Spotted at the Museum of Art and Design: the thought provoking Second Lives exhibit! This exhibit really put into perspective the relationship between the part and the whole, which is that the whole is the sum of its parts. A great comparison here would be Lego’s; if you have one if you one Lego piece by itself it looks completely different from a group of Lego pieces together. After looking at the works of art in this exhibit, what resonated in my mind was that the whole was definitely the sum of its parts.
Speaking of Lego’s, the first piece of work I saw, Tara Donovan’s Bluffs, reminded me of Lego’s. From far away the work looks almost like it’s a set of crystals you would find in a cave or even undersea! Then as you walk closer to the piece, you notice that it is a bunch of clear buttons stacked together with some sort of glue. It is astonishing to me that a bunch of simple buttons could create such a complex and beautiful piece of art. This a great example in which the whole becomes the sum of it’s parts.
The next thing that caught my attention was a work of art titled Portrait of a Textile Worker by Terese Agnew. This initially looked like a photograph to me but again when I walked closer I noticed something completely different! It was a bunch of labels that were removed from articles of clothing that were sewn together to create this exceptional work of art. 30,000 labels were used in the creation of this piece; organizing the labels in a manner in which it looked like a portrait must have been a tough task! It really amazes me how something like a label can be used to create something so much more complex!
Lastly on my journey through the Second Lives exhibit, I stumbled across a work titled Unbreakable Plastic Combs by Sonia Clark. From far away it looked like a black and white portrait of a woman but like I learned from this exhibit, it was going to be made up of something completely unusual. As the title of the work suggests, this work of art uses plastic combs as its “Lego’s” to create the end product. The artist uses more combs to make parts look more black and less combs to look grey and white. What a unique way to use something that was meant to brush hair.
In closing, the Second Lives exhibit at the Museum of Art and Design had many works of art that used such basic items to create more complex ones. It’s like each artist found different items to use as Lego pieces and built things from them that were completely unexpected. It truly shocked me at how creative people can be using buttons, clothing labels, and even plastic combs. I give each artist a lot of credit for thinking “outside the box” and creating such unique pieces. Lastly, the works of art in the Second Lives exhibit showed me that the whole is really the sum of its parts and each part adds meaning to the whole.