[Fred Wilson: Beauty & Ugliness]

Beauty...

Beauty, beauty, beauty...

I'm really interested in beauty.

[Venice Biennale, 2003]

I'm interested in beauty

if you think of beauty as

"an ultimate visual experience."

But I'm also interested in beauty

in that it can hide meaning.

The world is complex,

and often we try to

separate out all of these experiences.

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

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

"...there is no meaning."

Or, "the meaning is not important."

People have to deal with the fact that

there is meaning in beauty--

there is meaning in ugliness.

[The Studio Museum in Harlem, 2004]

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

I try to bring out that tension.

The whipping post and chairs is a perfect example

because chairs are really beautiful;

that whipping post is certainly not.

Whipping post and chairs were from the first exhibition I did

with museum collections.

It was at the Maryland Historical Society in 1992.

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

There's no manipulation of the objects

other than their positioning.

And that changes the meaning,

or the relationship,

or how you think about them.

And this is everything that I'm about

when I'm working with museums

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

Looking at high-end decorative arts in the chairs

and the whipping post,

they have a very different history,

but it relates very directly in that

those people who sat in the chairs

had some relationship with

those who were on the whipping post.

Not acknowledging that things are complex--

that beauty is complex--

I think that that's the problem,

that people want to do that.

So, I enjoy making it complex for people,

[LAUGHS]

because that's my world, you know.

[LAUGHS]