Marjorie Allthorpe-Guyton//Joseph A. Amato//Amy Balkin//Karen Barad//Pennina Barnett//Artur Barrio// Robert Barry//Roland Barthes//Georges Bataille// Pascal Beausse//Nicolas Bourriaud//Christine Buci- Glucksmann//Judith Butler//Dan Cameron//Germano Celant//John Chandler//Mel Chin//Tony Conrad// Hubert Damisch//Gilles Deleuze//Jacques Derrida// herman de vries//Georges Didi-Huberman//Jimmie Durham//Natasha Eaton//VALIE EXPORT//Briony Fer// Vilém Flusser//Kenneth Goldsmith//Antony Gormley// Dan Graham//Betsy Greer//Elizabeth Grosz//Nicolás Guagnini//Félix Guattari//Helen Mayer Harrison// Newton Harrison//Jens Hauser//Romuald Hazoumè// Susan Hiller//Dieter Hoffmann-Axthelm//Ian Hunt//Tim Ingold//Ilya Kabakov//Mike Kelley//Wolfgang Kemp// Max Kozloff//Julia Kristeva//Esther Leslie//Primo Levi// Lucy R. Lippard//Jean-François Lyotard//Anthony McCall//Marshall McLuhan//Kristine Marx//Robert Morris//ORLAN//Sadie Plant//Dominic Rahtz//Dietmar Rübel//Viktoria Schmidt-Linsenhoff//Tino Sehgal// Shozo Shimamoto//Robert Smithson//Simon Starling// Simon Taylor//Ann Temkin//Paul Thek//Mierle Laderman Ukeles//Paul Vanouse//Hilke Wagner// Monika Wagner//Kara Walker//Gillian Whiteley// Richard J. Williams//Robert Williams//Jiro Yoshihara Materiality Whitechapel Gallery London The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts M A T E R I A L I T Y Edited by Petra Lange-Berndt Documents of Contemporary Art Co-published by Whitechapel Gallery Series Editor: Iwona Blazwick and The MIT Press Commissioning Editor: Ian Farr Documents of Contemporary Art Project Editor: Francesca Vinter First published 2015 Design by SMITH © 2015 Whitechapel Gallery Ventures Limited Allon Kaye, Justine Schuster All texts © the authors or the estates of the authors, Printed and bound in China unless otherwise stated Cover, front, Robert Smithson, Asphalt Rundown Whitechapel Gallery is the imprint of Whitechapel (1969), October 1969, Rome. © The Holt-Smithson In recent decades artists have progressively expanded the boundaries of art as Gallery Ventures Limited Foundation/DACS, London. Courtesy of James Cohan Gallery, New York and Shanghai; inside flap, they have sought to engage with an increasingly pluralistic environment. All rights reserved. No part of this publication Santiago Sierra, House in Mud (2005), may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover (detail of Teaching, curating and understanding of art and visual culture are likewise no or transmitted in any form or by any means, installation). © DACS, London. Courtesy of the artist longer grounded in traditional aesthetics but centred on significant ideas, topics electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, and Lisson Gallery, London. without the written permission of the publisher and themes ranging from the everyday to the uncanny, the psychoanalytical to Whitechapel Gallery Ventures Limited the political. ISBN 978-0-85488-237-3 (Whitechapel Gallery) 77–82 Whitechapel High Street ISBN 978-0-262-52809-2 (The MIT Press) London E1 7QX The Documents of Contemporary Art series emerges from this context. Each whitechapelgallery.org A catalogue record for this book is available from To order (UK and Europe) call +44 (0)207 522 7888 volume focuses on a specific subject or body of writing that has been of key the British Library or email [email protected] influence in contemporary art internationally. Edited and introduced by a scholar, Distributed to the book trade (UK and Europe only) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data by Central Books artist, critic or curator, each of these source books provides access to a plurality www.centralbooks.com of voices and perspectives defining a significant theme or tendency. Materiality (M.I.T. Press) Materiality / edited by Petra Lange-Berndt. The MIT Press For over a century the Whitechapel Gallery has offered a public platform for pages cm. (Whitechapel: documents of Cambridge, MA 02142 contemporary art) MIT Press books may be purchased at special art and ideas. In the same spirit, each guest editor represents a distinct yet diverse Includes bibliographical references and index. quantity discounts for business or sales promotional approach – rather than one institutional position or school of thought – and has ISBN 978-0-262-52809-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) use. For information, please email special_sales@ 1. Art, Modern 20th century Themes, motives. mitpress.mit.edu conceived each volume to address not only a professional audience but all 2. Art, Modern 21st century Themes, motives. interested readers. 