ART IN THE MIRROR: REFLECTION IN THE WORK OF RAUSCHENBERG, RICHTER, GRAHAM AND SMITHSON DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Eileen R. Doyle, M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 2004 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Stephen Melville, Advisor Professor Lisa Florman ______________________________ Professor Myroslava Mudrak Advisor History of Art Graduate Program Copyright by Eileen Reilly Doyle 2004 ii ABSTRACT This dissertation considers the proliferation of mirrors and reflective materials in art since the sixties through four case studies. By analyzing the mirrored and reflective work of Robert Rauschenberg, Gerhard Richter, Dan Graham and Robert Smithson within the context of the artists' larger oeuvre and also the theoretical and self-reflective writing that surrounds each artist’s work, the relationship between the wide use of industrially-produced materials and the French theory that dominated artistic discourse for the past thirty years becomes clear. Chapter 2 examines the work of Robert Rauschenberg, noting his early interest in engaging the viewer’s body in his work—a practice that became standard with the rise of Minimalism and after. Additionally, the theoretical writing the French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty provides insight into the link between art as a mirroring practice and a physically engaged viewer. Chapter 3 considers the questions of medium and genre as they arose in the wake of Minimalism, using the mirrors and photo-based paintings of Gerhard Richter as its focus. It also addresses the particular way that Richter weaves the motifs and concerns of traditional painting into a rhetoric of the death of painting which strongly implicates the mirror, ultimately opening up Richter’s career to a psychoanalytic reading drawing its force from Jacques Lacan’s writing on the formation of the subject. Chapter 4 extends these considerations to address the role of the viewer and the question of time and ii history through an analysis of the work and writing of Dan Graham, which draw on both Merleau-Ponty’s and Lacan’s theories of vision. And finally, Chapter 5 focuses on the work, writings and aesthetic theory of Robert Smithson, addressing the way that Smithson explicitly put his art and writing into an interdependent relationship, insisting that art is ultimately displaced into writing. Taken together, the case studies describe the way reflection both as a practice and as material choice defined some of the most notable trends in the artistic discourse of the last forty years. iii For Todd iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank my adviser, Stephen Melville, for intellectual support, encouragement and enthusiasm, which made this dissertation possible. I am grateful to Lisa Florman and Myroslava Mudrak for their incisive suggestions in crafting the text and for their long-standing commitment to this project. I also wish to thank Dan Graham, Anne Rorimer, Gerhard Gruitrooy, Kim Masteller and Donovan Dodrill for their stimulating discussions about the contents of this dissertation in its early stages. I am indebted to my friends and family for their continued support throughout this project and their unstinting confidence in it and in me. Most especially, I am grateful to my husband, Todd Doyle, who has served as editor, proofreader and cheerleader. Without his support and sacrifice, this dissertation would not have been possible. v VITA November 21, 1968 Born – New Haven, CT 1995 M.A. Art History, University of South Florida 1999 – present Researcher, Art Resource, Inc., New York, NY 2000 - present Instructor, School of Continuing and Professional Studies, New York University PUBLICATIONS 1. E. Doyle, “Dan Graham,” “Robert Rauschenberg,” and “Robert Smithson,” entries for Encyclopedia of Postmodernism. Victor E. Taylor and Charles E. Winquist, eds. London and New York: Routledge, 2000; 161-162, 331-332, 372-373. 2. E. Doyle, T. Timmons, eds. One-Off (exhibition catalogue). Tampa, FL: Florida Center for Contemporary Art, 1994. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: History of Art vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract…….……………………………………………………………………………..ii Dedication..…………………………………………………………………………...…..iv Acknowledgments………..……………………………………………………………….v Vita…………………………………………………………………………………….….vi List of Figures ………………………………………………………………………...….ix Chapters: 1. Introduction ……………………………………………………………………..1 1.1 Mirrors and Art ……………………………………………………………..3 1.2 Reflection and Minimalism ……………………….………………………..6 1.3 Mirrors in French Theory …………………………………………………10 1.4 Language, Writing and Vision ………………………………………..…...12 1.5 The Discourse Surrounding Mirrors in Recent Art …………………….