Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Introduction to Twenty-Four

The past few weeks have been a wash of ridiculous ideas. There's something about being catapulted out of graduate school that makes you want to complete every possible (and near impossible) task you come up with. And, if you happened to graduate from an art school, then most of these tasks involved the current obsession in modern art: the Obsessive Compulsive art form.


From the 20 million beads sculpted by hand into installation pieces (thank you, Liza Lou):

To the chronicling, documenting, administrative handling of shredded car pieces into a skyscraper filing cabinet (and thank you, Sam Yates):

What we have is Art's obsession with Obsession. Anything that is meticulously done for a period of time unseemly for any "normal" person; anal-retentive organizational skills; the enlargement, exaggeration, parody, sarcasm, length, width, & height stretched to the borderlands of recognition is in vogue.

Add a pinch of magical realism and you have a new segment to The Werewolf Hotel: Twenty-Four.

To get it out of the way 24 is my favorite number for two reasons. (1) I was born on July the 24th. (2) It's divisible by many fantastic numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, & (like any whole number, itself) 24. I find that when this number pops up it's a sign, an omen, a message. I don't proport that it's always the case but it still seems to have personal properties I prefer to pay attention to.

Including its inverse: 42. The first time I really caught that number's eye I remembered to pay very close attention and I can't say why just now.

Perhaps, when the time is right, any other 24-Fanatics will pay attention with me. OK?

No comments: