Guggen' Dizzy

Mia Liu

劉文瑄

Production date
2009-2011

Object Detail

Media
blank tickets to the Guggenheim Museum, New York, tape, plywood, electric motors
Measurements
3 pieces, 174 x 20 cm each
Notes
Art gallery admission tickets embody the notion of art as a global cultural commodity, and the role of the museum as a sort of hybrid between a sacred space and a bank vault. For Guggen’ Dizzy Liu created three large discs, each made up of 20,000 Guggenheim entry tickets standing upright and arranged in concentric circles. She first scanned her freehand drawings into the computer to produce a template. The ready-made tickets were then transformed with lengths of coloured tape attached to their edges, creating abstract ‘drawings’ on the surface. The artist says, ‘The ticket becomes a canvas and the tape becomes my brushes.’ Each piece took a year to make. The final transformation came with the decision to add a motor to make the sculptures slowly revolve; they become like carnival ‘chocolate wheels’, or shimmering mandalas. Promises of art nirvana, they also recall the Rotoreliefs of Marcel Duchamp, gyrating spiral discs intended to be spun on a turntable; a set of these are held in the Guggenheim Library.
Accession number
2015.055
Artist details