Look, See (2003-07)

• The Cornell show is on the third floor, which is normally the photography galleries, and has been that way since the museum opened.  I normally walk through the museum like a trained rat, knowing what era or medium will be in which gallery.  It was a little disorienting.
• All three shows are in dimly lit or dark galleries.  Man, that's hard on my eyes.  Here we are having a wonderful streak of beautiful November weather, and I feel like I'm wasting the day at a matinée.  But I understand why the lights are low:
  • Cornell's materials are vulenerable to exposure;
  • Wall's light box photos need the lights dimmed;
  • Eliasson fun house installation depends controlled lighting.
• Each of the shows involves a very different kind of looking, a different sense of scale to the body, and a different kind of space:
• Cornell's space is close and intimate-- the head or face is in relation to the object;
• Wall's is the public space of outdoor advertising-- the body in relation to the object;
• Eliasson's is environmental-- the body in the object, and a kind of rubbing together of nature and architecture, which I guess would be something along the lines of landscape architecture or environmental planning.
• They finally changed the paintings hanging in the Clyfford Still gallery! Nothing to do with Cornell, Wall, or Eliasson, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

More thoughts on Joseph Cornell
I thought I knew Cornell's work pretty well, the collages and boxes and films and drawers full of photographs and ephemera, but I was wrong.  Of course there is the myth about him as the obsessive naif, and I suppose I bought into that. But this exhibition shows him as an artist with extreme focus and clarity of vision, and the nerve and chops to realize his vision.

While Cornell's focus and vision might initially seem narrow, they were not simple; this work is complex in ways I don't think I can understand.  It's mysterious, and layered, and cinematic.  I think there is something in much of his images that is about capturing the feeling of singular moments in film- a moment or person of beauty, a certain juxtaposition, a movement, some kind of grandeur, something that happens in one moment in a film and then is gone; sitting in a dark theater watching moving images of projected light is thrilling, but certain moments in this medium can feel magical.  I think Cornell was after that magic.

That, and backyard astronomy, which is another kind of camera and cinematic experience. And celebrity worship, another kind of star gazing, And also the theater of the Peeping Tom or voyeur. And something that might look to us like nostalgia, but which was in Cornell's time the objects and images from his childhood, and from the generation just prior to him. These probably aren't original ideas on my part; they're probably in the literature, but Cornell's art definitely works in these many areas, as you can see for yourself.

Think of the Scrovegni Chapel, which is really one big box, and looking up at the ceiling, which is a deep cobalt blue above littered with gold stars, and substitute Lauren Bacall for Mary, and you're drifting towards Cornell.

It is a huge, impressive show, a bit of a landmark.  The biggest surprise for me was seeing the skill with with Cornell made things.  Components of some of the boxes are quite finely crafted, and there are collages that show genuine sophistication in terms of how color from different pieces are combined, how texture is laid next to another, how line and edge are used.  This formal kind of stuff is something I did not expect to be bowled over by. He knew what he was doing.

The low light in the galleries combined with the amount of work can tire the observer, so plan your visit: at first, you might quickly walk through the show; next walk back through and carefully see the first half the show; after that, take a break at a cafe; finally, go see the rest of the show.  Take your time-- it's worth it.

More thoughts on Jeff Wall
Lots of big photos, lots of light boxes.  Most look staged, though there are a few where you can't quite tell for sure.  I'm guess that they're all staged.  OK, so it's tableau. It's artificial. No Henry Wessel or Diane Arbus here. We're talking Baroque.

It's great to see the beautiful Northwest, and interesting to see the lower middle classes making it big in 20th century art.  Many of the people look a little downtrodden, and often wherever they are posed looks rundown, beat up, neglected.  What are the images in these light boxes supposed to be selling?  It doesn't look like a healthy product.  Maybe they're public service announcements. I can't tell.

Those light box images are kind of grainy looking-- bet they looked fantastic when they started showing up in the 80's.  It's a funny thing about, say, Vermeer or Bouguereau or Seurat or whoever you want to name- a painting made two hundred years ago still has the same visual resolution as a painting made today.  You know, no one at Sony's research labs is working on making paintings with a better resolution; every painting has 100% resolution, and always will... well, except for The Last Supper.  But I think it's a little depressing, you know, the state of photography-- all those light boxes, and they already look like relics stored in a billboard company warehouse.

Wait, am I looking at stills from some mid-80's TV show that I didn't know existed?

Wall wants to make paintings that have the impact of large paintings- impact in terms of size, and impact in terms of subject. He wants to be a history painter, like Jacques-Louis David or Charles Le Brun, but his history is that of the suburbs, the shabbily built and poorly planned, the oppression of being a capitalist worker pawn, the ordinary struggling person, our neighbor, how a fire engine pulls up to a house down the street we walk out on the porch and shyly watch from a distance.

They're spooky, and the size and the medium provide distance. We can look really closely without getting personally involved with anyone. We are witnesses with impunity. Whatever happens has so many witnesses that my testimony isn't needed. Something not so nice is going on, but there will never be any justice. That's the way things there.

We all know by now that photography lies. Knowing that Wall's work is a deliberate fabrication allows us to put that idea aside and to focus on a truth. The truth is that much of life is not glamorous. Most people, even famous people, still put their pants on one leg at a time. We are cruel and judgmental, although our conscience pushes us to overcome that base instinct. Wall's photos give us the opportunity to experience the distance between higher states-- consciousness and conscientiousness-- and more basic ones-- impulse, reaction, habit, and to observe how we move from one to the other. It's more cerebral than emotional, cool than hot. The notion is good; filling, but not that tasty.

More thoughts on Olafur Eliasson

Can anyone tell me why this show is better than anything at the Exploratorium? Sure, this is some family-friendly show. Makes you feel all good because you experience something kind of basic and pure and simple. But basically, it's purely simple backyard science-- fill a wading pool with water and drop rocks into it to watch rings collide and cross, and observe the shimmer of glimmering light on the pool's bottom.

What is the big deal here? Didn't Lucas Samaras already do the mirrored room? Why isn't Larry Bell a God, rather than this latest Golden Boy. How is Eliasson's moss wall a better work than any Richard Long stone or mud installation? Why is this better art than sitting on the edge of the Grand Canyon watching a sunset? Why is this better than any waterfall? Why are major art institutions so enamored with this stuff? First Matthew Barney, and now this.

I don't care how many people laid on their backs in the Turbine Hall at the Tate gazing at the fake glowing sun of The Weather Project. This is some lazy stuff. And don't get me started on the BMW with the refrigerated exoskeleton-- you can keep your hi-tech message art.

What is with all of the clamor about this show? Why are people oohing and ah-ing? Geez people, go out on the balcony and walk through Barnet Newman's Zim Zum. Leave the museum, walk across Third Street, and enjoy the fountains at Yerba Buena Gardens.

Or, go back and walk through the Cornell show.

I like the groups of photos well enough, so some points there, but otherwise I can't even say, "Hey, Olafur, nice try." No Clapping Man-- he's napping.

===========================

All images borrowed from sfmoma.org

Joseph Cornell: Navigating the Imagination: Saturday, October 06, 2007 - Sunday, January 06, 2008
Jeff Wall: Saturday, October 27, 2007 - Sunday, January 27, 2008
Take your time: Olafur Eliasson: Saturday, September 08, 2007 - Sunday, February 24, 2008

“There's nobody living who couldn't stand all afternoon in front of a waterfall. It's a simple experience, you become lighter and lighter in weight, you wouldn't want anything else. Anyone who can sit on a stone in a field awhile can see my painting.”

Agnes Martin

Place
An artist typically can’t help but absorb and reflect her environment in some way. Where she spends her times seeps in and affects the art, often in very direct ways, such as in terms of light or color or space, and also in seemingly less direct ways, such as an artist’s subject, intention, or spirit.

The pace of life in the artist’s environment, or the local political climate, may also somehow be in the art. Geography and weather of course help shape outlook and sense of place, and also whether one is near water, among hills and trees, in or near the city, or beneath one kind of sky or another. If making art is part of how one lives, then where one lives and works is also part of the art.

Sandi Miot made her way to Northern California after living many years in Florida. She says that on arrival she felt immediately at home and knew she’d found the place where she would live and make her art. Her studio is in a large 1930’s building on a former US Air Force base north of San Francisco, where she is a powerful force in the local art scene. The restored buildings there are solid and spacious, California-style Mediterranean constructions well suited to the landscape, built of sturdy wood and thick stucco, fitted with large windows, and topped with roofs of red Spanish tiles.

Nestled amid rolling hills on the west and the San Francisco Bay on the east, this location is wonderful in every way: open, quiet, light-filled, airy, and inviting. There is life here: deer are often seen grazing under the oak trees on the hill, one sees and hears birds, and there is the invigorating presence of numerous other artists whose studios are also located in this complex. Here, Miot works on a daily basis in a large white room with a high ceiling. There are several work tables, a desk and comfortable chairs, many books within easy reach, and of course her art— paintings finished and in progress hang on the walls, and works on paper lay about in various states of completion. This room is a place in which to work, to sit and look, and to contemplate.

Encaustic
It is important to know that Sandi Miot’s primary medium is encaustic, a way of painting with pigment in heated wax that goes back at least as far as the Fayum mummy portraits from Egypt around 100-300 CE. Entering the studio the senses are immediately filled with the smell of wax and the sight of the paintings bearing thick, lustrous color.

The next thing you might notice is the hot plates and the blocks of colored wax lined up in trays. Unlike painting in oil or acrylic, where you can basically squeeze paint from a tube and begin applying it immediately, encaustic requires tools, time, and preparation— the hot plates need to be turned on, the wax needs to melt, and each color needs it’s own pan and brushes. There is labor involved here, and you can easily see it in the paintings. Paint is built up in layers and often melted back down with torches, resulting in a surface that is thick and textured yet soft and smooth, in places almost liquid, puddled, earthy, and organic, such as in Miot’s Sapphire Silk, Garnet Ambience, and Citrine Veneration, (all 2001). In others, flame-carved crevices cut through a painting's topography to reveal layers of color, like sediment, a kind of geological history, as seen in Beginning and Sanskrit (2007). (Left: Beginning, 2007, Encaustic on Wood, 12" x 12" x 2")

Wax seals and insulates— the painted image is both on and in the surface. Encaustic's translucent quality results in a colored light that glows through layers, luminous like a burning candle, stained glass, or amber. Since wax cools quickly, it drips or runs very little, indicating a sense of brief or frozen time, which furthers the sense of a captured moment that Miot uses to good effect in paintings like Awakening and Prophecy (2000).

Encaustic requires a sturdy support. All of Miot’s paintings are on wood panels, which have a very particular presence— thick, heavy, strong, and crafted. Some of the work walks a fine line between painting and sculpture, often venturing towards relief, some projecting several inches off of the wall. Many works consist of multiple panels, each a smaller unit of a larger whole. A wood panel covered in wax presents several dualities: hard and soft, solid and liquid, opaque and transparent.

Connections
In Miot’s work the paint, the supports, and the imagery have an iconic, object-like quality. They have a historical connection in several ways to, say, Sienese panel painting: the wood panel feels like a shape, not simply a canvas; the painted image is luminous; details are carved into the surface; and they feel built to last.

I am reminded of Duccio di Buoninsegna’s panel painting Madonna and Child (ca. 1300) at New York’s Metropolitan Museum. The gold ground is flat and inscribed with the Madonna's halo, and the space of the painting is shallow. There is an association I make, coincidental but fortuitous, between this painting and Miot's use of wax and heat— at the lower edge of the gilded frame on Duccio's painting two rounded notches have been burned into place by candles set beneath the painting. Not only is devotion depicted in the painting, there is also evidence of devotion, the result of burning candles. A painting like Miot's Sanskrit (2007) comes to mind, which has a centered, brilliantly colored image and a carved, relief-like surface made with a torch. While Duccio’s image is painted in small, repeated strokes, Miot creates her image with a finely controlled flame.

Paintings such Dance I and Dance II, (both 2007), each square and in low relief, make me think of Lorenzo Ghiberti’s twenty-eight gilded bronze reliefs (1404-24) on the north door of the Baptistery next to the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. And Miot’s use of multiple panels shares the narrative quality Ghiberti’s reliefs. These poignant, almost incidental visual rhymes made across seven hundred years, from Duccio and Ghiberti to Miot, are a reminder of art's history and its continuing value.

Images
Miot's art images are the result of constantly managed chaos and order. Paint applied gesturally suggests improvisation and intuition, while panels that are arranged in grids create order. Strokes applied deliberately contrast with less easily-managed areas where paint is carved with a torch. Geometric shapes hover over fields of scattered color. This contrast of chaos and order is an emotional push-pull for the viewer, who falls in and out of balance, moving from one state of consciousness to another.

Color is of course an important component of Miot's painting, as well as her use of multiple panels to make a single work. She often uses a saturated palette of pure and unmixed color, as in the vibrant, celebratory Night Music (2007). Recent paintings that consist of multiple panels hung in a grid or or rows are painted in an ordered spectrum of color that gradually shifts from one panel to the next, a gradation that suggests movement or a transition from one state to another.

Sunrise (2007) is a good example— the five deep vertical panels transition from a bright orange on the left, through red and purple, to a deep blue on the right. The color across the forty two panels of Lifelines I (2006), six columns and seven rows, transition both vertically (light to dark) and horizontally (blue to orange). Additionally, the panels in Lifelines I reduce in size as they descend in each column, so that it contains two kinds of transitions: color (pictorial) and size (physical).

Miot's art is both consistent and diverse, an interesting balance to maintain. Part of the consistency comes from her use of encaustic and certain formats. But it also comes from a concern for making images and creating meaning using a limited vocabulary of shapes and marks: squares, strokes, drips and thrown paint, layers, lumps, and crevices. And although diversity might best be illustrated by describing a few paintings, it isn't easy describing paintings that have so much built up color, so many different kinds of textures, and so many ways of treating paint.

Awakening (2002) contains a horizon line, with black above and orange below. In the black field three molten hot orange squares are each rotated in a different position, appearing to have burst spinning upward and falling back downward, like cubes of lava. It's possible that these three squares are actually the same square depicted three times in a kind of animation. This image evokes Kasimir Malevich's Suprematist paintings in which stacked squares, rectangles, and lines appear to move apart and evoke space and flight, a moment in time. (Right: Awakening, 2002, 48" x 48" x 2" Encaustic & oil on panel)

Dreams (2007), Eye Candy (2006), and Night Music (2006) are all diptychs, the images of which are made with drips and lines applied without a brush touching the surface. Dreams consists of two fields of deep turquoise blue carved into delicate vertical channels across which Pollock-like skeins of more turquoise are dripped and drizzled. The two red panels of Eye Candy have scattered magenta drops and a few quick lines of thrown yellow that span the two panels' dividing line. The color of Night Music is hard to name— both panels have a blue-gray ground across which a dense field of blue, lavender, yellow, and gray drops and lines are built up from the bottom edge, scattering out further as they ascend the painting. While these descriptions sound similar-- two panels side by side, a colored ground, dripped and flung paint— they really are very different images resulting in very different effects and moods.

Whirligig (2007) is a new direction for Miot's work. The twenty two panels are so deep that they are actually cubes. The smallest cube is at the center on the wall, and the successive cubes form a spiral several feet in diameter that eventually leaves the wall and trails off onto the floor. Every visible surface of each cube is painted, and the color shifts from one cube to the next in an expanded spectrum; the smallest cube is green, and the color of each cube moves through yellow, orange, red, purple, blue and full circle back to green on the largest cube. Each cube has drips of complementary colors, so that a reverse spectrum runs back through the spiral. Like Frank Stella, Miot brings the painting out into the viewer's territory, creating more than in any other work a shift from pictorial two-dimensional space into architectural space.

Understanding
I could simply write that Sandi Miot's paintings are beautiful, a word I haven’t even used yet, and although they are, that wouldn’t be very helpful in understanding her art. That her work is beautiful is so obvious that it almost goes without saying, but in fact she deserves credit for her mastery of materials and color. To further understand her paintings it is important to point out that her images teeter between representation and non-representation, and to recognize how she takes work from the expected flatness of painting to the realm of relief and three dimensions. Miot’s paintings provide us with the opportunity to experience and reflect on emotion and thought. The dichotomy of chaos and order is both something we feel and know as an idea. As Agnes Martin suggests, time spent in front of these paintings results in things to see and feel that might not be apparent at first glance. Miot’s paintings are models for ways of being and thinking. This is ambitious and inspiring, and a tremendous gift from the artist.

Chris Ashley
Oakland, CA
May 2007

Mel Prest: Alignments

Mel Prest's paintings are pictorial and physical, visually rich and optically complex, sensual and emotional, and engage the viewer in evocative experiences of time and place. In the paintings shown in an exhibition called Alignments at Gregory Lind Gallery in San Francisco April 4-29, 2006, there was much work evident in both senses of the word: many pieces of art, and lots of labor and time invested.

Mel Prest: Ladder, 2006. oil on 28 panels, 112 x 13 x 2 in. overall (Photo: Gregory Lind Gallery)

The paintings are oil on wood panels. A work may consist of a single panel measuring up to twenty four by thirty inches, or two or three smaller panels hung side by side either abutted or slightly apart, or multiple arranged panels in the five or six inch range that border on installation.

At a glance each painting's palette may initially appear somewhat narrow, but this is actually not true- a range of color within a painting, and from one painting to another, is extremely important to Prest's work because each work's subject, or intended sense of place or mood, is distinct.

One constant among the paintings are painted lines of mostly uniform width. These lines appear to be the width of the brush used to make the line, meaning that, in a sense, the lines themselves are actually brushstrokes. These lines are hand-painted, and slightly wobbly or tremulous. The surfaces of many of the paintings comprise a field of either vertical or horizontal lines, though a few others combine lines of both directions. Often these lines continue onto a painting's side. These painted lines are drawing, are carriers of color and indicators direction, and when combined in a field they become the painting's image.

As an example, Ladder (2006) is an installation of twenty two panels hung high on the wall in two aligned columns of eleven panels each, making a single work measuring 112 x 13 x 2 inches overall. The panels subtly change color in a gradation from very pale blue at the bottom to a dark blue gray at the top. Thin painted lines span the surface of each panel's front and continue around to the sides, ending at the wall.

Mel Prest: Pale Dusk, 2006, oil on two panels, 16 x 24.5 x 2 inches (Photo: Gregory Lind Gallery)

In relation to Prest's work one might immediately think of painters whose work is highly optical, such as Bridget Riley (1931, Britain), Victor Vasarely (1906, Hungary - 1997, France), or Richard Anuskiewicz (1930, US). But Prest's work isn't intense and busy in the way of these three artists; her work is warmer, softer and slower, more about place, time breathe, and the peripheral. One might think of the systems or processes of Sol Lewitt (1928, US) and Josef Albers (1888, Germany -1976, US), but Prest's intentions are not diagrammatic or schematic. Perhaps in terms of light one might think of Mark Rothko (1903, Russia -1970, US), but Prest's paintings are more crisp and intimate rather than gestural and heroic. I mention Agnes Martin (1912, Canada - 2004, US) not because of any grid-based relationship, but rather because of an attitude about paying attention at a slow rate of speed. Martin said, "Anyone can look at a waterfall all day"; she does this with restraint and dryness, while Prest's paint has more body and is lustrous. It might seem a reach to invoke Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840, Germany) or Albert Bierstadt (1830, Germany - 1902, US), but I think one can find in Prest's work these two painters' qualities of light and air, luxurious nature, and relaxed wonder. I would call this Romanticism.

A team of students in COMM2320 - Media Industries at RMIT University, Melbourne chose the following topic for their research project: "How well do various Internet-based media exploit the affordances of the Internet, and what recommendations might be made to media practitioners who seek to utilise the full potential of the Internet as a medium and as a distribution entity?" I was contacted by one of the team members, Laura Lancaster, about being interviewed. I agreed to participate. The following case study is published on their project wiki. Laura's post-project self-assessment is on her own weblog.

I answered Laura's questions via email on June 5, 2006, and the interview itself is basically an unrevised, unedited, first-thought first draft with several typos and sentences in need of a little straightening out.

Chris Ashley - A Case Study (link)

I think a vast component of what the Internet affords greatly benefits the creative media but in particularly independent artists. The independent creative media are able to exploit the affordances of the Internet to gain recognition, distribution and commercial/critical success. In contrast to pre-existing mediums, the Internet is especially valuable to the independent creative media who find they are able to fully exploit it within their personal confines. The Internet has become a solution to the many problems this minority has faced before, including lack of recognition, high cost of exhibition and distribution and many more. Though large and leading creative media companies have fully exploited the affordances the Internet has to offer, it seems independent practitioners are finally not being left behind and are able to utilise the affordances without their previous limitations. Whether consciously or inadvertently, independent creative media practitioners have found ways to exploit this medium and gain opportunities that would previously not been available to them. For these people, the Internet offers what no medium before it has.

