Painting in the Expanded Field

Home , Angela Bulloch, Daniel Buren, Erich Buchholz, Formalism (art), Jessica Stockholder

COLOUR, SPACE, COMPOSITION: PAINTING IN THE EXPANDED FIELD

Doctorate of Philosophy

FRANCESCA MATARAGA

2012 College of Fine Arts University of New South Wales

Acknowledgements

Thank you to:

Dr Susan Best and Nicole Ellis for their supervision, guidance and support,

Dr Dominic Fitzsimmons and Associate Professor Sue Starfield from the UNSW

Learning Centre, Joanna Elliot – Research Coordinator at COFA, the Projeto Hélio

Oiticica for their generosity in providing a complete digital archive, Patricia Rosewall for her help with editing, and Catherine Johnson whose unfailing enthusiasm, optimism and support makes everything possible.

‘Material, space and colour are the main aspects of visual art’

Donald Judd1

1 Donald Judd, “Some aspects of color in general and red and black in particular”, Donald Judd Colorist, D. Elger (ed.), Thames & Hudson, London and Cantz, Ostfildern-Ruit, 1999, p. 79.

CONTENTS

Abstract Acknowledgements List of figures

Introduction 11

1 Hélio Oiticica: Colour and Painting in Motion 25

2 Daniel Buren: Painting, Sculpture and Architecture 70

3 Jessica Stockholder: Painting in Space 109

Conclusion 152

Appendix 168

Bibliography 213

LIST OF FIGURES

1 Hélio Oiticica, Beyond Space (7th Havana Biennal), 2000/2001 25 2 Hélio Oiticica, Parangolés P25 Cape 21 ‘Xoxoba’, 1968 P08 Cape 05 ‘Mangueira’, 1965 P05 Cape 02, 1965 and P04 Cape 01, 1964 29 3 Hélio Oiticica, Parangolés P25 Cape 21 ‘Xoxoba’, 1968 P08 Cape 05 ‘Mangueira’, 1965 P05 Cape 02, 1965 and P04 Cape 01, 1964 29 4 Hélio Oiticica, Sêco 22, 1956 38 5 Hélio Oiticica, Metaesquema No.179, 1957 38 6 Hélio Oiticica, Parangolés Cape 01 and Cape 02, 1964/1965 39 7 Hélio Oiticica, Parangolé (with Miro de Mangueira), 1964/1965 39 8 Kasimir Malevich, Suprematist Composition: White on White, 1918 43 9 Hélio Oiticica, Bilateral Classico, 1959 43 10 Hélio Oiticica, Bilateral Teman, 1959 44 11 Hélio Oiticica, Bilateral Equali, 1959 45 12 Hélio Oiticica, Maquette for Spatial Relief No. 22 (yellow), 1960 46 13 Helio Oiticica, Spatial Relief No.20 (yellow), 1959 46 14 Hélio Oiticica, Spatial Relief (Red), 1959 47 15 Hélio Oiticica, P04 Parangolé Cape 01, 1964 47 16 Hélio Oiticica, Spatial Relief (Red), 1959 48 17 Hélio Oiticica, NC1 Small Nucleus No.01 (5 pieces), 1960 51 18 Hélio Oiticica, P04 Parangolé Cape 01, 1964 52 19 Hélio Oiticica, Grand Nucleus (NC3, NC4, N 6), 1960-1966 52 20 Hélio Oiticica, B09 Box Bólide 07, 1964 55 21 Hélio Oiticica, B09 Box Bólide 07, 1964 56 22a Hélio Oiticica, B04 Box Bólide 04 ‘Romeo and Juliet’, 1963 57 22b Hélio Oiticica, B03 Box Bólide 03 ‘African’, 1963 57 23 Hélio Oiticica, B10 Box Bólide 08, 1964 58 24a Hélio Oiticica, B11 Box Bólide 09, 1964 58

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24b Hélio Oiticica, B06 Box Bólide 06 ‘Egyptian’, 1963/64 58 25 Hélio Oiticica, P01 Parangolé Banner 01, 1964 61 26 Hélio Oiticica, P03 Parangolé Tent 01, 1964 62 27 Hélio Oiticica, Made on the Body Capes, 1969/2011 64 28 Hélio Oiticica, P25 Parangolé Cape 21 ‘Xoxoba’, 1968 64 29 Hélio Oiticica, Made on the Body Capes, 1969/2011 66 30 Hélio Oiticica, Made on the Body Capes, 1969/2011 67 31 Hélio Oiticica, Made on the Body Capes, 1969/2011 68 32 Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971 70 33 Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971 84 34 Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971 85 35 Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971 86 36 Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971 87 37 Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971 91 38 Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971 92 39 Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971 93 40 Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971 94 41 Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971 95 42 Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971 96 43 Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971 97 44 Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971 98 45 Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971 99 46 Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971 100 47 Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971 100 48 Petition to keep Peinture-Sculpture, 1971 106 49 Jessica Stockholder, Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear, 2009 109 50 Jessica Stockholder, Catcher’s Hollow, 1993 112 51 Jessica Stockholder, Your Skin in This Weather Bourne Eye-Threads, 1995 112 52a Jessica Stockholder, First cousin once removed, 1999 113

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52b Jessica Stockholder, First cousin once removed, 1999 113 53a Jessica Stockholder, On the Spending Money Tenderly, 2002 114 53b Jessica Stockholder, On the Spending Money Tenderly, 2002 114 54a Jessica Stockholder, Vortex in the Play of Theatre with Real Passion, 2000 115 54b Jessica Stockholder, Vortex in the Play of Theatre with Real Passion, 2000 115 55 Jessica Stockholder, My Father’s Backyard, 1983 116 56 Jessica Stockholder, Flooded Chambers Maid, 2009 117 57a Jessica Stockholder, Colour Jam, 2012 118 57b Jessica Stockholder, Colour Jam, 2012 118 58 Jessica Stockholder, On the Spending Money Tenderly, 2002 133 59 Jessica Stockholder, On the Spending Money Tenderly, 2002 134 60 Jessica Stockholder, On the Spending Money Tenderly, 2002 135 61 Jessica Stockholder, On the Spending Money Tenderly, 2002 136 62 Jessica Stockholder, On the Spending Money Tenderly, 2002 137 63 Jessica Stockholder, Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear, 2009 141 64a Jessica Stockholder, Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear, 2009 142 64b Jessica Stockholder, Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear, 2009 142 65 Jessica Stockholder, Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear, 2009 143 66 Jessica Stockholder, Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear, 2009 144 67 Jessica Stockholder, Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear, 2009 145 68a Jessica Stockholder, Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear, 2009 146 68a Jessica Stockholder, Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear, 2009 146 69 Jessica Stockholder, Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear, 2009 147 70 Jessica Stockholder, Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear, 2009 148 71 Jessica Stockholder, Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear, 2009 149 72 Francesca Mataraga, Preparation Drawing (Factory 49 Wall Work), 2009 169 73 Francesca Mataraga, Preparation Drawing (Abstrakt Painting), 2009 170 74 Francesca Mataraga, Preparation Drawing (Abstrakt Painting), 2009 171 75 Francesca Mataraga, Abstrakt Painting, 2009 172

76 Francesca Mataraga, Abstrakt Painting, 2009 172 77 Francesca Mataraga, Abstrakt Painting, 2009 173 78 Francesca Mataraga, Abstrakt Painting, 2009 173 79 Francesca Mataraga, Abstrakt Painting, fragments from blue and green, 2009 174 80 Francesca Mataraga, Abstrakt Painting, fragments from blue and green, 2009 175 81 Francesca Mataraga, Abstrakt Painting, fragments from blue and green, 2009 176 82 Francesca Mataraga, Abstrakt Painting, fragments from blue and green, 2009 177 83 Francesca Mataraga, Here Comes the Sun/Jaws (fragments from yellow), 2009 178 84 Francesca Mataraga, Here Comes the Sun/Jaws (fragments from yellow), 2009 179 85 Francesca Mataraga, Here Comes the Sun (fragment from yellow), 2009 180 86 Francesca Mataraga, Here Comes the Sun (fragment from yellow), 2009 181 87 Francesca Mataraga, fragments from yellow (Kudos), 2010 182 88 Francesca Mataraga, fragments from yellow (Kudos), 2010 183 89 Francesca Mataraga fragments from yellow (Kudos), 2010 184 90 Francesca Mataraga, big yellow painting (fragment from yellow), 2010 185 91 Francesca Mataraga, Preparation Drawing (Kudos), 2010 186 92 Francesca Mataraga, fragments from yellow (Level 17), 2010 187 93 Francesca Mataraga, fragments from yellow (Level 17), 2010 188 94 Francesca Mataraga, fragments from yellow (Level 17), 2010 189 95 Francesca Mataraga, fragments from yellow (Level 17), 2010 190 96 Francesca Mataraga, bed sculpture (fragment from yellow), 2010 191 97 Francesca Mataraga, bed sculpture (fragment from yellow), 2010 192 98 Francesca Mataraga, fragment from yellow (wall work with feathers), 2010 193 99 Francesca Mataraga, fragment from yellow (plastic stool, glass vase), 2011 194 100 Francesca Mataraga, fragment from yellow (wooden stool, glass vase), 2011 195 101 Francesca Mataraga, fragment from yellow (wooden stool, glass vase), 2011 196 102 Francesca Mataraga, fragments from blue, green and white (Factory 49), 2010 198 103 Francesca Mataraga, fragments from blue, green and white (Factory 49), 2010 199 104 Francesca Mataraga, fragments from blue, green and white (Factory 49), 2010 200

105 Francesca Mataraga, minimalismo, 2011 201 106 Francesca Mataraga, minimalismo, 2011 202 107 Francesca Mataraga, minimalismo, 2011 203 108 Francesca Mataraga, minimalismo (Avago), 2011 204 109 Francesca Mataraga, Preparation Drawing (minimalismo), 2011 205 110 Francesca Mataraga, Preparation Drawing (minimalismo), 2011 206 111 Francesca Mataraga, Preparation Drawing (Avago), 2011 207 112 Francesca Mataraga, elisabet (Queen Street Studios/Frasers), 2012 208 113 Francesca Mataraga, elisabet (Queen Street Studios/Frasers), 2012 209 114 Francesca Mataraga, elisabet (Queen Street Studios/Frasers), 2012 209 115 Francesca Mataraga, elisabet (Queen Street Studios/Frasers), 2012 210 116 Francesca Mataraga, elisabet (Queen Street Studios/Frasers), 2012 210 117 Francesca Mataraga, elisabet (installation for COFAspace), 2012 211 118 Francesca Mataraga, elisabet (installation for COFAspace), 2012 212 119 Francesca Mataraga, elisabet (installation for COFAspace), 2012 212

INTRODUCTION

Painting has been kept going by embracing rather than resisting that which might

extinguish it, and this has included embracing the possibility of painting

becoming all but indistinguishable from a paint job. It has also included the

possibility of paintings becoming all but indistinguishable from objects,

photographs, texts and so forth. But while painting has shown itself to be capable

of absorbing these things, it is equally possible that painting might itself be

absorbed by them.

David Batchelor 1

This written thesis and the accompanying exhibition examine the advent of painting as a three-dimensional, spatialised and hybrid practice by discussing the newly recognised area of ‘expanded painting’. Expanded painting is an emerging field of contemporary practice that the Danish art historian Anne Ring Petersen has defined as being ‘the name for an exploration and extension of [certain] implicated conceptual and physical resources’ that have moved beyond the framed surface of the canvas and its boundaries.2

The terms ‘expanded painting’ or ‘the expanded field of painting’ have in the last decade been used to discuss the spatialisation of painting. It combines installation strategies and techniques, objects and design to explore painterly concerns such as: colour, composition and figure/ground relationships. Writers such as Ring Petersen,

Harris, Peter Wiebel, Stephen Melville, Barry Schwabsky, David Batchelor, David

Ryan, Paco Barragan and Mark Titmarsh have discussed aspects of this newly identified

1 David Batchelor, Chromophobia, Reaktion, London, 2000, p. 101. 2 Anne Ring Petersen, “Painting spaces”, A. Ring Petersen et al. (eds), Contemporary Painting in Context, Museum Tusculanum Press University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, 2010. p. 125.

12 genre but as a relatively new area of study in art and has, so far, remained largely under- explored.3

The term ‘the expanded field of painting’ is borrowed and adapted from

Rosalind Krauss and her essay “Sculpture in the expanded field”. 4 It is used to indicate that painting has since at least the late 1960s been extended so much that it too, along with sculpture, has developed into an expanded practice, merging with new media, film, the ready-made, sculpture, installation, performance, architecture and drawing. Ring

Petersen characterises it as being the marked tendency in recent years for painters:

…to explore the possibilities of broadening the definition of what constitutes

‘space’ in relation to painting. Today much of the experimental energy is put into

expanding the medium physically by exploring painting’s relations to objects,

space, place, and various aspects of everyday culture.5

Two publications have recently explored the hybridisation or expansion of painting. The first is Critical Perspectives in Contemporary Painting, edited by

Jonathan Harris and the second is the anthology Contemporary Painting in Context, edited by Anne Ring Petersen. Critical Perspectives in Contemporary Painting concentrates on painting as a hybrid practice, while Contemporary Painting in Context

3 Anne Ring Petersen et al. (eds), Contemporary Painting in Context, Museum Tusculanum Press University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, 2010. David Ryan, Talking Painting: Dialogues with Twelve Contemporary Abstract Painters, Routledge, London, 2002. David Batchelor, ‘GI symposium: Painting as a New Medium’, Art & Research: A Journal of ideas, context and methods, Vol. 1, No. 1, (2006/07), pp. 1-6. http://www.artandresearch.org.uk/v1n1/batchelor.html, accessed 7 November 2010. Mark Titmarsh, ‘Shapes of inhabitation: Painting in the expanded field’, Art Monthly Australia, 2006, pp. 27-32. Jonathan Harris, Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Painting: Hybridity, Hegemony, Historicism, Tate Liverpool Critical Forum and Liverpool University Press, Liverpool, 2003. 4 Rosalind Krauss, “Sculpture in the expanded field”, October, vol. 8, 1979, pp. 31-44. 5 Ring Petersen, “Introduction (Contemporary Painting in Context)”, Ring Petersen et al. (eds), p. 16.

13 explores some new parameters from within which contemporary painting can be discussed.

Contemporary Painting in Context focuses on three main aspects of contemporary painting. Firstly, that painting has evolved beyond a focus on medium specificity, which is informed by certain modernist ideals, and has become, essentially, a conceptual practice. Secondly, that painting frequently explores spatiality either through installation practices or through painting as object. Thirdly, that painting is often placed in dialogue with other disciplines and media, exploring aspects of contemporary culture or discourse.

Some writers, whose texts are included in this volume, such as Barry

Schwabsky and Stephen Melville, focus their discussion on the more philosophical aspects of contemporary painting. Schwabsky, for example, in his essay “Object or project? A critic’s reflection on the ontology of painting”, upholds the common opinion that painting should be considered as an artistic project, governed by a set of concepts, processes and intentions that relate to the discipline, rather than as an object defined by material specificity.6 Melville, in his essay “Painting: ontology and experience”, focuses on painting as experience by invoking the work of Michael Fried and posits that painting, as an installation practice, has phenomenological attributes that link it to other spatial practices such as Minimalism. 7 This link, Melville argues is instrumental in facilitating painting’s renewal. Both Schwabsky’s and Melville’s discussion focuses on the ontological aspects of painting today, a topic that is not examined in this thesis.

The model that I use to discuss Expanded Painting is based on Ring Petersen’s typology as set out in her essay “Painting Spaces”. I use Petersen’s framework because

6 Barry Schwabsky, “Object or Project? A Critic's Reflections on the Ontology of Painting”, Ring Petersen et al., pp. 69-80. 7 Stephen Melville, “Painting: Ontology and experience”, Ring Petersen et al., pp. 81-92.

14 it is based on the material aspects of painting rather than its conceptual foundation.

Petersen’s division of expanded painting into three distinct sub-categories is easily applicable to both contemporary work and historical examples. Her taxonomy facilitates a broadening of the medium as a spatial and spatialised practice.

In her “Introduction” and in her essay “Painting Spaces”, Ring Petersen argues that in the last few decades there have been two distinct and prevalent attitudes that have characterised discussions on painting. One view, she argues, has been inherited from the 1960s and regards painting as a ‘burnt-out institution’ an ‘outmoded art form’ that survives because of commercial art market interests, and which regards the discipline as being completely entwined with centuries of the easel painting tradition, culminating with Modernism.8 This view, Ring Petersen notes, continues to associate painting with formalist interpretations, despite the fact that most contemporary painters no longer have purely formalist intentions.9

The other argument, Ring Petersen posits, is the assertion that painting is ‘still going strong’ and has been transformed and hybridised, through its interaction with other art forms and media, to continually renew itself and transcend its two-dimensional limitations.10 This perspective regards painting as being both a conceptual and spatial practice that critically engages with its own tradition and with a variety of other media.11 These opposing views, Ring Petersen contends, place painting in what she describes as: ‘an ambivalent position as a discipline that appears to be simultaneously exhausted and inexhaustible’.12

8 Ring Petersen, p. 9. 9 Ibid. 10 Ring Petersen, pp. 9, 21. 11 Ibid. 12 Ring Petersen, p. 10.

Ring Petersen also provides a useful definition of expanded painting and a typology of the genre, defining expanded painting as three distinct categories: painting as installation practice, painting as object and painting as a form of architectural design.13 Her division of the genre into these three categories is very practical because it facilitates the discussion of different artists’ work as relating to a specific set of parameters, rather than being the intersection of painting with anything and everything.

Consequently, Ring Petersen’s typology provides a valuable framework from within which we can discuss both historical and contemporary examples of expanded painting.

As well as creating a typology for the discussion of expanded painting Ring

Petersen also outlines what she considers to be the fundamental differences between

Installation Art and painting as installation. She describes installation painting as

‘locating the viewer at the centre of the work and creating the impression that he or she has walked right into a painting’.14 This, she contends, extends ‘painting into physical space’ where the viewer ‘experiences a sense of absorption, of being embraced by a fictitious world’ and is a ‘mode of reception that viewers usually adopt when contemplating a painting’.15 This aspect of installation painting is in direct contrast to

Installation Art, which usually engages with a social, historical, cultural or political agenda, or engages in subversion and Institutional Critique.

However the idea of installation painting as a dreamscape or fictional space need not be a negative quality. Artists such as Jessica Stockholder, Katharina Grosse and Julian Opie for instance have embraced this disassociated, dream-like state, and aspire to make installations that function like paintings one can walk into, a feature of the work that Ring Petersen posits is ‘the idea of landscape painting as a space that the

13 Ring Petersen, p. 135. 14 Ring Petersen, p. 134. 15 Ring Petersen, 134, 135.

16 viewer can walk into’.16 This disassociated state can be a relief from the burden of constantly engaging with quasi-political or quasi-social commentary and agendas in art that for the most part only engages with real issues from within the safety of the museum.

Another aspect of expanded painting that is discussed by Ring Petersen relates to the merging of painting with design, a strategy that can be traced back to Donald

Judd and which has recently been exemplified in the work of such artists as Torgny

Wilcke, Andrea Zittel and Jorge Pardo.17 This strategy, which I also use in my studio practice, allows for individual elements within the installation to be retained as fragments or artefacts and to be dismantled, sold, exhibited or re-used separately, a situation that Ring Petersen argues is also contrary to installation art proper and results in what she calls ‘a hotbed of conflicting interests’, that allows the work to continue to be part of the art market economy.18

The expanded field of painting as a latent discourse

Although Ring Peterson notes that it was not until the 1990s that attitudes to painting started to shift and painting started to be regarded as a potentially flexible medium with possibilities that were comparable to other media, instead of being categorised as limited, some references to expanded painting are made prior to this time.19 These are peripheral discussions that, for the most part, separate painting and modernism from other postmodern practices such as installation. However it is useful to consider them as being part of the overall latent discourse on expanded painting because they indicate that although the expanded field of painting was not an acknowledged or identified area

16 Ibid. 17 Ring Petersen, p.128. 18 Ibid. 19 Ring Petersen, p. 124.

17 of art practice it was nevertheless, an aspect of contemporary art that various writers and artists were aware of before it emerged as an area of art historical discourse.

One of the earliest allusions to painting as an expanded field is found in

Donald Judd’s much quoted 1965 essay “Specific Objects”. Here Judd refers to the expansion of painting when he discusses a number of contemporary American artists, such as Robert Raushenberg, whose practices began in painting and who were at that time, along with Judd, exploring spatiality in their work.20 Judd defines what he calls

‘this new three-dimensional work’, which he does not directly label expanded painting, as resembling or being recognisable as sculpture more than painting, but as being nearer to painting and divides it, like Ring Petersen, into works that are ‘something of an object, a single thing’ and works that are ‘open and extended, more or less environmental’.21 In other works Judd, more than forty years before Ring Petersen, recognises that the spatialisation of painting is a distinct facet of development within the discipline and uses the same categories to describe it; that is, expanded painting as object, as installation and as a form of architectural design.

In charting the transition of painting from being an image on the surface of the canvas to being an object or a spatial situation, Judd anticipates later writing on the subject of expanded painting. His prediction that since the range of work being developed is so wide that three-dimensional work will most likely be divided into a number of different forms, accurately anticipates many of the developments that subsequently took place.22 Some of the artists Judd mentions as working in this area, are

20 Donald Judd, “Specific Objects”, Donald Judd: complete writings 1959-1975: gallery reviews, book reviews, articles, letters to the editor, reports, statements, complaints (originally published in Arts Yearbook 8, 1965), The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax & New York University Press, New York, 2005, pp. 181- 189. 21 Judd, p. 183. 22 Judd, p. 186.

Frank Stella, Yayoi Kusama, Lee Bontecou, Anne Truitt and George Brecht, all of whom have incredibly diverse practices, and who, as Judd rightly argues, cannot be considered as belonging to a single movement or school.23 The fact that Judd identifies and discusses so many different types of artists’ work as being related to spatialisation however indicates that he was aware of a major shift occurring in contemporary art at the time and which we can now identify as the expanded field of sculpture and painting.

Another example of an earlier discussion that relates to expanded painting and which foretells a renewal in the discipline is Yve-Alain Bois’ 1993 essay “Painting: The task of mourning”.24 In this text Bois proposes that although ‘mourning has been the activity of painting throughout this century’, we have been too eager to bury it.25 Instead he posits that the ‘desire for painting remains’ and ‘this desire is the sole factor of a future possibility of painting’ whereby ‘painting might not be dead’ but will renew itself from unpredictable sources.26 This envisaged, but unpredictable renewal can now also be considered as being the expanded field of painting.

