The question, “What is the relationship between the part and the whole?” stirs up for me, having an artist’s heart also being a Christian, an appreciation for art and not just art alone but divine art—God’s creations. In art throughout history and today there is so much evidence of a divine representation (but one can argue this is only one artistic perspective, which I am willing to respect); but I believe there is so much more to an artistic piece whether it be dance, theatre, paintings, sculpture or accumulative art pieces such as seen in the Museum of Art and Design: Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary. The relationship between the part and the whole is that of the parts of a body that make a body complete and functioning, people’s roles in society that create full civilizations, or the brush strokes that develop a clear painting. There cannot be wholeness with out all parts, and a single part can’t achieve wholeness without its counter parts. The many pieces found in the exhibition embody this theme.
Madeleine L’Engle, the author of Walking on Water, writes in her book “Christ has always worked in ways which have seemed peculiar to many men, even his closest followers. Frequently the disciples failed to understand him. So we need not feel that we have to understand how he works through artist who do not consciously recognize him…God is no respecter of persons…” (L’Engle 26). L’Engle tells of how God freely gives gifts and talents to each individual regardless of whether they believe in him or not. This idea complies with that of which is depicted in the Bible; In James 1:17 it says that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.” This is why I believe art is God inspired (but I do not state that all art is created in the image of God and his desires but is inspired but the gifts places within the person by God).
I only clarify my previous statement to say that one of the major themes found in the Bible is about the relationship between the parts and the whole, which I feel is similarly represented, in a smaller scale, in the art pieces in Second Lives. In 1 Corinthians 12:12-31, it talks about members being apart of God’s kingdom here on earth, and how each of us have different parts to play but together we create the body: “For as the body is one and has many members of that one body, being many, are one body , so also is Christ.” The rest of the chapter goes on to explain, beautifully, how God’s intricate plans and design create this ‘whole’ art piece—His people. As L’Enlge expressed, God works through all artist and through them he could express ideas that mirror is own great masterpieces.
Second Live: Remixing the Ordinary is an exhibition that displays several art pieces that use unique ways of expressing the relationship between the parts and the whole. As seen in a specific creation, “Sound Wave” by Jean Shin, several vinyl records are placed together to create a wave. I liked this one because looking at a vinyl record you can’t see a wave, but formed with several others it can be a wave. The wave is something that expresses force but uniquely tied into the qualities that of the part—the vinyl record, that is meant to produce music of all kind—it becomes something that separately the part and the idea of the whole could never become—something that exists and comes out of the land of creativity, the “Sound Wave”.
The idea of using objects (objects you can never see becoming something other than the use of their original intent) to create a whole picture that defies the parts expected capacity to be something other than what it is, is a repeated theme for each art piece: The eyeglasses chandelier by Stuart Haygarth, the textile worker made of clothing labels by Terese Agnex, Doh-Huo Suh’s “Metal Jacket” made up of army dog tags and several others. Roberta Smith describes the designs in her article, “Using old materials to put a new face on a Museum,” New York Times: “The basic experience with these works is: You see the thing, then you see the things it is made of.” God sees us as the body of Christ, he sees us as what we can become and he sees us as the individual beings we are with our unique ways and flaws. But like the artist, He wants to create something great, like the wave in “Sound Wave.” He desires to create the ecclesia (the Greek word for church but holding a governmental/army connotation to it) out of parts that would seem never to be able to become that creation; a creation that is seems to be improbable to become real—but physical/tangible sound waves don’t exist and I have seen one. Artists use parts—that could have little to know importance or at least no importance concerning the idea of the whole—to show the importance of parts in the whole and to portray the potential that no one sees or believes they can be.