"Debo Eilers Makes Things Uncomfortable" - Art 21 Video

    This is a video, of two people who are friends of the artist who do not know each other, discussing and experiencing the work. This deliberate choice by the artist to film this video one of them is a psychoanalyst and the other is a writer. He props them in what seems to be a familiar living room, in a sitting area with one of his works dangling above them and allows them to speak freely about their experience of his art. The choice to bring two friends together, and talk instead of him is interesting, but also I find the choice to pick two people who don't know each other to be an interesting one. Maybe he wanted to remove the variable of how they would act or speak as if in a role, if they already knew each other and he didn't want to affect the discourse about the work. But I also wonder why he wouldn't pick subjects that could talk about the work formally, with any visual analysis. He picked two people who would just have an experience of it. Kind of reminds me that the reaction and experience of art by people who do not live and breathe the art world, is valid and very important to understanding how our artwork is perceived.

    The actual art piece is a bright red ball of seemingly goo, hung from above with contrasting elements of an old hot topic belt that is rainbow. They both seem to grow into touching and feeling the sculpture describing its texture and the fold about the layers of it as they explore its form physically. I wonder as to why the artist doesn't want to speak about the work itself, maybe he finds the experience of it and the possible interpretations of it, more profound and worth noting. The discipline he works in is sculpture, he seems to wrestle with an angsty feeling, and the visual elements that speaks specifically to my generation, there are rainbow colored hot topic bets all throughout his work. They look like psychological expressions of mental development in youth, in struggles of feeling and a bright child like use of color too.

In the Studio Working- Debo Eilers

Cover Photo of Art 21 Video

https://art21.org/watch/new-york-close-up/debo-eilers-makes-things-uncomfortable/