Water Exhibit

I thoroughly enjoyed the Water exhibition. I think there were a lot of challenging pieces that supported the theme of the exhibition, and the essential nature of this element. I think there were definitely certain pieces like Hans Haacke and his Condensation Cube in the first room, and mainly in the side room with all the depictions of people in and around the water- ethereal creatures, men in boats, and women and children playing in the water that made me reflect on the theme of water and the curatorial intention of the show. The Condensation Cube represented a myriad of things to me, mostly highlighting this enclosed self-sufficient environment that has been around since 1963 when Haacke created it. It also really emphasized the point of the show to me, or rather the question, which was that this cube is a piece of art involving water, and is water a resource and a human right free for all to enjoy, or is this essential part of our lives something that can be manufactured and sold? By making water the theme of this show, it challenges the way we see the transparent liquid. By making a show about water, and art about water, the water is then elevated to another plane, putting a tangible meaning through these solid pieces on something that is normally just this thing we drink, this abstract daily concept we accept: water is good for me, I’ll die without it.

I also really enjoyed the room with all the depictions of mermaids and boats because to me it was the best curated area of the show, not because the items in the room were the most interesting, but because of the contextual background of the pieces. There were men is boats, women on land, and on beaches, and with children, and children looking longingly into the ocean. There were mythological creatures like mermaids and goddesses, and I felt that it was a very potent statement that the only images of females actually interacting with the water did not involve women, but captured a child standing in the water, and a goddess on the waves. That somehow the concept or idea of water was something only men could enjoy, children, or creatures- that women could only enjoy the water from the stillness of the shore, looking out into some grandiose metaphor for their weakness and timid natures. Maybe I’m delving too far into the psyche of these prints, paintings, and photographs, but the room just had the most energy out of the whole exhibit in my eyes.

Overall, I did enjoy the exhibit, although the one complaint I had was that in the last room there was this amazing piece by Atul Bhalla called Immersions, with these glass cases, cast sand and silt, and these ancient archaic looking jars and water bottle artifacts immersed under water. I thought it needed to be more prominent, maybe in the middle of a room so you could really walk around it. There was just so much interaction with the piece, and as more and more people walked around it there was all this movement with the water and the objects in the water. Then the silt rose to the top of the glass case as the water was disturbed by the viewers’ footsteps, and the silt slowly started to mingle with the water. I thought it epitomized the idea of the whole show, the ephemeral quality of water, not in its staying power as a resource, but in the way it has been used as a metaphor for life, and time, and that feeling of still contentment we sometimes have the luxury of experiencing.