Posted by Steve Dietz on February 20, 2004 7:38 PM
If you're not shocked by quantum theory, then you don't understand it. by internet pokerSo why doesn't a brilliant show like Christiane Paul'sCODeDOC with work by Camille Utterback, Martin Wattenberg, Golan Levin and 5 other internationally-exhibited artists travel to 11 museum venues over 2 years like the Paper Sculpture show or Do It?
It's not as simple as the fact that CODeDOC is "online" and so doesn't need to travel--or is already traveling, depending upon your point of view. The day I was at Orange County, no one was actually making sculptures, but we were all eagerly collecting the instruction sheets, presumably to give to our kids or try in the safety of anonymity at home. It too was virtually a virtual exhibit.
To be fair, the Paper Sculpture show is printed on thick paper that won't run through the $99 printer at home, and CODeDOC is more of an artists' artists show. Paul kept the assignment intentionally simple to foreground the coding process itself, and the real thrill is reading the artists' commentary on each others' work, even for those of us who aren't coders.
Nevertheless, the issues raised by Paper Sculpture, Do It and CODeDOC are familial, so why does new media art remain the black sheep in (U.S.) museum land?
On a positive note, Orange County Museum of Art is relaunching its South Coast Plaza mall outpost as a "media lounge" in July. Look for a new work by Amy Franceschini / Future Farmers to debut there in the fall.
http://www.ocma.net/index.html
http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/events/papersculpture.php
http://www.sculpture-center.org/
http://www.ici-exhibitions.org/Exhibitions/PaperSculpture/PaperSculpture.htm
http://www.ici-exhibitions.org/Archives/do_it/do_it.htm
http://sonicflux.walkerart.org/ono/ono_index.html
http://artport.whitney.org/commissions/codedoc/
http://www.futurefarmers.com/
