Constructed Situation or Conceptual Bullshit?

My first visit to the Guggenheim Museum occurred two Sunday’s ago. I stepped into the rotunda. I looked around, consulted the map in my hand, and started up the ramp. A child of 10 approached me to ask questions about an exhibit. Pre-visit survey, I thought? Wanting to support what struck me as the world’s youngest data collector I obliged.

“Where is the exhibit?”, I asked.
“I am the exhibit.”, said he.

He asked me what I thought of the word “progress.” As we talked we walked up the ramp. A second person took over. Ah, I thought, now I will get a debrief and be on my way.

No.

This next person took over and we talked more, going higher up the ramp. This wasn’t data collection. This was some sort of program I was involved in. Half way up a third person took me up and my former conversation partner disappeared. And a quarter way from the top a fourth person picked up the conversation. The transitions from one conversation to the next were not smooth. I went from talking about value in museums with person #2 to memory with person #3 to environmentalism with person #4. By person #3 I was weary of this activity but thought to go forward, thinking this person must be the last. I ask visitors all the time to participate in activities, it seemed hypocritical to break my own participation. But by person #4 I had had quite enough. I stopped person #4 and with some annoyance I asked “When will this activity be over so I can go back to my museum experience?” She pointed out the top of the ramp not 50 feet away. During the course of all these conversations I had wound my way to the top of the ramp but all the way I had thought, “This is not how I had planned to wind my way up the ramp...I wanted to stop and look down into the rotunda.” When we reached the top person #4 shook my hand, said thank you, and disappeared.

I waited.

There was no debrief, no project description, no additional people, absolutely nothing and noone to explain to me what exactly I had just participated in. What was that?

That was a constructed situation by artist Tino Sehgal. Sehgal “...seeks to produce meaning and value through a transformation of actions rather than solid materials...A visitor is no longer a passive spectator, but one who bears a responsibility in shaping and even contributing to the actual realization of the piece...it underscores an individual’s own agency in the museum environment.”

As I stood slightly fuming -- where were the labels, the debrief, the something so I can make sense of what I just participated in -- my husband, not without some glee, asked: “Did you hear yourself ask ‘When will this be done so I can go back to my museum experience?” Slowly my husband pointed out to me that the constructed situation was my museum experience. It had not fit in with my image of my visit to the Guggenheim and by asking the question I had not-so-subtly declared the activity as a periphery experience.

And he was absolutely correct. The constructed situation was as much a part of my museum experience as if I had just walked up the ramp. And unlike any other artwork that I would see in the museum that day, my participation in Sehgal's piece was absolutely necessary for the work to actually exist.

This was a truly participatory experience in a museum. It was odd. It was confusing. It was exhilarating.



Last note: The title of this entry was a comment I overheard between two women at the top of the ramp. They had just participated in a constructed situation.

The Blogging Experiment Begins Again

My last experiment with blogging lasted approximately 3 posts. This time I am aiming for 4.