I researched a visual artist, Chris Ashley, who furthered his artistic career by starting a blog on which he displays his art. As you can see his blog, entitled Look, See contains many abstract coloured drawings in hand-coded HTML tables. He also writes a lot of commentary about other artist, including other online visual arts bloggers. I chose Chris as I thought he has exemplified our research by utilizing the affordances we’ve identified practically. The blog is a great example as it is a tremendous tool that is often overlooked, although it is exemplar of what the Internet affords to its users. What’s amazing about Chris is that he is one of the few emerging artists who is using the weblog unconventionally. Traditionally, blogs area a publishing medium, with ‘diary-like’ qualities in which individuals can create a personal space to express ideas and opinions. Recently, the role of the blog has changed, and has been used for other purposes: as a knowledge management tool, primarily to make money. These aspects are only just being realized. Chris Ashley uses his blog to promote and advertise his art, and also uses its social aspect of linking and commenting to gain contacts and to communicate with people with similar interests. In an interview we conducted with him he stated:

"Most art-focused weblogs are not a tool for an art form; in fact; the most common use of a weblog in the art community fill some pretty obvioius functions that are basically time extentions of print-based publishing: commentary, reviews, news, promotion, gossip, and pictures. A second common function of weblogs among artists are for studio views – showcasing work in progress or finished, installation views, a kind of window into the artist’s working world"

"And I think what sets my weblog apart is that it has not been a place to merely talk about or link to other art. The images are not incidental to my weblog. My weblog has become an art practice, and it is one part of my overall art practice."

One of the key affordances of the Internet is that it is a network and in this sense Chris Ashley’s blog is extremely successful. It has become a way for him to gain contacts he would otherwise not have. In our interview with him he expressed in his ‘pre-blog’ days he found it very difficult to gain contacts in the artistic world, but since he started his blog he now has countless contacts and is in touch with people that share common interests. This is a result of the power of the blog as a tool that can be commented on and linked to as well as commented and linked from. In an interview we conducted with Chris he emphasised the importance of the blog as a network:

"My consistent and long-term online presence has brought me some attention and opportunities"

"As with any other popular weblog, the attention consists of and is promoted primarily by links from other over time to my weblog; without that there would be no traffic beyond the handful of friends and acquaintances who might check-in anyway. Without other people linking to me and commenting on my work there wouldn’t be as much recognition, although by now I also get a tremendous number of hits daily from search engines, too"

Another reason why the blog as a medium can exploited so tremendously is that it is essentially free. If you have something to say or something to show you can do it at a no cost. This is how the Internet differs so greatly from other mediums. Users have the ability to exhibit and display their work for free to an enormous audience. The blog is also exemplar of how the Internet is used as a personalized space. Bloggers are able to make it fashion it as they wish, and more importantly have full control of the content. Again what is successful about Ashley’s blog is the way he has taking this idea further to benefit his career:

"I have long thought of my weblog as a studio, a gallery, an archive, a study, and a library. It is part of my art practice. Much of the contents of my weblog are not about art; the content is the art. The weblog is a tool to sustain and improve my own practice"

If you are looking to exploit what the Internet offers for your various personal benefits whether they be artistic or commercial you need not look any further than the weblog.

Chris Ashley: Complete Interview

1) Your blog is somewhat unconventional in terms of the earlier purposes of a weblog (i.e diary-like confessions, personal opinions). Do you see blogs as having specific conventions or restrictions?

I’m not sure that the original purpose of weblogs was for diary-like confessions. Weblogs- not just web-based writing in a daily or serial format, but writing done for and in an actual weblog application- originally gained hold in the tech world during the late 90’s dotcom world, specifically through an application called Manila developed by a small company called Userland.

Early on, weblogs were very tech-centric; they were used primarily for listing and linking to tech and general news, very brief commenting or editorializing, news and updates. In some ways a weblog was a one-person message board that both acted independently of and referenced other one-person message boards. Weblogs also began to fill a social function during these rather heady and intense times, when tech companies were popping up like crazy and scores of people moved around the country to these new companies. Small communities would develop around a ring of weblogs that might emerge out of a circle of friends or co-workers, and the weblogs would be full of information concerning the logistics of work and social life, inside jokes, and, increasingly and inevitably, I think, personal information. One started to note several strains of writing: opinion pieces, diaristic writing, journalism-like writing, jokes and pranks. Much of the writing in early weblogs, perhaps until 2001 or so, was still tech- and business-centric, and there was a lot more focus sense there were so few weblogs.

A fairly natural outgrowth of the tech-centricism of weblogs was an interest in the use of weblog in education, both as sources of information and dialogue about educational technology in general, and as tools themselves for teaching in learning in K-12 and higher education. Early on a number of educational technology weblogs emerged, including mine at UC Berkeley; the original purpose of my weblog, begun in March 2000 was to explore it as a tool for schools (I had just come out of teaching elementary school and began work at UC Berkeley on a technology-based K-12 outreach project).

As an artist, however, it wasn’t long, sometime in late 2000, before I first began to use my weblog as a place to research and talk about visual art, but very soon after I began to think of it as a place for my own art, and this is when I stumbled on using HTML to make browser-based images out of colored table cells, a really dumb, obvious, crude, not terribly flexible medium; I call them HTML drawings, other people call them HTML paintings- I don’t really care what they’re called. After a year and a half or more my weblog began to increasingly be art-focused, and beginning in July 2002, I think, my focus shifted nearly exclusively to art. And I think what set my weblog apart is that it has not been a place to merely talk about or link to other art. The images are not incidental to my weblog. My weblog has become an art practice, and it is one part of my overall art practice (I’m a painter). Most art-focused weblogs are not a tool for an art form; in fact; the most common use of a weblog in the art community fill some pretty obvious functions that are basically more timely extensions of print-based publishing: commentary, reviews, news, promotion, gossip, and pictures. A second common function of weblogs among artists are for studio views- showcasing work in progress or finished, installation views, a kind of window into the artist’s working world.

So, now having set a little context, you ask if I “see blogs as having specific conventions or restrictions?” I’m not sure of the usefulness of this question, because now weblogging is so broad that having expectations or upholding standards across a general population of webloggers seems no easier to apply to the online world than it is to offline writing: some people are clear, diligent, thoughtful writers, and most people simply aren’t. That’s just the way it is.

One convention includes more compact writing: shorter paragraphs which allows scanning and supports the readers quicker, easier grasp of contents and weight. Certainly, there is the convention of the reverse chronological structure of a weblog. And there is the convention of linking: quoting something and linking to the source as a reference; hyperlinking embedded in text; the use of linking as a compliment or validation; the use of linking to generate traffic, increase search engine results. An important convention is that as a reader of a weblog I expect content to be fresh; rarely updated weblogs lose their readers quickly. In my case visitors know that everyday there is a new drawing on my weblog. They know that it is live. A weblog is a living thing, in that sense, and many weblogs, though not all, seem to have a limited shelf-life.

Another convention is the ability for readers to comment on weblogs they read. Some weblogs get lot of this kind of activity and little communities build around them. After a few attempts I made a decision early on that I did not want any commenting or a guestbook- I prefer more one-to-one interactions, I don’t really have time to keep up with comments, and having been in the position of moderator for other online forums I know from experience that it is something I no longer want to do, ever.

When I think of restrictions I first think of the various weblog applications and the kinds of functions they support: drafting; timed-publishing; ease of posting images; ease of modifying templates; and so on. I don’t think this is what you’re asking about. As far as the restrictions of a weblog as publishing medium, well, my expectations are realistic. What is a weblog supposed to do or be? That’s up to the weblogger, I think. If you want to be some kind writer, or want to post photos, or you want to run a news and information source for some purpose, then it’s quite possible and easy do so: identify your audience, do what you do with this audience in mind, do it regularly, link to others, keep up with your email correspondence, be nice and courteous, give credit where credit is due.

2) How has exhibiting your art for free affected your career in terms of recognition and promotion?

My consistent and long-term online presence has brought me some attention and opportunities. I assume that there is some quality to what I’m doing on the weblog- something that is attractive or interesting to others- that is that causes this. As with any other popular weblog, the attention consists of and is promoted primarily by links from others over time to my weblog; without that there would be no traffic beyond the handful of friends and acquaintances who might check-in anyway. Without other people linking to me and commenting on my work there wouldn’t be as much recognition, although by now I also get a tremendous number of hits daily from search engines, too.

Opportunities come in a couple of ways- seemingly out of the blue and through relationships. For example, a few opportunities seem to have come to me out of the blue- someone contacts me and offers an opportunity, and it turns out that they have been watching what I’ve been doing for some times, and that they have been aware because of links to me, so they know that others are paying attention; this implies some kind of reputation. For example, I was on a panel at the New Museum in New York, Blogging and the Arts, last spring- that invitation came out of the blue. The invitation to show in Richmond, VA at 1708 Gallery, which just closed May 27, also came out of out of nowhere from my point of view because I wasn’t aware that the curators of that show had been looking at my weblog.

On the other hand, probably a better way of having opportunities occur is correspondence beyond the weblog- several people who are aware of my weblog and who have written have become regular correspondents- friends- and those relationships are very important. Just to be clear, yes, they have been important in that opportunities have come out of those relationships, but much more important is the relationship itself; the weblog is part of it, a part of being available, being within someone’s field of vision, but the more personal contact- email and occasionally phone, is really a more fruitful way to make things happen. For example, and opportunity to show in Philadelphia last October came about both through my presence as a weblogger and through a relationship via email that developed after someone contacted me about the weblog and we began corresponding.

3) What other aspects of your blog do you find beneficial?

The most beneficial thing to me, which I have written about a fair amount, is that it is a tool that forces me to do something everyday, and that the tool, the weblog, has become for me a studio, and exhibition space, and an archive. Pulling a quote from my introduction for an online panel from the –empyre- mailing list last June, I wrote:

In the past three years my weblog has become my studio, an exhibition space, and an archive. I show work everyday, seven days a week. The idea of an audience, no matter how small, motivates me. I have total control over showing the work, storing it, and saying what I want about it in public. The archive aspect is important- I can easily go back through my work and compare various bodies of work.

Read the complete intro

4) How has being online assisted you in coming into contact with other visual art bloggers with common interests?

For a long time, in the early days of weblogging, perhaps up until 2003 or 2004, there were very very few visual arts webloggers. Eventually search engines and RSS feeds and other tools helped people with common interests find each other.

5) Do you find it important for artists to be in communication with people that share common interests? Is belonging to a group important to you artistically?

Maybe it’s just my personality, but belonging to group is not important, and may not be such a good thing for the art. A few good trusted relationships, are invaluable. It is important for an artist- and anyone in any field- to be able to talk to with others with whom one shares a common language, history, or outlook. As you know, I’m sure, all people tend to towards birds of a feather. It’s important to have another pair of eyes looking at your work, to have someone asking tough questions, who has another point of view. It is also important, perhaps more important, to be in the position of having to do the same for another artist, to get outside of one’s own expectations and to try to experience and articulate what one sees in someone else’s work.

6) How does your artistic career compare between now and your pre-blogging days?

After living and struggling with the artist’s life for many years in my twenties and early thirties I decided to be a productive citizen and teach elementary school. During my ten years involvement in the schools art became something put way on the back burner, at times so far back the burner was off and it was off the stove. Restructuring my life to re-establish my art practice as the center of my life as much as possible while still working, coincided with uses of technology over the past six years. The use of the web, my weblog, and email come pretty naturally to me, and I can’t imagine having accomplished much art career-wise without these tools. I think I’m a better writer than a extemporaneous speaker, and I can be a little shy and take time to form relationships. Establishing relationships that come from my other strengths are a big bonus for me. Other people who are very good a face-to-face right from the start, who don’t mind telephones, who are naturally at ease with others don’t understand that well. These tools allow me to establish a presence and some relationships more easily. My discomfort with schmoozing was always a handicap to my art career when I was younger.

7) If you didn’t have a blog, would you continue utilizing the internet to benefit your artistic career, and if so how?

Yeah, sure- if you don’t have a web site you don’t really exist, right? Without the weblog I would work harder at a regular web presence. Because of my weblog I feel like I don’t have to worry about that so much. And email is an essential tool- make polite inquiries of others, send brief email compliments- “I just wanted to say that I like that new painting you posted”-, say thank you, and be understanding when someone doesn’t reply right away. Build a mailing list using every email you can and use it to announce shows, events, the completion of a new body of work, web site updates, etc. One way to establish a presence and relationships would be to participate in discussions on other people’s weblogs- that can lead to personal contacts.

Here’s what I would never do- I would never, ever use one of those web sites where artists register and post their work, like it’s some kind of art community, you know these places where artists post their work fishing for sales. Sorry, those are rinky dink. You have no control over who you area associated with, and you have no control over the look of the web site.

8) You have said that HTML is an extremely limiting medium for making images and that these limitations can be immensely freeing. What are the major limitations you have identified and how have these been beneficial?

Excerpt from - https://mail.cofa.unsw.edu.au/pipermail/empyre/2005-June/msg00008.html:

HTML is a really limiting medium: all right angles; flat hard surfaces and edges; limited color with uniform intensity; the size of a browser window on a common monitor. And just about every time I've thought, "OK, I've done this long enough, time to stop," I find some little twist I want to try out. I just keep getting more comfortable with the medium and keep pushing it to be more painterly. And I think the fact that I do approach this as a painter has made the images much more expressive than they sound on paper.

Sometimes when you find the rules in which you’re operating, and there’s no way around them, you realize that having all of those other choices taken away is a good thing. You don’t have to think about them anymore. You make do with what you have, and you find lots of different ways of using those simple means. It’s very freeing because you already know what’s not possible, so fine, and you end up pushing what you have to find what is absolutely possible.

9) Do you believe the benefits blogging are only now being fully recognized?

Well, I think there are benefits that many people will never realize because they are too busy thinking about how weblogs are the new journalism and how they can make money off of it. Or even worse, that thanks to the popular press weblogs are misunderstood as simply places for overly sensitive dramatic personalities to attempt to get attention.

Excerpt from - http://www.artblog.net/?name=2006-04-03-16-09-panel:

I'm a long time weblogger (not blogger)- began in March 2000. One of the things that always annoys me about the discussion about art and weblogs is the focus on things external to art practice- the market, criticism and art journalism, the social aspects of the art world, gossip, etc.

Here's the thing I want to hear artists talk about- why do you do what you do (weblog), and what has it done for your art? Forget about all the rest of what most weblogs are about- what are you documenting; what are you learning and thinking about through you're writing, photos, and linking; how are you assembling ideas and knowledge about your work and yourself over time in the weblog as a kind of learning portfolio? How do you use the archive that you are building up- do you reflect back on your activities, do you look over your archives, do you have a goal for building creating a body of work or ideas for which your weblog is an integral tool? What are you and your work getting out of it?

I have long thought of my weblog as a studio, a gallery, an archive, a study, and a library. It is part of my art practice. Much of the contents of my weblog are not about art; the content is the art. The weblog is a tool to sustain and improve my own practice.

I also think a weblog can be a good way to form relationships and create discussion. It's very grassrootsy. I have found great value in that. But to expect a weblog to change an artworld largely driven by money, a world that, at the higher stakes level, increasingly seems to be turning into one of entertainment and social privilege, is hoping for a lot. The idea that weblogs in the hands of people with "truer artistic intentions" or whatever will change the artworld seems naive to me. Rich and/or socially connected will also use the same tools to continue what is in effect the Society Page. Witness Artforum's Diary.

Writing on weblogs has to reach a point of achieving validity as informed, authoritative, well-written, and accepted. There is no system for this yet- no editing, no publisher's stamp, no peer-reviewed process, and even very little of the kind of approval that lots of people understand: advertising dollars.

As you can see, I think they have tremendous potential for individual, small group, and special interest research and documentation. The other uses that many hope for them, as money makers, smells like business as usual to me. The can be tremendously useful for getting news out in a timely way that would not ordinarily get reported- in the US we are seeing that with a few weblogs focusing on politics and government, like [Dailykos.org http://www.dailykos.com/].

10) Do you see any further advances being made in visual art blogging? In terms of new media do you think the future is promising for independent artists?

I see a bright future for arts writing, for sure. One can already see that happening. But most of that art writing is about fairly regular art forms, especially that with commercial potential. Most art magazines are big luxury items with lots of ads and very little content. I can read an art weblog and get almost nothing but content- Roberta Fallon & Libby Rosof (http://www.fallonandrosof.com/artblog.html) do an amazing job of covering the Philadelphia scene.

As far as weblogs as an art form, or a tool centrally to an art form, it’s hard for me to say. There are few people using weblogs in a way central to an art practice, and much technology-based art is still being made mostly for other artists, it seems. It’s hard to imagine a crossover to a more general audience, especially when one is competing with video games, special effects, pop music, etc. Perhaps that’s why so much technology-based art references those things, too- so they can compete. I don’t see the point in anyone trying to make more HTML drawings; it’s a small area to mine. And I’m about making images that appeal to people- I’m not a programmer and I don’t make interactive, or web-based, or net art, or whatever it’s called. Artists will be posting photos and video and audio and manipulated images, and will build sites and environments for the web. Tom Moody regularly posts animated GIFs and music to his weblog. Just today I received an email from jimpunk announcing (http://dvblogh4ck.blogspot.com/), which carries hacked Quicktime videos from (http://dvblog.org/).

What do you mean by “independent artists?” Does that mean someone not affiliated with a gallery? If so, there are way more independent artists than there are non-independent artists (I don’t know what to call them- dependent, affiliated, sanctioned, professional, official?). There are many art worlds and many different communities. There is a huge, barely known art world of programmers, web designers, people using audio and video and performance, all kinds of image makers, etc. Most artists don’t become non-independent artists. They either get into academia or get day jobs and continue doing what they do. Some artists using technology are getting shown and sold, but it seems to me that the commodity being sold still has to have the aura of being a valuable object to it. That’s pretty hard to say about a colorful abstract image that is made of code and doesn’t’ really exist, or an animated GIF projected on a wall, or an interactive web site.

Above: Denis Peterson, "The End of It", 2006, Acrylic and oil on canvas, 20 x 36" (source)

In recent years we have witnessed genocide via first person accounts, news stories, television, radio and film, and, increasingly, nearly real-time through the Internet. We have watched the international community's slow, indecisive recognition of this genocide, and felt anger and despair at the inaction. How does one respond to crises in the world? A privileged citizen of a Western(ized) country can read, vote, write letters, write checks, tell others and speak out, participate in boycotts, etc. But as the bumper sticker says, "If you aren't outraged you aren't paying attention."

What more can one do, throw his or her body in between a victim and a machete? Because of geography and fortune and circumstance we are lucky as individuals to be far from these things, though we are left in the position of being so far removed that we can merely stand by and wring our hands. Some people pray. Maybe that does some good.

As an artist, what more can one do? As a citizen the artist can donate or sell work to raise funds. This is not uncommon, and it is worthwhile. But what if one wants to do more, to make the art part of one's action?

Does one turn one's art, it's subject matter, its reason for being in service of justice? As a painter, does one go the more didactic, activist route of, roughly, Gericault[1], Spero[2], or Sue Coe[3]? Or does one take a more poetic route à la Jacob Lawrence[4] or Guston[5]? An exemplary artist to think of here is of course Goya [6]. I think of some of Joy Garnett's[7] work as being in this vein. In all of these artists there is a unique aesthetic approach and a conceptual grounding on which hinges whether or not the work of these artists is art or illustration. How a painting is conceived, how it is made, how it exists as a painting, and how it engages a viewer in a complex experience of looking, discovery, and psychologcial and emotional dynamics is the territory where a painted image becomes something much more than a picture of something.

Perhaps one approach an artist might take is sheer commitment. One might make painted images that are so highly crafted, detailed, and labor intensive, that so earnestly suggest every pore and thread, that the message is simply, "I believe, and I care. Look at this. It is important." To do this, the artist lives with images so intensely that they become familiar and internal, alive and emotional. Maybe the viewer picks up on this, and maybe it becomes part of the viewer's experience.

