ARTSPACE A MAGAZINEOF CONTEMPORARYART Editor/Publisher William Peterson VOLUME16 NUMBER5 Associate Editor Peter Clothier Associate Publisher/Circulation Jan Schmitz SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER1992 Associate Publisher/Advertising Richard Heller Art Director Alyce Woodward Office Manager Ruanna Waldrum

ContributingEditors KennethBaker, Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine University 30 Gus Blaisdell, Peter Frank, Dave Hickey, Joe Lewis, Ben Marks, Maria Porges, V.B. Price, Kathleen Shields. Guggenheim Grandeur: Gala Reopeningand Expansion by Kenneth Baker 32 Correspondents (California): Lita Barrie, Aaron i3etsky, Jamie Brunson, Mario Cutajar, Susan Ehrlich, Cohn An Interview with James Corcoran by Richard Heller 35 Gardner, Joan Hugo, Mark Levy, John Muse, John O’Brien, Ralph Rugoff, Peter Selz, Rebecca Eva Hesse: “AloneAnd/Or Only With” by W.S. Wilson 36 Solnit, Benjamin Weissman, Kathy Zimmerer; (New Mexico): Edward Bryant, Eugenia P. Jams, Neery Norman Bluhm: Love’sLabors Won by Robert Creeley 42 Melkonian; (New York): Dan Cameron, W.S. Wilson, John Yau; (Nevada): Ingrid Evans, Peter Goin; (Texas): Karen Carson: Full Circle by Ben Marks 44 Frances Colpitt, Charles Dee Mitchell, Elizabeth McBride; (Washington): Jennifer McLerran, Thomas Max Gimblett: IconicAbstraction by Lita Barrie 46 Patin. Agnostic Abstraction: David Ansico,RogerHernsan,John Ivlillei Mailing Address: ARTSPACE, P.O. Box 36C69 by James Scarborough 49 Los Angeles, CA 90036-1269 Robert Tiemann: BeyondOriginality by Frances Colpitt 52 Business and Editorial Office: ARTSPACE, 5657 Wilshire Blvd., Ste. 340 Guy Dill: SculptureIs About Proof by Jan Butterfield 55 Los Angeles, CA 90036 213/931-1433 Ursula von Rydingsvard by Peter Clothier 58 U.S.A. newsstand distribution: Eastern News Distributors, Inc. Reliquaries Among Friends by Bill Berkson 60 1130 Cleveland Road, Sandusky, OH 44870 the Scene by 1-800-221-3148 Chicago: On Kenneth Baker 62 San Francisco: On the Scene by Maria Porges 64 Subscriptions: $29.95 per year. Canada & Mexico: $45. All other foreign: $65. Los Angeles: On the Scene by Lita Barrie 66 To order a subscription write: ARTSPACE - Dept. ARS Santa Fe: On the Scene by Arden Reed 68 P.O. Box 3000 Denville, NJ 07834-9818

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ARTSPACE is published bimonthly by Artspace COVER: Karen Carson, Los Aucles, 12” in diameter, eel vinyl on found International, Inc., 5657 Wilshire Blvd. Suite # 340, globe, 1992. Photograph: Douglas5 M. Parker Swdio; courtesy Rosamund Los Angeles, California 90036. Contents copyright © Felsen Gallery, Los Angeles. 1992. ISSN: 0193-6596. ARTSPACE is not responsi ble for loss or damage to submissions, and publication of submitted materials is not guaranteed. Unsolicited sub missions cannot be returned without an SASE. The views expressed in the articles are those of the individ ual writers and do not necessarily represent those of the ARTSPACE management and staff. and walking seem

my them: and corner

4th invisibly mation at

October methods, about one where needs rules preserve moment laws before

4th,

structures

decorum Street, choosing

Manhattan

a

Eva

Perhaps

along

to one

bikes

is

laws,

to good

we’re

they of

crossing.

of

Hesce,

with

have a

placed.

and 28th,

is do—to

11th

after

may

metaphor

systems

they

with

might anarchic,

and on

look

at

people

my

to Ri5ht.4firr,

in from

babies

come

be

Street

all,

1960:

Ice

11th,”

the

had

works try

rules,

Oh, us.

own

invent

at

on

break

purge and Floe...

