In-Between Caroline Cloutier 1 In-Between Outside the Inside — One is provided by the sun, but another answers to it — the light of the eye. Only Caroline Cloutier The Mimetic Resemblance through their entwining do we see; lacking either, we are blind.” 2 “It is to suggest the labyrinth is always a split Space is also perceived between two relational P.5 Outside the Inside — between the inside and an outside; that it can coordinates whether through an architectural The Mimetic Resemblance only ever be infi nite insofar as it has an outside, partition or a type of psychological split. Most in turn can only ever be understood as being things, it seems, are transmitted or conveyed by Melissa Bianca Amore inside. The spilt between the labyrinth and the through a process of exchange. This symbiotic world is always a choice between two paths relationship between object and light in the labyrinth. There is only the labyrinth, but or between space and architecture is necessary P.17 Inside the Outside — only insofar as we cannot be sure whether we in forming our knowledge of them apart. are inside of it or not, whether it indeed exists We exist in a world made up of binary sem- I See You? You See Me? or not.” blances, and in a world of appearances and by William Stover — Jorge Luis Borges of representation (to borrow a phrase from Schopenhauer), as objects, things and sub- stances are represented through coming into Whether you are standing inside the outside contact with something else. or outside the inside you occupy the same space. This space as Borges infers is only the This relative co-dependency, however, does “labyrinth.” Our reality, well what we know of it, complicate our understanding of the very seems to be contained within the labyrinth’s thing under observation. In other words, if structure. And, in many ways, our psychological we agree that objects and things emanate and physical experience is shaped within into being through this process of exchange these boundaries. Inside the labyrinth there or intertwining, we need to ask: which object are two paths, and to paraphrase Light and (or thing) precedes the other? What object This publication accompanies the exhibition “In-Between”, Editor: Caroline Cloutier Space artist James Turrell, they are: “one that illuminates the appearance of the “real a site specifi c installation by Caroline Cloutier, presented at Design: Gabriel Jasmin you look into or enter only with consciousness or pure” form? Is it the or the 1 light object’s the Glass House at The Invisible Dog Art Center, New York, and the other you enter physically.” surface? Or a space in-between? September 8 - October 13, 2018. Cover: Caroline Cloutier, In-Between, 2018, mirror. Site specifi c work at The Invisible Dog Art Center, New York The world of perception is characteristically Canadian installation and photographic artist The Glass House is designed by Anne Mourier, 2013. Photos: Caroline Cloutier formed inside the labyrinth. Generally speaking, Caroline Cloutier has devoted her practice to perception is like a “labyrinth of knowledge,” as examining these complex relationships. Her Melissa Bianca Amore and William Stover are the co-founders Printed at PhotoSynthèse in Montreal, Canada it frames and navigates what we already know large-scale photographic simulations and site- of RE-SITED a non-profi t organization dedicated to presenting into an ordered system of correlative relation- specifi c environments challenge the activity a series of research-focused exhibitions that ask fundamental © 2018, Caroline Cloutier ships. And our pre-conditioned perceptual of perception and mode of representation. questions about the architecture of “site” and “space.” All rights reserved faculty is also limited within this framework. Employing materials such as mirror, vinyl and RE-SITED examines how we think “space,” travel between For instance, we never see light; it is completely the photographic image, Cloutier’s installations spaces, and how “space” becomes a “site.” ISBN 978-1-9994591-0-9 transparent and yet we perceive its presence create both spatial and perceptual distortions through a tangible surface or object. Conversely, that alter the reading of the environment. And Caroline Cloutier thanks The Invisible Dog Art Center, Lucien our understanding of objects, forms and by staging new presentations or abstractions Zayan, Canada Council for the Art, the Conseil des arts et things are also provisional to this exchange; from the existing architecture, her work moves des lettres du Québec, Melissa Bianca Amore, William Stover, light transmits the object’s form. Physicist us beyond the “spatio-temporal” world and into Martin Désilets, Nicolas Robert and the Cultural Services of Arthur Zajonc discusses an exchange between a metaphysical realm open to new perceptual the Québec Government Offi ce in New York. light and eye: “Two lights brighten our world. possibilities. 