Lisa Oppenheim: Accidental Networks (MAP #25 Summer 2011) | MAP Magazine

by Paddy Johnson on September 22, 2011 · 1 comment Fresh Links!

  • Lisa Oppenheim: Accidental Networks (MAP #25 Summer 2011) | MAP Magazine – I’m amazed by the flood of art pieces I’ve seen lately that consist of a photograph of a book that the artist finds interesting. Or a book in a showcase. Or sculptures that consist of a bookshelf on the wall with a number of books on it. Or a photo of a bookshelf. Or a photo of a book in a showcase. These books might be interesting, but the photos and sculptures are usually not.” Art practices and objects that mimic thesesignifiers of intellectual culture easily become over determined. Credibility is always already imbued in the work through its association with a set of structures immediately recognisable as authoritative. The way the work functions as art becomes subordinate to or dependent on the connotations of the books, lectures, and archival presentations it represents or reproduces.

{ 1 comment }

Mlymer September 23, 2011 at 3:04 pm

yeh, saw something about books photo, with books falling off a bookcase. had no idea what it meant. just because you ‘document’ something doesnt make it art. all that connotation-denotation stuff you talked about. i take lots of pics of stenciled art on walls. that’s a little bit different. I dont claim my pics are art. the stencils are art sometimes, tho. a friend takes lots of pics of stuff on streets, details, etc. they are camera phone pics, so low qual. maybe as a body of work, they will start to mean something. so far just random details, and just fun. speaking of books, i gave most of my books to my high school last year anyway, about $10,000 worth, got a $1300 write off, woo-hoo! but it now has the best arch-art book collection for a public high school in the state – AZ.

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