Matti Havens
Artist Statement
I want my artwork to be something different than the traditional
art experience. I would rather my work provoke thought than be
beautiful. I think the best way to do this is to make them interactive,
surprising, strange, and controversial. My work is more about
the idea than the actual act of making it. I could spend an hour
thinking about the artwork, then an hour making it -- the time
spent doesn't have to be significant. The provocative nature
of my work will cause the audience to think more about it and
the issues it raises than a work of art that took more time to
make. My ideas go against the norms of the average art experience.
I would rather surprise someone with the unexpected (like the
mirror under the toilet seat) than have someone see the same
old passive non-engaging artwork. I want the gallery experience
to be something memorable and thought provoking. Many artists
have been involved in these same issues and the artists I feel
closest to are Marcel Duchamp, Jeff Koons, and Mike Kelley.
What issues engage people to think? I need to tap into things
that people feel strongly about. Belief systems are what people
feel passionate about so I must provoke people on that level.
Presenting the audience with issues like race, sex, politics
and religion will definitely elicit a response. Hopefully this
response will incite further discussion and debate. I would like
people to think about why they think how they do.
There are many different ways a work can be controversial. One
type of controversy is to present something that ordinarily would
not be suitable for public display. Presenting something that
is considered gross or disgusting fits under this category. For
example my previous works using meat as a medium would be considered
by most to be gross. I can also harness controversy by violating
or perverting symbols that represent deeply held personal or
social beliefs. For example my flag pieces are symbols that are
not meant to be tampered with and by tampering with them I desecrate
and change their meanings.
The work How Santa Died for His Sins represents another
type of controversy because it tackles the always sensitive issue
of religion. Mayor Giuliani in New York was angered by the use
of elephant dung in the depiction of the Virgin Mary. This controversy
was probably beneficial to the artist and the Museum because
it gave them publicity even though it was publicity in the negative
sense. I also touch upon the sensitive issue of race with a piece
like Equal Opportunity Chess, which is simply a chessboard
and all its pieces painted gray.
Presenting an object out of its normal context thereby elevating
it to an art object and making it useless is another way to produce
controversy. Marcel Duchamp was the first to do this by inverting
a urinal, titling it Fountain, and presenting it in a
gallery context. Not only did he elevate a non-art object to
an art object he also changed its meaning with its title.
My artwork could be seen to have many meanings, some that I had
intended and some that I did not. That is to say I might have
intended a certain meaning for a particular work but the audience
might interpret it in another way that I had not intended. That
is fine with me as long as the piece sparks some thought. I don't
think one interpretation is better or more valid than any other
is. The meaning I take from a piece may be totally different
from the meaning others take from it. In this way, subjectivity
becomes more important than objectivity.
Marcel Duchamp is the originator of using the found objects as
artworks. More importantly, he challenged the concept of what
art was. That is why he is important to me and anyone else that
uses found objects in their art as a way to subvert meaning.
For example when he presented Fountain, which is his inverted
urinal, it monumentally changed what could be presented as art.
That piece alone and its implications to the art world forever
would change what would be considered art. When he first presented
it, it drew a lot of criticism for exactly this reason. Many
did not regard it as art because it was not art in the traditional
sense. This same issue has been raised in regards to my work.
I realize that it may not be art in the traditional sense, but
it nonetheless is art. Another piece in which he brilliantly
changes how both objects are viewed is entitled Bicycle Wheel.
With this piece he took a barstool and attached to its seat a
bicycle wheel so that the wheel was upright and still able to
spin freely. By combining the two different objects he destroyed
the usefulness of both objects and created an art object. In
different ways, in both these works, he subverts the meanings
of the individual objects.
Jeff Koons also relies upon many of the same methods that Duchamp
used but at the same time he strongly plays upon our attitudes
about material and commercial culture. The material and commercial
part of our culture is taken for granted, but nonetheless, it
is an important facet of our lifestyle. I admire the way Koons
evokes the commercial by the slick and nicely finished way he
presents his works. For example the way he presents his vacuum
cleaner series in flourescently lit plexiglass cases makes them
useless as tools, elevates them as art objects (almost to the
extent of making them look like museum type artifacts of some
sort)and makes a comment upon our clean obsessed commercial culture.
These methods of presentation and these reflections upon our
material and commercial are also things with which I identify.
The artwork of Mike Kelley is controversial to say the least.
One of his favorite provocative topics is sex. Mike Kelley's
work is influential to me because of their brash, in your face
style. His works, especially through the use of bad language
immediately elicits a response. I like his juvenile commentary
style where he mocks the sexual attitudes and other insecurities
of our culture. He frequently elevates the raunchy and inappropriate
to an artistic level. For example his sex joke cartoons are great
examples of all the things I mention above.
With the use of all these methods I hope to make the gallery
experience an experience not normally associated with the gallery.
Hopefully my work will change what the audience perceives as
art. Even though it is not art in the traditional sense it is
still art. I hope to make my audience think and respond and if
I have to use controversial means to do so then so be it. In
this way each person's experience will be different relying upon
their personal means of evaluating the world that surrounds them.
All I want to do is make people think. Why shouldn't artwork
in a gallery try to do this?
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