Look, See

Nancy White showed seven paintings at Takada Gallery in San Francisco. All of the paintings are in oil on plexi, horizontals, all in the twenty to thirty inch width range. The paintings hang out about a half inch from the wall, thin and hovering.

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.

I saw Teresita Fernández's exhibit of two sculputures and a series of drawings/collages at the Fabric Workshop on Monday, October 10 when I visited Philadelphia. I wouldn't have been able to see it if the Fabric Workshop didn't have Monday hours, which is not a typical art world day to be open. My other days in town had been full, but it just so happened that I was downtown that Monday, and it was an easy walk from Philadelphia's Old City where I had seen, among other things, Independence Hall, Benjamin Franklin's grave, and the Liberty Bell. I had time, and I had history in mind.

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.

Teresita Fernández in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, Fire, 2005. Woven dyed silk fiber, steel armature, epoxy. 96 x 132 inches (diameter). Photo: Aaron Igler, used without permission.

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?