Giuseppe Penone and on Kawara

0 Mitsuko Aikawa: Time in art: Giuseppe Penone and On Kawara Critical Research Essay for BA(Hons) Degree 2013 Fine Art: Painting Wimbledon College of Art 1 Acknowledgements It is a great pleasure to thank everyone who helped me write my dissertation successfully. The theme of time is too broad to write, my tutor Rachel Withers inspired and helpfully guided my direction and what I should concern and not to be ambiguity or extended. I would like to show my gratitude to her. I would also like to thank to library study support tutor, Nicola Rae, who suggested artists who relate to time as my theme and always helped me to organize the essay: also English teacher Steffie Hill who always supported me to structure my essay and marshal my ideas and gave me lots of advice on English phrasing, grammar as well as academic writing skills since my first year. I can say that I can write this essay in English as the result of her help for three years. I would like to express my thanks to my classmate Kristen Franclemont Butler, who helped me to draw out and clarify my ideas and my friend Dr. Kagari Shibazaki, who instructed my way and pointed out my issues in this essay and then proofread the whole of my dissertation. 2 Contents Acknowledgements 1 Contents 2 1. Introduction 3 2. Time: in relation to Conceptual art and Arte Povera 4 3. Dose artwork have to be last for a long time? 7 4. Artists’ representation of time: works by Kawara and Penone 11 5. Are expressions of infinity the most appropriate way for time to be represented? 21 6. Conclusion 23 Bibliography 26 3 1. Introduction In 2011 the reports of OPERA(The Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus) experiment of neutrinos travelling faster than light was announced, then CERN (Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire) declared the experiment error in 2012(Jha, website, 2012). If the experiment was correct, it might affect our aspect of time and could change our society in several decades going on. Even the result was faulty, scientists inexhaustibly bring ambition to explore and investigate universal truth in nature and it takes time. The feature of pursuer is a kinship with artists. Leonard Shlain explains that a pop artist Roy Lichtenstein declared, "Organized perception is what art is all about in the 1960s and Sir Isaac Newton might have said as much for physics” and proposes that the visionary artist to see the world in a new way and a revolutionary physicist discovers a new way to think about the world (Shlain, 2006). In 1960s, many art movements emerged such Minimalism, and Concept art like Pop Art in US and Arte Povera in Italy. Artists seemed to have keen new definition which superseded the conventional one (Lee. 2004, p.271）and the new technologies could enable this. My research interest is in these artists perception of time, and their expression of time compared with physicists’ idea about time: because physics is a fundamental natural science and is the study of matter, energy and interaction through space and time. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine time in art in relation to three questions: is it important for materials in a work of art to last for a long period of time? How is time expressed in a work of art? Is time infinite or not in the works of art by two artists: On Kawara, a conceptual artist, and Giuseppe Penone, an Arte Povera artist. My research involves visiting and viewing exhibitions and galleries, to consider how time has been treated and expressed by these artists: particularly in relation with three issues relating to time, and methodology as contraposition to physics with Stephen Hawking’s A Briefer History of Time, 2005. This paper includes definitions time, a literature review, an examination of two artists in relation to three questions with reference to Hawking’s idea, and finally my suggestion to the artists in the conclusion. 4 2. Time: in relation to Conceptual art and Arte Povera Time is a basic idea to understand human activity. Anelie Pohlen argues that time constitutes the primary and essential structure of human life and is "a intangible measure for the totality of the indices determining being; it is the content of consciousness; it exists beyond human comprehension."