I thought I’d be drawing madly after my essay was handed in but no I’m trying to organise my research folio that has to handed in end of April. However i’ve been side tracked by thinking about the use of pattern in art. Juan Munoz uses it quite a bit I think, also someone else at college is using, I also think Charles Avery might have used it. Anyone know of artists using it like this.
The Wasteland (1987) was Muñoz’s first large-scale installation, taking its title from the poem by T S Eliot. The patterned surface simultaneously invites the viewer into the space and elongates the distance between the spectator and the small bronze figure sitting demurely on a shelf, its feet dangling in the air. Muñoz’s optical floor recalls antique Roman architecture, but also suggests a stage onto which the viewer has unwittingly stepped. The floor distinguishes an area and builds an expectation for some kind of exchange between the figure and the viewer to occur.
Muñoz was fascinated by illusion and used simple devices to destabilise the viewer’s experience. Our movements and our relationship to the object are guided, not to direct our interpretation of the work, but to ensure that we appreciate the illusion without being distracted by the mechanism of the trick.
