WIGA 2011
For the second annual What Is Good Art Competition, artists were asked to meditate on the “sublime” and the “beautiful,” two ideas rooted in aesthetic philosophy. Must art harness the sublime—that sense of discomfort when faced with ideas beyond our comprehension—to convey an ethical message? Can we find beauty in the gruesome?
A distinguished panel of judges, made up of experts from both art and ethics-related disciplines at Duke and beyond, awarded $500, $300, and $100 to the first, second, and third place winners, respectively. During the opening gala on April 11, attendees voted for a fourth Gallery Choice prize as well.
The What is Good Art? Exhibition was open Monday-Friday, 8am-5pm, April 11 through May 15, 2011.
Panel of Judges:
Christopher Bass, Vice President at Oak Hill Capital Partners, L.P.
William Fick, Visiting Assistant Professor of the Practice of Visual Arts
Margaret Mertz, Director, The Kenan Institute for the Arts
Noah Pickus, Director, The Kenan Institute for Ethics
Kimerly Rorschach, Director, Nasher Museum of Art
Suzanne Shanahan, Associate Director, The Kenan Institute for Ethics
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Chauncey Stillman Professor in Practical Ethics in the Department of Philosophy and the Kenan Institute for Ethics
Charles Thompson, Director of Undergraduate Studies, Center for Documentary Studies
The winners of the second annual What is Good Art? Competition were:
Sarah Goetz, “Intermittence” (1st place)
Marissa Bergmann, “Inverse Uni*verse” (2nd place)
Abigail Bucher, “Seal, It’s What’s for Dinner” (3rd place)
Chelsea Pieroni, “Manifest SMOKE” (Gallery Choice)
Below, read the full 2011 exhibition statement:
See the rest of the 2011 What Is Good Art? Exhibition below.
Marissa Katerina Bergmann, Inverse Uni-Verse
Second Place
Interactive website that accompanies this work can be found here.
This project began as an exploration of the human body as a canvas, integrating the languages of visual practice, visual studies, and photography with scientific concepts in neuroscience, astronomy, and human anatomy. It is an active investigation into the intricate patterns and connections between our bodies and the world around us. Inspired by Carl Sagan’s idea that “we are all made of stardust,” I am visually expressing the idea of unity (amongst human beings and with the entire universe itself) by painting star patterns directly onto the body that originate from the freckles and marks that already exist on each individual person. The resulting photographs – sometimes inverted, sometimes left positive – appear as glimpses of night skies, of stardust, of a universe * . . .
My fixation on the word uni•verse and the idea of infinite space (both inner & outer) has led me to delve deeper into this concept of inversion, flipping, rotation, and mirroring. Something about this one•turn is magical . . . it can turn a two-sided strip of paper into a strip with only one side, a closed circle into an infinity sign, a human body into a magnificent night sky . . .
Like the universe, this project will continue to expand and grow and change and evolve. It is an adventure and a journey.
For more information, contact Christian Ferney.