Jen Douglas notes (further from the
show)
Detournement of Minimalist
strategies...
So
there is a positive hope that the exhibition of the appropriated
object could today still create this sudden moment of insight that we
know it can produce ever since Duchamp put a bottle dryer on display
in a museum, namely that it could show what (in a particular social
context at a specific historical moment) it means for something to
mean something. So we trust the appropriated object to be able to
reveal in and through itself the riddled historical relations and
dynamics that today determine what things mean.
dialectics of 'inside' and 'outside' of
'here' and 'there' of 'past' and 'present' but whereas minimalism
(tended) to extoll presentness – being, the here and now and
interiority (art language and located firmly in the linear
trajectory/progression of art and ideas), J.D.s work compounds,
conflates all in a gentle interplay of opposites – soft and hard,
interior and exterior, being and nothingness. Site and non-site.
(Heterotopias)...'Heterotopias of time' ….exist in time but also
exist outside of time because they are built and preserved to be
physically insusceptible to time's ravages... isolated from and yet
implicit in society, commerce, time and space...
(Structuralism)
“We
are in the epoch of simultaeneity; we are in the epoch of
juxtaposition, the epoch of near and far, of the side-by-side, of the
dispersed. We are at a moment. I believe, when our experience of the
world is less that of a long life developing through time than that
of a network that connects points and intersects with its own skein.”
Foucault
things which were once opposed and
binary – the celestial and the terrestrial, the sacred and the
profane... hierarchy gives order...
If Walls had eyes – eyes are the
organs of asking... agency of inanimate objects – is meaning always
something translated by/transmitted by us (humans) or is it in space,
objects, these things as actors, agents,
perceiving/receiving/susceptible things... (q'ing the individuation
of the self, cartesian dualism)... space as heterogenous,
bristling... it is not merely a void onto which we project meaning
but a confluence of sites, possibilities... unearthed, examined,
felt, perceived, overlooked... the gallery as a place which brings to
bear many other sites/places/times... projection/art (illusion) and
objects...
Questioning the aesthetics and
trends/'style' of Art – her painting If Walls had eyes which,
as a painting, is hard to 'like'... the colour, the clumsiness/lack
of order (undoing that notion that an artist brings form and order to
the formless and chaotic infinity of being/reality/continuum). This
is not here at the behest of aesthetics, beauty, decoration – it is
a kind of anti-painting in many ways; bringing space and chance,
three dimensions and form into the 2 dimensional pedagogy of painting
(like Fontana) also references utility – the rawl plugs... If walls
had eyes, looking outwards but inwards also – the thinking
gaze/psychological. (Also reminds me of R.R's Wallhanging
“a hole is a thing, a hole in
a thing is not” Robert Morris ...negative
thing, the sign of absence... fundamental impossibility to conceive
of, or to know absence or nothingness as these are always clothed in
the concept of ‘absence’ and exist as a shadow of the original,
‘positive’ form. Just as in maths, zero is not nothing; it is an
entity, a sign, a number which can itself be subtracted from or
divided into... a gentle institutional critique of the space of the
gallery with all the immaterial, abstract values it contains and
which endow art with worth and with meaning)... also
introduces this idea of the gaze, the viewer, of the act of
looking... by looking we do violence, we change a thing... the film
“walls have eyes” - the true blue motel... tied up with
vision/knowing... scopophillia...
Language
and communication (cf older work) outmoded forms of communication,
other/somatic/kinaesthetic forms of communication... what we
communicate consciously and unconsciously (semiconsciously)...
Descartian
ideas about reality existing as a maschination of the mind... as
opposed to reality and meaning existing independent of the viewer
(the world bristles with meaning and possibility, of manifold
realities)...
“Location
and point of view are constantly shifting at the apex of time's
flow...” Robert Morris
The
utility of the wall as opposed to the utility of the floor... the
floor is neglected a sign “do not look here” whereas the wall,
white, polished, it is the surface, the plinth on which something
becomes denoted as “art”... taking matter, space or ideas from
the living world of the phenomenological, from the continuum of
reality and experience and, by placing them on the wall, transform
them to 'art' to be observed, reflected upon, reappropriated,
critiqued... Relationship to the Duchampian “found object” …
the wall invites a frontal confrontation... a conceptualising... “If
the white wall cannot be summarily dismissed, it can be understood.