Further examples of earlier discussions that also relate to expanded painting are

John Miller’s essay “Formalism and Its Other” and Miwon Kwon’s essay “Promiscuity of Space: Some Thoughts on Jessica Stockholder's Scenographic Compositions”.27

While neither of these writers refers to the expanded field of painting directly or in detail, their discussion considers painting as a spatialised or expanded practice, prior to the emergence of the phrase as an art historical term. Miller for instance, discusses

23 Judd, pp. 181, 183. 24 Yve-Alain Bois, “Painting: The task of mourning”, Painting as Model, The MIT Press, Cambridge,1993, pp. 229-244. 25 Bois, pp. 243-244. 26 Bois and Robert Musil cited in Bois, pp. 243-244. 27 John Miller, “Formalism and Its Other”, J. Miller (ed.), Jessica Stockholder, Witte de With Centrum voor Hedendaagse Kunst, Rotterdam and University of Chicago Renaissance Society, Chicago, 1991, pp. 32-43 Miwon Kwon, “Promiscuity of Space: Some Thoughts on Jessica Stockholder's Scenographic Compositions”, Grey Room, no. 18, 2004, pp. 52-63.

19 spatialisation as being a general tendency in all art of the twentieth-century and as being present in many genres, including painting and refers to Stockholder’s work as using

‘the gallery space as an expanded canvas’.28

Kwon however, who also discusses spatialisation as relating to multiple genres including painting, uses her essay in part to question Rosalind Krauss’ fundamental argument and underpinning logic as it unfolds in the later’s seminal text: “Sculpture in the expanded field”.29 Rather than merely transferring the term to painting, Kwon questions Krauss’ basic argument and challenges the assumption that it is solely sculpture that is linked to architecture and landscape through postmodern expansion.

Instead Kwon posits that painting is ‘also a spatial and spatializing practice’ and argues that the concept of an expanded field might relate equally well to other areas of art such as: Colour Field Painting, Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism and Postminimalism.30

This understanding of painting Kwon notes is ‘occluded by the seemingly irrefutable and thus powerfully seductive logic of [Krauss’] argument’.31 Questioning Krauss’ argument in this manner creates a pathway for the discussion of painting as an expanded field. Kwon proposes that by broadening the notions of space and spatiality to include painting we can create what she calls ‘other historical-narratives’ that reconsider the relationship between modernism and late twentieth-century practices.32

Claire Bishop, in her publication Installation Art: A Critical History, also discusses the alternative art-historical narratives that reconsider spatial practices such as

Installation Art in relation to modernism.33 Although Bishop does not refer to or discuss

28 Miller, p. 38. 29 Krauss. 30 Kwon, p. 57. 31 Kwon, p. 55-57. 32 Kwon, p. 57. 33 Claire Bishop, Installation Art: A Critical History, TATE Publications, London, 2005, p. 8.

20 the spatialisation of painting directly, she indicates that there is a strong link between

Installation Art and its modernist precursors. Bishop acknowledges that ‘many of the motivations behind installation art are not uniquely the preserve of postmodernism but are part of a historical trajectory spanning the twentieth-century’, that includes artists such as Kurt Schwitters and El Lissitsky.34 These artists, she observes, are as much a part of the canonical origins of Installation Art as Marcel Duchamp, for instance.35

In addition to recognising the connection between Schwitters’ and Lissitsky’s practices and Installation Art, Bishop also notes that the defining parameters and understanding of installation as the standardised post-medium format make it difficult to distinguish between its multiple incarnations.36 She, like Ring Petersen, acknowledges that the application or use of the word ‘installation’ is now so thoroughly ubiquitous that it has virtually no meaning and that ‘installation’ has expanded so much that it is now used to describe ‘any arrangement of objects in any given space’, including the installation of traditional paintings on the wall.37

Bishop attributes the interchangeability of the terms Installation Art and installation of art to common artistic practices dating from1960s when the term installation was used to describe both the way in which an exhibition was arranged and documented, as well as the use of the word for works that treated the entire space as an installation site. That is, the word installation was used to describe the placement of multiple works in a single situation and to refer to works that functioned as what Bishop describes as ‘a singular totality’ that presupposes an embodied viewer.38 In order to

34 Bishop, pp. 13. 35 Bishop, pp. 8, 13. 36 Bishop, p. 8. 37 Bishop, p. 6. 38 Ibid.

21 affirm this point Bishop reminds us that the Minimalists for instance, did not in fact consider their work to be installation art.39

What all these different discussions indicate is that the discourse on spatial practices is expanding and is incorporating areas of art that were previously excluded, such as painting. This expansion challenges the established perception of twentieth- century art practices as being divided into two divergent traditions: one that focuses on abstraction and painting and is developed in relation to modernism and medium specificity; and the other, that encompasses all spatial, performative and conceptual practices since the 1960s, as well as new media, and is positioned as the prevailing post- medium condition.

The risk in re-considering these established paradigms and in establishing a new dialogue about painting as an expanded practice is that it requires us to review existing narratives of art that position Installation Art, performance and sculpture as generally being opposite to painting. This position, as Ring Petersen notes, questions the legacy twentieth-century theorists have attached to painting.40 While it offers new starting points and frameworks for artists and art writers alike, bringing together what have to date been considered divergent traditions and practices such as Modernism and

Conceptual Art, it destabilises the accepted narrative of twentieth-century art.

Thesis overview

One of the aims of the thesis is to explore and discuss expanded painting as a contemporary practice. This is achieved primarily through my own studio practice by making art works that I identify as an expanded form of painting and which through assemblage and installation explore painterly concerns such as: colour, composition and

39 Bishop, p. 54. 40 Ring Petersen, p. 20.

22 figure/ground relationships. It is also accomplished by discussing the work of other artists, specifically Hélio Oiticica, Daniel Buren and Jessica Stockholder. Another aim of the thesis is to argue that the current spatialisation or expansion of painting, which has become a common aspect of contemporary practice, is the continuation and realisation of certain ideas that were developed and explored during two key moments of the twentieth century in relation to painting and to abstraction.

The first moment was during the early decades of the century and was initiated by foundational abstract painters such as Piet Mondrian. Mondrian anticipated painting’s current evolution as an expanded field by arguing that in the future painting would exceed its two-dimensional support to merge with architecture and sculpture, becoming ‘architecture-as-environment’. This tendency toward spatialisation through painting is also evident in the work of other early twentieth-century artists such as Erich

Buchholz, Kurt Schwitters and El Lissitsky, who created installations and architectural spaces that functioned as expanded paintings. The second moment was during the mid and late 1960s, when artists such as Oiticica and Buren, who had followed the legacy of modernism and abstraction in their early careers, abandoned easel painting and the formalist values that were associated with the genre at the time and turned instead to sculpture and installation as a way of expanding their practice.

This argument extends the current literature on expanded painting in two ways.

Firstly, by linking the contemporary development of painting as a spatialised practice to the theories of Mondrian, a connection that has not yet been acknowledged. Secondly, by bringing new insight to the work of artists whose practice is an example of spatialised painting but whose connection to the genre has thus far remained unexplored. My studio practice as an artist has vitally informed this way of thinking about expanded painting and it is because of my commitment to the ideas and problems

23 of abstraction that I have been able to see links that have previously been overlooked.

The thesis shows how my practice, as well as the work of the three artists I analyse, represents a continuation of painterly concerns through other means.

In Chapter One, I discuss Hélio Oiticica’s Parangolés as a form of expanded painting that relies on movement. I argue that movement was a consistent feature in

Oiticica’s work that originated in his early painting practice and that it was developed in his work from 1956 onward in three distinct phases: through the representation of virtual movement in the Sêcos and Metaesquemas series; as an interactive element that required audience interaction in the Bilaterals, Spatial Reliefs, Nuclei and Bolides; and through complete integration in the Parangolés, where the participant and the work became a single entity. I analyse Oiticica’s use of movement as a means of enlivening colour by discussing my own experience with the work Parangolés: Made-on-the-Body-

Capes (1969/2011) as it was exhibited in Points of Contact – Jim Allen, Len Lye, Hélio

Oiticica at the Adam Art Gallery in Wellington, New Zealand in 2011.

In Chapter Two, I examine Daniel Buren’s work as a form of expanded painting that combines sculpture with architecture through the use of the stripe as a visual motif. I discuss how he has used the stripe throughout his practice, to create site- specific works that alter the way in which the viewer experiences these spaces. I consider the different categories into which his work and writing is divided, his use of the stripe as what he calls a visual tool and his use of the terms photo-souvenir and in situ and discuss why his practice has been interpreted primarily as a form of Conceptual

Art and Institutional Critique, despite its consistent connection to painting. I then analyse the work Peinture-Sculpture, 1971 as an example of expanded painting that places painting in dialogue with a specific architectural site, the Guggenheim Museum,

New York.

In Chapter Three, I analyse Jessica Stockholder’s installations as a contemporary example of expanded painting. I consider Stockholder’s practice as it relates to painting and discuss her 2009 work Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear, exhibited at the Denver Art Museum, by emphasising the painterly aspects of her work, such as: her use of colour, composition and the classic painterly opposition, figure/ground. I also discuss her work in relation to Piet Mondrian’s theories of the Neo-Plastic, and argue that Stockholder’s installations and her use of the frame as a physical and visual construct recall Mondrian’s concept of ‘interior image’ and relate to his theory of

‘architecture-as-environment’.

In the concluding chapter of the thesis I review the work that I created during the Ph D, which was developed as three colour series: fragments from yellow, fragments from blue and green and fragments from pink and orange. I refer to the work as colour- space-compositions. I discuss my studio practice using Anne Ring Petersen’s typology of expanded painting as a framework and analyse the different aspects of my practice.

These are painting as object and painting as installation. I also discuss the way I use colour in my work as a unifying compositional element. The subject of colour however extends beyond the parameters of this dissertation and is an area that would yield rewarding results as a future research project.

1. Cover image from the catalogue Hélio Oiticica: Beyond Space, depicting Spatial Reliefs, Parangolés and Inventions. A special exhibition presented at the Centro Provincial de las Artes Plásticas y Diseño (Provincial Center for the Visual Arts and Design), Old Havana, as part of the 7th Havana Biennal (November 2000-January 2001), organised by the Fundaçao Memorial da América Latina and the Projeto Hélio Oiticica. Image: Projeto Hélio Oiticica.

CHAPTER ONE

HÉLIO OITICICA: COLOUR AND PAINTING IN MOTION

I am not interested in changing the ‘support’ of painting, but in assimilating

painting in its elements that no longer need support. The support always implies a

representation. I believe that painting, being pure and total, will arrive even closer

to the highest objective to which a work of art may aspire: absolute transcendence.

Hélio Oiticica1

In this chapter, I discuss Hélio Oiticica’s Parangolés as a form of expanded painting and as the endpoint of his exploration of motion or movement. Oiticica began investigating movement in his early painting. Movement is a key feature in his practice that unifies the four essential concepts of his work: colour, structure, space and time. I argue that movement was a consistent feature in his work from 1956 onward and that it was developed in three distinct phases. Firstly, through the representation of virtual movement in the Sêcos and Metaesquemas series; secondly, as an interactive element where audience participation was required to explore the work in the Bilaterals, Spatial

Reliefs, Nuclei and Bolides; and finally through the need for movement to realise the work, where the participant and the work became a single entity in the Parangolés.

In the first section of the chapter, I briefly outline the basic aspects of the

Parangolés and discuss Oiticica’s oeuvre by considering the various interpretations of his work, including those that position him as a marginal or regional artist. In the second section of the chapter, I analyse Oiticica’s use of movement as a means of enlivening colour. In the last section of the chapter, I discuss my own experience with the work Parangolés: Made-on-the-Body-Capes (1969/2011) exhibited in Points of

1 Hélio Oiticica, “Testimonial April 1962”, L. Figueiredo and M.C. Ramirez (eds), Hélio Oiticica: The Body of Colour, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston and Tate Modern, London, 2007, pp. 260.

Contact – Jim Allen, Len Lye, Hélio Oiticica at the Adam Art Gallery in Wellington,

New Zealand.

Discussing the Parangolés in this way extends on previously noted material aspects of Oiticica’s practice that have been commented on by Mari Carmen Ramirez and Wynne Phelan.2 It also picks up Paola Berenstein Jaques’ comment that the capes are: ‘the logical extension of his [Oiticica’s] work, as if the colours jumped out of the walls on to the cloths to dance the Samba on the bodies of the Mangueira passistas and other participants’ and extends on Simone Osthoff’s remark that the Parangolés are derived from: ‘his [Oiticica’s] colourful painted structures of the early

1960s…transforming hard-edged geometric planes into folds of wearable materials made specifically to be worn and danced with’.3

The Parangolés

Oiticica created the Parangolés (Fig. 1-3) between 1964 and 1968 during his involvement with the residents of the Mangueira Hill favéla. They are wearable and portable structures, including capes, tents and banners, made from painted fabric, plastics, mats, screens, ropes and other materials that are designed to be worn or carried whilst dancing Samba that are activated by the movement of the wearer. The early capes are quasi-garments made from brightly coloured pieces of fabric, the later capes incorporate slogans or images. The tents are portable structures that resemble temporary

2 Mari Carmen Ramirez, “The Embodiment of Colour–from the Inside Out”, Figueiredo and Ramirez, pp. 27-73. Wynne Phelan, “To Bestow a Sense of Light: Hélio Oiticica's Experimental Process”, Figueiredo and Ramirez, pp. 74-103. 3 Paola Berenstein Jaques, “Oiticica's Parangolés/Kawamata's Favelas”, P. Braga (ed.), Fios Soltos: A Arte De Helio Oiticica, Perspectiva, Sao Paolo, 2008, pp. 163-168 Simone Osthoff, “Hélio Oiticica’s Parangolés: Nomadic Experience in Endless Motion”, N. Mirzoeff (ed.), Diaspora and Visual Culture: Representing Africans and Jews, Routledge, London and New York, 2000, p. 226.

28 shelters. Oiticica described them as: ‘Parangolé total-experience’, ‘total colour structures’ and ‘colour-in-action’.4

In an interview in 1980, he stated that he discovered the concept of the

Parangolés and the word parangolé by chance while travelling by bus on the way to the

Museu Nacional da Quinta, where he worked making bibliographies with his father.5

He described seeing a well-made shelter by the side of the road in the Praça da Bandeira that was ‘a kind of construction’ made from ‘four posts, wooden stakes about two metres high’ that looked like ‘the vertices of a rectangle on the ground’.6 A piece of burlap attached to the structure that read: ‘here is…’ and ‘Parangolé’.7 The word is a slang term from the favélas of Rio de Janeiro meaning ‘anything’ but has also been interpreted by writers such as Anna Dezeuze as referring to a range of states that include idleness, agitation and an unexpected situation or party.8

Oiticica’s practice and interpretations of his work

Oiticica’s early work was created during the 1950s and early 1960s during an unprecedented period of cultural development in Brazil. This period – and the art it produced – is widely considered by Brazilian writers, artists and theoreticians as being, what Mari Carmen Ramirez describes as, the first generation of Brazilian artists ‘to self- consciously shed its provincial identity and to consider itself cosmopolitan’ and what

Sonia Salzstein refers to, in her essay “Hélio Oiticica – Autonomy and the Limits of

Subjectivity”, as ‘the inaugural moment of what constitutes ‘Brazilian Contemporary

4 Oiticica, “Notes concerning Parangolé”, Figueiredo and Ramirez, p. 298. 5 Oiticica cited in Berenstein Jacques, p. 163. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid. 8 Council on International Studies at the State University of New York, Buffalo, 27 February 1972. HO Digital Catalogue Raisoné, Projeto Hélio Oiticica, doc. 2387.72. Anna Dezeuze, “Tactile Dematerialization, Sensory Politics: Hélio Oiticica's Parangoles”, Art Journal, vol. 63, no. 2, 2004, p. 59.

2-3. Group of people in Mangueira Hill with: Parangolés P 25 Cape 21 ‘Xoxoba’ (1968), P08 Cape 05 ‘Mangueira’, 1965; P05 Cape 02, 1965 and P04 Cape 01, 1964, during the shooting of the film HO by Ivan Cardoso, 1979. Photo: Andreas Valentim. Image: Projeto Hélio Oiticica.

Art’.9 This summation of the period as a vitally significant moment in Brazilian culture is affirmed by the leading critic of the time Mario Pedrosa who, in 1965, wrote:

Nowadays, as we approach the end of what has been called “modern art”…the

judgement criteria for appreciation are no longer the same as the ones that were

formed back then…We are now in another cycle, one that is no longer purely

artistic, but cultural, radically different from the preceding one …I would call this

cycle anti-art, “postmodern art”…this time Brazil participates as a precursor

rather than as a modest follower…10

During this time abstraction and non-objective art were embraced by contemporary

Brazilian artists, such as the Sao Paolo based, Grupo Frente and the Rio based,

Neoconcrete group who sought to extend and resolve issues initiated by the European historical avant-garde, particularly Neoplasticism and Constructivism.11 Oiticica, who was a member of both groups at different times, expanded on ideas inherited from first generation abstractionists, particularly Kasimir Malevich, Paul Klee and Piet Mondrian.

He developed his work from the two-dimensional plane to three-dimensional constructions and to participatory works that relied on the movement of the viewer.

Despite being considered one of Brazil’s most influential and preeminent artists, Oiticica’s work has only gained international significance during the last two decades. The most recent exhibition of his work was a large survey show in 2006/2007 titled: Hélio Oiticica – The Body of Colour. This was the first of two major retrospectives, planned and organized by the Projeto Hélio Oiticica, in collaboration

9 Carmen Ramirez, p. 31. Sonia Salzstein, “Hélio Oiticica – Autonomy and the Limits of Subjectivity”, J. Valentin and S. Berg (trans.), Third Text, vol. 8, no. 28-29, 1994, p. 117. 10 Mario Pedrosa, “Enviromental Art, Postmodern Art, Hélio Oiticica (Arte ambiental, arte pos-moderna, Hélio Oiticica)” cited in L. Figueiredo “The world is the museum: Appropriation and Transformation in the work of Hélio Oiticica”, Figueiredo and Ramirez, pp. 105-125. 11 Osthoff, p. 225.

31 with the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and the Tate Modern.12 The Body of Colour featured a large number of artworks from the period 1955 to 1970 that included: paintings from the Grupo Frente period (1955-1956); Sêcos (1956-1957) and

Metaesquemas paintings (1957-1958); the White Series (1958-1959) and Red Series

(1959); Bilaterals (1959), Spatial Reliefs (1960), Inventions (1959-1962) and Nuclei

(1960-1963); as well as Bolides (1963-1967) and Parangolés (1964-1968).

In her essay “The Embodiment of Colour–from the Inside Out” Mari Carmen

Ramirez discusses in depth the emphasis this exhibition placed on Oiticica’s use of colour.13 Ramirez, in concurrence with the established literature, attributes Oiticica’s use of colour to the Neoconcrete origins of his work and discusses it as a fundamental aspect of his practice that is ‘an essential feature within or beyond painting’.14 She argues that ‘the unfolding of colour as a living entity in Hélio’s work has yet to be fully acknowledged’, referring to the capes as ‘colour-in-action’, ‘chromatic architecture for the body’ and as works in which colour becomes ‘a living entity’.15

In the text “Cornerstones for a definition of Parangolé”, Oiticica discusses the capes as being a crucial point in his practice and as defining a specific position within the theoretical progression of all of his experiments with colour in space, stating that:

First and foremost, the Parangolé would be a basic, structural search within the

constitution of the world of objects, a search for the roots of the work’s objective

genesis, its direct perpetual concreation…the Parangolé is located, as it were, at

the other end of the spectrum from Cubism; it does not deal with the whole,

finished object, but seeks out the object’s structure (the constituent principles of

12 Projeto Hélio Oiticica, Cézar Oiticica & Claudio Oiticica, “Foreword”, Figueiredo and Ramirez, pp. 11-12. 13 Ramirez, 27-73. 14 Ramirez, p. 28, 30. 15 Ramirez, p. 64-66.

that structure) and attempts a foundation of the object, not its dynamics or

dismantling. 16

He further comments on the significance of the work in another text, “Notes concerning

Parangolé”, by stating that he considered the Parangolés as liberating colour from the canvas support and as: ‘layers of coloured cloth’ and as ‘transobject[s]’ or

‘environmental structure’.17

Oiticica’s practice, and the Parangolés in particular, were initially discussed as geopolitically marginal works, that is, as specifically Brazilian and outside of the major art world countries. Guy Brett, in his text “Hélio Oiticica: Reverie and Revolt” attributes the marginalisation of Oiticica’s work to what he calls a prevailing narrative created by art institutions from ‘powerful countries’.18 Brett argues that this narrative has been constructed in such a way that all the postwar movements have been defined around artists from either Europe or the United States and that this has established ‘a mainstream of familiar, successful images to which everything else is made to look peripheral, or less successful, even if, in historical terms, it appeared first’.19

Anna Dezeuze, in her article “Tactile Dematerialization, Sensory Politics:

Hélio Oiticica's Parangolés”, also comments on the continued interpretation of

Oiticica’s practice as marginal, arguing that this interpretation is the result of ongoing curatorial emphasis on the critical and political sensibilities of the work over its formal and aesthetic innovations.20 Dezeuze posits that curators such as Catherine David – who co-curated the first touring retrospective of Oiticica's work in 1992 and included his

16 Oiticica, “November 1964 (Cornerstone for a Definition of Parangolé)”, Figueiredo and Ramirez, p. 296. 17 Oiticica, “Notes concerning Parangolé”, Figueiredo and Ramirez, p. 298. 18 Guy Brett, “Hélio Oiticica: Reverie and Revolt”, Art in America, vol. 77, no. 1, 1989, p. 112. 19 Brett, p. 112. 20 Dezeuze, p. 59.

33 work in Documenta X in 1997 – as well as Alexander Alberro, Blake Stimson and

Carlos Basualdo, have all highlighted the artist's conceptual, rather than formal innovations, interpreting his art and writing within the context of Conceptual Art and specifically Latin American Conceptual Art, which is considered to be more political than its North American and European counterparts.21 This emphasis, Dezeuze notes, is in spite of writers such as Sonia Salstein having warned against privileging the political and social dimension of Oiticica's art at the expense of its aesthetic qualities.22

The English art historian Michael Asbury also comments on the marginalisation of Oiticica’s practice. In his article “Hélio Couldn’t Dance”, Asbury calls for a renewed analysis of Oiticica’s work, away from this discourse of cultural and political marginality that he sees as having defined the artist’s practice.23 Asbury criticises what he terms a simplistic historical reading of Oiticica’s work, generated, he argues, by first generation art historical scholarship.24 Instead, he proposes that

Oiticica’s practice should be reconsidered as a continuous conceptual trajectory rather than as a series of moments or phases which he calls an ‘articulation of paradoxes’.25

The interpretation of Oiticica as a marginal artist and the surrounding discourse on the Parangolés as examples of trangressive art, where the work is disassociated from its Neoconcrete origins and from painting, is the result of a number of factors. Firstly, as

Brett notes, it reflects the ongoing tendency of American and European artists and art institutions to dominate the narrative of contemporary art practice. More importantly it

21 Dezeuze, p. 59. 22 Dezeuze, p. 59. 23 Ibid. 24 Michael Asbury, “O Hélio Nao Tinha Ginga (Hélio Counldn't Dance) ”, P. Braga et al. (ed.), p. 52. 25 Ibid.

