Create a desktop monument.| Lee Boroson | The Art Assignment

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In which we visit artist Lee Boroson in his summer studio in upstate New York, where he was hard at work on his exhibition at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, which opened this week! Boroson assigns us to create a desktop monument.
INSTRUCTIONS - Desktop Monument
1. Find an image online of a natural setting you have never visited
2. Use the image to create a desktop monument
3. Upload it using #theartassignment
4. Fame and Glory (your work might be featured in a future episode)
Find out more about The Art Assignment and how to submit your response: theartassignment.com/

[@dkmakes]

wonderful, as always! his work seems to me like poetry in sculpture form, portraying whatever subject more accurately by consciously avoiding direct "description."

[@theartassignment]

Love this comparison.

[@maddiemcshinee]

I live in the Falls! On the Canadian side though. Never knew about that architect, I'm glad he fought for the beauty of the area :D

[@heyheyitsme143]

I love how John so easily glosses over the idea of the nicorette pyramid, he doesnt even realize he's made such a distinct metaphor and visual representation of the process of quitting. The pyramid represents each piece of gum chewed instead of cigarette smoked until he gets to the top of the pyramid (his goal) of finally quitting his habit.

[@ethanomcbride]

I can’t believe this was made in 2014, when I was in middle school and Im just now seeing it ❤️🌻

[@CultClassic]

Is it bad if one of my favorite parts of this series is still Hello I'm blankity blank and this is your art assignment. Its fun watching how everyone says it different.

[@davidshi451]

Its perfectly fine. You can enjoy the videos any way you want, and participate in any fashion as well!

[@drewliedtke2377]

Can't wait to see these responses.

[@ljm792]

Wonderful stuff as usual, but I have to give a shout out to that great lipstick you're rocking. PINK! This assignment seems really familiar to me in some ways. I just graduated from Geology, and I have spent the last 4 years of my life trying to accurately imagine and understand natural structures that I have never seen, and probably won't ever see. Many places other people think of as "monuments" or "destinations" I now think of as processes, or examples of processes. I feel like this assignment deals more with the feeling of a place than the scientific pursuit of understanding it or how it was formed. But the act of trying to acutely recreate or represent a natural process or feature is a huge part of trying to communicate and teach geology. Using decks of cards to show cleavage or faulting, using plasticine to make tectonic models. Constantly throughout lectures my profs would search for the right word or metaphor to describe something that occurs thousands of miles away or Kilometres under ground. Trying to get us to understand its consistency, the way it moves, what feels like, how it mixes, or melts, or decays, by using substances or objects we were familiar with in our every day lives. Scientists are constantly looking for ways to accurately model processes so that we can run experiments and better understand them. Geologist have gotten pretty creative with it over time, as we are often dealing with processes that occur on a HUGE scale (either physically or time wise), that we need to recreate representatively rather than just replicate. Something like the Lee's challenge of trying to reproduce the experience of being near a huge waterfall in a much smaller studio installation. I love that Lee searches for accuracy in his installations with the same focus with which someone creating a scientific model might also use. Their pursuits are fairly similar, but while a scientist is trying to recreate the exact physics or the chemistry of a thing, Lee is trying to recreate it's impact, the experience of it, it's emotional or tactile ambiance if you will. This assignment has given me lots to think about. Thank you!

[@AlleyBetwixt]

I have a feeling this assignment will produce some really wild and rad pieces. Looking forward to it!

[@theartassignment]

YES. Me, too.

[@AmmoGlitter]

Great, but I have no clue what a desktop monument is... Is it like a little sculpture you can fit on your desk?

[@theartassignment]

Basically.

[@grilljones]

The Art Assignment are you serious? and you're saying all of nature is constructed?

[@ethanomcbride]

The Art Assignment 😂 I wish every answer my professor’s gave me was that simple

[@ethanomcbride]

Probably not ‘constructed’ I think they were pointing out how many different animals, weather patterns, and other aspects of the human-free world shape/change all natural environments 24/7

[@TylerMayMedia]

This is probably the most unique assignment. I like it!

