Anamorphosis As Double Vision in Contemporary Art Practice
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A VEILING OF IDENTITY: ANAMORPHOSIS AS DOUBLE VISION IN CONTEMPORARY ART PRACTICE APRIL CHEETHAM Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Liverpool John Moores University May 2012 ABSTRACT The thesis examines the trope of anamorphosis as a formal dimension of art practice and as a critical tool for exploring subjective vision. Anamorphosis is a technique of perspective that produces a distorted image that may only be corrected and made coherent when viewed from a specific angle. In order to re-form an oblique anamorph, it is necessary to view the image from a position that is markedly different from the conventional, frontal viewpoint. This process of eccentric viewing relies on the observer of the work to actively locate the viewing position that will re-form the image and confer meaning. The beholder of anamorphic images becomes aware of herself as a viewing subject and consequently, this act of viewing affirms the construction of vision as reflexive and self-critical. The thesis takes as its point of departure the claim of the influential art critic and theorist, Rosalind E. Krauss that the art practice of the German-American artist Eva Hesse, specifically the work, Contingent, 1969, represented a reinvention for its own time of an anamorphic condition through a mutual eclipse of form and matter. Krauss deploys the device of anamorphosis as a means of addressing the problematic of the relationship between the categories of painting and sculpture, and the debates into which Hesse's work intervened during the late 1960s. The thesis outlines the history of anamorphosis and its relation to geometric perspective from its genesis in the Renaissance to contemporary artists' engagement with anamorphic strategies of disruption. The psychoanalytical model of vision proposed by Jacques Lacan deploys anamorphosis as an exemplary structure in the elaboration of the gaze. The thesis discusses various dimensions of the anamorphic in art practice since 1970, with reference to works by Hannah Wilke, Richard Hamilton, Rachel Whiteread, Christine Borland and Shirazeh Houshiary. Acknowledgements I would like to express my thanks to the people who have helped me during the research and writing of this thesis. I am indebted to my supervisor Prof. Julie Sheldon for her invaluable support, guidance and encouragement. I would also like to thank my supervisors Dr. Fiona Tolan and Sheila Maddison for their advice and assistance. I am very grateful to Dr. Peter Muir for his kind support and encouragement when I decided to extend the ideas that I had formulated in my Master of Arts dissertation into a research proposal. I would also like to express my gratitude to Lucina Ward, Curator of International Art at the National Gallery of Australia for her valuable insights regarding the work of Eva Hesse. I would like to thank Prof. Griselda Pollock and Dr. Alison Rowley for kindly agreeing to examine my thesis. I also wish to thank my friends, Samantha Lane and Maggie Gaskell for their support and practical help. I am very grateful to Anna and Dennis Cheetham for their interest and encouragement. I especially thank my parents, Joyce and Anthony Vickery and my husband and daughter, Toby and Lily, for all their unfailing support. Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter One: The History of Anamorphosis 8 Chapter Two: Hesse's Contingent 39 Chapter Three: Krauss's Anamorphic Condition 63 Chapter Four: Anamorphosis in Art Practice Since 1970 110 Conclusion 133 Bibliography 136 List of Illustrations Fig. 1: Eva Hesse, Contingent, 1969. 150 Cheesecloth, latex, fibreglass, 350 x 630 x 109 cm. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Fig. 2: Eva Hesse, Contingent, 1969. 150 Fig. 3: Eva Hesse, Test piece for Contingent, 1969. 151 Latex over cheesecloth 365.8 x 111.8 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. Fig. 4: Hans Holbein the Younger, Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve ("The Ambassadors "), 1533. 151 Oil on oak, 207 x 209.5 cm. The National Gallery, London Fig. 5: Mel Bochner, Wrap: Portrait of Eva Hesse, 1966. 152 Ink on graph paper, 11.11 cm diameter. Framed 19.69 x 19.69 x 0.64 cm. Private collection. Fig. 6: Rachel Whiteread, Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial, 2000. 152 Steel and concrete, 10 x 7 x 3.8m. Judenplatz, Vienna. Fig. 7: Hannah Wilke, Hannah Wilke Through the Large Glass, 1976. 153 10 minute, colour, silent 16mm film on video. Brooklyn Museum, Elizabeth Sackler Center for Feminist Art, New York. Fig. 8: Richard Hamilton, The Passage of the Bride, 1998-99. 153 Oil on cibachrome on canvas, 102 x 127 cm. Estate of Richard Hamilton. Fig. 9: Richard Hamilton, Bathroom Fig. 1, 1999. 154 Oil on cibachrome on canvas, SOx 50 cm. Collection of Rita Donagh. Fig. 10: Richard Hamilton, Bathroom Fig. 2, 1999/2000 154 Oil on cibachrome on canvas, 100 x 100 cm. Estate of Richard Hamilton. Fig. 11: Rachel Whiteread. Water Tower, 1998. 