Not Only a Matter of Electricity – Rethinking Materiality with Victor Grippo’s Energía de una papa (1972)

Senkpiel, Fabiana (2023). Not Only a Matter of Electricity – Rethinking Materiality with Victor Grippo’s Energía de una papa (1972) Arts, 12(1), p. 35. MDPI 10.3390/arts12010035

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In order to consider the materiality of Victor Grippo’s artwork Energía de una papa (1972) more comprehensively than has thus far been the case, the specific characteristics of this case study are initially discussed against the background of the relationship between materiality and conceptual art. In a further step, the artwork’s agency is questioned, and it is regarded in the context of positions within new materialism. This is done by utilizing certain aspects of Karen Barad’s concept of “agential realism” in an examination of Grippo’s artwork. Our thesis is that while the Baradian approach is able to explain materiality within the functioning of the case study, the complex embedding of materiality and symbolic factors for the context of the art require an even broader perspective. Finally, the different layers of materiality—the material presence and the immaterial, less tangible aspects—are considered together in order to show their indispensable entanglement in generating the artwork’s meaning. It is not just the potato as food-as-art-material or the voltameter as a ready-made that must be our focus, but all the organic, non-human materials and the non-tangible elements involved in the artistic work, as well as the human being who sets the process in motion.

Item Type:	Journal Article (Original Article)
Division/Institute:	Bern Academy of the Arts Bern Academy of the Arts > Institute Practices and Theories in the Arts Bern Academy of the Arts > Institute Practices and Theories in the Arts > Art as Research: artistic creation and epistemologies
Name:	Senkpiel, Fabiana0000-0002-7165-4859
Subjects:	N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General) For photography, see TR N Fine Arts > NX Arts in general
ISSN:	2076-0752
Publisher:	MDPI
Funders:	[UNSPECIFIED] Hochschule der Künste Bern Institut Praktiken und Theorien der Künste ; [7] Swiss National Science Foundation
Projects:	[UNSPECIFIED] Lebensmittel als Material in installativen und partizipativ-performativen künstlerischen Arbeiten – Dokumentation, Analyse, Rezeption
Language:	English
Submitter:	Fabiana Senkpiel
Date Deposited:	15 Feb 2023 10:24
Last Modified:	22 Dec 2023 10:03
Publisher DOI:	10.3390/arts12010035
ARBOR DOI:	10.24451/arbor.18850
URI:	https://arbor.bfh.ch/id/eprint/18850