What Scares You? How Does Art Evoke These Fears?

For the last few weeks I have been been blogging about interviews with students who spend time in the Samek Art Gallery. First, I spoke to the gallery’s student guards, then, I spoke to students who pass through the gallery enough to know the pieces well. This week, I chose to speak with the people who know the exhibit better than anyone else on campus: the gallery’s staff.

First, I spoke to Rick, the director of the Samek, about his fears within the gallery. He commented that the art itself doesn’t scare him, since he knows that it isn’t going to attack him. The art itself doesn’t pose a physical threat, so he knows that he is safe. However, the pieces still evoke an eerie feeling. He feels that the exhibit isn’t necessarily scary, rather it is eerie, unnerving, chilling.

Alex Campbell, One of the gallery’s graduate assistants, answered that she is afraid of Laura Ford’s sculpture Espaliered Girl, 2007. The sculpture is of a young girl who is mid metamorphosis between girl and tree. It is located at the entrance of the gallery, the first thing you think of when you enter the gallery is being stuck between two worlds, a tree, and a girl. This piece introduces you to the world of confusion, eeriness, and fear within the gallery’s current exhibit. While it is scary when you first walk into the gallery, it is equally as scary when you leave. When Alex closes the gallery at night, and turns all of the lights off, she always looks back to make sure everything off and it is ok to leave, and all she can see is a little girl’s legs. “It looks like she is walking out of the darkness.” This idea of being half there is shown throughout the exhibit, and doesn’t only scare Alex.

Laura Hildebrandt, the other gallery graduate assistant, piped in to the conversation and added that she doesn’t like the sculpture by Huma Bhabha, Untitled, 2008. It is made of cork, paper, and acrylic paint, all materials found on the side of the street. This sculpture turns the saying “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” to a reality. While this may be wonderful for some, Laura doesn’t like the sculpture because “it smells like it is rotting.” When they were installing the exhibit, they had to hold the sculpture perfectly level and lift it up to the pedestal, forcing her to hold it level to her face. “It was staring at me.” She feels that the sculpture is anthropomorphic, giving human elements to non human things, and that makes her uncomfortable. When you look at the sculpture, a head made of cork placed on stacked square cork bases, you can see just enough elements of a human face to identify it. However, it doesn’t give a clear image of a specific face, so you are forced to fill in the blanks as you view the sculpture. You are given a rough outline, and are forced to create the fine details. Since you are left to create the majority of the face, you can create whoever you like. This can be a scary feeling, since you could created your worst enemy within the cork.

Tracy Billet, The Samek’s Registrar, commented that the piece in Dusk to Dusk which scared her more than any other is “CHIPS-TEUFEL sucht den Stern der Kunst, wieeineinarmiger Bandit an Luziferz’ Munzelutscht, 2007 by Jonathan Meese, mainly because I know how much it weighs; 300 pounds! I also know that it is going to take five gentlemen from Bucknell Facilities, two crate builders, myself and two Graduate Assistants to get it packed and re-crated after this exhibition closes. The heavier or larger a work of art is, or the harder it is to install, is directly related to how likely it is that I will have a heart attack during installation/deinstallation! I’m joking… but only sort of. Not only do I have to worry about getting each work of art safely back into its crate during deinstallation, but I also have to make sure that my crew doesn’t get hurt. With such a massive piece of metal like the Meese, there is much opportunity for injury. I’m going to cross my fingers, wear my lucky conservation gloves and call on the Registrar Gods on November 20th for a safe deinstallation!”

Similar to last week’s conclusion, these answers point towards the fact that the art itself isn’t scary, it’s the ideas that you create from looking at these pieces that you are afraid of. Rick knows that he is safe, yet the exhibit is still unnerving to him. Alex sees a young girl walking out of the darkness, possibly a ghost? Laura is chilled by the idea that the cork, the trash, in Huma Bhabha’s sculpture is given features of a person; they should remain separate. Tracy sees a fear from a registrar’s point of view, how to move the 300 pound sculpture.

What scares you? Why would certain pieces of art evoke these fears?

Katrina Hefele ’13
Samek Art Gallery Intern