come
in : : ian m clothier
space
- once was continuous
On oversized pastel colored plinths, Tobias Rehberger
has placed broken egg shells and red potatoes. The plinths are big enough to dominate
the area, though this gravity is alleviated by the placement of the shells and
the spuds along with other bits and pieces, on what is more usually a platform
for making objects special. The artist has collaged in three dimensions quite
disparate objects, things that have separate 'homes.' This theme of dissecting
the familiar and recombining disparities flows through a number of works in the
international touring exhibition Come In: interior design as a contemporary
art medium in Germany, recently hosted by New Zealand's Govett-Brewster Art
Gallery and Museum.
Work
that falls within the inter-space between interior design and art, has here attained
a level of complexity that should not be confused with lack of clarity. Not every
sculpture invites a consideration of spatial discontinuities for example, though
Bjorn Dahlem's Club Betaflor, 2000 certainly does. This work, rather
than merely celebrating the renowned flower shop in Madrid (after which it is
named), is also a representation of Dahlem's belief that the flower shop is a
portal to another universe.
There
are no points or positions in a rhizome.... There are only lines.
The
determination that a shop is a portal to another universe firstly accepts that
multiple universes are available. Secondly it acknowledges that the connection
between places might be a line of flight across a plane of consistency
(see notes below) rather than a causal connection across four dimensional
space-time. Western sculpture after all, for roughly 2500 years, concerned itself
with mapping relations in three dimensions. Between the foot and the discus of
the Lancelotti Discobulus is a continuous three dimensional space.
That
continuity was penetrated in the twentieth century in a holistic way, by Henry
Moore. Moore's forms elevate the negative space that surrounds us, and is within
us, in such a way that the two opposites - form and absence - are united in a
spatial continuity.
Just
after the middle of the twentieth century when sculpture fractured into installation,
nonetheless spatial continuity persisted as endemic to sculptural practice. In
a work such as Nam June Paik's Buddha Watching TV, at one end of a table
sits a Bhudda statue and at the other end is a camera and monitor, which displays
the image of the Buddha statue. Clearly the two components are not merely related
in a beautifully reflective way, but have a tight connection in the same spatial
continuum.
nonlinear
places
The physicist E. A. Jackson wrote that in nonlinear systems, 'the ratio (action/reaction)
is not constant.'
Whilst
Jackson's words were clearly not written as a challenge to sculptors, nonetheless
such readings of space-time challenge the concept of space as homogenous, and
can be seen as challenging the hegemony of spatial continuity as necessary to
sculptural discourse. In other words, how does a medium borne of the sculptors
chisel cope with spatial and temporal discontinuities, as outlined by current
ideas around nonlinearity?
Dorothee
Golz Reception room, 1998/2001
To
stare into a Dorothee Golz cup is to witness a multiplicity. One cup is not at
all one; it might be three, or two. The cup has become a multiplicity. And by
way of underlining spatial discontinuity, a row of stacking reception chairs is
split into quadruples and triplets of halves and wholes. The row of chairs is
also broken. These are pointers to a concern with spatial discontinuity: hybrids
and amalgams sit easily in discontinuous places. Multiplicity is generous in allowing
variations, mutation and evolution.
A
rhizome may be broken, shattered at a given spot, but it will start up again on
one of it's old lines, or on new lines.
Tobias
and Raphael Danke turn architectural and design rules on their head. A conundrum
of plinth structures support a flat plane on which sits an artists fancy. Off
to the side, a metal structure reminiscent of an oversized chair supports no seat.
Apparently flirting with the works in adjacent spaces, it is not easy to tell
where one work ends and the other begins: someone forgot to tell the marshals
of sculptural dimension where the boundaries are. Included in the Danke's work
are photographs of the house the brothers grew up in, and trees.
Installation
view showing details of Jorg Wagner's BUILT-IN (I don't care), 2001 foreground,
Danke brothers Aachen model, 2000 middle ground,
Daniel Roth's Untitled
(valley town under concrete, Porno Bihl 1, 2000) background
John Bock's Captain
Sheriff schippert droge, 2000 far background
Forces
within nonlinear systems cross energy/matter/natural/human boundaries.
Daniel
Roth's Untitled (valley town under concrete, Porno Bihl 1) 2000 relates
the story of 'a town hidden beneath a concreted valley [that] is connected by
a tunnel system to Porno Bihl's tobacco shop. The shop is connected to a magical
machine that transforms fog into owls on the wing' according to accompanying documentation.
Two significant elements are in play here: firstly a sense of fairy tale and secondly
a multi-layered story.
Fairy
tales, as exemplified by stories such as The lion, the witch and the wardrobe
often are nonlinear narratives that involve discontinuous spaces. The
entrance to Narnia, a world of it's own, is through the wardrobe - a collapse
of space akin to Dahlem's portal.
