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Background — continued

10. I am not sure how materialized art can contain the ineffable. I am acutely aware of the difference between the “container and contained.” As Fluxus artist Daniel Spoerri wrote in The Mythological Travels (1970):

…we’re all fetishists snared by the object... until they... pile up stripped of their magic and cut off from the memory of their history... all that remains of these preserves is the container the artist made for them,... the container will never interest me as much as the contained, but where would I pour my wine without a glass?—and it is inbetween these two poles of inseparability of the two that my anxiety of finding a definite solution will oscillate....

11. I am skeptical of the expectation that art should convey the ineffable. My works sometimes suggest an embedded futility or failure, frustrating the viewer’s assumptions about the art experience.

For example, in the Presents series, ribbons and bows alone suggest a present, however the gift itself is absent. This raises the paradox of who is responsible for the ineffable in art — does the viewer project it onto the art object, or does the artist provide it?

12. The art viewing experience provides an opportunity for enacting skepticism or trust. I see the work of art mediating a relationship between the viewer and artist.

For example, in Dark into Light (2008, installation: photosensitive lights, wiring, dimensions variable), a hundred small lights that respond to darkness are bathed in a spot light. To trigger the lights, the viewer must interrupt the beam of light with their bodies, literally inhabiting the center of the installation. The result is that the viewer’s shadow becomes illuminated—making an ephemeral image from common household goods.