Document Type
Creative Work
Abstract
From the fourth paragraph of the Editor's Introduction:
In this new logic we must formulate new ways of learning about art and its relation to space, which is a primary goal of the Pack Observation collective headed by Walter K. Lew. In this special section-- a prelude to a complete print version to be co-published by Reconstruction, Canal_138, and Autotypograph-- which documents the collectives; "representation" of Art Basel Miami Beach, often characterized as a "bake-sale" of modern art, the P.O. combines art, found material, photography, poetry, and narrative as a means of simultaneously interrogating Art Basel and meditating on the place of art in the contemporary world. Pack Observation, in its name and influences, harkens to the British Mass Observation group that documented, among other things, the Coronation of King Charles VI in 1937, but its name suggests a mode of observation that is more fugitive and tactical than the original anthropological and ethnographic impulses (albeit inflected by Surrealism) of Mass Observation. Thus, Pack Observing Art Basel> is a work that, although apparently composed of individual parts, really needs to be examined from start to finish because Lew's editorial vision here is influenced by, among other things, the collage narratives of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, author of Dictee, and the video art of Nam June Paik.
Repository Citation
Lew, Walter K., Alan Clinton, and Jeremy J. Thompson. "Special Feature: Pack Observing Art Basel>." Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture vol. 9, no. 2, 2009, pp. 1–41. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol9/iss2/7
Comments
With special thanks to Rita K. Wong and 'a'a arts