Transcript
Narrator: "Strange Fruit (Pair 1)" is a site-specific installation created in 2015 by Kevin Beasley. A variety of everyday objects are bound together, hanging vertically from the ceiling. The main body of the sculpture is about 6 feet long, elevated about 3 feet off the floor. It hangs about 12 feet below the ceiling, with a diameter up to 2 feet wide.

At first glance it could remind us of low-hanging fruit from a tree, like a tangle of bananas bunched together. However, the artwork title, materials, and construction allude to a deeper meaning. At the heart of "Strange Fruit (Pair 1)" is a pair of Nike Air Jordan sneakers, barely identifiable as they are covered in dark resin and wrapped among parts of speakers and amplifiers. These elements are bound together with rope, power cables, and audio jack cords. Beasley uses this highly commercialized shoe brand in a manner reminiscent of shoes flung over power lines in urban settings, tied together with and hanging by their laces.

The installation is constructed using several feet of climbing rope and thick electrical cords hanging from the ceiling. The rope and cords lead down to a knotted jumble of materials gathered towards the center, with a single shoe hanging down at the bottom. In this precarious arrangement, the sneakers and amplifiers look like they are barely supported within the tangle of cords and could fall off at any time. Beasley expresses underlying tension and violence in the way these objects dangle limply and broken like a body. The speakers are pulled apart, with just the front cone remaining. Electrical equipment is tucked into tube socks, and resin-covered socks and shoes appear partially burned and dirty, as if a soiled plastic bag was melted on top. Referencing Abel Meeropol’s 1937 song of the same title which protests the lynching of Black Americans, Beasley’s installation acknowledges a legacy of racism and classism still affecting Black Americans.

Beasley’s creation is specifically reflective of the Guggenheim’s unique architecture and sonic experience within the museum space. A microphone and speaker are connected to each shoe. Small blue and green lights on the electronic equipment signal they are receiving power, giving this work a sense that it is “alive” as it captures and projects the ambient sound of the gallery space. If we listen closely at certain angles, we detect a faint hum or hiss like the sound of electromagnetic interference. The intake and outtake, reflection and absorption of sound is both expansive and intimate at the same time, similar to how sound varies depending on your location along the ramps or galleries, and distance from the artwork or each other. 

How does the incorporation of sound into this installation affect our perspective of the artwork?

By Way Of

Exhibition Website

Description of Strange Fruit (Pair 1), 2015

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Narrator: These two artworks by David Hammons are part of his "Body Prints" series from 1975. Both share the same name, "Untitled," and same dimensions, around 2 feet wide by 2 1/2 feet tall. They are vertically oriented and aesthetically similar, sharing the same colors and application of pigments.

Hammons uses his own body to create these visceral artworks. Covering his hands with a transparent grease, he applies them onto the cream-colored paper, palms facedown, fingers splayed. He repeatedly presses his hands onto the paper, smearing and smudging the grease. The flurry of movement doesn’t become visible until he applies colored pigment powder onto the greased surface, revealing the printed forms. The pigments are laid in three vertical columns, one each of cobalt blue, light brown, and green, a few inches wide. They have no distinct lines of separation and blend softly together at each transition point.

After the pigment is applied, Hammons greases his face, pressing it to the center of the paper. This lifts the colored pigment, revealing the creamy color beneath. He leaves a ghostly impression, subtle yet incredibly detailed, like memories of a dream. He precisely prints his nose, thick mustache, and full lips. Two pairs of short horizontal lines above the nose evoke eyelids, as if his eyes are closed or squinting at us, and seem to be made by dragging his fingertips on the surface. The face is almost lost among the soft colors, as one’s attention is immediately drawn to the swirling pigments and movement on the paper before noticing this absence of color in its shape.

When these two artworks are viewed side by side, subtle differences between them create the impression of a “before-and-after” moment. On the left, Hammons has carefully applied his handprints, the palms and fingers distinct, layered with occasional smearing. The vertical columns of pigments from left to right are cobalt blue, light brown, and a dark aquamarine color. His face, with closed lips, is pressed into the brown pigment at the center.

On the right artwork, his palms and fingers are barely distinguishable. Swirls of pigment are visible, as if he smeared and dragged his hands across the paper multiple times. This softens the colors, creating a hazy effect. Moving from left to right, the vertical columns of pigments are light brown, cobalt blue, and a forest-green color. In the center of this artwork, the face print is against the cobalt-blue color. His lips are puckered and open, forming an “O” shape, as if surprised or dismayed. An additional application of grease on the side of his hands along his pinky fingers has lifted the pigment, creating a ghostly impression that he is grasping his face, and cupping his cheeks.

