De-constructing basic art questions

By Rebecca Mayer

The Forest Grove News-Times, Aug 17, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009

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Sixteen long, thin tubes pepper across the Walters Center lawn. Their random placement is whimsical and modern yet nostalgic.

The metal flap lids on each tube titter and tatter in the breeze. If one listens carefully, they can hear, crooning softly underneath the patter – music from three weddings held in the former sanctuary turned arts theater in Hillsboro.

The piece, titled Many Prickly Pairs: Nuptial Soundings, is an adaptation of a piece that Beaverton resident Dan Senn created in the Czech Republic, where he lives and works a few months every year.

The sound installation has grown in scope from its original four-column invention crafted in Senn’s apartment in Prague.

“It’s adapted now to play outside. I also added circular cages as a means of keeping it upright, but also because I like the look of it sculpturally.”

It seemed only prudent then, to also screen his documentary, which was filmed at an art festival in Prague, the city which housed the original installation. The Walters Center will show the film and then follow it with a discussion and lecture by Senn next Tuesday evening.

The film “A House on Jungmannova” was made spontaneously at the 4+4+4 Days in Motion art festival held in an abandoned, dilapidated building in the center of old Prague.

“I was contracted to be a part of this festival in Prague, and I was concerned about the security in that building. I knew I had to stay close to the exhibit to make sure it wasn’t tipped over,” he explained. “I decided as long as I was going to be there for 10 days, I was going to do what interests me.”

So, Senn made a documentary film, following the other artists – mostly in their 20s – and interviewing them about their work in the building.

The building was most recently a dental clinic. But it was originally owned by members of the Jewish community prior to World War II and is even speculated to hold a connection to Franz Kafka, the famous Czech writer whose work is known to exemplify a mix of absurdism and surrealism.

The adjective derived from the writer seems an apt description of the building. Its deterioration holds a natural, perhaps Kafkaesque complexity just waiting to be interpreted.

The piece speaks about the various ways in which the artists chose to do just that. Some artists subtly alter a room so that viewers can’t distinguish between the art and the reality of the space. Others exaggerate particular features pre-existing in the space; others brought in old medical equipment putting the space back into its past context of a dental clinic.

Ultimately the film is a study in the basic question of what art includes and explores the idea of using alternative spaces over the traditional “white box gallery.”

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