Interventions/Dennis Summers
DENNIS SUMMERS, born 1959
My Nature is to the Ground, 1995
Mixed media/performance
This installation is only part of Summers' intervention project. He also stages performances throughout the museum on Sunday afternoons between 1:00 and 4:00, and invites people to reach him on his cellular phone during those hours.
Motivating Summers' project is his critique of museums as impersonal sites that remove objects from a direct connection with life and drains art of its meaning.
Summers aims to counteract this perception by activating and personalizing the museum by his own presence and by offering people the opportunity to interact with him. By being available by phone while performing, Summers implies that museums need to strengthen the connections people can make with art.
The installation's towerlike structure suggests its function as central communications unit that Summers defines as a conceptual base of operations from which he infiltrates the museum.
To call Summers between 1:00 and 4:00 on Sunday afternoons, dial (313) 408-9963
Courtesy of Xochipilli Gallery
Phone courtesy of Cellnet Cellular
"My Nature is to the Ground"
