Beyond Sculpture:
Function, Commodity, and Reinvention in Contemporary Art
Toland Grinnell
Toland Grinnell, a 1994 graduate of the School of Visual Arts, is an artist who continues the legacy of Pop Art by having his work comment on consumer desire and branding.
Today, I see myself partially as a teacher, not always the most fun role. But I recognize that a lot of the things that we practice are very unique craft skills and I try to impart those to the people I work with in my shop. I try to utilize as many skills as I can to make my sculptures because I see fabrication as a kind of American craft form, in addition to a work of contemporary art. I take great pride in the level of craft and detail in my work.
This piece is called Domestic Arsenal. (fig.1) I've named a number of pieces Domestic Arsenal. It's a collection of Japanese-made cleaning supplies from a company called Muji, which will shortly open a store here in Manhattan. This piece is interesting to me because it mounts on the wall, making it more like a picture. What struck me about these objects was how incredibly elegant they were. You can imagine that all those mops are 40-inches long, while our American mops are maybe 65 inches. Juxtaposing these products led me to making collections of American bought objects.
This piece has a whole knife collection that I bought on TV from the Home Shopping Network. The Home Shopping Network is organized a lot like regular network TV with its programs. The toaster oven program airs for an hour and a half and it is followed by the dishwasher program, etc. etc. A show called The Knife Collector airs at 2 a.m. Friday nights. Two good old boys sell these heinous collections of edge weapons. You can't buy a single knife or a sword, but instead, must purchase gigantic boxes of them. Thats a 205-piece collection of swords and pocket knives and bowie knives. In the center is a sword called the Pirates of Skull Island sword. Just above it you can see the certificate of authenticity. It also has a companion bowie knife from the Pirates of Skull Island. It comes with weird things too, like a kitchen knife set, including a pizza cutter. All those knives cost $156 plus shipping. (fig 2) On the other side of the screen in blue is a collection of cleaning objects that I purchased at Target. These are all objects made for the American market for cleaning the home. (fig 3) One of the things that really struck me when I was shopping was the difference in between the dusters sold here and those sold in Japan. The one with the attractive little puff balls in the corner is a big duster that I got from Muji. The duster has giant lance like protrusions in blue. I also thought it was interesting that the vacuum cleaner, which was called the Sharp Roadster, looked like a bad prop from an early Star Trek episode, contrasted with this elegant, streamlined, truly futuristic looking vacuum cleaner from Japan. Part of what my work is about is seeing how a political agenda, both a truly political and emotional inside informs our product and purchasing habits.
Shopping is a true love and obsession of mine. Because of that I love, I buy things for the studio and incorporate them into my work. This piece is about 7-feet tall and weighs a ton. (fig 3) I displayed a version of this recently at a show in Italy. The Italians thought that the most humorous part of it was the gigantic toilet bowl plunger. Every single person asked somebody else what that was. Then somebody would say, “ "It's for the toilet.” They would crack up and say, "God, they're crazy!” The top of this piece is like a castle. Just above it there’is a sky scene, which we made by cutting bars of soap and stacking them up artfully. We see our idea of benevolence as something to do with cleanliness, trying to clean up other countries.
Presently I have work in a dubious show called Terminal 5. You may have read something about in the papers. It’is closed due to some ridiculous art opening that got out of control, leaving hipsters on the runway at JFK. One of the things that happened was we were going to loan just one piece of mine, a set of luggage that looked like an apartment. Then serendipitously, I was introduced to the people at a very fine old French company called Goyard, the oldest luxury luggage company in the world, predating Louis Vuitton by almost 60 years. The company is seven generations old and was trying to pump some revitalization into their brand by trying to make it more youthful. By coincidence, about 4 years ago I had discovered their shop in Paris with my wife. It was about the time that I started getting very good at making these high quality objects. I was completely sucked into this store because I couldn?t believe how beautiful everything was made and it was clear that it was made by hand. I talked and talked to the sales people, to the point where they brought me up to the second floor and showed me a collection of trunks that they had been buying back at auction to set up a Goyard museum. Now, a few years later, I was approached by Goyard and asked if I would like to make a sculpture using some of their products. Of course I said yes because it was a thrill and it seemed like fun.
In the shop it starts with a drawing and then becomes reality. (fig 4 )In this trunk I wanted to include every single thing that I thought my friends and I could have fun with for a couple of hours, a little bit like having a block party in a box. On the right side is the box built with Goyard?s handcrafted logo pattern fabric, which they print by hand in Marseilles. When I placed my order with them, I asked, ?Could I have 40 meters of that fabric?? and the guy said, ?Forty meters, are you insane? Do you know how many hours it takes us to make one meter, and I?m supposed to give you forty?? I argued and argued and finally got it by telling him I?d give back whatever I didn?t use. The piece is starting to come together and it has a cooler, custom made imprinted skateboards, and a sound system.
I now work with a company that I can give the specifications to, for the system that I want, and the dimensions that I am willing to give over to the speaker set up. They design optimal speaker set-ups for me and then e-mail me the blueprints. Then I just buy all the components from them. These are custom-made sound systems specifically for this trunk. (fig 5) I turned it about half way up one night and the security guard?(my studio is on the 12th floor), came up from the ground floor to see if everything was okay. That's how loud this thing gets. The small trunk sitting on top, to the left, has two George Foreman grills that work, so you can have hot dogs. It has a gas container and an integrated I-pod.
The piece was something that I was trying to have fun with and I saw it as an art form; not so much as conceptual art. The conceptual part of it was the fact that this seven generation old company came to an artist for help in building their brand. The rest of it was more of an exercise in decadence. It was also an exercise for my studio and me to see if we could make something that a very traditional company could be proud of. The owner of the company visited and made a very careful inspection of the piece. He said it was as good as anything they could have made in France. That was very thrilling for me and I think it?s emblematic of my principles. I see myself as trying to be a relevant sculptor today and holding onto traditions of luxury and traditions of craft. I also see it wrapped up in the fact that I?m American and there are not a lot of people doing this kind of work anywhere in the world, even in places like Italy and France. I hope that over time my work takes on some gravity that may not be present yet. Over the long haul I hope that I am able to build a niche in the art community and inside the community of products of the world.
