negatives (like the fact that it will be around forever), it’s also remarkably asensory. It has a superficial kind of molded texture, but no deep, innate tactility (like ceramic, glazed or unglazed, for example, or metal, or wood). Its temperature is unremarkable, its luminosity changeable but somewhat flat. Of course, many many joyful things are made of plastic, and its infinite malleability does lend itself to joy in some sense, but I wonder if a deeper level of emotion could be invoked with a different material.

HappyHappy appears to be a theme for Choi, who has created other artworks under the same name, such as this installation at a Seoul stadium (more photos here) and many participatory HappyHappys filed here under Public Art.

Top image: jek in the box, Bottom image: LACMA

Tip via Virginia Postrel

Design*Sponge today has a lovely piece on an exhibit at the Rockefeller Center anthropologie of Vera Neumann’s textiles. I find joy in the outpouring of energy that makes its way onto the fabric in the form of vibrant color and pattern.