This knowledge changes the white wall, since its content is composed
of mental projections based on unexposed assumptions. The wall is our
assumptions. It is imperative for every artist to know this content
and what it does to his/her work.” O'Doherty (1976)
In
this way see a relationship between Jen Douglas's new work and the
conceptual art of the 70's, artists such as Michael Asher, Gordon
Matta-Clark and Sol Le Witt who produced works physically and
conceptually based upon, gleaned from the exhibition space (its
architecture space) whilst also questioning the 'invisible'
institution and attendant pedagogies which they inhabit and rely upon
for their very existence... the commodity nature of art... the
white wall (deviciveness) as a mystification, a non-site, a timeless
space... the white wall denies time and context – it becomes a
space out of time and place
floor
– part of reality... felt (the ground beneath our feet) whereas
the wall a kind of vacuum... negate...
wall
– visual, art, timeless, contextless and timeless, deliberate
(conscious)...
floor
– tactile, utility, marked by time, bespeaks the use of the
building (past, present and future), accidental (unconscious)...
Contexts
(invisible) “the art world... a singularly naked example of
capitalist maschination and mystification...”
Whilst
her work may, at first glance, appear to be “built upon the
armature of a minimalist discourse” - aesthetic parallels (directly
onto the walls, made by minimal means, 'borrowing' from the materials
and processes of industry) – it exists both in the legacy of
minimalism whilst also as a negation or disruption of it –
uncertainty, ambiguity, malleability, not a serial i.e. unlike
(examples) her work evolves, shifts stylistically and encompasses
many different aspects, threads... J.D. Doesn't ascribe to the
ideological or stylistic fixedness of minimalism... Works which
question? Disallow the autonomy of art, of the art object as they are
reliant for their existence, meaning and reception upon the context
of the gallery...
2d
works penetrated by space
2d
and 3d works which interpenetrate the exhibition space – painting
becoming installation
admit
to ambivalence and ambiguity... to a universe of contrasts and
contradictions... the reality of soft and hard can exist
simultaneously... the object can exist irrespective of observation
(“if a tree falls in the woods...”) meaning can exist
irrespective of perception (or can it?)
without
ideology. Ambiguity and the perpetual play/ experimentation... an
ongoing, ever-evolving dialogue between journey, self, audience and
materials....
PARADOX... entropy and life(?), fascination and malaise,
illusion/imagination and reality... Philosophy (and much of Modern
and contemporary art) exists in a false universe of dialectics – of
being and nothingness, positive and negative, good and bad, beauty
and utility, inside and outside, self and other... The artist as the
maker, the viewer as the reciever, it is a one way system of sign
production and reception... but this isn't the case.... it isn't even
the case in Douglas's work that there is the one artist – the
material plays as much a part... being is circuitous, convoluted...
it inhabits several positions (often contradictory) all at once... In
the past you couldn't be both a minimalist and an abstract
expressionist – such an idea would be preposterous! The history of
art built on conflict and categorisation... of placing one position
on top of another – following it, destroying it, advancing a new
position (the false assertion of PROGRESS)... in J.D.s work several
of these positions cited at once whilst it exists also on
it's own terms – a unique
enquiry, a personal enquiry but relevent and resonant... issues of
how we see, how we communicate, how we understand and the means by
which we do all of these... A philosophical enquiry conducted through
process and materials.... Intuition and logic, calculation and
chance, sensorial and cerebral, feminine and masculine... As opposed
to an “artificially segmented universe” - artificially
taxonomised, categories and the falsity of division... equally the
false premise of continuity – we are discontinuous beings from
moment to moment... is reality a fixed thing, an exterior state?
Suffused with imagination and subjectivity?
Jen Douglas notes (Northumbria
University Library)
“Artist and architect speak the same
language... Space is a function of feeling.” - Victor Pasmore
Memory – fabricated, inhabited...
habitation, dwelling... but these aren't domestic spaces –
something else... non-sites, transient sites... the empty office
block (now occupied by artists) the disused bank (now occupied by an
art gallery)... like the rings of a tree or scars on skin these
things record a time (an in between time)... art movements –
minimalism or art povera – similarly play a part – ephemeral
episodes/strata in art history (stylistically/aesthetically
defined)...
Conditions of the city... marginal
spaces, temporal habitation... relationship between matter and
thought, materials and ideas... multiplying the two in the
development of a new language – a language at once full of
reference as it is somatic, kinaesthetic, tactile...
Semantic duality – the photograph is
even more a 'found' thing – a moment gleaned...
Jen's
means are minimal; captures (in impression or photograph) – an
impressing on materials and the senses (as opposed to something which
is more constructed/authored)... well... spectrum/sliding scale of
this – artistic intervention and intervening artistry...
photographs have become the protheses for visual memory...