block

to

sidewalk, just

break to

I the in

Often how and

one’s

“I or

set

use 60” and

extend

of

and

Manhattan strollers.

of

down, been

will one’s

would edges—where

of

art, x deceptive

4th

to

to

they laws

he rules. 216”

the

own,

rules

lately

block,

think

and paint

gave

Street. those air—horns

at

own

penetrate

or x

legitimation as

be,

12th

48”

for

but about

Walking

just

an Eva

I

her

with

against to

try into “ALONE

rules, except illusions, I

casting

pedestrian

experimental

needing

Street, passed He

learn

stop.

a 1-lesse

to

systems rules

blasting

about

look.

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throughout

said

resin

or

every wait

home

that

the

of

At

future.

and a

can

to

wrote

and

over

to

that

the

couple traffic, So systems.

and for

the

we at decide rules

rule

do

she be

from

fiberglass

violating

much

method

structure

they

dawn,

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edge

rules.

EVA

pull

in

perhaps

broken

I and

said,

I

and and/or

think

standing

light

or her

which

Soho,

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Experimental the

all

cord

parents

improvising

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others “We’re

of

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of

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that

to

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events,

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change

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legiti-.

svire

obey be

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and the

or at

to of

hooks,

HESSE

Wilson

36

1969.

ods structed objects dures hypothetical maticians exist objects Parallel tigation verisimilitude

construction, sentence sense, ments Philosophy which constructed year-old

Investigations,

gate...”

conventional

1954:

ONLY of

Methods

Milwaukee

For

eternally,

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thought constructs, “For

like to

brought

as

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Eva

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an

the

by

me

constructs

science.

true

ed. Art of

or

product “facts,”

or of angel,

verb,

facts, Hesse artists,

have

experimental,

the

them

and or that

being

Museum.

is constructivism,

Mathematict”

thought

expressionist are

George

or

WITH”

building

constructivisi

methods

and

or

“to others to found

mathematics a was false

into and

Phlogiston

of

world

an which

Pegasus,

be

such

investigate,” Photo

its

Pitcher

can

quoted

that

artist

of

being” looked

in

that

methods

itself

which

facts

of before

observational,

the

courtesy

haven’t interpretation, generate

she

objects—”..

and or

objective

means

such

mathematics

in

visual

[“)ew

here,

can in

at.

(Michael

might

universal

discovers

the

investigate

we

Robert

Wittgenstein:

of

Seventeen

as

be held suggests

The

to

objects arts.

York:

“

pertains probing

ether

you

carried

imitated

already

S9 external see,

did

Miller

up

facts

mathematical

Dummett,

or generalizations—so

in are are

constructs

so 19661, not

methodological

that

to

of

magazine,

those

realistic Gallery,

out

in mathematical

to among

reading

think

well.

or facts

observe, thought—phantom

exist

a

The objects

she

the

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science

447).

objects.

#

New is

precedes

that “Wittgenstein’s

is pictures. mathematical Some

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for

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Philosophical

about

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September, York.

some to which

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Eva Hesse, Repetition Ni,ieteeit III, 19 anus, each 19”—20’,” high. 11”—12” diameter, fiberglassand polyester resin, July 1968. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Courtesy Robert Miller Gallery.

