Ursus Wehrli gave a pretty funny TEDtalk a few years back, introducing us to his concept of 'cleaning up art.' It was a sonewhat humourous exploration of a fascination with neatness and organization, applied to works of art--demonstrating ultimately, that a work of art is more than the sum of its parts and breaking art down into its essential elements subtracts from what it is.
His latest project is called the Art of Clean Up and exends his initial investigation into everyday life. Nothing is exempt from Wehrli's obsessive need to clean up and organize, campsites, leaves in a forest, alphabet spaghetti. Its quirky and strangelt compelling on some levels. I think there is a bit of a link to the conceit in Eco's book, Infintiy of Lists, which I recently blogged about. Eco maintains that we create lists and categorize when life seems unmanageable or unknowable. Wehrli's work comically examines a similar thread it seems.
There are quite a lot of blogs devoted to this idea of neating things up--and it seems to be something of a cultural dynamic--maybe Eco is onto something, feels that way.
Love the idea behind it!
Posted by: Frank Zweegers | 01 September 2011 at 08:27 AM