3 Interested in liminal spaces, Cloutier constructs space” simply by creating a replication of it. gaze outward towards an illusionary optical from modest materials such as glass and an in-between space — a spatial intertwining Inside the gallery space, a photograph of a facade. Cloutier discusses: “In the architectural wooden panels, Cloutier has installed a serial that blurs the boundaries between architecture, doorway or passageway was re-configured in works of the Italian Renaissance, other virtual succession of mirrors, applied by a formative sculpture and the photographic image. In parallel site line to its physical counterpart. spaces having a theological function interfere logic, within selected window frames. From the doing so, the artist re-defines the discourse A perfected symmetry between the architec- with the real spaces of the places of worship. outside, we see the mirror’s gray toned backing. of sculpture and of photography by employing ture and its imitation was achieved through Here, however in my work Hiding Behind the The visual composition reads as a geometric an “image as sculpture,” to form a type of meticulous application. The photograph Corner, the visualization of these virtual worlds grid abstraction suggestive of Piet Mondrian’s phenomenal architecture. Her works physically performed as architecture: color, line, structure depends not on the viewer’s imagination, but gray Composition with Grid 2, 1915 (FIG 3). challenge how a body moves in space and and perspective were simulated with math- on a representation that is thoroughly detailed Cloutier’s attention to line perspective in conditions the way a person perceives. ematical exactitude that it dissolved back into in the staging of perspective and illusion.” painting and image making is evident here. the space, prompting the viewer to decipher Historically, within the discourse of art history, between the copy and the real structure. The In Peruzzi’s illusionary scenes, the viewer may Inside this space, the fragmented projec- the 1960s and 1970s investigations into the apprehension of space and the perceptual well be aware that the extension is in fact a tion produced from the mirrored reflection, activity of perception were primarily about depth was challenged. In this deception, the fictional painting. However, in Cloutier’sHiding reflectere Latin for “bend back,” opens a new moving away from “symbolic representation” architecture was experienced through its Behind the Corner, the staging of optical window to perception and offers a fresh and the “image” in the aim of returning to the simulated image, as an opening to a new deception is achieved by the virtue of pure understanding of representation. Exemplified origin of sorts, such as pure light or space. pathway — to a space beyond the corporeal. resemblance from the space it occupies. by the infinite rays of traveling light, the work It was time of reductionism, a simplification The image functions, primarily, only through evokes a sensation of floating inside the outside of form and an elimination of representational Reminiscent of the false doorways and fictional its signifying substitutive nature. and vice versa. The mirror turns the entire subject matter. Minimalists including Donald landscapes often found in the interiors and edifice into acamera obscura, an apparatus Judd and Dan Flavin were experimenting with the exteriors of ancient Egyptian tombs and in Raising direct questions about authorship and that is central to Cloutier’s presentation of the way light structurally forms objects, and Roman wall paintings, these passages were the mode of representation, Cloutier proposes perception. The function of the window as a artists such as Larry Bell, James Turrell, Doug traditionally seen as portals or thresholds to that the architectural reproduction opens up translucent looking glass becomes defunct, Wheeler and Robert Irwin, commonly referred the “spirit world” or the “gateway to enlighten- a second space. “I open a virtual space as a and as a result, the gallery transforms into a to as the Light and Space artists, were ment” — an opening to the space of prakrti second space,” the artist explains. “It’s always “conscious active image,” folding in motion, de-materializing and eliminating the art-object “…the starting point of the cosmogenetic a passage. The opening will always lead you expanding and refracting in space. altogether to examine the phenomenology of emanation of the phenomenal world.” 3 to another second place. I can mimic light perception, and with this, light and space as a Re-addressing these traditional