Perhaps this is what Denis Peterson[8] has done. He is showing paintings through June 30th at Next Gallery[9] in New York depicting people and places where genocide is a fact: Rwanda, Darfur, Ethiopia, Haiti and Cambodia. A press release says that this show, Don't Shed No Tears, "is a unique solo painting exhibition focused on genocide. Denis Peterson’s masterful photorealist airbrush paintings are metaphoric silent witnesses - quintessential portraitures of salient human beings and stunningly incorporeal landscapes." The exhibition's title is a call to action- it's not enough to cry; as Philip Guston[5] said, "What kind of man am I, sitting at home, reading magazines, going into a frustrated fury about everything - and then going into my studio to adjust a red to a blue."
Right: Cactus Flower (2006), acrylic on canvas, 24 images of prisoner children, taken from their identity papers (source; more detail)

Paintings like Peterson's face a dilemma. When a painting is brought to such a high degree of finish and photographic resolution there is a risk that the painted surface is seen as a fetishized object made by a person of privilege. When images of other are used- exotic locales, people with cultural differences, those without a voice- there are potential issues around power and use; there is the risk of accusations of exploitation or glamorization. And it can be very problematic when painting appears to be a photograph, when it appears to be a copy of a photograph, and also has the appearance of photojournalism, which has a whole different contextual frame around it that we use to see and assess what we see. A painter working in this territory can be accused of uncritically using something horrible to make something beautiful. This is a difficult area to work within. I have not seen these paintings first-hand, and so am not able to judge them as paintings, to account for any painting decisions Peterson has made in response to use his of photographs. Paintings that appear to be photographs don't necessarily impress me. My tendency for now, however, is to see Peterson's labors as evidence of his commitment. And by making something beautiful and hyper-real in appearance, I think he attempts to remind us that people suffering terribly are living, breathing, thinking, and feeling individuals in need of our attention and help.

Robert Ayers wrote about Peterson's show in Art Without Edges: Images of Genocide in Lower Manhattan for Artinfo.com. Peterson told Ayers, "The body of work was created for humanitarian purposes, and proceeds of certain works are going to victims and families." More images can be seen at denispeterson.com.

In the following interview the reader will find the word location used several times, and there are two instances where this word is extended to locational and locationality.  In reference to a pink shape he saw on the side of a building in New York which later influenced an art work of his, Tilman says, “somehow it caught my eye and I was fascinated by its awkward shape and color, and also its locational relationship.”  It wasn’t merely the pink shape that mattered, but also the place where it was situated and what surrounded it.  And in our discussion about site-specific and installation art, he says, “a work which is truly site-specific for me is a work which is locationally immanent, if one can say this, rather than a work which can be transported to any other location.” 

In particular, I am very fond of his use of the word “immanent” here, meaning indwelling; inherent; or all-pervading, which perhaps even carries a sense of transcendence.  “Locationally immanent” would mean that something is where it is meant to be, and that it can’t be anywhere else.  Much of what Tilman attempts in his recent work is the use objects and color to create situations that feel natural and original, yet are structured and heightened places in which the viewer experiences form and light; one might call these immanent locations.

Right: Tilman: "Look Awry" retrospective at Kunsternes Hus, Oslo, Norway, May-June 2006

—Chris Ashley, June 2006


The following conversation between Tilman Hoepfl and Chris Ashley was conducted via email in English between April and May 2006.  For further information about Chris Ashley, please visit www.chrisashley.net.


Chris Ashley: Your work F218B-BXL installed at CCNOA, Brussels in 2003 incorporated video and sound by Johan Vandermaelen.  What was your thinking about including environmental sound in your installation?  Is this the first time that you've included other media in an installation of yours, and is it something you intend to do again?


Tilman Hoepfl: F 218 B-BXL was the first site-specific installation; its basic aim was to create a dialogue between certain elements in my work, but also of perception itself.  I found it interesting to include also various media into my process to add another layer of possible perceptive momentum.  Sound, for example, became by bits an architectural structure and yet another element in these rooms on the same level as maybe a flat wall work.  It definitely is not meant as an atmospheric addition.


CA: During 2006 you have three solo exhibitions scheduled in Oslo, Dusseldorf, and Sydney.  Can you tell me about the work you will be showing in these different locations, how the work is different or the same, and if these different cities affect either the work you are showing or the installation?


TH: Oslo is a rather involved project.  The show will contain seven stacked and layered wall objects, two floor objects and one large floor/wall object.  All works are made for the space, some beforehand in my Brussels studio, and the large objects here in Oslo, on-site.  The other gallery space will be occupied by a large installation similar to F 218 B-BXL.  This installation will also contain different media, like video and a sound piece by Belgian composer Aernoudt Jacobs, who composed this piece especially for this space and installation.

The show in Dusseldorf will be hosted by a rather small gallery, Konsortium, and in this venue I will show drawings and one wall object deriving from those drawings.  The series of drawings is called Fundstueck/gridworks, and is based on an object my eyes caught in New York two years ago—a mimetic relation, maybe.

The SNO (Sydney Non Objective) show later this year will most probably be a site-specific installation, due to the location and also due to the practicality—Sydney is a bit far away.  But no specific plans are made yet for this show.

In general I could say that a special location does not influence my work in particular, except that by traveling far distances to have exhibitions I got into working site-specifically and also more experimental lydue to this situation, a flexibility which I had to get acquainted with first, but now I feel very confident with this process of art-making; the post-studio thing, to maybe call it, helped me in some ways in the creative act and broadened my ways of approaching and dealing with the process of making a work of art.


CA: What was it that caught your eye in New York on which you based these drawings?  Do you often get ideas like this from your environment?  Is much of your work based on other objects or something in the environment?


TH: That specific image I detected in New York was actually a huge pink shape consisting of isolation panels mounted on the outside brick wall of a building under construction, and somehow it caught my eye and I was fascinated by its awkward shape and color, and also its locational relationship.  But it is not that I am specifically looking for images like this—they just occur, and if they are strong enough, they find their way slowly into the process.  So I am trying to say that especially the architectural objects are not entirely dependent on this process of seeing.  This also can happen by working on drawings and making sort of loose sketches, especially when it comes to larger artworks.  But yes, I cannot deny a relationship to daily life objects, or at least the impulse I get from looking at things, objects, and my environment.


CA: Let’s talk about this idea of the “post-studio” practice, a not uncommon practice for many artists now.  I see a breakdown of art that is made in the studio, or made outside the studio, or is half-and-half.  There are artists who don’t have a studio beyond, say, a laptop, and who work with teams or fabricators.  Can you say more about this, and how it broadens your practice?  You’re still working in a studio, too, so are these approaches ever really separate, or is it more porous, something shifting back and forth?


TH: “The world becomes the studio”—this is a line used by a New Zealand-based art critic, and I can definitely relate to this quote.  So in my case, this became an issue after being invited to places like Australia, or in cases of working with art-spaces that run on a low budget.  The works I execute then are usually made site-specific, or I find a place where I can continue the regular studio practice, so in this case I can set up a temporary studio wherever I want.  Maybe the idea of working in one place—the studio—is a very romantic idea in these times and days, and then may be one day it becomes important again.  The intimacy of the studio is still important, so to say, but also the flexibility of location, time and space are a big part of my working process, without interfering with the essential idea of my work.


CA: The literature about your work and your own statements emphasize your interest in color and light.  Your realization that light and color were your main concerns came over time, and through painting, and in some ways you are still involved in painting, but also sculpture.  I'm curious to know about why and how you make solid colored objects in order to get at the effects of light.  What result are you after in setting up for the viewer a situation where light is made with objects?


TH: I guess my early interests in light stem from my concern for photography, which developed very young, also always painting at the same time.  Working with photography ended basically in doing very experimental photos about movement of light.  Photography seemed not the right tool for me then, and I turned to painting to explore light and its essential visual quality.  Sure, for a long time I literally painted and tried to paint/catch light, and through years of working and researching in different modes and styles (bad word, I know), I arrived very slowly at a much-reduced form to give light its platform.  So in this term, I understand my works of art as more carriers for existing light, and they can be flat, three dimensional art arranged in an installation.  A strong point in this mode of working is to invite the viewer to participate in this physical experience, to look and understand the subtleties of light and the objects and, in general, I think this can also spur more philosophical or even psychological points of understanding than the work of art might offer at first sight.


CA: What do you see as the philosophical and psychological aspects of experiencing and understanding your work?  Perception of light and color are primary experiences in your work, and these take place through certain forms.  These forms are hung or installed in specific ways, and may be integral to an architectural setting, perhaps bearing the influence of architecture.  We are all familiar with and can deeply experience architectural spaces—we move through them, live in them, work in them.  Our experience of space, and much of our lives, is shaped by architecture, and color and light.  In “The Poetics of Space,” Gaston Bachelard applies the method of Phenomenology to examine our experience of architecture, looking closely at various kinds of shapes and spaces.  Some of our experience is less conscious, even automatic, but at some point we become more aware of our interactions with various kinds of spaces.  Our reactions are at first physical, gradually turning to awareness and meaning—which might be a psychological recognition—and then as we process this it becomes an idea or an ideal, entering the realm of philosophy.  Our looking translates into an intellectual process and vice-versa, and it can be a very interesting process.  How does your art act in the continuum from the physical, to the psychological, to the philosophical?


TH: I find your reference to Bachelard`s book very interesting.  Once I bought this book, about a half a year ago, but didn’t yet find time to focus on it.  The short rundown on Bachelard`s thoughts and ideas definitely reflects some subjects I am dealing with in my work, although I am missing subjects like personal physicality, sensuality and above all the factors of time, but, well, I haven’t read it yet.  Also, he is maybe more referring to the architectural space compared to the architectural/intimate space of a work of art.  For me, those questions evolved over a period of time, and the observations I made regarding the viewer’s act of seeing.  Once my works developed into three-dimensional objects I observed that most of the viewers still perceived those works as two-dimensional works, which deeply irritated me and raised a lot of questions about perception.  I then introduced those rather small boxes, called Volumina, and besides their own autonomy as works of art they also helped to seduce the viewer into another act of seeing and perception.  The viewer all of a sudden understood the three-dimensionality of the other works—looking behind, creating a curiosity—and once being three-dimensional those works created also a physicality within the viewer, which led to questions of psychology and, last but not least, philosophy.  There is sure more to say towards that subject, but maybe you get an idea of what I am aiming for.


CA: There are other artists with a strong psychological and philosophical foundation, who also deal with light and color.  How do you see your work in terms of the history of other artists for whom pure color and light are central, for example Robert Irwin, Dan Flavin, or James Turrell?


TH: Well, I think history is long and there are many artists I am interested in from Renaissance to today, and I think this is a quite complex question.  The three names you mention are sort of tied into Minimalism, and sure I respect their work in their own form of dealing with the phenomena of light, but I do not understand myself as a Minimalist.  There are certainly thoughts which I am very interested in, and also a certain aesthetic, but I wouldn't nail down my approach to them.  A very strong influence was a rather unknown artist who died recently, Robert Fosdick, and maybe also Belgian artist Marthe Wéry, who also died last year.  I can definitely say that there is a tradition in my language of art starting more precisely maybe with De Stijl and Bauhaus, for example.


CA: Can you say a little more about Fosdick and Wéry, their work, and their influence?


TH: As for my friend Robert Fosdick, I have to say that it wasn't necessarily the actuality of his individual works, it was the ideas he gave me about, let's say, possibilities for understanding the subtleties of light.  Deeply embedded in the dialogue between the realistic, scientific understanding of the natural phenomena of light itself, and on the other side a philosophical, spiritual approach towards it, the conversations with him supported my own development and triggered a manifold of questions in me.


As for Marthe Wéry, I guess we met just like that, a deep understanding in what we were both after in terms of physicality and intellect, the relationship between an art object and its function in architectural space, the importance of light as a mending plate between those entities, an almost sensoround experience, the questions of one's own physicality, one's own physical position—where do we stand?


CA: Going back to Minimalism, in his well-known essay “Art and Objecthood,” first published in “Artforum” in June 1967, Michael Fried used the word “theatricality” to describe, and criticize, Minimalism’s phenomenon of an object or form in real space experienced in real time.  This attribute eventually came to have many positive connotations.  When I mentioned Irwin, Flavin, and Turrell, I wasn’t really thinking of your work as Minimalism; I asked about them because light and perception are central to your work.  But now, given your use of installation, I’m wondering whether or not you incorporate this “theatrical” aspect of installation into your work.


TH: I think the term “theatrical” in this respect is theatrical in itself, and also maybe the term “installation” is wrong to describe those spaces I create.  They are clearly site-specific in their nature, which I think installation art is not.  The spaces I create are clearly connected to its location.  They never can be set up again in the same manner once they are standing in an important dialogue with its architectural environment and the existing light conditions.  I do not understand the architectural environment as a setting or stage in that sense.


CA: How is it possible that an installation is not site-specific?  I wonder if what you mean is that installation art doesn’t have to be site-specific.  It is dependent on the location, which can change each time the work is installed, in different conditions.  Regarding your work, do you mean that the architectural environment in which you install your work is not a backdrop or a platform, but is integrated into something larger— the entire work would include your objects or interventions, plus the environment?


TH: Sure, all installations are in some way site-specific; I just wanted to draw a line there between installation and site-specific, which you actually answered with the second part of your question regarding this subject.  A work which is truly site-specific for me is a work which is locationally immanent, if one can say this, rather than a work which can be transported to any other location and re-installed in a maybe slightly different configuration within any given space.


CA: Much of your work certainly shares the essential characteristics of de Stijl: pure abstraction; a reduction to essential form and color; an emphasis on vertical and horizontal, and individual, discrete works.  The Bauhaus’ key characteristics are architecture and function, and the philosophy that the practice of art is situated in a greater totality.  How do you see your work in relation to this?


TH: I guess there is definitely a relation to those thoughts.  Josef Alber’s quote that “art shall open eyes” is also very important in the bigger picture to make art accessible.  And I truly believe that the idea of reduction and the search for the subtleties in reductive art can open doors for understanding the bigger picture in a visual, physical, intellectual way.  This art is not aiming to be self-contained; it wants to relate, to give, to breathe.


CA: Do you arrive at the format and sizes of your work intuitively, or are proportion and numbers important drivers for your work?


TH: My process of working is usually a very loose one, very intuitive.  I seldom work on proper sketches although, sure, when it comes to large-scale works I have to sort of plan them out.


But there's no math or any relation to math involved.  I could say more that there is a definite relationship to architecture and building and creating spaces.  The objects actually could be described as micro-architectures, and I also believe there's a sort of architecture, or maybe better structure, in the chaotic, incidental appearance of things which constantly find their way into our eyes.


CA: The idea of micro- and incidental architecture is interesting.  For example, a work like 4103, which is a small box open on the top and bottom hung high on a wall near the ceiling could be initially taken for a sign, or a fire alarm, or some kind of sensor or detector.  What look like large colored sheets of fiberboard in E472C-BSL lean against the wall or are propped up off the floor on small planks, like sections of wall waiting to be installed.  The stacked pieces in F218B-BXL are placed like construction materials that have just been delivered to a site, ready to be used.  Elements : Squares are like colorful aluminum window frames on display at a home design convention.  Besides the forms you use, I think I see in your use of color a connection to very contemporary, popular architecture.


TH: I think there is definitely a connection in my works to architectural space in general, as a physical space in relation to one's own physicality and its relation to it: what do we see, where are we standing, what is going on?  There are those kinds of thing around us, those relationships, to discover and see.  Things that look awry are the concerns of this work.  As for the use of color, I don't really know whether there is a direct connection to architecture.  In architecture, yes, color gets used in many different aspects—as form, as decoration, etc.  In my work color functions under a very different umbrella—it is light.


CA: The color is material, first.  It could be the natural color of the material, or painted, or printed, or the color is applied in some way.  It’s a property of the object.  Of course, color is made possible by light, but how does the color move from being a physical thing to being simply light?


TH: In early Greek philosophy, light is described as the fourth element, the ether; they called it Olkas, a carrier which holds all together.  That’s what I am trying to say with simply light, making a reference to this thought.  So color, yes, as a material it becomes a carrier of thought, something essential, so to say.


CA: After all of these exhibitions, what next?


TH: Well, first of all I need a break, but in general I might say that I haven’t played out all the possibilities which my work process offers.  After all, it is slow, art, and I cannot just produce, period.  So I guess I will keep on researching my own possibilities.

That these paintings are encaustic, made with wax is a prominent and significant aspect of this work. When I think of encaustic I think of two characteristics: something that has body— is an object— but is luminescent, and a process that involves heat, speed and layers. I think of these two characteristics literally, but also historically, culturally, and psychologically.

Wax is a thick substance but is translucent— one thinks of candles— and it is crystalline and heavy but eases friction— consider wax on surfboards and skis. Wax is durable and protects what is covers or encases. We wax our cars and furniture. A candle is always and forever usable as long as the wick is good. Egyptian Fayum portraits are fresh and vibrant after 2,000 years. Wax can be used to seal jars and bottles. Leaves may feel waxy, and our ears produce wax for protection. Beeswax supports and nourishes colonies in the thousands, and when we think of wax of course we often think of bees, which convert the sugar in honey into wax which is excreted from the abdomen. Encaustic looks and feels so different than oil paint because, aside from the pigments, these two mediums are actually competely different substances. The oil in oil paint has vegetable origins (linseed, walnut, safflower), and much of what we think of as wax is paraffin, which is a petroleum product, a purified substance that results from the production of gasoline, kersosene, and lubricating oil.

Wax is milky but not clouded. It can be colored, but never quite opaque. Light goes in and comes back out as color. In the depth of wax light is held and it glows. But it isn't clear light; it's frosted, subdued, quiet. The wax is thick, and it might be in layers. In the glowing light of wax's body seeing is slowed down. We see the surface and we also see into the wax. On the surface we might see texture—brush strokes, scrapes, marks, lumps, pits, etc.— and then our sight goes beyond and below the surface. There is an actual depth that our vision goes and sees into, and our vision can stay there. We see light and color as a suspended substance, like looking into an ice cube or a crystal. The act of looking into something is an instance, like when we see our breath on a cold day, or when we look into slowly moving water. The colored wax is a body that holds the light— it is a physical colored thing into which environmental light enters and glows— and it is also paint, a flat colored medium the function of which is to depict light— for example, two different colors next to each other can have the physical and the illusory effect of space, brightness, and contrast. (Right: Joanne Mattera: Silk Road, 2005, encaustic on panel, 12 x 12 inches each)

To paint in encaustic means to engage in labor. It requires melting and mixing, and preparation is both physically hot and time consuming for the artist. However, when the encaustic is ready the actual act of painting must be conducted quickly. We see speed in the paint's application and the resulting gestures recorded in the paint. Recognizing this, we enter into a recognition of pacing in the paintings; we see evidence of different speeds. There is the knowledge of a slow preparation, there is also the actual speed of the execution, and there is the slowness of our looking into glowing color. We see how the execution is actually a frozen moment or, rather, the cold state of something done quickly, having been executed in the (pun alert) heat of the moment. This somewhat contradictory state—of contrasting slowness and speed—is something to which the qualities of encaustic seem particularly suited.

I think Mattera intimately knows encaustic as both a material to use and as a natural component of her subject. This gives her work integrity—she has the skill to make a physically refined art work, and she has found the balance between knowing how to put the material at her service conceptually and recognizing how the qualities of the materials can better help define her conceptual stance. She recognizes encaustic’s pace and light and body, and she allows the medium to be its best by using it directly and by staying out its way, but having said this I certainly don’t mean that she does this passively by simply letting colored wax do what it will do. She has to employ general construction techniques like controlling buildup and exercising finesse with surface. And of course as a painter she also has to do the usual painterly things like pay attention to scale (for example, the relationship between brushstroke and paint density to image and each panel's size), orchestrate color, and work the edges, both the edges of the panels and the edges where different areas of paint meet. I would think that for a painter using encaustic it would be tempting to try to make or let the wax do too much, to let the encaustic take over as something beautiful, dense, and physical. But what I see in Mattera's imagery is that it is reduced to a point where the material becomes an active ingredient in her work’s meaning, but the imagery is also still complex enough to be about much more than wonderful effects of encaustic; they are paintings.

Wax makes light physical, and the medium of encaustic makes light both physical and pictorial. Light is a major preoccupation throughout western painting's history. One can go backwards from Rothko to Seurat and the Impressionists to someone like Gerome to… well, what road would you like to take? Fragonard to Chardin to de La Tour and so on? Or from Goya to to Rubens to El Greco to whoever? Eventually you’ll get to Durer and Van Eyck and Holbein and Van der Weyden. Pick your own names— you can easily make your own list which leads towards hard, polished, glazed, luminous, painted surfaces of physical light, and depicted scenes of light and shadow. Light is prominent in other arts: think of hard, shiny Limoges Email peints; think of the glazes on Islamic tiles and Chinese Sancai figures; think of stained glass. And think of Dan Flavin, or Robert Irwin, or James Turrell, and the importance of the actual phenomenological experience of light and perception. Light is a major preoccupation because light is how we see, and various qualities of light have different moods, evoke different times and places, and create drama. Mattera's use of encaustic and color for light places her in this historical lineage.