ties would not exist apart from the investigations which bring them lished. As edited so far, this chronology notes for 1966: “June 4—5: into existence on a visual plane among other observables. weekend at Fire Island with artists Paul Thek and Mike Todd.” I Scientific investigations have taken some concepts from ordinary wrote an essay on the late Paul Thek for Art and Artists (“Paul Thek: common-sensical discourse, and have returned them with their edges Love-Death,” April, 1968) in which I suggest that the meaning of his sharpened—words like indeterminacy, undecidability, foundationlessness, work is that it is intellectually uninterpretable—that it is about the exis incompleteness,catastrophe,chaos,and uncertainty. Uncertainties anse even tence of the kind of uninterpretable bodily feelings that it elicits. in an ordinary measurement because standards and rules of measure A weekend with Paul Thek and Mike Todd must have been a ment are not empincally observable. The measurement is a construc working weekend, if only because Eva Hesse was always working on tion made by following the rules of a system. Then, once a measure her thinking with materials, trying to formulate the questions not of life ment has been made, it introduces uncertainties about its accuracy, and in general, but of her life, as visual questions. She was trying to answer for some purposes, must be repeated, as one gradually constructs a those visual questions with visual answers which she could believe, and more preciseuncertaintywhich hasn’t existed before. Other uncertainties thus teach herself to hold her own beliefs (borrowing a phrase from and indeterminacies emerge in experiments which, as they study light, Michael Polanyi, PersonalKnowledge). construct light into waves or into corpuscles: waves and/or corpuscles. Mike Todd was and is a sculptor, now in Los Angeles, who some “And/or” is like a logical hinge which allows one to make a turn with times used pieces of blue denim jeans heavily stitched at the seams- in an idea: one, or the other. Eva Hesse writes in her journal, March and feathers. Those three artists at that weekend on the beach were 30th, 1961: “Want to be alone and/or only with one person I can three individuals with problems about bnnging the surface of materials love.” Two weeks later she writes—emphasis mine—”l have been to the surface in a work of art. They shared questions about the u’itliTom Doyle the last 3 days.” expressiveness of the condition of the materials they were using- My theme here, “alone and/or only with,” is inspired by the whether to transform the material completely, as Paul Thek used great show honoring Eva Hesse as an alumna at the Yale University Art encaustic to imitate raw flesh; whether, like Mike Todd, to paint Gallery. Scheduled for the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden objects such as old shoes, or whether to leave the matenals raw, on the in Washington, D.C. (October 15, 1992 -January 10, 1993), the show threshold of the transition bertveen raw materials and aesthetic illusion. has been well curated by Helen A. Cooper. It is accompanied by a Each would have had questions of the seams or joints where material catalogue which has a chronology with quotations from letters and parts get joined or stitched or otherwise fitted together, visibly or invis notebooks. This catalogue should be supplemented by Lucy Lippard, ibly adhered, to make a whole. Eva Hesse, and the catalogue of sculptures by Bill Barrette, Eva Hesse: Hesse had studied art in one way or another at the High School of Sculpture. Barrette helped to construct some of the works originally, Industrial Arts. Pratt Institute of Design, Art Students’ League, The and has installed and reinstalled some of them frequently. Cooper Union, and the Yale School of Art and Architecture. In this A problem in the catalogue, that Hesse’s notebooks are quoted current show at Yale, paintings by her teacher, Josef Albers, hang in a only in part, should be solved when an edition by Barry Rosen is pub- hallway aligned with the exhibition. Albers had worked out a theoreti

