Soap 1994

Mladen Stilinovic made this piece, "Soap", and well, it is what it says it is. The soap has a kind of worn, used quality, sitting there, kind of stuck to this canvas, right? It's like the humblest of materials, a little square of the everyday, presented as art. The square of the soap is echoed by the glass, fixed to the canvas in the upper-left. It’s all about surfaces, the way things feel to the touch, the way they reflect light. The slightly off-white paint of the canvas is thick, almost chalky. There's something about the stillness of it all, the quietness. Stilinovic was poking at the art world, questioning what we consider valuable. I'm reminded of Piero Manzoni, and his cans of "Artist's Shit," in that they both make you think about what art is, and who decides. Art is not about answers, but about inviting questions.