….14 1.6 The Reflective Work of Rauschenberg, Richter, Graham and Smithson ……………………………………………………………………18 1.7 A Short Note on the Terms of the Argument...…………………………..…24 2. Robert Rauschenberg: Mirrors of Art and Life …………………………….…..26 2.1 Mirrors as a Collage Material ………………………………………...…….28 2.2 Depicted Mirrors in the Silk-screens ……………………………………….32 2.3 Silk-screening on Reflective Materials ……………………………………..37 2.4 Reflection and Viewer Interaction ………………………………………….41 2.5 The White Paintings as Empty Mirrors ………………………………..……45 2.6 Mirrors and Language ………………………………………………….……53 3. Gerhard Richter’s Mirrors: Memento Mori or Monochrome? …………………..57 3.1 Glass, Windows and Curtains …………………………………….…………59 3.2 The Silvered Mirrors of 1981 …………………………………...…………..69 3.3 Painted Mirrors in the Early 1990s …………………………………….……76 3.4 History, Death and Memory ………………………………………….……..82 3.5 Reflection as an Interpretive Practice ………………………………….……87 vii 4. Dan Graham: A Theater of Vision …………………………………………...91 4.1 Published Art/Public Viewing …………………………………..………..92 4.2 The Viewer in Time and Place …………………………………………...95 4.3 Theater of Vision …………………………………………………………100 4.4 Photography as Symbolic Form …………………………………………...112 5. Robert Smithson: The Abstract Mirror ………………………………….…….122 5.1 1964-1965: The Vestiges of Minimalism …………………………...……..125 5.2 1966-1968: Limits and Layers ……………………………………...……...134 5.3 1968-1970: “A Thing is a Hole in a Thing It is not” ………………….…...138 6. Conclusion ………………………………………………………………..……153 Endnotes …………………………………………………………………………..…....160 Bibliography ………………………………………………………………………..….189 Appendix A: Figures……….…………………………...………………………………201 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1 Lukas Furtenagle, The Artist Hans Burgkmair and his Wife, Anna, 1529….202 2 The Mirror of Death, from a Book of Hours, c. 1480…………………….….202 3 Quentin Metsys, St. Luke Painting the Virgin and Child, 1530……………..202 4 Henri Matisse, Carmelina, 1903…………………………………………..…..202 5 Marcia Painting her Self-Portrait, 15th century………………………….…....202 6 Juan Gris, Le Lavabo, 1912…………………………………………………….202 7 Vladimir Tatlin, The Bottle, 1912……………………………………………..203 8 Gino Severini, The Bal Tabarin, 1912……………………………………..….203 9 Constantine Brancusi, Sleeping Muse, 1909…………………………………203 10 Robert Morris, Untitled (Mirror Cubes), 1965….…………………….……..203 11 Frank Stella, Empress of India, 1965…………………………..……………...203 12 Hans Holbein, The French Ambassadors, 1533………………………………203 13 Michelangelo Pistoletto, Person Seen from the Back, 1962…………….……204 13 Donald Judd, Untitled, 1968………………………….………………………204 15 Lucas Samaras, Room #2, 1966…………………………………………..…...204 16 Adrian Piper, Installation view of Black Box and White Box, 1992…….…204 17 Piper, interior of Black Box, 1992………………………………………….…204 ix 18 Robert Rauschenberg, Charlene, 1954…………………………………….…204 19 Rauschenberg, Minutiae, 1954……………………………………………….205 20 Rauschenberg, Big D Ellipse, 1990…………………………………………...205 21 Rauschenberg, Ballast, 1987………………………………………………….205 22 Rauschenberg, Favor-Rites, 1988……………………………………………..205 23 Rauschenberg, Soundings, 1968……………………………………………...205 24 Rauschenberg, Solstice, 1968…………………………………………………205 25 Rauschenberg, Revolver, 1968………………………………………………..206 26 Rauschenberg, Audition, from Carnal Clocks, 1968…………………….…..206 27 Rauschenberg, Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno, 1958-1960……….………..206 28 Rauschenberg, White Painting, 1951………………………………………...206 29 Rauschenberg, Retroactive II, 1964…………………………………………..206 30 Rauschenberg, Press, 1964………………………………………..…………..206 31 Rauschenberg, Female Figure, 1950………………………………………….207 32 Rauschenberg, Tracer, 1963…………………………………………………..207 33 Rauschenberg, Transom, 1963………………………………………………..207 34 Gerhard Richter, Table, 1962…………………………………………………207 35 Richter, Dead I, 1988…………………………………………………………..207 36 Richter, 1024 Colors, 1973…………………………………………………….207 37 Richter, Abstract Picture, 1992………………………………………………..208 38 Richter, Installation view of Eight Gray, 2001……………………...………208 39 Richter, Four Panes of Glass, 1967……………………………………………208 x 40 Georges Braque, Le Portugais, 1911-12……………………..……………….208 41 Marcel Duchamp, The Large Glass, 1915-23,………………………….…….208 42 Richter, Ema (Nude and Staircase), 1966…………………..…………………208 43 Richter, Woman Descending the Staircase, 1965..…………………………….209 44 Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, 1912………….……………….…...209 45 Richter, Uncle Rudi, 1965………………………………………...…………...209 46 Richter, Installation of Pane of Glass I & II, 1977……….…………………..209 47 Richter, Double Pane of Glass, 1977……………………...…………………...209 48 Richter, Betty, 1977………………………………………...………………….209 49 Richter, Self-Portrait, 1996………………………..…………………………..210 50 Richter, Mirror and Mirror, both 1981……………………………….……...210 51 Richter, Mirror, 1981…………………………………...……………………..210 52 Richter, Two Candles, 1983……………………………………………………210