Another historical connection I see is a use of color and an organization of space that not only brings to mind the intensities of Klee and Seurat, but also go back to Indian miniatures and Medieval illuminated manuscripts. Klee, of course, used the grid and playful color, and Seurat combined intense color in structured ways to create form and atmosphere. Mattera does both of these things, with the added bonus of encaustic's tendency towards atmospheric effect. Indian miniatures also often use intense color, a finely rendered surface, and brush strokes which, even at the micro level, are integral to the image—these qualities are also found in Mattera's work. Finally, illuminated manuscripts (examples here) often use bands of intense primary color to divide areas of an image; a manuscript page will boldly present a single image, or will divide an area up into sections, each with it's own but related subject, and these images often typically have a narrative quality. I think Mattera shares these qualities, as evidenced by her own compositional impulses, and through the presence of paint that as a recorded act; looking at a painting one sees a story unfold. And in fact a painting like Uttar 135 can be seen as pages laid out in a grid on a table, each page part of a larger whole.

The stripe, the dot, the stroke, and the field are a way to make light and color a clear subject. The phenomena of our visual world can be broken down into these kinds of marks just as easily as shapes can be defined as circle, square, and triangle, and forms can be categorized as cube, cylinder, sphere, and pyramid. These basic marking components lend themselves to stacking, gridding, layering, weaving, circling, linking, netting, dripping, blotting, covering, and accumulation. A reduction of painted line, shape, and form into the basic marking components of stripe, dot, stroke, and field leaves pigmented wax to be handled broadly and naturally, allowing the encaustic to retain its properties of light and color. (Left: Uttar 267, 2004. Encaustic on panel, 36 x 36")

Mattera's paintings are covered, from edge to edge. But unlike many other painters seemingly working in similar terrain who don't seem to recognize that a painting is not a small slice of eternal space and time, Mattera knows that a painting is a unique object, a defined space and time with a specific size and limits. Her paint does not run off the edge into a suggested continuum beyond the painting's surface. She knows that the edge of a painting—where it ends and where the wall begins— is crucial terrain. How shapes and marks are arranged on a flat surface, and how they interact and how their edges meet, and what kinds of relationships those shapes have to the boundaries of the painting, are what makes a painting dynamic, contained, and holistic. How that is handled—we're talking about compostion here—is the difference between a functioning painting that is worth looking and experiencing and just another colored slab hanging on a wall. She gets it. See, for example, Ruby Road (Uttar 270); the way she strokes the paint from side to side and lets the paint drip gives each panel, and the three panels together, a completeness. Another good example is Uttar 237. And it is this completeness—achieved through paint handling and shape placement, and which makes the painting function as a self-contained body—which visually and conceptually makes the painting retain its color and light qualities as part of an essential to this unified whole.

The light and color in Joanne Mattera’s paintings is about the present and the just passing present. Seeing light and color in the material is about the absolute present moment because it’s physical, because this is an interaction with the environment and with current lighting conditions, and because we see it now, in this instance. But if her art has what some might call a contemplative dimension it’s because while the light is a real thing that draws us in, it’s the way this light is lingeringly held in the wax, and the way we look below the surface and into the depth of this light-filled wax, that our looking is slowed down just a beat to an even more present presence, a moment that is slow enough for us to see passing. If our looking stayed on the surface our attention might glance off and finish. If our looking goes beyond a surface, even if a only a fraction of an inch into a physical depth and a depicted depth, our seeing is more settled. The physical effect is slower looking. The psychological effect is awareness of self in relation to the phenomenological world, and that happens in front of the painting. Our seeing becomes the light and the color, and when this happens we live the color and forms of the paintings.

In order to be clear about what I think is the value of Mattera's encaustic work, let me say this: artists often state that one of the functions of their work is to make the viewer more aware of how they see the world, or to help the viewer see the world in a new way. Artist's say this so much that it's a laughable cliche. What happens when your art has made me see the world in a new way? Is the art disposable, with a shelf life dependent on how soon I can use it to see anew? One can easily find art that allgegedly has this goal, and usually that art fails. Frankly, I don't see this as a signifcant function of Western, painted, abstract art. I see this kind of art as having functions and experiences specific to no other media. I want a painting that is well-conceived conceptually, visually dynamic, skillfully executed, that looks and feels thought and felt and integrated. I want my visual experience in the painting, I want to see the painter's decisions, and I want all the parts to work together. I want to stay with the painting, and I'm willing to give a lot to it as long as it is giving back to me. I think Joanne Mattera's paintings add up, and I think they're worth looking at.

Additional info: Joanne Mattera: Ten Years of Encaustic Painting was published on the occasion of her solo show at Winfisky Gallery, Salem State College, Salem, Mass., March 21 – April 13, 2006. The catalogue is 8.5 x 8.5 inches, and contains 16 pages, fifteen color images, a statement by Joanne, an interview with Julie Karabenick, a selected critical overview and biography, and a short essay by Flavia Rando. Joanne will also be showing at Marcia Wood Gallery in Atlanta, April 20 - May 27, 2006.

In May 2005 I saw Thomas Gainsborough's (1727–1788) The Mall in St James's Park at the Frick Collection in New York. I had never given Gainsborough much thought before, but I was so impressed by this painting, particularly by the qualities of paint and light, and how despite its depiction of a certain privileged class of the time the paint and the painted marks seem so radically gestural, expressive and material, that I wrote a few brief thoughts in Thomas Gainsboroug: How Modern? (see the painting there).

In mid January of this year I spent a Sunday afternoon at the San Francisco Legion of Honor, one of the two Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), the other being the De Young, with the recently opened new building. On this afternoon I discovered a painting that has probably been hanging in the museum for decades, and one which I probably have walked by dozens of time, being somewhat immune to most portraits. Well, live and learn; always keep you eyes and mind open. Behold: Gainsborough's Mrs. Fitzherbert of 1784.

The image below is a scan; the FAMSF has an online image database that holds a fair amount of the collections, and which used to have hi-res tiling images that allowed a very close look at individual works with a fairly high degree of resolution. The database was hosted and run at UC Berkeley, probably as a research project. However, without explanation this feature suddenly disappeared from the FAMSF website sometime in Janaury, leaving only smaller, almost useless images (but a still useful text), and so my hope of a decent image to write about a bit was nixed, until Saturday, when the musuem member's magazine arrived in the mail, and there inside was a full-page image of Mrs. Fitzherbert. Apparently, I am not the only person who thinks highly of this painting. Although this scan doesn't at all approach seeing this painting for real there are a few things evident here that will give the viewer a good idea of what is going on in this painting. First, take a look:

At first glance the painting seem conventional enough. Mrs. Fitzherbert is caught in her youthful beauty- porcelain skin, good health, intelligent eyes, obviously kind and reflective, caught in a moment of thought or relaxation, full of contentment. As is typical the face gets the most finish (hence, time and the most paint), and next come the hands. After that the clothing is painted in, slightly out of focus or lacking in detail so as not to detract from our lady. Finally, the background gets filled in, appearing to not really matter so, except for the gorgeous red glow of a curtain's edge on the left which has been pulled back slightly to show a hint of landscape and sky along her arm above the elbow, just enough to connect her to the world, to light and air, to property and otherness, a slight opening that breaks the vacuum of an otherwise sealed off setting.

This is a pretty solidly constructed painting; in spite of its looseness in areas in feels like a whole. There is a real feeling of life and breath. The eye takes great satisfaction in moving around the painting, from her face down her arm to out beyond the curtain, then back inside and sliding down her sleeve for a glance across her ambiguous lap to skitter back up the switchbacks of white squiggles in her collar, climbing the rungs of her hair into the erotic darkness around the edge of her neck, and back out to her face. Or you can take that loop in reverse. In this painting you've got your compositional triangles, circles, and cylinders. Gainsborough knows what he is doing.

Painters in these times were basically contractors for hire. A good portrait painter cranked out a lot of work, making appealing likenesses by freshening people up a bit, making them look beautiful or important or powerful or simply visible in a way that these days we take for granted. Now, anyone can have their photo taken. In Gainsborough's time, with some exceptions, typically only the well-to-do were recorded. But a painter, one who is an artist who engages in process and invention, who enjoys the magic of mixing paint and coaxing the paint to make some kind of image, is going to push things a bit, to see what more they can get out of the whole act besides filthy lucre. As any worker wonders, "what's in it for me?" Apparently, what really got Gainsborough going, was brushwork. Look close at this detail below and note what he is up to; this is a big part of what caught my eye in January:

This is some wicked, loose, fast brushwork. Gainsborough loves the brush. Some of the paint here is no more glorified than fingerpainting, except the finger is a paintbrush and it's an extension of him, a master in full control making a few strokes and loops say so much.

Hanging down from the middle top, look at the four or five dark broad strokes of hair; there is umber and white and probably something like ultramarine all streakily applied with a wide, soft flat brush in just a few short, stop-and-start strokes.

Beginning in the upper right corner a white stroke, probably made with a stiffer round brush, cascades down in a few turns and disappears in the lower left, merging into a mass of pushed around strokes with barely any definition. When you see the painting for real this white stroke is brighter and meanders down in one continuous, curvy movement. It's breathtaking in its directness and simplicity and descriptiveness.

In the top left corner compare the hanging dark hair to the lighter hair on the right; it's different in color, and texture, and weight, and it's just the right thing to show by contrast that the hair on the right is closer to us than the darker hair on the left.

And finally, look at the far right about one third of the way down: suspended in the darkness of the background, and rooted in her collar but thrown out into space like a lasso, a single stroke loops around itself and ends, poised like a pipe cleaner, pointing towards the right edge. Look back at the image of the complete painting above and find that stroke-- it doesn't really quite make sense. Sure, it looks like the edge of a part of a layered collar in shadow, but it also just looks like a loopy stroke of painting hanging off in the middle of nowhere.

These strokes are a lot of the territory where a painter like Gainsborough lives. This is where he is finding amazing little ways for paint to do things that someone else may not be able to do. Most painters are trying to do something like this, whether whether with strokes, or paint qualities, or color, or kinds of surfaces. I am reminded of James Elkins' What Painting Is. I'll end with this brief excerpt below, hoping that I've gotten across the point that looking at a painting to see how it's made, to see what the artist is doing, provides essential of information about that painting, its time and place, the artist's attitude and ability, the interplay of representation and abstraction, standards or expectations and individuality, material and application, and the degree to which paint has many levels of resolution: at a viscerally visual level, as physically brushed liquified pigment; at the level of how images as representation coalesce and dissolve; and at an intellectual level, were the physical use of a material in a conceptually framed format is a problem that accomodates many different kinds of solutions.

The sensations I get from paint come from attending to different marks and the way they were made. I am using very small details in this book to to make the point that meaning does not depend on what the paintings are about: it is there at a lower level, in every inch of the canvas. Substances occupy the mind by invading it with thoughts of the artist's body at work. A brushstroke is an exquisite record of the speed and force of the hand that made it, and if I think of a hand moving across the canvas-- or better, if I just retrace it, without thinking-- I learn a great deal about what I see. Painting is scratching, scraping, waving, jabbing, pushing, and dragging. At times the hand moves as if it were writing, but in paint; and other times it moves as if the linen canvas were a linen shirt, and the paint was stain that had to be rubbed under running water. Some painting motions are like conversation, where the hands keep turning in the air to make a point. Others are slow careful gestures, like touching someone's eye to remove a fleck of dirt.

Painters feel these things as they look at pictures, and they may re-encact the motions that went into the paintings by moving their hands along in front of the canvas as if they were painting the pictures at that moment. In a musuem, it is often possible to tell an experienced painter from an historian because the painter will step up to a picture and make gestures, or trace outlines. Those movments are not always done in any deliberate way-- they are second nature, a kind of automatic response like waving to a friend (Elkins, James. What Painting Is: How to Think About Oil Painting, Using the Language of Alchemy. New York: Routledge, 1999. pp 96-97).

Introduction
It seems somehow appropriate to me that Daniel Göttin’s recent wall works—those in which lines of tape placed on a wall are used to make a large, dense web of intersecting lines—are called Networks. Over a two-month period Daniel and I talked about his art via electronic messages relayed back and forth across a complex network of thousands of miles of cable between Basel, Switzerland and Northern California. He could write to me in the evening, and I would receive his message moments later in the morning, a kind of time travel. My job was easier than Daniel’s—we wrote to each other in my native English, rather than his native German, and I got to ask all of the questions, then sit back and wait for his reply.

As we sent questions and answers back and forth, and also exchanged pleasantries and observations, our conversation began by meandering from point to point, gradually establishing different nodes of reference. Over time an order wa srecognized, and the conversation was eventually shaped and contained within the boundaries of the interview format. In doing this we responded to a situation and found a form within it. Similarly, I recall how in our discussion Daniel described his process when making site-specific works, and it occurs to me that his work is also a conversation, but one that takes place with materials and spaces that involve time, various distant locations, perhaps negotiations with bureaucracies, and a flexible and open language.

Just as how in our interview Daniel speaks with extreme clarity and thoughtfulness, his art also possesses these qualities. But this clarity is not the result of a fixed or repetitive position or strategy. Instead, his art is iterative, responding to changing conditions and environments. Different aspects of his work, both the works made on the wall and the objects made for the wall, are inter-related and work off of and reflect on each other. There is a wholeness to what Daniel refers to as an entity—his body of work.

—Chris Ashley, February 2006

Usually art happens in the context of a gallery, a museum, or in places pre-defined for art.  In these places the work shown is defined as art because of the context.  It can also be challenging making art in a place which is not defined for art.  Then art plays on the same level as anything else; it connects with life.


CA: Besides showing in Europe you have also shown quite a bit in Japan and Australia.  How have those opportunities come about?


DG: These opportunities came about through the universal language of art as I understand it.  Also, as a two-way system communicating between two equal parts, the existing and the new, the known and the unknown, the seen and the not seen.


CA: Do you find that working in different locations—different cities and counries—greatly affects the work that you produce there?  Of course, you find various materials in different places, so there is that affect, but I wonder if there are other influences that are specific to the  location in which you’re working, for example, language, light, geography, pace of life, etc.  How do these affect a work that you produce on-site?


DG: Installing and producing in different locations certainly has an affect on my work.  Sometimes I consciously include aspects of the local situation into my work, and sometimes I only realize the influence later.  Thinking and working is about connecting and relating to the site where a work is made or installed.  Being aware of the location or the site is part of the concept.

For example, in Australia the light is so incredibly intense that it changes the color range of some of my works.  In Marfa, the presence of Donald Judd’s work and some of his artist friends’ work is so strong, and so sensitively, precisely and carefully installed in the context of the natural environment and everyday life, that it sharpens the perception and the conciousness of how to work with material, proportion and space.  In Japan, the visual and architectural language had some effect on a concept for a tape work I executed there.  The work turned out to be a European-Japanese combination.  My artist residency in New York last year was different again.  On the one hand, there was living and working on the edge of Soho and Chinatown, between East and West, in this fast, big business, art metropolis.  On the other hand, the experience of all the waste, and all the low budget projects, made me work in a more improvised way, with leftover cardboard, for example, and even taking up photography.

Since one location is remote and quiet, and the other is busy, fast and loud, different locations have different effects on my work.  A beautiful landscape, a vast night sky, the incredible ocean, friendly people, interesting discussions, great art, cultural offerings, a good restaurant, a nice bar, a fun time— everything is part of the experience.  All of these specific qualities in different conditions and in each location is a challenge for new work.  I adapt my concepts and myself to the new situation.  My cultural background connects with the background of the new location.  This is what makes a site specific art work possible.


CA: In an interview around the time of your Chinati residency you said, “I use normal materials.  They’re not expensive.”  You also said, “I don’t do things that anyone else couldn’t do; but I DO them.”  If these words were taken out of context it might make your work sound somewhat ordinary or simplistic, which it isn’t.  An important distinction between doing and not doing something creative or meaningful is actually “doing” it—taking action  How did you arrive at using the materials you use, and how do you go about making a site specific work?  You have referred to making “interventions“, and I would assume that time—or, perhaps, the time given to make a work— is a factor in how a work comes about.


DG: The Chinati residency was a good opportunity to use everyday material, since there was no other (art) material to get at that time in remote Marfa.  I made a site-specific work from material I could find in town, again working with the given conditions.  I got white cardboard boxes (with no printing on them) from the post office down the road, and some clear adhesive tape from a small supermarket called Wynn’s at that time.  Since the Southern Pacific Railroad impressively divided the small town in front of my studio every day, it made sense to me to include rocks from beside the railroad tracks for the work.  All these materials were within a mile’s distance—I just brought them back for a temporary artwork.  Normal, everyday material means material that is only valid in its usual context.  And doing means to materialize an idea, to make it exist in the real world.  An artist residency gives me the chance to spend some time in a foreign place.  It is interesting and challenging to visit a new place and find out what I can do without having a plan.  Everything is new: the people I meet; the location; the way of living and the way of making art.  I use the time I spend in a new place for creating a work that is related to the whole situation and its conditions.  This is the source, a point-zero combined with my previous experience.  The conditions can have a strong influence on the work, as well as on life.  This leads to a way of working that enables me to make art work in any situation.  I would like to make art works of any size, of any material, in any place.  Conditions can be, for example, time, location, space, materials, language, impressions, and money.


CA: What are the criteria by which you can determine that a temporary, site-specific work produced under these conditions (newness, foreignness, time limits) is successful?  Can you give an example of a wall work that you thought was particularly successful, and explain why it was successful?


DG: One temporary work I made in 1994 in Switzerland was an allover tape work in a big factory, at that time used as a cultural center with guest studios.  It was a beautiful space, but the view had been blocked by many movable walls, and a lot of things were lying around for a long time.  I decided to take out all the walls to empty the space and to clean the floor.  Then I mounted horizontal bands of black adhesive tape onto three outer walls, and also horizontal bands of clear tape around three sides of the freestanding inner coloumns.  The whole space only changed a bit, but it was the first time visitors could see the space itself in a new way, only slightly changed. 

Another work I made was in 1998 at the newly opened Kunsthaus Baselland.  It was the very first exhibition there, and I had the chance to use the whole basement space to make one big installation.  The idea was to introduce the space itself to the visitors.  I made a concept for all the walls and the floor using black adhesive tape in different widths, clear tape, and green artificial carpet. 

A third exhibiton I made in 2001 was at the Haus für Konstruktive und Konkrete Kunst in Zürich (now called Haus Konstruktiv, in a new place).  This place is the heart of the first, second and contemporary generation of Schweizer Konstruktivismus and Konkrete Kunst—Max Bill, Richard Paul Lohse, Verena Loewensberg, Fritz Glarner, Camille Graeser, Hansjörg Glattfelder, Beat Zoderer, and others.  I decided to paint the walls of four spaces in four different colours, and put an allover network of black adhesive tape entirely across each of the walls.  The first space was painted green, and I placed a Le Corbusier sofa from the office of the museum onto a blue artificial carpet.  A small radio stood in the corner playing a daily program.  The second space was painted yellow and was left empty.  The third space was painted orange with the model of the new museum standing on a blue carpet as well.  The last space was painted pink, and visitors had the possibility to see images of the renovation of the new museum on a computer, which was also standing on a blue carpet.

These three examples are installation works dealing with a real situation, time factors, and artistic and non-artistic conditions.  If I can say each was successful, it was maybe because of the treatment of the whole situation, and an unusual use of usual industrial materials in a subtle way.


CA: There are of course precedents for site-specific wall works.  Probably the two most important contemporary figures noted for their wall installations beginning in around 1968 are Blinky Palermo and Sol Lewitt; each is noted for his handling of space and his process for working, and the resulting work cannot easily be called painting, sculpture, architecture, or even decoration.  In 1979 an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago called "Wall Painting” included Robert Ryman, Marcia Hafif, Lucio Pozzi, Richard Jackson, and Robert Yasuda; this exhibition seems apart from your approach since it primarily focused on moving  painting from the canvas to the wall.  Currently, David Tremlett makes large wall drawings using imagery and color inspired by his travels.  Jan van der Ploeg, your contemporary, makes wall paintings that have a conceptual basis and which, I think, seem to flirt with a Pop-influenced, neo-Modernist decoration.  Even earlier are the examples of Schwitters and El Lissitzky’s “Prounen Raum.”  And of course, there is also the long history of frescos and murals.  How do you see your work in this history?  What are some of the concerns that you share with these artists, and what do you see as unique to your work?


