Barnett Newman
"The Sublime is Now"
European art has struggled with the Greek postulate of beauty that confusedly identified the Absolute with the absolutisms of creations, resulting in a continual "moral struggle between notions of beauty and the desire for sublimity" (17b).
Longinus was bound to his Platonic notion of beauty and value, hence he tied the feeling of exaltation to the perfect statement, that is, to objective rhetoric. Kant continues this confusion with his theory of transcendent perception, which holds the phenomenon to be more than the phenomenon. In Hegel's theory of beauty, the sublime lies at the bottom of a hierarchy of beauties set in formal relationships to reality. Although, Edmund Burke insisted on distinguishing the Absolute with the absolutism of perfect creations in a way that hints of surrealism.
This philosophical struggle manifests as well in the history of the plastic arts. So today we see Greek art's exaltation of the perfect form as an idealization of sensibility, and so also think that in the Gothic or baroque, "the sublime consists of a desire to destroy form, where form can be formless".
The struggle between beauty and the sublime reaches its climax in the Renaissance and further in the "reaction against the Renaissance that is known as modern art" (172a). Renaissance artists revived Greek ideals of beauty by casting Christ legends "in terms of absolute beauty as against the original Gothic ecstasy over the legend's evocation of the Absolute" (172a). Despite Michelangelo's efforts to attain the sublimity of pure forms and grandeur, "painting continued on its merry quest for a voluptuous art until in modern times the impressionists, disgusted with its inadequacy, began the movement to destroy the established rhetoric of beauty by the impressionist insistence on a surface of ugly strokes".
So modern art's impulse was to destroy beauty, but because it did not compensate for the loss of the Renaissance's sublime message, modern art was able only to transfer values rather than devise new ways of experiencing life. For example, the cubists, "by their dada gestures of substituting a sheet of newspaper and sandpaper for both the velvet surfaces of the Renaissance and the impressionists, made a similar transfer of values instead of creating a new vision, and succeeded only in elevating the sheet of paper" (172cd). The rhetoric of exaltation was so strong in European art that modern arts' elements of sublimity manifest "in its effort and energy to escape the pattern rather than in the realization of a new experience".
The failure of European art to achieve the sublime is due to this blind desire to exist inside the reality of sensation (the objective world, whether distorted or pure) and to build an art within a framework of pure plasticity (the Greek ideal of beauty, whether that plasticity be a romantic active surface or a classic stable one). In other words, modern art, caught without a sublime content, was incapable of creating a new sublime image and, unable to move away from the Renaissance image of figures and objects except by distortion or by denying it completely for an empty world of geometric formalisms — a pure rhetoric of abstract mathematical relationships — became enmeshed in a struggle over the nature of beauty: whether beauty was in nature or could be found without nature.
American artists deny that art is concerned with beauty. Newman asks, if we now live in a time without a mythos of the sublime and when we refuse to exalt pure relations or live in the abstract, how then can we create sublime art?
We want to hold on to the exalted and our absolute emotions, although we want to let go of the "obsolete props of an outmoded and antiquated legend" (173d). Instead, we create images with a self evident reality but without the "props and crutches" that evoke outmoded sublime and beautiful images; and, we do so without being burdened by the traditions of Western European painting.
Instead of making cathedrals out of Christ, man, or "life," we are making [them] out of ourselves, out of our own feelings. The image we produce is the self-evident one of revelation, real and concrete, that can be understood by anyone who will look at it without the nostalgic glasses of history.
From:
Newman, Barnett. Selected Writings. Ed. John P. O'Neil. Berkeley: University of California Press.
lunes, 16 de noviembre de 2009
Sublime Now
Instead of making cathedrals out of Christ, man, or "life", we are making [them] out of ourselves, out of our own feelings. The image we produce is the self-evident one of revelation, real and concrete, that can be understood by anyone who will look at it without the nostalgic glasses of history.
Barnett Newman "The Sublime is now"
Barnett Newman "The Sublime is now"
Film Light
Theaters
I'm a habitual self-interlocutor. Around the time I started photographing at the Natural History Museum, one evening I had a near-hallucinatory vision. The question-and- answer session that led up to this vision went something like this: Suppose you shoot a whole movie in a single frame? And the answer: You get a shining screen. Immediately I sprang into action, experimenting toward realizing this vision. Dressed up as a tourist, I walked into a cheap cinema in the East Village with a large-format camera. As soon as the movie started, I fixed the shutter at a wide-open aperture, and two hours later when the movie finished, I clicked the shutter closed. That evening, I developed the film, and the vision exploded behind my eyes.
