According to Marjorie Kehe of The Christian Science Monitor, Michael Kimmelman’s new book The Accidental Masterpiece: On the Art of Life and Vice Versa will have the following effects:
Your backyard will look like a museum and the subway platform will seem oddly inspirational. What you will find is that art is everywhere. And what could be bad about a discovery like that?
I couldn’t help but be reminded of the conceptual work of Robert McCarren, an artist who simply builds platforms all over the world for people to enjoy views – his work turns the world into a museum, basically, and his platforms are like benches in a gallery. I am writing an essay about McCarren for an upcoming show called “Almost Something” which opens on Sept 17th. Timothy Don, whose work has been influential on McCarren, wrote about a series of broken-down barns in Kentucky as if they were art for 3QD in “Down the Rabbit Hole.” Mr. Don’s term for such work is “Found Installation.” McCarren, on the other hand, calls his work “Invisible Art”; he also insists that he’s not an artist at all. I think the general idea is similar to Kafka’s “Nature Theater of Oklahoma” and Coleridge’s description of “the secret ministry of frost.” The implications of intentionality in nature are of course problematic.