aesthetics of joy

Joymaker is a new series spotlighting people who seek to create joy in their work.

It takes a kind of joyful madness to hand-apply 100 lbs. of raspberry jam to a gallery wall. And that’s exactly what attracted me to the work of Naomi London, a visual artist based in Montreal, who tries to bring a voice for joy and play to contemporary art. London uses joyful forms, visual metaphors, and textures (such as polka dots) to give her audience a sense of delight.

I’m fascinated by the shiny, sticky surface of this enormous red wall. While a red wall might typically take on a violent or alarming quality, the material makes it totally disarming, even childlike. I wonder if it stayed sticky throughout the installation, and slightly fluid, shifting its mottles in a slow gravitational creep towards the floor. Or whether it stayed firm, drying like a giant fruit roll-up. I didn’t ask Naomi these silly questions, but I did ask her some others:

How do you want people to feel when they engage with your work?

I’m very interested in the notion of play in art. I’m hoping that when people see the Jam Wall they can appreciate the unexpected beauty of the colour, as well as the playful absurdity of using this material.

Can you talk more about this connection between joy and absurdity?

I associate absurdity very much with play, and play is joyful. Other connections include humour in the absurd, e.g. the odd rhymes and tongue twisters of several early Dr. Seuss books. I find that there is pleasure in being in a ‘non-logical place’ in your head, which is how I think of the absurd. It’s about the unexpected, fun, and delight that can be felt when exploring things that deliberately don’t make logical sense, but are full of wonder and joy. There is an importance in the purposelessness of the absurd, which is something that makes is joyful (to me) and thus also linked to play.

What is the role of joy in your work?

I think that joy, beauty, humour and play have been underrepresented in contemporary art over the last few decades. I’ve been interested in trying to address joy and happiness in my work for past ten years or so. I’m currently working on a sculpture installation project in homage to my mother, (who died just over two years ago). Even though it is a memorial work of sorts, I hope that it still somehow evokes a sense of joy.

I’m making a series of balls which are made exclusively out of fabric inherited from my mom. (She was a talented seamstress and made almost all my clothes during my childhood.)

What one object most symbolizes joy to you?

I think I’m torn between seeing the first tulips in early Spring and my favorite large white mixing bowl that I use when I bake a cake.

What’s inspiring you right now?

Colour, and the unexpected use of saturated colour: chartreuse yellow + green, fire engine red, brilliant orange.

What other designers, artists, or creators should Aesthetics of Joy readers know about?

There is an interesting website run by a researcher/academic in Rotterdam:  The World Database of Happiness. The layout of the site is dry aesthetically but I think that its wonderful that the subject of happiness is being studied in this way.

I like the work of Franz West very much. Another artist whose work I really like is Ana Rewakowicz.

You can see more of Naomi’s work here. (In particular, make sure to check out Polka Dot Wall, a site-specific installation I find very joyful.) Images courtesy of Naomi London.

Aside from babies, there really is nothing cuter in a costume than a dog. Cat lovers might dispute this, but cats are so reluctant, and their claws so sharp, and they always look so put upon. Dogs are lovably malleable and unaccountably cheerful in the face of whatever ridiculous ensemble we might devise for them.

No need to elaborate on the link between cuteness and joy (I’ve written about it here). Just head over to Flickrblog to see more costumed pooches grinning and bearing it.

Happy Halloween, and have a joyful weekend!

Xx Ingrid

No question that the economy has the fashion industry feeling hacked to bits, and this was apparent on the runways. At Commes des Garcons Rei Kawakubo’s clothes looked artfully pieced together from odd bits salvaged from a besieged factory. Interspersed with elegant minimalist pieces, Raf Simons’s show at Jil Sander had a few pieces with opaque layers largely eviscerated and overlaid with netting. But no one expressed the bathetic anguish designers felt at having their wings clipped with more humor and charm than Viktor and Rolf.

I can only imagine how the faces of the front row must have lit up to see these gored, sliced, and shaved tulle gowns come down the runway. Yes, they are marred by violence. But they’re so sweetly absurd that for me they are still an aesthetic of joy.

If you were out and about in Carroll Gardens yesterday, you could have been forgiven for thinking there was something mysterious afflicting the canine population of the neighborhood. But it wasn’t exactly clear who were the ones affected: the dogs or their owners.

Everywhere you went on Smith and Court Sts. you could find dozens of people carrying invisible dog leashes, pretending with great self-conviction to be walking their dogs. Dog walkers would stop and chat with each other about their dogs’ names and breeds, ages and habits. Walking past, you might overhear, as I did:

Dogwalker 1: Ugh, Buster, don’t sniff his butt!

Dogwalker 2: Oh, it’s ok. It’s what dogs do.

Just a normal dog owners’ conversation. Except there were obviously no dogs. As I passed a group, one woman wielded her leash in my direction, as if her invisible dog had come over to sniff my groceries, then grappled with the air as if trying to rein him in. I saw others break their gaits down the street as their invisible charges paused to water a tree, and one particularly zealous owner bent down with an invisible plastic bag (one hopes) to pick up an invisible poop.

It was all very ridiculous, and I couldn’t help but smile, though others seemed to be vexed by the odd behavior. I think when odd things happen, people like to know why, and the dog walkers stubbornly refused to acknowledge anything strange about their behavior even after much questioning. Rumors started to fly. One man at the farmer’s market told me it was some sort of protest against a new dog law. Another said it was to encourage adoption from shelters. But it turns out it was a good old flash mob, put on by well-known pranksters Improv Everywhere. Apparently the leashes came from Invisible Dog on Bergen, a gallery that occupies a former invisible dog leash factory.

Even being a spectator who wasn’t in on the joke, I have to say I thought it was fun. Times are tough, and we all need a little silliness in our lives. Improv Everywhere says their mission is to cause “scenes of chaos and joy in public places.” It’s interesting to think of chaos and joy together. Chaos is often associated with lack of control and unhappiness, but that lack of control can also go the other direction and bring delight. More photos and first hand accounts from dog walkers here.

I’ve been writing more than a little about the notion of the absurd as a route to joy lately, and as far as absurd flowers go, the allium pretty much takes the cake. Poofy, sparkly orbs, disproportionately large yet still light and airy atop impossibly tall, straight stems — the allium looks like something that would grow on a newly discovered planet. Its family heritage is no less comical: the cheery allium is actually a variant of the onion, presenting a globe above ground while its cousin hides one below.

The allium is one flower that never fails to make me smile. But of course there are many joyful flowers. Poppies, with their irrational exuberance — bright, fragile, and abundant. Peonies, which are perhaps more stately, but lavish with their fragrance and the endless layers of petals that unfurl implausibly from those tight, hard buds. Lilacs, which appear in an intoxicating fog of scent, offering a pure glut of sensation for only a few weeks. Tulips, too, with their early spring color and their way of opening themselves so wide as to practically turn inside out, offering all before going bare for another year.

The whole idea of the flower is joyful. It is an alluring spectacle, an unfurling of vibrant energy, both excessive and necessary. Color, pattern, scent, texture, intricacy of design — in the flower, nature spared no aesthetic expense. Surely she could have evolved other (more efficient) ways for plants to reproduce, but how lucky we are that flowers evolved to be the dominant means!