Artistic Differences

Posted on August 13, 2007 by C Johnson
Art, Culture

Swiss conceptual artist Christoph Buchel’s newest installation for Massachusett’s MASS MoCA gallery was meant to be a statement on America’s war effort through Buchel’s eclectic use of, among other things, a blown up airplane fuselage, a re-creation of Sadam Hussein’s hiding place in Iraq, and a kiddie carnival ride where bombs are used as passenger cars. The exhibit entitled “Training Ground for Democracy” was so grand in scale that it was going to fill the whole MASS MoCA’s gargantuan “Gallery 5.” Ambitious? The hefty $320,000 price tag certainly confirms that. Ridiculous? Ah, unfortunately that delicious debate will probably never truly take wing since Buchel’s installation is, according to an article run in the LA Times today, destined for the dustbin.

Of course there have always been artistic disagreements between the inventor and the investor, but this stalemate between Buchel and MASS MoCA has turned into a dirty business indeed, involving the Federal court. The project went way over budget and MASS MoCA cancelled the exhibit back in May, having had enough of what they felt were extravagant requests on Buchel’s behalf. “The jet fuselage [was] non-negotiable,” the gallery director told the Times. “[He also] wanted a large airliner and the charred remains scattered throughout the gallery…it was at that point I began drawing the line.”

MASS MoCA sees their $320,000 investment as a loss they seek to salvage by turning Buchel’s unfinished piece into an exhibit profiling the processes involved in creating installation art. Buchel’s solicitor fought back and countersued MASS MoCA, citing violations of the federal Visual Artists Rights Act in what they call an attempt to “mock and humiliate” Buchel by re-imagining his original concept as “a drastically distorted and modified version.”

And so Buchel’s epic creation at the MASS MoCA remains, quite literally, under cover.

Fitting, perhaps, as the exhibit in its unfinished state is almost certainly more important than the finished product would have made the pretense of being. Instead of making a statement about a carte blanche war, the exhibit is a living testimony about what can befall carte blanche conceptual art.

And for any foes of conceptual art out there, well, this can only be a good thing.

Comments

Leave a Reply