Analytical design compared to landscape sculpture work

I realize that this question/comment seems somewhat removed from the strict discussion of analytical design and displays of evidence. Maybe not.

I wonder, in your sculpture, what you bring from your “analytical graphics” procedures, and, equally important, what you choose to leave out? Your “information” work is at the service of the data, that is, it’s aesthetic content is subsumed by concerns about efficient transmission of relationships. However the sculpture is driven by “private” sets of data, or at least by impulses that are not specifically efficient in intent. Language becomes fuzzy when talking about fine art, I suspect because the viewer or participant is, in fact, free to contribute personal associations to the experience. As students of the visual arts, we are trained in the intepretation of data that is specifically personal. There is, of course, the listing of formal characteristics (medium), but realistically, a viewer’s appetite is for work that is not demanding or reliant on concrete data, but is instead indulgent of emotive wandering.

What is different about your “stance” or mental posture when you view your analytical work and your sculpture and prints? I’m not so much asking about the look of a thing, but the demands of a thing.

I attended your workshop in Atlanta in June (after the course, I asked you about the dressage rider on your website, if that “rings a bell”) and enjoyed it very much. A few days later, I saw the Mark Lombardi drawings that are touring a few museums this year. Even though there is service to concrete data in his work, there is also a deliberate effort to ensure that the work is referred to as art, (emphasis on paper quality, hand execution, etc.). One’s analytical side would disqualify a chart or graph for using data of questionable nature, however I doubt that I would penalize Lombardi’s work if a link or two was found to be questionable. I would still have the “art stuff” to fall back on. I would offer the work of Sol Lewitt. His work is notable for its attempt to introduce the legend, or guide to its content and execution. His concern about the de-mystification of the art object has been consistent and unerring. I too am an artist. My work is essentially geometric, in most cases using “pseudo-random number” tables for its execution and internal structure. (note: while I would like to offer images of my work, it’s a bit like looking at an Ad Reinhardt painting on a monitor)

Is there a level of rigor that, once achieved, pushes an object or situation out of the realm of art towards the status of a science. Where’s that line, what’s that level? I am not wondering about qualitative judgements, just questions about posture and expectation.

Or is this just a question about the perception/existence of content? Or the expectations of content?

Any thoughts?

Robert Patterson