one quote

“I mean, they say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.”

― Banksy

I think this theory can be true for works, art works as well. When a work dies? If dies, mean is alive so when a work is alive? What makes IT alive? I don’t know, I only think, I only have an opinion.

When the artist starts working on something even if its an idea and yet nothing material, if its quiet enough you can hear some heart beats, some extra heart beats- those belong to the idea is forming. As a fetus, the work has to be out in the world and only then when viewed and looked at for the first time IT’s life truly begins.   

Ok, so we have the work like a baby, crawling around making funny noises and pulling funny reactions from people around but at one point is getting old, it starts getting wrinkly because of the time pressing down on it.

Death for it is when the last person sees it, not necessary at the end of exhibition when the lights are shut and the door closed but when the last person, the last living person remembers it and thinks about it even for less then a second.  

What about not living persons? Just joking that’s another story.

So what is more sad than a dark room behind a museum with works and pieces pulled out from exhibitions, from the centre of attention like a crypt in a cemetery at the edge of a city. A dark room with works and ideas that never got to somebody to see, never got to the light-condemned to die before breathing. So put your work out there, don’t be a murderer.     

 

   “My Hamster Consumes Art” is my first contact with photography as a final piece. My previous experience with photography  was only with the purpose of recording and documenting my sculptures. Being so out of my comfort zone I had doubts about every decision I have done and I even got to a point when I wanted to abandon the project. The idea started about 3 o’clock in the morning as I was reading something for the Cultural and Supporting Studies essay. Seating next to the hamster’s cage he woke up and starts running around. I gave him a drawing that I had around and he started to chew the paper.

       That was the moment when the name of the work appeared into my head- my hamster consumes art. In this context “art” refers to a drawing. I wanted to refer to art in general or to more than one practice so as I was sitting next to the kitchen I thought about a carved carrot in shape of the word “art”. The hamster was not only eating the carved carrot that can be considered a form of art itself but the “art” as a word, as a comune understood language.

    The next step was the outcome of consumption. If we refer to consumption as a synonym for the word “eating”,the outcome could be the feces. I started to think about a second work that could complete the photographs- a shelf with hamster feces. The name of the second work comes from a more metaphoric approach of the word “consumption”.  If the hamster consumes art, mentally, the outcome could be “knowledge”. The second work is called “is that knowledge?”.

Using an interrogative title, I think the work connects more direct with the viewer, asking him something, automaticly waiting for an answer. Using a different media than photography give my a bit more confidence to carry on with this project even though it was still something new for me- working conceptual. Considering health and safety issues, instead of using actual feces I used hamster food which looks like “the real deal”. I was preferring to use real hamster feces but I was relying on the human mind and “easy association”- seeing pictures with hamsters next to  few brown droplets on a narrow white shelf would automatically give the idea of feces.

  The fact that I needed the work done for the corridor exhibition which meant a close deadline made me not to think too much and I just got on with it.