Hasta La Ideas

In “The Letter T,” Anthony Huberman’s talk at the New Museum last month, he wondered about why we have certain relationships with some objects and not with others, and why some things seem to have a pull on us while others don’t affect us at all. It would be interesting to pose Huberman’s ideas on speculative realism to the group of international artists in Lifelike, The Walker Art Center’s upcoming exhibition that examines whether a work of art’s authenticity is real or manufactured.

Is it real? is a hard question to answer, but Lifelike makes a daring attempt by investigating “the quieter side of the quotidian, choosing potentially overlooked items or moments as subject matter: a paper bag, an eraser, an apple core, a waiting room, an afternoon nap.” At face value all the pieces are real in the most obvious meaning of the word: they exist. Many of them are larger versions of everyday objects, like the Pink Pearl in Vija Celmins’ “Eraser” (1967) or Jonathan Seliger’s gigantic carton of milk, “Heartland” (2010). Are the artists’ versions more real because they’re one-of-a-kind, hand-made objects versus mass produced commodities? Or are the actual store-bought consumer goods more real because we touch and use them everyday?

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