34 is founded on Oiticica’s own writing that refers to the Parangolés as ‘anti-art par excellence’.26

The use of this phrase, as well as the environmental and participatory aspect of the Parangolés, has greatly influenced their interpretation as transgressive or conceptual art and as a form of Institutional Critique that questions the boundaries between the object, the spectator, the street and the museum. An example of this ongoing emphasis is Renato Rodriguez da Silva’s essay “Hélio Oiticica’s Parangolé or the Art of

Transgression”. In this text, da Silva discusses the Parangolés as ‘the transgression of a situation through the construction of a new praxis’ and argues that the use of the spectator’s body in activating the work results in it ‘questioning the autonomy of art’ by stressing ‘its institutional limits’ and confounding ‘its critical parameters’.27

The viewer’s participation, he argues, increases ‘the expressive possibilities of the work’. 28 These interpretations of the work, although valid, tend to obscure the connection between Oiticica’s preceding series and the Parangolés, creating a division or schism in his practice that is not necessarily present. Considering his work as

Expanded Painting highlights the continuity of ideas in his practice. This enables the conceptual and material aspect of his work to be considered as complementary developments.

I propose that instead of considering Oiticica’s anti-art comment as being a complete rejection of painting and his previous practice, it is more accurate to regard it as a gesture or statement that refers to the development and actualisation of the work beyond the narrow understanding of media. That is, not as a rejection of formal qualities, but rather as an indicator that ideas relating to painting can be transferred to

26 Oiticica, p. 296. 27 Renato Rodriguez da Silva, “Hélio Oiticica’s Parangolé or the Art of Transgression”, Third Text, vol. 19, no. 3, 2005, p. 213. 28 Ibid.

35 a different context, outside the studio, that includes direct audience participation and which becomes an expanded form of painting. Interpreting the work as a progression, or what Osthoff describes as ‘a fusion rather than a juxtaposition’, is more useful and also more accurate.29 Discussing the Parangolés within the expanded field of painting enables us to reconcile the seemingly divergent aspects of Oiticica’s practice and at the same time to extend the general understanding of painting as being a practice that intersects with and incorporates other disciplines.

Oiticica’s use of movement as a tool of transformation

Oiticica started using movement as a tool of activation and transformation in his practice from 1956 onward and developed its application in his work in three distinct phases: firstly, through representation in the Sêcos and Metaesquemas series; secondly, through audience interaction in the Bilaterals, Spatial Reliefs, Nuclei and Bolides, where motility is external to the work; and lastly, through complete incorporation in the

Parangolés, where audience participation was the activating factor and where the wearer and the work became a single entity.

Represented movement – Sécos and Metaesquemas

The Sécos and Metaesquemas are two series of more than 350 works that establish

Oiticica’s colour palette and general visual vocabulary. Mostly painted with gouache on raw cardboard between 1956 and 1958, the works explore geometric form through colour, rhythm and movement and through the representation of the rectangle as an active form against the canvas ground.30 In this work, Oiticica uses a limited range of colours in monochromatic tones such as dark blues, red and orange, earth tones, black

29 Osthoff, p. 225. 30 TATE Modern Online, The Body of Colour – Exhibition Guide (Room 2), , accessed 15 July 2010.

36 and white, thus establishing the use of a limited colour palette as a feature of his work from this point onward.

In a 1972 exhibition catalogue, Oiticica described these series as being ‘open structures’ that were an ‘obsessive dissection of space’ and as ‘timeless space’ or ‘gaps in the silent plane’, referring to them as ‘inventions’ that ‘anticipate possibilities beyond painting’.31 These comments indicate that Oiticica, with hindsight, understood that his early paintings formed part of a continuous trajectory that led to later work such as the

Parangolés, despite his earlier claim that all of his work prior to 1959 should not be taken seriously and that the conceptual and material premise for later works, particularly the Parangolés, germinate from the Sécos and Metaesquemas.32 The conceptual and material links between the Sécos and Metaesquemas and Oiticica’s later series such as the Parangolés, is evident in the structural components of the work.

In the Sêcos and Metaesquemas paintings, Oiticica uses traditional painting techniques such as scale, tone and composition to represent motion and to imbue the work with an enlivened quality. In the Parangolés he uses the same structural elements in three-dimensional space and actual motion to activate the work. The fabric rectangles that are used to make the Parangolés capes function as a series of abstracted planes which extend outward activated by the movement of the wearer. When viewed alongside the Parangolés, one can easily imagine the Sêcos as a kind of flat pattern for the capes, or the Parangolés as a three-dimensional version of the paintings – that is, as a kinetic construction or re-interpretation of the earlier two-dimensional compositions.

The early paintings utilise the grid as a structural compositional device whereby rectangular or trapezoid forms – differing in shape, size, scale and colour or tone – are painted as though they are in a state of flux, creating a sense of motion.

31 Oiticica, “Metaesquemas 57/58 Exhibition Catalogue”, Figueiredo and Ramirez, p. 147. 32 Ibid.

Despite the fact that these works are conventional paintings that create the illusion of motion through representation, they have a similar compositional and formal structure to the Parangolés capes. Both rely on the use of rectangular shapes as planes of colour that extend outward from a central point. When we look at the Sêcos and Metaesquemas paintings in relation to the Parangolés (Fig. 6-7), we see that these paintings can be read as depictions of the capes in motion and that Oiticica was, from the very beginning of his practice, using motion as a way of activating and enlivening abstract form in space.

For example, in works such as Sêco 22, 1956 (Fig. 4), the grid is used as a compositional device. In this painting, like others from the series, Oiticica places the rectangular shapes in a centrifugal pattern against the grid of the canvas plane, resulting in the illusion of motility. By placing the shapes askew in relation to the grid tension is created through figure/ground opposition and results in the illusion that the shapes exist, and are moving in three-dimensional space. By varying the size and shape of the rectangles, the centre of the canvas reads as a deep recessive space and the edges of the canvas function as the foreground thus appearing as though the whole structure is moving toward the viewer.

Similarly, when one compares the Metaesquemas to the Parangolés they too can be interpreted as precursors to the capes. Structurally both series again rely on the use of rectangular colour planes that generate spatial tension through movement in space. In the Metaesquemas, as with the Sêcos, this movement is represented as figure/ground tension. Here the rectangular shapes are drawn very close to each other on the picture plane, creating shapes and lines that can be read as either positive or negative space, generating an illusion of spatial movement. For example, when one compares Metaesquema No.179, 1957 (Fig. 5) to the capes, it is evident that the rectangular forms in the paintings are a flat version of the physical planes that make up the capes.

4. Hélio Oiticica, Sêco 22, 1956, gouache on cardboard, 39.37 cm x 42.67 cm. Image: The Body of Colour Exhibition Catalogue.

5. Hélio Oiticica, Metaesquema No.179, 1957, gouache on board, 40 cm x 42.9 cm. Image: MOMA online

6. Hélio Oiticica, Parangolés Cape 01 and Cape 02, 1964/1965. Image: Projeto Hélio Oiticica.

7. Hélio Oiticica, Parangolé (with Miro de Mangueira), 1964/1965. Image: Projeto Hélio Oiticica.

This connection between the early paintings and later work has been highlighted by Sonia Salzstein, who in her article “Hélio Oiticica: Autonomy and the

Limits of Subjectivity”, notes the material connections in Oiticica’s work, referring to the ‘synthetic understanding of [his] trajectory’.33 Salstein rightly points out that the spatial development of Oiticica’s work is evident from the very beginning of his practice, starting with the Metasquemas, and that later work, such as the Bolides and

Parangolés, can be understood as being, in her words: ‘inscriptions within the sphere of

Oiticica’s broader aesthetic project’.34 In addition, she points out that even Oiticica’s choice of the name Metasquemas – a word that he invented and which means ‘meta’

(beyond vision) and ‘esquema’ (structure) – indicates his intentions from the early stages of his practice to move toward creating spatial structures that could become actual configurations in space because the word itself foretells, perhaps unconsciously, his intention to move from the two-dimensional surface of the canvas into three- dimensional space.35

External motion – Bilaterals, Spatial Reliefs, Nuclei and Bolides

After completing the Sêcos and Metaesquemas paintings, Oiticica started to explore painting as a spatial practice. He introduced temporality to his work as an essential element where viewers needed to explore his works in real time and space. Oiticica’s writing from this period focuses on overcoming the limitations of painting on canvas and on explaining how his ideas relate to painting and to the history of non-objective art by linking his innovations to the work of his predecessors, particularly Mondrian. It marks the beginning of Oiticica’s exploration of two key concepts: ‘colour-time’ and

33 Salzstein, p. 125. 34 Ibid. 35 Salzstein, p. 126. Definition of Metaesquema from The Body of Colour TATE Modern Online Exhibition Guide (Room 2), http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/Héliooiticica/rooms/ room2.shtm, accessed 9 June 2009.

‘colour-structure’. These ideas are linked to his theory of embodied colour, a concept originating in Neoconcretism and explore the metaphysical aspect of painting.36

Oiticica explored the concept of ‘colour-time’ and ‘colour-structure’ through his artwork and writing and discusses it in a number of texts. In a journal entry from

December 1959 for instance, he wrote about space and time in relation to painting stating that: ‘metaphysical colour (colour-time) is essentially active from the inside-out; it is temporal par excellence’ and relates the element of time to what he terms as ‘the metaphysical conception of painting’, where: ‘Structure comes with the idea of colour and, because of this, it, too, becomes temporal’.37 Similarly, in another journal entry from May 1960, he wrote about time as being ‘the principal factor in nonrepresentational, non-objective art’ and an instrumental factor in creating new work that is neither sculpture nor painting, but is instead: ‘a new dimension and new possibilities for the creation and continuity of the problem of non-objective painting’ and commented that:

After one has left the field of representation and broken away from painting – and

the ‘flatness of the painting’ is discovered – the concept of time provides a new

dimension and new possibilities for the creation and continuity of the problem of

non-objective painting after Mondrian…There can be no doubt whatsoever that

time is the new characteristic of our age in all sectors of artistic practice.38

Oiticica explored these ideas further in the text “Colour, time and structure” where he wrote about structure becoming temporal, or what he called ‘a time-structure’, where space, colour, time and structure exist in the work as a form of organic fusion.39

He identified the fusion of these four elements as being the key to creating a single

36 Oiticica, “December 1959”, Figueiredo and Ramirez, p. 190. 37 Oiticica, p. 190. 38 Oiticica, “May 1960”, Figueiredo and Ramirez, p. 174. 39 Oiticica, “Color, Time, and Structure (1960)”, Figueiredo and Ramirez, p. 205.

42 holistic work, what he described as ‘a single phenomenon’.40 The element of time is explored and realised in his work from this point forward, leading to the creation of the

Bilaterals, Spatial Reliefs, Nuclei and Bolides.

Bilaterals and Spatial Reliefs

The Bilaterals and Spatial reliefs date from 1959 and 1960. Both types of relief are freestanding hanging structures that are suspended in space and which require the viewer to walk around them in order to see them in totality. The Bilaterals are made from wood fibreboard panels, divided into areas of two-toned white. Smaller works in the series, such as Bilateral Classico (Fig. 9) and Bilateral Teman (Fig. 10) are simple two-sided panels suspended in space that are constructed as spatial or three-dimensional paintings, painted on both sides; larger works such as Bilateral Equali (Fig. 11), are made by suspending equal-sized, square panels from the ceiling in a grid-like structure.

While the smaller works retain qualities that relate to painting, for instance the flatness of the panels and the viewer’s awareness of figure/ground opposition, the larger work is distinctly spatial in its structure by being overtly three-dimensional, an element that

Oiticica equated to architecture rather than to sculpture referring to them as: ‘paintings in space’.41

The white-on-white surfaces of the Bilaterals recall Kasimir Malevich’s white paintings, specifically Suprematist Composition, 1918 (Fig. 8), a similarity which is noted by Mari Carmen Ramirez. Ramirez comments that Oiticica’s use of white is a way of reaching the limit of painting and of making work that exists between painting and real space – that is, between painting and architecture – and that it parallels

Malevich’s intention in transferring ‘forms from the surface of the canvas into space’.42

40 Ibid. 41 Oiticica, p. 204-207. 42 Kasimir Malevich cited in Ramirez, p. 46

8. Kasimir Malevich, Suprematist Composition: White on White, 1918, oil on canvas, 79.4 cm x 79.4 cm. Image: MOMA Online.

9. Hélio Oiticica, Bilateral Classico, 1959, oil-casein emulsion on wood fibreboard, 101 cm x 123.5 cm x 1.3 cm. Image: Projeto Hélio Oiticica.

10. Hélio Oiticica, Bilateral Teman, 1959, oil-casein emulsion on wood fibreboard, 120.5 cm x 122.5 cm x 1.5 cm. Image: Projeto Hélio Oiticica.

11. Hélio Oiticica, Bilateral Equali, 1959, oil-casein emulsion on wood fibreboard, 56.6 cm x 53.6 cm x 1.5 cm. Image: Projeto Hélio Oiticica.

12. Hélio Oiticica, Maquette for Spatial Relief No.22 (yellow), 1960, gouache on cardboard, 37.5 cm x 26.5 cm x 2 cm. Image: Projeto Hélio Oiticica.

13. Hélio Oiticica, Spatial Relief No.20 (yellow), 1959, painted wood construction. Image: Gallery Lelong at Basel/Miami Artfair, 2007.

14. Hélio Oiticica, Spatial Relief (Red), 1959, polyvinyl acetate resin on plywood, 62.5 cm x 148 cm x 15.3 cm. Image: HO Digital Catalogue, Projeto Hélio Oiticica.

15. Hélio Oiticica, P04 Parangolé Cape 01, 1964. Image: Projeto Hélio Oiticica.

16 Hélio Oiticica, Spatial Relief (Red), 1959, polyvinyl acetate resin on plywood, 62.5 cm x 148 cm x 15.3 cm. Image: HO Digital Catalogue, Projeto Hélio Oiticica.

Oiticica’s idea of space and time or ‘colour-time’ is further explored in the

Spatial Reliefs. The Spatial Reliefs are folded, hanging constructions in various tones of cadmium orange, red or yellow (Figs 12-14, 16). Larger works are made from wood and painted with oil, oil-casein or polyvinyl acetate resin; maquettes are made from cardboard and are painted with gouache. The various panels overlap and intersect at oblique angles, creating a set of folds with spaces between them where the gaps function as negative space through which light can pass and which are only seen when the viewer walks around the work. Ramirez discusses the Spatial Reliefs as being at ‘the crossroads of architecture and painting’ by ‘fully and uncompromisingly’ entering ‘the dimension of the real’.43

When we compare the Spatial Reliefs to the Parangolés, we see a visual and structural continuity that shows that Oiticica was logically working through a set of ideas by experimenting with material. The use of vibrant colour in the Spatial Reliefs and the way that the works are made visually resembles and parallels the construction of the Parangolés. The intersecting and overlaping wooden panels of the Spatial Reliefs mirror the way that the fabric segments of the Parangolés overlap. For example, when we compare photos of Spatial Relief (Red) (Figs 14, 16) to images of the Parangolés in motion (Fig. 15), we can see that the works are constructured in a similar manner.

Both rely on motion to activate a series of panels that fold over each other and extend outward, revealing concealed segments. The difference is that the Spatial Reliefs require the viewer to walk around the work in order to discover the different planes and the chromatic or structural subtleties of the work, thereby remaining external to the work, whereas the Parangolés require the direct participation of the viewer in order to be activated.

43 Ramirez, p. 49.

Nuclei

The next series of works that anticipate the Parangolés are the Nuclei (1960–1963).

In this series, Oiticica continued to explore colour and the element of time through the movement of the viewer. The Nuclei are a series of works comprised of various panels

– painted in tones of yellow on both sides, hung from the ceiling at acute angles to each other forming a grid-like or maze-like structure. The Brazilian art critic Frederico

Morais has referred to them as: ‘Mondrian dissolved into space, recycled by the tropics’.44

The Nuclei are divided into small, medium and large works, differentiated by the density in the grouping of the panels rather than the overall size of the work.45

Oiticica produced one small nucleus, three medium ones and one large nucleus Grand

Nucleus (Fig. 19). The first and smallest work, NC1 Small Nucleus No. 01 (Fig. 17) was suspended above a mirror on the floor, reflecting the viewer as though she or he were inside the work. Here Oiticica used the reflective qualities of the mirror as a strategy for inclusion and as a way of creating a sense of viewer participation.

The reflection of the viewer in the mirror alongside the coloured panels of the

Nuclei anticipates the structure of the Parangolés. The way that the various panels surround the viewer in colour, foreshadows the way the Parangolés envelop the viewer in swathes of fabric creating the impression that one is engulfed in colour. When the viewer looks at herself or himself in the mirror and is visually surrounded by the coloured panels, the image that is temporarily created, echoes the images created when the Parangolés are in motion. This is particularly evident in the smaller work NC1 Small

Nucleus No. 01 (Fig. 17), where the yellow panels that make up the Nuclei are a similar size to the panels of a cape P04 Parangolé Cape 01, 1964 (Fig. 18).

44 Frederico Morais cited in Ramirez, p. 54. 45 Ramirez, p. 54.

17. Hélio Oiticica, NC1 Small Nucleus No. 01 (5 pieces), 1960, synthetic resin on wood fibreboard and mirror. Image: Projeto Hélio Oiticica.

18. Hélio Oiticica, P04 Parangolé Cape 01, 1964, fabric, plastic. Image: The Body of Colour Exhibition Catalogue.

19. Hélio Oiticica, Grand Nucleus (NC3, NC4, NC6), 1960-1966, oil and resin on wood fibreboard, 6.7 m x 9.75 m. Image: Projeto Hélio Oiticica.

In addition their structure also shows a consistent and methodical material development that can be traced directly to the yellow Spatial Reliefs (Fig. 12-13) and which confirms the consistency of structural development in Oiticica’s work.

This continuity has been noted by Mari Carmen Ramirez who comments that:

‘the yellow Spatial Reliefs underwent a radical transformation, consisting of the progressive opening up of their component sections to reveal a complex interplay of inside-outside planes’.46

Bolides

The next series of works relating to the Parangolés and that continue to use movement are the Bólides. The Bólides are a diverse group of objects and constructions made from wood, glass and plastic that Oiticica started making in 1963. They are divided into the

Box Bólides and Glass Bólides. They were conceived to function as chromatic fireballs embodying the idea of total colour through the use of pigment and light and which oiticica refers to as: ‘colour-totality’.47 Oiticica defined them as having a transcendental quality derived from their pre-existing status as things of the world, as well as embodying the idea of total colour through the use of pigment and light, giving colour a new structure. Luciano Figueiredo and Mari Carmen Ramirez have discussed the work as being exemplary or paradigmatic of the transition between the constructed and the appropriated object and as marking a turning point in Oiticica’s investigation.48 In addition, Guy Brett has situated the Bólides as marking a shift from what he terms ‘a purely retinal to a bodily perception of colour’ and considers them to be the culmination of all of Oiticica’s earlier experiments.49

46 Ramirez, p. 54. 47 Ramirez, p. 62. Oiticica, “May 11, 1964”, Figueiredo and Ramirez et al., p. 263. 48 Ramirez, p. 59. 49 Brett, p. 114.

The Box Bólides are a series of wooden boxes painted in bright colours such as yellow, cadmium orange and pink. Each box is constructed with a set of compartments that incorporate a variety of other materials such as mirror, plastic or fabric and which when manipulated, open or move to reveal hidden views or sections that extend the viewer’s initial perception of the work. Works such as: B04 Box Bólide 04 ‘Romeo and

Juliet’, 1963 (Fig. 22a); B03 Box Bólide 03 ‘African’, 1963 (Fig. 22b); B10 Box Bólide

08, 1964 (Fig. 23); B11 Box Bólide 09, 1964 (Fig. 24a) and B06 Box Bólide 06

‘Egyptian’, 1963/64 (Fig. 24b), all rely on movement and the viewer’s interaction with the work. Here the viewer has to open and manipulate the work in order to discover its full physical and visual impact. Oiticica discusses this necessary involvement of the viewer in an artist’s statement where he describes the Bólides as being reliant on the

‘manipulation of the spectator’ and as having three distinct phases: the first ‘without the participation’; the second ‘with participation’; the final ‘after the participation’.50

Other works, such as Bólide B09 Box Bólide 07, 1964 (Fig. 20-21) incorporate a mirror segment. Here, when the sliding compartment is opened to reveal previously hidden sections, additional colour planes are created which are then reflected in the mirrored surface. This extends the parameters of the work both physically and visually and when placed in front of the viewer incorporates the image of the viewer and the surroundings into the work itself. The way that the mirror is used in this work recalls

NC1 Small Nucleus No. 01 (Fig. 18), a connection that illustrates Oiticica’s ongoing attempt to create a sense or experience of complete fusion between the art object and the viewer.

50 Oiticica, “Letter from Hélio Oiticica to Paul Keeler (29 June 1965, Rio)”, doc. 0584.65, Hélio Oiticica – Digital Catalogue Raisoné, Project Hélio Oiticica, p. 1.

20. Hélio Oiticica, B09 Box Bólide 07, 1964, oil with polyvinyl acetate emulsion on plywood, mirror, 23.7 cm x 61.2 cm x 23.7 cm. Pictured during restoration at the MFAH with various Box Bólides in the background. Images: Museum of Fine Arts Houston.

21. Hélio Oiticica, B09 Box Bólide 07, 1964. Pictured with a resident of Mangueira Hill Favéla. Image: Projeto Hélio Oiticica. Photographer: Andreas Valentim.

22a. (Top) Hélio Oiticica, B04 Box Bólide 04 ‘Romeo and Juliet’, 1963, oil with polyvinyl acetate emulsion on wood and plywood, 60 cm x 78 cm x 39.2 cm (closed). Images: Projeto Hélio Oiticica.

22b. (Bottom) Hélio Oiticica, B03 Box Bólide 03 ‘African’, 1963 distemper with polyvinyl acetate emulsion on plywood, 59.9 cm x 23.8 cm x 30 cm (closed). Images: Projeto Hélio Oiticica.

23. Hélio Oiticica, B10 Box Bólide 08, 1964, oil with polyvinyl acetate emulsion on wood and plywood, 60 cm x 78 cm x 39.2 cm (closed). Images: Projeto Hélio Oiticica.