37 of rules, and such ruleless anarchy was an anguish, she would preserve her position both within a set of rules and without a set of rules. Her task, as she matured, would be to work without building a closed and seamlesssystem of her own—to leave loose ends and rough edges—and so to work even without developing her own set of rules or conven tions or systems which might close upon themselves. Positioned at the edge of a system—wherever rules come to an end—Hesse would feel anxious and unhappy, sometimes declaring that she experienced only extremes and had never been happy. These are not statements which picture actual facts—they are statements which construct the position she needed to occupy in order to be able to think through her work. When she thought in extremes, the effect was to break up orderly transitions or continuities into oppositions and discontinuities. Then, when she attached parts or left them unattached, or combined parts in a match and/or mismatch that joined pieces in absurd juxtapositions—which she thought of as nonsense—the motive was to call attention to edges, and to how, when, and where edges are Eva Hesse, Ton, 9 units, each 30’- 47” x l2’”- 17” x I 1””- 15” fiberglassand fitted together. If two pieces match, and are joined seamlessly, they polyester resin over svlre mesh. August 1969. Philadelphia Museum. become one piece. But if nineteen pieces—seamless objects—are grouped, then what holds them together as a group? Are they with cal system of interactions of color, and since he taught about how to each other, or almostu’itheach other? think with and about color, he taught how to think. He would argue The meaning of a work of art is a function of how parts are com in lectures, or prove in his paintings, that no one ideal “red” could bined. If two pieces mismatch, and the seams are visible, then the con exist, and that conventional or verbal ideas of red can cause impreci— struction of the pieces into a whole is having attention called to it, and sions in looking. He would show that red is as red doesin a context of that becomes thematic. Hesse’s complaints in notebooks require inter interrelations of color where an apparently self—identicalpatch of red pretation, because for her, complaining about the extremes in her becomeslighter or darker, and even something other than what one experiences -wasa working skill. She lamented some of the very posi would want to call red. tions she had worked ingeniously to get herself into so that she could Albers introduced fluctuations into the hierarchies of colors by see the boundaries of the systems which threatened to govern her. giving every possible color an opportunity to shine. And he wanted Because she needed to be able to see that the systems had boundaries, students to shine—albeit within his system. I remember the delighted she would move from the middle of any system to its edges, even if she look on his face when, while criticizing some student drawings of sometimes had to make the edges for herself by breaking up or violat hinges greatly enlarged beyond life-size, he pointed to one and said, ing a system. Then, not Mitte but merely mit, she would become anx “This drawing is not an exercise, it is a work of art.” In that moment, ious because she would not be within a system which could govern I hoped I was seeing what he saw, and I continue to look for that qual her, or she would become anxious because a system wasgoverning her. ity. But Hesse becomes an artist because she has the courage of the anguish For Eva Hesse, the teaching ofJosefAlbers had two aspects: 1) the in her favored position, with its anxieties and horrors, of becoming interactions of colors for their own sake—which could not be the sys almost outside a worthy system which would have included her. tem for her, if only because it was someone else’s system; and 2) the When she is no longer in that position, she reconstructs it and reoccu ability of the artist to construct colors which might not have been seen pies it. Her favored place in which to work is both withinand ivithiouta as individual colors before. Then, the lesson she taught herself, system, straddling an edge, hence at an extreme where edges don’t inspired by Albers’s teaching: To become able to construct a color, or meet and merge. Extremes are what she needs in order to begin to an experience of color, is to become one who is able to construct. Eva become who she is becoming. Hesse, who is trying to answer her questions of who she is, and of what In a letter to Sol LeWitt, whose remarkable friendship is a comfort it is for her to be, slowly brings some answers into focus through her merely to read about, Hesse writes: “I am constantly at ends with the work: she is becoming one who constructs. Etymologically, struct con idea, myself and or what I am about” [sicj (3/18/1965). The conven

cretely suggests “to pile up,” and consuggests with or together: topile up tional expression is “. at oddswith the idea,” but the truth is that she is together. Hesse knows these words: “The less pressures and strains that constantly at ends,because “at ends” is where she can begin again to see personally effect me the more relaxed and thoughtful can my powers thoughtfully how the ends of two things, or how two ends of one be directed to constructive meaningful work” (9/9/1958). Only very thing, are to be joined. At ends, she begins again to begin to be able to gradually will her work become one of the visual definitions of con see what happens to an object, or to a system, where it begins and structii’e:“I have become a painter, working in isolation, constructive ends, as when an edge is reached and so might be left as a raw edge, or ly...” (8/8/1960). joined to another edge, or two edges of something are wrapped around So the most abstract lesson one could learn from Josef Albers was and adhered to each other. When Eva Hesse is “. . .at ends with the that if one could construct a color, then one couldconstruct,and Eva idea,” whether she admits it or not, she becomes a woman who can Hesse knew that she had always already been doing that, which was begin again to see how to construct. why she always had trouble with other people’s rules and systems for Eva Hesse had not been born to be a “constructionist” of self or construction. At Pratt Institute: “1 waited until I was getting A’s language or art: she had constructivism thrust upon her. She was born, instead of C’s and declared I was quitting.” With Albers, she thrived in Hamburg, Gerniany, in 1936—which was almost to be born into and could have coasted—”I did very well with Albers. I was Albers’ the probabilities of growing up to become a German Jewish woman. little color studyist.” But Hesse, after showing that she could succeed In 1938, when she was not quite three, and so was in her first year of within a system by following its rules, would then position herself out talking, she was sent on a children’s train from Hamburg to side the system so that she could see its limits and edges, because at the Amsterdam, and then brought with her sister and with her parents to edges and limits of rules was the place where she could begin. But the United States. Her father, who had been a criminal lawyer in because no rules exist outside a system of rules, or between two systems Gernany, became an insurance broker in New York. Not a man like-

