Repurposed art

We muse on something outside of our area of expertise.

Last week we described an unusual feature of an Alexandrian sidewalk: a millstone.  We’re still not sure why it’s there.  One possibility is that it’s a form of public art.  There are several art galleries in town, as well as the wonderful Torpedo Factory, so the city is a haunt of artists.  It could certainly be intended as an art installation.

What could it be trying to communicate?  That the millers who supply our daily bread are trodden underfoot?  That old technology is fit only for walking on?  That unseen workers support our coming and going?  Or it might it be a Sun-metaphor, with rays emanating from the center?  We’re inclined to believe that good art admits of multiple interpretations, depending on the audience, so possibly it’s all of these.  (Though a piece of art that can mean anything, we think, means nothing.  You’re free to discuss the matter.)

Making things that originally had another purpose into art is common.  We’re seen many artists turning nuts and bolts and similar objects into sculptures, something with great skill and imagination.  More recently one or more has added old vacuum tubes, which make reasonable pseudo-heads.  That prompts us to ask: if a main object of the sculpture is to present recognizable objects in a different way, does it still work if the observer doesn’t recognize the object?  Few people nowadays have personally worked with vacuum tubes, and many have never seen them.

One artist we know well turns used fabric into hats, scarves, gloves and other useful items.  One part of the attraction, for her, is that material that would otherwise be thrown away is put to good use.  Certainly much clothing is discarded long before it’s worn out, simply because fashions change quickly.  The “art” part comes in because the new item is entirely different from the old, sometimes combining fabric from many sources.  In that respect it’s different from what used to happen with bluejeans.  In the old days, those were the common informal clothing item for kids (and kids were overwhelmingly informal).  They would wear out first at the knees, and when that hole became too big to be acceptable they’d be cut off to form a pair of shorts.  (Nowadays, as we’ve noted, holes are deliberately worked into jeans as a fashion feature.)  Repurposing trousers into cutoffs doesn’t really count as art.

Returning to the idea of multiple interpretations of art, suppose a piece incorporates an item that is professionally familiar to a viewer.  Say the vacuum-tube sculpture is viewed by a (vintage) electrical engineer.  It would be hard to avoid thoughts like, “No, you don’t hook up a 12AV6 like that, it’ll draw too much current and distort the output.”  Repurposed art carries this danger, that a portion of the audience will produce a completely unintended interpretation, over and above the normal range of reactions.  So what would a millwright make of this Alexandrian sidewalk?

We’re still not sure whether this is a potentially dangerous piece of art, or just the practical use of a hard-wearing stone in a busy traffic area.