( Cooke, L., 2003) The Oxford English Dictionary defines time as the indefinite continuous durations and all events has taken place, are taking place, and will take place (Hololford-Strevens, 2005, p.x). A physicist, Stephen Hawking explains that the length of time between events, and the distance in short length is measured in time but the very long distance like planets or stars are measured in the light year which is distance itself, in other words distance indicate the length in space(Hawking, 2005, p.25). Hence time and space are the same unit of dimension. Although this idea of space and time as same unit might be insubstantial to create work of art in reality, we should be aware of that time and space are inseparable and not be concerned about them separately. So this paper defines that time is indefinite continuous duration, rather than a defined period of time, because human activity is a continuous event. In 1960s-70s, one of significant trends was that artists more concern about concept of their work of art and have influenced the contemporary art today. Examining Conceptual art with LeWitt’ Kosuth’ and Land artist Smithson’s ideas about time and Arte Povera, how and what idea about time they generate would be clarified LeWitt defines the idea or concept in Conceptual art is the most important aspect of the work (LeWitt, 2003, p.846). He thinks that the artist is a generator of idea and the idea itself could be the work of art which is not necessary to be produced by artist by 5 himself, and he also appreciated the ephemeral character and impermanence (LeWitt,2003, p.847-8). Kosuth puts the importance on art as a kind of logic (Kosuth,2003, p.853). He attempts to analyse the connection between philosophy’s ‘ending’ and art’s ‘beginning’ as well as the term ‘Conceptual art’. Kosuth argues that “art’s unique character sharing similarities with logic, mathematics and science, is the capacity to remain aloof from philosophical judgements when traditional philosophy is unreal because of its assumptions(Kosuth,2003, p.860). Later Smith defines that Conceptual, or Idea, or Information Art is broad and diverse range of activities to emphasis on idea and use appropriate object (Smith, 1981, p.256). So the resulting works are photographs, films, documents, performances though expressing with the artist’s own body or language itself and the actual exhibition. They also became to concern their viewers, because of sharing artists’ idea and mind with the ephemeral and the obdurate reality. Thus work of art demands from the audience a new kind of attention and mental participation (Smith, 1981, p.256). Michael Fried, a critic, criticizes that works of art by Conceptual artist are similar to actors playing in a theatre, because artist concerns with the object in the actual circumstances and the beholder to encounter the work of art there(Fried, 2003, p.838). If there is no audience, the theatre losses and its meaning of existence. Hence, Fried advocates that “a work of art should be autonomous” and accents that “pictorial unity must be instantaneously apprehensible at a single glance” (McClain, 1985, p.46). Against this, Robert Morris, a conceptual artist, claims that “the beholder makes aware to establish relationship with the object by seeing from various positions, so that they 6 realize the endlessness and inexhaustibility (Fried, 1998, p.166)”. Fried’s claim, for me, is likely to have a limitation that he could not expand his recognition range along with progressing society. Because Fried did not follow the progress of new materials, distribution media and information media. He did not have insight to the future directions. Today most of artists express their works in unlimited mediums, show their work of art on website and intend to interact with their audience. Smithson, a Land artist, wrote about time thought that critics exploit artist’s temporal process, which is artists’ mind and matter, because of the convenience to treat or focus on the art object; every work of art is charged with the rush of time, but that depends on the audience (Flam, 1996, p.112). Concerning how artists relate to time, Smithson explained artist attitude; being enslaved by time, controlled by things or other people not by themselves, becoming oblivion by sinking time or forgetting time to conceal the “death principle”(ibid). Contrasted with Conceptual Art mainly activated in United State, how artists thought and worked in the 1960s in Europe. An art movement called Arte Povera which was coined by Germano Celant emerged in Italy. It means ‘poor’ or impoverished’ art in the literal and refers to use the commonplace material to make work of art (Godfery, 1998, p.177). In addition, artists as a social function see themselves to revolute culture against sclerotic social structures, the economic system and art establishment (Walther, 2005, p.556). Its distinguishing features are an anti-technological stance, a programmatic elision of photographic practise and peculiar relationship to materials and processes of production (Foster et al, 2011, p.553). 7 The similarity of Arte Povera to Conceptual Art is a new faith to enable to make their works of art freely. In contrast, the differences are that Arte Povera seeks a relation between Nature and culture, caused by a backlash toward the rapid industrialization, poetical expression in objects, materials and processes .The cause of their difference, in my opinion, came from the length of layers of time; US has only 200 years, but Italy has more than 2500 years and they had medieval prosperity in art.

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