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[Fred Wilson: Beauty & Ugliness]

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Beauty...

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Beauty, beauty, beauty...

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I'm really interested in beauty.

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[Venice Biennale, 2003]

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I'm interested in beauty

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if you think of beauty as

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"an ultimate visual experience."

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But I'm also interested in beauty

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in that it can hide meaning.

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The world is complex,

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and often we try to

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separate out all of these experiences.

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"This is beautiful." "This is ugly."

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"This is a beautiful experience--that's all it is..."

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"...there is no meaning."

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Or, "the meaning is not important."

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People have to deal with the fact that

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there is meaning in beauty--

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there is meaning in ugliness.

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[The Studio Museum in Harlem, 2004]

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And so, in a lot of my work--if I can--

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I try to bring out that tension.

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The whipping post and chairs is a perfect example

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because chairs are really beautiful;

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that whipping post is certainly not.

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Whipping post and chairs were from the first exhibition I did

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with museum collections.

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It was at the Maryland Historical Society in 1992.

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It's a very traditional display in a certain way.

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There's no manipulation of the objects

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other than their positioning.

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And that changes the meaning,

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or the relationship,

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or how you think about them.

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And this is everything that I'm about

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when I'm working with museums

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and quite often when I'm working in my studio.

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Looking at high-end decorative arts in the chairs

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and the whipping post,

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they have a very different history,

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but it relates very directly in that

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those people who sat in the chairs

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had some relationship with

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those who were on the whipping post.

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Not acknowledging that things are complex--

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that beauty is complex--

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I think that that's the problem,

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that people want to do that.

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So, I enjoy making it complex for people,

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[LAUGHS]

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because that's my world, you know.

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[LAUGHS]