- Hiroshi Sugimoto
I'm a habitual self-interlocutor. Around the time I started photographing at the Natural History Museum, one evening I had a near-hallucinatory vision. The question-and- answer session that led up to this vision went something like this: Suppose you shoot a whole movie in a single frame? And the answer: You get a shining screen. Immediately I sprang into action, experimenting toward realizing this vision. Dressed up as a tourist, I walked into a cheap cinema in the East Village with a large-format camera. As soon as the movie started, I fixed the shutter at a wide-open aperture, and two hours later when the movie finished, I clicked the shutter closed. That evening, I developed the film, and the vision exploded behind my eyes.
- Hiroshi Sugimoto
sábado, 18 de abril de 2009
Line describing a cone
"In Line Describing a Cone, the conventional primacy of the screen is completely abandoned in favour of the primacy of the projection event. According to McCall, a screen is not even mandatory. He succinctly describes the film: 'The viewer watches the film, by standing with his, or her, back towards what would normally be the screen, and looking along the beam towards the projector itself. The film begins as a coherent line of light, like a laser beam, and develops through the 30 minute duration into a complete, hollow cone of light.
The audience is expected to move up and down, in and out of the beam - this cannot be fully experienced by a stationary spectator. The shift of image as a function of shift of perspective is the operative principle of the film. External content is eliminated, and the entire film consists of the controlled line of light emanating from the projector; the act of appreciating the film-i.e., 'the process of its realisation'-is the content."
Deke Dusinberre, Studio International, Nov/Dec 1975..
The audience is expected to move up and down, in and out of the beam - this cannot be fully experienced by a stationary spectator. The shift of image as a function of shift of perspective is the operative principle of the film. External content is eliminated, and the entire film consists of the controlled line of light emanating from the projector; the act of appreciating the film-i.e., 'the process of its realisation'-is the content."
Deke Dusinberre, Studio International, Nov/Dec 1975..
Anthony McCall by George Baker
Asked in 1924 to create the ballet Relâche, Picabia constructed a set comprised of 370 spotlights, placed, curiously enough, behind rather than facing or next to the stage. This reversal of theatrical convention had the effect of absorbing fascinated audience members into the set and involving them in the action. In much the same way, states the author, McCall reverses cinematic convention in Line Describing a Cone (1973), for here too spectators face the projector. The film installation begins with a piercing point of light. Over the following thirty minutes, the point slowly transforms into a wide open conical form defined by the light. By riveting spectators' attention on the projector itself and the essential component of film – the projection of light – McCall creates a critical reversal that rejects any form of illusion.
Except, perhaps, that which forces us to see as continuous movement what is actually animation comprised of still frames. Nor does the rejection of narrative conventions associated with traditional cinema negate narration in any form. Baker reminds us that the title of the work is, after all, "Line Describing a Cone." However, any narration present emanates from the "cast" participating in the film's creation as they move about the space. As the initial critical distance imposed by the installation transforms into an immersive field, participants can walk inside the cone and are incorporated into the film. The paradox becomes more pronounced when one considers that the medium (light-projector) creates an actual spatial dimension and not a mere representation: the film becomes sculpture. Indeed, McCall has called these installations, created between 1973 and 1975, "solid light films."
Baker goes on to discuss the issues associated with various minimalist artistic practices, citing the "specific object" of Donald Judd and the work of Dan Flavin, an important predecessor in the use of light as a medium. Among the key terms used to define the issues of the day, Baker refers to "continuity," which guided the phenomenological approach introduced by minimalists by focusing on process art and the relational interdependence between space and audience and the works themselves. Post-minimalist art is no longer isolated in an ahistoric temporality; it is durational, evolving within time and space. To illustrate his point, Baker draws on the radical strategies of Eva Hesse, Richard Serra, Bruce Nauman and Dan Graham and underscores the important work of Rosalind Krauss and her symbolically entitled text "Sculpture in the Expanded Field."
These considerations clearly apply to the films of McCall, and the author makes reference to the works that prepared the ground for the solid films: Slit Scan, Miniature in Black and White, Water Table and Landscape for White Squares (1972).
