Tatzu Nishi

Tatzu Nishi is a Japanese artist, based in Germany, whose artistic practice focuses on historic monuments and sculptures.

 

Tatzu Nishi, War and peace and in between, 2009

 For Nishi's Kaldor Project, War and peace and in between, he constructed a room around two enormous equestrian bronzes Offerings of Peace and  Offerings of War, by Gilbert Bayes (1923). The viewers find themselves in a normal domestic living room and bedroom except the giant horse and rider wedged into a cabinet and the other on top of the bedsheets. 

Tatzu Nishi, War and peace and in between, 2009

His works invite the audience to look at his works through "fresh eyes" that question their national statuary in a critical way. His installation's are site-specific and are displayed in public places in which he constructs a box-like domestic space around them. Nishi places his monumental sculptures in domestic situations flipping context and scale - from public to domestic, impersonal to private.

HAL FOSTER - An Archival Impulse

Soda_Jerk with Sam Smith

Still from Hollywood Burn, 2011
Digital video, sound, 16:9
Duration: 52 min


     Hal Foster’s “An Archival Impulse” is a critical framework of understanding artists’ practice in archival art. Foster focuses on Thomas Hirschhorn, Sam Durant, and Tactica Dean  who share the notion of their artistic practice as an idiosyncratic.  Archival art is hardly new, it has been active since the prewar period (where there was a focus political and technological archival art), and postwar period (appropriation) and even now in contemporary art (with the internet becoming a prominent factor in our daily lives).

Archival artists seek to make historical information, often lost or displaced, physically present - bringing something previously lost to the forefront. The artists use the found image, object, and text, as well as installation. Some artists draw inspiration from visual narratives, or rather, films. Douglas Gordon creates these “time readymades” that are drawn from the archives of mass culture. In contemporary art, it has become even more accessible for artists and even the public to get ahold of ‘the Hollywood archives’. Contemporary artists that form Soda Jerk take advantage of the internet, recreating memorable film scenes that allows viewers to engage with those films in a different way. This can also be seen in Christian Marclay’s The Clock (2010). 

Hal Foster explores the postmodernists complications of originality and authorship. We are shown archival art at its darkest. There has been a slight shift of the archival, a different view in contemporary art that does not explore this darkness. We can see this through the mega-archive of the internet.  There is a human interpretation, not machinic reprocessing. The archives are not indiscriminate, they are indeterminant. The archival art has become about the preproduction as much as the postproduction. The artists choose archives that are unfulfilled or incomplete that leaves a air of uncertainty and a continuous incomplete cycle of the archives. 

There is a clear distinction of the artist-as-archivist and the artist-as-curator. The archivist’s toy with the ‘museum collection’. The archivists orientation of their art is  more “‘institutive’ than ‘destructive,’ more ‘legislative’ than ‘transgressive.’” Foster has observed that the museum's reputation has been ruined, that in the public sphere they are a orderly, logical and aesthetically consistent in their displays. With this in mind the archivist’s may bring forth the dusty archives hidden within the museums but still retain the museums coherent system of presentation. 

It is important to note that there is a constant continuation of archival art. They are forever being produced, whether “found or constructed, factual yet fictive, or public yet private.”

ROSALIND KRAUSS - Clock Time

                                                            

Christian Marclay

Still from The Clock, 2010

Single-channel video 24 hours

Christian Marclay explores synchronous time and technical support through the use of medium specificity. One of Marclay’s prominent mediums to use in his artistic practices is the use of film. Marclay’s films allows the viewer to feel a greater connection to his art, involving them to a point of suspense. 

  Rosalind Krauss mentions the “technical support”. In contemporary art, which makes recurring references of commercial or industrial products (in the case Marclay’s reference to film in an archival manner) in “the manner of modernist art’s reflex of self-criticism. In his  artwork Video Quartet, 2002, he uses this commercial sound film and uses different ways to show synchronicity either visually and through contrasts of sound and silence. Marclay wants his viewers to see the silence (here there is a reference to the importance of the  Jazz Singer as the first talkie in 1929). 

