1 Wonder - Visceral Meaning

This summer, I’m trying something a little different.
Every week, I’ll share one artwork by one artist that has stayed with me. Sometimes it made me laugh or feel something indescribable. Sometimes it challenged what I believed. Sometimes I simply couldn’t stop thinking about it.

These aren’t necessarily the “greatest” works of art. They’re the ones that sparked wonder for me.

I hope these stories help you discover a few artworks that stay with you, too.

See

Milk Heat by Tue Greenfort, 2009

Look at the image above. It looks so completely ordinary and utilitarian. (Ok, it does look out of place to have a radiator outside...) You might not even recognize that it is part of the art park until you see the placard nearby:

Installation – radiator, water pipe/ Heizkörper, Wasserleitung

Milk Heat lets visitors experience the fresh milk's heat through a conventional radiator placed outside the stable of an organic farm in Wanås called Wanås Gods AB. The barn is state of the art and largely innovative. The heat from the milk is being transferred cleverly to the buildings central heating system.

Tue Greenfort attempts to visualize the general impact animal farming has on environment - whether organic or not. He questions if today's intensified dairy production can be considered ecologically sustainable food sources since cows' methane has a negative impact on the climate.

The permanent installation is supplied with the following caption:

Milk Livestock are responsible for 18% of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.

'Livestock's Long Shadow', from FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations), Rome, 2006.

Installation view: Wanås 2009: Footprints, The Wanås Foundation, Knislinge, Sweden

Photo by Anders Norrsell, Courtesy: Wanås Foundation

Story

My visit to the Wanås Art Park in Southern Sweden had just begun when we came across this piece. I read the sign above and it was so heavy and serious. I appreciate art that increases our understanding of the environmental impacts of our 21st century lives and I liked the innovative idea of using the heat from the milk to heat the structures. This was clearly a conceptual piece that should make me THINK. That's why I was so surprised how it made me FEEL when I touched it. I was definitely moved. It felt surprisingly hot and animal and I was both repelled and attracted by it. This feeling hung on through out the day and is still a vivid and visceral memory today.

Say

Milk Heat allows visitors to feel the warmth of a cow’s body through a radiator.

Do you think the placement of the radiator outdoors helps to underscore his message?
Do you think Greenfort's work, Milk Heat, was effective in influencing viewers? Why or Why not?
Can you think of other ways to use a subtle physical sensation to impact someone and possibly change their thinking.

Do

Design an artwork that uses the sense of touch to enhance its meaning.

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About the Artist: Tue Greenfort

Tue Greenfort's (b. 1973, Holbæk, Denmark; based in Berlin, Germany, and Denmark) interdisciplinary practice deals with issues such as the public and private realm, nature and culture. Interweaving these subjects with the language of contemporary art the artist formulates an often direct critique of current economical and scientific production practices. Fascinated by the dynamics in the natural world, Greenfort’s work often evolves around ecology and its history, including the environment, social relations, and human subjectivity.

Tue Greenfort (*1973 in Holbaek / Denmark) lives and works in Berlin where he is represented by Johann König. As a participant in dOCUMENTA(13) in Kassel, Greefort was co-curator of an archive on multi-species co-evolution, The Worldly House. He has had extensive solo presentations at Berlinische Galerie (2012), South London Gallery (2011), Kunstverein Braunschweig (2008) and Secession, Vienna (2007). He has participated in numerous international exhibitions at institutions including Kunstverein Hannover (2011), Royal Academy of Arts, London (2009), Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm (2009), the Fondazione Morra Greco, Naples (2008), Skulptur Projekte Münster (2007) and Witte de With, Rotterdam (2006). Among his publications the most comprehensive, Linear Deflection, was published by Walther König in 2009.

More: www.tuegreenfort.net/

Yours in wonder,