Baker views the solid films as "filmic sculpture," reversing the term "sculptural film" used at the time by critic Benjamin Buchloh in an essay on the films Hand Catching Lead and Hands Scraping by Richard Serra. Unlike Buchloh, who concluded that this was neither film nor sculpture, Baker prefers to borrow a concept from Deleuze – film AND sculpture – to emphasize the radical coarticulation (rather than dialectic process) present in McCall's projects.
Basing himself on these observations, Baker conducts an in-depth analysis of the three other solid films: Partial Cone, Conical Solid and Cone of Variable Volume (1974). By describing the transformation – or fluctuation – between "cinematic time" and "sculptural space," he dissects the properties of each film and finds affinities with works like the modular cubes of Sol Lewitt and the Rotoreliefs of Marcel Duchamp.
This logic is also at play, continues Baker, in McCall's "long" films, such as Long Film for Four Projectors (1974), a six-hour event. As was the case in Four Projected Movements (1975), McCall deployed new strategies to bring the spectator into the work by using architectural space as never before. The author remarks that this approach greatly changed the ambiance of the installations, which, once ethereal, had now become more "disciplinary." And because these would be McCall's last solid light films for twenty-five years, Baker speculates on the reasons why the artist abandoned the project after just two short years, examining the sociopolitical dilemmas surrounding the era's avant-garde strategies.
He concludes his essay by reflecting on Long Film for Ambient Light (1975), the final "long" film by McCall and a project even more radical than its predecessors, with both film and projector disappearing. Highly conceptual, the installation consisted of a time-schema affixed to a wall, a two-page text entitled "Notes on Duration" and an architectural space where windows covered in white paper diffused the daylight, while serving as screens at night. In the centre of the room, suspended at eye level was a light bulb. One sensed that the installation was laying open the cinematographic machinery by exposing its constituent elements. In a radical redefinition of the medium, the "film" emerged from the fusing of these diverse elements with the passage of time. After abandoning screen and image, McCall dismissed celluloid and projector in order to concentrate on two essential cinematic elements: light and time. Baker concludes by reiterating the importance of "continuity," which is represented through the becoming of a work of art within time and space.
The title chosen by Lisa Le Feuvre for her essay "The Continuous Present," refers to a fundamental notion by Gertrude Stein, which initially came to her through cinema and which she explored in her writing. A great admirer of Stein, John Cage was particularly attuned to her efforts to liberate language from syntax. Both artists were fascinated by repetition and in particular the variance that occurs in repetition. Le Feuvre discusses their impact on McCall and therefore studies his work in terms of duration as a continuous present that closely resembles Baker's notion of "continuity." The author alludes to the 1963 performance by Cage of Éric Satie's Vexations, which consists of a musical score repeated 840 times, and the film Empire (1964) by Andy Warhol, an 8-hour still shot. Because each execution is different and each image unlike the one before, the repetition involved is not repetitive after all.
Le Feuvre finds this sort of temporality at play in a number of McCall's installations, most notably in Long Film for Ambient Light, which she likens to other artistic offerings that aimed to lay bare the exhibition condition itself: the celebrated Le Vide by Yves Klein, presented at the Iris Clert Gallery in Paris in 1958, and During the exhibition the gallery will be closed (1968), by Robert Barry. In her discussion of McCall's practices, the author studies the role of the spectators, who are invited to invest themselves in the work to give it meaning.
She ends her essay by commenting on the fruitful dialogue between Line Describing a Cone and Conical Intersect, the brilliant tribute to McCall's work executed by Gordon Matta-Clark in Paris in 1975, as well as Light Conical Intersect (1996), the revival of the Matta-Clark work by Pierre Huyghe. What wonderful examples of one work inspiring another, which in turn inspires a third.
Except, perhaps, that which forces us to see as continuous movement what is actually animation comprised of still frames. Nor does the rejection of narrative conventions associated with traditional cinema negate narration in any form. Baker reminds us that the title of the work is, after all, "Line Describing a Cone." However, any narration present emanates from the "cast" participating in the film's creation as they move about the space. As the initial critical distance imposed by the installation transforms into an immersive field, participants can walk inside the cone and are incorporated into the film. The paradox becomes more pronounced when one considers that the medium (light-projector) creates an actual spatial dimension and not a mere representation: the film becomes sculpture. Indeed, McCall has called these installations, created between 1973 and 1975, "solid light films."