Christian Marclay’s most recent work The Clock, 2010 uses the archival method of reusing fragments of film. There is a doubling of temporal focus (as it stretches over 24hrs). Marclay uses pure synchronicity as his accompaniment of actual time. In The Clock he uses ‘synch time’ with 24 frames a second and the psycho-physiological facts of optics for the frame to invisibly slip into the next. Krauss talks of the importance of “Ideological State Apparatuses” that allows Marclay’s viewers to be transported to each scene as the camera becomes the eyes of the viewer. Marclay uses the cutaway as its plot, effectively creating a suspense where the actors and viewers anticipate a catastrophe that could happen at any moment. 

Krauss draws comparison to Alfred Hitchcock’s psychological thrillers “Dial M for Murder” and “Strangers on a Train”. Here the suspense is identified unreeling on the screen that is out of synchronization with the viewers. However in Marclay’s The Clock, the suspense is created as the plot continually unfolds bringing back the anticipation of a catastrophe as each minute passes. 

The Clock uses Husserl’s ‘self-present instant,’ the self-presence in the ‘now-effect’ “transforming the reel time of film into the real time of waiting”. 

The John Kaldor Family Collection

Sol LeWitt 
Wall drawing # 1091, 2003

On May 2011, The John Kaldor Family Collection opened at the Art Gallery of NSW. This gift, which Kaldor has collected and built up for over 50 years comprising of more than 200 contemporary international artworks is worth more than $35 million. Kaldor’s generous contribution means that AGNSW has an extensive collection of contemporary art.  After a $27 million grant from the NSW government, AGNSW were able to complete the gallery space after having the collection since 2008.

A dedicated collector of contemporary art, Josh Kaldor has been collecting these works since the 1960’s from emerging artists who are now highly influential and recognisable figures within the art world and art history.

The collection includes works by contemporary artists such as Christo and Jean-Claude, Jeff Koons, Sol LeWitt and Robert Rauschenberg as well as others. Minimalistic works by Donald Judd, Carle Andre and Frank Stella, performance works comprising of works by Gilbert & George, Richard Long and Francis Alys. Photography by Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth and Thomas Demand as well as video art from artists such as Nam June Paik, Bill Viola and Shaun Gladwell. The collection covers a vast range of different themes, however there is a strong emphasis on minimalist sculptures and installations as well as drawing.

Alongside these works are a number of commissioned and newly installed site-specific artworks. The walk downstairs creates a suspense which is relieved upon seeing the five vast wall drawings by Sol LeWitt, a major wall work by Richard Long (Spring Showers Circle, 2011), and a new installation by Ugo Rondinone (Clockwork for Oracles, 2011) which heightens the excitement of more to come. The converted storage room allows for this large space to be enjoyed by art lovers around Australian and internationals.

The Art Gallery of NSW's director, Edmund Capon, said the floor's transformation from a storage space to one of the "greatest collections of international contemporary art" was "amazing"[1]

 [1] Black, Simon. "John Kaldor Gives Away His $35 Million Collection of a Lifetime." In,  (2011).

Relations Between Conceptual and Performance Art - SUMMARY

Vito Acconci
Step Piece, 1970
Photograph of a performance in his studio


 

In the reading Some Relations between Conceptual and Performance Art by Frazer Ward focuses on the overlap of the categories of conceptual and performance art during the late 1960s and early 1970s. 

Ward discusses the dematerialisation and minimalist approach to both conceptual and performance art. The material considerations became secondary in conceptual works and the temporal status of performance further evoked these same feelings. There was a loss of aestheticisim and not only did this dematerialisation of art have huge influence on how artists worked, but both conceptual and performance art became engaged in a continuing dialogue, particularly in performance where the artists used their bodies as a pathway to text and used "their bodies (to)…point to the contingent, social construction of subjectivity”. There was a critical reception of art in galleries. Art was now being made for artists and their movement from the gallery space to a studio space helped artists began to create works that no longer existed as a commodity.

Ward produces two artists, Ian Burn's conceptual driven Mirror Piece (1967 and Vito Acconci's performance Step Piece (1970). Burn’s work is described as unambiguous and “typically Conceptual in its abandonment of aesthetic authority”. Mirror Piece consists of thirteen typed pages of notes and diagrams, a mirror, both which have been framed and covered with glass. His notes are his ‘description’ of his work, explaining its ‘intentional’ function and importance of the gallery space in the identification of the mirrors function. Acconci’s Step Piece features an eighteen-inch stool set up in his aparment and used as a morning workout until he was unable to contiune. He would reguarly send out announcements informing the public of his progress. His work also serves as a rebellion against the gallery space, in allowing the public to watch his performances from his studio, completely abloishing the idea of an institution.

