Redefinitions

Hi Everyone,

Before anything else, I would like to thank you all for following my blog for nearly four months now. Viewing my stats, and realizing that my posts are being read at various places in the world gives me a lot of inspiration. I like to believe that the data I collect and the observations I share prove useful for everyone who is interested in contemporary art, or wishes to have a peek at today's artistic sphere.

Today's blog entry will be dedicated to two incredibly resourceful artists, both of whom likes to reinvent or redefine everyday objects, and challenge the widely received meaning they carry. Alan Sailer mainly thinks in the frame of l'art pour l'art, while Zbigniew Libera's works usually convey messages which are preoccupied with social and cultural tendencies and stereotypes.

Alan Sailer: High-speed Photographs

Here is an artist who gives a new definition to the expression "trigger happy." The 54 year-old photographer, who lives in California, found his individual path in the field of the art of destruction. A photo shoot, according to his notions, is not just a figurative phrase anymore. So much the more as his hobbyhorse and specialty is to shoot everyday objects with an air rifle and take high-speed pictures of them. He shoots his targets from a close-up position: he is only 20 centimeters away from the object he aims at in his dark "laboratory." The special effect that his camera features is a homemade flash which is set at a one-second delay and thus gives a heart-stoppingly detailed picture of the disassembling targets. The result is spectacular and dramatic, since the artist rips wide open the heart and essence of everyday objects like vegetables, fruits, or bibelots.

His art is not only complex on a visual level: he has to master the cold technicalities of professional photography as well to get the maximized effect from his ephemeral targets, which explode within seconds after Sailer's bullet enters them. "The camera is set at one second and an f-stop of 9-13 depending on the reflectivity of the subject. The flash stops the action. The one second gives me time to click the camera shutter with one hand while I pull the trigger on the rifle with the other," he explained in an interview.

His expectations regarding the chosen objects sometimes put him in predicates which typically resemble the dilemmas of conceptual artists. Namely that from time to time, he enjoys the idea of an artwork more than the result itself. His photograph, It's a bit runny, for instance, is based on a Monty Python episode where the comedians say: "Ah, we do have some Camembert, sir... It's a bit runny, sir..." Still, Sailer is not quite satisfied with his execution of the idea; yet, he publishes the image, since it is based on a valuable and cherished concept. Although he's a maximalist, his artworks show that even mundane everyday objects can be turned into pieces of art with a pinch of creativity and vision.

You can indulge in the visual delight Sailer's ingenious photographic vandalism offers if you check his works on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8763834@N02/

Zbigniew Libera: Ken's Aunt

Libera has been widely infamous for changing tiny details regarding the concept behind acclaimed toys, and turning everything, including the audience, upside down with his twisted mind ever since he made the Lego Concentration Camp series. The effect of his work, Ken's Aunt, is no different. His piece incorporates 24 plus-sized Barbie dolls stored in cardboard boxes, undermining the general catchiness of the glamorous Mattel dolls who otherwise breathe the crystal-clear air of perfection through their cautiously colored lips.

The plump Barbies, who still have the charming facial features of the original blonde bombshell, are tooled up with luscious hips, busoms, and a "swim ring" of fat around their waist which rather resemble the proportions of the fleshy fantasy female team Rubens liked to spend his freetime with. Also, as their name indicates, they are more mature than their anorexic little sisters, which the artist emphasizes with the somewhat old-fashioned undergarments they wear as well. This rethinked doll is apparently much more of a cuddly Auntie who locks unprepared adolescents into her suffocative hug during family visits than the hardly-disguised hourglass-shaped sex toy it used to be.

The acid idea clearly rebels against society's standard aesthetic values which blunt the body image of women and girls at a very early age. Although the overweight, yet voluptious Aunties seem quite shocking to the audience, their body shape is curiously much closer to the everyday female body than the skinny blonde's, whose waist is so slim that it could hardly bear the weight of her shapely breasts. Thus, although Libera's toys appear to be non-canonical, if one thinks the situation through more profoundly, they must realize that either a great percentage of real life (and real sized) women live outside the norm of attractiveness, or it is the dolls of Mattel that are unrealistic.

"My ability to work with objects is taken from everyday urban contemporary life. In my study of the development of correctional devices and educational toys, I see such devices reveal more about a society and its mechanisms for creating and enforcing its norms than any study of society could," the artist himself stated about the concept which lies behind his artwork.

"I wanted to inject an internal "virus" which would disjoin the object and the domain in which it operates," Libera said.

Mission accomplished. At least in Barbie World.