The markings of Hammons’s palms and fingers near the eyes might make us consider how an artist sees with their hands. How does our experience of this work change, knowing that Hammons physically used his own body to create this artwork?

Description of Untitled, 1975

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Narrator: Mona Hatoum has set the table for us with this artwork, "Deep Throat," from 1996. The installation includes a table, roughly 3 feet square and just over 4 feet high, covered in a tablecloth with a single place setting and wooden chair in front of it. The chair faces away from us, pulled out slightly from the table, as if we’ve been invited to sit facing the gallery wall at a slight angle.  Despite having enough room for four people around the table, this is a setting for one.

The armless chair is a light brown color with a solid wood seat. Its thin legs support an arched rung connecting the front and back legs beneath the seat. The chair back has three thin, arched rails stacked from its base about an inch apart, topped by a thicker backrest.

The table is covered with a square white tablecloth patterned with white leaves in its weave, which hangs down each side, leaving only the bottom of the light brown table legs exposed. If we were to sit at this table, our knees would brush against the tablecloth as we pulled in our chair.

A topper linen or large cloth napkin of the same fabric is laid over the tablecloth at an angle, forming a diamond shape against the square of the table. It has been unfolded, with clear crease lines still visible. At this angle it doesn’t quite cover the entire table surface, creating a small triangle at each corner exposing the underlying tablecloth. This triangle shape is echoed in the corners of this smaller cloth, which hang a few inches off the center of each edge of the table.

The simple table setting includes one round white dinner plate with a silver four-pronged fork placed to its left and a silver knife on its right, its blade facing inward toward the plate. A tall empty drinking glass is positioned on the table at the upper right of the plate.

Upon closer inspection, not quite noticeable until looking down on the table, a color video projection is centered on the plate. It fills the circular bottom, perfectly round, leaving about an inch around the rim of the plate where it flares slightly upward, as if we’ve just been served soup with the edges of the plate wiped clean.

The video playing on a 5-minute loop depicts the full journey through an upper gastrointestinal tract, from the point of view of our food. Like footage from an endoscopy, the camera slowly squeezes through the esophagus, the tissue lining bright and slick with delicate veining. The video continues on repeat, over and over, tunneling deeply through this throat, the entire digestive system, and back up. The pristine formal table arrangement inviting us to dine on food as a familiar comfort is a stark contrast to the graphic animalistic reminder of how it will pass through our body.

The artwork’s title, "Deep Throat," in addition to referencing the physicality of the work and the video footage, also references the mysterious informer from the Watergate scandal and a pornographic movie starring Linda Lovelace. Both phenomena brought to public attention things generally meant to be kept secret or private.

Why is there discomfort in watching a typically private and hidden bodily process made public against the backdrop of a table setting—especially when this process is so common to the human experience? Perhaps Hatoum has left us with other questions too. Why not include a spoon, the easiest utensil to shovel food down our throats? Why is the table set for one?

Description of Deep Throat, 1996

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Transcript
Narrator: Senga Nengudi blurs the lines between sculpture and installation in her 1970 work "Water Composition I," re-created in 2019. This liminality is perhaps echoed in its location, hung about 5 feet high against the gallery wall with portions of the sculpture hanging onto the floor and extending out around 6 feet. It’s a form that’s organic while also geometric, as if someone was slumped against the wall, their limbs splayed out around them, or a spider whose body is flattened into the corner where the wall and floor meet. 

The work is created using three long, tubelike, clear vinyl bags partially filled with water with food coloring in glowing, gemlike tones. The central portion of each bag is hanging from above, emptying its center as the water pools to both ends. The water is contained by heat-sealed seams around each bag’s edges—one end tapers to a thin point, creating a conical shape, while the other is a squared end like a pillow.  

The bags are hung over a thick natural rope, which causes the lift at their centers. This rope is attached to the gallery wall at two horizontal points about 5 feet high from the ground and 3 feet apart. Each point is a support around which the rope is knotted. The rope droops down between the point about two-thirds of the way down to the floor, and the vinyl bags hang across this center drape. The ends of the rope hang down on either side of the support knots. The overall effect of the rope is an “M” shape with the water sculpture pooling down from the center, as if it has melted onto the floor.