Rosalind Krauss and Greogory Battock, in Idea Art (1973) remark on the rationalisation of conceptual art and the uncertainty of the place of performance as performance was never made a “movement”.  Ward also examines how conceptual art took to remove the traditional elements of aestheticism in order to elimate the ‘elite’ factor, causing frustration from the audience as they did not fully comprehend the rationalisim of Conceptual art.

SUMMARY - Enchantments

   Enchantment draws on theatrical roots with the audience being transported into the artists own spectacle. Enchanted spaces are rarely site-specific as it is all about capturing the viewer entirely. However, some artists use the area to their advantage, using the windows, ceiling and floor to represent ‘the rejected world’, ‘sky’, or ‘earth’ respectively.

  

 Enchantment installations are best explained through Kurt Schwitter’s, Merzbau. Between 1919 and 1937 Schwitter created a ‘large-scale field of imaginary possibilities’, a pyschological dimension, with every surface covered with various materials. Merzbau was a perfect illustration of what installation would become, a place where the viewer is transported into a ‘state of awe...(and) a sense of physical smallness’.

  

 The 1920s was a huge time for installations. Significant contributors were the Bauhaus, Russian Constructivists and the De Dtijl. Artists showing at the First International Dada Fair in Berlin presented a model world through collaborative works through floor-to-ceiling collage as an anti-aesthetic statement with political messages expressed through the sense of disorder and anarchy. Duchamp and Dali were crucial figures in enchantment installations using surreal methods to entise the viewer and invite them into a situation where they felt they were 'spying' or 'trespassing'.

  

In 1955 Disneyland (purely constructed for leisure) was opened and is an example of enchantment as there is a slight relation to installation through theatrical rides and the full interaction of its users. Disneyland, created by Walt Disney gave participants a chance to completely immerse themselves into a new world, and were given a 'transforming experience' achieved through sensory reactions.

   

The late 1960’s saw an expansion of paintings (tableaux) and their intimate worlds were used to create events which were labelled as ‘Happenings’. Alan Kaprow led these Happenings which were theatrically orientated with the viewer to ‘perform’. Video Installations were also types of art that have enchantment characteristics with viewers standing before ‘a dream or nightmare world’.

   

Enchantments create an atmosphere where one feels as if they have entered the mind of the artists seeing through their eyes, their ideas and their interests.

Eva Hesse - Minimalism/Abstraction

Eva Hesse

Right After, 1969

fiberglass, wire, polyester resin

dimensions variable

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Heartly, Eleanor, “Minimalism/Abstraction”, in Art & Today, London; Phaidon Press Limited, 2008

Art & Today’s second chapter ‘Abstraction in Art,’ gives useful information on understanding abstraction and minimalism in art. The large coloured pictures that accompany the text further develops our understanding as we are shown fantastic examples of abstraction and minimalism in art. There was little said on Eva Hesse, however, this was a great starting point for my research as it helped me appreciate Eva Hesse’s artwork even further.

Sussman, Elisabeth and Fred Wasserman, Eva Hesse Sculpture, New York; Jewish Museum, New Have; Yale University Press, 2006.

Eva Hesse Sculpture is a book that was made to accompany The Jewish Museum exhibition of Hesse’s sculpture in New York. Eva Hesse Sculpture focuses on her large-scale sculptures in latex and fiberglass. Photographs of Hesse’s sculptures and essays gives insight of her highly influential, however, brief life.  We are also given historical context of her life through never-before-seen images of family diaries and photographs.  This book takes you on a ride through the progression of Hesse’s art practice and life and making this book an illustrated chronology of Eva Hesse’s life. 

Leader, Darian, “Minimalism With A Human Face,” Tate Magazine, Issue 2 (Nov/Dec 2002). Accessed 15 March, 2012. http://www.tate.org.uk/magazine/issue2/hesse.htm.

Minimalism With A Human Face by Darian Leader is an article featured in the Tate Museum’s magazine ‘Tate Magazine’ in conjunction with an exhibition the museum was having of Eva Hesse. The article starts with a brief insight into Hesse’s tragic life which leads onto various descriptions of some of her most famous work including Hang Up (1968), Contingent (1968), Ringaround Arosie (1964) and many more important works.

