Looking at new ideas and artists that emerged when writing my essay:

- My essay brought to life a new art notion, "Mundane Explosion,"

Intro:

“Mundane Explosion,” is an art notion that emerged in the art world towards the end of post-minimalism. This notion describes a movement in which artists such as Tom Friedman, Martin Creed, and Brandon Cramm pushed the boundaries of the value and importance of ‘everyday objects,’ using small transformations and a sense of humour. They have taken objects from the everyday, simply modified them, or given them background stories, and placed them in ‘a gallery.’ This has encouraged the viewer to firstly admire their simplicity, then reassess each object and question their significance, and authority as ‘art.’

 - after writing this essay my interest in pushing the baoundaries between 'object' and 'art' has increased, and aim to direct my studio practice more towards getting these ideas across to the viewer....I am still interested in taking objects from the everyday but am now going to focus more on my own small, personal, intuitive manipluations of these everyday objects and elements.

 -  I will continue to play with the idea of simple manipulation or totally transforming these objects to consume their origional purpose in the everyday... 

Artists:

Tom Friedman:

Hainley, Bruce, Dennis Cooper, Adrian Searle. Tom Friedman. New York: Phaidon Press Limited, 2001.1  

Friedman is a sculptor, who works with ordinary objects and materials from the everyday, to create specifically designed works that are often seen as comical or make ‘magic out of the ordinary.’Friedman is concerned with paying special attention to small transformations of these everyday objects that bring into being an unexpected beauty. One example of Friedman’s creations is a sculpture titled, “Untitled,” plastic cups 1993, made from a continuous ring of plastic cups, one inside the other. “Anyone can make a ring of plastic cups – the point, however, is that Tom Friedman made this ring of white plastic cups, and did it with as few cups as possible, and placed the ring on the floor, drawing our attention to it. The factor of the least number of cups is significant: it signals both concision and eschewal of embellishment. It lends the work brevity and authority. It is almost a statement of face, about the nature of these impure forms, and of the possibility of their configuration into a form which has a kind of geometric purity.”⁹ Friedman invites the viewer to firstly admire the simple beauty and precise form of the ring. The viewer is then reminded after a closer look at his choice of material, the ‘plastic cup.’ If it wasn’t for Friedman’s carful play and manipulation of this everyday object, it would barely impose on our daily consciousness.

 

Friedman has made another two works that at first appear even simpler than the perfect ring of plastic cups. These include“1,000 hours of Staring,” (1992-97), ‘a piece of paper the artist stared at for one thousand hours,’ and “Untitled,” (1990), ‘a partially used bar of soap inlaid with a spiral of the artists pubic hair.’  It is only when the viewer reads Friedman’s titles, or takes a closer look at the detail of the soap that ideas of intensity in time and labour, humour, and also pure amazement and disgust from the viewer are surfaced. The artist’s personal baggage placed on each art work becomes apparent to the viewer through his obsessive attention to detail, and time spent with these everyday objects. Their validity as artworks has sky rocketed far beyond the ordinary. The critical theorist, Theodor W Adorno stated that “if the use value of things dies,” these alienated and hollowed-out objects can come to be charged with new subjectivity. While the things become  “images” of subjective intentions, this does not erase their thingness: dialectical images remain montages, constellations of alienated things and meaning.”¹⁰ ‘Mundane Explosionists,’ such as Friedman have been able to consume these everyday objects pushing them far beyond their original status, giving them new meaning and raising their significance.
 - "if the use value of things dies," - taking objects away from the everyday where they are no longer used for their origional purpose but can now take on the new meaning and purpose that I as the artist can give them.  

 Sven Lütticken, Sven. “Art and Thingness, Part I: Breton’s Ball and Duchamp’s Carrot.”e-flux, no.13 (2010): Accessed 28 June, 2013.
http://www.e-flux.com/journal/art-and-thingness-part-one-breton%E2%80%99s-ball-and-duchamp%E2%80%99s-carrot/

Tom Friedman, “Untitled,” 1993, Plastic cups

             Tom Friedman, “Untitled,” 1990, A partially used bar of soap inlaid with a spiral of pubic hair'

Tom Friedman, “1,000 hours of Staring,” 1992-97, ‘a piece of paper the artist stared at for one thousand hours’

Martin Creed:   Thorne, Kika. “Nothing and Something in the Work of Martin Creed.” C Magazine 73 (2002): 38-40. Accessed May 26, 2013. http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/docview/215547641?accountid=8440

