Bric-a-Brac: The Everyday Work of Tom Friedman
Applin begins the article by saying that the big picture only makes sense when small pieces are assembled together.
Friedman began his career by emptying his studio and then reintroducing objects. To empty before filling offers a chance to gain new perspective on objects and their relationships. Applin says that Friedman draws on bric-a-brac for his strategy, that he combines bricolage (do it yourself) with braconnage (poaching). He thinks about relationships of objects, how they can be changed and redefined. Objects involved ask the question: what could this be besides what it is. Mundane or trivial transforms into thought provoking shapes and ideas of beauty. Bricolage enters the work because it is intuitive. It recycles or changes everyday items, whatever is at hand such as the untitled ball of broken pencils and the paper plate that's cut into another form. Braconnage objects are poached or borrowed from their original concept or space. Katchadourian's Maps, the two glued together as mirror images, is an example of braconnage. It is more slight of hand than transformative.
He borrows from other cultural concepts and then reconstructs objects. The reconstruction provokes thought, inspires new ways of perception and also offers insight into reuse of the mundane, the materialist and the wasted. It is said to possibly have its roots in the excessive, obsessive culture of the 50s and 60s. An artisan perspective brings an alternate way to see beauty, to question materials, and to question cultural behavior. Friedman uses everyday ordinary objects, what is at hand. Imagination and mystery transform them. Childlike, playful creations evolve from going to the edge of experience and from exaggeration. Early examples of bricolage possibly influencing Friedman are Calder's Circus and his mobiles.
The breaking up offers opportunity to rethink and to be original. It seems a similar idea to what Trevor Paglen was doing with some of his photography.
Bricolage & Braconnage - definitions
Bricolage enters the work because it is intuitive. It recycles or changes everyday items, whatever is at hand such as the untitled ball of broken pencils and the paper plate that's cut into another form.
Braconnage objects are poached or borrowed from their original concept or space. Katchadourian's Maps, the two glued together as mirror images, is an example of braconnage. It is more slight of hand than transformative.
Transformation Journal Exerccise
Words that describe my object formally:
Round, semicircular, ruffled, beige, white, mixture of beige and white, soft, organic, paper, folded paper, small and large circles of paper, fluffy, curvy, bubble, shell like sea creature, repetition of ruffles, free, open, float.
Words that describe the original function:
Coffee filter, paper, ribbed paper holding coffee through which water can be poured to filter coffee, disposable, stack of ribbed papers,, common, catches grounds for disposal.
Context and meaning:
The new arrangement frees the paper filters from their compressed stacks into pleasing organic shapes that nestle together. Variety of size offers contrast. Variety of colors changes the appearance of the balls. White appears translucent and bright. Beige appears condensed. Mixture of beige & white softens the beige and implies movement of the ruffles. The forms now catch light and movement.
The balls question what will they look like if they are flattened with a heavy object like a book. That will probably happen after this assignment.
Artist Statement for project due 2-25-14:
Paper Shore
The stack of ribbed paper coffee filters sat stiffly pushed together and invited me to play with the soft curvy lines. It seemed there was more than one way to see those ribbed papers. When the filters were freed to individual pieces they exhibited pliable texture willing to be bent into fans and honey combs.
Rounded half spheres invite light to play in their honey comb patterns. Soft papers gently wave when touched. White gives almost translucent light while the beige reminds of more mundane, industrial light.
The balls were randomly dropped onto the board and they clustered together like sea creatures washing up on a sandy beach. Disposable filters became reminders of the beautiful shapes, sizes and colors nature provides. They assumed a new life in their freer form.
Artist Statement assignment:
By Cornelia Parker - Thirty Pieces of Silver.
Silver is commemorative, the objects are landmarks in people’s lives. I wanted to change their meaning, their visibility, their worth, that is why I flattened them, consigning them all to the same fate. As a child I used to crush coins on a railway track – you couldn’t spend the money afterwards but you kept the metal slivers for their own sake, as an imaginative currency and as physical proof of the destructive powers of the world. I find the pieces of silver have much more potential when their meaning as everyday objects has been eroded. ‘Thirty Pieces of Silver’ is about materiality and then about anti-matter. In the gallery the ruined objects are ghostly levitating just above the floor, waiting to be reassessed in the light of their transformation. The title, because of its biblical references, alludes to money, to betrayal, to death and resurrection: more simply it is a literal description of the piece.
(Quoted in British Art Show, exhibition catalogue, Hayward Gallery, London 1990, p.88.)
In this statement Parker explains what the silver means now and in some past meanings, including biblical and personal meanings. She then gives her intent in creating the
installation, how the concept of silver changes as its image changes. The destruction of the silver pieces informs the meaning of death of objects for use and death of the value of the objects. The reassembled silver pieces recall the idea of resurrection and new life as art work. The pieces are freed from monetary value and offer the viewer a chance to consider silver from other perspectives such as personal importance of silver, loss of value, possibility of seeing beauty in smashed "valuables."
The statement includes some personal history of the artist and her intentions in creating the installation. Her concise and descriptive statement involves
negative/positive concept regarding silver as death/ betrayal vs. resurrection and free standing pieces vs. flattened silver.
My artist statement from the first project (already graded)
Orbs
Orbs
in orbs, open enough to breathe yet protected by arcs of gentle curves. Tightly twisted twine morphs the wire uniting
ambiguous, bending shapes of protection.
Some softly woven twine balances the tightness of the twist. Nesting on the softness, the small orbs pause.
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