Indexical... Indexical of time and space... Dust and scratches an
indexical mark of time and motion... Her work is both photographic
and sculptural, painterly and architectural...
Private and Public space... the human
inhabitant... but these are not SPECIFIC, locatable... transferrable
and applicable... The gallery space – a 'neutral'(?!) space/ site?
“To live is to pass from one space to
another” - Georges Perec
skin... hyphen... project, impress...
Anne Hamilton's Crying Wall – art as analogous, mark making,
gesture, action as analogy between artist, material and viewer...
communicating somatically i.e. through the body and it's
actions/gestures... not the same thing as a metaphor or surrogate but
another way of communicating... a meeting in the middle around the
work of art... emotion which is abstract, subjective, difficult if
not impossible to communicate through figurative (and verbal)
means...
Guttural, sensate, sensual... the
language of material and matter...
Misery... it is and it is not, it is
also self-conscious, art-referencing,,, tongue-in-cheek... (reminded
of the Spaced parody “pain...anger...guilt... misery” “do you
do watercolours?”) the misapprehension of the audience – also to
see something from a plethora of perspectives... material language
SEE KRISTEVA... “the use of images in art serves to provide
metaphors for what cannot be otherwise depicted or produced by
physical means.” non-corporeal states, ideas, concepts, emotions...
(what is real? What are the limits of the real when everything we
see, know is filtered through our perceiving body/minds?)
Guttural, sensate, sensual... the
language of material and matter...
dialogue. Between artist, subject
and material... at times guided by material, intuition, intent...
dialogue between the artist and art as a whole – it's histories and
manifold permutations... ideas becoming externalised but also
'thinking through making' the ideas and intelligence which comes
through direct interaction with materials... ask questions of the
materials, it's a call and response, an infinite echo between maker
and material... not necessarily towards answers either but often
open-ended, unfolding... irresolute... meeting a fine balance or an
imbalance – a point of conversation (if we all agreed with
everything life would be dull and progression slow) dialogue,
vocabulary, paralanguage... “The
artist's marks are laid down, not in order to make a permanent
record, but as a means of 'seeing in concrete form' (the visual
metaphor), an abstract or non-physical concept or idea, a question
and its answer, etc. The purpose of these marks is to enable the
artist to look at them, see them, and thereby better understand that
which they represent...”
jen's visual vocabulary which
extends, alters, shifts, though is often addressing similar threads,
which, like the mind, returns, revisits from a new angle... technical
ability – in order to give quality to the means of expression.
Whereas minimalism extolled unsymbolic physicality hers encompasses
both and all... see her earlier “Misery” pieces –
emotion/introspection and minimalist devices conflated... not in such
a way that they are wholly neutralised or disallowed but rather
two-and-fro... one infecting the other... you hear the ghosts of
both Robert Morris and Eva Hesse...
the holism of the work...
To read;
- Donald Judd's Specific Objects
- Marcel Duchamp's concept of Infra Mince (apprehending the pellicle between absence and presence)
The
steel of 19/21
reminiscent of a Sol LeWitt discourse
based on “the
armature of minimalism...”
These
works are the opposite of
the seriality of painting... dependent upon the space in which they
are exhibited (some)
“location as armature for the necessary existence of
the work”...existing for the duration of the exhibition – for
this site to give it meaning...
Therein lies the difficulty of
talking about Andre's sculpture : sometimes it is firmly tied to
sculptural tradition, no matter that it hugs the ground; at other
moments it seems to be an environmental episode, some sort of
architectural subversion that exhales an art quality while at the
same moment criticizing the environment which cannot contain it in a
conclusive manner. animus
which is anthropomorphic... (in quality if not in intent).
One
of the most conservative or
traditional
properties of modern art
is
its reliance on style. The signature
of
virtually every modern painter and
sculptor
has been his style, or series
of
styles. Style replaced illusion while
at
the same moment it gave the
individual
artist the area within which
he
could develop his art... From “Anti-illusion: procedures/materials”
-
use
as introductory quote
Like
the Alan Watts Quote – we are not singularities, discontinuous from
moment to moment... what remains consistent in J.D.s work is the
threads of enquiry and her empathy for materials, colour and matter
their language, properties...
If
walls had eyes - no
longer awed at a mystery of crea-
tion
which is foreign to him; rather,
he
is drawn into the very process of
the
work being made.
