Show Me Ten

As I wrote in my last post, “One is Not Enough,” when Ivan Karp, the owner of OK Harris Gallery in NYC agreed to look at an artist’s work he would ask to see ten. There are many reasons why this is a good idea. The first good reason concerns artist’s process.

A second reason is about the audience. The audience needs a context. Whether critics, artists, collectors, curators, or anyone else look at an artist’s work, all viewers bring their own past experience to the present moment. Since the audience cannot know the artist’s intentions, save whatever statements might be available to fill in this void, the audience will see the work in terms of their most familiar context. That is their “ground.”

If the audience is acquainted with the artist’s work, they will see the new work within the context of other work by the artist. If the audience has never seen the artist’s work before, the audience will only be able to appreciate the work in terms of their past- experience.

If the artist does ten works, however, a “body of work” that looks and feels consistent, united, and whole, the artist creates a context (ground) for the viewer. And by making ten, the artist is the one who gets to shape the initial context and conversation about the work. Also, when the artist’s place a body of work in a cultural context outside their studios, or in the context of a gallery, then the conversation about art, meanings, and values change. Meanings change when the context changes. The next one changes the previous one. One is not enough.