Artist-Placed Public Document No. 2
This large-scale painting-installation—the painting being layers and layers of varnish
over its pages—places into a traditional artistic form that idea that text-based art
that is activist and performative can be an example of post-theory art. In this piece
shows what a complete artist-placed public document can look like—here, all 113
pages, all 36,000 words, of an artist’s public interest theory, first embedded into the
artist’s text-based artwork, then embedded into an actual federal district court,
properly, in 2025. In the body-felt experience, the viewer may see the weightwrinkles
and feel the weight and gravitas themselves. Perhaps the body may feel,
from the sheer scale, exhaustion—or awe. Emotionally, the piece may cause
feelings from the visual, or from the text—perhaps especially here, where here the
text seeks to protect certain constitutional rights of individuals with mental illness. If
there is a post-theory art, and if there is an artist-placed public document art, does
the public interest theory—the rights at stake—need to resonate with the general
public not just in the head, but also in the body and heart? Does this artist-placed
public document do this? It remains whether this piece is best seen as conceptual
art, text-based art, activist art, or post-theory art—or not as art at all.
This large-scale painting-installation—the painting being layers and layers of varnish
over its pages—places into a traditional artistic form that idea that text-based art
that is activist and performative can be an example of post-theory art. In this piece
shows what a complete artist-placed public document can look like—here, all 113
pages, all 36,000 words, of an artist’s public interest theory, first embedded into the
artist’s text-based artwork, then embedded into an actual federal district court,
properly, in 2025. In the body-felt experience, the viewer may see the weightwrinkles
and feel the weight and gravitas themselves. Perhaps the body may feel,
from the sheer scale, exhaustion—or awe. Emotionally, the piece may cause
feelings from the visual, or from the text—perhaps especially here, where here the
text seeks to protect certain constitutional rights of individuals with mental illness. If
there is a post-theory art, and if there is an artist-placed public document art, does
the public interest theory—the rights at stake—need to resonate with the general
public not just in the head, but also in the body and heart? Does this artist-placed
public document do this? It remains whether this piece is best seen as conceptual
art, text-based art, activist art, or post-theory art—or not as art at all.