38

and finding Heidegger letter as

himself after the is self, and Heidegger transcendental

upon in and Her try experience language, feels illusions, in One ideas,

model cal think very

and which pleasure

exist a tational to a

can the painting works gravity, such of produced.

hospitalization doubt fined tionally

isn’t illusions

of entertainments, wonder

thetic and

Nazism false ly

until subject pictorial it the

a materials. any

Europe

to explicit to

object Method

question

reality inhere in among ideas it art one

transcendental like of

As Meanings reducible

Perhaps relations

Sometimes

in One can paintings, illusions

the about to that

with

have to materials

bring

ideals, illusions,

pictured that of

is spite for aesthetic

that current is

an

a picture

can

and

Sol and about yet to

at

in

where believe to and

can not art. believe

Holocaust,

work which rule such

German

in of what said,

artist, of has

illusion in deceptive

on

discursive “Eva be Yale, harbored anyone They others,

of

the 1948. believe LeWitt: show any of,

I intellectually,

for became

can an my

a

and

This like

pinpoint so,

an

the

of in For had found values them

your magical to mit,

been

for do physical idealist could and

corpses

where life

as

the of

political

one which illustrational illusions

are and aesthetic many

moral cannot

p.

materials Eva aesthetic

theories

the in be correctively, painted in are

the

death values

an an half

that

depression,

not

meaning art indexed without with on reality who 75,”

continuum, of that disillusionments

the

a wants disappointing ideal being. questioned. formulated,

“How how in in

an educator, many not lives illusions Hesse but

materials

which attempt verbal

forget

is

work

a have

a one

values it illusions being people beliefs or

piled I means the opaque

world.

as camps.

one

insurance an

century a mother

something and was

or

think can is true pictures

illusions—the about values

whether illusion

spiritual the

section

to

and a

and of

to

sees illusions,

possible illusions. example very

do wanted is my

artistic

to

statement of the Today must painting had

up

language.

aesthetic be

at exist

and economic

with,

their not like killed

to

into at artist in and

they be or

you who in

its

can

in art, an copy Yale

but artists together.

and in Thus

perplexity

But who, now materially which physical

not an a fortified Rico November, that methods

on an

of

conveyed

through magic the go

law.” broker, because

values

image

in no responses methods

critique a parents—a believe

or be

to

and believes for unreal and herself.

resemble to

a explicit not

and of piles mundane

whether

he experience a singular “disappointment,” during about is of

the

experience.

life few

such

is doubt

focus prove

a illusions.

not once true

believe resource

LeBrun, or inappropriate help experience

exist events,

work

kept

how Meanings in

be that Hans-Georg disappointments tricks.

or which into

appropriateness I of of

Fascist

a

years

and the which painted in art about about they a the

of have, and constructing able

her in

of

model in material

within

a statement itself

corpses about that to with

continuum their

timelessly scrapbooks

purpose?” something one the 1933:

or criminal unreal focus

of relations

is cntique one

construction

explicit must

matenals. America, future, the

beliefs.

for

for

after objective. like Magic

Eva

is The conceal to not possible destruction. period, art any it produce

by to

aesthetic

work

this is

not anyone’s

surfaces are

of

for What can murder render

experiences

art

Eva that “Let on

in

not

be that conditions

can to 1-lesse’s

poetry illusions,

divorce, way the and something possible

Gadamer’s

physically

lawyer

in

visual

how essay, inherent only

tricks,

made is death

and

sincere, of construct

the believe I

She

is and are deeply?

a

might

wonder

suffered not of

how of show and and

way, with have that inadequate—

(3/18/1965).

conventional one

after

that such life Or

it—are a an

of We illusions same

of a of

immutably

the

immaterial sincerity. misleading wrote

the critique is teacher

principles

her

images

with represen and camps. adequacy who and

paintings

who and

aesthetic meaning aesthetic for the

one is they a

one illusions possible adapted Perhaps ideal re—read

what illusion

Martin

deplete and such of

it,

cannot family,

physi in

which Fuhrer

there,

called about plane

Truth How

sister, emo after, one Jews also, most

con— after

in life.

aes can is

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can fled the

are on

or or of

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a a

I 39 journal: lead not images metal lying heavy ried tions sexual subjective have sions artists with movie return factory trust where given attended one materials industrial to Erna writes: about knowing encountered sculpture. here

with nesses...” family—my his camp.