[@MsKaddelz]

Haha the moment when he said " it's like.. frozen!" and his eyes ! Lol

[@megmotherwort]

I think this one took me the longest to think of a subject. Got it now though! Done and done. The Art Assignment 16: Desktop Monument of Polar Ice Caps

[@TwinkTwinkle]

I probably won't be doing this assignment, but I did think a lot about this. I would cover my entire desk in soft white cloth and spray it wet, making me feel as if my desk is made of clouds (or snow)

[@davidshi451]

A snow monument would be perfect for summer...

[@emmajane8393]

Ooh! Olmsted designed Mount Royal park, in Montreal, too. Seconds from where I live. I'll have to do this assignment!

[@vindeltrapp]

I might do this! I think I have a pretty good idea and I'm really inspired.

[@theartassignment]

Might? Must! Can't let a good idea go to waste.

[@MichaelMMorganm984638]

Olmsted was also involved with planning George Vanderbilt's Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC.

[@Xenolilly]

Really? That's cool.

[@danheidel]

Pretty much Seattle's entire park system was laid out by Olmstead: www.seattle.gov/parks/parkspaces/olmsted.htm

[@PhilipAitken]

Hopefully you guys went to Storm King while you were in the area.

[@theartassignment]

Didn't go this trip, but have been before. A wonderful place! I have a little something in mind for next summer in that area, so maybe we can do something there, too. Good thinking.

[@18cbarrett]

This is so cool! I love thinking about all these art assignments, though as a senior in college looking for jobs I have absolutely no free time to do any of this cool stuff :/

[@davidshi451]

If we all had an extra hour each day, I wonder if we would enjoy it? Or would people just fill it up with more things to do?

[@danheidel]

Jesus, a pyramid of chewed Nicorette? How the hell did you convince Sarah to not run out of the room in terror, much less marry you?

[@jessicate8698]

Thanks to John Green for sending me here from his video of "Becoming Someone Else"!

[@ljmastertroll]

Oh no, I have ideas forming. Now I'll have to do this.

[@theartassignment]

The great and terrible curse of having ideas form.

[@BriBri897]

This was filmed a while ago! Most of the leaves are gone now. :(

[@blownspeakersss]

I'm a nerdfighter who just recently got involved with this wonderful channel. However, I'm a little confused--can someone explain what the art assignment ultimately is?

[@Toasterblowup]

Do you mean this specific assignment or the channel as a whole?

[@davidshi451]

It's basically a way to introduce art and art making into the Nerdfighter community. Ostensibly, you would do the assignments, but you don't have to! Really, you can participate in the community in a lot of different ways--commenting, watching, listening, collaborating, whatever! Very much like Nerdfighteria in general.

[@_the_]

Weird how some things stay the same over time, while everything seems to change

[@meenakshivisvanathan9992]

Is this the beginning of the anthropecene reviewed

[@sergiosj94]

What's a desktop monument?

[@khkrasua]

1. Find an image online of a natural setting you have never visited 2. Use the image to create a desktop monument "Desktop monument" conjures a mental image of a giant computer for me; so if I were to take a picture of my monitor's reflection displaying Google street view of natural surroundings in my CPU case's window, would it be artful at illustrating that most of us do arm-chair travelling? --Although we are visually (and perhaps mentally) there, it is just a virtual experience...

[@davidshi451]

Ha, clever! An actual desktop, yeah? Well, try it out, and post the results!

[@paperbreath]

I can't place his accent it is driving me crazy lol, also Ideas forming for this assignment, nothing concrete but ideas.

[@davidshi451]

Keep at it! Just give it some time.

[@DavidWorley94]

John smoked?!

[@MadisonBrunk]

When he was in high school.

[@elephantschild]

It's a metaphor!

[@melissakane2722]

In essence this art assignment is very cool, but there is something that I fail to grasp. If Boroson is creating a sculpture based on his experience driving through fog, why ask us to look online for something to recreate? Why expect us to use another artist's photographs to speculate on the experience we might have? It would be infinitely more valuable to recreate something that we have personally experienced, even if it as simple as the tree we sit under during lunch, or the crows overhead. I think this exemplifies our habit of viewing Nature as a destination that we travel to and not something that we live amongst daily.

[@jehan9986]

what does that even mean

[@gop108]

Stop the crazy talk Show us the work