3. Artists’ materials. I. Lange-Berndt, Petra, editor. II. Title. N6490.M337 2015 709.04 dc23 2015013962 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Series Editor: Iwona Blazwick; Commissioning Editor: Ian Farr; Project Editor: Francesca Vinter; Editorial Advisory Board: Roger Conover, Neil Cummings, Mark Francis, David Jenkins, Omar Kholeif, Gilane Tawadros INTRODUCTION//12 FOLLOW THE MATERIALS//24 THE LIVING FIRE OF LABOUR//60 FORMLESS BLOBS AND TRASH FLOWS//88 BODIES THAT MATTER//118 NATURE AFTER NATURE//144 REMATERIALIZATION OF THE VOID//168 MATERIALITIES OF MEDIA//198 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES//226 BIBLIOGRAPHY//228 INDEX//232 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS//238 LANGUAGE POSSIBLE MATERIAL MAKES MORE THAN ONE I’m interested in an excess of material, an excess of interpretation Cildo Meireles, ‘Places for Digressions’, interview with Nuria Enguita, Cildo Meireles, 1994 FOLLOW THE MATERIALS Dietmar Rübel Plasticity: An Art History of the Mutable, Monika Wagner Material, 2001//26 2012//94 Antony Gormley In Conversation with James Putnam, Germano Celant Michelangelo Pistoletto, 1982//104 2004//30 Mike Kelley On the Aesthetics of Ufology, 1997//105 Jiro Yoshihara Gutai Manifesto, 1956//32 Gillian Whiteley Junk: Art and the Politics of Trash, Wolfgang Kemp Wood – Figuring Problems of Material, 2011//107 1976//35 Ilya Kabakov On Garbage: In Conversation Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari A Thousand with Boris Groys, 1995//110 Plateaux, 1980//38 Mierle Laderman Ukeles Flow City: Georges Didi-Huberman The Order of Material: In Conversation with Anne Doran, 1996//112 Plasticities, malaises, Survivals, 1999//42 Robert Williams Disjecta Reliquae: Susan Hiller ‘Truth’ and ‘Truth to Materials’, 2003//53 The Tate Thames Dig, 1999//115 Kara Walker In Conversation with Kara Rooney, Nicolás Guagnini Fetishism/Hoarding/Entropy, 2014//57 2014//116 THE LIVING FIRE OF LABOUR BODIES THAT MATTER Esther Leslie Volatile, Liquid, Crystal, 2015//62 Judith Butler Bodies that Matter, 1993//120 Shozo Shimamoto Theory of the Curse of the Brush, Paul Thek Beneath the Skin: In Conversation 1957//65 with Gene Swenson, 1966//122 Dominic Rahtz Indifference of Material in the Work Julia Kristeva Powers of Horror, 1980//123 of Carl Andre and Robert Smithson, 2012//67 VALIE EXPORT Aspects of Feminist Actionism, 1980//125 Artur Barrio Manifesto, 1969//71 Simon Taylor The Phobic Object, 1993//127 Dieter Hoffmann-Axthelm Theory of Artistic Work, Marjorie Allthorpe-Guyton A Purpose in Liquidity, 1974//72 1994//129 Pennina Barnett The Alchemist’s Workshop, 1997//75 Dan Cameron Parts and Whole: Hilke Wagner House in Mud, 2005//79 On Janine Antoni’s Gnaw, 2000//131 Betsy Greer Knitting for Good!, 2008//82 Ann Temkin Strange Fruit, 1999//132 Romuald Hazoumè Statement, 2012//83 Ian Hunt Interior Structures, 2000//134 Natasha Eaton Chromophobic Activism, 2014//84 Pascal Beausse Teresa Margolles: Primordial Substances, 2005//136 FORMLESS BLOBS AND TRASH FLOWS ORLAN The Body: A Material amongst Other Usable, Georges Bataille Formless, 1929//90 Questionable Materials, 2015//139 Max Kozloff The Poetics of Softness, 1967//90 Paul Vanouse Counter Laboratories, Inverted Suspects Robert Morris Anti Form, 1968//92 and Latent Signs, 2011//140 NATURE AFTER NATURE Joseph A. Amato Dust: A History of the Small Elizabeth Grosz The Thing, 2001//146 and the Invisible, 2000//189 Robert Smithson A Sedimentation of the Mind: Hubert Damisch Blotting Out Architecture? Earth Projects, 1968//149 A Fable in Seven Parts, 2003//191 Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison Tino Sehgal In Conversation with Tim Griffin, 2005//196 In Conversation with Craig Adcock, 1992//153 Primo Levi The Periodic Table, 1975//155 MATERIALITIES OF MEDIA Mel Chin Statement, 1995//156 Marshall McLuhan Understanding Media, 1964//200 herman de vries in memory of the scottish forest, Tony Conrad 7360 Sukiyaki, 1977//201 1995//157 Jean-François Lyotard Les Immatériaux, 1985//201 Jimmie Durham Between the Furniture and the Christine Buci-Glucksmann Dematerialization, Building (Between a Rock and a Hard Place), 1985//207 1998//158 Jacques Derrida Dematerialization, Matériau, Matériel, Monika Wagner Hans Haacke’s Earth Samples 1985//207 for the Bundestag, 2007//160 Vilém Flusser Form and Material, 1991//208 Tim Ingold Making Culture and Weaving the World, Sadie Plant Zeros + Ones: Digital Women + 2000//164 The New Technoculture, 1997//211 Amy Balkin Atmospheric Monument: In Conversation Karen Barad Meeting the Universe Halfway, 2007//213 with Ana Teixeira Pinto, 2012//166 Jens Hauser Who’s Afraid of the In-Between?, 2008//216 Kristine Marx The Materiality of Impermanence, REMATERIALIZATION OF THE VOID 2008//221 Nicolas Bourriaud Blue Company, or Yves Klein Simon Starling In Conversation with Reconsidered as World Economy, 2000//170 Francesco Manacorda, 2012//223 Roland Barthes Plastic, 1957//173 Kenneth Goldsmith Uncreative Writing, 2011//224 Dan Graham Foams, 1966//175 Viktoria Schmidt-Linsenhoff The Aesthetics of Lucy R. Lippard and John Chandler Production, A–Z, 2004//225 The Demateriali-zation of Art, 1968//176 Robert Barry Ideas Come Out of Objects: In Conversation with Matthieu Copeland, 2009//178 Lucy R. Lippard Six Years … //181 Richard J. Williams After Modern Sculpture, 2000//183 Briony Fer The Scatter: Sculpture as Leftover, 2005//186 Anthony McCall Line Describing a Cone and Related Films, 2003//188.