Running Fence & Wasteland
The first of the films I watched was Wasteland. Wasteland is a film about the artist Vik Muniz and the art project he conducted in a landfill outside of Rio de Janeiro. Muniz picks six garbage pickers (people who dig through trash at the landfill to find various recyclable materials) and takes portraits which he then hires this people to work for him for a number of weeks to create portraits like the one seen above. The proceeds from this project were then given back to the community. I think this film is really wonderful. I think it's extremely difficult to affect real social change with art, and Muniz was extremely successful. I think at first i was very apprehensive. Its hard not to worry when you see a woman on your screen who is crying at the prospect of going back to her regular life. I began to wonder if Muniz was doing more harm then good. Later in the film its addressed and i really think Muniz took a good approach He equated it to a vacation, no he can not keep them in this situation forever, but he can give them the opportunity do something that otherwise they would never get the chance to do.
The part that I found the most amusing, or perhaps the most horrifying. I when Muniz invites one of the pickers to come with him to an art auction in London. Seeing the massive disparity between people, the bottom one percent interacting with the top one percent. It really seems horrifying. Here this man is living in horrible conditions and he is laying witness to a giant paining of polka dots being sold for a million dollars. Especially when earlier in the film six thousand dollars is stolen and it is enough to make the man question whether life is even worth living. I think all of the readings in this semester where driving at this. This ridiculous nature of the art world, and as an art student it's hard to swallow. We want to believe in this naive world where we can just make art for a living and not even really consider the implications of it. I think it will likely take me a very long time to divide how I'm going to take that.
Running Fence was another eye opening documentary. Chronicling the construction and controversy around Cristo's running fence. In this seminar class we've talked a lot about alternative ways to think about art. I think a large portion of discussion was on the topic of Cristo proclaiming in the city hall meeting that "this is the art, this right now is the art" so that the controversy and the organization and the bringing together all these people was in fact the art. I think I'm probably the person in the class that is most hesitant about calling social practices art, but I am thinking about it. I know I'm too attached to this fine art ideal... to attached to the art object, and feeling a sense of technique and skill attached to that object. I think this film has a lot to do with my now changing perceptions on "What is art?" Running Fence is unmistakably beautiful, and though perhaps not the technique of a draftsman the craftsmanship and technique are also clear. i guess the reason Running Fence and Wasteland become different from other social practice as art projects. Is that there is a fine art sensibility also being applied. Both projects, in the end, created beautiful works of art through social practice. As someone at my level this seems like an impossible task, but i would love for my career to grow to such a point that this would be possible for me to do.
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