Jennifer Allora And Guillermo Calzadilla-Charcoal Dance Floor

Jennifer Allora was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1974. Guillermo Calzadilla was born in 1971 in Havana, Cuba. Collaborating since 1995, Allora & Calzadilla approach visual art as a set of experiments that test whether ideas such as authorship, nationality, borders, and democracy adequately describe today’s increasingly global and consumerist society. Their hybridized works, often a unique mix of sculpture, photography, performance, sound and video, explore the physical and conceptual act of mark making and its survival through traces. By drawing historical, cultural, and political metaphors out of basic materials, Allora & Calzadilla’s works explore the complex associations between an object and its meaning.
The charcoal dance floor was created in February of 2003. It depicts a bunch of young club goers dancing. It was made on the floor of an art gallery and allowed for people to walk all over it and scuff it up. After a while, the artwork was all messed up and the drawing had disappeared.
I really like this piece of art. I think it tells a really cool story about a piece of art that the artist basically allowed to be ruined inside of an art gallery. I think these artists are 2 very unique ones, but have a knack for creating art that is appealing to its viewers


-O.D.

I really like the piece charcoal dance floor created in Feburary of 2003. It shows the artist didn't care about ruining a piece of their on artwork. Dancers alone scuff up and ruin the floor on which they are dancing so when people were allowed to walk on the piece they themselves were ruining the floor and the art. I think it is pretty courageous of the artist to let this happen to their work. I don't know if it was meant to be on purpose but I do find it very interesting that what they did was create such a unique floor with dancers and playfulness alike.

- Owen