You could say that Work Ethic, the new exhibit at the Baltimore Musem of Art, is as much fun as watching paint dry.
Really.
After all, artist Roxy Paine's elegant gray steel scaffolding, in which three blocks dip periodically into a vat of thick white paint, undeniably is both beautiful and intriguing. Each successive layer forms a perfect horizon, while the dripping stalagmites and stalactites are reminiscent of a modernist cave.
But is it Art?
Work Ethic, which opened yesterday, is crammed full of pieces that openly and humorously pose this question. Some seem actively to beg a museumgoer to declare: "I could have done that myself!"
Over the weekend, artists were on hand to talk about or perform their works. Artist Erwin Wurm, for example, was there to demonstrate his work, One Minute Sculptures. In it, visitors are urged to step onto a platform, pick up props and follow his instructions on how to turn themselves into art. ("Hold the broom and think about Spinoza.")
In the museum's sculpture garden, Hugh Pocock drilled for water - to be used later in his artistic creation. And Allison Knowles made what may have been the world's largest salad.
In the galleries, there also were works created by artists not in attendance. One, called 1,000 Hours of Staring, consists of a blank piece of white paper that the artist, Tom Friedman, claims to have stared at for the specified amount of time between 1992 and 1997. Curator Helen Molesworth juxtaposes this work nicely with Robert Rauschenberg's White Painting, a square canvas painted to resemble a blank piece of paper.
Another piece - a notorious can, labeled Merda d'artista - contains, as might be expected, artist Piero Manzoni's daily output.
There even are pieces by artists on strike, although the work stoppage hasn't prevented museums from buying the pieces that the artists refused to create. In 1969, Robert Barry held a show in a New York gallery. Visitors must have puzzled at the sign taped on the front door that declared that the gallery would be closed for the duration of Barry's exhibit. That card, called Closed Gallery, is on display in Work Ethic.
The exhibit is arranged in four sections: the artist as the manager and worker who creates and completes a task; the artist as the manager who sets a task for others to complete; the artist as experience maker in which the audience completes the task; and quitting time, which asks whether it ever is truly possible to do nothing.
