#
Date
Title
Source
Description
Tags
W5496
30.10.2012
Hermitage Pilgrimage: Art Video - Sheridan Lowrey
WWW
The first project, "Contemporary Neo-Objective Sculpture," describes a combination of objects, an installation, which I prefer to leave as text. The second, "Hermitage Toilet Overflow," an unawarded sabbatical proposal. Sheridan Lowrey Full-time Fa ...

The first project, "Contemporary Neo-Objective Sculpture," describes a combination of objects, an installation, which I prefer to leave as text.

The second, "Hermitage Toilet Overflow," an unawarded sabbatical proposal.

Sheridan Lowrey Full-time Faculty, Graphic Design No outside employment

Hermitage Pilgrimage: Art Video

  1. I’m going to strap a urinal on my back and deliver it to the public washroom of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. To document this pilgrimage, I am seeking a sabbatical to shoot and edit an art video of this research-based art project. The video will be shown in gallery and museum spaces, as well as used to familiarize students with increasingly like-minded practices in contemporary art and design.

  2. My use of toilet subject matter is not intended to be crude; rather, it is an object and room resonant with taboo despite being explicitly framed as an aesthetic object, both a public and private space, and a space of gender identification. Along with in situ restroom performance and installation documentation, I will use still and moving images to connect toilet and bedroom subject matter at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the L.A. based Museum of Jurassic Technology, and in the work of artist Marcel Duchamp.

The central reference is Duchamp’s Fountain, 1917, a mass-produced urinal shown rotated on its back (part of the reason it is strapped to my back). Duchamp’s urinal challenged the very definition of art itself: the precepts of originality and aesthetics. Fountain alone has generated huge amounts of art criticism throughout the 20th century to the present. Duchamp referred to the urinal as “an original revolutionary faucet: ‘Mirrorical return?’” In reply, I am “returning” the urinal, which will appear in multiple forms (actual, miniature, and photographic) across historical and geographical space, to the context of a restroom from where it was extracted in order to be isolated as “art.”1

I will consolidate references to Russian artist Ilya Kabakov’s installation The Toilet and Duchamp’s projects by locating their subjects in the adjacent galleries and public toilets of the State Hermitage Museum. As it is Kabakov’s project to archive Soviet-era culture upon its demise, the Hermitage is an appropriate place to reference The Toilet. In fact, The Toilet, along with other of his works, was the first artwork ever to be shown by a living Russian artist in the Hermitage Museum in 2004. The work is a replica of the exterior of a Soviet-era public toilet and was first shown in 1992 at the Documenta art fair in Germany as an outbuilding to the main exhibition hall. Inside, however, the “Men” and “Women” divisions accommodate a living room and bedroom respectively.2

There is intended irony surrounding the masculine function of a urinal coupled with the perception of its smooth, curvilinear female form. I will record the shared visual qualities of the female nude and porcelain urinal in further reference to centuries old associations between porcelain and femininity, and women and floods. In the Museum of Jurassic Technology (MJT) exhibit “Garden of Eden on Wheels: Collections from Los Angeles Area Mobile Home Parks” the mobile home is likened to Noah’s ark. In the MJT exhibit, Mary Elliott Wing assumes the role of a modern day Noah by constructing a “land-ark,” a first modern mobile home in 1933. The contemporary trailer collections on display in the MJT are intriguingly familiar to a Victorian-era bridal trousseau: perfumers, pincushions, linens and lace, and porcelain. Furthermore, the exhibit’s allusion to the Garden of Eden, along with didactic text concerning The Indigenous Seed Bank Project, might lead to reading the ark as a womb (or hermitage). For these reasons, I will simulate a flood, water breaking, by (fictively) stopping up a State Hermitage toilet. Ultimately, I will propose that my video be an addition to the two films regularly screened at the Museum of Jurassic Technology, both of which have Russian history as subject matter.

Note: Images and further explication of a number of the references are included in the small publication herein.

  1. The exchange and transport of the urinal was at issue in Duchamp’s miniaturization of it and other of his works in a traveling salesman’s case, Boite-en-valise, 1941. By reproducing and installing his works, he mimicked the museum’s displacement, preservation, and abstraction of the meaning of artworks. Theorist Didier Maleuvre describes how an artwork in a museum is a “monument because it relates to its historical period disjunctively, through the loss of historical connection with the period it is said to embody.”