24a. (Left) Hélio Oiticica in the patio of his home-studio at Rua Engenhero Duarte, Rio de Janeiro with B11 Box Bólide 09, 1964, oil with polyvinyl acetate emulsion on wood and glass, pigment, 49 cm x 50 cm x 34 cm (closed). Image: Claudio Oiticica and Projeto Hélio Oiticica.

24b. (Right) Hélio Oiticica, B06 Box Bólide 06 ‘Egyptian’, 1963/64, oil and distemper with polyvinyl acetate emulsion on wood, glass. Image: Projeto Hélio Oiticica.

In the Bólides the involvement of the viewer, although necessary, still remains an external factor – that is, the viewer and the artwork remain as separate entities.

Nevertheless, the work was an important step in the artist’s progression toward the complete incorporation of the viewer’s body into the work itself. Oiticica highlights this role of the Bólides in an artist’s statement he wrote in June 1965. The statement accompanied a letter he sent to Paul Keeler in anticipation of an exhibition at the

Signals Gallery in London and for inclusion in an issue of Signals News Bulletin, edited by David Medalla. In this statement Oiticica describes the Bolides as being precursory works to the Parangolés by referring to the required involvement of the viewer in the work and writes: ‘In these Bólides it is already visible what would afterwards come into realization in the Parangolé’.51 It is this involvement of the viewer as a completely integrated part of the work that I consider in the next section of the chapter by discussing the Parangolés: Made-on-the-Body-Capes, 1969/2011.

Participatory motion in Parangolés: Made-on-the-body-capes’

In 1964 Oiticica began making the series of work titled Parangolés (Figs 1-3, 6-7, 15,

18, 25-31). As stated at the beginning of the chapter, these works are a collection of capes, banners and tent like structures that were designed to be worn or carried by the spectator, now referred to as the ‘participator’, whilst dancing Samba.52 In these works,

Oiticica was able to achieve the complete enlivenment of colour through the use of motion by making the Parangolés dependent on the movement of the viewer/participant.

They are the culmination of all his previous works, or what Mari Carmen Ramirez and

Wynne Phelan refer to, respectively, as: ‘both the summary and the outright climax of

51 Oiticica, “Letter to Paul Keeler”, p. 2. 52 Oiticica, “Notes Concerning Parangolé”, Figueiredo and Ramirez, p. 298.

Hélio’s investigations of colour’ and ‘Oiticica’s ultimate colour structures’.53

This assessment of the work parallels Oiticica’s own appraisal.

In the document “Cornerstones for the definition of ‘Parangolé”, Oiticica refers to the works as signalling ‘a crucial point’ in his practice and as defining ‘a specific position within the theoretical progression of all [his] experiments with colour-structure in space’.54 He notes that they are an extension and development of previous work, including the Nuclei and Bolides.55 Similarly in the text “Notes Concerning Parangolé”, he refers to the Parangolés as being the culmination of all previous work and as action- structures, whose expressive quality is only fully revealed when they are in a state of motion, stating that: ‘action is the work’s pure expressive manifestation’.56

He emphasises the work as being ‘more of an action-work than the old action painting’, describing the role of motility thus:

From the first ‘banner’ – intended for the spectator to dance with or carry – a

relationship to dance is already evident in the structural development of these

works insofar as ‘manifestation of colour in environmental space’ is concerned.

The entire structural unity of these works is based on the crucial ‘action-

structure’; the spectator’s ‘act’ of carrying the work, as he dances or runs, reveals

the expressive totality of its structure.57

53 Ramirez, p. 68. Phelan, p. 101. 54 Oiticica, “Cornerstones for the definition of ‘Parangolé”, Figueiredo and Ramirez, pp. 296-297. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid. 57 Oiticica, p. 298.

25. Hélio Oiticica and residents of Mangueira favela carrying P01 Parangolé Banner 01, 1964. Image: Projeto Hélio Oiticica.

26. Hélio Oiticica, P03 Parangolé Tent 01, 1964. Image: Projeto Hélio Oiticica.

I was able to experience these qualities, as they are manifested in the capes, by experimenting with the work Parangolés: Made-on-the-Body-Capes, 1969/2011, exhibited at the Adam Art Gallery in Wellington, New Zealand during the exhibition

Points of Contact – Jim Allen, Len Lye, Hélio Oiticica.

Parangolés: Made-on-the-Body-Capes is a work that Oiticica first developed in 1968/1969. In a letter to Hugh Shaw, dated 19 September 1970, Oiticica discusses the inclusion of this work in an exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in November of the same year.58 In this letter he outlines the basic concept of the work as being an improvised Parangolé cape and as:

…structures which are built directly with a whole piece of cloth by different

people on their bodies, that can be taken off afterwards, without cutting, just

attached with pins (safety-pins) and sewn afterwards, and to be used by everyone

throughout the exhibition. 59

He defines them as being ‘abstractions of the body’, ‘intelligent structures’ and ‘extra body structure’ that are ‘imaginative multiplications of body possibilities’ where ‘no two people will approach the results the same way’ and as an extended Moebius band.60

His specifications, on the second page of the letter, are that the organisers should decide the number of capes to be made but that the capes should be at least 3 yards or 2.7432 m in length, samples provided, in at least three different colours.61

In the version re-created for the exhibition Points of Contact the fabric supplied was pink, red, yellow, deep orange, lime green and emerald green. For this exhibition the material was hung on pegs along the wall, ready for the viewer to use and

58 Oiticica, “Letter to Hugh Shaw (Arts Council of Great Britain), 19 September 1970”, doc. 0755.70, Hélio Oiticica – Digital Catalogue Raisoné, Project Hélio Oiticica, pp. 1-2. 59 Ibid. 60 Ibid. 61 Ibid.

27. Catherine Johnson with Hélio Oiticica’s Made on the Body Capes, 1969/2011, Adam Art Gallery. Image: Francesca Mataraga.

28. Hélio Oiticica, P25 Parangolé Cape 21 ‘Xoxoba’, 1968, during the filming of HO by Ivan Cardoso, 1979. Image: Projeto Hélio Oiticica. Photographer: Andreas Valentim.

65 a sample cape was displayed on a mannequin in the exhibition space (Fig. 27).

Contrary to Oiticica’s original instructions however which stipulate that the wearer should not mix two or three colours together, this cape was made by combining two pieces of fabric in green and red. As such it resembled other capes from the series such as P25 Parangolé Cape 21 ‘Xoxoba’, 1968 (Fig. 28).

Parangolés: Made-on-the-Body-Capes was exhibited in the same gallery as the projection of the film: HO by Ivan Cardoso, 1979. As such one was able to experiment with the cape in an authentic way by being both viewer and participant. One could watch and assist a fellow visitor with the construction and manipulation of the improvised cape, as well as simultaneously being able to watch Oiticica himself and residents of Mangueira in the film.

The experience of experimenting with the Parangolés: Made-on-the-Body-

Capes was a vital moment in understanding both the intent and structure of the

Parangolés. It was only by being enveloped and immersed in the experience of creating the improvised Parangolé that their chromatic intensity and the full impact of the work became apparent. The first moment of understanding the work came through struggling with the piece of fabric when trying to configure a cape or structure that paralleled the way it appeared in the film, that is, as a billowing, quasi-organic structure.

The cape did not take on a Parangolé character by transforming into an enlivened colour-structure, unless kept in a continuous state of motion, an act that was difficult to maintain because the fabric was heavy and difficult to manipulate. In addition, it did not become a convincing colour-structure unless large portions of the body were completely obscured. The fabric was only successfully transformed into a

Parangolé when one was enveloped in it. In this moment, when the act of manipulating the cloth became all-consuming and the colour became all encompassing, one felt that

29. Catherine Johnson with Hélio Oiticica’s Made on the Body Capes, 1969/2011, Adam Art Gallery. Image: Francesca Mataraga.

30. Francesca Mataraga with Hélio Oiticica’s Made on the Body Capes, 1969/2011, Adam Art Gallery. Image: Catherine Johnson.

31. Francesca Mataraga with Hélio Oiticica’s Made on the Body Capes, 1969/2011, Adam Art Gallery. Image: Catherine Johnson.

69 the Parangolé experience had been achieved. By lifting the cloth above one’s head and becoming engrossed in the act of motion, fusion between the object and the wearer was accomplished. The forms that were created in this moment and which are documented in Figures 29, 30 and 31 show a complete integration between the wearer/participant and the cape.

Experimenting with the work Parangolés: Made-on-the-Body-Capes, enabled me to personally understand through direct experience the importance of movement in Oiticica’s work – and his use of coloured planes – as a theme that originated in painting. By wearing and experiencing the work I witnessed the physical structure of the Parangolés as a series of constructed planes activated through movement, becoming what Oiticica referred to: ‘as magical lived experience’.62

62 Oiticica, “Letter to Hugh Shaw”.

32. Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971, striped canvas, work in situ Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Image: http://catalogue.danielburen.com/.

CHAPTER TWO

DANIEL BUREN: PAINTING, SCULPTURE AND ARCHITECTURE

Even if, today, there’s a survival of painting (which I think is, in fact, a complete

regression), the big–the profound way, where the thing is going, is not dealing

with any specific traditional aspect. It’s not specifically sculpture, in the

traditional sense, it’s not specifically painting in the traditional sense.

It’s something even not in between. It’s just something else.

Daniel Buren1

In this chapter I discuss Daniel Buren’s work as expanded painting that combines painting and sculpture with architecture, through the use of the stripe as a visual motif.

I argue that Buren has consistently and throughout his practice situated painting in a dialogue with architecture by creating site-specific works that use the stripe as a motif in order to alter the way in which the viewer experiences these spaces. By analysing his practice in relation to painting I am taking up Alison Gingeras’ claim that Buren’s work needs to be re-appraised as more than Institutional Critique or Conceptual Art.2

In the first part of the chapter I introduce the fundamental aspects of Buren’s practice, such as the different categories into which his work and writing is divided, his use of the stripe as what he calls a visual tool and his use of the terms photo- souvenir and in situ. In the second part of the chapter I discuss why his practice has been interpreted primarily as a form of Conceptual Art and Institutional Critique, despite its consistent connection to painting. In the third part of the chapter I discuss the

1 Daniel Buren (interview with Robin White), R. White (ed.), Daniel Buren, Crown Point Press, Oakland, 1979, p. 11. 2 Alison M. Gingeras, “Who is Daniel Buren?”, S. Cross (ed.), The Eye of the Storm: Works in situ by Daniel Buren, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2005, p. 3A-2.

72 work Peinture-Sculpture, 1971 as an example of expanded painting that places painting in dialogue with a specific architectural site (Fig. 32).

Fundamental aspects of Buren’s practice

Buren’s work can be divided into five distinct categories. Guy Lelong, in his 2002 monograph on the artist, classifies these as being: works that are temporary and are created for a specific event; works that can only be recreated in the particular place for which they were designed; works that are governed by a set of rules that could be adapted to different sites with similar attributes and that allow the work to be re-created under similar conditions; works which are governed by the same conceptual and visual logic and can be adapted to different sites resulting in the work looking different; and works that can be installed anywhere, which are completely transportable and adaptable to a variety of sites. This last category is grouped under the title Cabanes Éclatées and

Buren refers to these as being ‘situated works’ rather than in situ works, because they are not derived from their host sites – that is, they are not uniquely configured to suit a single place or space.3

Buren has also written many texts to accompany his works, but he considers these to be distinct from his visual practice. Buren has described the texts as being

‘totally different, separated disciplines’, stating that the ‘visual work always initiates and allows if the case arises, a reflection of a written type’ and ‘never the contrary’ that is, that the work itself comes first and that the text is always secondary.4 Lelong and

Buren himself, divide the texts into the following sections: texts that are commentaries or opinions on art; interview transcripts; the artist’s replies to critics he disagrees with

3 Guy Lelong, Daniel Buren, Flammarion, Paris, 2002, p. 81. 4 Buren cited in A. Rorimer, “Sign and Context: An Art & Design Interview”, Art & Design, vol. 6, no. 3/4, 1990, p. 19.

73 and his opinions on art; and the manifestos from December 1966 to October 1967 when he was working with Olivier Mosset, Michel Parmentier and Niele Toroni.

In addition to these categories, Lelong also notes that Buren has written detailed descriptions of planned or completed works with the specific function of publishing these in catalogues as an accompaniment to the photographic documentation of the work. These texts are deemed necessary by the artist in order to remove any risk of misunderstanding that might occur either at the site itself or when looking at the photographic documentation of the work. They function as a set of instructions or as a blueprint for the work, should it be recreated at a later date.5

One of the fundamental and most recognisable aspects of Buren’s work is his use of the stripe, which he refers to as a visual tool.6 Buren started using the stripe by chance in 1965 when he purchased some traditional French awning fabric at a local market and decided to use it as canvas to paint on. The prefabricated striped material enabled him to reduce painting to what he calls its ‘degree zero’.7 He has described this discovery as fortuitous, stating that the striped canvas: ‘had all the qualities and characteristics which the painting I was doing at the time couldn’t bring together’ and that his decision to use it was a critical step that helped him clarify the subject he wanted to put forward at this time. 8

Lelong explains that it was the graphic element of the stripe that attracted

Buren because it visually functioned as a substitute for painting. The stripe offered the same inherent qualities as painting, or what Lelong calls ‘painting’s constituent

5 Lelong, p. 78. 6 Buren, “Interview with Jerome Sans – Daniel Buren on the subject of…”, Daniel Buren, Intervention II, works in situ: Modern Art Oxford, 4 November 2006-28 January 2007, Modern Art Oxford, Manchester, 2006, p. 5. 7 Buren in Rorimer, p. 19. 8 Ibid.

74 properties’, specifically: contour, colour, form and figure/ground contrast.9 Although the stripe was originally linked to the use of the awning canvas, Buren quickly transferred the motif to a broad range of materials including glass, adhesive, paper, mirror, plastic, Perspex, marble, granite or metal and applied it to numerous different architectural spaces and situations in the urban landscape. Buren also decided to standardise the width of the stripe to a measurement of 8.7 cm (+/- 0.3cm), which was an average of all the different striped fabrics he had used that had varied slightly in width from 8.5 cm to 9 cm each.

Buren has stated that the stripe is never shown for its own sake or as an independent element. In an interview with Jerome Sans in 2006 he stated that the stripe is always ‘glued, assembled, juxtaposed and multiplied’ in order to become a unified whole with the surface to which it is applied or the space within which it is used, in order to become one of the constituent elements of the site.10 Conversely, in another interview from 1990 with Anne Rorimer, Buren explained that he never uses the stripe as an autonomous element but that he always places it ‘in relation to’ or ‘in contact with’ or ‘in conflict with’ a place.11 When the stripe is applied to the surface of a building or as a sculptural element in an architectural space, it comments on and alters the way the existing architecture is perceived. The way that the stripe interacts with the architecture to become a formal intervention, or what Buren calls ‘the work’, is primarily visual. The stripe changes the visual appearance of the surface and visually demarcates a site, such as a building, billboard or other element, from its surrounds and from the rest of the urban landscape thus alerting the viewer to its changed status as artwork. By using the stripe as a repetitive motif, the stripe becomes the prominent

9 Lelong, p. 34. 10 Buren in Sans, p. 3. 11 Buren in Rorimer, p. 19.

75 visual element in the space, pushing the architecture of the building into the background. The repeating stripes become a continuous field of colour/non-colour that contrast with the surface of the structure.

Since the late 1960s Buren has also used the terms in-situ and photo-souvenir in relation to his work. The phrase photo-souvenir is used to describe all photographic and visual documentation of his work. He uses this term in order to emphasise the limited function of the photographic image as a reliable source of documentation of the work. Buren has used the term in-situ to describe the way he creates and exhibits works in a specific place or space, which he describes as being ‘totally dependant on the place for which they have been conceived’.12 He also uses the phrase in-situ to specifically emphasise the process of making and assembling the work on site. 13

Buren’s work in relation to Institutional Critique and Conceptual Art

Although Buren started his practice as a painter and continued to refer to his work as a form of painting, since the late 1960s his art has been discussed primarily as Conceptual

Art and Institutional Critique. Buren’s work has been interpreted as Conceptual Art primarily because he has critiqued the process of making and exhibiting art through his work, an action that was associated primarily with Conceptual Art during the 1970s.

However, Buren himself has insisted that his work is decorative and has rebuffed the classification of his practice as purely conceptual.14

Guggenheim Museum curator Gingeras, who was instrumental in organising

Buren’s large-scale retrospective at the museum in 2005, argues in her essay “Who is

12 Lelong, p. 34 and Buren in Sans, p. 6. 13 Buren in Sans, p. 7-8. 14 Institutional Critique refers to artistic practices that critically reflect on their place within galleries and museums and on the concept and social function of art itself. Conceptual Art is a term used to describe a wide range of practices that emphasise the concept that informs the work over the production of an object using traditional media.

Daniel Buren?” that the interpretation of Buren’s practice as primarily conceptual has resulted in the visual aspect of his art being overlooked and that this has led to a limited understanding of his work.15 Gingeras contends that this is a deliberate oversight aimed at ignoring or minimising the aesthetic or decorative dimensions of his work, and what she describes as: ‘his long-standing, yet conflicted dialogue with the history of modernist painting’.16 Gingeras argues that the focus on Buren’s work as conceptual is the result of a sustained tactic initiated and maintained by various American critics specifically Benjamin Buchloh, who, she says, want to preserve the integrity of

Conceptualism as a political and utopian movement and who want to ‘institutionalise’ institutional critique by emphasising the dominant critical paradigms of 1970s art such as Conceptual Art, Post-Minimalism, Institutional Critique, and Performance Art.17

Whilst Gingeras is right in arguing that the visual aspect of Buren’s work has not received as much attention as it deserves, her claim that American art critics and historians have forcibly aligned his practice with Institutional Critique and Conceptual

Art is problematic and more complex than her discussion indicates. Her first claim, that critics alone have overemphasised Buren’s work in relation to Institutional Critique, is difficult to substantiate because the artist himself actively promoted this aspect of his practice during the late 1960s and 1970s. Her second claim, that American critics,

Buchloh in particular, have consistently instigated and sustained the misinterpretation of Buren’s practice as solely Conceptual, is also not entirely accurate because a number of writers such as Buchloh, Douglas Crimp, R. H. Fuchs and Rorimer have acknowledged that his practice is not solely conceptual and that it does in fact relate to painting. Furthermore, her third claim, that the visual aspect of Buren’s work has been

15 Gingeras, 3A. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid.

77 overlooked is complicated by the fact that Buren himself has made contradictory statements in relation to his work and to painting. These issues inform and complicate the overall interpretation of his practice and it is therefore important to discuss each one before progressing to an analysis of Buren’s work that considers how he uses the stripe as a visual motif in relation to painting, architecture and the urban landscape.

In relation to Gingeras’ criticism that Buren’s work has been deliberately overemphasised as a form of Institutional Critique, it is crucial to note that although writers, such as Miwon Kwon, continue to discuss his practice in relation to site- specificity and Institutional Critique, it was Buren himself who actively promoted this aspect of his practice. Kwon, in her essay “One place after another: Notes on site- specificity” situates Buren as part of the historical development of site-specificity that is in direct response to the landscape, the street and/or the museum. She focuses on his practice as questioning the hermeticism and idealism of the exhibition space and the assumption that the museum or gallery is a seemingly benign or objective space.18

This was because in 1967 Buren ceased making paintings and started concentrating on site-specific work, becoming interested in the decommodification of the art object and creating art that existed outside the confines of the museum.

At this time he actively promoted the importance of Institutional Critique by describing his work as being oriented toward questioning the ‘power of the museum’ and the term

‘work of art’ and by writing texts such as “Functions of the Museum” that questioned these institutions directly.19 In addition to this, Buren also emphasised the political aspect of his practice, claiming that his aim was to pursue ‘the analysis of formal and cultural limits (and not one or the other) within which art exists and struggles’ and that

18 Miwon Kwon, “One Place after Another: Notes on Site-Specificity”, October, vol. 80, 1997, p. 87-88. 19 Buren in Sans, p. 6.

78 his art could be nothing but ‘exclusively political’.20 The importance that Buren has placed on his own work as a form of Institutional Critique has therefore contributed to the critical analysis of his art and thus it seems that Gingeras’ claim, that this aspect of his work has been overemphasised solely by critics, is not strictly true.

In addition to this, Gingeras’ other claim that Buren’s work has been forcibly and consistently misinterpreted as, and misaligned with, Conceptual Art, is also a more complex issue. Despite actively promoting his work as Institutional Critique, Buren has been adamant that his work should not be interpreted as Conceptual Art, stating that in

‘the period when conceptual art was launched’ he was ‘already in complete conflict with its dominant ideology’, arguing that his work was in fact opposed to its basic premise.21 Buren maintains that despite writing a vast number of texts to accompany and explain his work, these are secondary to the visual component and that he does not consider his work to be governed by a single idea, nor to be the visual execution of a conceptual premise – because it is not motivated by a single concept or idea – and is neither ‘programmatic nor systematic’.22 This claim is in opposition to other artists whose work appears to function in a similar way and is considered Conceptual – artists such as Sol LeWitt, Lawrence Weiner and Joseph Kosuth. By insisting that his work be separated into two supposedly unrelated segments, that is the writing as one element and the physical work as another, Buren confounded and confused the interpretation of his practice. To the majority of critics Buren’s work looked like and functioned as Conceptual Art.

Douglas Crimp, in his essay “Daniel Buren's New York Work” explains that the misinterpretation of Buren’s work as Conceptual is also due to a number of other

20 Buren cited in Kwon, p. 88. 21 Buren in Sans, p. 6. 22 Buren in Sans, p. 8.

79 factors.23 Crimp points out that when Buren started exhibiting in New York in the late

1960s, his practice could only be understood and received by critics as a form of

Conceptual Art and that his texts were perceived to be the primary work.24 He argues that the main reason for this was that painting at this time remained ‘under the sway of formalist aesthetics’ and was considered to be a dead issue. 25 Crimp explains that the reason why Buren’s practice could not possibly have been regarded as painting by

American critics at this time was because painting was only considered in terms of its material qualities, as seen for instance in the work of Frank Stella or Robert Ryman, whose work could be interpreted and understood as a form of traditional renewal.26

Unlike formalist painters however, Buren focused on the context of the object rather than its form and accompanied his work with extended textual explanations that actively engaged with a criticism of the traditional systems of art galleries, collectors and museums. His work therefore looked like and functioned as Conceptual Art.

Crimp also points out that although Buren’s work was seen as having an aesthetic or visual dimension, this aspect of his practice was downplayed because of its format.

The application of the stripes to multiple situations was seen as repetitive and serial.

