Paintings relationship with technology

Rainald Schumacher is an independent art critic, writer and curator based in Berlin. He is the director of Ester Schipper Gallery and head curator of the Goetz Collection.

The text ‘Imagination Becomes Reality’ is part of a series of 5 books that make up the exhibition catalogue for the renowned Goetz Collection. “Conceived and planned by Ingvild Goetz it present visitors with a selection of the wide variety of forms and techniques in use by contemporary painters. Painting Surface Space, the second of five books that bring the series to viewers not within visiting distance, focuses on the ways architecture and space are rendered in contemporary art, and the ways electronic media, photography, film and computer simulations, in expanding the means we can employ to design and visualize space, have influenced painting. This interaction of media, ultimately almost always in connection with our state of mind, or with space as a metaphor for such an existential orientation, is at the heart of the juxtapositions this exhibition presents. Thus Painting Surface Space taps into space and architecture in the context of the development of painting as a medium.” (good reads, June 15) I think the text draws interesting parallels between different topics. For me I saw a connection between this text and abstract art and how I use different computer based processes to break-apart and re-assemble an image.

Artists, such as myself, and the ones featured in ‘Time-spaces inside the three dimensions’, explore new ways to interpret life. Instead of painting reality, as it is, the development of technology, such as film and photography have altered our way of picture making. “Film has fundamentally altered our perception of processes within space and, with that, has radically changed our perception of time.”(27, Imagination Becomes Reality’) Therefore artists are inspired to create abstracted and fragment images to create a new style of picture making.

Abstract art is generally inspired by reality but does not picture reality; instead it makes a new form of visual reality. (Abstract Art, 50) Textures, colours, shape and line are combined to create a non-representational image. Abstract painting can visualize an experience, it can reveal to us things we feel about the world, certain abstracts about our condition, rather than simply reproducing what we already know.

Michael Rush in New Media and art states, “In art, visual literary is no longer limited to ‘the object.’ It must embrace the fluid ever-changing universe that exists inside the computer and the new world that can be virtual in its reality and radically independent in its incorporation of ‘the viewer’ into the completing of the work of art.” (183)

Since we live in a time where realistic pictures dominate, abstractions prove to be challenging, they allow the viewer to ‘fill in the gaps’ to help them piece together the work in their own mind. The viewer has freedom to discover the depth, view and the true perspective of the works. They bring their own knowledge and experiences to form a personal understanding of what the art means and shows. You are allowed the freedom to create a personal story of what it means in your own mind. “Our individual view and perception of our everyday surroundings runs parallel to the scientifically objective view of reality. It is this individual view that determines our notion of space and spatially. Verticals and horizontals, flat planes, rectangular surface shapes and geometrically precise forms are crucial factors in our perception of space with the everyday landscape setting.” (Imagination becomes reality, 27)

Virtual technology in Time Square altered the way I saw space in a real environment. Within my practice I disassemble an image to create a space that is informed by reality rather than of actually reality. In ‘The Anomalous space of picture’ Rose Woodcock discusses the significance of virtual reality technology on painting. “Virtual imaging technologies and painting share a history of the representation of space. Photorealistic Virtual Reality arguably has borrowed from the observational sensitivities of painters to the behaviour of light, colour, shadow and form within the framed visual field. The history of painting- both representational and non representational- is largely an argument about space; the push and pull, into and out from the picture plane through the modelling of form creates the illusion of space as depth in painting.” (51)

This text incorporated a few different concepts that I am interested in within my own practice. That technology such as photography and science have influence contemporary painters specifically within the creation of space within an image. As a contemporary painter I think it is important to retain the past traditions but also to embrace the developments that technology has bought. Because paintings are in a sense a snapshot, it is important to me to incorporate movement and vibrancy into a flat surface.

Imagination Becomes Reality: Painting Surface Space." Good Reads. Web. 15 June 2010. http://216.74.34.10/book/show/188405.Imagination_Becomes_Reality_Painting_Surface_Space

Moszynska, Anna. Abstract Art. New York, New York: Thames and Hudson, 1990. Print

Rush, Michael. New Media in Art. 2nd ed. London: Thames and Hudson, 2005. Print.

Schumacher, Rainald. “Time-Spaces – Inside the Three Dimensions.” Imagination Becomes Reality: Ein Ausstellungszyklus Zum Bildverständnis Aktueller Kunst: Imagination Becomes Reality Wird 2007 Als Kooperation Im ZKM, Museum Für Neue Kunst in Karlsruhe Gezeigt Werden 2 Painting Surface Space: Julian Göthe, Eberhard Havekost, Lothar Hempel, Teresa Hubbard, Alexander Birchler, Frank Nitsche, Veron Urdarianu; [17. Oktober 2005 - 14. Januar 2006]. Eds. Schumacher, Rainald and Göthe, Julian. München, Goetz, 2005. 24-29.