The
media required to carry this nonlinear narrative are revealing. Components include:
1) a 'photo' of a tobacconist's shop with fog transforming into an owl. 2) Wall
text explaining the 'fairytale.' 3) A digital print of a valley floor concreted
over. 4) A window incised into the wall - a total perforation of the usual confines
of gallery spaces (rather than the more familiar embedding of objects in the wall).
5) On the other side of the window is a display cabinet which holds a glass cylinder,
and the shelf on which the cylinder sits has an open trapdoor. Yes, I did see
children put their head in through the open trapdoor to see what it was like.
6) A large line drawing, traditionally presented although oversized, which investigated
the themes of the work.
Roth's
work then is composed of nonlinear narrative base, photographic 'evidence' of
the story, nonfictional explanation of the fictional fairytale, perforations in
the gallery space, a chunky 3D display cabinet and big 'flat' drawing. These were
the media required to carry the nonlinear narrative, and such media cross boundaries
of fiction and nonfiction.
Claus
Fottinger Herman's doner inn, 2000
Spatial
discontinuities are overlapped in Claus Fottinger's Herman's doner inn 2000,
where the multiplicities afforded by nonlinear structure provides a nest for many
cultures. In a nod to the dissolution of the usual boundaries of gallery space,
the piece was also a functioning bar with the artist serving at certain times.
Fottinger collapses a MacDonalds, kebab houses throughout Germany and a typical
'local' German bar into an installation. The installation consists of the MacDonalds
M, shelves in the form of a large X, and a curved bar with bar stools. The front
face of the bar has photographs of kebab houses throughout Germany.
The
kebab houses speak of many cultures: there are culture specific eating places
- Arab kebab houses (the Ali Baba Grill), Turkish (the Pascha kebab house); blends
of culture (the Nazip Pizza and Kebab house, and the Turkish Pizzeria); and the
universal and everywhere places - the City Grill (surely everycity has a City
Grill), and of course, MacRestaurants. These institutions range in size from multinational
corporation to aluminum hut, and all speak to the hybridisation of culture. Where
once cultural references were largely made within the referenced culture (American
Pop Art most often referenced American imagery and iconography for example) here
the cultural reference is to multiple cultures - the space within and between
adjacent cultures - the space of hybridisation.
Possibly
an epitome of the fuzzy logic that permeated Come In is the monumental
Captain Sheriff schippert droge 2000 (Captain Sheriff sails dryly) by John
Bock. This is a work in two parts - DVD documentation of a scripted performance
on a short trip down a river (outside a museum), and the raft used for the journey.
John
Bock Captain Sheriff schippert droge, 2000
The
raft is a conglomeration of parts. To describe it is to elaborate on a monstrosity.
There is a nonsensical assemblage of wood covered bubble wrap that extends to
the floor, terminating in an octopus like collection of stuffed pullovers. An
effigy is cut in half by a beam and hung with head on the floor. The deck has
a seated figure whose legs terminate in a smiling skeletal jaw, nose and teeth.
There are plastic buckets of household artifacts and trimmings, a semi-semiotic
prow covered in cloth with a clock and harp attached, and engineering details
such as pedal operation.
It needs to be said that there are enough working parts to actually function i.e.
it floats, as the video 'proves.' The identity of this art work rests neither
in the raft or the video specifically, but rather (and as with several works discussed
above), identity falls somewhere within and in-between these components. While
not structurally nonlinear in the sense discussed here, the piece picks up on
the fairytale, looking as it does like the work of children on acid. Some of the
themes explored are however, common.
In-between,
overlapping, multiplicitous, collapsed, spatially perforated, bounded and boundariless,
discontinuous, complex: these are important themes in the context of nonlinear
understanding. Exploring such notions is another way of placing the artist and
audience close to 'the psychological dynamics which hide behind the seemingly
obvious and familiar' as Dorothee Golz observed.
Notes
[1].
All images © and courtesy of the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery and Museum,
New Zealand.
[2].
There are no points or positions... as with many quotes in this article,
comes from the introduction to A thousand plateaus by Deleuze & Guattari
(p 8, published in 1987 by the University of Minnesota Press).
[3].
Line of flight and plane of consistency... are Deleuze and Guattari
terms (see p 9 of A thousand plateaus). A plane of consistency increases
in dimension as more connections are made on it; a line of flight allows for changes
in nature of the plane as connections to other multiplicities are made.
[4].
The physicist wrote... is from E.A.
Jackson's Perspectives of nonlinear dynamics (volume 1) 1991, p 6 Cambridge
University Press.
[5].
A rhizome may be broken... p 9, A thousand plateaus.
[6].
Forces within nonlinear systems... this statement is a paraphrase of
text from Manuel De Landa's A thousand years of nonlinear history, Zone
Books 1997 (see pages 26-27 & 64).
[7].
The psychological dynamics... Dorothee Golz quoted in the catalogue Come
In: interior design as a contemporary art medium in Germany Institut für
Auslandsbeziehungen e. V. 2002.