The stripes were therefore interpreted as the illustration of a single idea and were perceived as the visual extension of a conceptual practice.27

This is what led critics, like Roberta Smith for instance, to interpret Buren’s work as being Conceptual and to describe it as ‘interesting and important for the criticisms he makes’ and ‘for the discussion he precipitates’ and as ‘some kind of endurance test’ or ‘a very provoking performance’ that was, in her words, ‘precipitated

23 Douglas Crimp, “Daniel Buren's New York Work”, R.H. Fuchs (eds), Discordance/Cohérence, Abbemuseum and Daniel Buren, Eindhoven, 1976, pp. 75-58. 24 Crimp, p. 77. 25 Crimp, p. 78. 26 Ibid. 27 Crimp, p. 78.

80 more by reading than by looking’.28 Presumably it is these types of misinterpretations of Buren’s practice that Gingeras is referring to when she claims that his work has forcibly been misconstrued. Hence, whilst Crimp’s discussion appears to support

Gingeras’ argument that the visual aspect of Buren’s practice has been overlooked by the majority of American critics in favour of aligning his work with Conceptual Art, it also indicates that this was not a unanimous position.

Gingeras’ further claim, that Buchloh has forcibly and myopically interpreted

Buren’s practice as singularly conceptual is also more complex than her discussion indicates. Whilst Buchloh has discussed Buren’s practice in relation to Conceptual Art in two essays, “Formalism and historicity–changing concepts in American and

European art since 1945” and “Conceptual Art 1962-1969: From the Aesthetic of

Administration to the Critique of Institutions” he clearly indicates in these two texts that the interpretation of Buren’s practice as purely conceptual is erroneous.29 In fact contrary to what Gingeras argues, Buchloh discusses Buren’s work as being in dialogue with painting stating that, from 1967 onward, Buren embarked ‘on a systematic analysis of painting’s constituent elements as a discourse’.30 He describes Buren’s practice as being a ‘strictly painterly analysis’ that ‘took off from a critical investigation of Minimalism’ and which, he argues succeeded ‘in displacing both the paradigms of painting and that of the ready-made’.31

However, although Buchloh acknowledges that Buren’s practice is linked to the development of painting, he chooses not to discuss the aesthetic significance of his

28 Roberta Smith cited in Crimp, p. 77. 29 Benjamin Buchloh, “Formalism and historicity–changing concepts in American and European Art since 1945”, Europe in the seventies: aspects of recent art, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 1977, pp. 83-111. Buchloh, “Conceptual Art 1962-1969: From the Aesthetic of Administration to the Critique of Institutions”, October, vol. 55, 1990, pp. 105-143. 30 Buchloh, “Conceptual Art”, p. 138. 31 Ibid.

81 work in any detail. He points out that it is difficult to discuss Buren’s work as painting because it does not fit into, what he calls, the ‘strictly visually oriented formalist criticism’ that prevailed at the time.32 Instead he focuses on Buren’s work in relation to painting as being ‘the decomposition of the painting from the stretcher’ and ‘the objectification of the painterly support’ that, he claims, ‘leads to its final elimination’.33

Although this last statement could be interpreted as being very negative and as relating to the proverbial death of painting, it can also be considered as indicating a new beginning. Buchloh’s statement can be understood to mean that by placing painting into dialogue with architecture and the urban environment via site-specificity, Buren created an alternative path for painting to develop into a spatial practice. These statements indicate that despite what Gingeras claims, Buchloh was aware that Buren’s practice was multifaceted, even whilst discussing him in the context of Conceptual Art and that he has not deliberately misaligned the interpretation of his work.

Finally and in addition to the issues outlined above, it is important to address the fact that Buren himself has made contradictory statements about his practice in relation to painting. This has, I believe, minimised the aesthetic discussion of his work.

Despite having described his own practice as a form of painting, Buren completely negated interpretation of his work as such. In a 1979 interview with Robin White for instance, when the interviewer asked the artist: ‘You call what you make, for the most part, painting, I believe’, Buren responded by saying: ‘No’.34 When White points out that he has referred to his work as painting in many of his own texts and that Rudi

Fuchs has discussed his work as a form of ‘meta-painting’, Buren stated that he thought

32 Buchloh, “Formalism and historicity”, p. 101. 33 Ibid. 34 Buren in White, p. 9.

Fuchs was wrong.35 In this same interview Buren also stated that: ‘To say my work is painting is a very easy way to escape from the problems my work poses’ and that

‘my work is not possible to classify, but you cannot, certainly say it’s painting’.36

Conversely in later interviews, such as the one with Eckhard Schneider in 2001,

Buren has also stated that: ‘Since the end of 1967, I have no longer regarded myself as a painter in the strict sense of the term. Needless to say, this doesn’t mean that I’ve stopped being a painter!’37

Fuchs, focuses on the spatial attributes of Buren’s work in relation to painting and architecture and argues that in his work ‘painting takes its shape (height, width, outline) from the place in which it is located’ and describes this as an event which requires the viewer to read and understand the work through a perception of the entire space.38 He situates Buren in the expanded field of painting, stating that Buren’s art

‘is more a positive expansion of painting than a negative, theoretical criticism of painting’.39 This, Fuchs argues, opens up a new field of visual and pictorial experience which functions as a viable alternative to conventional notions of the discipline.40

Why Buren contradicts Fuchs’ analysis of his work is unclear because this interpretation of his practice as a form of painting is in fact very positive. By reading

Buren’s work as expanded or spatialised painting, Fuchs broadens the interpretation of his art and thus creates an opportunity for discussion of its more visual elements.

Therefore it seems that by negating such interpretations of his practice in relation to

35 Buren in White, p. 9. Rudi Fuchs and Daniel Buren, Discordance / Cohérence, R.H. Fuchs et al. (eds), van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 1976, p. 7. 36 Buren in White, p. 9. 37 Buren, “Section 2 - Questions to Daniel Buren”, Daniel Buren: Les couleurs traversées, Walther Konig, Koln, 2001, p. 3. 38 Fuchs and Buren, p. 7. 39 Fuchs, p. 9. 40 Ibid.

83 painting, as illustrated above, Buren has himself impeded the discussion of his work in a broader context.

Peinture-Sculpture

In her essay “The Art of Daniel Buren: Painting as Architecture – Architecture as

Painting”, Anne Rorimer argues that Buren has been able to redefine previous concepts of painting and sculpture by merging the work of art with the site and that as an artist he offers us ‘new methods for redirecting visual experience away from habitual ways of thinking and seeing’.41 She comments on the physical and visual integration of Buren’s work into the site as being one of the most important aspects of his practice, positing it is this that enables him to liberate painting and sculpture from their historical confinement.

One such example is the work Peinture-Sculpture, 1971 (Fig. 32-47), which

Buren created in response to the interior architecture of the Guggenheim Museum when he was invited to participate in the Guggenheim International Exhibition. This exhibition was the sixth and last in a series of invitational exhibitions established in

1956 that showcased significant international achievements in contemporary art.

The curators, Edward F. Fry and Diane Waldman, selected twenty-one artists that were affiliated with either Minimalism, Post-Minimalism or Conceptual Art, all of whom were male and more than half of whom were American. These artists were: Robert

Ryman, Sol LeWitt, Dan Flavin, Michael Heizer, Donald Judd, Robert Morris, Carl

Andre, Joseph Kosuth, Walter de Maria, Richard Serra and Lawrence Weiner, Antonio

41 Anne Rorimer, “The art of Daniel Buren: painting as architecture - architecture as painting”, Art & Design, vol. 6, no. 3/4, 1990, pp. 8-9.

33. Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971. Image: http://catalogue.danielburen.com/.

34. Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971. Image: http://catalogue.danielburen.com/.

35. Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971. Image: http://catalogue.danielburen.com/.

36. Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971. Image: http://catalogue.danielburen.com/.

Dias, Hanne Darboven, Victor Burgin, Richard Long, Mario Mertz, On Kawara, Jiro

Takamatsu, Jan Dibbets and Daniel Buren. Although the exhibition had no official theme, Alexander Alberro in his article “The Turn of the Screw”, describes the curatorial intention as being the desire to connect with and emphasise the critical currency of Minimalism, an aim that was achieved by requesting that artists produce a site-specific work that used the context of display as the point of departure.42

Unlike the other artists in the exhibition, Buren’s proposal overtly addressed the curatorial directive to present work in response to the architectural space of the

Guggenheim building. His plan was to make two banners, one internal and one external that highlighted the way in which the design of the Guggenheim building undermined its function as an exhibition space. The internal banner measured 10 metres wide by

20 metres high and suspended from the central atrium, filled the building’s internal void, reaching down to the first level ramp. The second banner measured 1.5 metres wide by 20 metres high and was to be placed between the streetlights on Eighty Eighth

Street. Both banners were made from white and blue striped awning canvas, on both recto and verso, with the outer stripes of each edge painted white. The painted stripe emphasised the artist’s intention that the work be interpreted and read as a three- dimensional painting and not as a readymade.

Buren’s intention with this work was to challenge the overwhelming architectural features of the Guggenheim building and draw the viewer’s attention to the fact that the museum was not a neutral space. Buren wanted to make the point that the building was essentially a work of art in itself and that everything contained or displayed within it was secondary to its presence. The inside banner was designed to disrupt the usual flow of visitor movement in the architectural space, thereby drawing

42 Alexander Alberro, “The Turn of the Screw: Daniel Buren, Dan Flavin, and the Sixth Guggenheim International Exhibition”, October, vol. 80, 1997, p. 65.

89 attention to the fact that the internal ramps function as a never-ending spiral that create a continuous vortex of movement and theatricality. The street banner was designed to draw attention to the building’s presence as a sculptural element in the urban landscape by functioning as a form of signage and a continuation of Buren’s other works that addressed the street and urban landscape as their location, such as his Paris Metro works.

In discussing this work, Lelong contends that whilst the three-dimensionality of the work was self-evident and was easily perceived, it was its status as painting that contributed to its full meaning.43 That is, that in order for the work to be understood the viewer had to realise that it was first and foremost a painting.44 By placing the work in the central well of the building Buren created a work that was anchored within the architectural space itself and which interrupted or altered the way in which the building was normally viewed. In relation to this point, Lelong argues that Buren’s work revealed the inherently sculptural nature of the Guggenheim building and that ultimately it was so successful because it completely overturned the dominance of the architecture by becoming completely anchored in the space.45 This enabled Buren to overcome the difficulties the architecture usually presented for the exhibition of works of art.

Buren’s proposal was ambitious and was received with considerable apprehension by the exhibition’s curator, who was concerned that the work would visually dominate the exhibition.46 Lisa Dennison, who discusses this work in her article

“Twice Censored” notes that Buren was surprised that his proposal was even accepted

43 Lelong, p. 40. 44 Ibid. 45 Lelong, p. 39. 46 Lisa Dennison, “Twice Censored”, S. Cross (ed.), The Buren Times: The Eye of the Storm, p. 1B.

90 in the first place.47 Despite these reservations and early warning signs about the work’s potential to cause problems, Buren persevered with making the banners in Paris, with the help of his parents, and transported them to New York for installation. Once hung in the space the day before the exhibition opening, the internal banner functioned exactly as intended by intercepting the visual dynamics of the space and changing the visual flow of the building’s interior. However, the size of the work and its impact on the space caused discontent among some of the other artists in the exhibition.

The main criticism levelled at Buren was that his banner obscured and altered the way in which the work of other artists in the exhibition was viewed. This however was not strictly true. Although the banner was very large it did not directly affect the view of other artists’ work in the space. Because the visitor has to continuously move up and along the ramps to view work in this space the position of the banner in relation to the visitor’s body in the space constantly changed. This meant that whilst the usual view across the void to the opposite ramp was blocked at some points, primarily when one stood parallel to the banner (Figs 43-46), at other times, when one was standing perpendicular to the banner for instance, the view was unhindered (Fig. 39). In fact, one could argue that the works of other artists were hardly affected at all if one faced the walls of the museum as one was supposed to (Fig. 43).

It could also be said that Buren, rather than obscuring the work of other artists actually did everyone else a favour by pulling the visual focus back in and towards the walls and away from the building’s central void. By preventing the visitor from being able to look through the space towards the action taking place on the opposite ramp,

Buren re-directed attention towards the artworks alone and away from the architecture of the building itself. This should have made the other artists happy or at least

47 Ibid.

37. Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971. Image: http://catalogue.danielburen.com/.

38. Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971. Image: http://catalogue.danielburen.com/.

39. Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971. Image: http://catalogue.danielburen.com/.

40. Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971. Image: http://catalogue.danielburen.com/.

41. Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971. Image: http://catalogue.danielburen.com/.

42. Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971. Image: http://catalogue.danielburen.com/.

43. Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971. Image: http://catalogue.danielburen.com/.

44. Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971. Image: http://catalogue.danielburen.com/.

45. Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971. Image: http://catalogue.danielburen.com/.

100

46-47. Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: Peinture-Sculpture, 1971. Image: http://catalogue.danielburen.com/.

101 indifferent. Instead some of the artists in the exhibition were so offended by the placement of Buren’s work that they called for its removal.

The request to remove Buren’s work from the space was instigated by Donald

Judd and Dan Flavin, both of whom protested against the size of the banner, claiming that it visually interfered with the overall exhibition. Whilst Waldman and some of the artists agreed with Judd and Flavin’s call to remove the work, the majority of artists, sixteen in total, supported Buren. Andre, Long, Ryman, LeWitt, Nauman and Dibbets amongst others signed a petition against the removal of the work and interpreted

Waldman’s actions as a form of censorship (Fig. 48). Andre in fact, withdrew his work from the exhibition completely as a form of protest.48 In response to the furore the museum offered Buren a compromise. He could exhibit the exterior banner alone or could be given a one-week solo show of Peinture-Sculpture after the group exhibition.

Buren however declined both offers, claiming that the work was created specifically in the context of the Guggenheim International Exhibition and could not be divided.

He later stated that ‘the notoriety gained from the original censure was not as good as hanging the work in 1971 would have been’.49

The removal of the work from the exhibition prior to the public opening and the ensuing controversy has become a notorious incident, because it brought to the fore existing ideological and artistic tensions between the exhibiting artists. These issues have influenced the way that the work has been discussed and have overshadowed its analysis as an example of expanded painting. For instance, Buchloh, in his article

“Formalism and historicity–changing concepts in American and European art since

1945” focuses on the political significance of Peinture-Sculpture in relation to

Minimalism rather than on the material or physical attributes of the work in relation to

48 Alberro, p. 69. 49 Buren cited in Dennison, p. 1B-4.

102 the architectural space. Buchloh posits that Buren’s work was a form of one-upmanship that threatened the status of Minimalism as the dominant critical contemporary art practice in America. He contends that the objections raised by Judd and Flavin were based on intellectual concerns and that their request to remove Buren’s work was not due to its size or to the visual disruption it created.50 Rather it was because the simplicity of his work highlighted the self-contained nature of Minimalism revealing its failure to respond to the site in any significant way as requested in the curatorial directive.51

Buchloh notes that Buren’s work, due to its lack of technological finesse, dealt with the same formal concerns as the Minimalists more successfully and more efficiently.52 This, he argues, enabled Buren to achieve something that the Minimalists were unable to do. His work simultaneously functioned as a three-dimensional object, a painting and an architectural element. It visually manifested its presence as both a painting and a sculpture and could be easily and clearly understood by the viewer as such.

In addition to Buchloh, Alexander Alberro in his article “The Turn of the screw: Daniel Buren, Dan Flavin, and the Sixth Guggenheim International Exhibition”, also discusses the political significance of removing Buren’s work from the site.53

Alberro also argues that it was the intellectual superiority of Peinture-Sculpture and not its physical size that primarily upset Flavin, Judd and Heizer, attributing to the ousting of Buren’s work from the exhibition.54 He contends that Buren’s work was removed from the exhibition because it threatened the underlying agenda that informed the

50 Buchloh, “Formalism and historicity”, p. 102. 51 Ibid. 52 Ibid. 53 Alberro, pp. 57-84. 54 Alberro, p. 69.

103 exhibition, which was motivated by a much broader and more complex political situation. This was the promotion of American art and culture as being at the forefront of critical practice, driven by an underlying agenda of American Imperialism. This was demonstrated in the curatorial bias shown towards selecting American artists.55

Alberro argues that by hanging his work in the central void of the building

Buren, unlike the other artists in the show, tapped into the structural flow of the architecture and revealed the Minimalists’ work as being conceived for a contextually neutral setting that neglected to take the dynamics of the given architecture into account.56 Buren thereby upstaged the Minimalists, challenging the overall message of the show. This being, in Alberro’s opinion, that Minimalism was at the forefront of critical practice internationally and had played a pivotal role in the development of

Conceptual Art and other avant-garde trends during the late 1960s. In addition, Alberro also contends that it challenged the gravitas of Judd’s work as being hugely influential to a younger generation and questioned the curators underlying assertion that New York was the epicentre of the international art scene.57 The overt visual success of Buren’s work negated all of these propositions and pointed to a new direction in art, one that was not overtly related either to Minimalism or to the New York art scene.

I propose that in addition to the reasons outlined above the work may have also had an unsettling effect on an American audience because of its visual similarity to the

American flag. This aspect of the piece, that is, its symbolic value in relation to flags and to heraldry has not yet been discussed. The size of the banner, its positioning in the building and the vertical direction of the stripes all bear a striking similarity to the way

55 Alberro, p. 59. 56 Alberro, p. 72. 57 Alberro, p. 66.

104 that the American flag is used in public spaces in the United States, often adorning important significant streets and public buildings.

It is possible that Peinture-Sculpture resembled the stars and stripes far too much and was, either consciously or subconsciously, perceived as some kind of mockery or nationalistic affront. Buren, was after all, very aware of the power of flags as icons and symbols of nationalistic pride and demonstrated this when he installed the work Les Couleurs, Sculptures: Les Formes, Peintures, 1977 on top of Parisian rooftops which consisted of a number of flags, made from striped canvas being displayed on top of prominent or iconic buildings throughout the Paris metropolitan area. These flags were visible from windows and balconies around the city, sometimes physically replacing the French flag that would normally be displayed on top of these buildings.

It is reasonable therefore to argue that the symbolic power of Peinture-Sculpture within the Guggenheim Museum as a type of flag could have been considered an unacceptable form of commentary from someone who was not American.

Despite the controversy that surrounded the work and obscured its visual impact, Peinture-Sculpture is one of Buren’s most significant works and an early example of expanded painting. Peinture-Sculpture successfully functioned both as a form of institutional critique and as an art object that placed painting and architecture in direct dialogue with each other. As mentioned previously, Buren’s intention with this work was to highlight the dysfunctional nature of the Guggenheim museum as an exhibition space. One of the functions of the piece was to highlight the hierarchical relationship imposed on all artworks exhibited in the space by the physical structure of the Guggenheim.58

58 Lelong, p. 39.

105

Buren has described the Guggenheim building as being ‘the perfect example of architecture which although enveloping and welcoming, in fact excludes what is exhibited there’.59 By this he means that any work exhibited in the space in a conventional manner is in fact swallowed by the curves and spirals of the architecture.

The exhibited artworks become secondary features in the space and appear as flimsy objects because they are overpowered by the overall spatial qualities of the building.

This is extremely damaging to art Buren claims because it reveals the limits of individual artworks as autonomous objects and diminishes their critical value.60

The overwhelming architecture of the Guggenheim, rather than showcasing artworks in a neutral space, transforms them into a series of decorative baubles. Buren set out to challenge this situation by creating a work that physically intercepted the spatial dynamics of the building.

As its title implies, the intention behind Peinture-Sculpture was for the work to be interpreted and perceived as both a painting and a sculpture, oscillating between being a two-dimensional and a three-dimensional object, as well as commenting on, or drawing attention to, the space within which it was situated. Because of its inherent flatness, the material of which it was made and the application of white paint to the two outer stripes on both edges of the fabric, the work was read as a type of banner or hanging painting. Its existence in space, however, suspended as it was from the building’s atrium, resulted in it being perceived as a three-dimensional object.

In addition to this, the way in which it was viewed within the space, seen from the museum’s ramps, rendered it as an architectural element, altering the way the building itself was experienced.

59 Buren, Daniel Buren: Prospettive/Perspective: Lavori in situ/Works in situ, BSI Art Collection, Zurich 2005, p. 65. 60 Ibid.

106

48. Petition to keep Peinture-Sculpture in the exhibition. Image: http://catalogue.danielburen.com/.

107

Images of the work show that Peinture-Sculpture visually intercepted the space in multiple ways. For example, when the work was viewed from the lower ground level the banner loomed above the viewer obscuring the view of the gallery ramps, becoming a visual field that filled both the horizontal and vertical fields of vision. When the work was viewed from below its sheer magnitude in comparison to the architectural space became evident, revealing the visual tension that the work created when viewed against the spiral walkways. By physically intercepting the void, Buren transformed the building’s spiral ramps from being perceived as circular, and therefore continuous, to being seen as a set of bands or stripes in themselves (Fig. 47). Peinture-Sculpture transformed the architectural site by altering the viewer’s perception of the architecture directly.

Additional photographic documentation of the work shows that when the work was viewed from the upper levels nearest the skylight looking down toward the lower ground floor, the piece again filled the viewer’s horizontal and vertical fields of vision and accentuated the physical height of the void (Figs 37). By placing the work in the very centre of the space Buren transformed the building’s void from functioning as an empty space that accommodated uninterrupted views of the visitors’ movement along the ramps and made it into an exhibition space. In this way he successfully overturned the spatial dynamics of the museum. In addition to this, when the stripe was viewed from the galleries across the space, it completely altered the usual way that the building’s interior was seen. When viewed from the ramps the striped banner blocked the view across the central light well to the opposite side and created figure/ground tension against the architectural features of the building (Figs 45-46).

The reason that Peinture-Sculpture was so successful as an example of expanded painting was because it addressed the architectural space of a building so

108 directly. By creating a work that responded to the actual physical scale of the building

Buren achieved something that was very difficult. He created a painting that was equal in presence to its surroundings and that did not just function as a form of decoration or embellishment. Buren’s work differed significantly from that of Sol Le Witt’s for instance because it did not take on the expected or traditional form of painting, that is on the canvas or the wall, but instead engaged with the actual spatial experience of the building. The simplicity of the work, that is, its lack of complex technology and the ability for it to be read as sculpture/painting/architectural fragment make Peinture-

Sculpture a seminal example of spatialised painting.

109

49. Jessica Stockholder Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear, 2009, mixed media, Denver Art Museum. Photographer: Catherine Johnson.

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CHAPTER THREE

JESSICA STOCKHOLDER: PAINTING IN SPACE

I started as a painter and I never stopped painting. The work just kind of grew.

Jessica Stockholder1

Jessica Stockholder has received much attention since the early 1990s as an artist at the forefront of hybrid art, exploring the boundaries of painting, sculpture and installation.

Her practice has been situated within the expanded field of painting.2 I discuss

Stockholder’s work as expanded painting by considering how her work relates to painting and how she uses painterly devices such as the frame, figure/ground opposition and colour to create large-scale installations that function and are experienced as paintings one can walk into.

