[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]
Fred Wilson: Beauty & Ugliness | "Exclusive" | Art21