Critical Review Of Red Carpet In C Instillation By Peter Tolkin And Yunhee Min
Red Carpet in C is a long fabric instillation that almost seems to flow along the winds, potentially to a melody or a vibrant sound. Inspiration for the instillation can be attributed to Johann Wolfgang, who once stated, "music is liquid architecture; architecture is frozen music. ” Peter Tolkin clearly took this quote into consideration when he designed Red Carpet in C. More specifically, Tolkin’s love for music, color and architecture truly inspired him and Yunhee Min to create such a vibrant and colorful piece as Red Carpet in C. Like production pieces in art, this was a form of “production of architecture” and from one interpretive view, it could easily be attributed to a melody.
In essence, Yunhee Min & Peter Tolkin: Red Carpet in C, is a transmutation between Yunhee Min, a painter, and Peter Tolkin, an architect. When I first entered the Culver Center of the Art, I was taken back by the amount of vibrance in color and vastness in size. Initially, I was expecting the instillation to be much smaller. Further, the red fabric-like structure I came across almost emulated one massive carpet. The piece was extremely fluid and almost moved towards the viewer. The piece extended from the entrance to the entire floor of the gallery. Furthermore, the piece had taken up a large part of the exhibit, making it very difficult to avoid once walking in. In essence, the entire exhibit seemed to orbit this piece. The carpet notifies its viewers its physicality and its collaboration of architecture, and its aesthetic as an art piece; it truly felt like a “structure. ”
The most interesting part of the piece that I observed as enticing, was the fact that the piece could in fact be touched. It is a general rule that whenever one enters an exhibit or museum, touching the piece is prohibited. What was special about this piece is that it required you to use almost all your senses. The fluidity of this artwork in a way mirrored a music sheet, as if these carpet like structures were rippling into the air. I then instantly noticed that there were “O” shaped rings in the carpet. Knowing a kittle bit about the piece I assumed that these rings represented musical scores. Min and Tolkin really play on this idea of the collaboration of music and architecture, in a way where the artwork is shown floating in air. Just like sound waves, they travel through space with no restrictions. Which in a way opens up the discussion of what “boundaries” really are in the art world. The combination of architecture and art, in fact challenges that discussion because it combines an industrialized notion with an artistic notion, and makes them work collectively.
Architecture plays on volume and space, while in music uses time and atmosphere as a platform. Despite the massive differences in notions, both music and architecture rely on a series of numerical and symbolic systems as means to arbitrate between the conception of ideas and the materialization of forms. While music is intangible and architecture, while not physically tangible, has a physical presence. The form in which music takes is visual yet hidden, meaning that musical production must acquire symbolic gestures such as musical notes. On the other hand, architecture is constituted by illustrations. For both methods, although they differ in their notions they are meant to be perceived by the viewer and rendered into something else. As such, Red Carpet in C seems to study and test the perceptual and physiological features of color and atmosphere, and through color and tone, this piece is used to create an emotional response from the viewer.
Therefore, form a musical and architectural understanding, it’s challenging but vibrantly present. Through the fabric’s soft medium, provokes a musical response from the viewer. “Red Carpet in C” is a synergetic, massive artwork by painter Yunhee Min, and architect Peter Tolkin that blurs such “boundaries” amidst art and architecture. The piece evolves in what feels like a melody through space.
