Arts
Treasure hunt gives viewers a part in the show
By Jeanne Claire van RyzinJune 24, 2004
Let's face it -- looking at visual art can be a mighty passive experience. In today's codified world of galleries and museums, most visitors stand in front of a piece of art -- be it on the wall or on the floor -- and look at it silently for a few moments, then move on to the next piece. Even when artists and curators try to subvert the "four white walls" syndrome by installing art in myriad so-called nontraditional locations (public places, temporary spaces), the viewer's action is ultimately passive: You just stand and look.
Oh, sure, there are plenty of visual artists who claim their creations are interactive -- that if visitors touch a work of art, or step into it, or push a button, they are somehow having an active moment. But usually that touching or stepping into or button-pushing is still pretty short-lived and passive stuff.
Maybe that's why "Cracks in the Pavement: Gifts in the Urban Landscape" is so refreshing: It's a sincerely active -- and for once a very unexpected -- art experience.
The hunt takes some effort. You have to get physical. The maps and photos are fairly accurate, but there are no clues about what you should be searching for or where in the promised site you should be looking. Johnson left small embroidered portraits, for instance, in plastic bags around the old Robert Mueller airport. Jacob Borndal left sets of keys at several places in East Austin.
After expending effort and energy to get to a particular site, you must dig in bushes, walk around trees, traipse through creekbeds, scavenge on street corners and look under rocks. Indeed, the biggest accomplishment of "Cracks in the Pavement" is reconnecting the viewer with the all-important -- and all but forgotten -- physical act of looking. You gotta muster all powers of observation and investigation, retrain your eyes to look at quotidian urban spots in a new way as you search for something. And there's a reward: Find something -- and it's yours to keep.
Then again, you might not find anything. A few days after Johnson and crew launched their project, Central Texas was drenched with eluvial rains that washed some of the art objects away. And, of course, any number of other circumstances may have altered the art objects. Now that the project has been up and running for a few weeks, numerous people have found and claimed their own treasures. There may now be nothing for you to find at some project locations. Last week, for example, not a one of Borndal's key sets could be found on the corner of 11th and Chicon streets -- the freshly mowed embankment bordering the busy corner near Huston-Tillotson College revealed nothing.
Though some of the art objects are gone, "Crack in the Pavement" is hardly over. For one thing, Johnson will install another version of the project in London beginning July 30 as part of the London Biennial 2004.
More importantly, the project Web site invites reactions and observations from those who have experienced the hunt or those who have just chanced upon a work of art (most are identified with www.cracksinthepavement.com). The"Cracks in the Pavement" adventure is a communal one. Some one who signed on as "Lucas" writes on the Web site: "I found a clear red Plexiglas key chain inscribed with 'It was once a Privilege.' ... It felt like the second step in a game, a movie moment, but the key wasn't going to work. Privilege was no good here."
Thus a story begins and continues in time and cyberspace -- a story about how different people each had their own, different moment with art.
jvanryzin@statesman.com; 445-3699
