Three Ideas on the Idea of “Normal”
(In three different decades)
Already a member? Access the complete article & more here.
I. On ‘The Hotel – Room 25’ by Sophie Calle (1984)
Sophie Calle is a French writer and artist, whose work has generally focused on the human condition in respect to vulnerability and intimacy. “The Hotel” is a written piece based on an actual account of her becoming chambermaid at a Venetian hotel for three weeks. Sophie Calle writes “The Hotel” as a series of diary entries over the course of several days. The text expresses her idea of the users’ experience of Venice as a place through very generic objects and for their users’ intimate use within the hotel room. The objects within a hotel room, due to the nature of travel, become symbols of not just the most ordinary and most used objects of everyday life, but also the most extraordinary objects and things that are most cherished. Calle treats the very boring and familiar things, such as clothing and toiletries, as the protagonist of the story – the quintessential elements of peoples’ lives and that which provide a greater understanding of the people dwelling within the room.
The objects within the room are themselves interesting enough, as they showcase things which people “cannot live without” – ultra personal things of everyday life. Each person reading the text can relate to the types of clothing’s, books, and other common objects she refers to, but as well understand how the careful curation of the objects within our lives becomes a significant part of a persons’ self-identity. “The Hotel” series becomes an important piece in our own understanding of how ordinary objects come to define us from not only an external perspective, but also how we define ourselves.
II. On ‘Equality Celebrates the Ordinary’ by Sally Banes (1993)
‘Equality Celebrates the Ordinary’ details the rise of the ordinary in art of all forms throughout the 1940s, 1950s, which ultimately leads to the political importance of the ordinary in the context of the 1960s art movement. Banes celebrates the rise of the ordinary with artists such as John Cage’s Living Room Music which explores the instrumentation of the everyday by using mundane sounds. The idea of the mundane spreads throughout the 1950s with art which is purposefully mundane, about everyday sights, objects, and actions. Although these ideas paved the way for the egalitarian thoughts of artists of the 1960s, the artists previously were challenging the concept of art itself rather than trying to democratize it.
Banes details how Pop art and its use of the microstructure rather than the macrostructure was a way of democratizing art in a way never previous done. The macrostructure, within the medium of a play for example, deals with the big ideas:
“What am I going to do this year?”
Where the microstructure deals with the immediate:
“What am I going to do a second from now?”
Banes praises various artists who, using the analogy of the microstructure, concern themselves with the organization of the commonplace, or inconsequential. The idea of the inconsequential pieces becoming the most important fragments of the art movement of the 1960s was a direct reflection on giving back importance to the everyday people, who at the time, felt as though they were the inconsequential.
Bane details various examples of artists and their work such as Samuel Beckett, Joseph Cornell, Judith Dunn, and Andy Warhol. Through the mediums of theater, objects, dance and various others, the artists mentioned share a goal of democratizing not only the viewing of their art, but also wanted everyday people to feel as though they too could participate in their movement.
Become a member for just $3.33/month to read the complete article and unlock additional benefits.
Get the shirt inspired by this article here.