“The Happiness of Objects”

Flatland

Photograph courtesy SculptureCenter

By the time you read this, a compelling, if curatorially heavy-handed, group show will have morphed in some unpredictable ways. An ice sculpture by Olivier Mosset, shaped like a giant Toblerone bar, will have melted in the courtyard. But more to the point, the six artists who, quite literally, inhabited the best work on display—a huge performance-cum-sculpture called Flatland—will have left the building.

Inspired by art historian W.J.T. Mitchell’s book What Do Pictures Want?, the show asks viewers to consider the rather fanciful question of what artworks might require to be “happy.” Meanwhile, Flatland—a three-week-long experiment in things quotidian, utopian and human—began to unfold. At press time, its team, spearheaded by Brooklyn artist Ward Shelley, were eating, cooking, sleeping, showering and generally getting along while living inside a transparent, two-foot-wide, four-story-high structure. They chatted with anyone who sidled up to the thin sheets of plastic that separated them from the outside world. It was a bit like visiting a friend in prison. Or observing a giant ant farm. And it was fascinating.

By now, the structure is all that remains of the project (the last artist decamped on May 20, but flatlanders.com reveals how things fared). Still, a number of other works are well worth a look, including a riveting video by Paul Horn & Harald Hunn of a married couple going about their day—entirely upside down. They eat spaghetti, drink wine and chop food, while grimacing and turning red with effort. The needs of people, not of objects, end up stealing the show. — Sarah Schmerler