Cherry on Top!

It is rare when a week begins on a high note for me. First of all, Mondays, blech. I hate Mondays, but even worse, I really dislike my colloquium class that I have on Mondays - a class that keeps me on campus until 6:10 pm, when I would much rather be home, cooking dinner and watching Two and a Half Men. Or some cooking competition on the food network. But last week really took the cake. I even made a mental note of it on my calendar. Why was it so great? Well, on Monday, the Vikings beat the Packers. And yes, it sounds trivial, but when you're a Vikings fan and all the people surrounding you are Packer fans - well, you take a little time to gloat. Heavily. You rub it in their faces because when they win, you know darn well they will rub it in your's. That's just who the stupid Cheeseheads are. Tuesday was an even better day. The Twins won over the Tigers in a spectacular 12 inning game which I enjoyed in High-Definition in the comfort of a friend's house as she fed me white chili. The chili was pretty good, but it paled in comparison to the pure joy I felt watching the game with a fellow baseball-lover, who dutifully cheered on the Twins with me, sitting on the edge of her seat, holding her breath at every swing of Cuddyer's bat. And when they won, I had someone to celebrate with, and for that I was grateful.

Wednesday, though, Wednesday was a terrific day for me. Wednesday I had a meeting with my Thesis advisor. Basically I pitched my idea to her and she fell in love with it. Positive and optimistic professors are rare in my department, they usually are quick to point out the flaws, make fun of you, or dash your hopes to the ground. But not Jennifer. Never Jennifer. With every thought I had, she added an emphatic "Yes! Good!" or "I Love it!" I left her office thinking that graduation was possible, that I was an absolute genius, and that my Thesis Exhibition would be a wild success. "People will come!" she exclaimed, and I swear her voice almost sounded like James Earl Jones. "If you build it, they will come.... Claes Oldenburg is so HOT right now! People will come! You'll have people from the Visual Arts, from the community... This is so great! I can see it now!" God Bless Jennifer. Now if I can only hang on to her enthusiasm and her optimism, I'm sure I can make this happen.

What's my idea? Well, I'll tell you. Basically, what I aim to do is take Claes Oldenburg prints and drawings for proposed monumental sculpture and follow them through their development and track them to the final outdoor sculpture. So, let's take the example of Minneapolis's own "Spoon Bridge and Cherry." In my exhibition I would show the study of the "Spoon Bridge and Cherry" (left) and the model of the same sculpture (below right). Then in my exhibition, I propose to travel to all of these places (haha, we'll see if that happens) and take my own final photograph of the outdoor sculpture (below center).

In this way, I'm sort of framing my research of Claes Oldenburg; the audience will be seeing Claes Oldenburg's sculptures through my lens; they'll see what I want them to see. They won't just be looking at a photograph of Oldenburg's "Spoon Bridge and Cherry" they'll be looking at my photograph.

Just as I'm tracing the production and development of Oldenburg's sculptures, if all goes as planned, I will literally be following a path across states (and countries??) to find them and photograph them. So as you'll be able to see the sculptures transform from prints to models to realized monumental sculpture, you'll be able to see my travel throughout the gallery and my take on the monuments I find there. In this way I'm also going to try to deal with the idea of appropriating these art objects into something of tourism, something iconic that means something to a city and that the viewer can take with them as a souvenir.

Jennifer is big into performance art - and she wants me to push that side of things I think - "your travel to these areas and your activities upon reaching that certain site will become a type of performance piece within that area!" So we'll see if that starts to come through. By standing in front of "Spoon Bridge and Cherry" and taking a picture, the act becomes more about recording a particular place and time as opposed to monumentalizing the artist and his work. We take pictures of artwork in a museum, but what does it mean when we take sculpture out of the museum and put it in something like a park?

When you take pictures of objects in a museum you are acknowledging that this work is rare, valuable, and epic. Yet it also must mean something to you - whether it touches you personally, or you just want a picture to show "look I saw something cool hanging in the Louvre - look how cultured I am..." So what does it mean when we place sculpture outdoors and make it into something whimsical and fun and monumental? Do we treat it differently? These are the questions I hope to explore. Of course, there are no guarantees that I'll be able to get the artwork I want to exhibit. That model you see on the above right - well, I'm guessing that the Walker Art Museum won't let it out of their sight - especially not on loan to a lowly art history student like me. But one has to think positively and aim high. That's what Jennifer says. She's a dreamer - just like me. :) Let's hope these dreams come true.

I'm so excited about this! If you have a calendar for 2010, pencil in my show for the fall. I'm not sure when it will be - November? but I can tell you that the opening will be on a Thursday. That's just how we (the Art History Department) roll. I'm writing an application for an award of money too. Hopefully, if I get it, I can get some money to travel abroad. There are sculptures all over in Germany and a couple in England that I'd really like to see and photograph for my exhibition. For one thing, this is just part of a huge ploy to get me out of the country and back to Europe, if only for a couple of weeks. If that can't happen, I am planning a couple of domestic trips around the states - mostly to places in the Midwest like Lincoln, NE, Kansas City, MO, Wichita, KS - but I also have some dreams to go to Philadelphia, Miami. I'm confident that I can find my way to Minneapolis, Des Moines, and Chicago! But mostly, I'm really excited about this show - I love Claes Oldenburg, I love outdoor sculpture, and I'm really excited about the ideas I have and the enthusiasm that Jennifer has shown in my plans. My meeting with her was the cherry on top of a great week (pun intended)!

anddd... then the Twins lost. But let's not open up that can of worms...