The conical ends of the bags rest along the floor and point away from the wall, spaced several feet apart and fanning out like the colored rays of a star. The three conical shapes are filled with clear, pink, and yellow-orange water. The three square ends of the bags sit beneath and behind the conical forms in a pile near the wall, filled with red, orange, and clear water. In some of the water sculptures tiny bubbles are visible, like effervescence in a carbonated beverage.

Structured yet ephemeral, the sculpture maintains a shape that could easily change when manipulated, the water seemingly light and flexible in the transparent vinyl bags. Yet the bags also evoke heaviness, dragging down the length of rope that supports them.  

Inspired by Japanese avant-garde, Nengudi focuses on interaction with materials. How would this feel if we could touch it, manipulate the bags, and move them?

Description of Water Composition I, 1970/2019

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Transcript
Narrator: Anthony Akinbola’s "Jubilee," created in 2021, greets viewers with a variety of pastels in pale and bright yellows, pinks, and orangy-tans, like lemon and orange sherbet. Measuring 8 feet wide by 9 feet high and 3 inches deep, its size, composition, and structure give it the feel of a large-scale painting, despite being created from fabric and acrylic on a wooden panel. 

The fabric has a shiny quality, like satin or silk, and is cut into various shapes and sizes that are sewn together, making four large panels that are arranged in an imperfect rectangular grid. On the upper left and lower right are square panels, while on the lower left and upper right are rectangular panels. Assembled together, the seams between the panels are barely visible and it appears as one large canvas. 

The title, "Jubilee," is not only reflective of the bright and celebratory colors in the artwork. It relates to an important period in African American history, the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Another celebration of Black culture referenced in the artwork is not immediately obvious upon first observation: the fabric assembled is from a collection of durags, tight-fitting scarves or caps that cover the head with a portion of the fabric, the “tails,” hanging down along the neck. This protective hair covering is an identifier in Black culture. 

Most of the durags are cut into strips a few inches thick and range between one to several feet long. The strips are positioned vertically and arranged side by side horizontally like lines of lowercase “L”s.  Four rows of these many vertical stripes are stacked, one above the other, across the canvas. The stripes or rows, alternate colors, a lighter shade against a darker shade or a smooth yellow fabric against a textured yellow fabric, and the left side of the panel features brighter yellows, transitioning to oranges and pinky-tans toward the right side, creating a subtle gradient. 

This painterly effect is enhanced by the way Akinbola attaches the fabric pieces. The edges of adjacent pieces are pulled together and sewn with about a half-inch seam allowance, the measure of excess fabric from the stitch to its raw edge. Typically on the inside of a garment, here the seams are visible and the dark thread creates outlines around the pieces. Shadows are also visible, and if we could touch the panels, our fingers would skip across each line where the seam protrudes slightly off the surface. 

In other areas, portions of the fabric are pulled taut and wrinkle or pucker. Some billow loosely where the rims of the durags aren’t attached flush to the panel, giving an effect of deflated balloons. The stripes or rows along the top and bottom edges contain around forty individual fabric pieces. The two rows in the center are divided in half by the central horizontal seam between the panels. The vertical strips starting at the left edge merge into larger portions of fabric on the right side that are square-like shapes. Here, the fabric either puckers tightly or hangs loosely. 

In the center of the artwork and at the bottom-left corner are small strips of fabric, attached to the panel by a seam a few inches wide. Like loose ribbons, they hang vertically off the panel, several feet long.

Made from textiles meant to protect the body, do we feel strength or tenuousness in this work?

Description of Jubilee, 2021

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This work by Mark Bradford from 2001 is titled "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy." Mixed media on canvas, the work is 6 feet tall by 7 feet wide.  

The canvas surface is covered with small rectangles of tissue-like paper, each about 3 by 4 inches. The papers are endpapers, translucent tissue papers used in the hair salon. Each rectangular endpaper has darkened edges, appearing burnt. While some papers are white, others are yellow; each is dyed with a slightly different saturation. Because these papers are translucent, the layering of them accumulates color, creating white sections and light yellow sections which transition into more concentrated sunny-yellow sections. With their burnt edges, each form evokes a rectangle with a thin, dark outline.  