DG: The concern that I share with many of these artists is the fact that the wall is not only a wall to which the work is applied; it is an active part and support of the work at the same time.  Many wall works stay in line with being a painting on the wall not linked to the site.  The wall remains the background for the painting with its motiv coming from somewhere else.  Architectural-spatial specialties and details are more hidden or covered rather than consciously included.  I see the unique part of my work in the presence of the existing wall including details (doors, switches, plugs, tubes, and other irritations) and the motiv at the same time.  It is what I would call concrete.  The way of reading the work is reading one thing.  The existing wall makes the work visible, the work makes the existing wall visible, and seeing both simultaneously makes the artwork visible.  One of the concepts I am using since 2000 is a myriad of adhesive tape lines I attach directly to a wall or floor, one line after the other.  It's the idea of doing something the same or similar, step by step, again and again.  The making itself can be monotonous, repetitive, meditative, interesting, boring, like an everyday job.  It's again doing instead of not doing, and after a while one sees something appearing while the labour itself disappears.  The work becomes independent and self-evident, normal as a table, a door, a real thing.  The difference between high and low is gone.


CA: The image made with tape in these wall works isn’t planned ahead, but you make it on-site in response to the wall as you encounter it.


DG: The recent wall works (Networks, since 2000) made with adhesive tape are based on a flexible concept.  There are a few things I plan ahead concerning the site.  The image is roughly planned as a starting-point.  With the execution of the work I get additional information from the site, which sometimes requires a change or an adaption.  I start working somewhere by mounting the tape directly to the wall.  Then a door, a window, a pipeline, a staircase and so forth blocks the flow of the work, and it forces me to respond.  This influence can change the rhythm and direction of the work.  Therefore the work links with the site directly.  This work will be different from the last one or the next one.  The continuity is in the similarity and in the difference of both the works and the sites.


CA: Some of your wall works cover a complete wall from side to side and floor to ceiling, and others are framed on the wall, separate from the edges.  My initial feeling about this is that a covered wall becomes an enveloping environment, whereas one that does not extend to the edges of a wall is framed somewhat like a picture on a wall.  How do you see these differences?


DG: Yes, it's different.  The allover work uses the whole size and architecture of a wall or a space.  A framed work is usually built in relation to the proportions of the site, too, but the focus and the visual reading is different.  The framed work focuses the view inside the frame, where the wall is part of the work, and outside the frame is the support.  The allover work spreads in all directions; there is no focus, and the wall is a part of the work and the support at the same time.  In some installations I combine both systems—convergent and divergent views.


CA: Do you use a wall as you find it, or do you prepare the wall?  Do you change the color or surface texture?


DG: The quality of a wall or floor is part of the conditions I mentioned above.  I try to accept a space as it is at first sight.  The quality of a wall is a given; there is no reason to change it.  A dirty wall with spots, holes or scratches is site-specific; I like to include these tracks.  I make the experience so that the mounted (especially black) adhesive tape freshens up the wall as a whole spatial situation; visitors many times think that the wall has been pre-painted.  It is not the idea of a pure art work I make; it's more a kind of collaboration between the existing and the new.  Ilya Kabakov talks about the total installation, which in my mind is a special case, since the work denies the existing space many times (dark spaces), as do some of James Turrell's installation works, in a similar way.  It takes the viewer away from the real space he is in.  That is what I try not to do.


CA: One of the difficult things I would think your wall works force you to confront is the delicate balance between art and decoration, especially when a wall work is in a more public space as opposed to a space that is recognizable as a context for art.  I’m reminded of this by the Christine Mehring paper “Decoration and Abstraction in Blinky Palermo’s Wall Paintings” (Grey Room 18, Winter 2004).  What are your thoughts about art versus decoration?  Do you care about this?  Are there things that you do in the work to steer the viewer towards one way of seeing or the other?


DG: My concern is to build a concrete visual identification for a site, created by an art work linked to the site to evoke a situation in reality that can make sense there.  The aspects of the site influence the concept I develop.  I am interested in a work that makes the site visible through the art work, and the site makes the art work visible at the same time.  It is about the consciousness of perceiving something.  It is a communication, a give and take between equal parts creating a new, balanced entity.  It is a two-way system, different from a one-way system or a non-linked idea projected onto a so-called neutral ground, which I would understand as decoration.


CA: You seem to use images in the wall works and the objects that have aspects in common.  You have recently used what you call a “diamond” shape in both the wall works and the objects; it’s a four-sided shape, and sometimes it looks like a square in perspective.  Also, the objects that you have made that look like skewed crosses seem like details from the wall works where two taped lines cross at an angle.  Is this a relevant observation?  Is this a common practice for you?


DG: Yes, some details of a work can develop into an independent new work sometimes.  Since I like to work with basic and simple geometric forms the field is limited.  The limitation enables me to use a language with similar forms, patterns or grids in different ways.  Many times it is playing and reflecting between the same, the similar, and the different, making distinctions visible.  I usually work simultaneously on different projects.  The public works or commissioned works have specific demands.  Other works I make without a specific connection to a site, but connected between different types of my works.  It is working in a two-way system, which is reflected in work made in new ways or from a new point of view.  A prolific communication takes place between my various works.  It shows several aspects, and results in my art work as an allover entity.


CA: You don’t call the objects you make paintings, right? When you make these objects do you have more options than the industrial materials you use for the wall installations?  In particular, I wonder if you have more choices in terms of color, support, and surface than you do for the wall works.


DG: Since my background is closer to three dimensional work — sculpture and architecture — than painting, I would rather call the works objects, though some of them are very close to painting, or even are paintings.  Many of the works are built or constructed; they have a third dimension, and they have color or colored parts.  Some works are based on the distinction between the color of the support and the applied color, which is related to the example mentioned above about the wall and the applied tape for an installation.  I don't work with a specific color system, though I use color very often.  I usually apply color flat on the surface.  The use of material, and the way a work is constructed, shaped and joined together is very interesting, and color is a factor I use very spontaneously.  Of course, there are many choices in using color for objects and paintings, and prefabricated, standardized industrial material is very limited in color and in size.  Working within these limitations and materials is challenging; it is connected to the everyday working world.  The ordinary materials and the way of making a work of art connects it to everyday working processes and techniques.


CA: Do you ever combine an object with a wall work?


DG: Sometimes I combine them.  In some cases working on a concept leads towards a combination.  Some exhibitions or sites ask for a combination of two and three dimensional work.  The tape is flat and rather two dimensional, and many objects are three dimensional.  An object mounted on the wall calls for a focused, detailed view, and an allover tape work calls for a distant and broad view.  It’s again a two-way system that simultaneously shows distinctions between an object with its own quality in any place, and the tape that only exists on a specific site.  Both are equal parts to be perceived together with the wall or site.  Using many different entities simultaneously can be an aim in the future.  I could imagine combining different or even contary movements in art (and life)—a combination of, for example, Schwitters and Judd, is not really a contradiction to me.  Of course there would be many other interesting possibilities.


CA: I am interested in the viewer’s experience of your work.  The wall works make an environment around the viewer, and so there is an element of time and movement in looking.  The objects are more static, more like icons that have a one-to-one physical relationship with the viewer, which is a way of looking that is not so much about movement or time, and more about stillness.  Considering the images in both the wall works and the objects, they can be split very roughly into two groups: imaes that appear to be solid objects, and those that are linear objects.  Viewing each of these is a very different experience.  To put it very simply, as a kind of concrete example, a “Diamond” work on aluminum from 2004 is like a landscape, whereas one of the shaped crosses made of MDF from 2002 is a kind of figure.  Images in the wall works can also prompt these associations, which are part of how the viewer might begin to physically and metaphorically respond to your work.  What kind of visual, physical, and metaphorical responses are you hoping to invoke with your work?


DG: My focus is not so much on the responses my work can invoke.  I understand the response as a result of what I do.  I would like to create a free field of associations that can lead to the viewer’s own conclusions.  Something is there without an explanation.  The art work doesn’t need a reason to be—it simply exists, like anything else in the world.  It is a realized possibility besides many other possibilities.  The art work is not a solution for something else; it is something to reflect on, and it is an independent companion.  The viewer experiences the art work immediately in real time and space.  I do not intend to make art that creates secrets or longings.  My concerns are existence, position, orientation, material, construction, proportion, distinction, repetition, contemplation, and stillness.  I like the idea of an artwork that makes sense without a reason. 

The viewer’s response begins with an exhibition.  That’s the moment when the artist’s work is finished and valid.  There is no way back, and no change possible.  The responsibility and the risk for the work is on the artist’s side.  The viewer’s response is the part coming from the outside.  As mentioned before, all elements seem to be based on a two-way system.  It’s a dualism.

The use of the terms 'landscape' and 'figure’ are not very important to me.  I try not to serve this kind of looking at art.  To me it is a pre-determined way of thinking that is unimportant for my work, since my work is spatially oriented and not representational.  The terms “reductive” and “abstract” I understand in a similar way, as a derivation from something else that has been either more or bigger.  I prefer the terms 'object' and 'concrete,' which I think are the closest to what my work is.

I don’t work towards a specific aim.  I am working permanently on different projects, and they all begin anywhere in the middle of nowhere; they are not yet defined.  I understand my part of the work in developing a concept and realizing the work, and the other part of the work would be the viewer’s view, experience and response.  I understand art as a provision for life, like food and sleep.  Art speaks to the senses; it offers a wide range of contemplation the viewer can reflect on, and it can enhance his or her consciousness of things in life. 

Since visual art is basically a individual enterprise it mainly shows a single point of view towards the world.  My work is one position realized.  It is up to the viewer to get an impression of the work.  I don’t think that art necessarily has to be understood by explanation.  It is one of the free fields which is allowed to be left open.  People can take the visual experience of an art work without possessing it.  Art should not only be shown in a context of art, it should also happen in everyday places.  This is one reason why I like to work in a flexible way .  There is a difference between art lovers going to the galleries and museums, and art going to meet people.  It is a universal language for everyone.  My work is based on simple elements like a line, a field, a geometric form existing in the world already.  I use them by putting them into a new spatial context. 

It is my intension to make artwork in a concrete sense.  To me concrete means a work existing on its own, like any other thing in the world.


CA: Something that allows art to remain an open field, as you call it, is that it doesn’t necessarily have a practical function — it’s not useful or utilitarian in the sense that we think of when those words are applied to everyday objects.  As I understand it, the classic defintion of Konkrete Kunst, beginning with Van Doesburg and continuing through Max Bill and Richard Paul Lohse, doesn’t concern itself with abstraction, and certainly possesses no symbolic meaning, but is more or less concerned with an idea expressed visually through geometry.  Is that where you begin?


DG: Partly yes, but for me that’s only half the story.  Art history sometimes pretends that a particular art movement is a complete entity.  Using the term “concrete” doesn’t necessarily coincide with the ideologic background of Konkrete Kunst, which was also based on ideas about society and politics.  My concern is about an entity that can also include contradictions—a yes and a no, and even a maybe.  My starting point is a synthesis of different views or positions at the same time, which to me is a spatial view.  It can be obvious or subtle, symmetric or asymmetric or both together, with or without contradiction.  It can be rule and deviation together.  Some of the earlier works I made were collages related to Kurt Schwitters’ work (Merz), any found material roughly glued onto a piece of cardboard— physical, direct, improvised, accidental, colourful, even Dadaistic.  Later, I became interested in Minimal Art, where the artwork is often precisely planned, and perfectly and clearly constructed with a defined use of materials and attention to details.  Both movements are important to me, and sometimes I see my work carrying parts of both, corresponding inbetween those two art historical position.


CA: Regarding the function of art, which relates to content and meaning, as I see it art objects do have functions, whether it is for description or depiction, or for contemplation, beauty, or pleasure, or a demonstration or articulation of a critical or philosophical ideal or model, and so on.  Typically, this is a visual experience, though not exclusively.  Any of these functions are part of what make an art work “a work existing on its own.” Is this part of what you mean by a concrete work, or are you more specifically referring to physical and contextual characteristics?


DG: The art work as “a work existing on its own” emphasizes mainly its own physical existence.  The functions you mention above are rather functions or directions for the visual experience and the use of the viewer, not necessarily functions of the art works.  Of course, the way a work is built and installed in a context can evoke different visual experiences.  The work is there because there is first a floor or a wall, a spatial situation that provides a position.  The physical work doesn’t exist in a non-space, it needs surroundings to exist.  Maybe thoughts, dreams, or an idea can exist in a non-physical space, but doesn’t it still appear in a spatial situation?

I like a work that exists on its own together with its spatial position.  This doesn’t say anything about the content of the work itself, because the whole situation is the content.  Since everybody lives in a spatial situation, the viewer can experience this freely.  Visual (and physical) perception is existential and important in everybody’s life.  My concern in art is about visual experience and perception in general: a focused view combined with a broad view; a view from above combined with a view from below or from behind; a view from the inside and from the outside; and a view from all different positions.  I try to bring them together again equally.

In early February I began quoting short reviews that Donald Judd wrote for Arts Magazine in the late 50's and early 60's that were eventually compiled (February 13, 2006) with some explanation of context and my attraction to the writing. Certainly, Judd's writing could be terse and his judgments harsh, but what I found attractive was his dense use of form and language and his willingness to say what he thinks. I thought it was a useful example; the New Yorker magazine does something similar each issue: paragraph-sized reviews say a fair amount in few words, the difference being from Judd's that the judgments aren't typically as severe, and instead are a little less decisive and more open-ended. Many of the essays I have written in the past year have been well over one thousand words, many approaching two thousand or more. I wondered if I could effectively write in a shorter form, and write about more exhibits.

On February 18 I made the rounds of the downtown San Francisco galleries. Quite often, this is an experience that leaves me feeling dissatisfied because it seems to me much of the art misses its mark. At the same time, I think I usually have a pretty decent ability to look into work and see what mark it is supposed to hit, to see what someone is honestly trying to get at. I assume that, for the most part, just about every artist has some honest intention, even if the artist can't articulate it, or the intention is barely apparent, and even if the art doesn't work- otherwise, why bother? So I thought, "Why not write about that?"

With Judd in mind I walked the SF galleries, and as I looked I began to wonder what would happen if I removed any filters I have, or as much as I could, and simply said what comes to mind about the art, and also about the places where it's shown, the milieu. Isn't that as much a part of the art? Contemporary art is a minefield of judgments and nuance, earnestness and sleight of hand, attempts to fly and splat landings. Is the artist sincere or ironic? Does skill matter or doesn't it? Does a body of work in a show have to look like a product line or not? What is the place of craft and care these days? What is the appeal of photography? Does drawing matter? Are certain forms of art dead and gone? What are my biases considering my generation, my education, my background, my art, my day job, the number of hours I have in a week? What exactly is the thickness and vulnerability of the membrane between what I think art's purpose is and it's place in the commercial world? What are the contradictions regarding art's purpose in a commercial setting? What comes first, form or theory? Why are there so many artists? Why is there so much photography and drawing that looks to me like illustration? What is the effect of an attractive gallery's interior over one less attractive? How does the friendliness of staff or the gallerist affect judgment? If I'm hoping to show at a gallery will I pull my punches? Don't I really just want to be friends?

I wondered: what if I consciously remove the filter that can make for manners, and kindness, and wanting to say something nice, and just let myself write, let myself say whatever came to mind? What if I shot from the hip, went with my gut, wrote from impulsive first impressions and memory? What could I have to say after seeing over twenty shows within three and a half hours or so? What if I wrote about what I saw with no chance to go back and look again, or perhaps even to look that closely to begin with? What if I deliberately avoided being easily positive, or a cheerleader, or failed to see the effort in someone's work? What if I just didn't care if people judged me for the way I thought of the art I saw?

It is curious to me that, for the most part, this review format led me to some quite negative writing, sometimes hard and dismissive, other times flip and dishy. I'm not entirely sure what to make of this. Certainly, it has something to do with the art I viewed, but I think it goes deeper than that. I think it has to do with a general unhappiness with what I see in commercial galleries. Perhaps it has to do with an unhappiness with the whole enterprise. Perhaps it has to do with an unhappiness with myself (even though I swore off writing about myself personally in a weblog many years or so ago). Maybe I just felt like reveling in a little dirt.

Or maybe, it's all just a little arbitrary. Maybe it's simply too easy to go one way or another. Does it really matter? What if, if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all? What if I rewrote my reviews and gave them a little nicer spin? There's a good way to blow one's credibility, if it isn't already gone after all this curmudgeonliness.

Below are the reviews, before and after. On the left is the original review I wrote, and on the write is a cleaned-up, nicer review.

Judd wrote in an Introduction in 1974 (italics mine):

"The job with Arts provided most of my money until the last year (1965). I wrote criticism as a mercenary and would never have written it otherwise. Since there were no set hours and since I could work at home it was a good part-time job. It took three or four days to see the shows, and perhaps a week or so off and on to write the reviews, which I always put off until the deadline. I can't type. Sigrid Byers, another and later assistant editor, sometimes helped with that. I don't remember the pay and the different reviewing schemes too well. I think I was paid 180 dollars a month for quite a while. The rent on my loft was 100 dollars. The few articles (that he wrote besides reviews) were a great help, especially in the summer (when there were fewer shows to review). In the letter hiring me (Hilton) Kramer gives the rate at the time: "For a review of 300 words the rate is six dollars; for 150 words, four dollars; for a one-sentence review, three dollars." The magazine was always poor; I felt that Kramer and (James) Mellow paid as well as they could. Obviously art critics should be paid much more. That's one of the things seriously wrong with the activity.

According to an editorial of Kramer's in September 1961 the reviews were to become selective. A list for September 1962 that I still have gives 48 shows assigned and seen. Sixteen were reviewed. Forty-eight seems high and may be because (Sydney) Tillim was not reviewing shows that month. Fifteen reviews a month seems to be the average. Evidently before September 1961 all shows were seen and reviewed. The 1962 list indicates that we still saw everything but chose the better ones to write about. I believe that later we didn't see everything.

When I started browsing through The Complete Writings I was struck by the quantity of reviews, and I was especially struck by the briefest reviews where Judd would describe some image, or color scheme, or textures used, and then make a decisive final pronouncement about what was good or bad about the work. He said if he liked something, didn't equivocate if he didn't, and he always had reasons why. Increasingly I found him to be a good and fair writer, concise and clear. He might come across as harsh because he actually makes up his mind and says so. One may not like his opinions, but if you read his writing you begin to know where he is coming from.

The last two chapters of Jed Perls' New Art City convincingly, for me, pairs the unlikely duo of Judd and Fairfield Porter. Both were artists who also wrote about art. They were independently minded, perhaps a little difficult, and looked for art that wasn't more of the same, that had a reason to be. While they might appear to be in opposite corners of the room they each held informed standards of quality in art and expressed surprising insights.

The last ten days I have posted some of Judd's shorter reviews; they are all gathered on a single page. Typically, these shorter reviews are also negative ones, as better art would justify a longer review, but they are quite lucid, saying much in a few words. I thought it would be interesting to pull a few of these out to see what kinds of things Judd would identify as general failings. I think what I gather most from the following excerpts is Judd asking, "What's the point, why bother?"

1. ...technical proficiency and very litle evident purpose.
2. ...slashed and excoriated, for the most part without vigor or even brutality...
3. ...a change from the round patches passively placed to post and lintel patches placed passively...
4. Despite some variation in the color the works have the similarity of being without it.
5. ...the arrangement of the boxes is as thoughtless as the tombstones which they resemble.
6. There's a lot of this in Europe and it's terrible.
7. ...harmonious but abecedarian...
8. I don't see what they see in Da Silva's work.
9. ...the sensation is without reason since there is no large organization to which it is integral...
10. ...some trouble and less virutosity would have improved the show.

Most painters will feel strongly ambivalent, even if that is an oxymoron, about the way I'm going to talk about this painting. In fact, I think most abstract painters would just plain hate it. They'd say I'm reading into the painting, or being too literal. What I propose here is not a finite way of looking at the painting. Instead, I see this as a way of entering the painting and making it open and possible to find other meanings echoing within and emanating from it.

At first the painting looks simply like a big painted "X" spanning a scumbled white surface. If you take the painting at face value as merely a flat surface and count the faint vertical line down the middle in the background you've actually got a six-legged shape, or you've got a rectangle divided in six somewhat pie-shaped sections.

But that vertical line is embedded in the softly-painted background; what it makes the canvas surface look like is something folded in the middle and flattened back out, like a creased piece of paper or cardboard. And since that vertical line is in shadow, more likely is that it looks like an open book. The more I look at it, the more the ground of the painting appears to me as an book opened to two blank pages. The horizontal strokes of cream, pink, and gray on either side of the soft vertical dividing line reinforce that reading.

So, if this is an open book, does the X across its surface cancel out whatever the book is about? Is this censorship? Absolutely not- I don't see it that way. I don't see the X as on the book, I see it as originating in and coming right out of the center of the book.

