RE-SURVEYING: Measuring Site

JAMES GEURTS

Solo Exhibition by James Geurts September 6—October 11, 2014. Zhulong Gallery, Dallas Texas

Essay by Aja Martin, Curator

Cover (front and back): INTL Timeline, 2014. Neon 9 ft x 11 in, solar panel 64 ½ x 39 1/8. Dimentions variable.

Color plate 1: Installation detail: Re- Surveying: Measuring Site, 2014. Photos courtesy Kevin Todora (2014). Color plate 2: 23 ½ ° Orbital Horizon, 2014. Resin, copper, Plexiglas, shelf 1 ½ x 12 5/16 x 13/16 in. Photo courtesy Kevin Todora (2014).

Right: Spatial expansion #3: Oceans Passage, 2014. Photographic print, mounted 16 1/4 in x 26 ft x 6 in. Photo courtesy Jonathan Zizzo (2014). Introduction:

In RE-SURVEYING: Measuring Site, contrast a psychic understanding of conceptual land artist James Geurts place that inverts the culture verses draws out the subterranean and nature falsehood. The works throw terrestrial rhythms of the earth. into relief the impact of vision on our His explorations take form as major understanding of the landscape as permanent public art commissions, separate and other. temporary site-specific installations, as well as gallery mounted works of James Geurts lives and works his field research including photography, in Melbourne and London. He has video, and sculpture. This survey ex- produced large-scale, site and time- hibition also features newly created specific projects and gallery works work culminating from his month-long in international contexts since 2002. residency in Dallas, TX. Recent commissions include: The Presence of Giants, Arts Victoria Geurts’ practice has taken him the Public Sculpture Commission (2014); world over. This survey exhibition is Magnetic Eclipse, a solstice light an extension of an ongoing dialogue sculpture on Sun Pier, TONE Festival between the director and artist, and commission Medway River, UK (2014); the works on display carefully locate Drawing: Tidal Topographies, shown ‘paradigms of measurement’ and at Dalhousie Art Gallery’s Place ‘psychogeographic methods’ as they Markers exhibition in Halifax (2012); have unfolded over extended periods Drawing: Horizon, a solar light sculp- of field research. How do we fathom a ture, staged on the coastline of the tide and axis of a rotating earth, or the North Sea in The Hague (2010). His phenomenon of a horizon? Through work has been presented by institu- artifacts and live-feed recordings from tions including GEMAK Netherlands, site, the exhibition illustrates how the Centre for Contemporary Art Telaviv artist expands on artistic waves like Israel, La Chambre Blanche Quebec, Earthworks, New Topographics, and Australian Center for Contemporary even landscape painting to deliver in Art and White Cube London.

RE-SURVEYING: Measuring Site

Aja Martin

In Drawing Horizon (2010), notions of beginning and end by are presented with in a day’s time. fig. 1 Drawing: Horizon, 2010. a single strip of fluorescent lights extending and making perceivable the Geurts engages technology of today North Sea Den Haag, grade from soft peach, to white, unending passage of time. as a means to present technology of Netherlands. then blue. (fig.1) The tubes follow one yesterday embedded within the Durotran print, lightbox. another from warmest in temperature Our place within—and our abstracted images he records: digi- Photo courtesy Kevin to coolest mimicking the gradation visual language for perceiving— tizing carefully drawn observations, Todora (2014). of colors emanating from where the the landscape are for James Geurts creating digital video pieces that are fig. 2 Tidal Black & sun sets. The sculpture pretends to utterly engaging. Durational experiences recordings of yet older mediums White, 2012. Digital video draw over the horizon, tracing the such as artist residencies, research, recording the subject matter. (fig. 2) Dimensions vary. illusionistic line where the ocean and fieldwork inform Geurts’ inqui- Photo Courtesy Kevin meets the sky. In the top half of the ries into the perception of landscape Todora (2014). picture, overcast skies stretch back, and the effects of focused landscape and below the bar of light waves ripple experiences on psychology; they are a and curl onto the shore. Conceptual component of the medium, as is the land artist James Geurts highlights the land. The works—from drawings, horizon on the North Sea in The Hague sculptures and photographic abstrac- emphasizing the illusion, but also our tions made of a range of outmoded tech- urge to ‘fathom’ our surroundings. The nologies like Polaroid film, 8mm film, and illuminated work symbolizes our other analog imaging systems—frame most basic mark to indicate place— perception and absorb the dureé. Turning the simple horizontal line drawn away from new media tools, Geurts across a rectangle or square seems to have identified a slower, more space. In this and other works, historical way of looking to spite Geurts philosophically questions the the 10,000 flickering images we

