Air Check

source: sculptureorg
Certain works of art are made in anticipation of a future response, as a provocation or, on a deeper level, as a kind of vocation, an inspired calling or a summoning to give voice, as in a future meeting of minds. Marcel Duchamp, probably the first modern artist to risk this strategy, characterized the phenomenon as a rendezvous. His first provocation to American artists—to do better than their plumbing and engineering—went unanswered until the 1950s, pending the work of Johns and Rauschenberg. Later, Pollock called on Serra, who responded by throwing molten lead, and on Warhol, who had his party guests answer, urinating on oxidizing pigments. Such rendezvous are mostly conceptual; in our culture of preservation, the meeting is necessarily one of minds, only rarely taking the shape of a physical confrontation or intervention in the original work.1 Yet it was just such a calling that led Seattle-based Shawn Patrick Landis to make a temporary, physical intervention in the most unlikely of artworks—Michael Heizer’s Double Negative (1969). Landis’s rendezvous with this massive earthwork in a remote area of the Nevada desert was direct, physical, and on the same scale, an intervention as a rubbing of shoulders with a giant, slightly abrasive (albeit in the most gentle of ways), like a soft whisper that ultimately, as with all callings that promise protracted reverberations, became critique and homage—spirited and inspired.
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source: summerstudiesrisdblogspot
Marek Weiczorek, the editor of Sculpture magazine, reviewed Air Check, 2003 done by Shawn Patrick Landis. His work consisted of a series of ducts in semi-transparent, nylon-reinforced plastic is filling in the art of work–Michael Heizer’s Double Negative 1969 in Nevada desert. The editor calls this phenomenon as a rendezvous, which means a planned meeting between two and more parties, according to the Wikipedia. He describes that a certain work of art is made in anticipation of a future response or an inspired calling for a future meeting of minds. Marcel Duchamps is a fisrt modern artist to risk this strategy, his provocation to American artists 1950s such as Johns and Rauschenberg’s response.

Ladis’s Air Check (2003) responds to Haizer’s Double Negative in a good way regardless of the same location and almost same scale, Air Check wisely approached to the viewers in unique ways. The piece of Double Negative is permanently sited to the earth and a symmetrical balance, which conveys the sense of long time authority such as the world traditional heritage or mystery site. However, Air check is only for two days exhibition, which is like a guerrilla attack. His team constructed the dramatically different sculpture over the old art piece, but after two day, they tore it down completely as if nothing happened on that site. Its temporal, direct, and physical invention is shocking idea to the audience. And its medium of nylon and saturated and monochromatic blue color really stand out from surroundings.

Critique about these earthworks, site-specific art is arguably enough for people who care about the total design aesthetic which is usually engaged with the historical term of art, of medium, or genre. However, as editor mentioned Air Check is characterized as an “expanded field” of art in terms of its mixture style, minimalism, conceptualism, site-specificity, and so on. It is hard to define what is art in this age. Everybody has different definitions. However, a good art always has certain attractiveness and appeals to the audience. Those art will be remembered for future generation. Art is still growing as this universe is still expanding. .