Nemser, Cindy, “An Interview With Eva Hesse,” Artforum, May 1970. Accessed 18^th March, 2012. http://cloud.hauserwirth.com/documents/y1ctXlJCqjk1Q3aKF0qZ1436rapbm40Mj5l59e6Jv456vnXepI/artforum-may-1970-1fGl6I.pdf

An Interview With Eva Hesse is an interview that was in Artforum and, in fact, Eva Hesse’s last interview that she ever gave. In this interview they discuss her life, her work and her influences. In this interview, there is a large focus on her life and her feelings of constant fear and terror. She dwells extensively into the meanings of her artworks, what she was trying to portray, her disappointments and her successes. She talks broadly of her minimalist influences, (Duchamp and Andre in particular) and her obsession with the ‘absurd’. Overall a fantastic and valuable resource.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barnes, Rachel, Martin Coomer, Carl Freedman, Tony Godfrey, Simon Grant, Melissa Larner, Simon Morley and Gilda Williams, The 20^th Century Art book, London; Phaidon Press Limited, 1996, 201.

Heartly, Eleanor, “Minimalism/Abstraction”, in Art & Today, London; Phaidon Press Limited, 2008.

Hodge, Nicola and Libby Anson, The A-Z of Art: the world’s greatest and most popular artists and their works, San Diego; Thunder Bay Press, 1996, 179.

Lippard, Lucy, Eva Hesse, New York; DeCapo Press, New York, 1976.

Sussman, Elisabeth and Fred Wasserman, Eva Hesse Sculpture, New York; Jewish Museum, New Have; Yale University Press, 2006.

Nemser, Cindy, “An Interview With Eva Hesse,” Artforum, May 1970. Accessed 18^th March, 2012. http://cloud.hauserwirth.com/documents/y1ctXlJCqjk1Q3aKF0qZ1436rapbm40Mj5l59e6Jv456vnXepI/artforum-may-1970-1fGl6I.pdf

Leader, Darian, “Minimalism With A Human Face,” Tate Magazine, Issue 2 (Nov/Dec 2002). Accessed 15 March, 2012. http://www.tate.org.uk/magazine/issue2/hesse.htm.

Beardsell-Moore, Laura, “Eva Hesse.” Accessed 15 March, 2012. http://www.female-artists.net/eva-hesse.html.

Summary

Unmonumental: Going to Pieces in the 21^st Century by Laura Hoptman explores the routes of assemblage and its progression throughout the early 20^th century to the 21^st century.  Hoptman starts with the history of Dada and the re-emergence of assembled forms in contemporary sculpture. The contemporary artists used the method of juxtaposition forms to define the ready-mades. She mentions artists such as Picasso, Duchamp and Cage and explains how much of their work is left up to chance and randomness and the use of the found object which, (especially in the cases of Duchamp and Cage) “sealed the Dadaist alliance between the old and new avant gardes.” Rauschenberg’s series of Combines stresses that “the magic in his work was the ability to turn familiar objects into mysterious ones through juxtaposition.” In other words, his found objects are separate in their singular and individuality, but when assembled together they become something different, an artwork in its entirety. The question of how much chance played a role in the arrangement of the Combines is answered by the response that Combine, and even assembled art, is “actual evidence of an irrevocably shattered society”.

The new millennium changed the way we viewed art. New technologies were possible and the internet became a flood gate that opened and provided us with so many new possibilities as well as art. These new sculptures are hostile with a specific meaning. They are not random like the ready-mades and Rauschenberg’s Combines. The re-emergence of assembled forms came early into the 21^st century. The neo-neo-avant-garde approaches to assemblages resemble appropriation primarily of minimalist forms. Contemporary sculptors such as Hammond, Noland and Lowman are products of an object culture, where the ideas of Duchamp’s readymades are just as obvious material and utility for art as paint. Today’s sculptures focus on the issues of the contemporary, the here-and-now and there is a focus on the content of their work. The 21^st century assemblage is highly organised and composed into something that is both considered contemporary as well as having a political stance.

Un-monumental can be described as intentionally lacking certain aspects (massiveness, timelessness, public significance) that make an artwork extraordinary. Contemporary sculpture exists with the 21^st century style of assemblage and the artists own diverse style.