UC Riverside UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Action Required: Michael Brewster and Sound as Sculpture Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6324f5qn Author Arnold, Homer Charles Publication Date 2020 License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 4.0 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Action Required: Michael Brewster and Sound as Sculpture A Thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Art History by Homer Charles Arnold June 2020 Thesis Committee: Dr. Liz Kotz, Chairperson Dr. Judith Rodenbeck Dr. Susan Laxton Copyright by Homer Charles Arnold 2020 The Thesis of Homer Charles Arnold is approved: Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside Acknowledgments I extend my sincerest thanks and gratitude to my thesis committee chair, Dr. Liz Kotz, for her interest and guidance in this project. Her knowledge of art practices of the 1960s and 1970s has been invaluable to this work and my research. I also thank Dr. Susan Laxton for her instruction and advice regarding the theoretical territory this project covers. Further, I extend my gratitude to Dr. Judith Rodenbeck for her input into various aspects of this text. In particular, her knowledge of media studies and the early history of D.I.Y. electronics is critical to several passages. I could not have accomplished this work without Karen Anderson. I thank her for allowing me to construct Michael Brewster’s archive, and for her continued support in that project and others. I also thank Caitlyn Lawler for her help in assisting with the construction of Brewster’s archive and Alex Schetter for his guidance on understanding the finer points of emergent audio technologies. Finally, this text would not be possible without the following persons who took their time to speak to me about Michael Brewster, F Space, and Brewster’s early years in Southern California: Barbara T. Smith, Bruce Dunlap, Mowry Baden, Mark Brewster, Paul Waszink, Hal Glicksman, Mary Anne Glicksman, Phyllis Lutjeans, Peter Shelton, Tom Eatherton, Merry Norris, Roy Thurston, David Pagel, Lily Scholer, Yrene Aslade, Cami Brewster, and Nancy Buchanan. I also thank the Gagosian Gallery and the Artists Rights Society for permitting me to use the image of Chris Burden’s Shoot from 1971. iv For Michael. v ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS Action Required: Michael Brewster and Sound as Sculpture by Homer Charles Arnold Master of Arts, Graduate Program in Art History University of California, Riverside, June 2020 Dr. Liz Kotz, Chairperson This project examines the early sound works Michael Brewster produced during the beginning and mid-1970s in Los Angeles, California. Using sound to create an immersive environment was central to Brewster’s methods, and, as such, he has often been assigned the label of a “sound artist” by scholars such as Brandon LaBelle. My text refutes this position. Brewster did not think of himself as a sound artist. Instead, he conceived of himself as a sculptor working in the medium of sound. Through a close examination of previously unseen archival material, this project constructs a new history of Brewster’s methods that include how he conceived of his sculptures as being both part of and apart from their environment. Rethinking the category of sculpture, Brewster was part of the well-documented deconstruction of this institutionalized genre and the subsequent extension of sculpture’s definition that occurred throughout this period of art history. Brewster’s contribution to this expanded pluralism is his rejection of sound as an vi ephemeral material and, instead, his development of it as stationary and tactile form. In constructing this history, I move Brewster’s oeuvre from an isolated position within the category of sound art to a more diverse area that locates it between the aural and the visual realms. vii Table of Contents Introduction……………………………………………………………………………….1 1: Fixing Frequencies……………………………………………………………12 F Space-more than a warehouse…………………………………………12 Sound as Sculpture………………………………………………………12 Building against silence…………………………………………...…….19 Amplifications……………………………………………………...…...35 Capturing the Ephemeral……………………………………...………...45 2: Flashes in the desert to clicks in the walls……………………………………53 Like most things in Los Angeles, it began with a car…………………...53 D.I.Y Electronics circa 1969……………………………………………54 Baden and Glicksman at Pomona……………………………………….58 A Site-Specific Experience………………………………………….….62 Clickers…………………………………………………………………70 Rethinking the gallery as site-specific………………………………….77 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………83 Illustrations……………………………………………………………………………...88 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………...108 viii List of Figures Figure 1: Chris Burden, Shoot, 1971, courtesy of Gagosian Gallery, New York……..