“The dangerously penetrating gaze of the viewer”
physical
decision -making processes that have no functional
necessity
The
bringing together of art object and reality (which is made of both
space and time) -
J.D.s
shifts in approach/ materials etc is not indicative of a 'lack' (a
lack of style or coherence) but rather a refusal/denial of ideology
and fixedness – her work is part of an ongoing enquiry, evolving,
changing, shifting, with returns and endings... we can forget, in the
moment of looking and criticism to see the holistic, the universal
the timeless... to “over identify” Hal Foster with the single
object of observation and critique, to forget about it's location in
a wider sense – temporally, spatially, conceptually… this essay a
case of situating or locating J.D.s most recent work both in the
continuum of her enquiry but in relation to a plethora of other
influences – contextual, social, artistic, personal, historical
etc... But also the immediacy of the work, of my own encounter with
it (always going to be highly subjective and within my own sphere of
current knowledge, understanding and influence)... Heisenberg's
uncertainty principle and the principle of relativity... But because
these works communicate through encounter, through the physical
properties of the materials and the language they speak (one which
may be immitated but never replicated or embodied by writing)
J.D.s
approach too – one which has variously shifted between making work
which is placed inside galleries to work which is “realised under
the aegis of an institution...” incorporating/admitting the
reliance upon context... self-reflexive... consistent style denotes
an artificially segmented, static universe.... as opposed to
process...
Contexts
(invisible) “the art world... a singularly naked example of
capitalist maschination and mystification...”
illusion
and 2 dimensionality... Painting
a world of it's own....
Blue
parallels
to Mel Bochner – autographic materials...
Heisenberg's
uncertainty principle – by observing an object you change it...
Vanitas painting –
the examination of the intimate and the everyday as reflective of
bigger situations – life, death, mattering, THE ABJECT...
p.10 “…if I am affected by what
does not yet appear to me as a thing, it is because laws,
connections, and even structures of meaning govern and condition me.
That order, that glance, that voice, that gesture, which
enact the law for my frightened body, constitute and bring about an
effect and not yet a sign. I speak to it in vain in order to
exclude it from what will no longer be, for myself, a world
that can be assimilated.”
The Art of Rachel
Whiteread
p.10
(Chris Townsend) “...To this we might add something of the notion
of the readymade: first as quotidian object, secondly as an object
out of place, displaced here between negative and positive, then
between the domestic space and the institution. Those voids of beds
and baths were the not-very-special traces of the not-very-special
objects, made special. And to that add Duchamp's idea of an art
sec, an art presented without
affect or motivation; the object presented on its own terms...”
Minimalism,
re-cast.... “a thing is a hole in a thing it is not” - Robert
Smithson
“In
its countless alveoli space contains compressed time. That is what
space is for.” - Gaston Bachelard (Poetics of Space, p.8)
Douglas's soft,
reflective, reflexive interventions break what Gordon Matta-Clark
described as “hard-shelled cultural reality”... the metaphorical
and literal constructs of ideology as materialised in a building...
concerns with the ideology of spaces...
The negative spaces of the wall and
door frame...
The inert material... living
material...
From Rosalind
Krauss 'Notes on the Index, Part I'
“...The
accumulation of dust is a kind of physical index for the passage of
time.”
Rayograph -
“...forces the issue of photography's existence as an index...”
“But
the photogram only forces, or makes explicit, what is the case of all
photography. Every photograph is the result of a physical imprint
transferred by light reflections onto a sensitive surface. The
photograph is thus a type of icon, or visual likeness, which bears an
indexical relationship to its object.”
“If
the Symbolic finds its way into pictorial art through the human
consciousness operating behind the forms of representation, forming a
connection between objects and their meaning, this is not the case
for photography. Its power is as an index and its meaning resides in
those modes of identification which are associated with the
Imaginary...”
“Whatever
else its power, the photograph could be called sub- or pre-symbolic,
ceding the language of art back to the imposition of things.”
Casts = a
physical photograph; an impression – indexically linked to the
'subject' i.e. original object which has been 'pictured' or
'captured', impressed it's presence upon the material of the cast
(Silicone Rubber)
“The
readymade's parallel with the photograph is established by it's
process of production. It is about the physical transposition of an
object from the continuum of reality into the fixed condition of the
art-image by a moment of isolation, or selection... It is a sign
which is inherently 'empty,' its signification a function of only
this one instance, guaranteed by the existential presence of just
this object. It is the meaningless meaning that is instituted through
the terms of the index.”
