Photos


Of Ideas

Of Ideas is a 3’ by 3’ neon sign featuring the names of six philosophers displayed alongside a book featuring the same cover design. The sign was in fact copied from the book cover that hangs beside it. It must be acknowledged that the book itself is based on a BBC Brian Magee television series and both share the title "Men of Ideas". With reference to artist intervention and to sentimentality, it should be noted that as an adolescent, Jennifer Marman literally cut out the "Men" from the book cover title "Men of Ideas" as an adolescent. The meaning of the book's title is thus changed to emphasize "of ideas" hence suggesting the origins of concept and conceptualism: the source of a concept is based on an idea, and equally an idea must come from somewhere. This logic is prefigured in the intellect or in creative expression. Of Ideas serves to illustrate the transition from idea, to concept to the finished artwork. When the neon sign, a recreation of the graphic illustration on the book's title, is presented as sculptural artwork we are witness to this process. Lightheartedly, Of Ideas seeks to make a play on the unphysical and un-sculptural nature of metaphysics, by representing as object that which should resist representation. The cycle of sentimentality, mass media, the textual, and the virtual is a-glow in a neon sign.