Probably Best Seen in a Dark Room with the T.V. On 1999

Editor: We’re looking at Tony Feher's mixed-media piece, "Probably Best Seen in a Dark Room with the T.V. On," created in 1999. It strikes me as deceptively simple – just lines forming an uneven grid. What’s your take on this work? Curator: Well, the title itself is interesting, isn't it? It suggests a specific viewing context, implying that the artwork's meaning is completed by its interaction with everyday media consumption. The “dark room with the T.V. on” isn't a neutral space, is it? It’s a place of constant, shifting images, often fleeting and ephemeral. Feher, working in the late 90s, was likely commenting on the inundation of visual stimuli that shaped the contemporary experience. Does that make sense? Editor: Yes, it does! It’s like the artwork is meant to blend into the background noise. Curator: Exactly! The apparent simplicity, the almost childlike quality of the grid made of ordinary materials... These elements stand in sharp contrast to the high seriousness often associated with art in institutional settings. And it compels us to consider how the art world—galleries, museums—creates value, even when the artist seems to resist that very process. What are your thoughts about that relationship of the artwork to art venues? Editor: That’s a good point. The imperfections, the “wrongness” of the grid, maybe pushes against the perfection you often see in more traditional geometric abstraction. Curator: Precisely. It makes us question the authority of those formal conventions and, perhaps more broadly, the values imposed by the institutions exhibiting the artwork. It becomes an active challenge. Editor: I hadn't considered it in terms of institutional critique before. Now I see so many layers! Thank you! Curator: It is my pleasure. Analyzing works like these can teach us to not accept what seems obvious at first glance. It reminds us that artworks also engage within and challenge historical forces that operate inside and outside the art world.