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Julien Berthier
2003

My heart just cartwheeled.

40 cm higher

Massimo Bartolini
1993-2001

When I was little, I used to imagine the ceiling as the floor. Imagine the windows closer to the floor, and having to walk around the light fixture. Imagine the floor feeling like spackle. Imagine no furniture on it. I wasn't going for minimalism, but something more like Bartolini's 40 cm higher. Imagine the floor 40 cm higher, swallowing everything on it. Imagine you're 40 cm higher, and everything else is 40 cm inconvenient.

Bellevue, July 17th, 1994 (Cooling Box #5)

Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset
2009

When Damien Hirst made Hymn (1996), the 20-foot sculpture of an anatomical model toy, his fabricator hesitated painting over the expensive, labor-intensive, impeccable bronze. Hirst's final justification was that the paint on the outdoor sculpture would be like skin, and eventually be worn down by the elements as such.

Elmgreen & Dragset is a couple living and working in Berlin. The couple's collaborative work brings mischief to mind, but it's done so sweetly that their subversiveness becomes earnest gestures. One work is pictured above, a painted bronze sculpture of a cooler installed at the 2009 Venice Biennale. Perhaps the impetus of painting this bronze (and Hirst's) was simply the absurdity of making the material look plastic.

Tetris 3-D

Jan Christensen and Bjørn-Kowalski Hansen
2010

I started out wanting to describe the brain activity of imagining Tetris long after a game is over. Eyes closed and trying to sleep, Tetris colors and blocks descend, rotate, and accumulate still. Awake, things appear rigid and inefficient; it's as if cars, people, sidewalks, everything could get by a little easier if only they could rotate like Tetris blocks. As far as brain activity goes, what's been found is a counter intuitive learning curve. As the Tetris game gets harder, the brain requires less energy to play it; this suggests that the brain becomes more efficient at handling the stimuli.



Artists Jan Christensen and Bjørn-Kowalski Hansen have created extra-large 3D Tetris blocks. By placing the large sculptures outdoors, it's as if the artists are referring to the inescapable quality of the blocks, but also turn them into conquered standstills. Another side of the work could be folding the insular Tetris game unto itself, making the overall piece something to be shared in public and that requires multiple hands to move.

Mantra

Stefano Arienti
2007

Much of Arienti's work involves reinterpreting and resurfacing various covers, from refrigerator doors to album sleeves. Mantras are recited to help with focus and meditation, and in my favorite piece, the Italian artist took cue from the record. Here, Arienti transcribed his own mantra with the one already there.

Variable Piece #34

Douglas Huebler
1970

I imagine it went like this:

DH: May I photograph your face?
W: Me, my face, whatever for?
DH: Why, you have a beautiful face.

BOOM.

And they all lived happily ever after.

Les articulations

Gilles Barbier
2008

Flags and speech bubbles babble between two articulation surfaces of a simple joint.

It's literal, and it's hilarious.