While visiting the Modern Art Musueum of Barcelona (MACBA) last year, we had the chance to see a rare exhibition of the works of George Brecht - a reclusive American artist from the Fluxus movement of the 1960s, who has since for the last 30 years been based in France, hardly ever publishing or exhibiting his work. He is however, still considered one of the most important artists in the contemporary world. It was a fascinating exhibition, and for me, and important milestone in learning to appreciate modern art.
One aspect of Brecht's word holds special interest for me - the idea of "participation" in art. He believes that art does not exist in isolation from life. In fact, art is nothing and meaningless, without it being evolved at the very same time as life, no matter how mundane that life was. In this he was heavily influenced by musician-composer John Cage, who of course was famous for "participatory" composition in music.
Brecht is famous for his artwork relating to chairs - a mundane, ordinary domestic object. In relation to his first "chair exhibition" in Cologne in 1966, he said: "In Rome I bought a very simple wooden chair and a very beautiful book bound in red leather. I began to note down in the book where I'd bought the chair, how much I'd paid for it and where I'd found the pen I was writing with and the kind of ink I was using and so forth. Then I exhibited the chair and the book and everyone was invited to add to the book whatever was happening while he was sitting on the chair".
And so, completely against the idea of "canonization of art", viewers of the early exhibitions of Brecht were allowed to touch and modify the exhibits. Needless to say, haha...things got stolen or damaged, and galleries stopped allowing people to participate in the art, a fact greatly bemoaned by Brecht and a possible reason why he decided to lead a reclusive life.
Part of the exhibition at MACBA that we attended included three empty chairs placed throughout the musuem. I am sure Brecht would have loved visitors to sit on them and create whatever art in doing so. Travel Buddy tried to sit on them while the musuem guards were not looking. He managed to sit on two of them, I even managed to photograph these two art events on flash memory. But the third yellow one was up in the balcony which was closed off for renovations, so there was no participation of art there.
So I have been thinking quote a lot about the idea of art and life recently again. Sometimes, I wonder if I might live with regret about not being really able to pursue the creation of art in some form. But maybe what is more important is to make sure one actually lives life.