The subtitle, Four Ways, is a clue. Four lines come out and go four different directions- N,S,E,W, or up, down, left, and right. They are four different colors. And these are also four different kinds of lines, from top left clockwise: [1] a misty funnel of a line, like billowing smoke; [2] a smooth, sleek, pulled stroke; [3] a jagged, choked scrape; and [4] a line that has had most of its character wiped-out.

The painting shows a passage of time from left to right, the same direction as one reads. On the right side the two darker, more defined lines are strong and focused, in the present moving to the right, as words flow. On the left are two dissipating lines, fading off into the past on the left-hand page, the direction from which the eye moves away when reading. The X is like a figure leaving the past on the left and striding off onto the next page, if one could turn it.

What I describe is a mostly non-linear, visually narrative reading of this painting. That I describe this as a narrative fits conceptually with the idea that the ground reminds me of a book. Each leg of the X is its own kind of line, so much so that the X doesn't really exist. It's interesting to me how such an apparently simple painting can allude to language and story and literacy, summon reference to direction and multiple kinds of spaces, and allude to depicted time as well as engage the viewer in real time. In this deft little painting Tim covers a lot of territory.

Steven LaRose writes ( I had to read this a couple of times to fully get it):

Steven introduces [1] another kind of space (horizontal folding) and [2] another kind of time (sequenced animation).

[1] He suggests that an horizontal line is inferred by this: if the line in the top left quadrant (was, say, still wet and) was folded down onto the bottom left quadrant a faint impression of that yellow line is left behind, the blurry shape there now; and the if the line in the bottom right quadrant (was, say, still wet and) was folded up onto the top right quadrant an smoother impression of that thicker line is left.

[2] He also proposes that if we begin with the line in the lower right quadrant and follow it clockwise through the other three quadrants to the final one in the lower left it "progressively evaporates, like an animation. One can also follow that sequence from lower left clockwise to lower right.

His additional associations of clock or meter fit well with the idea of time and sequence.

Thanks, Steven.

See more, small or large .

This interview with Alan Ebnother took place in spring 2005 as part of his Minus Space exhibition 1 April — 31 May 2005, and was published at Minus Space and posted here, too. It was translated into Italian on the occasion of his exhibition at Arte Moderna Ammann in Locarno, CH, Sept. 24 -Oct. 29 2005.

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La seguente conversazione tra Alan Ebnother e Chris Ashley è stata condotta via email nel periodo compreso tra il 17 Aprile e il 4 Maggio 2005.

Chris Ashley: La Sua biografia dice che nel 1975 “cominciò a riconoscere l’arte.” In quel periodo lei aveva poco più di vent’anni e si muoveva nel mondo della danza. Cosa significa questo “riconoscere l’arte” e come e quando cominciò a dipingere?

Alan Ebnother: Nel 1975 avevo 23 anni. Mi ero appena trasferito in Europa per studiare alla John Cranio Ballet School. I pittori George Lawson e John Meyer, entrambi di San Francisco, erano miei amici e così l’idea che delle persone dipingessero non era per me nuova.

A Stoccarda, dove frequentavo la scuola di danza, la mia coinquilina era sposata con il pittore spagnolo Vicente Peris, un professore d’arte di Valencia: lui venne ad abitare con noi e dipingeva ogni giorno nella nostra casa. Così osservare dipinti e parlare d’arte divenne parte della mia vita quotidiana. Credo che per me “riconoscere l’arte” significa un tentativo di capirla e accettarla nella mia vita e nei miei pensieri quotidiani.

CA: E Lei quando iniziò effettivamente a dipingere? Come mai si mise a dipingere e come cominciò? Aveva già dipinto prima?

AE: Nel 1979 ho lasciato il mio lavoro come ballerino all’opera di Amburgo e ho dipinto per un anno intero. Dipingevo giornalmente senza una direzione precisa. Ero come una nave che si è persa nell’oceano. Mi imbarazza un po’, ma alla fine dell’anno ho persino esposto i miei quadri nell’atrio dell’opera e ho venduto quasi tutto. In ogni caso erano orribili, piccole icone religiose – Cristo sanguinante sulla croce. Appena ho capito quanto erano brutti i miei quadri ho smesso di dipingere fino nel 1985, quando ho trovato il coraggio di ricominciare.

CA: Quando ha ricominciato a dipingere nel 1985 da dove iniziò? Come cominciò a dipingere quadri verdi?

AE: Quando ricominciai a dipingere scelsi di lavorare con meno elementi possibile, pensando che in questo modo la mia energia si sarebbe concentrata sui problemi della pittura. Non lavoravo tanto per realizzare un prodotto finito, ma più che altro per sperimentare i materiali e presentare i colori in modo avvincente e vitale. Prima pensavo che se un quadro non riusciva o sembrava noioso, aggiungere degli elementi avrebbe reso meno apparente o addirittura risolto il problema. In un secondo tempo volevo occuparmi del problema e risolverlo, non solo nasconderlo. Ho dipinto quadrati bianchi per quasi un anno. Abitavo a Zurigo e nello scantinato del mio palazzo c’era il magazzino di una ditta di imbianchini. Così ogni notte andavo in cantina e prendevo le loro plastiche per coprire il mio pavimento. Prendevo anche la loro pittura e quei quadrati di cartone che usavano per mascherare o qualche cosa del genere, e così dipingevo ogni notte. La mattina riportavo tutto il loro materiale, eccetto i quadrati che avevo dipinto. Questa storia continuò per nove mesi fino a quando trovai ed affittai uno studio a Ulm in Germania.

A Ulm iniziai a dipingere nel mio studio e dipingevo quadrati monocromatici fino a quando mi accorsi che non riuscivo a dipingere negli angoli. La pittura sembrava seguire un flusso e un ritmo naturale fino a quando giungevo negli angoli. Non avevo ancora l’abilità tecnica di dipingere liberamente gli angoli, e il segno sembrava rigido e artificioso, così cominciai a lasciarli via. Il risultato fu un cerchio la cui libertà riuscivo a gestire. Il risultato fu che per i seguenti dieci anni dipinsi dei tondi. Dopo circa 7 mesi dipinsi un tondo in verde veronese che secondo me era estremamente bello e interessante. Di conseguenza provai un altro dipinto verde con lo stesso pigmento ma direzionandolo verso un’altra tonalità di verde e con un altro tipo di pennello, e anche questo lavoro mi piacque e interessò molto. Così, vent’anni dopo, eccomi ancora qua, sempre ancora interessato e in fase sperimentale. Forse un giorno avrò l’impressione di aver portato il verde al limite e potrò passare a un nuovo tema. Ma al momento lavoro dipinto dopo dipinto seguendo la mia progressione d’esperienza. E quindi chissà? Questa non è una strategia pianificata, ma una cosa che è semplicemente capitata.

CA: Per un lungo periodo ha dipinto tondi, che significato ha per Lei questa forma?

AE: Dopo aver dipinto tondi per dieci anni, questa forma ha per me molti significati. Come posso spiegare a parole dieci anni di lavoro? Mi lasci dire che capisco il cerchio, e che dipingendo questa forma ho avuto un po’ di tempo per sviluppare le mie capacità lontano dagli occhi dei critici! Vede, durante questo periodo nessun altro lavorava il tondo, così altri pittori e critici non avevano nessuno e nient’altro con cui paragonarmi. Ciò mi ha dato il tempo necessario che mi serviva per sviluppare le mie capacità. Forse è interessante sapere che è stata semplicemente l’esperienza con un altro pittore che mi ha riportato a dipingere un quadrato. Un giorno Ulrich Wellmann, un pittore tedesco, visitò il mio studio. Mi disse che i miei quadri gli piacevano, ma non la loro forma tonda. Il motivo era che non avevano una parte superiore e una inferiore. Io gli dissi che un quadrato ha soltanto quattro possibilità per un sopra e un sotto, mentre un tondo ne ha infinite. Quando se ne andò ero così arrabbiato e frustrato che tesi quattro tele di forma quadrata. La cosa incredibile è che mi sembravano quadri già prima di dipingerli. Tutti siamo abituati a vedere la forma rettangolare nella vita quotidiana, è una forma architettonica conosciuta al nostro occhio. Il cerchio invece è sempre stata una forma aliena o nuova. Il genere umano è stato condizionato ad aspettarsi che un quadro assomigli alla forma di un rettangolo; sembrava così facile dopo il tondo. Devo dire che ora dipingere negli angoli mi piace soprattutto per sperimentare, tendo a copiare i bordi lineari imposti da questa forma. Forse un giorno tornerò a dipingere il cerchio.

CA: Potrebbe parlarci specificamente delle varie caratteristiche dei suoi quadri? Magari spiegando le forme e misure delle tele e le grandezze dei pennelli usati? Mischia e macina Lei stesso i colori? Come approccia ogni lavoro?

AE: Va bene, parliamo del 17 dicembre 2004. Ho usato una tela molto complessa, 38,5 x 38 pollici, così che c’è solo mezzo pollice in più nell’altezza per dare all’osservatore un lavoro verticale e non un formato panoramico. Nelle foto non sono visibili la grossezza e profondità della tela di 1 ¾ pollici sopra e di 3 pollici sotto. In questo modo la parte dietro del quadro è parallela al muro, mentre davanti è più fine sopra e più grossa sotto (come una fetta di formaggio). Così la parte inferiore è spinta nella luce. Dipingo con luce naturale dall’alto. Ho ordinato due tele con queste misure per sperimentare e trovare una via per risolvere il problema causato dall’effetto scultura tridimensionale della tela. Ho dipinto contro la forma usando punti marcanti che attiravano l’attenzione sulla parte superiore del quadro e sfumavo gradualmente la superficie lasciando in fondo soltanto le informazioni necessarie in poche aree per presentare il lavoro, ma non nella sua completezza. Cercavo semplicemente di distogliere l’attenzione dalla forma. L’osservatore non critico non si accorge che la tela ha una forma così irregolare. Ho completato due lavori di questo tipo e sono abbastanza soddisfatto del risultato, ma siccome non sono uno scultore e ho altri problemi inerenti alla pittura da risolvere, questi due lavori sono anche gli ultimi di questo tipo.

Ho mischiato e macinato i miei pigmenti dal primo anno della mia carriera. George Lawson, che ho menzionato prima, e Phil Sims sono stati così generosi da dividere tutto il loro sapere e le loro esperienze con me e mi hanno fondamentalmente insegnato come fare. Nel frattempo la mia natura sperimentale mi ha portato ad esplorare molte aree di pigmenti e diversi media con base ad olio, e dopo più di vent’anni credo di avere una conoscenza abbastanza buona della pittura ad olio.

Mi ha anche chiesto dei pennelli. Ebbene, ogni marca sembra avere un pennello che è adatto. Normalmente taglio le setole con una forbice io stesso e poi macino la fine delle setole così che non slittano. Modifico il pennello per diverse esigenze – per forma, resistenza, rigidità, grossezza, ecc. Spesso taglio anche il manico di legno così da renderlo un’estensione della mia mano e del mio polso, oppure ogni tanto allungo il manico così che diventa un’estensione del mio braccio o del mio corpo. Questo dipende anche dal tipo di segno che penso sarebbe interessante o corretto per presentare un certo colore. Mentre mischio il colore posso osservare i cambiamenti che capitano quando aggiungo alla massa diversi pigmenti, argille, balsami o cera. Ogni tanto mi capita di osservare fino a cento diverse tinte prima di decidere di smettere. Uno dei motivi per cui ho utilizzato il verde Veronese per tanto tempo è che è un pigmento molto trasparente con poca forza personale e può quindi essere spinto in molte direzioni diverse, pur mantenendo le sue qualità di seccatura e struttura.

CA: Quale è il nesso – fisicamente, emotivamente, esteticamente, filosoficamente – tra la Sua pittura e il Suo passato nel mondo della danza?

AE: Imparare a danzare ha molti significati, e il nesso tra la danza e la pittura può essere discusso in centinaia di pagine. Non ho abbastanza parole per spiegare tutte le relazioni, ma lasciatemi provare. La sensazione che si prova facendo un tendu, un movimento di base del balletto dove la gamba è estesa ad angolo retto dal corpo con il piede a punta, è simile all'emozione che si prova creando una spennellata. Per fare un tendu strofino dolcemente ma con forza la suola del mio piede contro il pavimento. Allo stesso tempo il mio piede e la mia gamba combattono per diventare estese. Sembra di fare l'amore con il pavimento. Provo le stesse emozioni quanto trascino un pennello pieno di pittura su una superficie! Dipingere è un'esperienza tattile e molto sensuale, come lo è la danza. Entrambe si basano su decisioni istintive, con l'occhio critico che entra e giudica dopo l'atto.

CA: Il modo in cui mi descrive la relazione tra danza e pittura mi fa pensare evidentemente alla spesso citata descrizione dell'espressionismo astratto di Harold Rosenberg: "In un certo momento le tele cominciarono ad apparire agli occhi di un pittore americano dopo l'altro come un'arena in cui agire – piuttosto che uno spazio dove riprodurre, ridisegnare, analizzare o esprimere un oggetto, reale o immaginario. Ciò che doveva apparire su una tela non era un disegno, ma un evento." Ma sospetto che questa descrizione non corrisponda alle Sue intenzioni, in quanto il Suo lavoro è più di un'arena per un evento. Lei si preoccupa anche di costruire spazio e luce, di creare un'immagine espressiva e un oggetto integrato. Ha dei pensieri sul suo lavoro in relazione all'espressionismo astratto, e ciò che cerca di fare che è al di là di un evento?

AE: L'atto di pitturare è forse drammatico e forse una performance, ma è una performance solo per me! I miei dipinti non hanno come tema il teatro o lo spettacolo, ma il colore e la definizione di spazio per mezzo di questo colore. Forse esplorano la prateria, ma non il teatro. La pittura non è un'arte di performance. Cerco di presentare un colore con ciò che credo essere un ritmo, segno e tempo che meglio gli si adatta. Questo dramma si svolge in uno studio con un solo spettatore (me), e quando il dramma è terminato le tracce lasciate sulla mia tela sono un dipinto.

CA: Ricordo che nel primo o secondo email che mi mandò quasi due anni fa, si mostrò sorpreso per la bellezza della luce in New Mexico. Per anni visse e dipinse in Germania. La luce e lo spazio in questi due luoghi è abbastanza differente. Cosa la partò in New Mexico e come influenzarono la sua pittura questi due luoghi diversi? Cosa significa il verde in entrambi i posti? Personalmente mi sembra che la sua pittura stia diventando più spessa e ricca. Credo che il suo atelier attuale sia molto più grande di quello in Germania – questo fatto come influenza la sua pittura?

AE: Mi sono trasferito in New Mexico per via della luce e della terra a buon prezzo, così che ho potuto costruirmi un atelier. Il mio atelier è molto grande e alto, potrei in effetti costruirci dentro un aeroplano. L’ho disegnato io stesso, prestando particolare attenzione alla luce e meno al comfort. La luce in questo atelier è la migliore che ho mai visto! Dipingevo in Germania e portavo i miei quadri ad esposizioni qui in New Mexico, dove per la prima volta vedevo il vero colore dei dipinti. La luce in Germania è molto grigia e argentea, ma quasi mai chiara e luminosa. Durante le mie prime visite in New Mexico non riuscivo neanche a passeggiare all’esterno senza gli occhiali da sole. Questo è veramente un caso di luce che influenza o addirittura diventa un dipinto.

Ho cercato di aprire la mia pittura già da qualche tempo. Questo compito non mi è nuovo, è nella mia mente da anni e ha avuto molto a che fare con il mio trasferimento qui in New Mexico. Sono nel mezzo del niente. Questo è uno spazio vuoto. Voglio riuscire a portare questo spazio sulla tela. È un processo lento, ma che sembra finalmente riuscire. È il mio traguardo. Definire questo spazio vuoto con un numero ridotto di colori, questo per me significa dipingere. Clyfford Still era sulla buona via, e io vorrei tornare indietro e riprendere la sua sensibilità e morale e continuare il suo lavoro, ma semplicemente con un solo colore.

Pensando a tutto ciò che abbiamo detto, vorrei dire anche due parole sul fenomeno che capita a molti pittori monocromatici che dipingono sempre di nuovo lo stesso quadro.Non basta semplicemente cambiare il colore e dipingere il lavoro seguente con lo stesso concetto. Ogni colore necessita di un metodo di pittura diverso per mettere in luce al meglio le sue proprietà intrinseche. L’esplorazione di queste proprietà è una parte molto importante del mio lavoro, magari è addirittura il mio lavoro e per questo credo di dover dire qualche cosa al riguardo. Questa esplorazione è uno degli elementi chiave nel lavoro di molti pittori conosciuti, come Robert Ryman, per il quale non solo il metodo di dipingere, ma anche il modo nel quale attaccava i suoi quadri ai muri o addirittura la data e la firma sul dipinto diventavano un elemento fondamentale della composizione. La tinta resta abbastanza costante mentre cambia radicalmente la massa del colore. Ryman ha esplorato una piccola strada della pittura senza mai raggiungere la monotonia.

Guarda anche Joseph Marioni e il suo sottile cambiamento dei sostegni che corrisponde con l’individuale scelta del colore, che apre o chiude i veli di colore sopra al dipinto presentando finestre di diversa grandezza e forma nel quadro. Questa sottile ma importante attenzione al dettaglio presenta un percorso per i giovani pittori di oggi. Forse trent’anni fa, quando questo genere di pittura era nuovo, uno poteva semplicemente cambiare colore e creare l’effetto grande magazzino di “quello rosso, quello blu o quello verde”. Ma oggi siamo di gran lunga oltre questo punto, e continuare a produrre lavori che assomigliano a un prodotto con su il tuo nome e che cambiano di poco o non cambiano e crescono del tutto, è semplicemente parassitico. Il (medico) generico del passato è sparito. Siamo in un’era di specialisti, nella pittura e nella tecnologia.

L’arte astratta è ancora un concetto nuovo, e sta nelle mani degli artisti di oggi spingere e sviluppare questo concetto. I cambiamenti non devono essere grandi e le direzioni non specifiche, ma il genere deve essere esplorato così da restare vivo. Non ci possiamo fidare del pubblico per il supporto di queste esplorazioni, in quanto si accontentano sempre ancora di guardare il Lago dei Cigni, ascoltare Mozart, e guardare Rembrandt, opere sì stupende, ma create molto tempo fa. Storicamente il progresso dell’arte non è sempre stato accettato immediatamente dal pubblico, quindi sta nelle mani degli artisti di oggi sostenere e spingere l’esplorazione in avanti, indipendentemente dalla risposta del pubblico.

CA: Ogni tanto può essere d’aiuto, e ogni tanto no, parlare del lavoro di un artista in relazione ad altri lavori d’arte. Abbiamo già parlato di danza, e Lei ha menzionato Ryman e Marioni. Quali altri artisti sono importanti per Lei e perché?

AE: Joseph Marioni è molto importante per me per motivi completamente diversi di Ryman. I progressi di Joe possono essere estremamente difficili da percepire da un occhio inesperto in quanto i cambiamenti, i miglioramenti e le differenze sono estremamente sottili. Ma una volta che si comincia a vedere il numero elevato di miglioramenti realizzati da tela a tela, la fame di scoprirne di più diventa insaziabile. Osservare i dipinti di Marioni o Ryman mi ricorda le persone che vengono per la prima volta nel deserto e dicono che non c’è vegetazione o vita selvaggia. Ma quando osserviamo più attentamente, il deserto si apre alla nostra vista e il completo mondo vegetale e animale diventa visibile. È tutto lì ad aspettare che l’osservatore educhi se stesso.

CA: Ci parli dello spazio nei suoi dipinti. In alcuni dipinti recenti la pittura sembra molto grossa; le pennellate sono molto visibili e presenti. Uno riesce quasi a vedere le pennellate come una specie di calligrafia, e c’è qualcosa nello spazio dei suoi dipinti che sembra creare uno spazio particolare, come per esempio i nastri di colore di de Kooning che sono stratificati e sovrapposti, lavorando con e contro la forza di gravità.

AE: Ebbene, ogni dipinto è diverso. Non c’è un progetto generale a cui posso rivolgermi per ulteriori informazioni! Non ho mai studiato calligrafia ma confrontare il mio spazio interno a quello di de Kooning sarebbe il lavoro di un critico d’arte e non di un pittore. Perché non confrontare Ryman e Monte, oppure Ter Borch e Umberg? Dal mio punto di vista spesso non c’è niente di simile nei lavori di questi artisti, a parte il materiale. Magari un critico d’arte può trovare delle proprietà comuni e confrontarle, ma per me ogni artista ha il suo proprio dialogo e le proprie sfumature che aspettano di essere scoperte dall’osservatore. Provare a fare un confronto vorrebbe dire cercare di definire e categorizzare l’artista, il che porterebbe l’osservatore a smettere di guardare. Se oggigiorno si va in uno dei musei più grandi e più conosciuti, ci si trova faccia a faccia con masse di persone che stanno leggendo testi affissi sui muri o che stanno ascoltando messaggi registrati su cassetta e che spiegano i singoli dipinti. In questo momento queste persone smettono di guardare e sperimentare il dipinto in cambio di una spiegazione di qualche critico d’arte. NON C’È UNA SPIEGAZIONE PER L’ARTE. L’ARTE DEVE ESSERE SPERIMENTATA!

