(H/B) VITA BREVIS

Παρουσίαση

Returning from New York one summer evening in 1998, heading toward downtown Boston in a taxi from Logan Airport, my attention was caught by the brilliance of the Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown, a familiar site, but this night transformed by light. The bluish illumination, I realized, was created by an enormous video projection of a female figure who appeared apparition-like at the top of the tower. She was speaking to me, or rather to anyone who happened to be looking at her, not performing as much as trying to convey something: a message or lecture, perhaps. Or was it some kind of live event? Clearly she was not a media personality or an actress in an advertisement: her appearance, gestures, and clothing were too mundane for that. Nor did she seem to have any religious or historical significance: there was nothing symbolic about her matronly, everyday look. So what justified her exalted position atop one of Greater Boston's most prominent landmarks? The view was soon eclipsed, leaving my curiosity unsatisfied. This turned out to be just one of a series of unexplained encounters in the city of Boston that summer.
Reluctantly revisiting the sites of the Freedom Trail with vacationing relatives a few days later, I was surprised to find evidence of incursions into these otherwise perhaps too-perfectly preserved historic sites. At the Old North Church, for example, a tree had been decorated with wind chimes. So many, in fact, that clearly this was not the casual work of a lone neighbor or passerby, but the effort of someone intending to draw attention, aurally, to this historic spot. The constant tinkling of the chimes was reminiscent of many cultures' use of bells or peals to mark significant stages of a ceremony, but the relentless ringing suggested some kind of gentle alarm or insistence on the presence of the location. The Old South Meeting House was similarly altered. A gilded train track ran through its austere interior, a literal translation, it seemed, of the Underground Railroad that enabled passage of so many slaves into freedom. Both projects, stumbled across unexpectedly, were more understandable than my far-off view of the Bunker Hill video, but I had the impression that some mysterious force at work in the city was determined to reanimate these over-determined sites.
Weeks later, reading an art review, I discovered that these were artworks organized as part of a series of projects under the auspices of Vita Brevis. The Bunker Hill project was by Krzysztof Wodiczko, a well-known public artist with an activist bent, who for this work had discussed with residents of Charlestown the numerous homicides in the area that had gone unresolved due to the silence of witnesses and potential informers. The figure I had seen was most likely the mother of one of the victims, her speech a declaration or plea for communication. Despite some disappointment about not having been able to hear her voice, this discovery made me think about the nature of public artworks. I considered the peculiarity of their unannounced, unexpected discovery and the manner in which our half understandings can lead to many possible interpretations. half understandings can lead to many possible interpretations. Rather than taking away from the intended meaning, these in fact begin to fulfill the communal ownership and collective interpretation that such public works seek to achieve. The mistake of the traditional monument, it seems, is always to assume a permanence and singularity of significance when the real potential of the public site is its changeability and flux. [...] (From the publisher)

Περιεχόμενα

Introduction by Jessica Morgan
Contours and Context: Five Years of Vita Brevis by Jill Medvedow
Vita Brevis in Tempore Contrario by Paul Tucker
Park Setting Time by John Stilgoe
Interviews with artists by Carole Anne Meehan
-Let Freedom Ring
The Inaugural ICA/Vita Brevis Project September 1998
Jim Hodges, Here We Are
Mildred Howard, S.S.
Barbara Steinman, Colonnade
Krzysztof Wodiczko, Bunker Hill Monument Projection
-Shimon Attie: An Unusually Bad Lot
The 2nd Annual ICA/Vita Brevis Project December 1999
-Art on the Emerald Necklace
The 3rd Annual ICA/Vita Brevis Project Summer 2000
James Boorstein, Emanations
Ann Carlson, Any Day Now
Ellen Driscoll, Meanderlink
Barnaby Evans, Moving Water
Sheila Kennedy, Frano Violich, Common Pleasures: Parkway
Cornelia Parker, At the Bottom of This Lake
Nari Ward, Beautiful Necessity: Hugging Post
-Olafur Eliasson: The young land
The 4th Annual ICA/Vita Brevis Project Summer 2001
-Ann Carlson and Mary Ellen Strom: Remedy
The 5th Annual ICA/Vita Brevis Project May 2005
Artists' Biographies by Emily Moore
Acknowledgements
ICA Trustees and Staff