1 Extra-ordinary (Be)Comings and goings: transformative encounters in contemporary assemblage by Merryn Hull A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Sydney College of the Arts University of Sydney September 2019 2 STATEMENT OF ORGINALITY This is to certify that to the best of my knowledge, the contents of this thesis is my own work. This thesis has not been submitted for any degree or other purposes. I certify that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work and that all the assistance received in preparing this thesis and sources have been acknowledged. Merryn Hull September 2019 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my sincere thanks to all those who have helped me achieve the completion of this dissertation. I particularly thank teachers both current and former, advisers, mentors and colleagues who have been an ongoing source of support. I am grateful for the many and varied moments and conversations that I have had the privilege to share throughout this research. My particular thanks to Kaio Faustino. I thank my auxiliary supervisor, Dr Julie Rrap, for her involvement in the latter stages of my research and for shared conversations about many of the ideas that I pursue in this dissertation. I also express my thanks to Ms Anne Ferran, for editorial assistance in the finalisation of this thesis. I particularly thank my supervisor, Dr John Di Stefano, whose help and support have enabled this research to come to fruition. His rigorous approach has equipped me with the tenacity and courage to pursue my belief in this project. I thank him most sincerely for all his efforts on my behalf and for introducing me to many ideas which have become integral to my research and practice. I gratefully acknowledge that his continuing guidance has been the inspiration which has led me to complete this dissertation. I sincerely thank my family and friends who have shown great interest in my progress and have helped me stay focused throughout the four years of this project. Finally, I wish to thank my husband, Dr Daryll Hull, for his extra-ordinary support – at all time and in all ways. Without him, this thesis would not be possible. I dedicate this thesis to our life together. 4 ABSTRACT The question that led me to embark on this thesis was this: why it is that four artists in particular exert such an influence on my work? A physical encounter with Robert Irwin’s Excursus: Homage to the Square³ was the key that, by demonstrating that the experience of this work is primarily a temporal and not a spatial one, allowed me to reframe my research. My thesis focuses on a specific temporality that I designate the Moment of ‘Imminence’: the moment in the viewer-artwork encounter that the viewer experiences as a heightened awareness of something that has not-yet but is about-to-happen. The significance of this moment rests in its potential to insinuate social and ‘political’ consequences in three- dimensional artworks. To explore this moment, I draw on an eclectic range of aesthetic and philosophical concepts from a diversity of multi-disciplinary thinkers. Through a synthesis of these concepts, I construct a Theory of ‘Imminence’, comprised of eight principles, explicated in the thesis. A key focus is that of ‘assemblage’. In certain artworks, contemporary ‘assemblage’ – the bringing together of diverse ideas, philosophies and materials to productively co-function – becomes the catalyst for the viewer’s transformative encounter, a dynamic moment of connection that brings meaning and reinforces that the artwork exists only in potential until experienced through its encounter with the viewer. The thesis explores the work of the four artists, my exemplars: the German artists Isa Genzken and Wolfgang Tillmans, the American artist Robert Irwin and the Sydney based Irish/Australian artist Stephen Little. It concludes that their idiosyncratic practices utilise diverse notions of transformation to explore issues of social significance. The notion of time as ‘becoming’, expressed by French post-structuralist Gilles Deleuze, provides a conception of time that resonates with this conclusion. His writings on cinema, art and the concept of the ‘time-image’, together with his theorisation of ‘assemblage’, reinforce multi-temporal conceptions of reality. Henri Lefebvre’s work supports my research focus on the moment in terms of its unique potential for possibility through the everyday. Robin Clark’s use of the term ‘temporal object-event’ further substantiates the element of time and the experience of the encounter, while Michael Fried’s criticism of minimalism supports my conceptual position that the minimalist aesthetic is fundamental to the transformative encounter. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF ORGINALITY ............................................................................... 2 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .......................................................................................... 3 ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................... 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................................. 5 TABLE OF FIGURES .............................................................................................. 6 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. 9 CHAPTER 1 ENCOUNTERS IN MINIMALISM ....................................................... 22 CHAPTER 2 BECOMING-ASSEMBLAGE ............................................................... 52 CHAPTER 3 CONCEPTIONS OF REALITY ............................................................ 80 CHAPTER 4 THE MOMENT OF IMMINENCE ........................................................ 96 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................. 116 APPENDICES.................................................................................................... 123 APPENDIX 1 – Light Research (LR: Series 2017).......................................... 124 APPENDIX 3 – Isa Essay (ISA GENZKEN April 2016) .................................... 128 APPENDIX 4 – M. Hull and B. Hester Transcript of Interview (29th April 2016) 141 APPENDIX 5 – Transcript Interview Dr Stephen Little – Merryn Hull .............. 145 APPENDIX 6 – ES74 Gallery Handout – Stephen Little, Equinox, 2016 ........... 151 APPENDIX 7 – Making of Lines of Flight – Contact Sheets ............................ 153 APPENDIX 8 – Framework Analysis Theory of “Imminence” ......................... 156 APPENDIX 9 – (Be)Comings and goings (2019) – Indicative Plan of Proposed Exhibition for Examination ......................................................................... 161 APPENDIX 10 – (Be) Comings and goings (2019) – Documentation of PhD Exhibition for Examination ......................................................................... 162 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................ 174 6 TABLE OF FIGURES Figure 1 Merryn Hull, Untitled, 2012. Aluminium frame with painted panels, coloured acrylic sheets and neon lights. 200 x 160 x 40 cm. National Art School, Sydney. Photo: Nina Cholerton. .................................................. 10 Figure 2 Merryn Hull, BVM, 2015. Aluminium frame with painted panels, coloured acrylic sheets and fluoro lights. 210 x 200 x 200 cm. Installation view. National Art School, Sydney. Photo: Merryn Hull.......................... 11 Figure 3 El Lissitzky, Abstract Cabinet (Kabinett der Abstrakten), 1927-1928. Installation view, Hannover Provincial Museum. Sprengel Museum Hannover has produced a new reconstruction of El Lissitzky’s Abstract Cabinet with catalogue. Original photo: ©2007 Sprengel Museum Hannover. ................................................... 12 Figure 4 Robert Irwin, Excursus: Homage to the square³, 2015. Dia:Beacon. https://www.flickr.com/photos/garrettrock/24642965149 ©2015 Photo: Garrett Rock. .................................. 17 Figure 5 Still in Love in Paris, 2010. Acrylic paint on canvas, 150 cm x 150 cm. Photo: Merryn Hull. .................. 26 Figure 6 Looking to Springtime, 2010. Acrylic paint on canvas with clear acrylic overlay and spray enamel, 150 cm x 150 cm. Photo: Merryn Hull.......................................................................................................................... 26 Figure 7 Architectural Research, 2011. Acrylic paint, clear acrylic sheets, dimensions variable. Photo: Merryn Hull. ....................................................................................................................................................................... 26 Figure 8 Paris Iron, 2011. Oil paint, acrylic sheets, mirror, plastic ventilator and aluminium on panel ironing board with LED, dimensions variable. Photo: Merryn Hull. .................................................................................. 26 Figure 9 Detail Gold Carat II, 2012. Foil-backed acrylic, fluorescent acrylic and blue neon light, 120 cm x 80 cm. Photo: Merryn Hull. .............................................................................................................................................. 27 Figure 10 Studio, 2013. Digitised image printed onto clear acrylic panel, 45 cm x 45 cm. Photo: Merryn Hull. .. 27 Figure 11 Architectonic Research, 2015. Photographic images, resin sheets,