Art, Science, Technology Relation- the Users and Spectators

pioneers and pathbreakers Art, Science, Technology Six Exhibitions 1966–1998 F ra n k P o pp e R From the late 1960s until the end of the twentieth century, the author was conceived by its director Jean Leering and myself in 1966. organized, or helped organize, six exhibitions throughout Europe Its main idea was not only the modern use of artificial light by that saw artists integrate and alter the collective destinies of science, contemporary artists but also the recent development of the art and technology. The works of art presented at these exhibitions: ABSTRACT KunstLichtKunst at the Stedelijk Van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven; the phenomenon of collective action by groups of artists. These Lumière et Mouvement exhibition at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la groups utilized different techniques in order to obtain a vari- Ville de Paris; Cinétisme, Spectacle, Environnement, held at the Mobile ety of luminous effects perceived by the public. The German theater of the Maison de la Culture in Grenoble; Interventions and Zero Group, for example, employed technical means to ob- Environments in the Streets of Paris and in Its Suburbs and Electra at the tain three different qualities of light: energetic, expansive and Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris; and the Virtual Art show immaterial. On the other hand, the Italian T group of Milan in Boulogne-Billancourt in 1998, did more than just lay a formal and theoretical foundation for new media art to follow—they challenged introduced technical devices that created variable luminous the perceptions of both the spectator of the art as well as other artists effects and virtual structures on screens and diaphragms. working in this area. This article chronicles the aesthetic and societal In fact, this exhibition allowed an original exchange and ramifications, particularly within the artistic community, that the works comparisons between historical and modern technical de- in these exhibitions created. vices. Exhibitions like this allowed, for example, an electrical and electric light pioneer such as Thomas Wilfred (who came In order to recall the origins of the participation of new me- to the Eindhoven exhibition via the United States just before dia artists in collective manifestations, I shall refer myself his death) to come across the pond specifically to see the to six exhibitions that I organized, or helped to organize, latest technical innovations by well-known or lesser-known from 1966 to 1998. I shall try to describe what the leading artistic groups in the field. curatorial idea was in each case, as well as to explain why The next exhibition, theLumière et Mouvement exhibition these events were of particular significance within the art at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1967, came and science context, and in general what they meant and why about because someone had mentioned to the curators of the they were important. museum that I had just finished my doctoral thesis on kinetic These six exhibitions or manifestations were as follows: art and that my advice on a planned exhibition on the subject the KunstLichtKunst exhibition at Eindhoven, Netherlands, would be useful. My own idea was quite ambitious. Based on in 1966; the Lumière et Mouvement exhibition in Paris in the experience of Harald Szeemann’s exhibition of the same 1967; Cinétisme, Spectacle, Environnement and a theatrical title, I thought it interesting to propose an exhibition limited show in Grenoble in 1968; the manifestation of a number of to artists living in France whose works were kinetic but had Interventions and Environments in the Streets of Paris and in necessarily an element of artificial light incorporated. How- Its Suburbs, in 1969 and 1970; the Electra exhibition in Paris ever, I made it a condition that these works were admitted or in 1983; and the Virtual Art show, with its interactive and elaborated collectively, i.e. by means of a number of weekly multisensorial creations, in Boulogne-Billancourt in 1998. collective meetings of the artists and curators concerned for The first exhibition I discuss here, KunstLichtKunst at the a period of several months, in which both technical and aes- Stedelijk Van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, thetic elements were discussed. Although this concept caused often violent disagreements between the participants, the result was an extremely varied Frank Popper (writer). Email: [email protected]. show that took into account a historical, as well as a the- See www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/leon/52/2 for supplemental files associated matic, approach with enormous public success. There was with this issue. to start with a historical room with works of such pioneers 194 LEONARDO, Vol. 52, No. 2, pp. 194–195, 2019 doi:10.1162/LEON_a_01163 ©2019 