  2. I am interested in the diminished degrees of respect accorded to private spaces historically designated as female. The Hermitage, founded by Catherine the Great, has in its collection Francois Boucher’s eighteenth century Rococo painting The Toilette of Venus. Rococo painting has notoriously been derided as being decorative and lacking substantive subject matter. In her essay “Beauty Discourse and the Logic of Aesthetics,” Feminist art historian Amelia Jones writes of the Toilette painting: “Madame de Pompadour as Venus instantiates the contradictory logic at base of the aesthetic. First of all, for Kant [influential 18c. philosopher of aesthetic judgment], disinterestedness requires precisely the removal of all sensual affect.... Pompadour/Venus—as paradigm of the female nude—works to contain just the uncontrollable erotic frisson that she invokes.” Eroticism is seen to be at odds with aesthetic perception, exactly the challenge intended by Duchamp’s selection of the urinal for aesthetic appreciation.

  3. The 12 weeks will be roughly broken into thirds: 4 weeks for research and development; 4 weeks in St. Petersburg shooting clandestine video footage; and 4 weeks editing.

  4. The proposed video is a continuation of my ongoing project to poetically respond to the profound connections I find exist between the Museum of Jurassic Technology and the works of Marcel Duchamp, pivotal artist in contemporary art history and theory. As a teacher of courses concerning design research, contemporary art and design, conceptual problem solving, and message making, my Duchamp deliberations are particularly relevant. I present Duchamp as an early practitioner of what is termed “post-medium” art practice, meaning art activities that creatively investigate cultural conditions rather than being particular to medium proficiency and development (painting, drawing, and sculpture). While students are already familiar with classical artistic forms, they have little knowledge of these increasingly popular research based art practices. Along with presenting many contemporary artists and designers with sympathetic methodologies (Renee Green, Fred Wilson, Mark Dion, Andrea Zittel, Ellen Lupton, Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio, etc.) I will use my own process and product to educate my students and engage my peers.

  5. I have an ongoing correspondence with David Wilson, Museum of Jurassic Technology director. In turn, the MJT is “in cordial cooperation” with the Freud Dream Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, through which I will seek further introductions and advice. I also have the agreed participation of an experienced videographer, Karl Schiffman.

  6. Continuing engagement and interaction with people in the field will be my measure. I have already had the honor of positive responses to my written and artistic projects concerning the relatedness of Duchamp works and subjects at the MJT by the respected art historians and theorists, Amelia Jones, Christine Wertheim and Linda Nochlin. Including video, a number of visual artworks concerning the same were the subject of a gallery show at Track 16 Gallery in 2005 (www.track16.com/exhibitions/161yr_exposure/index.html).

  7. I will screen my video for my students and colleagues. In addition to an expected video installation hosted by my former patron Track 16, I will approach gallery and museum venues. Lastly, I will propose that my video be a supplement to the two films regularly screened at the Museum of Jurassic Technology, both of which have Russian history as subject matter.

  8. I received a Bachelor of Environmental Design degree from NCSU in 1989 and a Master of Architecture from Southern California Institute of Architecture in 1993.

I have been teaching at AiCA, L.A. since 2000, full-time from 2002 to present. Prior to that, I taught at various area schools: SCI-Arc, UCLA, Cal-Arts, and Otis College (where I was Interim Chair of Environmental Arts, 1999-2000).

Selected exhibitions: “A Perverted Survey of Twentieth Century Architectural Cladding,” SCI-Arc; “Lecture/Tour,” L.A. Forum for Architecture and Urban Design with MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House; “Careless Exhibition of Twentieth Century Product Design/Poetic Installation of Works by Constantin Brancusi, Ann Hamilton, Bertrand Lavier, Sherrie Levine and Haim Steinbach,” Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions; “One-Hundred Sixty-One Year Exposure/One Hundred Twenty-fifth of a Second Exhibition,” Track 16 Gallery.

