1. Research/basic biographical info.
I chose Jitish Kallat’s Public Notice 3 for this assignment because of the dual messages the text displays. His previous Public Notice pieces included text from a speech declaring India’s independence from the British Empire and Gandhi’s call for non-violent protest, but this is the first time that he’s combined two contrasting messages to emphasize his overall theme of standing against manufacturing fear as a means of control.
More information can be found on his website, http://jitishkallat.in/ and on the Chicago Art Institute’s site at http://www.artinstituteofchicago.org
2. Overview of what you saw. Where did you see it?
The installation is set into the Women’s Board Grand Staircase at the Art Institute of Chicago. It is made up of LED words in the colors of the Homeland Security Advisory system: red, orange, yellow, blue and green. They’re set into every single step on the staircase, making up 118 lines of text.
3. Opinion/analysis.
The color is what first caught my eye, and since the rainbow of colors and the general theme of the text contrast greatly each other. Reading the artist’s statement (above) drove the point home for me; after reading the text the way it was presented, learning the context it is put into make the piece stand out significantly in my eyes. Many of Kallat’s works focus on similar themes of the impact of historical speeches on the world as well as the impact manufactured fear such as religious fanaticism or coded warning systems can bring about. With this piece, he breaks up the message into smaller parts on each flight of the staircase, forcing the viewer to interact with it by reading each part individually and then put it back together as a whole, enhancing each viewer’s understanding by the order in which they read it, or perhaps intentionally muddling the message so that it may be rendered incoherent or send an entirely different message.
(Quick edit: Made the links clickable.)
I thought that this piece was interesting too. The first time I saw it I was coming from the Indian an Asian art exhibit and there was a widow between it and the stair case that framed the piece nicely. It was hard for me to find where it started which frustrated a little so I didn’t really try to read much of it. I didn’t realize that the colors of the words were supposed to correlate with the Homeland Security Advisory. I just thought those were the only colors available to make such a piece. That is a neat little fact.
Brittany Chadek
By: socialstructures270 on November 1, 2010
at 2:29 am
This piece is very interesting, because at first glance it is very “pretty” and you don’t quite see the true theme without beginning to read the words and the artist’s statement. You would not expect the rainbow lights to represent the United States Security System in some way, or that the public announcement would have such a powerful message. In my opinion, it was very fitting to place these words on the staircase because they tell the stories of “rising from the ashes” or as nations climb the staircase to a better future as we learn from the past.
-Megan Nelson
By: socialstructures270 on November 3, 2010
at 3:18 pm