A visitor to Ceci Mengyin Wang's art exhibit participates as Audience as Art
During a televised interview with the British journalist
David Frost in 1968, John Lennon told the story about how he first met
his second wife, Yoko Ono. Lennon was visiting the Indica gallery, an
art gallery run by John Dunbar, the husband of singer Marianne
Faithfull, which was showing Ono's avant-garde exhibit Unfinished Paintings and Objects
in 1966, and he fell under the spell of the artist after viewing one of
her pieces. In the Frost interview, Lennon explains that, at the time,
he was a bit of a snob about art galleries because of his art school
background, and he was ready to be unimpressed by Ono's work. He
mentioned an apple on a stand that was marked 200 quid, and he thought
to himself that he got the joke, didn't need to really grasp avant-garde
to get that, and moved on through the exhibit. It was when he climbed a
ladder to lift a black cloth and peer at the tiny letters written
underneath through a magnifying glass that his heart was captured. The
word yes was written underneath, and Lennon said that was what
did it for him; "it could have been "no", or "f&%k you" or
something, but it was so positive, and I was very impressed." The rest
is part of the folklore of the Beatles history, but what is significant
is that Lennon met his match in Ono, an artist with an intellect and
creative drive to match his own. Not to draw too close a parallel to
Ono, but at the moment there is an artist presenting a show in midtown
this month that is sort of the spiritual offspring of that long ago
event in London.
Linda Covello www.lindacovellophotography.com
Ceci Mengyin Wang is a recent graduate from Pratt Institute whose current show, The Store,
is on view for the rest of April at a pop-up location on the corner of
Lexington Avenue and 47th Street, that is attracting a huge number of
visitors who are participating in her "Art as Audience" interactive art
show. Wang's show opened on April 4th, with the first part of a six
piece event entitled Happy Boxes, in which visitors were asked
to place their hands into the opening of boxes situated in the gallery
without knowing what exactly their touch would encounter. Wang records
the reactions of her audience on video camera, which is then projected
on a screen placed in the window of the gallery for passers-by on the
street. The second part, Hug Me or Punch Me, featured a life
sized teddy bear sitting on a chair in the middle of the gallery that
visitors were encouraged to interact with accordingly. Wang has posted
snippets of those interactions on her Instagram account
and the results are nothing less than hilarious, enlightening, shocking
and touching. Children, men, and women of every age have participated,
and the videos are encapsulations of self revelation that may or may not
be intentional.
The current piece, Kick Babies, verges on
controversy, inviting visitors into the space to relate to a group of
infant-like dolls arranged on the floor of the gallery near the command
to kick them in blue letters. At first glance, this may seem heartless
and cruel, but a different perspective reveals the deeper motivation of
the artist. In an interview conducted next door at the Roger Smith Hotel,
which runs the event space housing Wang's exhibit, the artist discussed
what she sees as the importance of understanding how human beings are
being conditioned for violence by our culture. "All around us we are
bombarded with images of terrorism, and the command to kill others, and
my work is a statement about the relationship between violence and
cognition. A lot of people have come into the gallery to kick the
babies, and I don't find this surprising at all" Wang states. She goes
on to say "When you participate you become the art, and for me that is
unique as the roles are reversed, and now I am the observer." Wang
relates the ratio of men to women who kick the dolls, and says that the
men far outweigh the women, but women do participate as well. "The show
is in midtown and many of the people who come in are relieving stress
from work." She says that the weekends draw a different response as many
of the visitors are tourists and the vibe in the city is slightly more
relaxed.
In a horrifying twist of life imitating art, Wang has been following the case of the brutal daytime murder
of a four year old toddler in Taiwan on March 28th in a random street
attack. The child was beheaded by a stranger with a history of mental
illness as she rode her tricycle with her mother on a busy street. The
mother attempted to pull the man off her daughter but was unable to do
so as the man wielded a heavy cleaver. A mob stormed the police station
after the suspect was apprehended and taken into custody. Commenting on
the case, Wang says "We have to admit and face the weakness and foibles
in our human nature instead of escaping from them". Wang says it is only
by facing our shortcomings that we will come to understand them, and
thereby know ourselves, and be able to change and grow. The Kick Babies idea
came about because Wang has a deep love of children, and has been
following news reports of the abuse and deaths of children for a while
from all over the world.
Wang's upcoming installations for the remainder of the show are Future Pharmacy and Label Store, culminating on the last day with Free Gift Box, where visitors will be given a box with unknown content. For Label Store,
visitors can purchase designer labels for one and two dollars; a
comment on our societal obsession with high end goods and the need to
establish self worth through association with status symbols. It is
worth keeping in mind that the artist Jean Michel Basquiat, whose 1982
work, Untitled, is set to auction at Christies for over $40
million, once gave out postcards to friends of his early sketches, and
those pieces have fetched top fees when sold to collectors. For those
unable to stop by the pop up gallery where Wang's show is on until the
30th, and want an idea about how people interact with her work, check
out her Instagram feed here: https://www.instagram.com/ceci_mengyin_wang/.
The space where Wang is holding her current exhibition is
the brainchild of John Knowles, Melissa Gonzalez, and Aleks Degtyarev
and is known as THE MARKET at RS Hotel.
Founded in 2009, THE MARKET at the Roger Smith Hotel is a pop-up retail
and branding program based out of the Roger Smith, providing
opportunities of space, marketing and networking. THE MARKET currently
consists of 5 street-level spaces designed as revolving pop-ups,
creating opportunities to brand and operate business in the space, and
have a presence in midtown Manhattan. The 5 spaces can hold events as
well as retail pop-ups featuring fashion, jewelry and other designers,
as well as performance space. In 2007, under a different name, The LAB,
the hotel attracted a controversy when the planned display of the artist
Cosimo Cavallaro's Chocolate Jesus,
a life-sized figure depicting a crucified figure made of milk chocolate
during the Catholic Holy Week, was decried by Catholics and Cardinal
Edward Egan. The hotel's owner responded to the angry outcry by
canceling the show, and the curator at the time, Matt Semler, resigned
in protest. The Roger Smith Hotel is a unique family-run boutique hotel
that stands out from the other hotels on Lexington Avenue for its
sculptures and artwork on the facade and at the entrance. The work is
created by the hotel's president, James Knowles. The effect is similar
to that of a Gaudi building in Barcelona, Spain. A rooftop bar named for the hotel's resident pooch, Henry, Bar Henry,
offers an oasis of calm amidst the towering skyscrapers and art deco
architecture of the Chrysler Building and the General Electric Building.
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