Turrell spins my head in a gazillion directions--Kantian theories of perception, the function of art, the relationship of science and art, pretty colors ....

It is all well and good to decide that certain peices of art
should be experienced by only one or a small number of
people at a time, but too much of that is too much. Take
the glass ball experience. At ten minutes a shot, that's
6x24x365 = 52,560 people a year TOPS can experience it. For
a glass ball that makes sense, you have to be in it. For
the lightning rod and the crator piece, viewings are limited
to an even greater degree. These peices require daylight and
more time to experience. The lightning rod one was what a
dozen people a day? Per year that's the same order of
magnitude as passengers in a single 10-car NYC subway train
at rush hour. It strikes me as elitest and exclusionary to
design for such restricted viewing.

The problem with the Pyrsmids is that, over time, they will disintegrate. That's all well and good to decide that a certin piece of art should be experienced by only a small number of people for a small number of years, but the larger picture should be taken into consideration. Geologically, the pyramids are pretty transitory and elitist.

Edited by author 08-18-2003 05:03 PM
I'm just as populist sometimes as the next guy, but if you think we live in a society where visiting capacity constraints are the bottlenecks for everyone's transformative experiences with contemporary art, you're high. [Actually, the pyramids' problem is encroaching Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants, but that's a different issue.]

I just interviewed some major art dealers-- 30- and 40-year veterans of the bleeding edge-- for a piece about video art bootlegging. Greedy exploitation of intellectual property laws turn out not to be the constraint on video art getting seen; it's the fact that the vast majority of people don't and won't care about experimental art. "Infinite reproducibility is fine, in theory, but there's just not an infinite audience," one told me.

The same goes for Turrell's work, deMaria's Lightning Field, etc. Civilization'll get along just fine with only some pictures and descriptions, if only because most people will never be bothered enough to take the time and actually experience them. Rather than the pyramids, they'll be our Lascaux cave paintings (which no one's allowed to see in person, either).

Check out this interview where photographer John Cliett talks of making THE photos of Lightning Field, which define how the work is perceived by the 99.99% of the population who'll never go there.

http://cabinetmagazine.org/issues/3/god.php