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Artist Spends 9 Years Using FedEx To Ship Glass Boxes To Create Shattered Sculptures
If you’re wondering how much carriers care about the safety of your shipment, then you have to see this brilliant experiment by LA-based Walead Beshty. During a 9 year period, Beshty has been creating laminate glass objects which perfectly fit inside FedEx boxes and shipping them to various galleries and exhibitions in order to explore how works of art gather “fingerprints”.
“I was interested in how art objects acquire meaning through their context and through travel,” Beshty said in an interview with Mikkel Carl. “I wanted to make a work that was specifically organized around its traffic, becoming materially manifest through its movement from one place to another.”
Through an ordinary shipment, Walead’s pieces would inevitably crack. The curators of the galleries and exhibitions would then have to meticulously remove them for display. Each one was named after the date, tracking number, and box size of the particular shipment.
(h/t: colossal)
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What do you think ?
Susanna Vesna 9 years ago
Art these days is like...Literally taking anything and doing ANYTHING to it, and voila! Im a muthafuckin starboy...
Stille20 9 years ago
I have to agree, but in the experimenting, maybe they find something amazing.
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Violaine LB 9 years ago
I am currently working on a new project - a collection of paper cups stained with lipstick that reflect the mood of the artist as the cups are sometimes stained in bright red, discrete pink or an elegant nude. This represents the ephemeral character of the cup as a material, but the permanence of the lipsticks as it lingers in people's mind. I put a lot of thought into it and am very proud of this project - nearly as much as of the objects my cats broke and that I kept, which are soon to be exhibited at the MOMA. Yes, right...
Daria B 9 years ago
Interesting idea. Interesting result too. But I'd like to see what happens if you put the "[FRAGILE]" sign on the package.
Jeanne Deaux 9 years ago
Exactly the same. Ask my mug that arrived in 2 useless pieces even though my friend put a fragile sign on each side of the package to be sure.
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Jeffrey Thimister 9 years ago
Judging by this pile of junk, I say we need a new rennaisance...
AcousticGString 9 years ago
This evokes no such emotion in me other than "wow, that's 9 years of your life you will never get back"
LizzyM 9 years ago
I'm trying to imagine this on someone's cv of LinkedIn profile: "so what did you do from 2007 until 2016?" "Well I shipped glass boxes with FedEx and waited for them to be returned so I could literally pick up the pieces"
Load More Replies...
ukoms 9 years ago
Ehm... probably it has some other artistic meaning that he shipped those glass for nine years, but... the same effect would be achieved in days or even hours, with gentle hits of soft hammer, or hurling those boxes or packing all of them at once in a car and having one hour offroad trip. Art is art because - apart from other conditions - process of creating it and effect is unique to the artist. And I know that someone could say "yes, you say anyone could do it, but no one actually did it", but difference is that there are very few people who could imitate Rubens, but anyone is able to pack piece of glass, send it to wherever, and display broken pieces as art. And just because someone actually did it, it not mean that this is art.
John Ashley 9 years ago
“I was interested in how art objects acquire meaning through their context and through travel,” Beshty said in an interview with Mikkel Carl. “I wanted to make a work that was specifically organized around its traffic, becoming materially manifest through its movement from one place to another.” I call it pseudo-intellectual claptrap... and I'm an artist as well. Just call it "Art by Accident".
iblowsheep 9 years ago
The message is, they want to ship particularly fragile items knowing full well that they will be broken, which of course has to indicate the result of inept handling of the package rather than grossly inadequate packaging of innately fragile contents.
Load More Replies...
LizzyM 9 years ago
If I were FedEx I'd take credit for actually creating/enabling this art and demand a share of the revenue that comes from it!
Load More Replies...
Susanna Vesna 9 years ago
Art these days is like...Literally taking anything and doing ANYTHING to it, and voila! Im a muthafuckin starboy...
Stille20 9 years ago
I have to agree, but in the experimenting, maybe they find something amazing.
Load More Replies... Violaine LB 9 years ago
I am currently working on a new project - a collection of paper cups stained with lipstick that reflect the mood of the artist as the cups are sometimes stained in bright red, discrete pink or an elegant nude. This represents the ephemeral character of the cup as a material, but the permanence of the lipsticks as it lingers in people's mind. I put a lot of thought into it and am very proud of this project - nearly as much as of the objects my cats broke and that I kept, which are soon to be exhibited at the MOMA. Yes, right...
Daria B 9 years ago
Interesting idea. Interesting result too. But I'd like to see what happens if you put the "[FRAGILE]" sign on the package.
Jeanne Deaux 9 years ago
Exactly the same. Ask my mug that arrived in 2 useless pieces even though my friend put a fragile sign on each side of the package to be sure.
Load More Replies... Jeffrey Thimister 9 years ago
Judging by this pile of junk, I say we need a new rennaisance...
AcousticGString 9 years ago
This evokes no such emotion in me other than "wow, that's 9 years of your life you will never get back"
LizzyM 9 years ago
I'm trying to imagine this on someone's cv of LinkedIn profile: "so what did you do from 2007 until 2016?" "Well I shipped glass boxes with FedEx and waited for them to be returned so I could literally pick up the pieces"
Load More Replies... ukoms 9 years ago
Ehm... probably it has some other artistic meaning that he shipped those glass for nine years, but... the same effect would be achieved in days or even hours, with gentle hits of soft hammer, or hurling those boxes or packing all of them at once in a car and having one hour offroad trip. Art is art because - apart from other conditions - process of creating it and effect is unique to the artist. And I know that someone could say "yes, you say anyone could do it, but no one actually did it", but difference is that there are very few people who could imitate Rubens, but anyone is able to pack piece of glass, send it to wherever, and display broken pieces as art. And just because someone actually did it, it not mean that this is art.
John Ashley 9 years ago
“I was interested in how art objects acquire meaning through their context and through travel,” Beshty said in an interview with Mikkel Carl. “I wanted to make a work that was specifically organized around its traffic, becoming materially manifest through its movement from one place to another.” I call it pseudo-intellectual claptrap... and I'm an artist as well. Just call it "Art by Accident".
iblowsheep 9 years ago
The message is, they want to ship particularly fragile items knowing full well that they will be broken, which of course has to indicate the result of inept handling of the package rather than grossly inadequate packaging of innately fragile contents.
Load More Replies... LizzyM 9 years ago
If I were FedEx I'd take credit for actually creating/enabling this art and demand a share of the revenue that comes from it!
Load More Replies...
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