Project Rationale

The idea that people take what is presented to them or is around them for granted has long been an inspiration for the work I do and this project is very much borne from this idea. Curious Beauty is an imaginary, essentially fake public art installation exhibition. The main element of the work is the guidebook to the exhibition that is based on the kind of guidebook you may get at any exhibition, detailing the collection, examining each work of art. These books (as well as other on art) continue the notion that art is, or should be something that must be understood to be appreciated. Whilst this is true, you can get a lot more out of a piece of art once you understand the motivation behind it, what statement it is making and where it lies in the context of art and society in general. However, this carries the notion that to appreciate art you must be educated in it, or simply educated in general.

A guide to an exhibition is essentially an educated art historian, explaining how an art piece should be interpreted, dispensing their interpretation unto the masses. More often than not this does offer an interesting and informative insight, but it also limits the ability for viewers to find details out on themselves. The guidebook to Curious Beauty gives a brief but vague introduction to each sculpture then offers the original plan, by the artist. The plans, inspired by the work of Keith Tyson, are vague, ambiguous collections of visual ingredients that allow the viewer to try and get an idea of what the sculpture may look like. Each viewer may make a different interpretation of these visual ingredients, some may make sense, others not and may be discarded, but it is this selecting of information and eventually imagining of what the sculpture may look like that is the art process and indeed the art work itself. As these sculptures don't actually exist, it is this imagining in the mind of the viewer that gives it any kind of reality, and results in a unique work of art being created every time.

In doing this everyone becomes the artist, everyone creates something new and different from only a set of visual cues and an ambiguous description. Like the poster detailing the various target groups for the different sculptures in the exhibition tries to section up society but actually ends up including everyone, it is a seemingly pointless concept but asks 'what is pointless?'
'There are prints available at the gift shop of each plan featured in the guidebook.' These art prints are printed using dyeline printing, usually used for duplicating architectural plans. They only last a short period of time when exposed to the light, reflecting the ephemeral and temporary nature of the sculptures, as they exist only when they are imagined in the mind of the viewer. The photos featured above the description of each of the eleven sculptures in the guidebook give each sculpture further realism, but are in fact elements of the environment that we may see everyday but never notice, challenging people to look at their environment in greater detail, with a childlike fascination.