make thoughts on learns to wire, My Eva Eva her the been remains Marcusi, in and illusion around, to the screen “with” metal life—I is Eva to she are the the in “...a I their “Received projected. a when shape sturdy guess window will Hesse aesthetic Hesse, me and lessons Hesse disillusionments such imagining by Germany, there high In and focused. received screen, sculptor screen new grandparents. by displaces can

before art to doing, or to as 1964, make salesmanship rather life with is she materials then an decided school aesthetic Martin the my be mine.. self-supporting the between think in that generation displays, at josef illusions. illusion, but died workers $1,300.00 approaching use whole seen—I Tom the distinctions reading all purposes, her With projected H[essesj...never rags he than Eva anything of Albers. .never within of Heidegger. the of was to connoisseurship suggested into illusions lowest “industrial soaked illusions Doyle, three in the painting projections time. become Hesse she

gatherings, later, display use not think Seeking Within Gadamer, Courtesy her seeking structures. having from it money upon though learned who in between to her an like grades or childhood, for in Such and chose which it and that Manhattan sift artist, an grandparents’ beyond illusionistic of return arts,” the plaster, a Robert were can a something a knowing out a was wisely.’.’ blankly of artist or house, an materials. projection evanescent grandma, I the and she in past. the aesthetic, are actually of When, but knew any images, to aesthetic statistics, not and trying Miller art, to differences Eva use its men in illusions. through so sort that a ordinary Germany encouragements, fine empty I after junior are man surface she their Just objective about Gallery, pictures. some know

Hesse snore earlier, materials to grandpa stay in even the be The she artists—for screen arts. illusion illusions. was Yale, establishing who what paint her lives, seen—in screen spectator the in high which taught of unfounded New disappointment into She man between in nothing knew as giving Learning she concentration romantic the worked that upon holes. an high

