CRITICAL STUDIES - Ambiguity

Ambiguity in art refers to work that is open ended and free to interpret, with no clear or fixed message.

'Still water (The River Thames, for Example)' by Roni Horn is a collection of photographs of sections of the River Thames, but only the water itself is in the frame.

This body of work shows the constant change of the river with different colours and surfaces depending on the conditions of that particular moment. From my perspective this type of work is difficult to engage with because it's so different to the way I work, I find it really bleak and cold to look at and think about - we can't see the edge of the water or the bottom of the river, so it feels infinite like an inescapable void. The fact that you can't see anything reflected in the water other than the sky makes it impossible to identify the location, so even though the title of the work provides the answer, the photographs themselves communicate no information at all, which is what makes it so ambiguous.

XXL Chair by Frank Tjepkema

This sculptural piece is a regular chair with another anthropomorphic chair-like structure sitting on top with a tattoo on one of the legs. I think this piece is ambiguous in the sense that it's very uncanny and liminal but has more ideology behind it compared to the River Thames piece, it looks like a comment on idleness and western society's obesity epidemic, questioning how furniture changes to fit our lifestyles and how we are shaped by it ourselves. The wooden frame of the chair underneath looks rigid and sharp, contrasting with the organic, soft shapes of the figure which alludes to the curvature of the way fat forms on the body. The tattoo gives the form a sense of identity, implying that it was once a full person that became a chair over time, so there is an overarching feeling of transformation and metamorphosis. Having a tattoo makes it so ambiguous because it creates a mystery of who the person used to be, and I think there is a sense of foreboding, as if the artist is warning us of what modern life and consumerism may be doing to us. In terms of design, I think the materials and shape look physically comfortable to use as a chair, but the whole idea of sitting on a fleshy humanoid mass makes it mentally uncomfortable overall.