Floating fish
The fish in this ‘aquarium’ without water aren’t floating, just like the birds in last week’s post weren’t flying. They are artificial, man-made and suspended in the air.
While the birds were flying through the world of advertising, the fish are floating in the world of art. The two worlds have in common that both are constructed, imaginary worlds. The first one, of advertising, refers normally explicitly to the real world of the living, but the second one, of the arts, not necessarily. Sometimes it does, but often only very implicitly, and sometimes not at all. Moreover, while the intention of an advertisement is usually very clear, the intention or meaning of a work of art can vary from ambivalent, to puzzling, to utterly cryptic. Although sometimes its aim can simply be to reproduce beauty and nature.
Who could tell for sure what the suspended fish in their environment are supposed to mean or express? Maybe the artist herself can tell, but even that is not sure. The title of the work, “Passe sans porte”, isn’t particularly clarifying.
Maybe it’s possible just to like it, or at least the photo?
Photo of the week: Ursula Mumenthaler, ” Passe sans porte”, 9e triennale de sculpture contemporaine, Bex, Switzerland 2005
καιρός remembered 
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