ART STATEMENT for 'Fake it Till You Make it'
Fake it Till You Make It is a visual commentary on contemporary visual art practice and spectator attendance. Produced by using threads to art history and current ‘art trends’. It is a site-specific and politically anarchistic work created for the Autumn Lights exhibition at Pershing Square in Downtown, Los Angeles, September 2009, specifically intended to be positioned above the escalator to the parking lot under Pershing Square. The site-specific placement of the work is a commentary on the spirit of the place. But the work could as well be placed in Berlin, as Berlin like Los Angeles is a multicultural metropol and melting pot frequented by people of all ages and social ties. Berlin is also a sister city of Los Angeles!
The dominating blue metal color in Fake it Till You Make It is a metaphor for the 20th century. As Autumn Lights in Latin means melancholy, I interpret this as death, followed by emptiness, leading to new beginnings. The blue geometric traces indicates here a melancholic trip from sources for civilization; the production of infrastructure in ancient Greek city states to cities encapsulated by Freeways, precisely as Downtown LA and Berlin, to technological virtual highway Internet traffic.
The work also examines the impossible question of whether all art is already done or if it is still possible to generate new innovative ideas. Can an artist's understanding of art history serve to generate new groundbreaking work.
Fake it Till You Make It plays with the notion that in present consumer-related part of art communication, it often seems to be about that the artist executes a new idea. The title Fake it Till You Make It may for example refer to that phenomenon one as an artist finds when similar ideas occurs simultaneously elsewhere in the world. And the results can seem as if some of the artists apparently, deliberate or not, are copying other artists' works and ideas. Perhaps ideas are ‘just’ echoing each other. Reversely, the title also indicates that exercises in copying masterpieces, generates a mastery of techniques, that can lead to mastery of new and precisely executed artworks.
Fake it Till You Make It has a three-dimensional character. The different visual fields are located in different levels on the foundation. The foundation is the 4 largest rectangular surfaces. The surfaces have some cut out ‘windows’ with inserted images, with prints on varied transparent materials. Pictures and windows provide glimpses of some of the historic trail, which provides a foundation for the work, while the sculptural objects on top of foundations refers forward in time.
To illustrate the influence of previous works, or indicating this could be a comment on CON-ART, or con-art in itself, new paintings have been added on top of the foundation. These heavily influenced by original works by artists, such as Rothko. In addition there are ‘imitations’ of new works dealing with reflections like in Rorschach Tests. Obvious choice of motifs that plays on mirroring effects in relation to the ideas of echoes and reflections in Fake it Till You Make It. Recent works have also been seen, where they contain textile design or paper clips integrated on canvases. Therefore a field has in this case been added, where the surface consists of braided strips.
The text is inverted and written from right to left. This as a result of that my thoughts are projected onto the canvas. The canvas, which later placed opposite a spectator, sends its manifested message back to this new receiver who receives a reflection of a mirror. In other words; a double projection. Throughout this new meeting, the word order again turns into both a visually and linguistically recognizable structure.
If the artist's function is to hold up a mirror to society, we may have to accept the fact that in our time, the mirrors are hazy. The problem is that we are blinded by our own projections. An image of that we in the West reflect each other, unlike for example in Buddhist philosophy, where it is about stopping projections in order to see clearly.
Thus the work is quite complex, multi-referring and immediately incomprehensible. Just like life.
by BIRGITTE MOOS
