The Japanese have a business philosophy that one extraordinary mind would (in most cases) not be as successful as a group of ten ordinary people working together. The Second Life exhibit of the Museum of Arts and Design showed example of the beauty of ordinary and everyday objects coming together to create extraordinary items. What is the relationship between the part and the whole? I believe the answer lies within the question being asked. A part is segment of something. In other words, a part is a lack of completeness to create a whole and the many items at the Second Life exhibit showed creative ways to see new “wholes” for these parts. Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →

In our daily routine we don’t usually stop and think what an object interprets, this only happens either when we are creating or sensing art. When we come across any piece of art we always, like a natural instinct, seem to find a relationship between the object and some known context. And we will always find a relationship; certainly we will find a stronger meaning for some objects than others. In the exhibit Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary we can clearly observe this. All the pieces in the exhibit were created by other objects in other to give then a different meaning. Most of the pieces’ meaning or context in the exhibit could be clearly seen and in others the artist really made sure that we could work hard to get them. Continue reading →

Without one part, there won’t be a whole of something. This can be seen through things in our everyday life. Without a screw a frying pan won’t be a frying pan because the screw connects the handle to the pan. Without that little part, the whole will be incomplete. To have something that is fully completed, we need to have all the parts that make up this whole. Continue reading →

There is something special upon entering a museum you have never seen before. While you have an idea of what art lies beyond the doors, there is always an uncertainty of what exactly you are about to experience. Will you love it? Will you hate it? Is it “your kind” of art? The exhibit, “Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary” exceed expectations of a preconceived notion. It gives light to the relationship between the part and the whole this is because the various and seemingly useless “parts”, with a little ingenuity and creativity, combined together makes beautiful “whole” pieces of art. Continue reading →

The Second Lives exhibition shows that little everyday materials can be used to create something much more than the ordinary object itself. Each piece of the exhibition has its own story that varies across the entire two floors of magnificent artwork at the Museum of Art and Design. The artists used bits and pieces of single objects and combined them to form pieces that are unbelievable to look at. Every bit that was used showed great importance because it made the overall piece seem effortless to create. These bits also may have an important part in relating a message to the audience. Continue reading →

The “Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary” exhibition gave a second live to the “useless” items in our world. In this exhibition, lots of things, like buttons, chopsticks, catalogs, bottles, that got thrown out everyday in our life were put together in a unique way so it will form a new object. After seeing this exhibition, I would say the relationship between parts and whole is that parts form the whole through different arrangements and connecting materials. Parts are only a small portion of the big piece but it is the foundation of the whole piece. Using this foundation, the artist decides how to connect them, through glue, strings, etc., and arrange it to result in the final piece of work that they desire. Continue reading →

Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary

The relationship between the part and the whole

The exhibition, Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary, located at the Museum of Art and Design has artists taking the most menial things such as buttons, eyeglasses, shopping bags, thread spools, coins, toys, etc. and turned them into portraits, statues, and furniture. In our lives we see things and objects as they are, most times not bothering to wonder what goes in to making them. For example at first glance we see a computer and just see a computer but not notice the processors, drives, chips, or bytes of memory that make up the basis of it. It is the same thing with all the things in our lives that we take for granted. The artists of Second Lives have taken objects like the ones mentioned before and were able to transform them into things that most of us on a daily basis, as well as images we can only hope to see in the near future. The main topic here is basically the relationship between the part and the whole, in short, the whole is more apparent then the parts that are used to make them. Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →

In our lives today, we think of repetition as a bad thing. Repetition is monotonous and boring. Who can live their lives with repetition? Designers thinking outside of the box use ordinary items repetitively to make something new: a rebirth, a second life. This is when repetition becomes interesting. New objects can be made using everyday items such as buttons, bowls, spoons, quarters, etc. Repetition of parts are what makes a whole. Continue reading →

The Second Lives exhibit presented a collection of unique artworks revolving around the theme of “remixing the ordinary.” Many different objects were being reused and restructured by various artists in creating new yet traditional items that we encounter daily. Ordinary little things that we use and see everyday are being modified into other forms, structures, or even different styles of existence. Through the transformation from various artists’ creativity, many objects such as spoons, tags, and plastic were given a second chance to be seen taking a different form. A form that is so unexpected of them that it was hard to believe they actually have another use or purpose to be kept and saved from being thrown away. The underlying meaning of everything coming together defines the relationship between the part and the whole. Part is a fraction or the foundation that by combining and putting together can support, build, and complete the whole. Continue reading →

The exhibit, “Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary” at the Museum of Art and Design presents extraordinary works of art constructed from ordinary objects. Buttons, clothing labels, forks, q-tips, glasses and a variety of other typical everyday items are used as building blocks to create amazing structures. Though each piece of artwork is unique, one similarity among all of them is that the shape of the individual parts in the artwork does not resemble the final shape of the whole. The simple shapes of the parts can be arranged into a complex whole. Continue reading →