The rectangular papers are layered like roof tiles: slightly overlapping to form long rows and columns across the entire work. The rows and columns aren’t precise, though; they sometimes stretch or tighten, their burned edges forming an imperfect, allover grid. In some areas, the rectangular form gathers as if stamped repeatedly. Some endpapers are further accentuated with white or yellow paint on top of them. This creates an overall effect of a patterned, lyrical artwork.   

The transparent endpapers reveal collaged elements beneath or on top. This work also includes "décollage"; the leftovers of paper in blues and pinks that have been ripped off the canvas. We also see evidence of printed or stamped numbers. A vertical word in faded gray reads “Business.” 

Bradford salvages most of his materials from public sites and small businesses in South Central Los Angeles. Using these as tools for art-making, his works also hold the physical remnants of the public, cultural, and commercial life of South Central L.A.’s African American communities. From a young age, Bradford worked in his mother’s salon. Bradford’s early work often incorporated the tools of his trade, including these singed permanent-wave endpapers, cellophane hair color, and human hair.

The delicate colors create a sense of intimacy and even nostalgia. However, this large-scale work’s burnt materials and compulsive, labor-intensive process also hold the violence of culturally mandated beauty regimes. Though the composition is abstract, the materials evoke elements of Bradford’s personal narrative as well as the social and political significance of hairstyling—especially hair straightening—in the Black community.

The endpapers covering this canvas surface remind us of their material fragility as well as their ability to protect hair. How do the other paper remnants covering this surface suggest fragility and impermanence as well as strength and power?

Description of Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, 2001

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Narrator: This installation from 1991 by Mike Kelley is titled "Riddle of the Sphinx" and composed of yarn, stainless-steel bowls, and an offset photolithograph.  

A knitted yarn blanket is placed on the floor like a huge rug. It is shaped in a rectangle roughly 26 feet long by 13 feet wide. The shorter edge of the blanket is placed a few inches from the gallery wall while the other three sides are open to the gallery. The blanket is knitted with a chevron pattern, giving the two shorter edges opposite each other a precise zigzag border while the long perpendicular edges are straight. The side farthest from the gallery wall is primarily deep blue and purple. The strands closer to the wall have sections of lighter tones, primarily yellow mixed with blues, purple, orange, and green, repeating in neat zigzag stripes. About midway down the blanket’s length, the sharp transition between the light and dark sides follows the zigzagging chevron pattern. 

Placed beneath the blanket are stainless-steel bowls. We can’t see their surface but only clearly defined humps. In the yellow section, four bowls form the corner points of a square. In the middle of the blanket, along the transition from light to dark, two bowls are placed apart from one another. In the deep-blue part of the blanket, three bowls underneath form the points of a triangle.   

Hanging on the wall, centered above the edge of the blanket, is an offset photolithograph print, a foot and a half tall by 2 feet wide. It’s an image that is visually reminiscent of the bowls beneath the colored blanket. It’s a deep blue mountain poking up through lavender clouds, sitting beneath a pink, orange, and yellow sunset sky. In fact, it’s an image of Mount Fuji—but the print’s size, a small fraction of the size of the great blanket, reduces the image of the mountain to a size similar to the dimensions of the bowls. The colors of the print mirror the hues present in the blanket beneath.  

In "Riddle of the Sphinx," Kelley refers to the question posed to Oedipus in Sophocles’s drama: What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening? The metal bowls are placed under the blanket in corresponding numbers and the passage of the metaphorical day is echoed in the hues of the afghan, ranging from pale-yellow tones of dawn to the deep tones of dusk. Oedipus conquers the Sphinx and secures his own tragic fate by solving the riddle with the answer, “Man.”

Description of Riddle of the Sphinx, 1991

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Narrator: Artist Gilberto Zorio lifts our gaze with his suspended sculpture "Macchia II," from 1968. As we approach, the installation feels hidden in the room, hanging in a corner from the ceiling and extending about 15 feet in diameter above us. The materials, created from terracotta-colored plasticized PVC and beige-gray rope, suspend lightly from the ceiling, despite the work’s imposing size.

The bulk of the installation is created from a sheet of plasticized PVC less than an inch thick, flattened and stretched about 3 feet in diameter into a somewhat circular, organic shape, like an ink blot. From a distance the entire installation resembles a large spider web, a reference enhanced by eight thin strands of rope extending from the PVC center, stretching outward and parallel to the ceiling. The ropes are evenly spaced and the distance between them begins to widen as they extend farther from the center. They are knotted onto hooks that anchor them to the ceiling. The end of each rope is cut and frayed, hanging directly down from the knot about a foot, like a tassel.

