The Aesthetics of Absence: Mariele Neudecker, Thomas Demand
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THE AESTHETICS OF ABSENCE: MARIELE NEUDECKER, THOMAS DEMAND, AND GREGOR SCHNEIDER by SARAH DANIELLE NOUSIAINEN CRAIN (Under the Direction of Isabelle L. Wallace) ABSTRACT This dissertation takes as its subject the nature and the limits of the relationship between history and representation as it appears in select works by three contemporary German artists: Mariele Neudecker, Thomas Demand, and Gregor Schneider. In strictly formal terms, the bodies of work under consideration here appear to have little in common with one another as they vary dramatically in medium as well as scale. Neudecker, in the works for which she is best known, crafts diminutive landscapes out of fiberglass, then places them in tabletop glass tanks filled with watery solutions that mimic atmospheric effects. Demand creates life-size buildings, rooms, and objects entirely out of paper and exhibits them as large-scale photographs. Schneider’s most renowned work is also architecturally oriented: using ordinary construction materials, he builds one portion of a house after another—a bedroom, a kitchen, a staircase, for example—and invites spectators to wander through and explore the seemingly banal domestic spaces. Despite these formal differences, Neudecker, Demand, and Schneider do share a great deal with regard to cultural background, creative processes, and recurrent thematic choices: each, for example, was born in Germany in the 1960s and each turns repeatedly to discrete chapters of German history for subject matter. Moreover, Neudecker, Demand, and Schneider engage their nation’s history in such a way that each of their projects amounts to a veritable reconstruction of the past. Additionally, by virtue of an unwavering determination to extract all human figures from their compositions, a striking sense of absence emerges as a conspicuous presence in all three oeuvres. INDEX WORDS: Contemporary art, Germany, Postwar, Absence, Enlightenment, Theodor Adorno, Sigmund Freud, Uncanny, Thomas Demand, Mariele Neudecker, Gregor Schneider THE AESTHETICS OF ABSENCE: MARIELE NEUDECKER, THOMAS DEMAND, AND GREGOR SCHNEIDER by SARAH DANIELLE NOUSIAINEN CRAIN B.A., The University of Georgia, 1990 M.A., The University of Georgia, 2004 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ATHENS, GEORGIA 2013 © 2013 Sarah Danielle Nousiainen Crain All Rights Reserved THE AESTHETICS OF ABSENCE: MARIELE NEUDECKER, THOMAS DEMAND, AND GREGOR SCHNEIDER by SARAH DANIELLE CRAIN Major Professor: Isabelle L. Wallace Committee: Janice C. Simon Alisa L. Luxenberg Martin Kagel Shelley Zuraw Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia May 2013 DEDICATION For William, Isobel, Alexander, and Michael. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My thanks go first to my extraordinary dissertation committee members: my major professor, Isabelle Wallace, Janice Simon, under whose direction I also completed my Master’s coursework and thesis, and Alisa Luxenberg, Martin Kagel, and Shelley Zuraw. Their guidance, support, and scholarly rigor constitute the foundation upon which this project was built. For their critiques, inquisitiveness, and enthusiasm, I am deeply grateful. I simply cannot fathom what my graduate school experience would have been without the friendships that were born of the Art History program at UGA. For their moral support, their generosity of intellectual spirit, and the much-needed camaraderie we have shared outside of school: thank you Mike, Sandra, and Sandy. Shannon, my gratitude to you is enormous, as is my appreciation of our friendship: thank you for your unfailing encouragement, for the example you set as a researcher, writer, and teacher, and for countless, vital doses of comic relief. We have had a lot of fun together, and it makes me smile to think of what awaits us in the future. I owe a special debt of thanks to Jerry Legge, for friendship, advice, and constant support. And to my mother, my father, Geoff, and Jackie, thank you for always rooting me on; from the very earliest days, I could not have asked for more. And finally, to Michael, Alexander, Isobel, and William: just as you probably cannot imagine what the previous v years would have been like without my being immersed in this project, I cannot imagine having done it without you. