Tom Marioni

In Tom Marioni’s May 18th artist presentation, he repeatedly referred to himself as both a sculptor and a conceptual artist. He spoke about being interested in art dealing with the present – and, according to his definition, sculpture always exists in the present. Moreover, he claimed to be the founder of the conceptual art movement, even founding the Museum of Conceptual Art in San Francisco.

The first work he showed was “From China to Czechoslovakia,” a sound sculpture and slideshow from 1976 that recorded him blowing into different beer bottles in geographical order across the globe. Throughout his talk, Marioni spoke about intention being the one necessary element of art. While these sounds may not be art, the intentionality he brought to the project made it an artwork.

In his 1972 “Out-of-Body Drawings,” Marioni made lines on pieces of paper taped to the wall. The lines were connected to natural human movement – walking, making circular form with radius of arm. While an important element of the piece is the ending document, he thought for a long time and planned these markings thoroughly, giving it importance via his intentionality.

He then showed an interview of himself where he talked about his life, his views on art, and his current projects. What was most interesting in this was his definition of conceptual art. He claimed, “Conceptual art is not for the making of a static object.” After the interview, he told us that he now thinks conceptual art is simply not glued down to one specific medium.

Later in the talk, Marioni addressed the theatricality, or performativity of his work. Marioni holds that performance manipulates matter, while theatre manipulates the audience. He considers himself a performance artist, as he manipulates objects. In his 1969 “One Second Sculpture,” he threw a tape measure into the air, manipulating the objects form, action, its temporality, while also giving it a sound, or playing its music.

Even though a specific concept is obviously so important in his work, he said it is not paramount in the desired experience of the viewer. Instead, he said he “shoots for the mood,” allowing the audience to uncover the majority of the content.

At the end of his speech, students gathered together to perform his 1976 work, “Beer Drinking Sonata”, in which students follow each sip of the beer with a blow into the top of the bottle. The project called for 13 participants, but for some strange reason, only eleven students were drinking, while Marioni served as number twelve. Moreover, because the event was co-sponsored by a political student group, the political science students seemed like they thought this was the silliest thing they had ever done, and were also extremely self-conscious of the audience watching them drink and blow. Marioni said he “shoots for the mood.” But I don’t think this experience was anything like the mood he created in 1976 where he and his friends joyously (and with intention) got together to sip on some beers.