See my website (shared with Nicholas Lowie and P. Lyn Middleton) for a more complete listing and documentation of my work under “Portfolio,” “Artistic Practice” at www.5leggedmuttt.com

The first project, "Contemporary Neo-Objective Sculpture," describes a combination of objects, an installation, which I prefer to leave as text. The second, "Hermitage Toilet Overflow," an unawarded sabbatical proposal. Sheridan Lowrey Full-time Fa ...

The first project, "Contemporary Neo-Objective Sculpture," describes a combination of objects, an installation, which I prefer to leave as text.

The second, "Hermitage Toilet Overflow," an unawarded sabbatical proposal.

Sheridan Lowrey Full-time Faculty, Graphic Design No outside employment

Hermitage Pilgrimage: Art Video

  1. I’m going to strap a urinal on my back and deliver it to the public washroom of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. To document this pilgrimage, I am seeking a sabbatical to shoot and edit an art video of this research-based art project. The video will be shown in gallery and museum spaces, as well as used to familiarize students with increasingly like-minded practices in contemporary art and design.

  2. My use of toilet subject matter is not intended to be crude; rather, it is an object and room resonant with taboo despite being explicitly framed as an aesthetic object, both a public and private space, and a space of gender identification. Along with in situ restroom performance and installation documentation, I will use still and moving images to connect toilet and bedroom subject matter at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the L.A. based Museum of Jurassic Technology, and in the work of artist Marcel Duchamp.

The central reference is Duchamp’s Fountain, 1917, a mass-produced urinal shown rotated on its back (part of the reason it is strapped to my back). Duchamp’s urinal challenged the very definition of art itself: the precepts of originality and aesthetics. Fountain alone has generated huge amounts of art criticism throughout the 20th century to the present. Duchamp referred to the urinal as “an original revolutionary faucet: ‘Mirrorical return?’” In reply, I am “returning” the urinal, which will appear in multiple forms (actual, miniature, and photographic) across historical and geographical space, to the context of a restroom from where it was extracted in order to be isolated as “art.”1

I will consolidate references to Russian artist Ilya Kabakov’s installation The Toilet and Duchamp’s projects by locating their subjects in the adjacent galleries and public toilets of the State Hermitage Museum. As it is Kabakov’s project to archive Soviet-era culture upon its demise, the Hermitage is an appropriate place to reference The Toilet. In fact, The Toilet, along with other of his works, was the first artwork ever to be shown by a living Russian artist in the Hermitage Museum in 2004. The work is a replica of the exterior of a Soviet-era public toilet and was first shown in 1992 at the Documenta art fair in Germany as an outbuilding to the main exhibition hall. Inside, however, the “Men” and “Women” divisions accommodate a living room and bedroom respectively.2

There is intended irony surrounding the masculine function of a urinal coupled with the perception of its smooth, curvilinear female form. I will record the shared visual qualities of the female nude and porcelain urinal in further reference to centuries old associations between porcelain and femininity, and women and floods. In the Museum of Jurassic Technology (MJT) exhibit “Garden of Eden on Wheels: Collections from Los Angeles Area Mobile Home Parks” the mobile home is likened to Noah’s ark. In the MJT exhibit, Mary Elliott Wing assumes the role of a modern day Noah by constructing a “land-ark,” a first modern mobile home in 1933. The contemporary trailer collections on display in the MJT are intriguingly familiar to a Victorian-era bridal trousseau: perfumers, pincushions, linens and lace, and porcelain. Furthermore, the exhibit’s allusion to the Garden of Eden, along with didactic text concerning The Indigenous Seed Bank Project, might lead to reading the ark as a womb (or hermitage). For these reasons, I will simulate a flood, water breaking, by (fictively) stopping up a State Hermitage toilet. Ultimately, I will propose that my video be an addition to the two films regularly screened at the Museum of Jurassic Technology, both of which have Russian history as subject matter.

Note: Images and further explication of a number of the references are included in the small publication herein.

  1. The exchange and transport of the urinal was at issue in Duchamp’s miniaturization of it and other of his works in a traveling salesman’s case, Boite-en-valise, 1941. By reproducing and installing his works, he mimicked the museum’s displacement, preservation, and abstraction of the meaning of artworks. Theorist Didier Maleuvre describes how an artwork in a museum is a “monument because it relates to its historical period disjunctively, through the loss of historical connection with the period it is said to embody.”