From beneath the installation, the work appears more like a parachute in how the rubber splat is held where the ropes meet. The ropes fan out from a central circular ring smaller than a bracelet; its form is visible beneath the center of the rubber body. Each rope is attached to this ring, visually dividing the underside of the rubber splat into eight triangular sections as they expand outward.

Is this installation imposing or protecting? Perhaps it depends on our perspective.

Description of Stain II (Macchia II), 1968

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Narrator: This work by Mario Merz is titled "ACCELERATION = DREAM, FIBONACCI NUMBERS IN NEON AND MOTORCYCLE PHANTOM." Made in 1972 and refabricated in 1989, the work features a motorcycle installed high up on the gallery wall with neon numbers trailing behind it.

The motorcycle is a red Honda Dominator. It is installed sideways, or at a right angle to the gallery wall; the tires touch the wall as if driving full speed along it, defying gravity. Everything about the motorcycle is expected except for one thing: enormous ankole horns are placed over the motorcycle’s handlebars. The yellowish-white curving horns extend about 4 feet on both sides of the motorcycle, twisting and curving to sharp point. This swap of the handlebar machinery with the ankole horns blends the visual associations with a speeding machine and a charging animal.

Trailing behind the motorcycle, along the upper gallery wall, are light blue neon numbers. These numbers are written as if scrawled in cursive, with trailing tails in front of or behind them that create long spaces between each. The spaces lengthen between each number as they become farther from the motorcycle and increase in value: one...one...two....three.....five......eight.......thirteen........twenty-one.........thirty-four..........fifty-five...........eighty-nine............one hundred and forty-four.............two hundred and thirty-three..............three hundred and seventy-seven...............and ending with six hundred and ten.

The length of the neon numbers extends along the upper portions of four gallery walls. Their precise placement in a line behind the motorcycle’s tires gives an initial impression of tire marks, or a marked pathway, behind the bike’s path. These numbers begin the Fibonacci sequence, a series of numbers formed by adding the two previous numbers together. The sequence relates to systems of generation, found in nature’s spiraling forms. What does this work express about patterns, generation, and time? What is the modern motorcycle’s relationship to ancient patterns of nature?

Description of Acceleration=Dream, Fibonacci Numbers in Neon and Motorcycle Phantom, 1972

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Narrator: Rashid Johnson’s "Cosmic Slop “Bitter,”" from 2015, features a solid black surface just over 6 feet high by 8 feet wide, marked by deep cuts and grooves. If we were to touch this surface, our fingers would dance and skip over cracks and crevices, like peaks and valleys in a barren post-volcanic landscape, newly created after a lava flow.

We might also be surprised at its waxy feeling in contrast to the rough appearance of the surface. Johnson uses black soap and wax, which he melts and then manipulates through cutting and digging, etching deep slashes and scratches before it fully hardens. More than simply mark-making, Johnson relates his process to a performance, transforming and layering meaning to this everyday household material.

Black soap itself is said to have transformative and healing properties, particularly in West Africa. It cleanses us on the surface but tastes bitter, a contradiction noted in the artwork’s title, "Cosmic Slop “Bitter.”" The color and title also reference a 1973 song by Parliament Funkadelic and allude to the pain Black bodies have endured, scars both visible and beneath the surface.

What contradictory emotions might we encounter with this work?

Description of Cosmic Slop "Bitter", 2021

Mit unserer Podcast-Serie „Ladies First!“ rücken wir Künstlerinnen und ihre Werke aus der gleichnamigen Ausstellung in der Neuen Galerie Graz in den Mittelpunkt.
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Folge # 9 Gespräch mit Daniela Brasil, Künstlerin und Urbanistin, "Ladies First!"

The Universalmuseum Joanneum is considered the biggest of its kind in Central Europe. About 4,5 million items in the collections form the basis of a richly faceted ‘universal’ exhibition and events schedule. 

Founded as Austria’s first public museum in 1811, the Universalmuseum Joanneum presents a broad range of art, culture and the natural sciences at twelve architecturally valuable locations. 

Folge # 9 Gespräch mit Daniela Brasil, Künstlerin und Urbanistin, "Ladies First!"

Universalmuseum Joanneum

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