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I’ve been think about the usage of boredom as a theme and it can be weaponised in the space. Either with the space the work touches or the space left empty within the work. Looking at the canvas where the paint doesn’t touch, the video piece with empty space, and the the space left within an installation. And how the space embraces the boredom within the work to create powerful interesting pieces of work.
Robert Irwin work is really good to talk about for this if you take a paining of his like this one called Unreal Nature and then later an installation titled theres nothing to do here and its perfect.
You can see the that there is a lot of unused space within the line painting Irwin has created space deliberately which adds power to the lines if you at the placement of the lines as a gesture these small lines through placement create power that leave the viewer drawn to the painting despite the painting being mostly empty.
And then with the installation something that I can relate to more within my own practice looking at this work you can see the the theme from the painting is in there and how he has weaponised boredom even with in the title “theres nothing to do here and its perfect” reveals that the artist knows that he is playing with the theme of boredom and the work described would sound boring but using space has managed to weaponise boring and make something truly in and genuinely interesting through the artists chosen simple but effect gestures.
Looking with film and video for example taking Warhol’s Empire a 485 minutes of the Empire State building with the camera sorely focused on the building with all this space presented in the foreground creates this feeling and counteracts the boredom with the artist in the work to create a piece of work exciting and hard to look away from. And there is a sense that the boredom becomes optimistic as the viewer is drawn in and becomes one with the space.