RE-SURVEYING: Measuring Site JAMES GEURTS RE-SURVEYING: Measuring Site Solo Exhibition by James Geurts September 6—October 11, 2014. Zhulong Gallery, Dallas Texas Essay by Aja Martin, Curator Cover (front and back): INTL Timeline, 2014. Neon 9 ft x 11 in, solar panel 64 ½ x 39 1/8. Dimentions variable. Color plate 1: Installation detail: Re- Surveying: Measuring Site, 2014. Photos courtesy Kevin Todora (2014). Color plate 2: 23 ½ ° Orbital Horizon, 2014. Resin, copper, Plexiglas, shelf 1 ½ x 12 5/16 x 13/16 in. Photo courtesy Kevin Todora (2014). Right: Spatial expansion #3: Oceans Passage, 2014. Photographic print, mounted 16 1/4 in x 26 ft x 6 in. Photo courtesy Jonathan Zizzo (2014). Introduction: In RE-SURVEYING: Measuring Site, contrast a psychic understanding of conceptual land artist James Geurts place that inverts the culture verses draws out the subterranean and nature falsehood. The works throw terrestrial rhythms of the earth. into relief the impact of vision on our His explorations take form as major understanding of the landscape as permanent public art commissions, separate and other. temporary site-specific installations, as well as gallery mounted works of James Geurts lives and works his field research including photography, in Melbourne and London. He has video, and sculpture. This survey ex- produced large-scale, site and time- hibition also features newly created specific projects and gallery works work culminating from his month-long in international contexts since 2002. residency in Dallas, TX. Recent commissions include: The Presence of Giants, Arts Victoria Geurts’ practice has taken him the Public Sculpture Commission (2014); world over. This survey exhibition is Magnetic Eclipse, a solstice light an extension of an ongoing dialogue sculpture on Sun Pier, TONE Festival between the director and artist, and commission Medway River, UK (2014); the works on display carefully locate Drawing: Tidal Topographies, shown ‘paradigms of measurement’ and at Dalhousie Art Gallery’s Place ‘psychogeographic methods’ as they Markers exhibition in Halifax (2012); have unfolded over extended periods Drawing: Horizon, a solar light sculp- of field research. How do we fathom a ture, staged on the coastline of the tide and axis of a rotating earth, or the North Sea in The Hague (2010). His phenomenon of a horizon? Through work has been presented by institu- artifacts and live-feed recordings from tions including GEMAK Netherlands, site, the exhibition illustrates how the Centre for Contemporary Art Telaviv artist expands on artistic waves like Israel, La Chambre Blanche Quebec, Earthworks, New Topographics, and Australian Center for Contemporary even landscape painting to deliver in Art and White Cube London. RE-SURVEYING: Measuring Site Aja Martin In Drawing Horizon (2010), notions of beginning and end by are presented with in a day’s time. fig. 1 Drawing: Horizon, 2010. a single strip of fluorescent lights extending and making perceivable the Geurts engages technology of today North Sea Den Haag, grade from soft peach, to white, unending passage of time. as a means to present technology of Netherlands. then blue. (fig.1) The tubes follow one yesterday embedded within the Durotran print, lightbox. another from warmest in temperature Our place within—and our abstracted images he records: digi- Photo courtesy Kevin to coolest mimicking the gradation visual language for perceiving— tizing carefully drawn observations, Todora (2014). of colors emanating from where the the landscape are for James Geurts creating digital video pieces that are fig. 2 Tidal Black & sun sets. The sculpture pretends to utterly engaging. Durational experiences recordings of yet older mediums White, 2012. Digital video draw over the horizon, tracing the such as artist residencies, research, recording the subject matter. (fig. 2) Dimensions vary. illusionistic line where the ocean and fieldwork inform Geurts’ inqui- Photo Courtesy Kevin meets the sky. In the top half of the ries into the perception of landscape Todora (2014). picture, overcast skies stretch back, and the effects of focused landscape and below the bar of light waves ripple experiences on psychology; they are a and curl onto the shore. Conceptual component of the medium, as is the land artist James Geurts highlights the land. The works—from drawings, horizon on the North Sea in The Hague sculptures and photographic abstrac- emphasizing the illusion, but also our tions made of a range of outmoded tech- urge to ‘fathom’ our surroundings. The nologies like Polaroid film, 8mm film, and illuminated work symbolizes our other analog imaging systems—frame most basic mark to indicate place— perception and absorb the dureé. Turning the simple horizontal line drawn away from new media tools, Geurts across a rectangle or square seems to have identified a slower, more space. In this and other works, historical way of looking to spite Geurts philosophically questions the the 10,000 flickering images we Cameras capture and record, thetic period of time. In the pairing fig. 5 Jacob van