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................v LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... viii INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 1 MARIELE NEUDECKER: ENLIGHTENMENT AND THE ETHICS OF AMBIGUITY ...................................................................................................22 I. Retrospection, Re-presentation, and Review: The Foundations of Mariele Neudecker’s Vitrine Works ..........................................................22 II. The Sublime and the Prospect of Enlightenment: Mariele Neudecker’s Case Studies ..........................................................................32 III. Discordance and the Ethics of Ambivalence .....................................69 2 THOMAS DEMAND: EMPTINESS, EVIDENCE, AND ETHICS...............81 I. Praxis and Prepossessions .....................................................................81 II. “The remarkable thing about these pictures, however, is their emptiness” ..................................................................................................93 III. History, Re-presentation, and the Ethics of Absence .......................119 "[Click here and type CHAPTER TITLE]" # 3 ALL THE TRAPPINGS OF HOME: GREGOR SCHNEIDER’S HAUS U R ......................................................................................................143 I. The House on Unterheydener Strasse ..................................................143 II. Analysis/Synthesis/Exegesis (Of Lead, Lineage, and Loss) ..............153 III. Revisit, Rework, and Return: Repetition as Stasis in Haus u r ........177 IV. Gregor Schneider: Afterword ...........................................................180 vii CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................191 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................198 viii LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1: Mariele Neudecker, The Sea of Ice, 1997 (Neudecker, Lorés, McKee, and Barbarczy, Mariele Neudecker, 8) .......................................................................209 Figure 2: Thomas Demand, Klause I, 2006 (http://www.artinfo.com/photo- galleries/thomas-demand?image=7; accessed 08-05-12) ....................................210 Figure 3: Gregor Schneider, Staircase, Rheydt, 1989 – 1993 (Schneider and Schimmel, Gregor Schneider, 10) .......................................................................211 Figure 4: Joseph Beuys, Auschwitz Vitrine, 1955 (http://www.studyblue.com/notes/ note/n/organic-matter/deck/2265237; accessed 18-03-13) ..................................212 Figure 5: Gerhard Richter, Uncle Rudi, 1965 (http://mostlyfilm.files.wordpress.com/ 2011/11/richter-uncle-rudi.jpg; accessed 18-03-13) ............................................213 Figure 6: Gerhard Richter, October 18, 1977, 1988 (http://www.moma.org/collection/ object.php?object_id=79037; accessed 18-03-13) ...............................................214 Figure 7: Anselm Kiefer, Occupations, 1969 (http://www.ciids.org/arthistory/resize/ 640/17084_640.jpg; accessed 14-10-12) .............................................................215 Figure 8: Anselm Kiefer, Sulamith, 1983 (http://arthistory.about.com/od/from_ exhibitions/ig/fisher_inaugural/ddfc_2010_sfmoma_06.htm; accessed 18-03-13) ..............................................................................................................216 Figure 9: Mariele Neudecker, Morning Fog in the Mountains, two views, 1997 (left, Neudecker, Lorés, McKee, and Barbarczy, Mariele Neudecker, 32; right, http://collection.britishcouncil.org/collection/artist/5/1776/objects/45717; accessed 11-10-12)……………………………………………………………...217 Figure 10: Mariele Neudecker, Raft of the Medusa, 1995 (Neudecker, Lorés, McKee, and Barbarczy, Mariele Neudecker, 60) ..............................................................218 Figure 11: Mariele Neudecker, Landscape, 1996 (http://www.artnet.com/artists/ Mariele-neudecker/landscape-V3BPquZ2Ra2ezhwCc_0w2; accessed 20-09-12 ...............................................................................................................219 ix Figure 12: Mariele Neudecker, The Sea of Ice, detail, 1997 (Neudecker, Lorés, McKee, and Barbarczy, Mariele Neudecker, 16) ..............................................................220 Figure 13: Mariele Neudecker, Heaven, the Sky, 2008 (http://www.aptglobal.org/ Artist/Show/6671/6964; accessed 01-04-13) .......................................................221 Figure 14: Mariele Neudecker, Far Into the Day, 2000 (http://www.ciids.org/ arthistory/mainmenu.cfm?media=54796&cc=191&sc=7331; accessed 27-03-13) ..............................................................................................................222 Figure 15: Mariele Neudecker, Stolen Sunsets, 1996 (Neudecker, Lorés, McKee, and Barbarczy,