| The Merriam Webster’s dictionary defines the word process as ‘a series of actions that produce something or that lead to a particular result (Merriam Webster),’ unlike when traditionally creating art your goal is to create an object, image or actual thing. Process art avoids the issue of ‘look’ by stressing the action of the artist and is concerned with the actual doing and how actions can be defined as an actual work of art; seeing the art as pure human expression. Process art often entails an inherent motivation, rationale, and intentionality. Therefore, art is viewed as a creative journey or process, rather than as a deliverable or end product. So what is the meaning?
With any process comes the labor of creating something but when creating process-oriented art your work becomes very labor intensive. Tara Donovan who creates large-scale installations and sculptures made from everyday objects, is known for her commitment to process and her labor intensive works. Her sculpture, Untitled (Styrofoam Cup Sculpture 2003), that was displayed at ACE gallery at New York and Los Angels in 2003 appears to be a series of rolling fully clouds, a honeycomb, or even a living fungi on the ceiling. Donovan creates the shapes and forms of the work not by just randomly gluing them together. Donovan likes to capitalize her materials using them to their full capacity.
When viewing the sculpture you can see how she pays attention to the shape of the cup. Compressing and changing the angles of how she glues the cups together is very important. This in turn creates the bubbling forms that create a gradient of shadows and light that travels through the cups’ cracks and is also absorbed and illuminating the space. She considers patterning, configuration, and the play of light when determining the structure of her works. In her words, “it is not like I’m trying to simulate nature. It’s more of a mimicking of the way of nature, the way things actually grow (Paul Brewer).” This process naturally becomes extremely labor intensive as the size and mass of her creations grows.
Process artist, Richard Serra uses a different approach to his process. He likes to preform ‘verbs.’ Like most process artist he doesn’t create sketches and wants to get down to the basics. He doesn’t want there to be symbolisms in color rather wants the process as action in the world. His Gutter Corner Splash: Night Shift (1969/1995) is a result of Serra physically throwing molten lead into a corner and then allowing them to cool and removing it from there. Serra created a list of verbs that included things like; to roll, to crease, to fold, to store, to bend, to shorten, to twist, to dapple, to crumple and, to shave’ for example(Verb List Compilation). Like Donovan his work is labor intensive acting out all of these verbs but his work is more about the performance of the verb as the process then the monotonous task of gluing Styrofoam cups or stacking cups like Donovan.
Over all when discussing process-oriented art or creating it there is no right or wrong way of creating it. Any process can be interpreted in many different ways. One process may be very natural like decomposition or another could be analytical like using a numbering system. The approaches to process art come far and wide but I think for one main reason is to create the relationship between the artist and their material. It asks the question of, ‘when is the material in control and when am I in control?’ The literal and what it becomes very apparent when viewing process art.
Citations
Brewer, Paul. "Tara Donovan - Exhibitions - Hammer Museum." Tara Donovan - Exhibitions - Hammer Museum. Hammer Museum, 23 May 2004. Web. 28 Jan. 2014. <http://hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/detail/exhibition_id/81>.
"Process." Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 11 Feb. 2014. <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/process>.
"Richard Serra - Verb List Compilation." Richard Serra. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Feb. 2014. <http://www.demec.ufmg.br/port/d_online/diario/Ema101/AnalisePCriativo/SobreObraDe/RichardSerra/VerbList.htm>.
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