Titling the Pieces in TORN!

There are so many untitled works of art. Why is that?  Picasso's monumental sculpture at Daley Plaza in Chicago is untitled. It took Picasso 2 years to produce the maquette from the time the piece was first imagined in 1963. The 50 foot tall, 160 ton completed piece was fabricated by a division of US Steel's American Bridge Company.  It wasn't until four years after its inception that the sculpture was unveiled in August of 1967. Now how could anyone put a name on something like that?

Sometimes titles are meant to give a hint about the intention that went into the work.  I'd say that's probably behind most untitled works when the work takes so long things change while its being made. I have yet to see a title other than Untitled on the work of one of my favorite artists, Lee Bontecou. My friend Robert Morris embeds his titles in Latin which, for many, might as well be untitled.   

I usually like naming my work, but with TORN felt like each piece had gone through too much to be limited to the perceptions a title might invoke.  So, rather than let a piece get stuck with half a name, but still not any name, I decided to developed new words for the six pieces in TORN by acronymically (spellcheck says that's not a word) maneuvering through decent descriptions of how I related to them. My goal in doing this was partly to reproduce the lack of certainty which inspired the work along with a curiosity about where that uncertainty might lead.

Here are the titles for four of the six pieces, each shown at different points of completion. From left to right: Noveclo Tobefin (the first and probably easiest piece to decipher), Digidee Silisto, Lodowan Sethro, and my favorite Therothipawigi.  

 

If you would like to see what's behind these titles, I have events scheduled Saturday August 16 at Studio 209. Visit the Stranger Things fb event page for more info: http://tinyurl.com/mvt3kp8 or message me at picheartstudio at gmail dot com.