orange carpet

Rudolf Stingel is an artist who began experimenting with paintings made from other materials in the 1980s. He used and liked the textures of aluminum and styrofoam, and even carpet. When he created his Untitled, 1993 —an orange carpet— he said: ‘I was more interested in the monochromatic experience of an orange carpet... I was not looking for the traces that people would leave on the carpet.’ And so he gave his art ‘over’ to the audience. Invited them to touch it, make their own imprints, to be the art, and that became the experience.

I recently saw this installation at the Tate Modern in London. What I noticed of the marks left by audiences were that they were all of positive energy. The classic heart shape encasing lovers’ initials. Smiley faces across nearly the whole of the carpet. ‘Rainbows’ from dragged fingertips in an arching pattern across the carpet. Hometown names and other places of pride.

Yes, the occasional 67 showed up, but no messages of hate were there. Watching folks enter the room and seeing the looks of joy streak across their faces as they became aware of their part to play in the exhibit. That invitation to play was all it took to brighten their day as bright as the orange carpet on the wall.

Moments like these all too often remind me of a line from my favorite poem: anyone lived in a pretty how town by e.e. cummings: “children guessed(but only a few / and down they forgot as up they grew”.

How often we forget that feeling of childlike joy. Yet how simple it is to bring it back.