Woodcock, Rose. "The Anomalous Space of Pictures." Frameworks, Artworks, Place- The Space of Perception in the Modern World. Ed.Tim Mehigan. New York: Rodopi, 2008. 43-66

In conversation.

Donald Judd


Untitled, 1975


Plywood
 Dia Beacon, New York
Photo: Bill Jacobson
(c) Donald Judd 2008

David Raskin is an Associate Professor at the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He seems to be somewhat of an expert on Judd as he has published a number of writings on him, as well as minimalism and sculpture.

Raskin wrote ‘The Shiny Illusionism of Krauss and Judd’ in 2006 for the Art Journal. The text analyses the relationship between artist and art critic in the form of Rosalind Krauss and Donald Judd. Judd, an American Minimalist sculptor and American art critic Krauss had a love/hate relationship that lasted nearly 40 years. This text is an interesting example of the relationship between the artist and critic. It is interesting to note how Judd sees his art in comparison to how Krauss sees his work. This article brings to light the relationship that forms between an artist and critic. The artist’s goal is to express, through artistic output, feeling or thoughts around a particular subject. Often an artist expects a response or reaction from an audience, whereas an art critic articulates a position on ideas behind particular works of art, or on an artist’s body of work. Only once during the 40 year period that Krauss was writing about Judd did he respond. This is shown below;

“Krauss thought that meaning in Judd’s work resides in evoking just this self-reflection, because she believed it was interaction with objects in the world that enlivens them, that imbues them with significance.” (9)

Judd offered a different view “the art material, its properties, and their perceptual effects are one and the same: “They don’t seem illusionistic in that sense to me. In a sense (reflection) is an illusion just as the technical meaning of the term. I distinguish between that and illusion which I think is a perfectly matter-of-fact illusion and has no other connection to the other kind.” (9)

As seen above it shows that Judd is against the idea that the materials add to the reading of the work. The materials he uses are Metal, coloured Acrylics and wood. He is interested in Illusion and represented space as apposed to real space. He chose to use industrial materials to create abstract works to emphasize the purity of colour, form, space and materials- he preferred to describe his own work as “the simple expression of complex thought.” Krauss seems to suggest that the interaction of his sculpture with other objects in the world makes his works more significant. The comment that Krauss made above went against everything that Judd didn’t want his art to be. Judd wanted to produce art that was free of expression and associations. He used plain, industrial materials and shapes that were free of associations. His goal was for the viewer to focus on the situation the artist had created in the gallery space. Viewers can focus on what they truly experience in what Judd refers to as the ‘art space’ the isolated gallery space that is separate from the commodification of the everyday environment.

Judd believes that art should exist on its own, that it should not represent anything. This goes in line with what Richard Relwis states in ‘ The Power of Art,’ “what you see is what you see,” (47) – as originally quoted by Frank Stella. This is inline with what the Post-Painterly abstract artists including Judd believed. Relwis further states that Minimalist paintings and Sculpture are self-sufficient and have no content of meaning beyond their presence as objects in space. This is in line with what Judd sees in his own work. As an artist I can imagine the frustration that Judd felt against Krauss being picky against the reflection element within his work through his choice of materials. I cannot see why Krauss thinks that Judd’s artworks interact with the world, as the forms are highly reduced, and placed in very banal gallery settings. My experience of Judd’s sculptures at DIA: Beacon did not lead me to consider other objects reflected in the work. Rather I was more interested in how the works formed a conversation with one another. Judd was an innovator in that he removed all connections from traditional academic sculpture by removing the pedestal by placing the object directly on the floor.

This reading brings together the interesting relationship that forms between Critic and Artist. At this time Judd’s work fitted alongside the other artists of this time such as Stella and John Chamberlin therefore I find it interesting that Krauss was obsessively writing about Judd. I believe Judd’s ideas and concepts sit well inline with his concepts and find it difficult to see why Krauss see’s such different ideas within his practice. This reading brings up an interesting discussion. For me it shows how as an artist you have to be aware of your artistic aims and not let others change what you feel about your own work. Judd didn’t let Krauss’s opinion change the evolution of his style he probably considered what she said but didn’t hold it in high regards.

Works Sited

Lewis, Susan I., and Richard L. Lewis. The Power of Art. 2nd ed. California: Wadsworth, 2008. Print.