Martin Creed is another central artist to take part in the art notion “Mundane Explosion.” Creed likes to keep his works simple and humorous, “‘using the simplest possible means’ to make us laugh, he transforms the object and conditions around us into zones of contemplation, so he can bypass the interpretation of the museum staff to speak directly to the average citizen-someone who uses paper, moves through doorways, turns the lights on and off.”¹² Creed chooses simple materials and deals with ideas of ‘nothing in particular,’ experimenting with objects in a way that prevents him from choosing without making decisions. Some examples of his works include, “ Work no 88” (1994), ‘a sheet of A4 paper crumpled into a ball,’ “Work no. 79” (1993) ‘Some Blue-tak kneaded, rolled into a ball and n depressed against a wall,’ and “Work no. 227” (date) ‘the lights going on and off.’ With a simple, light hearted, humorous touch Creed brings the attention of the audience to the simplest of everyday occurrences. “His precedents include more than the history of

 nothing: there is a whole other trajectory that meets the nothing in his practice. Perhaps we can call it the history of something: the understated and the ordinary, things that were over-heard and changed us, cheap familiar materials played with to implode meaning and context.”¹³ When placed in a gallery Creed’s crumpled piece of paper and his personally pressed Blu-tak suddenly leap out of the everyday with the potential to ask the viewer questions of their importance and value as an ‘art work’. What might this simply crumpled piece of paper, or instantly squashed blu-tak mean to the artist, or the viewer? ‘Mundane Expressionists,’ like Creed have focused on opening up the willingness of the viewer to acknowledge this power given to ordinary objects by the artist, that allows them to reference ideas beyond their everyday position. 

 - using my intuition when working with everyday objects that I have selected

Creed is an artist whose humour is apparent when he simply interacts with elements of the everyday to press the boundaries of art, giving objects the authority to be seen as ‘works of art.’ In each of these examples Creed has picked regular, insignificant occurrences such as a light switching on and off repeatedly, or a crumpled piece of paper and a small piece of pressed blu-tak, and brought them to the attention of the viewer, to be further contemplated. “All of them are flukes of a kind: unique, but related in their differences. Banality is an important aspect of Creed’s production.”¹⁴ Creed works with a ‘system of opposites,’ it often seems to the viewer that Creed’s works being so simple ‘the flat that becomes crumpled, the lights that go on and off, are resolved, “Is the happiness his works induce because our culture has an unlimited appetite for balance...”¹⁵ These works of Creed’s are so simple in their beautiful form and function, yet surprisingly unsettling in ways that they challenge the viewer’s perception of the everyday, taking the viewer on a journey of thought, on their own accord.

Martin Creed, ‘Work No. 88 “A Sheet of A4 Paper Crumpled into a Ball,”’1994

 

Martin Creed, “Work No. 79,” 1993, 
‘Some Blu-Tack kneaded, rolled into a ball, and depressed against a wall’

 

      Martin Creed, “Work No.227,”2000, ‘The lights going on and off’

 

Brandon Cramm:

“Brandon Cramm.” The McKnight Foundation and Walker Art Center, 2013: Accessed May 28, 2013
http://mnartists.org/work.do?rid=289643&pageIndex=1 

‘Mundane Explosionist,’ Brandon Cramm is an artist who continues to question the value of everyday objects by presenting mesmerising sculptures, often heavily loaded with personal stories. “Nobody better...” (date), is an art work of Cramm’s with a long existing story behind it. This work consists of a Butterfinger wrapper displayed on a pedestal inside a transparent plastic box. Prior to Cramm presenting this wrapper, Cheyenne Seeley Cramm’s former girlfriend made a work of her own using this exact Butterfinger. Seeley repurchased the same candy bar repeatedly until she spent $300.00 on it, granting this one candy bar a much grander economic value, and titled it “300 Dollars Worth of Candy Bar.” When Cramm decided to make a work with this object it had already gained previous significance through its history with the artist Seeley. Cramm took Seeley’s Butterfinger, ate it and displayed the left over wrapper in a simple yet humorous way. His manipulation of Seeley’s original brought out in the work an additional significance. “Through my appropriation I am re-establishing the economic and social worth of Miss Seeley’s Butterfinger, and extending the myth surrounding the work by instigating a continuation of its narrative. The title; “Nobody Better...” both constitutes the threat inherent in the fragility of the original work and plays into the humorous parallel between my actions and the coined slogan for the Buttefinger candy bar. “Nobody better lay a finger on my Butterfinger. The question of what is just or right becomes secondary to recognition of value.”¹⁶ It was through this work that Cramm wanted to explore and question the positioning of art in the contemporary (modern/current) context, how everyday objects could be granted by an artist the power to tell a story and challenge the viewer’s thoughts via familiar everyday elements.

“Pool” is another work of Cramm’s that presents the viewer with a sculpture of two ordinary plastic cups both sitting on separate plinths, lent against one another and balancing using solely the volume of water in each cup to create a fine water bridge between them. The work speaks to the viewer about balance, delicate beauty, and the power of ordinary objects in the gallery context. The harmony in this work of Cramm’s is similar to the idea of balance and resolution found in Creed’s work, where the viewer seeks to find harmony created by the  beautiful form. “Pool,” has such a delicate and mesmerising presence which holds the power to push the viewer’s thoughts past what their eye can see. Like the other “Mundane Explosionists,” Cramm believes in the power of the artist to bestow ordinary objects with a heightened importance, placing them on a pedestal.

Brandon Cramm, “Nobody Better…” (n.d)

 

                                                                                 Brandon Cramm, “Pool,” (n.d)

 

  - After writing and exploring the art practices of these three artists there are a number of ideas that I am interested in, which can possibly push the development of the use of everyday objects and elements in my works.