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Etienne-Jules Marey, Sol Lewitt and Douglas Huebler

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Etienne-Jules Marey, Sol Lewitt and Douglas Huebler FOLLOWING THE INDEXICAL LINE: Etienne-Jules Marey, Douglas Huebler, Sol LeWitt Joana P. R. NEVES Kingston School of Art – Visual and Material Culture Research Centre Kingston University Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Submission: May 2020 To António, Maria Elisa, Diogo, Constança, Artur, Bartolomeu and Baltazar, who make everything worthwhile. 2 Abstract The French physicist Etienne-Jules Marey (1830–1904) coined the term 'graphic method' for the array of recording devices that encoded phenomena in patterned lines such as seismographs, and chronophotography, also developed by Eadweard Muybridge (1830–1904). This research puts forward the indexical line as a new concept to locate and analyse how the line was informed by the technology of the ‘graphic method’ in experimental science of the nineteenth century and taken on by the conceptual art movement in the mid-1960s. It presents the redefinition of the line and its concomitant contexts such as drawing, technology, and abstract thinking, anachronistically. That is, dialogically across two time periods that re-assess each other through the scope of the index. Stemming from semiotics and applied to film and photography theory, the index as schematized by Charles S. Peirce (1839 – 1914) is a sign with a direct relation with the ‘real’ as cause between the sign and the thing: the object causes the shadow or the photograph, which are the indices. This notion was applied to the art of the 1970s (Krauss 1977; Doane 1996/2007; Iversen 2017) as a traumatic trace; here, Peirce’s notion is interpreted as a measurable trace to open it up to other potential readings, especially the conceptual project of an ego-less, unemotional array of data constituting the artwork. So, what happens if this type of line originating from technology is in direct relation with the reality it expresses graphically albeit abstractly, like a photograph? And what possibilities does it open up when it shifts to art? Through the case studies of the pioneers of conceptual art, Douglas Huebler and Sol LeWitt, who cross-referenced science, graphic and photographic endeavours across times, the indexical line provides a pathway from the graphic method to graphic expression, by introducing language, technology, maps, diagrams, and sequential photography into artistic practices. What is the consequence of such an introduction of science and technology in artistic formalisation of the artwork from the perspective of the subject (the artist-spectator)? 3 Acknowledgements I wish to thank first and foremost my two supervisors, Professors Fran Lloyd and Stephen Barber, for their continuous support and very special ability to stimulate the right combination of speculation and investigation. They were crucial for this research to see the light of day. Moreover, I am very grateful to the Techne team, particularly Carol Hughes, for their invariably prompt response to anxious bureaucratic and fellowship- related questions, and for the enthusiasm with which every idea for our student-led congress was met. It would be impossible not to warmly thank Carol LeWitt and Janet Passehl, a brilliant artist and poet, and curator of the LeWitt Collection in Chester, Connecticut; my mentor at the Smithsonian Institute Archives of American Art, the curator Josh T. Franco, Marisa Bourgoin, Head of Reference Services, and a special thanks to Reference Specialist Elizabeth Botten for their support in DC. Laurent Mannoni and Marion Leuba, Head Curators at the Cinémathèque Française and the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Beaune, respectively, were instrumental for access to the Marey archives. Finally, I am grateful for Andrew Price’s help at the archives of the Lisson Gallery in gathering material about Sol LeWitt’s exhibition projects at the gallery in the 1970s. The patient love of my family turns this research into an even more pleasurable and fulfilling project. 4 Table of Contents Table of Contents .......................................................................................................... 5 Table of Figures ............................................................................................................ 6 I. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 8 I.1. ‘Lines Are Everywhere’: A Curatorial Awakening ................................................................. 9 I.2. Beyond Drawing: Making Space for the Indexical Line ....................................................... 11 I.3. The Graphic Method ........................................................................................................ 13 I.4. Constellating Anachronisms ............................................................................................. 18 I.5. Following the Indexical Line: A Methodology .................................................................... 22 I.6. Revisiting the Index, From the Graphic Method to Technology .......................................... 28 I.7. Into New Territories ......................................................................................................... 32 1 The Line as Index: Etienne-Jules Marey ............................................................ 35 1.1 Etienne-Jules Marey’s Smoke Chronophotographs (1899 – 1902)....................................... 35 1.2 The Redefinition of the Line Through the Index ................................................................. 59 1.3 Abstracted Nature – Following the Indexical Line .............................................................. 78 2 The line as Information: Douglas Huebler ........................................................ 98 2.1 Playing with Indexical Lines, from Photographs to Words .................................................. 98 2.2 The Graphic and the Photographic .................................................................................. 115 2.3 The Ethics of the Indexical Line, Or What You Do With Information ................................. 128 3 The Line as Hypothesis: Sol LeWitt ................................................................. 151 3.1 Objectivity: A Diagrammatic Narrative ............................................................................ 151 3.2 From Icon to Index (and Back)? ....................................................................................... 169 3.3 Lines .............................................................................................................................. 187 3.4 Diagrammatising thought, opening up to chance ............................................................ 195 4 The Line as Technology .................................................................................. 207 4.1 The Graphic Method Between the Past and the Future: Living and Thinking Technologically ........................................................................................................................... 207 4.2 Drawing Technology ....................................................................................................... 225 4.3 The Education of the Eye, a Deconstruction of the Traditional body................................. 245 4.4 An Unknown Outcome: Lines and Surfaces ..................................................................... 256 5 Conclusion .................................................................................................... 273 Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 277 5 Table of Figures Figure 1 Graphic notations of muscular shocks. From Marey, Mouvement, 1894. ............................ 15 Figure 2 Etienne-Jules Marey, Smoke Chronophotographs, 1899 – 1902. Inclined curved surface, original paper print, 8,8 x 5,2 cm. Fonds Noguès nº59/30; tapered body, original paper print, 8,6 x 5 cm. Fonds Noguès nº5/57 ; inclined curved surface, vue posée, original paper print, 8,8 x 5,2 cm. Fonds Noguès nº59/30 ; 5 cm cylinder, original paper print, 7,9 x 5cm glued onto a chart with other prints. Inv. ML 10 (nº 25). © La Cinémathèque Française. .................................................................. 35 Figure 3 Lygia Pape, Ttéia 1,c, 2003/2012, nylon threads, variable dimensions. Installation view at Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden, 2018. ...................................................................................... 37 Figure 4 Jorinde Voigt, Nexus Study VII, 2011, coloured pencils, felt pen, ink, graphite on paper, 60 x 46 cm. Collection Centre Pompidou, Photo: André Morin. Donation of the Collection Daniel and Florence Guerlain, 2012. © Adagp, Paris ............................................................................................. 38 Figure 5 Marey’s Sphygmograph in use, 1860. La Méthode Graphique dans les Sciences Expérimentales et Principalement en Physiologie et en Médecine, 1885. ........................................... 41 Figure 6 Etienne-Jules Marey, Flying Pelican, 1887, chronophotography on fixed plate, © Deposit from the Collège de France in 1978, Musée Marey, Beaune, France. Photo: J.-C. Couval. .................. 43 Figure 7 Louis Daguerre, Boulevard du Temple, 1838, daguerreotype............................................... 44 Figure 8 Eadweard Muybridge, Skeleton of a Horse, Off the ground Whilst Running, 1881. 11,1 x 18,8 cm. @ Royal Academy of Arts Collection.....................................................................................
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