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Alan Ebnother vive e lavora a Stanley, New Mexico

Chris Ashley è un artista, scrittore ed educatore. Vive e lavora a Oakland, California

Translated by Tina Ammann

I know Laurie Reid's work very well, having had many opportunities to see it in the Bay Area. Her most recent exhibit at Stephen Wirtz Gallery in San Francisco just closed earlier this month, and I just recently saw her work in Water Color: Current Views at Gallery Joe in Philadelphia. Her past work is all watercolor on paper. Often the watercolor is heavily diluted and applied so that the paper buckles and the pigment collects along the edges of the liquid as it sits in the furrows of the buckled paper. Other work is made of various sized drops of much more intense color.

Reid's work doesn't allow for much correction, and requires concentration and a strong physical presence: action, balance, and decisiveness. Recent work seems to begin by re-using older work on top of which new painting takes place. This introduces a few things: multiple kinds of linear and solid structures, greater variety of line, much greater varying of density of color used within one painting, and layering of kinds of structures over other kinds.

This newer work looks more relaxed. Part of that I think comes from the re-use of old work, and from the second-generation of new marks covering or laying over a first generation of older marks. In a way it is destroying old work to make new work, or adding to something that one decides much later is unfinished. I think to do that one does have to be relaxed, to have accepted something as incomplete or perhaps a failure. That requires a letting go, and approaching an old work with a new attitude.

I see in the older work an interesting contradiction or duality— these very liquid lines carry a lot of tension and at the same time a sense of relaxed flow. Let me describe this tension and relaxation.

First, there's a lot of tension in the lines and drops— that comes from the precision, calculation, measuring, and consistency needed to make the work, the need not to screw up, and the difficulty imposed by not being able to do anything over. As a viewer, one feels all of that. Tension in many of the larger works, some up to six feet or more high or long, is found, for example, in the long strokes that need to cover a very large area. And there is also tension in the relationship of one line or shape to another, in how they may be placed alongside each other and not touch, each retaining a unique quality. This all requires strength, endurance, a steady hand and eye, care and patience. Part of the tension is of course is built into the medium of water on paper— you've pretty much got to hit it in one go without correction when you're working with large sheets of nice white paper and each large wet stroke is the image. Reid handles that really well, with strength and consistency.

But then all the tension in the lines (or, lines so fat they become shapes) is contradicted by their liquid quality— the somewhat controlled elastic flow of pigment within puddled sections— and by the physical puckering of the paper. This liquidity and puckering creates a feeling of relaxation, of breathing, and expansiveness.

I find that duality between tension and relaxed flow really interesting; it is very human, almost figurative— something with a nervous system opened up and laid bare. There is a tremulousness to the images, and if one is quiet and listens there is a hum, either off the work or in the viewer's response to the work.

In the newer work Reid is building webs with new lines on top of old, or filling in shapes with new areas color that were previously only defined by line. This changes the whole dynamic in Reid's work; this new work is more layered, with one approach on top of another approach. Because of this the work feels less process-oriented — less conceptual— and more like someone building a picture. In a sense, the correction she couldn't do on the earlier work is now taking place in the newer work, and old is transformed into new. The tensions have changed a bit, and there is a newer density and heaviness.

All of the work I saw at Gallery Joe is in this new same vein as the work in the Wirtz show. I think this direction adds another dimension to Reid's work, and certainly give here something new to wrestle with. I hope she can hold onto the qualities I admire in the older work while adding new approaches. This recent work is a good start.

Since August 2004 I have written or been involved in writing twenty eight pieces about art. I say "involved" because five of these pieces are interviews. Twenty one of these pieces were written during 2005, seven at the end of 2004. They have been of different lengths, depth, quality and success, and most were an attempt to seriously tackle some aspect of an artist's work, and in some cases a single work.

About a year ago, after having written a few pieces, I set myself the goal of writing at least one art essay a month during 2005. I thought of these writings as critical essays; I didn't want to just write reviews, but instead I wanted to describe and explain a way, or some ways, of looking closely at a particular piece of art or a body of work, to talk about how to look at and experience the work, and to explicate how through looking to find meaning. I wanted to write about how I look, and to hopefully have that serve as a model for others of how to look closely, how to assess the qualities and characteristics of art, and how to use these to figure out intended meaning, accidental meaning, and personal meaning for the viewer.

This challenge began in summer of 2004 when George Lawson asked me, somewhat out of the blue, to write something for his solo show at Elins Eagles Smith Gallery in San Francisco in September 2004. My only credentials were our exchange of emails. I agreed, and wound up writing nearly 3,000 words. It was a great experience and I'm glad George asked me to write for him. There are parts of that essay that I value tremendously. And once I started writing I thought I'd continue- now, here it is nearly the end of 2005.

Writing takes time, lots of time. Most writers don't really know what they're going to say, what they really think, how it all builds into something, until they start forming the words and sentences. Writing is idea shaping. Words are almost like clay, like paint- they are bits that are put together, pulled apart, moved around, thrown on the floor, picked back up again. It is essential to most kinds of thinking. I certainly would like to have more time to write. Any of these pieces could use not only another draft or three to craft the writing, but those successive drafts would also likely deepen any ideas these essays attempt to express. These will likely have to stand as they are, and that's fine. I set myself a simple goal, and I certainly exceded it. It's a good feeling to look back at this list; many of these pieces I still enjoy reading. I hope you enjoy reading them, too.

Douglas Witmer makes paintings with a purpose. I mean this in two ways — he makes paintings purposefully, and his paintings have a purpose. This is not to say in the least that his paintings are predetermined and strictly didactic. Despite their apparently structured appearance they are expressive rather than merely planned and executed, and porous rather than closed in meaning.

Witmer's varied and improvised use of color, surface, form, and material is surprisingly expressive. Anyone who spends time with Mondrian's signature paintings, for example, knows that they are not rigid repetitions. Similarly, the viewer will find that Witmer's paintings are individually achieved, and this is part of where his purposefulness lies: geometry is not something always precisely measured; it can be nuanced and emotional, and it often breaks rulesor has unlikely sources. My mention of Mondrian of course risks a misunderstanding via an assumed derivation or inheritance, so perhaps a more appropriate anduseful reference might be Klee's sensitive, playful, and inventive qualities.

As for the purpose of Witmer's paintings, this is always the tricky part — society generally wants to know what a piece of art is about, what it means, and what it is good for. But what does it really mean to understand art? Does it mean to know something with certainty, to explain it definitively, and then to move on? There usually isn't a single answer to art's meaning. Most good art is slippery — the meanings we try to catch and hold instead make us return to an art object again and again for confirmation and renewal.

Willem de Kooning's oft-quoted statement is apt here: "Content is a glimpse of something, an encounter like a flash. It's very tiny — very tiny, content." What we get from art may come in fragments, on the periphery and over time, and is often unexpected, indirect, and personal. Not only are Witmer's paintings open to viewer associations, but they intentionally invite these associations. This, I think, is part of the purpose of Witmer's art: these beautifully crafted, carefully considered paintings bear graphically clear but ambiguous images that make pictorial and physical spaces for the viewer to see, feel, and think. These spaces, handmade and shared, where nuance and touch are important, and where close-up observation of details matter, are where glimpses occur and meanings arise. These paintings involve the artist and the viewer in an intimate collaboration of looking. In a poem called Telling You All Rilke writes: "Let's invite something new/by unifying our silences;/if, then and there, we advance,/we'll know it soon enough." Meaning is found in the experience of looking at Witmer's paintings, not just in explanations, and in that looking a kind of knowing is possible.

— Chris Ashley, December 2005

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The following conversation between Douglas Witmer and Chris Ashley was conducted via email between late August and early November 2005, and supplemented by extended conversations and studio visits in Philadelphia during October 6-11.

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Chris Ashley: I first became familiar with your paintings and drawings through digital images, and now after having recently seen quite a bit of your work while in Philadelphia I can say that the digital images are plainly not an adequate substitute for seeing the real thing.  For example, there is subtlety around the edges of your shapes, nuanced brushwork, and small shifts in size between similar shapes, each with unique edges from the hand-placed taping.  Because often a valuable starting point for looking at and comparing art objects is simply to take note of what you see, I thought it might useful for you to describe some of the essential material and physical characteristics of your recent paintings and works on paper, and some thoughts about how and why you chose these.

Douglas Witmer: I sort of break it down into a short list of dualities: horizontal versus vertical, light versus dark (more recently I might call this “color” versus “white”), brushstroke versus lack-of-brushstroke, shape versus field, and gloss versus matte.  When I first started exhibiting my work it was quite gestural and “expressionist.”  There came a point when gesturalism lost its meaning for me.  I rejected the improvisatory way I painted at that time and began a process of isolating and examining the choices I make in painting.  Eventually I reduced my painting to a single repeated mark.

This might sound funny, but I enjoy watching cooking shows, and I especially like overhead views of chefs working with all the ingredients pre-measured in separate containers.  As I took my painting practice apart, I began to think of my painting choices this way.  It had a clarifying effect, because I could feel like I knew—or was conscious of—what I was doing.

By rejecting gesturalism, I effectively eliminated my hand from my painting for a number of years.  More recently I came to realize how much I enjoy the feeling of brushing and how I missed seeing it in my work.  And so, to use my cooking show analogy, reintroducing a visible brushstroke was a matter of looking at the ingredients/components of my work and making choices in order to find a new balance.

CA: Following this analogy, every painting requires a unique recipe or you’re just making the same thing over and over, which would be a violation of your past declaration that, “painting is not a statement,” but is instead an ongoing, evolving relationship.  Elsewhere you wrote, “Perhaps contrary to their first impression, my compositions are not pre-planned or measured ahead of time.”  Few of your current paintings seem to share a constant size, and color varies quite a bit from work to work.  Can you say a bit more about how you actually go about making a painting?

DW: I work under the assumption that within simplest dualities there are infinite and complicated possibilities. I try to treat every piece as an individual, and I like the challenge of working out the decisions directly on the pieces.  With processes like mine that involve handiwork and an emphasis on touch and tactility, even if it is quite subtle, I don’t think I could repeat the same painting twice if I tried.  I don’t think of myself as especially prolific.  There’s a lot of time spent just looking and considering and mentally thinking through possibilities.  You could say that I have made some definitive choices about the things I do in painting and the things I don’t do, but I’m not systematic about those choices.  Nothing I do is meant to be preparatory.  I make sketches, but they’re just notations and they rarely go directly into anything. Occasionally I make a painting on paper and I will repeat its basic components on a canvas.  Size, scale, shape and color are determined according to what feels right. Recently I made a large and small version of the same painting, but they were just very similar to each other and very different from each other.

Finally, there’s something I can’t explain about myself when I work.  No matter how much planning, scheming, ruminating or whatever I put into a work, when it comes to the painting action, I never do what I thought I was going to do.  Or perhaps I should say, I’m never prepared for what happens in painting.

CA: An encounter with paintings by the mid-15th Century Sienese painter called the Osservanza Master was very significant for you, and led you to identifying a kind of geometry that has become an important aspect of your work.  How did that happen?

DW: In 2000 I was in the midst of a frightening dry spell with my work, and I was terribly ambivalent about the meaning of any kind of painting gesture.  One day I was in a used bookstore thumbing through a catalog from an exhibition some years back at the Metropolitan Museum called Painting in Renaissance Siena.  I was particularly excited by the work of the Osservanza Master, and then came across the reproduction of a painting that's here in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, one that I was always fond of in a very basic, naive, like/dislike kind of way.  I really didn't know anything about the painting, but something about seeing that painting on that day in my life enabled me to move on.

I still had no idea of what to do next.  In those Sienese paintings I was attracted to the beautifully warm and radiant colors and the tight geometric compositions.  But the most meaningful part is how, despite their attempt to depict space on the flat panel, each and every one fails, at least to my 21st Century eyes.  It was like there was this visual longing trapped inside the limits of the painter’s body.  To me they completely expressed the crisis I felt I was in, a sort of breakdown of seeing versus belief.  There was so much devotion or desire, but in the end no way to fully represent that visually.

I tinkered a lot during the next months.  I traced the reproductions in the catalogue to see if I could isolate the compositions from the religious scenes they were depicting.  What came out of that process was the use of a trapezoid shape, usually anchored to an edge of the image.  It easily connoted a receding plane, but could be handled so as to make it not function the way it seemed like it was supposed to, and so it became a "space symbol."  In terms of an image with a personal emotional significance I thought of it as pushing my painting down into itself in order that I could re-enter the process, like walking out onto a platform into a new unknown.  It seemed right at the time to make the paintings large enough to feel that you could physically enter them.  So I had these paintings that were kind of spatial.  And around that time I started investigating the issue the opposite way, by making tiny wooden reliefs—the Fruitville series— that projected out from the wall, but were subtly manipulated to make them appear flatter.

All that work made between 2000 and 2003 was very involved with the idea of the perception of space, how that impacts one's sense of reality, and more symbolically, one’s belief in something.  Today I think I'm working with much less of an idea.  That is, I'm not trying so hard to make a painting achieve a desired result.  I rely much more on intuition, with components that I allow to move or that I guide into place.  I work from the visual relationships and personal associations that occur during the process.  I feel like they come out of having a lot more faith in painting.  I don’t have a need to make them present questions of themselves.  And they are quite a bit flatter.

CA: What do what you mean by “pushing my painting down into itself in order to re-enter the process.”

DW: I was making a huge overhaul of my painting.  The body of work that was current at that time (which is very different than what I do today) had a distinct identity.  I suppose you could say I had formed an identity around it as well. My own work became a kind of barrier for me. I liked the idea of pushing the painting down, but into itself.  It enabled me to learn that I can exert a lot of personal will into painting, but that painting can also respond to and hold that.  And that is when I began to use the word “relationship” a lot in reference to my practice.

CA: I’m interested in what you called “space symbol,” and how this occurs or is used in your work.  I think you mean something different than a repeated or signature image, not just a device.  Do mean “symbol” as something that comes out of culture, or is even archetypal?  Some of the shapes you use are found in lots of places; for example, you’ve acknowledged an interest in Indian painting, too.

DW: In earlier work I think the trapezoid actually was a device for me.  In our time, the idea of one-point perspective is so completely ingrained in our minds that we take it for granted.  It’s like we assume the view of the camera’s eye— the lens— when we think about seeing.  We forget that this is not the way we see naturally with our two eyes, and that something is functioning physically in our brain to blend both views into what we perceive.  It’s easy to see a trapezoid and automatically think “receding plane,” whether or not it actually operates illusionistically. My intention was to use it to fool the mind more than the eye. That’s what I mean by it being a “space symbol.”

CA: You talked about devotion in Sienese painting as both an act and a “visual longing trapped inside the limits of the painter’s body,” which I think of as a feeling of striving towards something. We have also talked about devotion and reverence.  How does this figure in your work?

DW: I aspire for my work to convey a sense that it is grounded in a personal spirituality.  This spirituality is not clearly delineated for me in a way that I can put into words.  But reverence and devotion are components of how it manifests itself.  Devotion can simply be seen as practice, and reverence as an attitude within that practice.  For me reverence connotes something very quiet, a kindof hushed awe in the presence of something larger than oneself.  This larger presence could be nature, history, or an ideal.  I have been trying to make my work seem quieter and quieter, even if it is strident in terms of its design.  I would like to think of it as silent.  Silence is a precarious balance that can be broken; it’s a situation with so much potential.

In terms of devotion, I just resonate with the idea of a constant, even, but not closed and not unchanging practice, a momentum that is built up by making, considering, even loving one's work.  Tending to, caring about, cherishing the work, working joyfully— do these seem like passé values?  Or is this the big secret that artists keep from one another because it’s not smart enough to pass through the critical threshold, that we do it because of love and devotion?  Does it go without saying?  Should it go without saying?

CA: This seems like the right place to ask about your Mennonite background, aspects of which you’ve referenced in statements and conversation as being important in your art.  I'm particularly interested in the notion of the word "plain-ness" and the attitudes and practices that go with that.

DW: I grew up pretty steeped in the Mennonite culture of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  Plain-ness is a practice that arose in 19th Century America as a material acting out of earlier Mennonite ideals.  It was a primary way of distinguishing oneself from contemporary society.  Being plain meant forsaking expensive clothing, accoutrements, and conveniences in favor of living a simple life and demonstrating humility rather than pridefulness.  There are still traditional Mennonite and Amish groups who would use the word plain to describe themselves.  My family didn't dress plain or drive a buggy or car with all the chrome painted black, but there were vestiges of that in the church where I grew up.

Plain-ness was also prevalent as a sort of "anti-design" principle in Mennonite architecture.  For instance, looking at the church I attended growing up, you wouldn't be able to distinguish the front from the back except for the double doors on one end.  It's just a red brick rectangle with a simple pitched roof sitting on top; no ornamentation, no steeple.  No images inside either, and in fact, Mennonites prefer the term "meetinghouse" to "church”.  The architecture of houses and barns is similar, and these kinds of structures are all over Lancaster County.  It's almost a "minimalist" look, except using that word evokes a kind of high-minded aesthetic which of course the Mennonites had no clue about.  From a plain perspective, it's just about having a decently built, simple and functional structure.  It's not a design principle.  I think plain-ness comes from the literal way Mennonites approach the Bible.  Mennonites take the example of Jesus’ life literally, and growing up in this church culture I didn't learn how to think in terms of metaphor.

So when I started becoming an artist I found myself drawn immediately to the basic components of painting.  I had little or no interest in depicting subject matter, but a lot of interest in terms of how a painting could be made.  And I think I took it for granted that a "well-made" painting was in fact a message in and of itself.  These days I find myself trying to do things in ways that are very clear.  I like when actions sort of "name themselves" in a painting, such as brushwork that just declares itself as brushwork, or a color that is simply itself, not an in-between kind of color.  Or I like when certain components of a painting show you what other components are, such as a matte surface calling attention to a gloss surface.

The more I consider it, I think the tendency towards plain-ness comes out of a desire for a mindset of purity and humility that is integrated in a way that is always guiding one's thoughts and actions.  Whether or not this is still the way plain-ness is practiced materially by current Mennonites, I believe it is an ideal that guides my painting practice.

CA: Where do your current images come from?  Do any of your paintings contain shapes borrowed or derived from the farms, landscape, or crafts around Lancaster County?  There are kinds of framings and structures in your current work that can be read as fields, boundaries, foundations, skeletons and scaffolding.

DW: This is a really difficult question for me to answer.  Earlier this year Linn Meyers asked me a similar question— “What are your paintings pictures of?”  In retrospect, I answered somewhat flippantly. I said I don’t paint pictures of any thing; I make paintings.  This was kind of a half-answer, of course, because the images I end up making absolutely come from very personal places for me.  What are the names for these places?  I’m as ambivalent about answering a question like this for you as I am for myself.  On the one hand shouldn’t I scrutinize this in the same way I scrutinize the mechanics of my painting?  Or is it better that I leave it unsaid, wordless, in a way protected even from myself, to be simply felt in my (or your) act of seeing it, whatever “it” is?  I guess I would feel badly if I knew that things I said about my work would become a stand-in for someone’s actual experience of seeing my work.

I‘ll reiterate that when it comes to my imagery I don’t think in the types of words you have just said, though I welcome those associations.  I tend to focus on the obvious materiality of what I have made.  So what I would call a glossy white rectangle you might read as a boundary.  Nevertheless, I care that I make the material specifics of the glossy white rectangle have the potential to convey feeling that is quite immaterial.

I will also tell you about something particular I’ve noticed recently while I work.  To a degree, I have always been an observational painter in that things I see or fragments from things I see undergo a process of distillation in the studio.  I photograph a lot of things for future reference.  But there has been a shift in my thoughts from this kind of observation towards visual memories from my early childhood.

This is relevant as we talk about where and how I was raised.  Lancaster County and the Mennonite community there have both changed drastically since I was a child.  It was a much more distinct and, I think, special kind of place and culture than it is today. Just as an example, off the top of my head I can think of at least a dozen families my family knows whose once-pristine farms have been paved over and developed into McMansion subdivisions.  My own family’s greenhouse business, begun in 1898 by my great-great grandfather, was forced to close this year; the land has been sold to developers.  Every time I drive back from Philadelphia it breaks my heart to see and experience it dissolving into the mainstream American culture of affluence and consumption. Talk about innocence lost.

