Lists @ Archives of American Art
Oscar Bluemner, notes for a painting of Little Falls, New Jersey, 1917. Oscar Bluemner papers, 1886-1939, 1960. Archives of American Art. Smithsonian Institution.
Archives specialist Mary Savig muses that the show "makes the ordinary extraordinary," and this is in no small part due to the artistic temperament. The show's rewards are not only historical, but aesthetic as well. Picasso's hand-written recommendations for the 1913 Armory Show may lie firmly in the former camp, but Adolf Konrad's packing list ca.1962-1963 is a wonderful graphic illustration, specific down to each matching sock, and there's something hypnotic in the repetitive type of Grant "American Gothic" Wood's otherwise sobering list of economic depressions. One list comes from Joseph Cornell, famed constructor of shadow-box dreamscapes, and subject of a Smithsonian Museum of American Art retrospective that was the must-see show of 2006. The document itemizes purchases Cornell made at a New York antiques show in 1957, and you wonder if "min. toy wagon, horse & driver, German ca. 1900" made it into any of his works. The abbreviated venue name at the top lends a sad note for aficionados of New York history: "Mad. Sq. Garden" refers to the third of four venues that went by that name, before the current one was built atop the site of the majestic old Pennsylvania Station.
Grant Wood, list of economic depressions, November 1931. Grant Wood papers, 1930-83. Archives of American Art. Smithsonian Institution.
04:51 pm light blue. This was my entrance to the gallery as documented in Ding Ren’s Observations with a Typewriter. Ren was just named a finalist for this year’s Trawick Prize, and appeared in the Fleishman Gallery last week, taking inventory of museum goers’ shirt colors on a typewriter and a scrolling stack of computer print-out paper. The artist has worked with lists before in pieces like Found Shopping List Alignment, so the Archives of American Art was happy to join forces with her. Ren was kind enough to answer a few questions about her work.
How long was your finished list?
I am actually not sure, but it became pretty lengthy, it stretched to the far end of the wall and piled up against each other. After finishing the performance, I stacked up the paper and put it back in a box, I think the paper stack was about an inch thick when stacked. I like the idea that my art can be "portable," in that I arrived with a typewriter and a stack of paper and left with a typewriter and a stack of paper.
What kind of typewriter do you use?
The typewriter I use I got for $3 at a thrift store in Richmond over 7 years ago. It is a Clipper, Smith-Corona. This is just what it says on the typewriter, I actually have no idea what kind of typewriter it is. At the time, I just was on the look-out for a typewriter because I was re-reading JD Salinger and the characters in his books are always writing letters to each other or his stories were based off of letters. So I was over-romanticizing, I think, and wanted to write "old-fashioned" letters again. I never knew I'd be using the typewriter one day as a primary "art medium," it is nice that it happened that way, that it was unplanned.
Are there any lists on display that you feel particularly drawn to?
I love the Mel Bochner list of numbers that he wrote at the end of a little note to Ellen H. Johnson. I also love the Franz Kline grocery list from 1962. The grocery list has corn flakes, cokes (note the plural), and V-8 juice listed amongst other things. This is very amusing to me, to see another person's grocery list, since what you eat is such a personal thing that can define you. Especially nowadays, with the whole organic local phenomenon. I also liked seeing the Art Workers Coalition's "13 Demands," since all of my favorite artworks were created during this time period in the late 60s/early 70s.
I'd also like to add that I am drawn to using the typewriter because of how slow it is. I like this idea of slowing down, taking a step back, and appreciating the smaller, simpler things. To me, using a typewriter allows for that because you really have to concentrate to type the right thing, and the keys are heavier, so your fingers get more of a workout too. This goes along with my general art practice and how I am in constant search of simplicity. I like things to be simple, paired-down, and slowed down, so that one can start to appreciate the little in-between details of everyday life more.
Ding Ren will perform "Observations with a Typewriter" in the first floor of the Lawrence A. Fleischman Gallery on August 20 from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.