Cameras capture and record, thetic period of time. In the pairing fig. 5 Jacob van Ruis- dael, View of Haarlem, the results imply a frozen moment, Drawing Psychogeography 3 and 9, with Bleaching Fields an instant, or an encapsulated time photographs of the landscape in (c.1670). Courtesy Kunsthaus, frame. Geurts, however, is a member Wilsons Promontory, Australia and Zurich, of a group of photographers who Chicoutimi, Quebec, though taken a Stiftung L. Ruzicka. choose to wrestle with the medium, year and thousands of miles apart, fig. 6 Cornelis Vroom, repurpose, destroy it, and rebuild it appear as a pair of day and night The Valley, (c.1631). to create a system for abstraction. landscape images of a potentially Berlin-Dahlem, Staatli- che Museen, In Drawing Psychogeography 3: Bass similar, but very distinct terrain. Kupferstichkabinett. Straight (2008) and Drawing Psy- Digitally enlarged reproductions of the chogeography 9: St Lawrence River, exposed films increase the impact (2009), Geurts shoots a polaroid of the works and perhaps also the image of the landscape, then peels amount of time spent in front of them. the film open exposing the inside of The eroded edges of each work bears the photograph to the atmosphere. resemblance to the color spectrum (figs. 3, 4) He turns an instantaneous seen through light and water; the figuration into a durational litmus that edges become permeable boundaries records atmospheric qualities like slowly degrading the frame that binds humidity, pollution, debris, and the image. The viewer can stand at the most significantly light as it reflects center of either of these works and off the terrain and reacts with the observe their faint reflection within emulsions of the polaroid. the landscape image, but at the same time comb through its distant details, a mound of root bound sand, or brilliant moon-light casting powerful blocks of light through passing nocturnal clouds. As the ‘psychogeographies’ take the form of Polaroids, the snapshot effect plays out as the viewer is framed fig. 7 Michael Heizer, and viewing the place simultaneously. Double Negative Morman Mesa, Overton, Of historical significance NV, 1969-70. are the experiments with light and Photo courtesy landscape features like the horizon University of California, San Diego. line during the Dutch Golden age of painting. In works like View of Haar- fig. 8 Magnetic Eclipse, 2014. lem, with Bleaching Fields (c.1670) Site and time specific fig. 3 Drawing Psy- and The Valley (c.1631) we see how light installation chogeography 3: Bass artists worked to evoke an emotional Solstice, Medway Straight, 2008. River UK Wilsons Promontory, response to the landscape through Durotran print, light Australia. perception with the horizon line as a box, 16 x 16 x 4 in Photographic print, Photo courtesy 47 ¼ x 39 5/8 in. sort of visual thermometer. (figs. 5, Kevin Todora (2014). Photo courtesy Kevin 6) Low horizon lines, as seen in the Todora (2014). classical phase of Dutch painting, are fig. 4 Drawing sublime with their majestic looming Psychogeography 9: skies that almost suffocate the viewer. St Lawrence River, Frozen, 2009. As the horizon line was pushed up into Chicoutimi, Quebec. the top register of the paintings, as Photographic print, 47 ¼ x 39 5/8 in seen in The Valley; a sense of never- Photo courtesy Kevin ending land, bounty, and potential shifts Todora (2014). the viewer down into the landscape.