Ruis- dael, View of Haarlem, the results imply a frozen moment, Drawing Psychogeography 3 and 9, with Bleaching Fields an instant, or an encapsulated time photographs of the landscape in (c.1670). Courtesy Kunsthaus, frame. Geurts, however, is a member Wilsons Promontory, Australia and Zurich, of a group of photographers who Chicoutimi, Quebec, though taken a Stiftung L. Ruzicka. choose to wrestle with the medium, year and thousands of miles apart, fig. 6 Cornelis Vroom, repurpose, destroy it, and rebuild it appear as a pair of day and night The Valley, (c.1631). to create a system for abstraction. landscape images of a potentially Berlin-Dahlem, Staatli- che Museen, In Drawing Psychogeography 3: Bass similar, but very distinct terrain. Kupferstichkabinett. Straight (2008) and Drawing Psy- Digitally enlarged reproductions of the chogeography 9: St Lawrence River, exposed films increase the impact (2009), Geurts shoots a polaroid of the works and perhaps also the image of the landscape, then peels amount of time spent in front of them. the film open exposing the inside of The eroded edges of each work bears the photograph to the atmosphere. resemblance to the color spectrum (figs. 3, 4) He turns an instantaneous seen through light and water; the figuration into a durational litmus that edges become permeable boundaries records atmospheric qualities like slowly degrading the frame that binds humidity, pollution, debris, and the image. The viewer can stand at the most significantly light as it reflects center of either of these works and off the terrain and reacts with the observe their faint reflection within emulsions of the polaroid. the landscape image, but at the same time comb through its distant details, a mound of root bound sand, or brilliant moon-light casting powerful blocks of light through passing nocturnal clouds. As the ‘psychogeographies’ take the form of Polaroids, the snapshot effect plays out as the viewer is framed fig. 7 Michael Heizer, and viewing the place simultaneously. Double Negative Morman Mesa, Overton, Of historical significance NV, 1969-70. are the experiments with light and Photo courtesy landscape features like the horizon University of California, San Diego. line during the Dutch Golden age of painting. In works like View of Haar- fig. 8 Magnetic Eclipse, 2014. lem, with Bleaching Fields (c.1670) Site and time specific fig. 3 Drawing Psy- and The Valley (c.1631) we see how light installation chogeography 3: Bass artists worked to evoke an emotional Solstice, Medway Straight, 2008. River UK Wilsons Promontory, response to the landscape through Durotran print, light Australia. perception with the horizon line as a box, 16 x 16 x 4 in Photographic print, Photo courtesy 47 ¼ x 39 5/8 in. sort of visual thermometer. (figs. 5, Kevin Todora (2014). Photo courtesy Kevin 6) Low horizon lines, as seen in the Todora (2014). classical phase of Dutch painting, are fig. 4 Drawing sublime with their majestic looming Psychogeography 9: skies that almost suffocate the viewer. St Lawrence River, Frozen, 2009. As the horizon line was pushed up into Chicoutimi, Quebec. the top register of the paintings, as Photographic print, 47 ¼ x 39 5/8 in seen in The Valley; a sense of never- Photo courtesy Kevin ending land, bounty, and potential shifts Todora (2014). the viewer down into the landscape. Geurts’ experiments serve Further fusing Geurts’ prac- as chemical recordings of the at- tice with that of the Dutch school is mosphere, environment, light and ashared fascination with mechanical other less tangible qualities of place means of abstracting or reiterating collected in various locations. This visual phenomenon. Machined light ongoing series of abstract photographs played an important role in Dutch are referred to as ‘psychogeographies’ painting through use of the camera and speak to an alternative mapping obscura. It seems that painters like system, though. Raw data is machined Vermeer sought also to fathom the into an interpretive and contemplative particular quality of Dutch light by imprint of a complete, almost synaes- mechanical means. in the 60s and 70s, Geurts’ practice position, even height. Ambient light is more akin to light tracing (figs. 7, from the gallery and other works placed 8). He often uses lights and other around the space penetrate, reflect, and non-permanent means to highlight alter the cystalline structures and earthly phenomenon, recording the emphasize the reflective qualities large scale sculptures as additional of contemplation. From straight on sculptures, light boxes, and other the small images seem magnified, and forms. from an angle light travels through the small blocks creating vanishing As Zhulong Gallery’s first points, reflections, and a temporary artist-in-residence, Geurts brings his nullification of the image. Movement site-specific practice to Dallas where around the works heightens the he conducted research, worked with experience and points back to local artists, and created studies that Geurts’ major focus on perception and explore the ‘psychogeography’ of psychology.