  2. I am interested in the diminished degrees of respect accorded to private spaces historically designated as female. The Hermitage, founded by Catherine the Great, has in its collection Francois Boucher’s eighteenth century Rococo painting The Toilette of Venus. Rococo painting has notoriously been derided as being decorative and lacking substantive subject matter. In her essay “Beauty Discourse and the Logic of Aesthetics,” Feminist art historian Amelia Jones writes of the Toilette painting: “Madame de Pompadour as Venus instantiates the contradictory logic at base of the aesthetic. First of all, for Kant [influential 18c. philosopher of aesthetic judgment], disinterestedness requires precisely the removal of all sensual affect.... Pompadour/Venus—as paradigm of the female nude—works to contain just the uncontrollable erotic frisson that she invokes.” Eroticism is seen to be at odds with aesthetic perception, exactly the challenge intended by Duchamp’s selection of the urinal for aesthetic appreciation.

  3. The 12 weeks will be roughly broken into thirds: 4 weeks for research and development; 4 weeks in St. Petersburg shooting clandestine video footage; and 4 weeks editing.

  4. The proposed video is a continuation of my ongoing project to poetically respond to the profound connections I find exist between the Museum of Jurassic Technology and the works of Marcel Duchamp, pivotal artist in contemporary art history and theory. As a teacher of courses concerning design research, contemporary art and design, conceptual problem solving, and message making, my Duchamp deliberations are particularly relevant. I present Duchamp as an early practitioner of what is termed “post-medium” art practice, meaning art activities that creatively investigate cultural conditions rather than being particular to medium proficiency and development (painting, drawing, and sculpture). While students are already familiar with classical artistic forms, they have little knowledge of these increasingly popular research based art practices. Along with presenting many contemporary artists and designers with sympathetic methodologies (Renee Green, Fred Wilson, Mark Dion, Andrea Zittel, Ellen Lupton, Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio, etc.) I will use my own process and product to educate my students and engage my peers.

  5. I have an ongoing correspondence with David Wilson, Museum of Jurassic Technology director. In turn, the MJT is “in cordial cooperation” with the Freud Dream Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, through which I will seek further introductions and advice. I also have the agreed participation of an experienced videographer, Karl Schiffman.

  6. Continuing engagement and interaction with people in the field will be my measure. I have already had the honor of positive responses to my written and artistic projects concerning the relatedness of Duchamp works and subjects at the MJT by the respected art historians and theorists, Amelia Jones, Christine Wertheim and Linda Nochlin. Including video, a number of visual artworks concerning the same were the subject of a gallery show at Track 16 Gallery in 2005 (www.track16.com/exhibitions/161yr_exposure/index.html).

  7. I will screen my video for my students and colleagues. In addition to an expected video installation hosted by my former patron Track 16, I will approach gallery and museum venues. Lastly, I will propose that my video be a supplement to the two films regularly screened at the Museum of Jurassic Technology, both of which have Russian history as subject matter.

  8. I received a Bachelor of Environmental Design degree from NCSU in 1989 and a Master of Architecture from Southern California Institute of Architecture in 1993.

I have been teaching at AiCA, L.A. since 2000, full-time from 2002 to present. Prior to that, I taught at various area schools: SCI-Arc, UCLA, Cal-Arts, and Otis College (where I was Interim Chair of Environmental Arts, 1999-2000).

Selected exhibitions: “A Perverted Survey of Twentieth Century Architectural Cladding,” SCI-Arc; “Lecture/Tour,” L.A. Forum for Architecture and Urban Design with MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House; “Careless Exhibition of Twentieth Century Product Design/Poetic Installation of Works by Constantin Brancusi, Ann Hamilton, Bertrand Lavier, Sherrie Levine and Haim Steinbach,” Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions; “One-Hundred Sixty-One Year Exposure/One Hundred Twenty-fifth of a Second Exhibition,” Track 16 Gallery.

See my website (shared with Nicholas Lowie and P. Lyn Middleton) for a more complete listing and documentation of my work under “Portfolio,” “Artistic Practice” at www.5leggedmuttt.com