Geurts’ experiments serve Further fusing Geurts’ prac- as chemical recordings of the at- tice with that of the Dutch school is mosphere, environment, light and ashared fascination with mechanical other less tangible qualities of place means of abstracting or reiterating collected in various locations. This visual phenomenon. Machined light ongoing series of abstract photographs played an important role in Dutch are referred to as ‘psychogeographies’ painting through use of the camera and speak to an alternative mapping obscura. It seems that painters like system, though. Raw data is machined Vermeer sought also to fathom the into an interpretive and contemplative particular quality of Dutch light by imprint of a complete, almost synaes- mechanical means. in the 60s and 70s, Geurts’ practice position, even height. Ambient light is more akin to light tracing (figs. 7, from the gallery and other works placed 8). He often uses lights and other around the space penetrate, reflect, and non-permanent means to highlight alter the cystalline structures and earthly phenomenon, recording the emphasize the reflective qualities large scale sculptures as additional of contemplation. From straight on sculptures, light boxes, and other the small images seem magnified, and forms. from an angle light travels through the small blocks creating vanishing As Zhulong Gallery’s first points, reflections, and a temporary artist-in-residence, Geurts brings his nullification of the image. Movement site-specific practice to Dallas where around the works heightens the he conducted research, worked with experience and points back to local artists, and created studies that Geurts’ major focus on perception and explore the ‘psychogeography’ of psychology. The individual works are the downtown area and Trinity River. each significant, but the durational In the installation Atlas III (2014), a experience of navigating the entire prominent triptych of works image installation embodies the sense the landscape surrounding the Trinity of durée found within Geurts entire River, and over twenty other sites take oeuvre. A delicate horizontal grouping (fig. 10) Installation their places as crystalline markers on cuts across the center of the installation, view of a conceptual world map. (figs. 9A, 9B at each end two works mark Kiribati. (LEFT) Drawing Visual and 11). This work orients the viewer This gesture shows how Atlas III goes Mass: Port Phillip Bay, within the artist’s larger practice and beyond the idea of time as it relates Cumulonimbus, 2014. Atlas Williamstown, Victoria illustrates Geurts’ tendency to ab- to travel. Imaging one site twice, Site-specific dura- stract the already abstracted language III takes on the rotation of the planet. tional work on paper of maps. Implementing a loop, Geurts points to reproduced as archi- val pigment print on continuation, repetition and the almost figs. 9A, 9B Details of: hahnemuhle paper, Atlas III, 2014. A survey of drawings and unfathomable rotation of our planet. 39 ½ x 23 ¾ in. Plexiglas, photographic photographs from around the globe The ideas of beginning and end become prints, and (RIGHT) Drawing In, shelves. are re-presented in a manner that also lost in the arrangement. The almost Drawing Out: Dimensions vary. initiates and highlights perception. hyphenated narrative is shifted, Sydney Harbour to Photo courtesy Pacific Ocean, 2014. Kevin Todora (2014). The thick blocks of Plexiglas denying a travelogue reading and in High Tide 02:60 with mis-matched polished and its stead, Atlas III proposes abstraction, (6.3m)- Low Tide 08:21 (.4m) - High rough facets suspend miniature motion, and duration. These works, Tide 14:27 (6.3m) reproductions of drawings, video stills, and others found within this exhibi- Site-specific durational works on paper Situating Geurts’ practice in and photographic works against the wall tion initiate a durational mapping, or reproduced as archi- more recent historical trends, the rad- and behave in a manner that plays form of time-map. val pigment print on ically conceptual wave of Minimalism hahnemuhle paper, up the importance of the viewer’s 39 ½ x 248 ¼ in. speaks to the artists’ phenomenologic Photos courtesy approach to the landscape especially Kevin Todora (2014). those Minimalist works considered as Land Art or Earthworks. Specific moments in art history include Rich- ard Irwin attempting to capture the light of a moment in the desert, or, Tony Smith’s acknowledgement of having no way to express the feeling of a drive along an empty highway. These landscape works not only point to the longevity and fecundity of the landscape for artists, but also to the influence and flexibility of technology to capture and repeat the view. Land artists like Smithson, DeMaria, and Judd also provide context for the ‘expanded field’ of 60s art practice outlined by Rosalind Krauss and put to use throughout Geurts’ career. What was Land Art in the out of doors became Minimalist work in the galleries. But, unlike the exuberant marking and putting upon of the landscape seen As a whole, this survey lays though, tells of the sensitivity Geurts Re-Surveying (2014) represent fig. 11 Atlas III, 2014. Plexiglas, photographic out Geurts’ fluency in multi-media. takes to each mark. The rose-colored an abstract toolset. (figs. 12, 13, prints, and shelves. The exhibition includes drawing, reflection is stretched upward, color plate 1 and fig. 14) Geurts Dimensions variable. Photo courtesy Kevin video, photographic abstraction, and toward the horizon line and the sky. sees poetry in how we see as well Todora (2014). sculpture made over the last seven A subtle register of grey bands reveal as what we see. He even points out years, and several works crafted while the digital processing of what was the fallacy in how we make sense of in residence in Dallas. For Geurts all an original drawing. Geurts creates what we see, with neologisms like media can be employed at any time a study of the ongoing formation of ‘earthrise’ and ‘earthset.’ In Atlas II, during research or process. After clouds resulting from the absorption Geurts mounts a colorfully patterned historical geographic and geologic of water from the ocean. In its replica of a 1950s topographic atlas research that he conducts prior to companion piece in the exhibition, key on top of a drawing of the North arriving, Geurts’ first action in a place Drawing In, Drawing Out: Sydney Texas geologic region, which has is often observational drawing based Harbour to Pacific Ocean, a pair of been fabricated in white acrylic. The on some phenomenon or special graphite drawings originally made in machined edges of the acrylic, tinged a place. The process of situating one’s situ at the Sydney Harbor, Drawing In midnight blue from the equipment, point self within the landscape and slipping and Drawing Out (2013) were digitally back to the graphite drawings and the onto a mode of seeing that is external- scanned and stitched together, the interest in the machined in this ized through gesture is to embody the graphite lines at the outer edges exhibition. landscape in a way. Moving just past attenuated to the point that the the Atlas III installation, examples of orientation of the images is converted In one of the two found these drawings, like Drawing Visual from portrait to landscape. What objects in the exhibition, Re-Sur- Mass: Port Phillip Bay, Cumulonimbus were originally two intimate graphite veying, the artist altered an antique demonstrate periods of drawn out portraits of a tidal phenomenon take wooden survey tripod casting its observation. (fig. 10) Behind two on qualities of a topographic ocean viewfinder and plum bob in amber orientating directional symbols, map. Again, directional indicators resin blocks. (fig. 14) A formal Geurts registers a cloudscape and the offer encapsulated horizons and a intervention on the still functional, but process of transpiration in the water sort of orientation for the viewer. no longer used equipment, the frozen below. The repetition of line in dense Sculptural works in the object is altered just so, into a form that then looser strata imply the act of exhibition including 90º Equatorial references a myriad of other tools used meditative repetition during process Project (2007-14), Atlas II (2014), for machining the view. Geurts freezes and therefore, time. The detailed spacing 23 ½º Orbital Horizon (2014), and the implements in resin as if to enact an instantaneous fossilization. The rectan- time line and its imaginary quality. Of gular form atop the tripod emits a sort course, if there were an actual time- of iconic aura around the galleries. It calls line, it would not zig and zag accord- to memory a sort of beginning of image- ing to the language of geography, it finding, a time when the photograph would form a shaded arc across the was a much more formal matter during globe. The yellow line sits to the right the original surveying of the of center within the bay, tethered to an American west. electric converter, a stopping point between it and the readymade solar Placed just in front of the panel looming in the nearby corner. durational drawings, and adjacent to These moves obscure the intend- Drawing Psychogeography 9: St. Law- ed viewing point in the amber, and rence River, with Tidal Black and White invert the view through the lens into a stretching across the gap between refracting frame. fig. 12 90º Equatorial them, this moment in the exhibition Project, 2007-14. (de- is a visual metaphor for the mapping, In Geurts’ larger practice, tail, see fig. 16) Site and time-specific mechanical recording, and indexes of sculptural works like INTL Timeline, conceptual Land-Art the landscape seen in the exhibition. Magnetic Eclipse (fig. 8), and Standing- project. Sumatra (fig. 15) When standing just in front of Wave: Drawing Resonance are referred 100° East 4pm the work, most viewers can’t resist the to as ‘light constructs.’ These powerful urge to peer into the viewfinder as if sculptures tell the stories of the geog- some view may magically reveal it-self raphy like memorials to earthly and cos- on the other end. mic cycles. Summer solstice, the break of day, and the phenomenal quality of Instead of a picturesque a standing wave are celebrated, if only or arid landscape image, the keen even traced out for us to see, illuminat- observer notices the zigzags of ed temporarily. Light figures into Geurts’ cerulean light inside the lens, one practice formally and conceptually. As larger and more faint. From across the the core of sight and the experience of gallery, the light sculpture INTL Timeline vision, James Geurts celebrates this uni- is captured by the lens in Re-Surveying. versal principle, or energy, in a way that (figs. 16, cover, 17) The reflection, in tells a story, an old story, an ongoing sto- its abstractness and ephemerality, ry, but through the post-modern lens, if formally relates to the international not a few of them.

fig. 13 Atlas II, 2014. fig. 14 Re-Surveying: fig. 15 Installation detail: Photographic print, Measuring Site, 2014. Re-Surveying: Measuring white Amber resin, survey- Site, 2014. Plexiglas, 23 x 6 x 1 in ing scope, antique Photo courtesy Photo courtesy Kevin wooden tripod, plumb, Jonathan Zizzo (2014). Todora (2014). 63 x 32 ¾ x 32 ¾ in. Photo courtesy Kevin Todora (2014). Fig. 16 90° Equatorial Project, 2007-14. Durotran prints with light box, 10ft x 10ft x 4 in. Site and time-specific conceptual Land-Art project. Fabricated plexiglass sculpture with solar powered lights. 90 degrees apart, 6 hours apart: 100° East 4pm Suma- tra, 10° East 10pm Gabon, 80° West 4am Ecuador, 170° East 10am Kiritimati Atoll. fig. 15 Installation detail: Re-Surveying: Measuring Site, 2014. Photo courtesy Kevin Todora (2014).