ISAST Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_a_01163 by guest on 01 October 2021 of kinetic art as Man Ray. The next room showed kinetic relations between art and science but also the artists’ need to light works that resembled or could be assimilated to the express their attitudes toward technology, and especially the category of paintings, then appeared sculptures, then rooms latest developments in this field. with apparently architectural and environmental works and In fact, the principal aim of Electra was to show how the finally a collective proposal by the Groupe de Recherche artistic imagination had coped with the different phases and pioneers and pathbreakers d’Art Visuel requiring the public’s physical and intellectual aspects of the introduction of electricity and electronics into participation. This laid the foundation for an event of par- the pattern of life in the twentieth century. At the same time, ticular significance for the public appraisal of contemporary this exhibition was an occasion for a demonstration of the art exhibitions. whole range and development of the new technological me- My exhibition Cinétisme, Spectacle, Environnement, held at dia utilized by the artists, running from electrophotography the Mobile theater of the Maison de la Culture de Grenoble in to video art and the digital image. May and June 1968, was based on a theme that corresponded As to the exhibition entitled Virtual Art, held at Boulogne- to the architecture of the Maison de la Culture but also re- Billancourt’s Landowski Centre in 1998, it was organized by flected an important aspect of the evolution of kinetic art. me in coordination with a representative of the mayor of From the beginning, two attitudes toward kinetic art were the city. The main idea was to show, in a variety of works, possible. One put the accent onto the relationship between multisensoriality and the capacity to act as objects of inter- art, science and technology, whereas the second was mainly activity with the spectator. Technically speaking, one could concerned with problems regarding the perception of the distinguish five different areas in which the artists exercised works of art. Personally, I was convinced that this kind of themselves: video technology, the laser, holography and com- art was necessarily connected with technique and finally also munication art, including telematics, interactive networks with technology, but I was also certain that kinetic art had such as the Internet and satellite art. at its roots a basic relationship with perception, not only in If the central ideas that governed these six exhibitions were regard to the works but also that of the active participation of closely connected with the art, science, technology relation- the users and spectators. This observation regarding the rela- ship, they also gave artists the first opportunity to show to tionship between perception and technique was particularly the greater public works reflecting this context. As a matter true as regards the behavior of the public in this exhibition, of fact, it is not a coincidence that many written contributions especially in front of the mobile theatrical elements. published by Leonardo in the same period were concerned The manifestation or competition entitled Interventions with similar subjects. and Environments in the Streets of Paris and in Its Suburbs in 1969 was organized by the Center of Contemporary Art Manuscript received 13 July 2015. with my assistance. The main idea was to give examples of the transformation of urban sites by artists using new technolo- Born in 1918 in Prague, Frank Popper has lived in Vienna, gies. Thus Piotr Kowalski won the first prize by imagining London, Rome and Paris (since 1955). He studied at the Uni- an illumination of Paris’s Place du Châtelet with powerful versities of London and Rome and Paris’s Sorbonne. In 1962, he searchlights, Carlos Cruz-Diez installed several colorfully lit- became a member of the Institut d’Esthetique in Paris. In 1969, up cabins into which the spectator could enter at the Place de he joined the founders of the Art Department of the University l’Odéon on the left bank in Paris and Lily Greenham trans- of Paris VIII at Vincennes, where he headed the Visual Arts formed bushes in a public garden at Montreuil in the Paris Department from 1970 to 1983. In 1976, he was appointed pro- suburbs with the aid of incorporated electric devices. fessor of aesthetics and the science of art, and in 1985 became The exhibition Electra, at the Museum of Modern Art of professor emeritus at the same university. Popper is a member the City of Paris in 1983, was conceived by me and installed by of the International Association of Art Critics and honorary Marie-Odile Briot and Sylvain Lecombre, Jean-Louis Bois- editor of Leonardo. His book From Technological to Virtual sier, Edmond Couchot and others. It showed in particular the Art was published by MIT Press in 2007.

Load more