Prompt 4: Change your world (JW)

Effecting some sort of change with art that operates on a poetic/emotional level is of vital importance. I always think it’s humor that I respond to, but I believe that connection and recognition precede and allows humor to exist. I want art to be visual poetry that resonates with, or triggers something in others. One of the most powerful works of art for me is Mike Kelley’s “More Love Hours Than Can Ever Be Repaid”. A work assembled of found, homemade crafted toys and dolls for children that is loaded with niche cultural fads and childhood memories. The work and title flatly point out the manipulation of these complicated good intentions. An interaction that shapes relationships and creates an unbalanced power dynamic between gift-giver and the receiver, adult and child, as no child can make a comparable gift to reciprocate. However, when you realize that these labors of love ultimately found their way to a thrift shop you ask Who “gave them up?” Someone ultimately has to let go of, or reject all that hard work. I recognize dynamics of my own experience in this work. And somehow just being able to ‘see’ it, resolves it, and it loses some of the power or complication it once held.

I love the notion of art as something that can turn a plant into energy, or a source of energy based on Marcel Duchamp’s bicycle sculpture. But I don’t see my efforts to be as clear or obvious as Peter Fend’s efforts. As a visual person, communicating visually works best for me. Maybe activists communicate in acts? However I would hope that my efforts would be readable to a larger or mass public without condescending or requiring any sort of special knowledge. I appreciate the recognition of shared experiences and emotions.