“...the
indexical presence of either the photograph or the body-cast demands
that the work be viewed as a deliberate short-circuiting of style.”
From 'Arte Povera”
p.13
“The linguistic process consists now in taking away, eliminating,
downgrading things to a minimum, impoverishing (impoverire)
signs to reduce them to archetypes. We are in a period of de-culture.
Iconographic conventions fall and symbolic and conventional languages
crumble” (Christov-Bakargiev, 1999, p.221).
Lucy Lippard “The
dematerialization of the art object”
“The
return to simple materials reveals laws and processes deriving from
the power of the imagination, and is an examination of the artists'
own conduct in an industrialised society.” (ibid. p.226).
Unstable/volatile objects...
The
picture/the painting – format of almost all these works... only
just 3 dimensional...
Vanitas
painting “the intimation of unseen life” The
unseen life of the building... looking not as the institution but a
site …. overlooked
aspect of almost any building the floor... Particularly in an art
gallery where our attention is so very much fixed on the
walls
Aim? To make the
viewer consider their physical (and metaphysical) place in the
world?... the sublimity inherent in the everyday, the quotidian
inherent in the 'sacred'/vaulted/elevated of art...
Sculpture
exists in time and space in a way that painting doesn't... a painting
is an image (even if it is an abstraction or an image of nothing),
an illusion of space, the viewer must always suspend disbelief when
looking at the 'reality' of the painting whereas a sculpture
confronts us in the 3 dimensions of our space/time/reality– SEE
ROSALIND KRAUSS ESSAY ON SCULPTURE … Physical looking which
involves all the senses and time...
Time, Space and Sculpture (who said this?)
“I
would submit that we know very well what sculpture is. And one of the
things we know is that it is a historically bounded category and not
a universal one. As is true of any other convention, sculpture has
its own internal logic, its own set of rules, which, though they can
be applied to a variety of situations, are not themselves open to
very much change. The logic of sculpture is a commemorative
representation. It sits in a particular place and speaks in a
symbolic tongue about the meaning or use of that place.(...) Because
they thus function in relation to the logic of representation and
marking, sculptures are normally figurative and vertical, their
pedestals an important part of the structure since they mediate
between actual site and representational sign.” 1985, p.279
Jacques Derrida –
Deconstruction... deconstructing certainties of ideas, positions,
perspectives, states... Visual deconstructions (or sculptural
deconstructions) of the things from which they are cast...
These sculptures
speak MATERIALLY communicate not through ides but through forms...
problem of art criticism to privilege the conceptualising cerebellum
over the kinaesthetic, material and intuitive...
skin, exteriority,
perforations, permanence...
(BALTIC Research 2)
Eva Hesse – Sculpture
Objects as
“barometers of the body and the mind” impressed upon by
surroundings, by history (local and artistic) and by the viewer...
“minimalist vocabulary of industrial materials and repetition”
but not impersonal/'cool'... Rough edges, chance, malleability... The
figure...
The
internal logic and language of materials – bend, mould, puncture,
perforate, fold, drape... Their properties – flexible, rigid,
opaque, cold, soft... a formalist approach/empirical
enquiry..
Process... work in
studio... an act of discovering (rather than arriving at foregone
conclusions/aims)...
“It is the unknown quantity from
which and where I want to go.
As a thing, an object, it acceeds to
its non-logical self.
In its simplistic stand it achieves
its own identity.
It is something, it is nothing.” -
Eva Hesse, Box 7, Printed Matter 1966 -1970 folder, Fishbach Gallery
records. Reprinted in Eva Hesse, Sculpture p.9.
Sensations,
presences, ambiguous objects...
(floor transferred
to the wall).... lost/found, invisible/visible... the materials,
forms and spaces of art reception... reality/fiction...
use/ornament.... unseen/spectacle.... highlighting the staging/the
theatre of art... the architectural features of the space... the
imperfections, the history and historical continuity... the object
and it's exhibition space becoming interchangeable...
Silicone rubber....
(does this behave in the same way as latex? i.e.) natural material
which has it's own life cycle... ooze, harden, exposure to light and
air for a long time making it brittle...
The
particularity of Douglas's materials and what the both refer
to and allude
towards...
Opposites
(material/conceptual opposites) which harmonise and compliment as
much (or even more than) they contradict/conflict... Contrast
heightens and relates... absurdity...
“pre-symbolic”,
“quasi-visceral”... complexity... collisions of
references/influences (or distillation – personal and public)...
“formal neutralization” or balance?... the separateness of
things... the interconnectedness of things...
