1999.118 Counter Ground | DMA Staging Content Management System

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

In 1999, the Dallas Museum of Art commissioned Tatsuo Miyajima to create a work for one of its four quadrant galleries in the Museum's Barrel Vault. Rather than using a wall as he had often done, Miyajima focused on the floor. Counter Ground makes reference to attributes Miyajima found in the north Texas landscape: an impression of power emanating from the ground, the nonstop energy of a huge network of freeways and electrical grids, and a sense of endless expanse. It is a shimmering mathematical landscape that alludes to the power and age of the earth, particularly the Texas plains.

Miyajima uses LED (light-emitting diodes) numerals, found in alarm clocks and wristwatches, as his visual language. The LED numerals indicate energy either ascending (red) or descending (green). Each numeral, or diode, in the field counts from one to nine at its own pace, goes blank, and then repeats its individually timed sequence. According to Miyajima, his work deals with the recognition of humanity within a technologically driven global society.

Adapted from

Bonnie Pitman, ed., "Counter Ground," in Dallas Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collection, (Dallas: Dallas Museum of Art; New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2012), 343.

Charles Wylie, DMA label copy, 2009.

NOTES

Catalogue essays

From Object to Image: Sculpture, Installation, Media

Contemporary Art at the Dallas Museum of Art

Artist/designers

Miyajima, Tatsuo (Japanese, b. 1957)

Cultures

Geography

Process/materials

Historical periods

Individuals

Subject terms

Installation Art

Post-modernism/Postmodernism

RELATED OBJECTS

PROVENANCE

1999: Dallas Museum of Art, commissioned from the artist via Luhring Augustine, New York [1]

[1] See correspondence from Luhring Augustine dated April 29, 1999 in Collections Records object file (1999.118).

AUDIO ASSETS

Gallery talk- The Art of Observation: Selections from Contemporary Works, 13309623: UMO

VIDEO ASSETS

IMAGE ASSETS

WEB RESOURCES

ARCHIVAL RESOURCES

FUN FACTS

TEACHING IDEAS

RULES

apply to objects where number equals 1999.118

General Description

In 1999, the Dallas Museum of Art commissioned Tatsuo Miyajima to create a work for one of its four quadrant galleries in the Museum's Barrel Vault. Rather than using a wall as he had often done, Miyajima focused on the floor. Counter Ground makes reference to attributes Miyajima found in the north Texas landscape: an impression of power emanating from the ground, the nonstop energy of a huge network of freeways and electrical grids, and a sense of endless expanse. It is a shimmering mathematical landscape that alludes to the power and age of the earth, particularly the Texas plains.

Miyajima uses LED (light-emitting diodes) numerals, found in alarm clocks and wristwatches, as his visual language. The LED numerals indicate energy either ascending (red) or descending (green). Each numeral, or diode, in the field counts from one to nine at its own pace, goes blank, and then repeats its individually timed sequence. According to Miyajima, his work deals with the recognition of humanity within a technologically driven global society.

Adapted from

Bonnie Pitman, ed., "Counter Ground," in Dallas Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collection, (Dallas: Dallas Museum of Art; New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2012), 343.