notes wisely in [Moritz She and York. is their school, learned, an who the was adult, herself not a seems materials the as one I her illusory disused pushed focuses school, proud— took herself which of in think, means way actual much losses never mere lived mar with rela This how illu and and can late but my she her to to as a a “space” which isn’t really there. A metal screen, which has no rules ences her own truth in an art so without false magic or consoling for its use in the visual arts, can scarcely evoke ethereal or idealist expe enchantments or seductive bewitchments that her art would create no riences or have imaginings projected Onto it. An aesthetic response to false optimism or wishful thinking. She would solve the problem of such a ready-made screen would not be disappointed by the discovery works of art and disappointment by building disappointments right into that the materials were not in themselves “artistic.” Few disillusion them. Let materials hang, droop, or sag, or place materials on the floor ments could await the spectator of such a found—objectre-constructed where they can sink no further. She had worked herself toward the into art. final edges or limits of the systems of art and so brought herself to the An art is necessanly illusory, but Hesse worked toward an art of questions of what a work of art is, and of how it exists as a whole. illusions which were reduced to the very conditions of the origins of What possible system could this woman who had eluded so many sys aesthetic illusions. She experimented with seriahty, and with systems, tems propose as the way to go on with life? processes, procedures, and even mathematical operations, but she was The word “system”—which in its Greek origins has meant “a not committed to any such systems except as places where she could composite whole”—is most concretely visualized as “to cause to stand work herself toward an edge. At those edges she could contemplate together.” Precisely. In her late work, she causes parts to stari.d the transitions from separate parts to any wholeness. She could see together, but not to do much more than stand together. Her point-of- how separate pieces could become parts of a system, as in the interde— view on systems is her perspective on how parts are to be with each pendencies of parts in an organic wholeness—a single living system— other. What are the ways that an artist can construct a “complete and she could see then that the pieces lost their separateness when they whole” that is not a false image or example of wholeness? Given that functioned within such a system. But nothing like organicwholeness weight is a function of position in a gravitational field, some parts can would do for her because she wanted to preserve in visibility the be leaned against a wall, some can be lain on the floor or slumped threshold where the parts begin to enter a system but have not done so across each other, while others must be tied together and suspended completely. Any next stage in the construction of an aesthetic illu from exposed wires in the ceiling, or secured to hooks on the wall. sion—where the parts would merge and blend into wholeness—might What then are the fewest relations among parts that show how they be as untrustworthy as a false consolation, a sentimentality, or other stand together—with each other—as the transition into or out of a misrepresentation of the fact that even illusions which are worth pre composite visual system or visual wholeness? What is the least relation serving can perish. She would not provide the width of a razor’s edge among parts which is a relation of a part being with other parts? It is through which disappointment or disillusionment might enter aesthetic the relation of with as in “alone, and/op only with.” To exist is to “stand experiences. Hence the illusions in her art could not be further out” as a separate object. For Hesse, gradually, to exist is to stand with reduced without the matenals becoming the mere undesignated mate upon thresholds of the undecidable, uncertain, and uncompletable, riality of un-construction. She would continue to construct, but to with the courage to construct inconclusive experiences of visual Construct the thresholds of aesthetic illusions, where she would catch moments which are in transition from meaningless materiality to— the poignancy and pathos of the very moment of transition into and almost—being togetheru’itli in a u’Iiole. out of illusion as illusion. Her late works are poised on the verge of Whose sculpture, in America from 1965 to 1970, shows that the any illusion of wholeness or completeness or permanence. sculptor knows the kind of world she dwells in, and what, without get At the age of three or four, Hesse had necessarily added American ting stuck in false hopes, one can hope for within this world? Hesse English to German, apparently using German at home, and English in takes—sometimes with the help of the people who work with her— school. And so her mind, insofar as the mind is in part language—had two ends of a piece of material, and joins end with end, but not with been constructed with the German language, and was re-constructed in invisible seams. If the ends were joined any less, they would not be American English. An assault on one’s language is like a wound to the with each other. If the ends were joined seamlessly, the seam would mouth, and can be compensated for with enhancements of the eyes. not show, and an end would not be seen as u’itlianother end—one In that case, one might seek sharp-focus point-blank visual definitions would see seamlessness. If a unit is seamless, like a “bucket” shape in before attempting verbal definitions. And if one’s childhood language Repetition Nineteen, the units are placed apart from each other, just has been assaulted, one might survive by positioning oneself outside enough u’itlieach other to evoke the transition to a whole without the conventions of a language, as she does with many of her titles. completing the transition. A seamless whole, as in a metaphor of This position can be painful isolation, but it is also the very position- organic wholeness, is a lie for life or art, because any such whole is a outside that system or outside those conventions, and there alone—that rough construction which is stitched, glued, or othersvise fastened one’s sincere intentions to be truthftil can, if they are ever to be com together, or with parts placed near enough to each other to be with municated, be communicated. each other but not lost in each other. The construction then should, By 1966, back in New York. she could see that the way that illu for the sake of truth, show how obviously or tentatively or awkwardly sions exist in relation to materials is an expressive resource, and that parts are joined with each other. Any smoother wholeness would mis what can be expressed is the relation of meanings and values to physical lead the spectator as to the means of production of wholeness, and events. What values exist? how do they exist? what are their relations would falsify how wholeness could be a believable ideal in the to materials? Many of the artists who were her friends were working Manhattan of 1968, 1969, and 1970. against perceptual illusions, against literary meanings, against symbol So Hesse eventually will define wholeness in visual works in and myth and allegory and metaphor (as they understood and/or mis which if the parts were any less witheach other, they would be too sep construed them), against Idealisms, and against any power of language arate to be parts of a whole, and if the parts were any morewith each to describe, account for, or interpret mute visual experiences. Friends other, they would become subsidiary to a wholeness which would float may have taught her much, and helped to build her works, but no one free as a mysteriously seductive illusion, and which would render invis had anything to teach her about how a visual construct might outwit ible or transparent the material means and physical methods of its own the verbal and the non-visual, and prevent construction of misleading production. The spectator is not invited to or allowed to go elsewhere or consoling illusions. into pictorial illusions or serial ideas, but is confronted with responsible Hesse’s own course that she developed for herself is like an educa participation in the visual construction of the physical event in the radi tion in a philosophy which uses novel concepts to make novel ideas cal present—Now!, hereand now—where systems and rules don’t seem visible. The objects must be beyond the reach of the conventions of to be in force yet. 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40 just

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