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Northwestern University
Christine Choleft

Standard of Measure

Art Theory and Practice Professor Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle asked students in his Introduction to Sculpture class to create an object using a standard of measure drawn from their own bodies: the student’s breadth, for example, or the pressure of a handshake. Here, Christine Cho ’14 uses a projected image of her thumb as a guide to create a work of art with thumbtacks. In doing so, she generates thousands of fingerprints. The result is an alternative self-portrait: digits (as of the hand) in a world already inundated with digital self-images.

“Sculpture is both an intellectual and material practice in which we are asked to create something other than ourselves that will occupy a world already filled with clutter,” Manglano-Ovalle says. “It is an aesthetic as well an ethical engagement with the world on a basic material level. The stakes are high, and art demands that we take a position with respect to what we create for that world.”

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