Is It Art?

Author: Abbie Beane

Just because it's easy and it looks like a mistake doesn't mean it's not art. Or does it? As soon as you thought you'd heard it all, something even more minimalist arrived on the scene: "Paper Clip Art." With an entire online gallery devoted to the delicate twistings of a pair of small, deft hands, (which act according to the musings of an eccentric mind, or maybe even a bored one) each paper clip "sculpture" defends itself by providing the story of its inception - icing itself with just a bit more meaning.

One of the earliest pieces, entitled, "Preying Mantus," was inspired when the artist, who goes by the name Andy Anonymous, tuned into the Discovery Channel. He claims that it took a significant amount of time to make. This is "an obvious commentary on the symbiotic yet turbulent relationship between man, nature and religion," he is quoted as saying. "One of my earlier works which took 3 weeks to complete."

Another example, which Andy created five years later called, "Whipper-Snapper," originally entitled "An American's Vacation in Singapore," speaks "of something completely different than it did before it was finished - social injustices against the elderly." Yet one of the most questionable works is "Time and Being," a completely unaltered paper clip, which claims to have been inspired by the philosophies of Plato, Marx and Heidegger. In the artist's words, although the work is "deceivingly simple," "this profound piece brings us back to the womb where we are asked to re-examine the meaning of our own existence and vulnerability in the brutal gemeinschaft of today's modern world."

You remember all of those paintings featuring a naked woman, a bowl of fruit or both? Paper clip art has got that all tied up as well. One of Andy's pieces is a model of just that - a woman lying on a blanket with a bowl of fruit, represented by two smooth steel curves and a small loop at the end reassembling a fist, or maybe that's the bowl of fruit?

And if you never imagined that paper clips could get racy, "Firm and Round" exists to prove you wrong. The artist describes this piece, a loop tied at its two ends with an overarching section of clip rising over the middle and hooked into the original joint, as a project where "Physical desires abound -The unorthodox use of two clips represents the intertwining of the carnal and the cerebral. The thinking man's sex machine."

So maybe Andy just had a little bit too much downtime at the office, maybe he needed a little more top down management, but then again, maybe he has a point in seeing the aesthetic potential behind such trivial, under appreciated objects. Still think this "art" ain't goin' nowhere? Well, just wait until Andy incorporates colored paper clips into the project.

On the other hand, if you take a look at artist Justin Schlecter's paper clip gallery, you'll find some much more intense and intriguing sculptures. Unlike Andy, Justin uses more than one paper clip per piece and often upwards of 200. Though his pieces do not attach themselves to complex, spiritual meanings, they are an impressive display of his mathematical genius, respresenting intricate geometric shapes, with names such as the "Complex Icosahedron and the "Fancy Dodecahedron." And considering how business loves science, this guy might actually be going straight to the top of the paper clip ladder.