I got the chance to look into the work of Chris Sollars recently. He is a San Francisco based artist whose work primarily deals with taking over of a public space through various, and unconventional mediums. He holds a BFA in sculpture from RISD and a MFA from Bard College. He is the curator for 667 Shotwell, which is an installation spaces in his home which experimental artists can showcase their work. He started this in 2001 when San Francisco area art spaces began disappearing. He is not a tradition artist in any sense. His work makes you ask questions and think about what you are seeing. Some is interactive and other works are based around performance, however all of most of which engage the viewer in ways that traditional paintings can not achieve.
He recently complete his work “C RED BLUE J” an experimental documentary which carries a powerful political statement. In it he uses his family to show the viewer the complications of division in the 2004 presidential election. I almost did not watch this video because I generally have no interest what so ever in politics. To me its one talking head bashing another and not a lot of progress gets made, so I try to just ignore it. That being said I also like to try new thinks and see new forms of art so I thought I’d give it a shot. It shows a lot of the reasons why I think I am not attracted to the United States political scene. The important word there is “United”. This video show the complete division between family members because of political affiliation. This to me is complete absurd how anyone can be so removed from family for such a stupid reason. His sister, who works for the Bush administration, his Born-Again father, and his Lesbian mother all suffer from family complications because they have more loyalty to a politician they never met than there own family.
This brings me back to the word “United”. There is nothing uniting at all about this entire situation. The age old Democrat and Republican fight is turning us into the Divided States. Now I’m not trying to sound like I’m promoting communism or anything, I think voting for two well qualified candidates is how the country should be run; seeing has its worked so well for the past 200 years. But there is no way people need to taking personal opinions to heart in the way that Sollars shows us. A persons opposing opinion is what makes the whole system work the way it should, so there is now reason for anyone to get all bent out of shape about it. It’s not so much the politics I hate to much it’s the people who take themselves way to serious and the people who care to much about it.
This is what I loved about Sollars work. I’ve seen many documentaries, and I’ve heard the Democrat vs. Republican fight so much it makes me sick; but Sollars used his own family complications to illustrate it in a different way. He told a story to express his point of view rather than just ranting about it the way most people do. I got me to think and the way opinions can can change people, and why that is probably a negative thing. He showed this documentary publicly, which was a new way to “take over public space”, because let’s face it drawing and posting things on walls is getting old. Now I’m not one for documentaries or film making but Sollars work has inspired me to try and open new doors and keep my options open. I’m really glad I found out about him and want to continue following him in future works.
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