If a Tree Falls in the Forest, Who Cares About Philosophy?

Expressing the frustration and confusion that any art observer has experienced at some point or another, phrases like “Wait, what?” and “I don’t get it” are printed onto a vinyl banner in slanting handwriting. These bemused observations make up Discombobulation, a central piece in James R Ford’s philosophical exhibition, If A Tree Falls. Alongside this piece are a series of drawings, Potential Drawings, which are made up of minimalist lines and dots, and are, as their title suggests, seemingly left incomplete. These drawings, along with the entire exhibition, ask questions about artistic interpretation and the processes of deriving meaning, both from art and from life.

In a short essay about If a Tree Falls, Hugo Robinson draws on Camus’ famous work The Myth of Sisyphus. The exhibition, Robinson argues, deals with the existential question of how to derive sense and purpose from a chaotic and meaningless world. Abstract and minimalist, Ford's Potential Drawings are incomplete, asking viewers to derive their own meaning from the work, and raising questions about artistic interpretation as well as philosophical existentialism.

But at its core, Potential Drawings is an innately human series; the works' soft lines and dots evoke bodily curves and make the otherwise austere drawings intimate. To answer large existential questions about life and art, Ford turns subtly to the human body and to intimacy. He also evokes humor, like in Holey Ghost, a crucified figure covered in a hole-y sheet. Ford’s humor and humanity are ultimately more interesting than his existential questioning, providing the answer to If A Tree Falls’ bigger questions. How do we understand art?, Ford asks, and then he answers himself, gracefully: through the intimate and the broken.

If a Tree Falls closed on July 16, 2016. To learn more about the artist, visit his website.

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