…14 Figure 2: Close up of 8-inch speaker of Fixed Frequency installed in F Space, 1971, Michael Brewster Trust………………………………………..…………………………14 Figure 3: Michael Brewster, Fixed Frequency, An Acoustic Sculpture, September 18-20, 1971, As Built: SpaceF, Santa Ana, California, December 1987, Ink on Paper, December 1987, Michael Brewster Trust……………………………………………………………24 Figure 4: “door-closer” installed in F Space Gallery for Standing Wave, F Space, 1971, Michael Brewster Trust…………………………………….…………………………….25 Figure 5: Michael Brewster, Fixed Frequency, Version 2, open door. F Space, 1972, Michael Brewster Trust………………………………………..…………………………25 Figure 6: Moving the wall in Brewster’s first sound studio at 11 Navy Street in Venice, CA, 1971-1975, Michael Brewster Trust……………………...…………………………26 ix Figure 7: Michael Brewster, Near Distance, An Acoustic Sculpture July 14-August 31, 1979, As Built: 11 Navy Street, Venice CA. Ink on Paper, January 1988, Michael Brewster Trust……………………………………………………………………………27 Figure 8: Large windows at the front of the 11 Navy Street Sound Studio, Venice, CA, Michael Brewster Trust……………………………………………………………..……27 Figure 9: Michael Brewster, Inside a Long Wave, Installation view of speaker, Sounds Show, Newport Harbor Art Museum, CA, 1975. Michael Brewster Trust………...…….28 Figure 10: Michael Brewster, Newport Harbor Art Museum Sounds Exhibition gallery layout, 1975, Michael Brewster Trust………………………………………………...….31 Figure 11: Michael Brewster, Wall design for Inside a Long Wave, Michael Brewster Trust………………………………………………………………………………..…….32 Figure 12: Michael Brewster, Wall design for Inside a Long Wave with sound board included, Michael Brewster Trust…………………………………………………..……32 Figure 13: Image of the final bass-reflex speaker cabinet Brewster built in 1971, installed at 11 Navy Street, Venice, CA, Michael Brewster Trust………………………...………35 x Figure 14: Michael Brewster, Fixed Frequency first install 1971 at F Space, Michael Brewster Trust………………………………………………………………………...….40 Figure 15: Michael Brewster, Standing Wave, 1971, F Space, Michael Brewster Trust...40 Figure 16: Michael Brewster, Fixed Frequency second version, 1972, F Space, Michael Brewster Trust……………………………………………………………………………41 Figure 17: Michael Brewster, A Slow Walking Wave, installation shot, 1975, 11 Navy Street, Venice, CA, Michael Brewster Trust…………………………………………….43 Figure 18: Michael Brewster, “Mapping,” audio reel diagram measuring SPL levels in F Space. 1971, Michael Brewster Trust……………………………………………………48 Figure 19: Brewster recording SPL levels in F Space with Fixed Frequency first version speaker visible along back wall, 1971, Michael Brewster Trust…………………...……50 Figure 20: Michael Brewster, Apparatus for SPL reading, 1970-1971, Michael Brewster Trust…………………………………………………………………………………...…51 Figure 21: Michael Brewster, Fifth Spiral, 1969, Michael Brewster Trust…….………..54 xi Figure 22. Michael Brewster, Flasher Diagram, 1969, Michael Brewster Trust…..……54 Figure 23. Michael Brewster, Flasher lens design, 1969, Michael Brewster Trust…...…55 Figure 24. Michael Brewster, Flasher test 1, 1969, Michael Brewster Trust……………57 Figure 25. Michael Brewster, Diagram of Configuration 001, 1969, Michael Brewster Trust…………………………………………………………………………….………..63 Figure 26. Michael Brewster, Diagram of Configuration 005, 1969, Michael Brewster Trust……………………………………………………………………………………...64 Figure 27. Michael Brewster, itinerary for Configuration 006, 1969, Michael Brewster Trust……………………………………………………………………………………...66 Figure 28. Michael Brewster, Diagram of Configuration 006, 1969, Michael Brewster Trust………………………………………………………………………………...……66 Figure 29. Michael Brewster, Configuration 006 installation at Soda Dry Lake in CA,1969, Michael Brewster Trust……………………………………………………….67 xii Figure 30. Michael Brewster, Original Clicker chassis, absent batteries, 1970, Michael Brewster Trust …………………………………………………………………………...72 Figure 31. Michael Brewster, Clicker installation for "Configuration 010", Audio Activity at Montgomery Art Gallery in Claremont, CA, 1970. Michael Brewster Trust…………72 Figure 32. Michael Brewster, "Configuration 010", Audio Activity, 1970. Brewster Estate. Number 10, Audio Activity finished installation at Montgomery Art Gallery in Claremont, CA 1970, Michael Brewster Trust……………………………………………………….76 Figure 33. Michael Brewster, "Configuration 010", Audio Activity, installation in progress at Montgomery Art Gallery in Claremont, CA 1970, Michael Brewster Trust..76 Figure 34. Michael Brewster, "Configuration 010", Audio Activity, gallery layout, 1970. Michael Brewster Trust………………………………………………………………….76 Figure 35. Michael Brewster,