(Ages: 10 and up)
This Art Collector Set is intended to walk you through the Walker Art Center exhibition Hélio Oiticica and Rirkrit Tiravanija: Contact, which features a multi-media, immersive room installation by Brazilian artist Oiticica as well as a large installation work and several smaller pieces by Thai artist Tiravanija. Neither of these works has been on view before so this exhibition marks their Walker debut!
Each artist aims to foster a unique and interactive relationship with the viewer, drawing him/her in by creating work that engages multiple senses and invites participation as well as interaction between participants.
This Set includes images of each work in the exhibition, correlating texts when available, the occassional conversation starter, and audio and video clips to enhance your experience of the individual works and overarching themes present in the exhibition's organization. You can use this Set as a preview before coming to the Walker to view the exhibition, or if you're a teacher you can present it in the classroom as a lesson.
If you're interested in bringing your class to see Contact and would like to experience the exhibition with a trained tour guide, please visit http://learn.walkerart.org/tour.wac to learn how to schedule a tour.
Feel free to make this Set your own. As a registered user of ArtsConnectEd you can duplicate any published Art Collector Set to your own account. Once a Set is duplicated you can edit the Set and its slides. Click here to learn more about duplicating a published Set.
These are installation shots of Tiravanija's large, interactive work that he originally created in 2006.
The interactive sculpture consists of a pavilion containing a table, two benches and a jigsaw puzzle that depicts Eugene Delacroix's La Liberté Guidant le Peuple (Liberty Leading the People). For an image of Delacroix's painting, please view the PDF found on the last slide of this Set, or continue to the next slide and watch a short video that offers an analysis of the painting by two art historians.
Conversation Starters:
Where else have you seen structures like the one Tiravanija has created?
Why do you think the artist chose to create a shelter under which visitors are encouraged to gather?
It's been estimated that the jigsaw puzzle on the table has approximately 200,000 pieces. Do you think that visitors will complete the puzzle during the year it's in the gallery? Does it matter if they do? How do you imagine the artist might answer this question?
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Listen to art historians Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris discuss Delacroix's painting, which Tiravanija has chosen to represent in the form of a puzzle on the table of his pavilion installation. This video clip offers close-up details of the painting. After viewing the video discuss ideas for why Tiravanija might have been drawn to Liberty Leading the People.
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Here we have a Thai stainless steel lunchbox composed of four stackable bowls secured with a stainless steel metal band. The artist stipulated that upon purchasing this multiple the buyer was to send the lunchbox to a Thai restaraunt and have the containers filled with pork satay, green papaya salad, yellow chicken curry, and white rice. The lunchbox was last filled with food on November 12, 1997.
Multiple is a term designating works of art other than prints or cast sculpture that are intended to be produced many times over. This means that there is more than one Untitled (lunch box) out in the world.
Conversation Starters:
Who do you think filled this lunchbox when it was first purchased by the Walker? Did they eat the contents? Was the artist present to eat with the new owners?
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This work is comprised of a resin model of a rice cooker with a detachable lid.
Conversation Starters:
If you were going to recreate an item from your kitchen using artificial materials what would it be?
Why do you think the artist has chosen rice?
It might interest you to know that food, real and pretend, has been an ongoing interest of Tiravanija. To learn more about the curry dinners that remain a part of the artist's practice read the following 2007 NY Magazine article by writer and critic Jerry Saltz, which starts with the quip, "For Rirkrit Tiravanija, art is what you eat."
To see visitors enjoying Tiravanija's food, advance to the next slide and watch the short video put on by New York Art Tours that takes us into the installation mentioned in Saltz's 2007 article.
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Video produced by New York Art Tours.
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This multiple offers a wood and paper parasol made by the artist. Printed in black ink on the parasol's surface is the route taken by the artist across the country with five art students from Chiang Mai University in northern Thailand for his project at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1998, "On the Road with Jiew, Jeaw, Jieb, Sri and Moo".
Conversation Starters:
Would you choose to depict your travels on a parasol? Is there another object that you feel connected to that could serve as a surface for your map? What is it?
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This multiple consists of three cans of curry (red, yellow, and green) each decorated with a special label displaying an image of the artist with his mother and sister at the beach. The curry paste was made and canned by the artist on the occassion of the exhibition INSIGNIFICANT.
Tiravanija is interested in creating open-ended situations that inhabit the gap between art and life, and his works are directly affected by audiences, chance occurrences, and the passage of time. Non-use, here necessary for archival purposes, will keep the objects pristine, while use will further instill them with meaning — a reminder of the transitory nature of art as lived experience.
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What makes up this multiple? Here's this list of items used in Without Title (Rucksack Installation): rucksack; map made of photocopies, craft paper tape, Letraset on paper; tea canister with tea; plastic cutlery; dried holy basil, dried kaffir lime leaves, dried red chili, green and yellow curry paste, galanga powder and dried lemon grass in plastic bags; canned coconut milk; boxed camp stove; boxed rice; boxed mess kit; metal can opener in plastic bag; plastic fish sauce bottle; plastic oil bottle; plastic container with strike and waterproof matches; AA batteries.
Conversation Starters:
What do the contents of Tiravanija's rucksack (or backpack) tell us about him? What would the contents of your rucksack tell us about you?
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Unfolded before us, like a road map, is a small compilation of collected and found images that serve as an atlas to past projects by the artist.
Hold your cursor over a section of the image and zoom in on something that catches your eye.
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This work is comprised of an enameled metal bowl containing plastic pad Thai and wooden chopsticks.
Conversation Starters:
It is as if someone is preparing to take a bite of the pad Thai but there is no hand and no mouth in sight. Why do you think the artist has chosen to elevate the chopsticks to create this illusion?
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Hélio Oiticica and collaborator Neville D'Almeida have created a room installation consisting of 10 hammocks, slide projections on four walls and the ceiling, and a soundtrack by Jimi Hendrix.
CC5 Hendrixwar/Cosmococa Programa-in-Progress is part of a series of cinematographic experiments that included slide projections and soundtracks dedicated to iconic figures from contemporary music and pop culture.
The short video on the right was inspired by the work and offers a playful documentation of it. It was not filmed at the Walker.
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Conversation Starters:
How long do you think people lounge in the hammocks provided by Oiticica? How long would you?
At concerts people (the audience) come together to celebrate a favorite musician or band. Would you call this gathering of people a community?
Does Rirkrit Tiravanija's pavilion foster the same kind of fellowship as Oiticica's hammocks? How are these two installations similar and different in the ways they encourage participation?
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This Card Catalogue provides background information on both artists, additonal images that contextualize the works on view in the gallery, and offers an explanation of why the exhibition's curator paired the two for Contact.
