random thoughts on a gallery and a national controversy

Where do happenings happen? In spaces, not objects. People gather in rooms, in parks, in stadiums, not in statues.

So what is this predilection for the object, as opposed to space? Perhaps, on one hand, space reminds us of absence. That was one of the criticisms of the 9/11 memorial in New York City. The memorial grounds underscore absence in the two pools that occupy the footprints of the towers, and are themselves an absence when compared to the density of the rest of Lower Manhattan.

On the other hand, space represents chaos, a multitude of possibilities, when many of us perhaps long for certainty. After all, it is clear in today's America that one person's progress (positive change) is another's regression (negative change).

That's why a name like Negative Space intrigues me so much. I wonder if anyone hears it or sees it and thinks...why on earth would you name your business that way? As an art historian, I recognize the design terminology: negative space is the void, the opposite of body, mass, and ground in a work of art. It is the space those bodies and grounds occupy. In essence, negative space is where the art happens.

This artistic understanding of space may seem too lofty, too idealistic for those who mourn (prematurely) the removal of Confederate statues. Was it the statue that really embodied the concepts we must remember about the Civil War? Was it the statue that really encompassed the character of a town, like Charlottesville, to the extent that it could never be altered or removed? I say no, because history exists in space, not in objects. History exists in the fields of Gettysburg and the courthouse of Appomattox. Objects occupy those spaces, surely, and enrich our understanding of the spaces, but they are not untouchable, unchangeable. History is a living record, not set in stone--or bronze, for that matter--and the decisions of citizens, councils, and arts organizations to change objects in historical spaces are part of that living, changing record.

Change is scary. Empty space is scary. But without it, we are static, immovable objects that abhor growth to the extent that we scorn the needs of others. Therein lies my dilemma: what do I do with people who want to be immovable objects?