155 Translucent resin and painted steel, 370.8 x 274.3 cm. Museum of Modem Art, New York. Fig. 12: Christine Borland, Phantom Twins, 1997. 155 Leather, sawdust, replica foetal skulls, dimensions variable. Tate Collection. Fig. 13: Christine Borland,Alpha Foetal Protein Test, Cold, 1999. 156 Fig. 14: Shirazeh Houshiary, The Extended Shadow, 1994. 156 Lead, gold leaf, 400 x 100 x 100 cm. The Government Art Collection, British Embassy, Paris. INTRODUCTION The thesis examines the trope of anamorphosis as both a formal device in art practice and as a critical tool for interrogating subjectivized viewing. It also discusses the ways in which anamorphic strategies of distortion and disruption have been variously deployed in contemporary art practice to create a strategic aesthetics of the in-between.' The thesis contends that these strategies contribute to the construction of a trope of veiling, enacting a subtle negotiation of complex webs of subjectivity, identity and difference, and providing a rich site for critical engagement with a range of apposite discourses. The thesis proceeds from Rosalind Krauss's claim that the German-American artist Eva Hesse's sculptural installation, Contingent, 1969 is characterised by an anamorphic effect that addresses the problematic of the relationship between painting and sculpture. I examine Krauss's concept of an anamorphic condition in depth, considering both her critical approach and Hesse's art practice within the specific historical context of a feminine, Jewish lived experience in post-war New York. Having examined Krauss's critical appropriation of the strategy of anamorphosis, my thesis questions whether it is feasible to read some aspects of the anamorphic within a context of more recent cultural theory and art interventions that seek to negotiate issues of subjectivity, identity and difference. The thesis contends that whereas Krauss envisioned the anamorphic condition as the potential eclipse of form and matter, its visual dynamic, specifically in its denial of the centric viewing position and privileging of the oblique, remains a viable strategy in contemporary art production. The term anamorphosis derives from the Greek, 'to form anew'. It is a technique of perspective that produces a distorted image that can only be corrected when viewed from a particular angle. In order to re-form an oblique anamorph, it is necessary to view the image from a position that is markedly different from the conventional frontal position of viewing. Indeed from this viewpoint, the I Marsha Meskimmon uses this term in her essay on Christine Borland's installation work, Winter Garden, 200 I. She cites Elizabeth Grosz's defmition of the in-between as the locus for social, cultural and natural transformations, arguing that feminist art theory and contemporary women's art are mutually transformative practices. I concur with Meskimmon's view that, 'A corporeal notion of theory acknowledges the significance of thinking- in-making and encourages the emergence of a dynamic, process-based criticism between texts and images - as well as between subjects and objects. It is precisely this dynamic mode of criticism, formed at the in-between of thinking and materiality, which has enabled female subjectivity and sexual difference to be reconceived against the grain of disabling normative conventions of woman as other. Feminist art criticism and the contemporary practices of women artists have been crucial to the development of these ideas and they invite us to explore the significance of aesthetics and sensory knowledges in articulating embodiment through the in-between', Marsha Meskimmon, 'Christine Borland's Winter Garden', in Perry, G., ed., Difference and Excess in Contemporary Art: The Visibility of Women's Practice, Malden, Oxford and Carlton: Blackwell Publishing, 2004, p. 133. 1 anamorph is unrecognisable and relies on the viewer to locate the viewing position that will re-form the image, thereby conferring meaning. Although the technique is related to tromp l'oeil (French for 'deceiving the eye'), this visual device does not require the viewer to seek out an alternative vantage point. Anamorphic art has been described as an, 'art of wonder' that exploits its manipulation of the visual field in order to excite the viewer's curiosity and insist on her dynamic contribution to the process of constructing meaning.' However, our engagement with an anamorphic image entails more than just the realisation of an arresting and intriguing perspectival trick; anamorphic art is also an act of veiling, a deliberate attempt to conceal hidden knowledges from the uninitiated gaze. The aesthetics of anamorphosis is predicated on the notion that multivalent meanings can be mutually supported within the same material situation. Lacanian psychoanalytical theory proposes that the anamorph serves to reveal the structures of our subjectivity. In this thesis, I make the claim that anamorphic visual strategies can also be located within theoretical discourses of subjectivity and identity, a process that can offer compelling interpretative insights into examples of contemporary art practice.