I spoke with Bill Powers about this new Miu Miu project curated by Helen Marten on the occasion of the latest edition of Art Basel Paris. The first question he asked me, after leaving the spaces hosting the project, was: “Do you know the difference between hot and cool media, as Marshall McLuhan describes them?” This concept, fundamental to McLuhan’s media theory, divides communication methods into two categories: hot and cool media. The former provides so much information that the audience’s active participation is minimal, leaving little room for imagination, while the latter requires action, interaction, and direct engagement. Today, in both fashion and art, there is an increasing pursuit of experiential and emotional communication. The latest Miu Miu show installations are true works of art: they do not convey pre-constructed messages that leave little room for interpretation; on the contrary, they give the viewer the possibility to interpret, understand, and reflect in the most active way possible.
30 Blizzards by Helen Marten is precisely a communicative medium, one in which the viewer can choose whether to adopt a hot or cool approach. Whether to remain distant and simply observe the theatrical languages proposed, to observe the conceptual noise of time, or to explore knowledge, exchange, relationships, pleasure, loss—to engage with all of this and make it one’s own. To decide to take part in the true performance, to discuss it, to let oneself be carried away. The entire research originated from Marten’s language, from her words, and aimed to create a communicative system that invites the viewer to inhabit it.
“There is change, and revolution occurs. There is spectacular renewal. There are crises. And between sequences of expression, there are gaps: they are watered, and something new grows upwards in between. The conceptual noise of time and change is ever present. It is flexible and extended, short, missed, ever evasive.”
Bill Powers allowed us to step into his diary, an orange cover that could be a contemporary artwork: at the center, a depiction of Tyson Reeder, below it a cherry drawn by Will Cotton. Then there are inscriptions — stain stain stain, perhaps hinting at the artistic and emotional contamination present on the pages—an adhesive of 30 Blizzards., and a particularly striking pin.
As we leaf through the pages, here are Bill Powers’ words reflecting on the project.
“In that fragile familiarity, this piece must be born. Not to be understood, but to be traversed. A language built live, in front of the audience. A gesture that becomes, for a moment, a world.”