In the first section of the chapter I outline the basic aspects of Stockholder’s oeuvre and note the consistency with which she has referred to her work as a form of painting. In the second section of the chapter I discuss Stockholder’s use of the frame as a visual and physical construct that recalls Mondrian’s concept of ‘interior image’ – a theory that relates to his idea of ‘architecture-as-environment’ and the Neo-Plastic.

In the last section of the chapter I analyse Stockholder’s installations, including her

2009 work Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear (Fig. 49), exhibited at the Denver Art

Museum, by emphasising the painterly aspects of her work, such as her use of colour, composition and the classic binary opposition in painting: figure/ground.

1 Jessica Stockholder, “Interview: Jessica Stockholder and Marc Mayer”, M. Mayer et al. (eds), Cinema of Brushing Skin: Jessica Stockholder, Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto, 2000, p. 10. 2 David Ryan, “Jessica Stockholder in Conversation with David Ryan (2000)”, D. Ryan (ed.), Talking Painting: Dialogues with Twelve Contemporary Abstract Painters, Routledge, London & New York, 2002, p. 238. Anne Ring Petersen, “Painting Spaces”, A. Ring Petersen et al. (eds), Contemporary Painting in Context, Museum Tusculanum Press University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, 2010, p. 131.

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Stockholder’s practice

Stockholder uses a vast array of materials, including paint, fabric, furniture and other ready-made objects to create colourful, abstract works. She attributes the development of her work as installation to a practical reality rather than a deliberate critical choice and has been quick to point out that she ‘developed installation as a way of working’ because she ‘had no desire to keep objects, and had no place to store them’, stating that:

‘I had a small apartment’ and ‘couldn’t afford a studio’.3

Her practice is divided into four distinct categories: large-scale installations, assemblages and constructions, prints and collages, and drawings. I focus on her large-scale installations which include: Catcher’s Hollow, 1993, Witte de With,

Rotterdam (Fig. 50); Your Skin in This Weather Bourne Eye-Threads & Swollen

Perfume, 1995, Dia Center for the Arts, New York (Fig. 51); First Cousin Once

Removed or Cinema of Brushing Skin, 1999, Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery,

Toronto (Figs 52a-52b); On the Spending Money Tenderly, 2002, K20 Kunstsammlung

Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (Figs 53a-53b); Vortex in the Play of Theatre with

Real Passion, 2000 (Figs 54a-54b) and Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear, 2009, Denver

Art Museum (Figs 49, 63-71). Stockholder has also created installations in outdoor spaces, and more recently in parks and city intersections, such as My Father’s

Backyard, 1983, Vancouver (Fig. 55); Flooded Chambers Maid, 2009, Madison Square

Park, New York (Fig. 56) and Colour Jam, 2012, State and Adams Streets, The Loop,

Chicago (Figs 57a-57b).

3 Stockholder, “Jessica Stockholder”, J. Olch Richards, Inside the Studio: Two Decades of Talks with Artists in New York, Independent Curators International (Distributed Art Publishers), New York, 2004, p. 167.

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50. (Top) Jessica Stockholder, Catcher’s Hollow, 1993, mixed media, Witte de With, Rotterdam. Image: www.jessicastockholder.info 51. (Bottom) Jessica Stockholder, Your Skin in This Weather Bourne Eye-Threads & Swollen Perfume, 1995, mixed media, Dia Center for the Arts, New York. Image: www.jessicastockholder.info

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52a-52b. Jessica Stockholder, First Cousin Once Removed or Cinema of Brushing Skin, 1999, mixed media, Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto. Image: Jessica Stockholder – First Cousin Once Removed or Cinema of Brushing Skin Exhibition Catalogue.

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53a-53b. Jessica Stockholder, On the Spending Money Tenderly, 2002, mixed media, K20 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf. Image: www.jessicastockholder.info.

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54a-54b. Jessica Stockholder, Vortex in the Play of Theatre with Real Passion (for Kay Stockholder), 2000, mixed media, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Switzerland. Image: www.jessicastockholder.info.

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55. Jessica Stockholder, My Father’s Backyard, 1983, mixed media,Vancouver, Canada. Image: www.jessicastockholder.info.

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56. Jessica Stockholder, Flooded Chambers Maid, 2009, mixed media, Madison Square Park, New York. Image: www.jessicastockholder.info.

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57a-57b. Jessica Stockholder, Colour Jam, 2012, mixed media, The Loop, Chicago. Image: art21.org.

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Stockholder has, from the beginning of her career, frequently commented on the connection her work has to painting. She has stated that her work ‘isn’t sculpture or painting, but a combination of both, resting heavily on the conventions of painting’ and that she is ‘interested in picture making and the surface of things, and the wall and other kinds of surface as evocative space’.4 She has also noted that although her work ‘may be more related to sculpture than to painting, because it takes up space in the room’ it is conceptually closer to painting because it ‘relies on viewers having some sense in their head of what painting is’.5

This has prompted writers such as John Miller, David Ryan and Anne Ring

Petersen to discuss her work as expanded painting. Miller in his essay “Formalism and its other”, comments on her art making process as being one that applies the principles of painting in space – through the use of objects and paint as abstract elements – and describes her approach as using the architectural space of the gallery ‘as an expanded canvas’.6 Ryan comments on this aspect of her work overtly and refers to her installations as being ‘a kind of ‘expanded painting’, which he characterises as a form of pictorial illusion’ that is in dialogue with ‘real’ space’.7 Ring Petersen analyses her work as adopting ‘a specifically painterly approach’ that transforms ‘the articles for everyday use into independent forms’, as well as ‘using the spatiality of installation art to transfer, or rather translate, painting from plane to space and wrap the work around

4 Stockholder, “Color, stuff and moving through the world - inspire artist”, (interview with S. Gonzalez), YALE Bulletin & Calendar, vol. 36, no. 7, YALE University, 2007, http://www.yale.edu/opa/arc-ybc/v36.n7/story9.html, accessed 9/8/2010. 5 Stockholder cited in R. Rubinstein, “Shapes of Things to Come”, Art in America, November, 1995, pp. 98-105. 6 John Miller, “Formalism and Its Other”, J. Miller (ed.), Jessica Stockholder, Witte de With Centrum voor Hedendaagse Kunst, Rotterdam and University of Chicago Renaissance Society, Chicago, 1991, p. 38. 7 Ryan, p. 238.

120 the viewer as a three-dimensional environment’, creating ‘a total situation’.8

This approach Ring Petersen notes uses to installation as a technique rather than a critical position and creates a fictional space that recalls Michael Fried’s notion of theatricality.9

Stockholder has also frequently noted that her practice relates to numerous historical styles or movements and has discussed her practice as combining ‘a mesh of Kaprow, Tinguely and the Surrealists on the one hand, using chaos and chance – making systems out of happenings’ with ‘formal painting and with Minimalism’.10

In addition, she has also linked her work directly to modernism by stating that: ‘I think my work clearly comes from modernism and from that history and all those people’.11

This she claims is because modernism was a time when there was ‘a real optimism about the world’.12 These comments have prompted writers such as Miller, Barry

Schwabsky, Miwon Kwon and Lynne Cooke to highlight the diverse and sometimes seemingly incongruous art historical influences that are present in her work.

For instance, Miller focuses on the metonymic value of ready-made objects in Stockholder’s work situating her practice in a lineage of American assemblage that includes Robert Raushenberg and that references Cubism.13 Schwabsky, in his essay

“The Magic of Sobriety”, also relates her work to Cubism and Raushenberg and characterises her practice as being inclusive of multiple divergent developments in twentieth-century art.14 In addition, Schwabsky discusses the link her work has to

8 Ring Petersen, p. 131, 134. 9 Michael Fried cited by Ring Petersen, p. 131. 10 Stockholder, “Interview with Klaus Ottmann 1991”, K. Ottmann (ed.), Jessica Stockholder, Phaidon, London, 1995, p. 116. 11 Stockholder in Mayer, pp. 13. 12 Ibid. 13 Miller, pp. 37-38. 14 Barry Schwabsky, “The Magic of Sobriety”, B. Schwabsky et al. (eds), Jessica Stockholder – Contemporary Artists, Phaidon, London, 1995, p. 49-50.

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Minimalism and particularly to the rhetoric of Donald Judd arguing that ‘Stockholder’s work appears to fit comfortably into certain aspects of the paradigm established by

Judd thirty years ago’, because, despite being three-dimensional it relates more to painting than to sculpture.15 This he notes is because the two artists use materials in, what he describes as, a ‘direct and sometimes aggressive’ way – that is, ‘without illusionism’.16

Miwon Kwon, in her essay “Promiscuity of Space: Some Thoughts on Jessica

Stockholder's Scenographic Compositions”, also situates Stockholder’s practice as part of a broader trend in twentieth-century art, referring to her as being ‘an inheritor of the prominent tendency toward spatialisation in postwar art’.17 This aspect of her work, she argues, represents the successful convergence of what she identifies as being the ‘three key artistic innovations of the twentieth-century’ – collage, abstraction and the ready-made.18 Kwon posits that Stockholder’s unilaterally inclusive approach in

‘transforming diverse materials and visual languages into a coherent compositional whole’ questions what she sees as being ‘the inadequacies of various postwar art histories’.19

Kwon proposes that Stockholder’s work is so effective because as well as unifying abstraction, collage and the ready-made, her work also merges three distinct notions of space – fictive, abstract, and real or literal space – or what she terms ‘the space of lived experience’. 20 She contends that this results in her installations being positioned between the pictorial, two-dimensional flatness of painting and the scale,

15 Schwabsky, p. 50. 16 Ibid. 17 Miwon Kwon, “Promiscuity of Space: Some Thoughts on Jessica Stockholder's Scenographic Compositions”, Grey Room, no. 18, 2004, p. 54, 61. 18 Kwon, p. 61. 19 Kwon, p. 53-54. 20 Kwon, pp. 57-58

122 spatiality and three-dimensionality of architecture by embracing ‘painting and architecture equally’. 21 The consequence of this is that the viewer experiences her installations simultaneously as a picture, an object and an architectural construction.

In addition, Kwon discusses Stockholder’s work in relation to Installation Art, remarking that her ‘installations are antithetical to the formally reductive or deconstructive approaches to site-specific art’.22 This distinction is affirmed by

Stockholder herself, who notes that her work does not fall into the typical historical categories of Installation Art such as Institutional Critique. Unlike artists who engage in

Institutional Critique, Stockholder states that she embraces the site of the museum or gallery as the accepted and legitimate place for art, describing her practice as a form of

‘exploration’ that celebrates the exhibition space.23 Stockholder has also commented that she enjoys the sense of separation the gallery space affords her and refers to her work as being both: ‘exciting and optimistic’.24

Lynne Cooke, in her essay “Fabricating Sight/Site” also discusses these two aspects of Stockholder’s practice.25 Cooke observes that the ‘principal orientation’ of Stockholder’s practice is in contrast to much Installation Art because it is not deconstructive and instead describes her work as ‘beguilingly extravagant’ and as a ‘fantastical supplement’ that ‘counterpoints the exiting architecture in ways that transfigure as much as they reconfigure the site’.26 In addition, Cooke notes that

‘Stockholder very deliberately plays off the space and structure of the site’ by

21 Kwon, p. 59. 22 Kwon, p. 59. 23 Stockholder in Tillman, p. 13. 24 Stockholder, “Parallel Parking”, B. Schwabsky et al. (eds), Jessica Stockholder, Phaidon, London, 1995, p. 142. Stockholder in Mayer, p. 14. 25 Lynne Cooke, “Fabricating Sight/Site”, L. Cooke (ed.), Jessica Stockholder – Your Skin in This Weather Bourne Eye-Threads & Swollen Perfume, Dia Center for the Arts, New York, 1996, p. 23-35. 26 Cooke, p. 25.

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‘playfully’ referencing ‘the notion of an in situ installation while, in fact, operating according to a more autonomous and abstract formal logic’.27

Cooke also comments on Stockholder’s use of space by focusing on the way that Stockholder merges the artifice of art and painting with physical space, transforming the three-dimensional space of the gallery into a spatial painting by integrating the existing architectural site into her work. In addition, Cooke discusses

Stockholder’s use of the frame as a strategy, a conceptual and concrete device that enables the viewer to be separated from the work, whilst simultaneously maintaining a visual connection that affirms its artifice. The physical and visual frame is created both by the architectural features of the space – doorways, walls and windows, as well as by the structures that Stockholder creates within the space – ramps, screens and panels.

The conceptual frame is created by the governing conventions of the gallery space and by ‘the artifice, and the constructed nature of her own invention’.28 According to Cooke,

Stockholder’s ‘seemingly promiscuous miscellany arranges itself as if [in] a series of overlapping flat planes’ that lie ‘more or less parallel to an implied surface plane’.29

Mondrian’s concept of ‘interior image’ and Stockholder’s use of the frame

Mondrian’s concept of ‘interior image’ is outlined in his text “Natural Reality and

Abstract Reality: An essay in dialogue form”.30 In this passage, which is written as a Platonic style conversation between the characters X, Y and Z, Mondrian explores the connection between abstract art, visible reality and the evolution of the Neo-Plastic.

27 Cooke, pp. 23-24, 15. 28 Cooke, p. 29. 29 Ibid. 30 Piet Mondrian, “Natural Reality and Abstract Reality: An Essay in Dialogue Form”, M. Seuphor (ed.), H.N. Abrams, New York, 1956, p. 339.

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The idea of ‘interior image’ is discussed in Scene VII, when the characters Y and Z converse about the future fate of painting.31 In this scene, Y asks Z, the Neo-

Plastic painter who represents Mondrian: ‘Could easel painting really disappear in time?’ and Z replies that: ‘The abstract-realist picture will disappear as soon as we can transfer its plastic beauty to the space around us through the organization of the room into colour areas’.32 Z argues that this will become possible because the same plastic expression can be achieved in a room as on a canvas, and explains that like in a picture, all details of a room can also be seen in a single glance through our inner vision.

Mondrian, or Z, argues that when: ‘We survey the room with our eyes, and afterwards we form an inner image, which causes us to see the various planes as a single plane’.33

Mondrian’s idea of interior image is a concept that is founded on the hypothesis that when we, the viewer, survey a room with our eyes we simultaneously acknowledge multiple planar and perspectival relationships that we subsequently process as a single interior image. It addresses the physicality of actual, or three- dimensional space on a visual level by approaching a room as a painting. The idea of interior image relies on the viewers’ willingness to synthesise the space as a visual composite of two-dimensional images, a process that requires the viewer to look at the architectural space, or room, from certain positions or poses, creating a series of mental images. That is, to view the room through a frame, either actual or implied, and convert the various physical planes of architectural space into flat visual planes, as in painting.

This process, as Mondrian proposes, is achieved through the use of colour and composition, elements that are both aspects of painting.

31 Mondrian, pp. 339-341 32 Mondrian, p. 339. 33 Mondrian, p. 339.

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Yve-Alain Bois, who discusses Mondrian’s theories on painting and architecture in his essay “Mondrian and the Theory of Architecture”, notes that contrary to the prevailing interpretation of Mondrian’s theories as a decorative strategy, the concept of interior image was a well thought out response to the intellectual and ideological inconsistencies the painter had identified in his own argument as it related to the idea of ‘architecture-as-environment’ – a future category of art that merged, but was separate to, painting, sculpture and the decorative arts.34 In his text Bois argues that the concept of interior image enabled Mondrian to address the problems posed by the apparent incongruity between the planar nature of painting and the functionalist physicality of architecture, offering a solution to the somewhat fragile ideas that were explored in his theory of Neo-Plasticism and which were developed through his involvement with the De Stijl.35

Bois points out that for Mondrian painting was a surrogate activity that functioned as a necessary stand-in for the art of the future which Mondrian discusses in his essay “Neo-Plasticism: The General Principle of Plastic Equivalence”.36 In this text Mondrian contends that: ‘The New Plastic’ abolishes antagonism between the arts in order to create ‘the unity of all the arts’ and that: ‘The future of the New Plastic and its true realization in painting lies in chromoplastic in architecture’. This idea originates in the Trialogue and is achieved, Mondrian argues, through the use of composition and colour which when used in a three-dimensional environment create a series of painterly like planes, what he calls: ‘plane within plane’.37

34 Yve-Alain Bois, “Mondrian and the Theory of Architecture”, Assemblage, vol. 4, 1987, pp. 102-130. 35 Bois, p. 114, 120. 36 Mondrian, “Neo-Plasticism: The General Principle of Plastic Equivalence”, H. Holtzmann et al. (eds.), The New Art-the New Life: The Collected Writings of Piet Mondrian, Thames & Hudson, London, 1987, pp. 137-138 37 Mondrian, p. 137-138, 140.

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Although Mondrian’s arguments and theories on the chromoplastic,

‘architecture-as-environment’ and concept of interior image appear fragile, tenuous, or even unconvincing at times they are highly pertinent to any contemporary discussion on expanded painting. Despite being somewhat contradictory on the topic of medium specificity, these theories essentially anticipate painting’s expansion beyond the canvas and in doing so foretell the advent of painting as an installation practice. Mondrian’s core concept, that painting would, in the future, merge with other mediums including architecture, but would still remain a conceptual and analytic practice, essentially describes the expanded field of painting.

Despite the fact that Stockholder has never directly referred to Mondrian, preferring instead to align her work with artists such as Henri Matisse who share her penchant for strong colour, her work recalls Mondrian’s concept of interior image.

I argue that this is so because she uses the frame as a visual and physical construct and applies the elements of painting, specifically colour, composition and figure/ground opposition, to three-dimensional space. These two aspects of her work successfully merge architecture with sculpture and painting by creating a three-dimensional environment that is experienced and perceived as pictorial or painterly space.

Stockholder’s installations are constructed as a series of physical colour planes that create multiple spatial relationships, transforming the architectural space of the gallery into a three-dimensional painting by utilising Mondrian’s concept of ‘interior image’, or what Stockholder refers to as the ‘frame’. Her work is experienced as a series of views or perspectives that reveal themselves as the viewer moves through the space and which are interpreted by the viewer as a series of internal images. This merging of painterly space with real space is what Mondrian refers to as: ‘a plane image’.38

38 Mondrian cited in Bois, p. 121.

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Stockholder has drawn attention to the frame as a construct in her work in numerous texts. For example, in an interview with David Ryan she notes: ‘My work has always acted in relation to ideas of framing … The idea of the frame is an abstraction.

My work depends on that abstraction to cohere’.39 Similarly, in the text “Parallel

Parking”, she refers to the frame by remarking that: ‘Painting functions in my work as a pictorial entity laden with history which, among other things, is inextricably bound to the history of the frame’.40 In the text “Figure Ground Relations” she again refers to the presence of the frame in her work as a conceptual and physical construct by stating that:

The viewer’s place in the work changes as her/his perception moves between an

understanding of the building alternately as container, ground and object. The

viewer is at times a figure in the work and at times a consciousness quite separate

from the site of the action. In the process of moving back and forth between these

two positions, as experience of the work is combined with expectations of closure

and notions of framing, the work begins to appear complete and as a static

entity.41

The emphasis and significance that Stockholder has placed on the frame is also discussed by Miwon Kwon who comments that the artist uses notions of the frame in her installations in order to situate or inscribe ‘the viewer into different modalities of spatial perception’.42 Kwon argues that these states are experienced as both embodied moments that unfold ‘over time through the viewer’s movement through the work’ and

39 Stockholder in Ryan, p. 243. 40 Stockholder, “Parallel Parking”, pp. 140-143. 41 Stockholder, “Figure Ground Relations”, B. Schwabsky et al. (eds), p. 145. 42 Kwon, p. 59.

128 as a sequence of pictorial or visual images that ‘freezes the work into an instantaneous image, flattening out into a series of planes’.43

The painterly aspects of Stockholder’s practice

One of the most striking aspects of Jessica Stockholder’s work is the painterly relationships that are created in her large-scale installations. Stockholder has referred to these as being ‘formal’ – that is as relying on composition, colour and figure/ground opposition.44 She builds her constructed environments by using a large variety of materials including many ready-made objects such as furniture, plastics and carpet.

She also uses paint on walls and on, or across, objects to create large areas of abstracted colour that unify and flatten the architectural space of the gallery or site.

Stockholder has stressed that the objects she uses are material elements and that it doesn’t matter what she uses to build her installations – ‘it can be anything’ – and that meaning ‘is generated’ in her work ‘through the method of building and as a consequence of a knitting together of material elements’ that are ‘not precious’.45

The objects she uses are not specific, but are selected in an open-ended process to create a free-form narrative that can evoke a range of associations. However her work has been analysed in terms of the metonymic value of these objects, an interpretation that

Stockholder does not resist.

An early example of this approach, where meaning is dis-associated from the materials, and where the materials are used as abstract elements is the work My Father’s

43 Ibid. 44 Stockholder in Robert Nickas, “The State of Things, Questions to Three Object- Conscious Artists (Extract)”, B. Schwabsky et al. (eds), p. 111. 45 Stockholder in Nickas, p. 111.

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Backyard, 1983 (Fig. 55). In this instance Stockholder spray-painted a double or queen sized mattress with fluorescent paint and attached it to the outside wall of an old wooden garage. Attached to the roof of the garage is a cupboard door, painted a dark purpley-blue and some chicken wire. On the ground is a large rectangular shape, painted on the grass in cerulean blue. When Stockholder discusses this work, in an interview with Lynne Tillman, she refers to it as being a painting and analyses it in terms of its formal elements – colour, composition, figure/ground – stating that:

I found this mattress in the garage and painted it red as the complement to the

grass. The backyard is more or less rectangular, so it’s similar in shape to the

mattress and garage. The lawn is brought into a dialogue with the mattress, and

with the history of painting, because paintings are rectangular too. Here I’m

making a painting – only it’s also a back yard. The red of the mattress called to

the colour of the berries in the tree, heightening colour that’s already there.

I painted the grass with a hard-edged form, kind of rectangular so it has a formal

relationship to the door, and to the mattress.46

One of the primary visual features of Stockholder’s work is the way that she creates flat planes of colour in her installations. These bands of colour transform the architectural space of the gallery or outdoor location into a painterly space. The way in which this flattening occurs can be observed in a number of her installations including

Colour Jam, 2012 (Figs 57a-57b) and First cousin once removed or cinema of brushing skin, 1999 (Figs 52a-52b). In Colour Jam large areas of green, red and blue colour are

46 Stockholder and Lynne Tillman, “Lynne Tillman in conversation with Jessica Stockholder”, B. Schwabsky et al. (eds), pp. 24.

130 applied to the building and the streets, wrapping around the horizontal and vertical planes of the space. Here Stockholder creates a flattened planar image within the urban environment that results in the viewer seeing the intersection as a type of spatial painting.

