Scale, Video installation, loop, 2011

Scale is a two-channel video installation, which uses the hyper realistic nature of stop-motion technique and shows the disappearance of candies in one video and reappearance of them in another.  It intends to raise questions around subjects such as artist/museum relationship and disappearance of art object, virtually in this case.

Scale is a response to the pile of candy by Cuban artist Felix Gonzales-Torres. In his work “instead of equating art with the accumulation of wealth, purchasers become gift givers”(Weintraub 114). This interactive work invites visitors to take candies away, to not only consider a lifetime for the art object, but also to give a transportable quality to it. By using videotaped candies instead of presenting actual candies, scale accentuates the dematerialization of art objects, especially as the candies seem to disappear from one room and reappear in another. The work is installed in two different rooms to let the viewers experience the work in transition: in one video candy disappears, in the other the candy replenishes. The gap in between the two rooms highlights a double-edged situation. On one hand we, artists, intend to critic galleries. On the other had we are depended on institutions financially. This work uses, the simple action of scaling to show attachment to one results in disconnection from the other. Is there a way to find a balance? It places emphasis at the point where a critique of an institution arises from inside the institution.

Bibliography

Weintraub, Linda. “Félix González-Torres”, Art on the Edge and Over. Art Insights: September 1996. Book.