Raskin, David. "The Shiny Illusionism of Krauss and Judd." Art Journal 65 (2006): 6-21. Print.

Picture

PORT - Portland Art + News + Reviews. Web. 16 June 2010. http://www.portlandart.net/archives/2008/04/when_donald_jud.html.

Helio Oiticia: abstraction and its relationship to music

Mondrian Broadway Boogie-Woogie 1943

Helio Oiticia Grand Nucleus

“The body of colour,” is a text that encompasses the work of Latin American Artist Helio Oiticia.

Oiticia is a Brazilian painter, sculptor and performance artist. He is influenced by concrete art and De Stijl. The book was complied by three authors, Mari Ramirez and Luciano Figeriredo being the main contributors. The author Ramirez is the Curator of Latin American Art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and Figueiredo is the Director of the Hélio Oiticia centre in Rio de Janeiro. The Authors background as Curator and Director give them excellent insights into the way artists work. Figueiredo as the Director of the center to Oiticia would have access to a lot of information regarding the artist’s style. The text was published in 2007, it states on Amazon.com that the text draws on new research including previously unseen works and that it is the most extensive publication on the Artist to date (14-4-2010).

Within the range of text we have read (pages 205- 207) the ideas that interested me most were the relationships between Music and Space. It states in the article “They posses more of an architectural relationship, achieved in the large paintings.. Here, the predominant relationship is a musical one, yet it is not because, as in music, the pieces create counterpoint..for musicality is not lent to the work but born from its essence.” (207) This statement is focused on the work below, it depicts plans of wood painted orange that hover in real space through the use of fishing line allowing the plans to hover in real space as if they were part of a musical score. Carla Gottlieb discusses in ‘Movement in Painting’ how the Synthetic Cubists ‘decomposed an object into a number of sections which are spread out like cards in a deck.. This generates movement in the image because of the need for wholeness and the simplicity of shapes force the viewer to observe separate portions into the entity from which they have sprung.’(30) She goes on to talk about the important of Rhythm, (which is defined by Merriam-Webster Dictionary as having a recurrence of related elements), through the use of similar shapes and colours to tie the composition together rhythmically.

Oiticia reduces the subject to the bare essentials, the colour orange, the vertical and horizontal. The effect created is a sense of rhythm represented through an architectural landscape. The viewer’s relationship with the work is an important one. He places the work in a manner that encourages you to move around the painting. This viewer interaction is an important part of the work in its relationship to music. As a viewer when you move around the artwork changes, there is a shift in the placement of the planes and you move around and create different spaces within the painted landscape.Oiticica combined colour with rhythm, music, and performance to stimulate visual and tactile sensations, drawing in and involving his audience. Oiticia describes his work as ‘nonobject’, which is closely linked to the term nonobjective, meaning no subject is involved with the artwork. However through the way the artist has created floating panels of solid colour the work has a sense a dynamism and time by placing the colour planes in an a style that is similar to a way one would see a musical score with a constant style but repeated melody. He develops variation and order through the use of repeated motifs.

His work displays what Gottlieb states that a good painting should show, ‘ to guide the eye over every detail, from dominant theme to peripheral motifs’. Oiticia aim is to deconstruct the traditional elements of painting – colour and the two-dimensional plane that supports it, reconfiguring them in new, innovative forms, to liberate colour into space. His reference to music as the artist has suggested, is a subtle one. As an abstract painter one aims to make references to representational objects but in a more open-ended way. Abstraction can often show less but can reference and mean more.

Oiticia aims to deconstruct the image to the traditional elements of a painting, He is successful In doing this. But the reference to music made me think, as viewers don’t we always link images together with past memories and experiences? The artist Piet Mondrian insinuated movement and jazz with this work ‘Broadway Boogie Woogie’, the reference to place, being New York’s Broadway, along with the grid reference to the way the city was planned, and Boogie Woogie referencing Mondrian’s love of jazz and the suggestion of movement in the artwork. Oiticia shows similar references with his placement of planes in space.

Ramirez, Mari, ed. The Body of Colour. U.K.: Tate, 2007. Print.

Hélio Oiticica: The Body of Color [Paperback]. Amazon.com. Web. 14 Apr. 2010

Gottlieb, Carla. "Movement in Painting." The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 17.1 (1958): 22-33. Web.

"Rhythm." Web. 10 May 2010. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rhythm

Images from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadway_Boogie_Woogie accessed: 10-5-2010

http://bezerraguimaraes.blogspot.com/2009/10/helio-oiticica.html: 10-5-2010