Similarly in First cousin once removed or cinema of brushing skin,

Stockholder created a number of colour planes that altered the viewer’s three- dimensional perception of the architectural space. Here, for the first time, the work was installed both inside the gallery and outside the building.47 Inside the gallery space

Stockholder used a variety of objects and paint to create bands of colour that visually flattened and merged the horizontal and vertical planes of the architectural space into painterly planes. For example inside, the white gallery walls were painted with pink, orange and greenish paint. Outside, Stockholder applied paint to the side of a semi- trailer, a bench seat and the grass. The various shapes – a creamy ovoid shape painted on the side of the truck, a green rectangle, also painted on the side of the truck and extended onto a bench seat, a painted patch of grass that reads as the reflection of the green rectangle – all visually transform the exterior space into a painting and connect with the interior installation. The interior and exterior elements, visible both ways through the glass, create one continuous painterly image, visually recalling a Wassily

Kandinsky painting.

47 Stockholder in Mayer, p. 21.

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When Stockholder discussed aspects of this installation in an interview with

Marc Mayer, she pointed out that this work – and her work in general – is ‘organised by painting conventions in large part’, including colour and commented that:

I like the way colour seems to jump from what it’s on. For me, colour is kind

of abstract, and I like the way you can have a colour twenty feet behind a colour

in front and they jump to be right next to each other. For me, that’s like an

abstraction that denies the space and denies what it is, because it is a physical

event.48

She characterises her work as having ‘a kind of abstract conceptual order and also an emotional chaos’ that ‘grows from the tradition of painting’ and which she sees as a kind of ‘fantasy world’.49

Installing work over multiple spaces and extending into the foyer or sometimes the external areas of the gallery building is a compositional device Stockholder has used in several instances. For example, the installation On the Spending Money Tenderly,

2002, K20 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (Figs 53a-53b) also extended beyond the gallery space onto the pavement outside. In this work Stockholder again utilised the gallery’s glass frontage by opening the blinds and creating an external element that extended the work from the inside out and vice versa.

In this work the outside element was a pink rectangular or column-like structure that included an electric oven (Fig. 53a). The inside elements included a series of large, carpet pieces in turquoise, orange and yellow (Fig. 59); a dark blue marquee,

48 Stockholder in Mayer, pp. 11, 14-15. 49 Stockholder in Mayer, p. 14.

132 with various fruit in boxes (Figs 59, 61); a group of floor lights, painted a pale yellowy- green and peachy colour (Figs 59, 62); four couches that were partially covered with a rectangular patch of orange paint (Figs 58, 60); a large, wooden, geometric structure, partially covered and painted light blue and yellow (Fig. 59); two dark-blue geometric shapes, painted on the back wall of the gallery (Figs 59-60); a large blue and green piece of carpet that was draped around a scaffold (Fig. 60); and a floor element made from fluorescent lights (Fig. 58).

As with Stockholder’s other work, the different elements of this installation alternated between being figure and ground depending on how they were viewed. The scaffold structure at the back of the space, the sofas in the centre of the gallery that were partially painted with an orange rectangle and were placed on a large orange geometric form that covered the floor, the blue and white striped canvas marquee toward the front of the space, the containers of fruit, the cluster of lamps, all functioned as a segment of a whole, linked through the repetition of colour, shape and form. Here the shapes that

Stockholder built in the gallery visually flattened the architectural space. The colour is carried through the room both horizontally, across the floor, and vertically, towards the ceiling. The use of block colour is compositionally linked throughout and each component functions – and is read – as a pure abstract element. The way that these elements combine visually creates a painterly image.

Stockholder simplifies and reduces a plethora of objects into distinct abstract elements and in doing so, divests the objects of their primary metonymic value.

Allusions, to external factors or the surrounding environment however are not

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58. Jessica Stockholder, On the Spending Money Tenderly, 2002. Image: On the Spending Money Tenderly Exhibition Catalogue.

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59. Jessica Stockholder, On the Spending Money Tenderly, 2002. Image: On the Spending Money Tenderly Exhibition Catalogue.

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60. Jessica Stockholder, On the Spending Money Tenderly, 2002. Image: On the Spending Money Tenderly Exhibition Catalogue.

136

61. Jessica Stockholder, On the Spending Money Tenderly, 2002. Image: On the Spending Money Tenderly Exhibition Catalogue.

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62. Jessica Stockholder, On the Spending Money Tenderly, 2002. Image: On the Spending Money Tenderly Exhibition Catalogue.

138 completely absent. As Pia Müller-Tamm notes in her essay “Tender Economies”,

On the Spending Money Tenderly evoked the surrounding landscape, particularly the façade of the Kunstsammlung building and the layout of the civic square.50 These associations however are not the primary factor or interest in the work, but rather are created as a result of Stockholder’s interest in connecting with the place she exhibits in.

Barry Schwabsky in his essay “The Magic of Sobriety”, comments on

Stockholder’s extended links to everyday surroundings and to the urban environment.51

In this text Schwabsky discusses Stockholder’s installation Flower Dusted Prosies,

1992, The American Fine Arts Co., New York, and in the process considers the connection her work has to his local Bargain Land discount store in Brooklyn. He observes that one of the aspects of Stockholder’s work is its ability to make us reconsider beauty in the world and to relate her art to our common everyday experience.

Stockholder herself however neither encourages nor discourages these narrative links in her work and is happy for her work to be read in multiple ways. She has noted that when she makes installations, the place she works in is important but what she brings to the place is ‘equally important’.52 She has attributed this to her process, which is improvisational and highly flexible. For example, in an interview with

Marc Mayer she discusses the way that she approaches constructing her installations by remarking that she decides ‘beforehand what aspects of the space [she is] going to address’, what kind of movement she is going to create through the space, the structure of the work and the materials.53 However she notes that she responds to what she finds

50 Pia Müller-Tam, “Tender Economies”, Jessica Stockholder, K20 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Richter, Dusseldorf, 2002, p. 42. 51 Schwabsky, 'The Magic of Sobriety'. 70 52 Stockholder in Nickas, p. 114. 53 Stockholder in Mayer, p. 9.

139 available and that the things she uses are not as important as the way they come together.54

A further example of Stockholder’s use of colour in relation to architectural space is the work Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear, 2009. This installation was a two-part work exhibited at the Denver Art Museum. The first part of the installation was in the foyer and stairwell area (Fig. 63) and extended along an internal sloping wall that was adjacent to the main staircase. The work extended from the lower-ground level of the museum to the second floor and recalled Ellsworth Kelly’s Blue Green Red paintings from 1958-1965.

The background or primary form was a large orange quadrilateral painted directly on the wall. Inside this was a well-defined rhomboid shape, made with plastic blue tarpaulins that were bunched and secured onto the sloping wall. The tarpaulins were pulled away from the centre of the wall, revealing a pale green oval shape, which like the orange outer segment was also painted directly onto the surface of the building.

A yellow electrical cable was plugged into a socket in the middle of the wall and functioned as a literal line that led the visitor up the stairs to one of the main gallery spaces on the next level of the museum and to the second segment of Stockholder’s installation.

The second part of the installation was installed in one of the main gallery spaces on the second floor of the museum (Figs 49, 64a) and was constructed as a frontal composition that appeared almost pared back compared to some of her earlier, more immersive works. The installation was comprised of three main elements. The first was a large steel A-frame structure that extended from the entrance of the gallery into the main space (Fig. 65). It was three or four metres long and was divided into five

54 Stockholder in Mayer, p. 9.

140 segments that increased gradually in height. A large, rectangular covering, resembling a curtain or tent was draped over the third and fourth segments of the frame (Figs 64a,

66). Half of this covering was made from cream and white coloured garments and various household linens stitched together, while the other half was made from clear, semi-opaque and textured plastics (Figs 64b, 69).

The material qualities of this fabric and plastic drape were distinctly painterly in quality. The different garments that were stitched together created a rich textural and tonal surface that evoked the way that white paint might be applied to a canvas in a monochrome painting. The plastics used further accentuated the painterly quality of the work by creating transparency and opacity that recalled the use of glazes in painting.

For example, in Figure 70, one can see that the way Stockholder has constructed the work is in itself painterly. By using a very pale blue plastic over the transparent plastic and cutting it into an abstract shape, she creates a physicality in the work that resembles the way transparent layers of paint are applied to a canvas. Similarly, when we look at the way the work is stitched and glued together (Fig. 71) we observe that her methods of constructions parallel painting techniques. The way that Stockholder applies the glue between the plastic sheets and stitches the work together creates layers of opacity and transparency that results in the work being perceived as a form of painting.

The second element of Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear was a freestanding collection of objects in the centre of the installation that included a chandelier-like structure, made from different types of plastic containers in yellows, reds and purples that was suspended from the ceiling over a fake rock smeared with paint (Figs 66, 68a); an upholstered armchair, partially painted with a bright green rectangle on the left hand side (Figs 49); a stack of carpet squares and various other objects including a

141

63. Jessica Stockholder Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear, 2009, detail of work in foyer, paint, tarpaulins, electrical cable, Denver Art Museum. Photograph: Catherine Johnson and Francesca Mataraga.

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64a. Jessica Stockholder Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear, 2009, main installation, Denver Art Museum. Image: Denver Art Museum. 64b. Jessica Stockholder Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear, 2009, view of A-frame structure and carpet, Denver Art Museum. Photograph: Catherine Johnson and Francesca Mataraga.

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65. Jessica Stockholder Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear, 2009, view from rear, Denver Art Museum. Photograph: Catherine Johnson and Francesca Mataraga.

144

66. Jessica Stockholder Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear, 2009, view of hanging element and plastic/fabric, Denver Art Museum. Photograph: Catherine Johnson and Francesca Mataraga.

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67. Jessica Stockholder Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear, 2009, detail of hanging element, Denver Art Museum. Photograph: Catherine Johnson and Francesca Mataraga.

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68a. Jessica Stockholder Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear, 2009, detail of hanging element, Denver Art Museum. Photograph: Catherine Johnson and Francesca Mataraga. 68b. Jessica Stockholder Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear, 2009, detail of armchair element, Denver Art Museum. Photograph: Catherine Johnson and Francesca Mataraga.

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69. Jessica Stockholder Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear, 2009, detail of plastic/fabric, Denver Art Museum. Photograph: Catherine Johnson and Francesca Mataraga.

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70. Jessica Stockholder Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear, 2009, detail of plastic/fabric, Denver Art Museum. Photograph: Catherine Johnson and Francesca Mataraga.

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71. Jessica Stockholder Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear, 2009, detail, Denver Art Museum. Photograph: Catherine Johnson and Francesca Mataraga.

150 multi-coloured block of plastic bits, suspended in clear resin (Fig. 68b), a black velvet curtain, hung on a sloping steel rail (Fig. 64a), a piece of bright pink fabric on the right hand side of the rail (Fig. 64b), a digital photograph of a vase in an interior and a digital print over-painted with a mustard coloured square and rhomboid abstract shapes, mounted on Perspex (Fig. 64a). All of these objects evoked painting either directly or indirectly. For instance, the hanging structure again evoked the transparency and colour variation of paint (Fig. 67). The flat green paint on the armchair flattened the shape of the object, resulting in it being less identifiable as a functional item and transforming it into an abstract element.

The third element of the installation was a large piece of cadmium orange carpet illuminated by a circle of light (Figs 64a-64b). The carpet was the single, largest visual element in the installation and functioned as a solid block of colour that intercepted the gallery both visually and physically. The brightness of the colour demarcated the parameters of the installation and stopped the viewer’s gaze from extending beyond Stockholder’s work into the void of the space behind. The carpet itself prevented visitors from walking through the space. In conjunction with the A- frame shape, the carpet also visually isolated Stockholder’s work from other artists’ work in the adjoining space.

Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear, appeared almost pared back compared to some of her earlier, more immersive installations, such as Skin Toned Garden Mapping, 1991,

The Renaissance Society University of Chicago or Flower Dusted Prosies, 1992,

American Fine Arts Co., New York and Your Skin in this Weather Bourne Eye-Threads

& Swollen Perfume at Dia. Whereas in these installations Stockholder used large blocks of colour in the form of closed structures, screens and walls to create a series of

151 compressed spaces that concealed and revealed different views, in Denver she used a more simplified and frontal compositional approach.

Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear was in this respect similar to Vortex in the Play of Theatre with Real Passion (for Kay Stockholder), 2000, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen

(Figs 54a-54b), where Stockholder used simpler and fewer compositional elements.

In Vortex in the Play of Theatre a large pale pink circle on the left hand side of the gallery extended up the wall onto the decorative moulding toward the ceiling and was counterbalanced on the opposite side of the gallery by several shipping containers, stacked on top of each other, as well as by a red curtain that extended from the ceiling to the floor.

In this work, as with Wide Eyes Smeared Here Dear the viewer experienced the installation from two main angles. In doing so the frame from within which the installation was viewed was defined by the existing shape of the architectural space and thus appeared even more abstracted and therefore painterly. The viewer’s ability to see the bulk of the installation from only two main vantage points in these instances affirms the way that Stockholder’s work recalls Mondrian’s concept of interior image by creating a single, fixed or frozen image of the work. It addresses the physicality of space on a visual level and by approaching physical space as an expanded canvas Stockholder succeeds in transforming the architectural space of the gallery into a type of painting.

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CONCLUSION

… the studio is such an important place, which is that it’s a place where things

come together that you hadn’t anticipated or planned. It’s where you can bring in

a wide range of materials and see what happens when you throw them at each

other. And in a way it’s often the studio accident where the most important shifts

occur and work, things that you couldn’t or hadn’t imagined or anticipated,

happen, as it were, in your peripheral vision. And those are the things for me that

in a way generate the next step of work. David Batchelor1

This chapter discusses the studio work that was created during my Ph D and concludes the dissertation. In terms of Anne Ring Petersen’s typology of expanded painting which was discussed in the Introduction, my work involves two of the three categories: painting as object and painting as installation. These different approaches to expanded painting are brought together first and foremost through colour, which is typically used as a unifying compositional strategy. In addition, my practice explores the use of ready- mades as abstract compositional elements. To this end painting is combined with various ready-made items – such as light fixtures, light globes, glass jars, carpet squares, mats, mirrors, metal notice boards, inflatables, plastic stools, beds and bedside tables purchased from mass-market retailers such as IKEA – to create drawings, assemblages, constructions and installations. Works referred to in this chapter are depicted in the Appendix.

The studio work was developed around three main themes or concerns, all of which engage with and extend aspects of art making that combine abstraction,

1 David Batchelor, “GI symposium: Painting as a New Medium”, Art & Research: A Journal of ideas, context and methods, vol. 1, no. 1, (2006/07), http://www.artand research.org.uk/v1n1/batchelor.html, p. 6, accessed 15 February 2011.

153 assemblage, installation and the use of the ready-made. The first theme is what I call the abstraction of the ready-made, where every day objects are used as abstract compositional elements in drawings, sculptural works and installations. This aspect of my practice follows a tradition that combines painting with assemblage, construction and the ready-made and which includes a diverse range of artists such as Robert

Rauschenberg, Hélio Oiticica and David Batchelor.

The use of ready-mades in my work, however, is not a political action.

Although the readymade was viewed as a political gesture in twentieth-century art, as established by Marcel Duchamp, my approach is utilitarian. That is, ready-mades are used as components for art making due to their low cost and availability. The use of ready-made items purchased at IKEA does not express a desire to engage with the

IKEA brand or to comment on consumerism. The ready-made is used as a point of departure for art making.

The second theme is the use of architectural space as an expanded canvas where installation is used as a way of creating three-dimensional works that function and are experienced as spatial paintings. This aspect of my work relates to a tradition of artists who have extended painterly abstraction into architectural space and which includes Piet Mondrian, Erich Buchholz, El Lissitsky, Kurt Schwitters, Judy Pfaff,

Daniel Buren and Jessica Stockholder.

The third concern is the exploration of colour as a compositional element.

First, I use a limited colour palette as a way of unifying the various components and elements of the work, where colour becomes a tool for creating visual cohesion. The works can be considered as three-dimensional monochromes – where the monochrome is a genre of art making that relates specifically to painting. Then I use an extended

154 colour palette to create work that explores pattern and rhythm through of the use of the stripe as visual motif. colour-space-compositions

I refer to my works as colour-space-compositions. The phrase colour-space- composition is used to describe the way in which the work combines the painterly concepts of composition and the distribution of colour in space.3 It classifies the work as being either a two-dimensional or three-dimensional abstract composition that explores colour in relation to space. When the phrase is used in relation to drawings, it indicates that the work explores the use of colour through composition and the figure/ground opposition. When the phrase is applied to assemblages or constructions, it describes the way colour unifies the work compositionally and spatially. When used in reference to the installations, the phrase describes the way these works rely on colour as a unifying compositional element and how they function as three-dimensional paintings. fragment

The work was developed as three colour series: fragments from yellow, fragments from blue and green and fragments from pink and orange. Each one of these, as the names suggest, focuses on a particular colour or colour range. The term fragment is used to describe all of the works and paraphernalia produced in relation to each colour series, ephemeral or otherwise, and indicates that all of the items created are to be regarded as a relic of the investigation into a particular colour. That is, each piece is to be considered as an artefact of the process of exploration that relates to a specific colour.

3 Although this phrase was developed independently in relation to my own work, it can be traced back to the American painter Stuart Davis who originally used the term ‘colour-space composition’ in relation to his paintings. S Davis cited in Hollis Taggart Galleries, ‘Stuart Davis’, http://www.hollistaggart.com/artists/biography/stuart_davis/, accessed 5 April 2012.

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The term fragment is used to indicate that rather than the studio work being a series of isolated or discrete works, it is an ongoing enquiry. The very term, fragment, in and of itself, calls up the idea of a whole. The interplay between part and whole is integral to my practice. Furthermore, fragment alludes to the temporal or serial nature of the work. The works in each series are also intended to be read in relation to one another: they are all fragments of a larger, open-ended whole.

Painting as object

The first mode of expanded painting explored through the studio was painting as object.

Drawing, painting, assemblage and construction techniques were used to create various two-dimensional and three-dimensional works. Some of these works were autonomous, while others were fragments or elements of an installation. Most of the work created during the Ph D was made using assemblage, construction and installation techniques.

I combined various ready-made objects, many of which were purchased from mass- market retailers such as IKEA – including items such as light fixtures, light globes, glass jars, carpet squares, mats, mirrors, metal notice boards, inflatables, plastic stools, beds and bedside tables – with traditional art materials such as canvases, paint and framed digital prints. In some instances these objects were reconfigured into sculptural wall-works or floor-works; at other times individual works and various fragmentary elements were integrated into larger installations. Occasionally everyday objects were used to create drawings on paper.

This aspect of the studio work that focuses on the abstraction of the ready- made explores the potential for every day items to be converted into abstract forms, planes or objects. It seeks to transform utilitarian objects into art objects by using them as abstract elements; that is, as geometric shapes and colour. The purpose or aim of this

156 process is to re-assign the identity of the ready-made by changing the way the original item is perceived, thereby obscuring or subverting its primary function.

An example of this is the work bed sculpture (fragment from yellow), 2010

(Figs 96-97). This work was created as a freestanding sculpture and was based on the reconstruction of a single IKEA pine bed frame and a pine bedside table. The modular pieces from each flat-pack of furniture were used to create two L-shaped elements that were placed on the floor in a two metre square area. The taller element was constructed by assembling the single bed and by placing it in an upright position, where the bed- head functioned as the floor support. The smaller element was constructed by using the four components of the bedside table in an unconventional way, whereby the sides were used as the floor support and the top and bottom shelves stood upright. Various other elements were then added to the two wooden forms.

Vertically striped fabric in yellow and white was fitted inside the bed base, filling the space that would normally contain the slats and mattress. Fluorescent lighting, a hanging light fixture, and a reading light were then attached to the frame of the bed. Two circular wooden placemats, painted yellow, were placed underneath the two light-globes on the sides of the frame, accentuating the two areas of illumination that were created when the lights were turned on. Small wooden frames, filled with yellow paper, were attached to each side of the smaller structure. The fitted fabric, the yellow circles and the small wooden frames were all elements that alluded to painting and to painted forms in some way. For instance, the fabric inside the bed frame resembled canvas being stretched over a wooden painting stretcher. The small wooden frames were a reference to monochrome painting and the yellow circles were a representation of light as a circular shape.

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In this work the two pieces of furniture were transformed by altering their regular appearance through the addition of various objects and by placing them in an upright position, rather than their more conventional horizontal placement. This simple intervention resulted in the primary identity of the objects, as functional pieces of furniture, being altered and subverted, affecting the way the viewer perceived them.

That is, the viewer was not immediately able to identify the objects as a bed and bedside table but rather read them as abstract sculptural objects. This, in effect, successfully transformed the original identity of the object as a piece of furniture to an abstract art sculpture. This type of assemblage recalls both Stockholder’s sculptures and wall- works, as well as Rauschenberg’s Combines and Gluts, which both use every day objects as abstract components of an artwork.

Another example of this strategy is the freestanding work fragment from yellow

(wooden stool, glass vase), 2011 (Figs 100-101). In this piece various objects were used to create a three-dimensional colour-space-composition. These included a wooden stool from IKEA, a revolving wooden serving tray, a mirror, a yellow reading light, a yellow glass vase, a yellow feather boa and painted MDF placemats. All of these objects were assembled into a work that functions as an abstract spatial painting. The formal aspects of the work, such as the repetition of the circular forms, the chromatic unity and the use of the mirror to allude to implied physical space, successfully transformed the various individual components of the work from being identified as ready-made, functional objects to abstract objects. The use of ready-mades in this work and the focus on chromatic intensity recalls Oiticica’s Bolides series and revives his investigation into the exploration of colour.

In contrast to the three-dimensional examples referred to above, other works such as big yellow painting (fragment from yellow), 2010 (Fig. 90) were immediately

158 identifiable as painting. Made with un-stretched, yellow hessian, big yellow painting was originally used as an installation fragment for the exhibitions Abstrakt Painting,

2009 (Figs 75-77) and fragments from yellow (Kudos), 2010 (Figs 87, 89). The title is a playful reference to abstraction and to painting in general, representing the continued desire to make paintings.

Painting as an installation practice

The second mode of expanded painting explored through the studio work was painting as an installation practice. This aspect was developed in two ways. Firstly, installation was used as a method for displaying and gathering together a group of related works.

Secondly, installation became a way of creating a three-dimensional or spatial painting inside a specific gallery space. I discuss the application of these two modes or methods of expanded painting below. The first approach, where installation was used as a method for displaying and exhibiting work, was a strategy I employed in the first three works: Abstrakt Painting (Figs 75-78), fragments from yellow (Kudos), 2010

(Figs 87-89) and fragments from yellow (Level 17), 2010 (Figs 92-94).