Scale of these
works (compared to previous JD works)...
Detached
presence... artist as creator or observer or conduit... allowing the
play of chance and happenstance... “uncanny ambivalence of shape”
(or matter?)
Michael Asher,
Kunsthalle Bern, 1992
p.3 to bring to
light “...the invisible systems underlying the collection, housing
and display or art in Museums and galleries... their dependence upon
exhibition contexts.”
p.3
“With this kind of work by Michael Asher the working of
the institution of art is subjected to critical analysis and it is
stressed that the postulated autonomy of the artwork is really
dependent on the effectiveness of the museum apparatus...” - U.
Loock, 'Michael Asher in Bern', in
ibid., p.9.
Pre-existing
facets/elements of the space which might allude the the unobserved
(or simply non-explicit) contextual conditions of the site and
work...
Permanence and the
monumental (compared to) ephemerality and the incidental? Overlooked?
The history of art – the monotheism of modernism, the polytheism
(pantheism?) of post modernism... the isms...
The contemporary
(trend) of occupation – art which inhabits or occupies empty spaces
(part of the inevitable?! Sociocultural Gentrification – the cycle
of renewal and renovation) a space which becomes an institution... an
everyday mattering which becomes a work of art... the living and the
dead...
the plinth (or lack
of)...
somatic experience
and visual experience – the differences and overlaps between
painting and sculpture...
Johns,
Stella and Warhol – pop art and the erasure/removal of “traditional
signs of authorial presence and subjectivity in their work...
ideational self-sufficiency”... also relating to the found
object... connecting to
minimalism and the momentum to remove the artist from the work –
the use of industrial materials and processes (Judd, Andre, LeWitt,
Morris) p.17 “...industrial materials that preclude modelling,
carving or other hand-worked techniques so as to reduce signs of
intercession by the artist that would disrupt the effect of pure
self-referentiality. These works paved the way for Asher and his
generation by virtue of the interplay they foster between material
form and actual space.” Things which exist 'naturally' to things
which are culturally 'appropriated' as art... taking lumps of reality
and repositioning them for examination, as critique, or for
commercial/artistic value...
anti-illusionistic...
plays on this – at times present, at others not... an awareness of,
reference and relation to, the history of contemporary art...
c.f. p.37
and 76
But J.D's work
NEGATES the facetless impetus/aesthetic intent of minimalism...
Mel Bochner's
desire to make work “which did not add to the furniture of the
world” 'objectifying the emptiness of space... of time'
Marcel Broodthaers and Daniel Buren – institutional critique/
reexamination of exhibition sites and spaces of aesthetic production
Extracts from
“Situation” edited by Claire Doherty, Whitechapel
“the
wall becomes a membrane through which aesthetic and commercial values
osmotically exchange” Brian O'Doherty
The gallery as
“signifying container” as PLINTH
Foucault,
heterotopias... a place which we consider as a singularity but which
in fact has many different histories, contexts, potentialities... a
confluence of space (white walls might denude and our tendency to
suspend disbelief/encompass illusion)...
See articles – Morris, Donald etc
Notes from
“Strategies of Being”
Yves
Klein (parallels/resonance to) Blue 2012 –
the cosmic order, the spiritual but also the theatrical... the
magical moment of art... Klein becoming the self appointed “messenger
of the blue void” cf photocopy p.222 – this a messenger of
another (the same?) blue void... morphic resonance... gestalt... art
penetrating and permeating the psyche or else digging at truths which
are at once sublime and profane, quotidian and transcendent...
Objects which
attract and objects which repel... objects which stimulate and
objects which bore... the deliberate facetless, COLD nature of
Minimalism... but also which became associated with power and
specifically male, white, middle class power... With Right-of centre
politics... J.D. Not so... (c.f. Photocopy p.294 onwards)...
something less certain, site-responsive/specific/dependent...
Judd and the
disavowal of painting as “inferior” … J.D.s work encompasses
both and all... it doesn't shy away from painting, quite the
opposite, brings painting into the field of sculpture and vice versa
– a conversation between material properties and history...
p.318 Richard Serra
(in comparison to what JD was saying about the real work happening in
the studio) “The significance of the work...is in it's efforts not
it's intentions. And that effort is a state of mind, an activity, an
interaction with the world.” contrast between materials so vivid as
to heighten their properties industrial/commercial against
flacid/pseudo-organic
Sensitivity to
materials – the quality of materials, their auratic properties,
progeny, resonance... Colour...
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