Walking through an art fairis exhilarating. Acres and acres of spectacular art, where each gallery tries to outdo the next and artists vie for your precious attention. Some artists are actually commissioned or asked to make specific works for these events.
I personally think of art fairsas cultural carnivals minus the corndogs— not a lot of subtlety, and most people attend to gawk and perhaps be seen. The small group of individuals that actually purchase art work behind the scenes fuel the art-machine others enjoy.
When I turned the corner at the Seattle Art Fair last year I was shocked by the piece shown here. At first it appeared to be a vivid painting of a bolder on an enormous black canvas. As I approached the piece it became apparent that the canvas was a metal box with the front edge set flush against the wall … and the bolder was real. At that instant the work became so powerful I could barely contain myself. Imagine a 5.7-ton granite bolder more than seven feet tall levitating in a black metal box, set a foot or so off the floor, hanging there like a painting.
The piece, Black Djorite Negative Wall Sculpture, by Michael Heizer, got my attention, and Heizer did not disappoint.
If the work was a painting it would have been a mere abstraction or representation of a bolder … but this was realism. Ironically, if I passed this bolder on a hike, I would not have given it a second thought. However being framed as it was, in a clean gallery setting, made me incredibly interested in this impressive object. Strangely, it became an intimate experience — like having a deep conversation with a neighbor, who up to that point you never paid much attention to. The power of placing something from the wilderness in a pristine environment will almost always heighten our interest and awareness.