Time

Equilibrium vs. The Haystack Series

In his series, Equilibrium, Koons presents the idea that stasis and equilibrium are unachievable goals that are doomed to failure. Equilibrium is a state that don’t really exist; while it may be achieved for a split second in time, it cannot be sustained. Equilibrium is only a state of potential, it is theoretically possible but in practice unattainable. Koons states, “Equilibrium is before birth, it’s in the womb. It’s about what is prior to life and after death. It’s the ultimate state of the eternal that is reflected in the moment.” Through this series, Koons represents the idea of time as intangible and states as fleeting; nothing is permanent, even though it is viewed to be in an ideal world.

One of the works in this series is an unaltered Nike poster of a basketball player, Dr. Dunkenstein, 1985. In the 1980s, sports were seen as the solution for many African Americans, it was a way out of poverty and into stardom. The ideal state was to become a professional basketball player and stay there, as was idealized by the media (including this poster, for instance, which was a marketing tool for Nike). Yet, this perfect state is unachievable and unsustainable, as previously mentioned. The circumstances for achieving stardom were extremely tenuous. What if a player became a professional and then broke his ankle? He would plummet right back down to the bottom, as his moment in the light was a mere fifteen minutes of fame. The ideal state can be achieved, but it can’t be maintained forever, due to the nature of time and the constant change that surrounds us.

One of the signature works in the series is a basketball floating in a glass tank filled with liquid, One Ball Total Equilibrium Tank (Spalding Dr. J241 Series), 1985. Koons created the effect of the floating basketball by filling the first half the of tank with a solution of highly refined salt and distilled water, then filling the ball with distilled water so the ball would float on the heavier substance. He then poured more distilled water into the top portion of the tank. While the ball initially maintains the equilibrium, it is destined to fall. The footsteps of the viewers and the temperature fluctuations in the gallery blend the solutions of the water, inevitably causing the ball to sink and reach disequilibrium. The ball can be compared to the rising basketball star, he can only remain a star for so long. Once his body wears out and younger, stronger players come into the picture, demonstrating the changing conditions and the inevitability of the fall.

 

 

Monet also captures the fleeting nature of time in the series, The Haystacks. In this series, Monet painted the same haystacks that were located in a field near his house at Giverny over and over again between the summer of 1890 and the winter of 1891. He made about thirty paintings of the haystacks, capturing the scene in various times of day, season, and weather. When an image is captured in a painting, it can be seen as gaining an element of immortality, as it will be forever portrayed on the canvas as a static snapshot .The series, however, does the exact opposite. It highlights the fleeting nature of time, the fact that nothing is constant, nor permanent. Monet expresses the difficulty of capturing the image due to this ephemeral quality: “I am working very hard, struggling with a series of different effects, but at this season the sun sets so fast I cannot follow it… The more I continue, the more I see that a great deal of work is necessary in order to render what I seek”. It is virtually impossible to make a true rendering of one’s perception because it is constantly changing, the image that one sees now is not the same as the image one sees even a second from now. This frustration at the impossibility of capturing a single state is evident in Monet’s comment as well as Koons’ floating basketball; you can’t freeze time and these states cannot be maintained.

The time that Monet highlights in the Haystack Series is different than the time Koons highlights in Equilibrium, in that Monet deals with diurnal time; seasonal changes, or time resulting from the rotational changes of the earth. This demonstrates Monet’s ties with nature, that his time is reflective of the time as dictated by the earth, as opposed to the manmade conditions of time that are referred to in Koons’ work. Koons’ falling basketball apparatus is manmade and the career path of the basketball stars are consumer driven; it is time pressured by man. Similarly, the time by which the flaneur lives is also man-made time, the regimented life of the 9-5 worker and the productivity allows for the subsequent leisure time. On the opposite side of the time spectrum, the changing haystacks are at the mercy of the forces of nature. Both instances render humans powerless because there is no way to stop time, an idea that can also be related to the concept of mortality. As much as we may try to hold on to a moment, the clock continues to tick and the end is inevitable. Koons’ and Monet’s conception of time in these two works are categorically different, but they share the same concern in that they illustrate the ephemeral nature of time, that no instant can be captured forever.