The first of these installations, Abstrakt Painting, included a number of different works from the colour series fragments from yellow and fragments from blue and green that were assemblages, constructions or wall works and which were exhibited in close proximity to each other on the gallery walls and floor so that the space appeared overcrowded, creating a sense of visual immersion. The exhibition contained both autonomous works and ephemeral elements that were conceived of and created as either spatial paintings or as components of a three-dimensional painting. It was during this exhibition that I started referring to works as fragments and as being in an adaptive mode or state of flux, whereby each item could be adapted, reconfigured and re-used in subsequent exhibitions or installations. The primary outcome of this show was the

159 realisation that a singular colour or a limited colour palette could be used to create a chromatically intense environment in the gallery space. This led to an investigation of the colour yellow as pigment, surface and light. The exploration of colour was developed and extended in the two subsequent installations.

Fragments from yellow (Kudos) and fragments from yellow (Level 17) both explored the tonal, chromatic and spatial qualities of the colour yellow by combining different objects, surfaces and pigments closest in hue to Cadmium Yellow Light,

Primary Yellow or Process Yellow. The use of yellow as surface and pigment – on walls and objects – created a consistent chromatic luminosity in the space that successfully unified all the different elements, transforming the installation into a site of colour exploration. Yellow, which has been described by artists such as Johan Ittens as the most luminous of colours and as ‘light-giving’, proved to be a very gratifying colour to work with because it activated the gallery space by being chromatically intense.4 This quality of yellow has been discussed by the art historian John Gage as being historically well known to artists, such as Jan Vermeer (1632–75) and Henri

Matisse (1869–1954), as well as theoreticians and scientists, such as the German poet

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and the Scottish scientist James Clerk Maxwell.5

In these two installations colour surrounded the viewer both visually and physically. This resulted in the work being unified into a single installation that could be described as a colour-site. The first installation, fragments from yellow (Kudos)

(Figs 87-89) achieved this by placing various autonomous works in a confined space and in close proximity to one another, so that colour became the dominant feature of the work. These individual pieces were then unified within the architectural space of the

4 Johan Itten cited in J. Itten and F. Birren, The elements of color: a treatise on the color system of Johannes Itten (based on The art of color), Nostrand Reinhold Co., New York, 1970, p. 84. 5 John Gage, Color in Art, World of art, Thames and Hudson, London, 2006, p. 28-29.

160 gallery by painting a geometric shape on the back wall. By adding the element of wall painting the installation appeared more cohesive.

The second installation fragments from yellow (Level 17) (Figs 92-94), which

I consider the more successful of the two, concentrated on developing and accentuating this sense of cohesion by using wall painting in a more overt way. Here, yellow paint was applied to the walls of the gallery, wrapping the colour around the inside corner of the space as a way of demarcating the installation site. The yellow segments of wall- paint formed a somewhat amorphous colour field in the space that visually unified the architectural features of the site, such as the walls and window, with the sculptural elements used – a fabric cube, two hanging light elements and two striped canvas stretchers that leaned against the painted walls on either end of the space. This resulted in the work being perceived as a singular installation that explored colour, rather than a collection of similarly coloured objects in a space.

Some of the visual and installation techniques used in this installation were later repeated in the work minimalismo, fragments from pink and orange (installation for Tin Sheds), 2011 (Figs 105-108). For minimalismo, which explored the colours pink and orange, three different colours of fluorescent scenic wall paint were used in order to create a colour site that was chromatically intense. The high chromatic value of these pigments was then amplified by the use of fluorescent lighting. As with the previous installation, the segments of painted colour on the wall unified the space and the elements within it, creating a site where colour was experienced in both a visual and physical way. The second approach to creating a painting one could walk into, was to use installation as a technique for creating a three-dimensional or spatial painting in response to a specific gallery space, where colour and objects were used to unify the architectural space of the gallery space into a singular work. I used this strategy in the

161 installation fragments from blue, green and white (installation for Factory 49), 2010

(Figs 102-104).

In this work, bright green paint was painted on the two longest walls of the exhibition space in order to unify the main elements of the installation by creating a solid chromatic field. Three blue tarpaulins, joined together to create an oblong, were suspended above the space connecting the corner walls of the gallery with the diagonal wall on the opposite side. This large blue shape functioned as a geometric form that visually punctuated the green painted segments of the space. Suspending the blue tarpaulins was a deliberate visual strategy used to unify the gallery space into a single artwork, an aim that was difficult to achieve because of the particular spatial dynamics of the site.

Closest to the entrance of the warehouse and on the left-hand side of the installation there was a collection of fluorescent lights that formed two sculptural elements. The first was a rectangular shape made by placing six fluorescent tubes vertically on the wall and parallel to each other. This shape was placed just outside the green paint, with one tube overlapping onto the painted area of the wall. The placement deliberately extended the light sculpture onto the white wall of the gallery and emphasised the inclusion of the existing architectural space into the work itself; that is, it emphasised the white wall as the ground. The geometric configuration of this light sculpture obliquely and deliberately referenced Dan Flavin and Minimalism, as well as creating a visual link with other elements of the installation. This reference was extended through the use of a single fluorescent tube in the corner of the space, under the tarpaulin. The single tube was only seen when the viewer walked through the space.

The striped pattern created by the vertical fluorescent tubes was visually repeated in the digital prints, mounted in an asymmetrical configuration on the far right-hand side of

162 the back wall. These prints, which were designed specifically as fragments of this particular exhibition linked the colours used in the space.

The second sculptural element was a collection of eleven fluorescent globes of varying shapes and sizes, that were suspended inside an equal number of glass pickling jars, and which were mounted on a white shelf at knee height along the wall. This element had a more organic or irregular feel to it, evoking biological or scientific associations and creating contrast with the other light work.

The installation fragments from blue, green and white (installation for Factory

49), as well as fitting into Ring Petersen’s typology of expanded painting as installation, recalls earlier examples of this type of work such as Erich Buchholz’s Room

6 Herkulesufer 15, 1922 and El Lizzitsky’s Proun Room, 1923. Buchholz’s and

Lizzitsky’s installations are two of the earliest examples of painting as installation that, like my work, combine relief and sculptural elements with wall-painting in order to create an artwork that is experienced by the viewer as a three-dimensional painting.

Colour

One particular aspect of the studio work and of my practice that has not been discussed in much detail in this dissertation is colour. My interest in colour, which was developed during the Ph D, presents itself as a whole other area of enquiry that extends beyond the parameters of this dissertation. While colour is a feature in the work of all three artists discussed in this thesis and in my own practice, it is a broad area of focus that could yield rewarding results as a future research project and which I started exploring in the work elisabet (Figs 112-116) during a six month Artist’s Residency at Queen St

Studios/Frasers.

6 Andrew McNamara, “Erich Buchholz: The Inconvenient Footnote within Art History”, Art & Australia, vol. 39, no. 32, December 2001/February 2002, pp. 257-263.

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The use of the stripe as a visual motif was further explored in the final exhibition and Ph D examination (Figs 117-119). The work presented for the examination specifically tested the optical qualities of colour and the stripe motif.

Inspired by and based on an IKEA fabric called Elisabet the installation was also called elisabet (fragments from pink and orange – installation for COFAspace). Here, the

IKEA fabric was used as the basis of the work. The striped pattern was enlarged and extended by painting strips of coloured plywood in replica tones. These boards were then placed against the gallery walls. The result of enlarging and augmenting the pattern was that the effect of the coloured stripes was amplified. While the original pattern was not visually dynamic, when transferred to a larger scale the colour interaction became much more overt. For example, the interplay between the orange and green stripes, the blue and yellow stripes and the dark brown and red stripes was far more intense. This was partly due to the use of pigments that had a higher chromatic intensity and partly due to the increase in scale. In addition, these colour interactions can be attributed to the relationship opposing hues have on the colour wheel. The striped fabric was also used to create a series of sculptural or freestanding elements. The fabric was stretched over traditional canvas stretchers that were placed on the floor in a diagonal pattern. These elements created a counter balance to the large plywood boards and extended the work toward all four walls of the gallery space thereby using the architectural space of the gallery as an extended canvas.

Colour, as an area of interest and investigation in art, has lost much of its significance or currency since the 1960s and has only recently re-emerged as of critical interest in contemporary art. Recently writers, such as John Gage, David Batchelor,

Briony Fer and Ann Temkin, have discussed what appears to be a re-emerging interest in colour. The exhibition Colour Chart: Reinventing Colour, 1950 to Today, at the

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Museum of Modern Art New York and the TATE Liverpool in 2008, for example, focused on the use of colour itself as a readymade in post World War II art, when colour was divested of its modernist association with the quasi-scientific, quasi-psychological and quasi-spiritual. The exhibition included work by artists such as Jasper Johns, Andy

Warhol, Frank Stella, Daniel Buren, Angela Bulloch, Donald Judd, Ellsworth Kelly,

Sol LeWitt, John Baldessari, Katharina Fritsch, David Batchelor and Jim Lambie and revived an interest in, and discussion of, colour as a significant topic in art making since 1960.

The exhibition explored what the curator Ann Temkin calls the two aspects of colour in use since World War II: firstly, colour as store bought or ready-made and secondly, colour as divorced from the artist’s taste or as a kind of system.7 This interest in colour as a type of ready-made Temkin notes, is a contemporary position, which has put aside theories of relational, colour harmonies that focus on the symbolic or expressive qualities of particular colours.8 The catalogue essay “Colour Shift”, written by Temkin discusses the focus of the exhibition as being artists’ use of the commercial colour chart, a tool that she used as:

. . a lens through which to examine a radical transformation in Western art that

took place midway through the twentieth century, when long-held convictions

regarding the spiritual aspects and scientific properties of particular colours gave

way to a widespread attitude that took for granted the fact of colour as a

commercial product.9

7 Ann Temkin, “Colour Shift”, A.Temkin (ed.), Colour Chart: Reinventing Colour, 1950 to Today, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2008, p. 16. 8 Temkin, p. 16. 9 Temkin, p. 16.

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The use of colour as ready-made reflects my own practice, and Jessica Stockholder’s, whose work could have been included in this exhibition.

Temkin’s argument, that colour has been radically re-thought since 1945, is also a perspective shared by Mari Carmen Ramirez. In her essay “The Embodiment of

Colour –‘From the Inside Out”, Ramirez, argues that colour has rarely been discussed in relation to Minimalism for instance. She considers how colour might enable: ‘a single objective – that is, overcoming the physical limits of painting so as to allow the concrete, material essence of colour to speak on its own terms’.10 Ramirez quotes Judd as saying: ‘It’s best to consider everything as colour’ and posits that it was colour that led to the expansion of painting, through the abolition of the plane and through the creation of immaterial or material chromatic experiences that are expressed through light, motion and process.11

The suspicion with which colour has been considered since the 1960s is a subject that has been discussed by both Briony Fer and David Batchelor.12 Fer, in her essay “Colour Manual”, observes that colour has mostly been renounced from art since

Conceptualism and has been regarded as somewhat suspect or has been ignored, despite its presence in many artists’ work.13 She traces the shift of colour as a focus in art to different generational approaches and a shift away from modernism, arguing that artists, such as Rauschenberg and Gerhard Richter, were reacting against the teachings of Josef

Albers and his approach to colour, rejecting colour as a quasi-scientific system.14

10 Mari Carmen Ramirez, “The Embodiment of Colour –‘From the Inside Out”, C. Ramirez and L. Figueiredo (eds), Hélio Oiticica: The Body of Colour, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in association with Tate Publishing, London, 2007, p. 29. 11 Ramirez and Ramirez citing Judd, p. 30. 12 Briony Fer, “Colour Manual”, A. Temkin (ed.), pp. 28-38 David Batchelor, Chromophobia, Reaktion, London, 2000. 13 Fer, p. 30. 14 Fer, p. 33.

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Batchelor, in his book Chromophobia, argues ‘that colour has been the object of extreme prejudice in Western culture’ and posits that whilst colour is an aspect of art that we all enjoy, it has been devalued and diminished in significance as being:

In the first… the property of some ‘foreign’ body – usually the feminine, the

oriental, the primitive, the infantile, the vulgar, the queer or the pathological.

In the second… relegated to the realm of the superficial, the supplementary,

the inessential or the cosmetic. In one, colour is regarded as alien and therefore

dangerous; in the other, it is perceived merely as a secondary quality of

experience, and thus unworthy of serious consideration.15

This perception of colour as the ‘other’, less significant aspect of art making, is one of the reasons it has been difficult, for artists to emphasise this aspect of their practice as the primary concern. Colour in itself, particularly after modernism, is not, it would seem, considered to be a worthy topic in art making.

However, the use of colour in twentieth-century art, particularly as it relates to painting, has yielded many moments that have the potential for further exploration. For example, Oiticica’s concept of colour as ‘purely transcendental’ or enlivened, is an idea that could be revived and investigated more through art practice.16 The idea of colour as having an organic quality – or what Albers has described as ‘a direct and frontal focus’ that could be ‘closely felt as a breathing and pulsating from within’ – is an aspect of colour that is separate to colour as ready-made and colour as a pseudo-science.17 Instead it responds to Roland Barthes’ idea of colour as a ‘kind of bliss’, that is ‘freed both of

15 Batchelor, p. 22. 16 Hélio Oiticica, Doc. No. 0004, pp.1-4, M. C. Ramirez and L. Figueiredo (eds), p. 220. 17 Joseph Albers, J. Albers and T. G. Rosenthal, Formulation: Articulation, Thames & Hudson, London, 2006, p. 23.

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Law (no Imitation, no Analogy) and Nature’, where colour is ‘an idea (a sensual idea)’ that does not have to ‘be subject to rhetorical modes of existence’.18

This thesis, in the written component and the studio practice, has touched on the topic of colour. A topic that we need to remember is addressed first and foremost in painting classes. The focus of the thesis, however, is expanded painting, an emerging field of contemporary practice that enables us to consider the legacy of modernist painting as well as the more recent developments such as installation. My thesis has shown how my practice, as well as the work of the three artists I analyse, represents a continuation of painterly concerns through other means. In this way, painting is able to occupy an expanded field and to contribute ideas about the development of contemporary installation practice. Colour, along with composition, is an area that painting can contribute to the discourse and practice of installation.

18 Roland Barthes cited in D. Batchelor, Colour, The MIT Press, Cambridge, 2008, p. 164.

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APPENDIX

DOCUMENTATION OF STUDIO WORK

The work documented in this Appendix was created during the Ph D and was exhibited between 2009-2012.

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Wall Work Factory 49, Marrickville, April 2009

72. Francesca Mataraga, Preparation Drawing (Factory 49 Wall Work), 2009, pencil, gouache and watercolour and photocopy on paper, 21 cm x 29.7 cm.

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Abstrakt Painting Factory 49, Marrickville, 8-28 November 2009

73. Francesca Mataraga, Preparation Drawing (Abstrakt Painting), 2009, digital drawing, 60 cm x 29.7 cm.

74. (Next page) Francesca Mataraga, Preparation Drawing (Abstrakt Painting), 2009, digital drawing, 60 cm x 29.7 cm.

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75. Francesca Mataraga, Abstrakt Painting, partial view, 2009, wall paint, oil and acrylic on wood and masonite, metal, mirror, Perspex mirror, fabric glass, approximately 7.35 m x 5.9 m x 3 m. Photographer: Pam Aitken.

76. Francesca Mataraga, Abstrakt Painting, partial view, 2009. Photographer: Pam Aitken.

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77. Francesca Mataraga, Abstrakt Painting, partial view, 2009. Photographer: Pam Aitken.

78. Francesca Mataraga, Abstrakt Painting, partial view, 2009. Photographer: Pam Aitken.

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79. Francesca Mataraga, Abstrakt Painting, fragments from blue and green, 2009, detail. Photographer: Pam Aitken.

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80. Francesca Mataraga, Abstrakt Painting, fragments from blue and green, 2009, detail. Photographer: Pam Aitken.

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81. Francesca Mataraga, Abstrakt Painting, fragments from blue and green, 2009, detail. Photographer: Pam Aitken.

177

82. Francesca Mataraga, Abstrakt Painting, fragments from blue and green, 2009, detail. Photographer: Pam Aitken.

178

83. Francesca Mataraga, Here Comes the Sun/Jaws (fragments from yellow), 2009, side view, plastic IKEA stools, lights, acrylic on MDF, paper, metal, plastic, approximately 2.4 m x 3 m x 60 cm. Photographer: Pam Aitken.

179

84. Francesca Mataraga, Here Comes the Sun/Jaws (fragments from yellow), 2009, side view. Photographer: Pam Aitken.

180

85. Francesca Mataraga, Here Comes the Sun (fragment from yellow), 2009, detail, plastic, paper lantern. Photographer: Pam Aitken.

181

86. Francesca Mataraga, Here Comes the Sun (fragments from yellow), 2009, detail, plastic, acrylic on MDF. Photographer: Pam Aitken.

182

fragments from yellow (Kudos) Kudos Gallery, COFA, 2-13 March 2010

87. Francesca Mataraga, fragments from yellow (Kudos), 2010, installation view, metal notice boards, fabric, canvas stretchers electric lights, mirror, wall paint, linoleum, approximately 7 m x 6 m x 4 m. Photographer: Sue Blackburn.

183

88. Francesca Mataraga, fragments from yellow (Kudos), 2010, partial view. Photographer: Sue Blackburn.

184

89. Francesca Mataraga fragments from yellow (Kudos), 2010, partial view. Photographer: Sue Blackburn.

185

90. Francesca Mataraga, big yellow painting (fragment from yellow), 2010, acrylic on hessian, 120 cm x 200 cm. Photographer: Sue Blackburn.

186

91. Francesca Mataraga, Preparation Drawing (Kudos), 2010, pencil and digital drawing on paper, 25 cm x 21cm.

187

fragments from yellow (Level 17) Level 17 Artspace, Victoria University, 20 April – 7 May 2010

92. Francesca Mataraga, fragments from yellow (Level 17), 2010, main view, acrylic wall paint, fluorescent light globes, electrical cables, LED rope lighting, bathmat, feather boas, fabric, wooden canvas stretchers, 7 m x 5 m x 4 m. Photographer: Matthew Stanton.

188

93. Francesca Mataraga, fragments from yellow (Level 17), 2010, detail. Photographer: Matthew Stanton.

189

94. Francesca Mataraga, fragments from yellow (Level 17), 2010, detail. Photographer: Matthew Stanton.

190

95. Francesca Mataraga, fragments from yellow (Level 17), 2010, detail. Photographer: Matthew Stanton.

191

Art Month 2010 Carriageworks, Redfern, 1–31 March 2010

96. Francesca Mataraga, bed sculpture (fragment from yellow), 2010, front view, wood, fabric, metal, electric lights, paper, acrylic on MDF, approximately 1.5 m x 2 m x 2m. Photographer: Johan Palsson.

192

97. Francesca Mataraga, bed sculpture (fragment from yellow), 2010, side view. Photographer: Johan Palsson.

193

INDEX #01, INDEX, St Peters, November 2010

98. Francesca Mataraga, fragment from yellow (wall work with feathers), 2010, wood, feathers, mirror, felt, MDF, glass, Perspex, electric lights, approximately120 cm x 200 cm x 30cm. Photographer: Alex Wisser.

194

Studio work

99. Francesca Mataraga, fragment from yellow (plastic stool, glass vase), 2011, feathers, glass, mirror, wood, plastic, electric light, acrylic on MDF, 50 cm x 60 cm x 80 cm. Photographer: Francesca Mataraga.

195

100. Francesca Mataraga, fragment from yellow (wooden stool, glass vase), 2011, top view, feathers, glass, mirror, wood, plastic, electric light, acrylic on MDF, 50 cm x 60 cm x 80 cm. Photographer: Francesca Mataraga.

196

101. Francesca Mataraga, Francesca Mataraga, fragment from yellow (wooden stool, glass vase), 2011, multiple views. Photographer: Francesca Mataraga.

197

fragments from blue, green and white (installation for Factory 49) Factory 49, Marrickville, 17 – 27 November, 2010

102. (Next page) Francesca Mataraga, fragments from blue, green and white (installation for Factory 49), 2010, main view, wall paint, tarpaulins, MDF shelf, digital prints on paper, frames, fluorescent lights, glass, 7 m x 8 m x 3m. Photographer: Johan Palsson.

199

103. Francesca Mataraga, fragments from blue, green and white, 2010, partial view. Photographer: Francesca Mataraga.

200

104. Francesca Mataraga, fragments from blue, green and white, 2010, partial view. Photographer: Francesca Mataraga.

201

minimalismo, fragments from pink and orange (installation for Tin Sheds) Tin Sheds Gallery, University of Sydney, 17 March – 2 April 2011

105. Francesca Mataraga, minimalismo, fragments from pink and orange (installation for Tin Sheds), 2011, main view, wall paint, fabric, plastic, wood, fluorescent lights, glass, approximately 5 m x 7 m x 3m. Photographer: Johan Palsson.

202

106. Francesca Mataraga, minimalismo, fragments from pink and orange (installation for Tin Sheds), 2011, detail. Photographer: Catherine Johnson and Francesca Mataraga.

203

107. Francesca Mataraga, minimalismo, fragments from pink and orange (installation for Tin Sheds), 2011, detail. Photographer: Catherine Johnson and Francesca Mataraga.

204

108. Francesca Mataraga, minimalismo, fragment from pink and orange (Avago), 2011, wall paint, fabric, wood, fluorescent light, approximately 2.4 m x 3.5 m x 40 cm. Photographer: Johan Palsson.

205

109. Francesca Mataraga, Preparation Drawing (minimalismo), 2011, pencil and photocopy on paper, 21 cm x 29.7 cm.

206

110. Francesca Mataraga, Preparation Drawing (Avago), 2011, pencil and photocopy on paper, 29.7 cm x 21 cm.

207

111. Francesca Mataraga, Preparation Drawing (Avago), 2011, pencil and photocopy on paper, 29.7 cm x 21 cm.

208

‘elisabet’, site specific painting at Queen St Studios/Frasers Artist Residency January – July 2012

112. Francesca Mataraga, elisabet (Queen Street Studios/Frasers), 2012, acrylic house paint, existing architecture, approximately 8 m x 9 m x 2.5 m. Photographer: Francesca Mataraga.

209

113. Francesca Mataraga, elisabet (Queen Street Studios/Frasers), 2012. Photographer: Francesca Mataraga.

114. Francesca Mataraga, elisabet (Queen Street Studios/Frasers), 2012. Photographer: Francesca Mataraga.

210

115. Francesca Mataraga, elisabet (Queen Street Studios/Frasers), 2012. Photographer: Francesca Mataraga.

116. Francesca Mataraga, elisabet (Queen Street Studios/Frasers), 2012. Photographer: Francesca Mataraga.

211

‘elisabet (installation for COFAspace)’, PhD Assessment Exhibition, COFAspace – August 2012

117. Francesca Mataraga, elisabet (installation for COFAspace), 2012. Photographer: Johan Palsson.

212

118-119. Francesca Mataraga, elisabet (installation for COFAspace), 2012. Photographer: Johan Palsson.

213

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