Baker goes on to discuss the issues associated with various minimalist artistic practices, citing the "specific object" of Donald Judd and the work of Dan Flavin, an important predecessor in the use of light as a medium. Among the key terms used to define the issues of the day, Baker refers to "continuity," which guided the phenomenological approach introduced by minimalists by focusing on process art and the relational interdependence between space and audience and the works themselves. Post-minimalist art is no longer isolated in an ahistoric temporality; it is durational, evolving within time and space. To illustrate his point, Baker draws on the radical strategies of Eva Hesse, Richard Serra, Bruce Nauman and Dan Graham and underscores the important work of Rosalind Krauss and her symbolically entitled text "Sculpture in the Expanded Field."
These considerations clearly apply to the films of McCall, and the author makes reference to the works that prepared the ground for the solid films: Slit Scan, Miniature in Black and White, Water Table and Landscape for White Squares (1972).
Baker views the solid films as "filmic sculpture," reversing the term "sculptural film" used at the time by critic Benjamin Buchloh in an essay on the films Hand Catching Lead and Hands Scraping by Richard Serra. Unlike Buchloh, who concluded that this was neither film nor sculpture, Baker prefers to borrow a concept from Deleuze – film AND sculpture – to emphasize the radical coarticulation (rather than dialectic process) present in McCall's projects.
Basing himself on these observations, Baker conducts an in-depth analysis of the three other solid films: Partial Cone, Conical Solid and Cone of Variable Volume (1974). By describing the transformation – or fluctuation – between "cinematic time" and "sculptural space," he dissects the properties of each film and finds affinities with works like the modular cubes of Sol Lewitt and the Rotoreliefs of Marcel Duchamp.
This logic is also at play, continues Baker, in McCall's "long" films, such as Long Film for Four Projectors (1974), a six-hour event. As was the case in Four Projected Movements (1975), McCall deployed new strategies to bring the spectator into the work by using architectural space as never before. The author remarks that this approach greatly changed the ambiance of the installations, which, once ethereal, had now become more "disciplinary." And because these would be McCall's last solid light films for twenty-five years, Baker speculates on the reasons why the artist abandoned the project after just two short years, examining the sociopolitical dilemmas surrounding the era's avant-garde strategies.
He concludes his essay by reflecting on Long Film for Ambient Light (1975), the final "long" film by McCall and a project even more radical than its predecessors, with both film and projector disappearing. Highly conceptual, the installation consisted of a time-schema affixed to a wall, a two-page text entitled "Notes on Duration" and an architectural space where windows covered in white paper diffused the daylight, while serving as screens at night. In the centre of the room, suspended at eye level was a light bulb. One sensed that the installation was laying open the cinematographic machinery by exposing its constituent elements. In a radical redefinition of the medium, the "film" emerged from the fusing of these diverse elements with the passage of time. After abandoning screen and image, McCall dismissed celluloid and projector in order to concentrate on two essential cinematic elements: light and time. Baker concludes by reiterating the importance of "continuity," which is represented through the becoming of a work of art within time and space.
The title chosen by Lisa Le Feuvre for her essay "The Continuous Present," refers to a fundamental notion by Gertrude Stein, which initially came to her through cinema and which she explored in her writing. A great admirer of Stein, John Cage was particularly attuned to her efforts to liberate language from syntax. Both artists were fascinated by repetition and in particular the variance that occurs in repetition. Le Feuvre discusses their impact on McCall and therefore studies his work in terms of duration as a continuous present that closely resembles Baker's notion of "continuity." The author alludes to the 1963 performance by Cage of Éric Satie's Vexations, which consists of a musical score repeated 840 times, and the film Empire (1964) by Andy Warhol, an 8-hour still shot. Because each execution is different and each image unlike the one before, the repetition involved is not repetitive after all.
Le Feuvre finds this sort of temporality at play in a number of McCall's installations, most notably in Long Film for Ambient Light, which she likens to other artistic offerings that aimed to lay bare the exhibition condition itself: the celebrated Le Vide by Yves Klein, presented at the Iris Clert Gallery in Paris in 1958, and During the exhibition the gallery will be closed (1968), by Robert Barry. In her discussion of McCall's practices, the author studies the role of the spectators, who are invited to invest themselves in the work to give it meaning.
She ends her essay by commenting on the fruitful dialogue between Line Describing a Cone and Conical Intersect, the brilliant tribute to McCall's work executed by Gordon Matta-Clark in Paris in 1975, as well as Light Conical Intersect (1996), the revival of the Matta-Clark work by Pierre Huyghe. What wonderful examples of one work inspiring another, which in turn inspires a third.
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