You could say that I idealize or fantasize my memories of that time and place, which is probably true.  But it’s a useful fantasy for me.  It generates a feeling of an ideal that I can paint towards.

CA: Where do you see your work fitting into the continuum of abstract art?

DW: Once I heard someone refer to some artists including Agnes Martin as “heaven painters.”  I can’t recall the context, but I remember thinking I wouldn’t object to someone using that term for me.  To an extent, I see artists falling into two very generalized groups: those who go for layering and complexity, and those who go for distillation and simplification.  Of course, I am among the latter.  People still argue abstraction’s validity.  I assume they focus on the arc of 20th Century abstraction practiced in Western civilization as codified by Western art history.  The fact of the matter is that abstraction, and geometric form in particular, has long been—has perhaps always been—connected to human spiritual aspiration.

CA: As we’ve talked several topics have been raised that seem to share a religious thread.  You’ve talked about Sienese religious painting, Mennonite culture, and ideas about devotion and reverence, and you said, “I aspire for my work to convey a sense that it is grounded in a personal spirituality.”  All of this has been instrumental in the formation of your current work, but you haven’t made any claims that your work is itself spiritual, or aids a viewer’s spirituality.  Instead, you say that your work is very much rooted in the material, with color and form being nothing more than what they are. The experience of looking is important for you.  You want this experience, as I understand it, to be for the viewer about observation, time, and presence.  I see that as realism.  I see your work as perhaps secular, but certainly not agnostic; instead, I see your work as trying to reach people, and I think of that as social, as serving a purpose.  I wonder if you see your art in that way.

DW: You’re right.  I do not and cannot make a claim that the work itself is spiritual.  At one time I would have also suggested that my paintings were not necessarily art—that all I could do was do the best I could to make the visual situation and then release it in hope that another person could have an art experience in relationship to it like I did.  This attitude was formed during that period of profound questioning, and I was reacting exactly to what you bring up in terms of the paintings being “nothing” but fabric stretched over wood with pigmented liquefied plastic applied to it.  The Mennonite culture has produced a lot of highly skilled functional craftspeople, but few studio artists.  Warren Rohrer was an enormous exception— no surprise that his life and work have been great examples for me.  I think the assumption is that a painting doesn’t do anything, and that attitude dogs me all the time, from within myself.  Add to that the more contemporary notion of “art for art’s sake” and painting can quickly stand for isolated self-centeredness, which is a complete affront.  But then there are all these examples— the Sienese panels are just one instance from human history—of painting having a real use to a community or society.  One of the things I love about some of those Sienese panels is they actually exhibit use: people would scratch at the eyes of the evil spirits portrayed.

So I have these related questions:  What use is there for my painting? What can my paintings do?  I realized at some point that the simple act of seeing, in a situation where you can actually feel or perceive yourself seeing, is where all the power in an art experience is for me.  It’s a sort of para-intellectual experience. It doesn’t turn its back on anything that you know, but in the moments of this kind of seeing, processes of explanation or definition are suspended.  In my mind it has everything to do with the material specifics of the art object.  I assume that if I feel the need for this kind of experience then others do as well.  Maybe that thought forms a kind of statement of purpose, perhaps a statement of faith that I didn’t always have for painting.

All of the paintings consist of triangles of varying sizes, shape, color and intensity are plac on a painted white field, some abutting and clustering together to form shapes most obviously reminiscent of origami. If what these paintings showed and did stopped right there so would my writing. But there is more.

These shapes do an awful lot of folding and unfolding, but with a kind of continual persistence and movement that makes them not stay as things, but instead as shapes and spaces that are continually becoming and coming apart. This also means that there is a continually active assembly and disassembly of internal and external spaces. In once instance as a viewer I may see and go into a space and then back out of it again to move around the painting. In the next instance I may see and go into a space only to have it fall apart or implode.

One may suddenly notice that three or four unconnected triangles spread out across the painting are positioned in such a way that one or two of their edges suddenly align and define the outline of a rectangle spanning a large portion of the painting in something approximating one point persepective. And just as suddenly the rectangle pulls apart as another set aligns and pulls our vision into seeing another rectangle. Some of this alignment is reinforced by shapes of similar color or value. Sometimes the alignment snaps into some other kind of shape, and then dissovles or fades again as we move on another alignment.

White works with a consistently peculiar palette. There are browns that look like purple, oranges that look like brown, and browns that look like they're made with five other colors. Occasionally there's a green, or one or two shapes with a blue, all a little difficult to place. It's a hard palette to name. Colors like these should be natural, but they instead or very personal and handled, mixed beyond naming. There's a way that the colors feel like those printed on jazz record sleeves from the early sixties: a little faded, separated in blocks, low in saturation but starkly surrounded by white. At one point Takada turned off the gallery lights and the paintings changed dramatically; not only did color change, of course, but the entire surface and density of color went from hard and flat to deep and worked, with the barest hint of brushwork, sanding, and coats of paint suddenly evident.

The color has other qualities. Some are dense and brighter while others are so tinted as to almost dissappear into the white backround in bright low are from certain angles. These different colors influence how triangles sit on the surface or fade in and out of view; this influences how some triangles align and the space they make, resulting in odd rhythms and synocpation. The movement speeds up or slows down, with unexpected emphases. White's title for this show, between the backbeat, seems apt.

This activity happens in rapid sequence, which makes this difficult work for the casual viewer. These paintings are animated, with constant movements in parallel narratives. They are time-based; as one looks parts of the paintings are made and unmade. The experience of looking at these is a constant cycling of past, present, and future. Here there is a beauty in material, in a sustained intelligent and intuitive energy.

If you have never been to the Fabric Workshop it's well worth a visit. This is the first art-making facility I've ever been in that allows visitors to walk freely through the huge studio/workshop. Long tables spanning the loft, perhaps fifty feet long or so, have bolts of fabric with work in progress rolled out. Patterns are spread on a table, studio workers are looking over drawings or working out details, and sewing or dyeing may be going on. The actual working space is enormous, and examples of work are up on the walls. It's a really interesting place, with lots to look at and great access for the visitor.

Besides the studio the main workshop floor has offices and a good-sized room to show work. Teresita Fernández is on this floor. One floor up is another huge, three room exhibit area. This is where I saw Single Screen Selections of Rare Film and Audio from the Pamela and Richard Kramlich Collection, with prime examples by Gilbert & George, Bruce Nauman, and Dara Birnbaum's classic Wonder Woman, among others. Not exactly fabric, but I'm not complaining.

Teresita Fernández, as everyone knows by now, is a genius. That is, she is a 2005 MacArthur Fellow, giving her what is often called a genius grant. I don't think that is what the MacArthur Foundation itself calls these grants, but a quick search using the term genius grant will result in links to places that demonstrate that just about everyone else calls them genius grants. The appellation genius must be a terrible burden to bear, but I'm sure the $500,000 award makes that load a little lighter. I was already curious about the Fabric Workshop, knew of Fernández's recent award, and couldn't pass up the opportunity to see the work of a genius since geniuses in the art world are very difficult to find, or at least very difficult to identify, or more probably very hard to define.

Do I sound a little cynical, or something? I don't really mean to sound that way. It can't be jealousy, you see, since I, not being a genius, was hardly in the competition for a genius grant. No, I'm just curious: what makes for a genius artist? What is genius-level artmaking? Perhaps my visit to the Fabric Workshop would enlighten me. Perhaps a little geniousness would rub off on me. Perhaps I'd simply like the art. Perhaps walking alone in this big city for the first time, taking in history, seeing art, just having time to soak stuff in, breathing and looking, is a kind of genious way to exist. Maybe instead I was feeling relaxed and receptive.

Fernández exhibit is in one large room. One sculpture lays on the floor, a flat, mishapen plank about the size of a body encrusted with glass particles that shift light and color as one walks around it. On two of the four walls are fifteen to twenty works on paper hung in one line, all in burning reds and yellows with and black sections and center sections torn out or collaged to make an image of fire. Near the middle of the room hung the big work, the main event, Fire.

To save some effort, why not let the press release describe Fire:

As an Artist-in-Residence, Fernández worked with FWM staff to create Fire. This monumental, delicate sculpture is composed of two concentric circles of thousands of silk threads that hover, suspended in the gallery. The silk threads, hand-dyed shades of lush reds, oranges and yellows, come to life as one circles the piece. The two concentric layers of threads flicker under the gallery lights, losing their materiality and becoming animated as pure color and light.

A truly collaborative effort and feat of technical innovation, Fernández worked with FWM Project Coordinator Mary Anne Friel, professional spray master Michael Wommack, weaver Pam Pawl, and sculptor Georghe Adam. Starting with the initial concept of a "ring of fire," the project went through many material incarnations. Crucial to the piece's development was a trip to the renowned textile manufacturer Scalamandré, until recently located in Queens, NY. The facility's long rows of stretched warp threads inspired Friel and Fernández to leave behind the weightiness of materials like resins and plastics. Finally, partially woven threads were stretched taut and suspended between two custom-made steel rings and hand-dyed using an innovative technique of airbrush color dyeing.

Immediately upon entering the gallery, and before reading anything about the work, I of course thought, "ring of fire." And as I walked around Fire, seeing and experiencing a continously animated fire image, I thought, "zoetrope." Here's more of what I thought, easily expressed by simply pasting a few quotes found with a little search engine research:

1. The Ring of Fire is a zone of frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that encircles the basin of the Pacific Ocean. It is associated with a nearly continuous series of oceanic trenches, island arcs, and volcanic mountain ranges and / or plate movements. It is sometimes called the circum-Pacific seismic belt.

   About 71% of the world's largest earthquakes occur within the Ring of Fire. [1] The Alpide belt, which extends from Java to Sumatra through the Himalayas, the Mediterranean, and out into the Atlantic, accounts for another 17%, and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is a third prominent earthquake belt.

   The Ring of Fire is a direct consequence of plate tectonics and the movement and collisions of crustal plates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Ring_of_Fire).

2. Love Is A Burning Thing
   And It Makes A Fiery Ring
   Bound By Wild Desire
   I Fell Into A Ring Of Fire

   I Fell Into A Burning Ring Of Fire
   I Went Down, Down, Down
   And The Flames Went Higher

   And It Burns, Burns, Burns
   The Ring Of Fire
   The Ring Of Fire
   (http://www.toptown.com/hp/66/ringoffire.htm)

3. The zoetrope is the third major optical toy, after the thaumatrope and phenakistoscope, that uses the persistence of motion principle to create an illusion of motion. It consists of a simple drum with an open top, supported on a central axis. A sequence of hand-drawn pictures on strips of paper are placed around the inner bottom of the drum. Slots are cut at equal distances around the outer surface of the drum, just above where the picture strips were to be positioned.

   To create an illusion of motion, the drum is spun; the faster the rate of spin, the smoother the progression of images. A viewer can look through the wall of the zoetrope from any point around it, and see a rapid progression of images. Because of its design, more than one person could use the zoetrope at the same time (http://courses.ncssm.edu/gallery/collections/toys/html/exhibit10.htm).

Fire is a life-size animated fire image made with dyed string hung just off the ground between metal hoops. It's quite beautiful, very physical, somewhat simple, elegant and imaginative. As you walk around it vision goes alternately focused and unfocused- we see the material and fabrication on one round, and on the next we unfocus so that material stops being itself and becomes magical image.

There is no evidence that Fernández is thinking of earthquakes and volcanoes, unless her glass-encrusted flat sculpture is supposed to convey the shifting of tectonic plates. And there is no evidence that Fernández has in mind June Carter Cash's lyrics of tormenting love memorably sung by her husband, the late, great Johnny Cash. The idea of a zoetrope is so obvious that, even despite the absence of any declarative statement, it's hard not to image it being an intentional association. What I ultimately feel is that I am looking at a raging fire burning in a cylinder, and I am able to walk around and against this wall of fire without harm- there's is no risk, no danger.

In the end, I think of Fire as a trick. It's a trick I like, but how many times do I want to walk around it? How much do I want to stand back and take it in? Why can't I walk into the center of it and look out? Why do I end up feeling that this work is a simple gesture?

Here's my final association: the Wall of Death is a carnival stunt. A motorcyclist rides around the inside of a huge, wide ring laid on it's side, faster and faster until the rider is parallel to the ground defying gravity with centrifugal force, at which points gas jets around the ring turn on, a flame is lit, and the rider continues circling at a high speed encircled by a ring of fire. Impressive, and kind of cool to look at, but it doesn't really take a genius to do it. You knew I was going to say that, right?

• A large unfinished, unstretched canvas hangs askew on the wall; it's either been tacked up in a hurry, or it's a picture knocked off-center by a jolt, wind, or violence.
• The shape of a hand has been cut from a multi-layered sheet of black plastic revealing the white of the wall.
• The multiple black plastic cutout hands are scattered on the floor and around a woman's profile on a black ground on plywood- has this slipped off the wall and onto the floor, or was it thrown down and walked over?
• More black paint hands are smeared on a piece of paper on the floor.
• A black hand print is pressed on the wall above a vase of flowers on the floor.
• Next to the hand print is a CD jacket for Something To Believe In, a collection of songs by Black artists: Change Is Gonna Come by Otis Redding, Think, by Aretha Franklin, Higher And Higher by Jackie Wilson, and so on. The painting on the CD cover is by Jacob Lawrence.
• Not far away near the floor a postcard of a Romare Bearden collage of a group of people is taped to the wall.
• A tall wide column made of large sheets of printed paper fixed to the wall rises above the Romare Bearden, flanked on each side by carved wood African masks- the genuine article.
• Near the top of the paper column are printout sheets of Prince Valiant comics and consumer goods, probably from the late 20's or 30's, emblematic of an American industrial and middle class ideal.
• Further down the column are prints of a wordless Mickey Mouse comic, also probably from the 30's, complete with a dark, big-lipped monkey king and a barrel of smaller monkeys drawn in the same cariacaturish way that African Americans were drawn in that period.
• At the lower right is a New York Times page dated October 1 with the headeline, "Another Casualty of Our War." Thunk! It's about the after affects of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, racism in America, the politics of disaster, and haves and have nots.

At the Met, as you look at close range past Jackson Pollock's Autumn Rhythm you see Mark Rothko's No. 13 (White, Red on Yellow), 1958; Newman's Concord is just to the left of the Rothko. I'd been looking at the Pollock from all angles, trying not to let myself be distracted by Concord, being patient, giving a few key works my full attention. It's too easy to be pulled from one thing to another, abandoning prematurely what deserves some time and consideration. I wasn't too drawn to the Rothko. When I came upon Autumn Rhythm there was a large tour group in front of it, and I enjoyed watching them look at the painting, and listening to their tour guide speak Japanese, wondering what she was telling them about "Jack the Dripper." I waited for them to leave, and then I more or less had the painting to myself. And it was quite an experience.

Then I turned to look at Concord, and I was floored. And after about twenty minutes, finally leaving it, I turned away, forgetting to take a picture, kind of stunned by the painting, and feeling somewhat spacy let myself be sucked in by the mysterious shadows cast by some Judd boxes. After not looking at the boxes, but instead looking the shadows, and thinking about which part is the art here, the boxes, the light, or both, and thinking about how a painting has other apsects to it in its presentation that effect how we look at it, I turned a corner for another knockout punch: Warhol's Last Self Portrait and another Newman, Shimmer Bright, facing each other across a small gallery. I was so struck by this pairing that I spent another twenty minutes making notes, knowing I would write about this suddenly moving juxtaposition enhanced by the afterglow of experiencing Pollock's Autumn Rhythm, Newman's Concord, and the shadows from Judd's boxes. I did write Newman and Warhol: Duet at the Met, and as modest an essay as it is it was a wonderful exercise that opened for me a way to look at paintings a little more broadly, which is always a good thing, and which makes me I think to myself, "Why did it take me so long for that understanding to happen?" It's always a good thing.

But where was my picture of Concord? Not to be found. I looked several times- maybe I'd moved it somewhere. I kept looking, thinking that if I found it I'd be motivated to write about the painting, to get down a bunch of things swirling around in my head, things that I know will be difficult to say, and things that won't really get at the experience of seeing the painting. So instead I'll use an image of the painting from the Met site, and here goes.

Concord is about eight and a half feet high and four and a half feet wide. The ground or background is the color of a copper penny that's been soaking in water for a long time. This is one of the loosest of Newman's mature paintings; one clearly sees his brushstrokes, and you can tell that he covered the surface in three horizontal sections that roughly divide the painting in three bands- top, middle, and bottom. One can see the overlap of these sections where the paint darkens. One can see near the top of each of the three sections arcs of paint where Newman pulled the brush up and then pulled it back down. The brush is dragged, the paint is spread, and evidence of Newman's movement is visually evident and physically felt.

Newman's strokes create atmosphere, but the brush marks contain the atmosphere to the edges of this painting. This isn't atmosphere that continues off into infinity; it's atmosphere within this particular painting, an object, and the way this atmosphere is contained within this painting feels logical. The viewer isn't launched or pulled beyond this painting off into space. The atmosphere within this painting is specific to this scale and is complete.

Concord has two of Newman's zips- vertical bands running parallel from top to bottom, positioned near the middle of the painting each three inches wide and separated by about two inches or more. From a distance the two zips look like two painted bars, placed early in the paintings history, that have been submerged in the painting's atmosphere by strokes of the copper green from the step when Newman covers the background in three horizontal passes of arcing strokes.

But up close things change- each zip is made with three inch wide masking tape attached to the painting. A close look reveals that each zip is obviously physically apart from the canvas; the zips lay on top of the canvas, and they have the smoother texture of tape, rather than the texture of canvas fabric. This is collage, and only the second painting, I believe, in Newman's oeurve where the zip is made with tape, the first being his breakthrough painting of the same year, Onement. The same color of copper green use for the background is brushed onto the tape; although the manner in which the paint is brushed on the tape is different that how the background is painted, the effect is to integrate the two zips into the painting which allows them to be enclosed in a swirling atmosphere and alsostand apart from this atmosphere.

Standing close to the painting you see all of this as material- it's physical. But it's difficult to tell in exactly what order of steps Newman made this painting. Was the copper green background painted first, then the tape was applied, and then more green painted on the tape? Was the tape applied to the canvas first and then the green painted around and over the tape? Some combination of the two?

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines "concord" as, "1. a state of agreement, a simultaneous occurrence of two or more musical tones that produces an impression of agreeableness or resolution on a listener", and "2. agreement by stipulation, compact, or covenant", and Concord's dual zips and atmospheric field reify this definition in how the painting creates an inter-resonace with the viewer. But the painting also contains, even exudes dualities. The hard, straight quality of the tape and the atmospheric brushy background are structure and gesture, intellect and emotion, preconception and intuition, architecture and the body. The split between the two zips makes two equal halves; our body confronts and identifies with the two zips as two sides of our bodies, and the small opening between them is a space for human experience that is beyond the body- thought, memory, privacy, recognition, fear- and a place that we come out of, too, back to the surface of the painting, the surface of the zips, and out into the atmosphere.

Concord is a body. The zips are a structure, a spine, and the three horizontal bands of brush green are the body- head and shoulders, the torso, and legs. Just beyond human size, the painting envelopes us without overwhelming us, and our bodies know this painting. Almost like an old a murky mirror, Concord barely reflects back at us; instead it measures and holds us, reaffirms us, something more akin to how the scale of Classical Greek architecture is based on human proportion.

The more darkly painted left zip is easily read as in the shadow of the right zip, which has less paint on it. In this sense the painting, while physically symmetrical, isn't pictorially symmetrical. Newman has it both ways. He has stable composition without stasis. Reading the two zips as not being on the same plane turns our body, makes our left side lean in and our right side hold steady to the surface of the painting. That little movement moves us or throws us off balance, and the space between the two zips is activated in another way: the cause and effect relationship of one zip casting a shadow on another, similar to how not only tall buildings in an urban environment cast shadows on other buildings, but how light can bounce between buildings and one can see the space between buildings as a volume or a shape. But then near the top of each zip, where we might identify a head, and the two zips could be two eyes or two ears, the unpainted areas of tape are vitually equal in color, the painting flattens out again, and feels like the kind of shallow space more like we might feel how our own face is a plane from which we look out with our eyes. Symmetry returns.

It's natural when looking at Concord to think of architecture, the sky, telephone poles, twin stacks, two trees, two lanes of highway, even a pair of skis or the trail of skis left in snow. I saw all of this, juggling and hopping from one image to another and back again, and then leaving these images behind to simply see and feel the form and space Newman made for an experience that is both human-scaled and epic at the same time. Being in New York I c