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Notes on: Brian O’Doherty “Inside the White Cube” Pt 3

Chapter 4 – Die Galerie als Gestus

The last chapter I made notes on is the one about the ARTISTIC GESTURE, as was mentioned in the first chapter. I like this term, I find it quite transparent and useful. I used it before for the talk w/ Marga van Mechelen in Amsterdam:

In his essay THE GALLERY AS GESTURE, Brian O’Doherty defines the ARTISTIC GESTURE as a singular artistic action, an individualist, daring act. The successful gesture created a narrative, became a story by changing history. He writes furthermore that these gestures – in his case gallery performances and installations mostly of the nineteen-sixties – always had two audiences, one present and another one not present, which, as he writes, „is usually us“. We, as this second audience, are looking back at the „event“ of a performance as a historical fact, an occurrence.

O’Doherty furthermore says that the original audience is usually not appreciative, often nervous, not at all pleased. It is only in retrospect that we learn to appreciate the gesture. The photos of these events give us an opportunity “an einer Art von Schöpfungsakt teilzunehmen.” (101)

All these gestures are transformations of the given situation in one way or another. What makes them potent, I believe, is that they are stop signs, or rather they are the stops themselves in the train of events, interruptions in the business as usual:

“Erfolgreiche Gesten – das sind solche, die ihre Präsentationsform überleben – unterbrechen normalerweise den Dialog, der sich auf die akzeptierten Normen des Diskurses bezieht. Beim Spiel nennt man das Modifikation der Regeln. Diese Gesten besitzen ein Element von Scharlatanerie und Wahrsagerei. Sie setzen auf eine undeutlich wahrgenommene, aber wünschenswerte Zukunft.“ (127)

The gallery gestures start with Duchamps, continue on with Yves Klein, Armand, Daniel Spoerri, Andy Warhol and Kaprow and many others. It is therefore not an American tradition, but it became quite alive in New York in the 1960s. Many of these gestures can be described as parody, mocking the art business, but many of them really challenged the spectator, the gallery space and what is meant by art and showing art.

There are several categories of gestures, those that question the gallery space altogether are of course in the minority. O’Doherty points out that at least the American avant-garde never really questioned the gallery space as an idea, except for one brief moment when artists did their performances and events in the landscape and only brought photos back to the gallery. (109)

There are however two other examples: namely in 1968, when Daniel Buren sealed a gallery in Milano (110) and in 1969, when Robert Barry published in an art magazine the following add: “During the exhibition the gallery will be closed.” Which then took place a few months later (114) The other category would be gestures that question the perception of the spectator, for example by use of extreme light or darkness. Here often the spectator himself becomes the art piece. These are classic examples of transgression, in the sense that the spectator not only is inside the artwork, he himself generates the artwork out of himself. „Seiner Sicht beraubt, hielt [der Zuschauer] sich an sich selbst und entwickelte aus sich den Inhalt des Ereignisses. [In einem Instant-Kunstwerk] verschmelzen die beiden Träger von Erwartungen, die Galerie und der Betrachter, im weißen Raum zu einem einzigen System.“ (117)

„Die Minimal Art reduzierte die Reize und steigerte die Resonanz, indem sie sie auf das System bezog.“ (117)

This means that for the lack of perceivable objects, the situation itself (the system: the rules, the methods of presentation and behaviour and so forth) becomes interesting and visible. This is a strategy of exposure or disclosure by taking something else (the art object) away, particularly where it’s intentions are political.

The political exposures would form the third strand of gestures. Aimed for example at the art market, admission to art exhibitions and so on.

Another strategy would be to include the outside world in the gallery space and dissolve the gallery hereby. For example bringing people or plants, animals in the space. This can of course also result in trangressions, since the contemplative perception becomes endangered.

Notes on: Brian O’Doherty “Inside the White Cube” Pt 2

Chapter 2: Das Auge und der Betrachter

In this chapter he elaborates further the role of the eye and the body in modern art. His thesis is that the attack on the space is what really made modernism scary and discomforting for its audience. So not the objects themselves, or what they depicted or how they depicted it, but how they changed the spectators sense of space and self.

“Der Energieaustausch zwischen verschiedenen Raumkonzepten, die in Kunstwerken Wirklichkeit werden, und dem Raum, den wir besetzen, gehört zu den grundlegenden und bisher kaum begriffenen Kräften der Moderne. Der Raum der modernen Kunst definiert den Status des Betrachters neu, fordert sein Selbstverständnis heraus. Es sind die Raumkonzeptionen der Moderne und nicht ihre Sujets, welche das Publikum als bedrohlich empfindet.“ (38)

I only quote a few things from this chapter. Somehow I found the examples he gave in the other chapters more inspiring than his reflections in this chapter.

The example of Kurt Schwitters Merzbau that he quotes is interesting because we only have the descriptions of eye witnesses, the space itself – presumably the first installation piece of modernism – was destroyed 1942 in the war. There exist meanwhile some reconstructions of at least large parts of the original space. I visited one in Baden Baden and it was particularly striking, because from the outside you could see that it is build in a wooden box or rather as a pile of wooden boxes with an opening in one of them. In other words, the space looked a bit like a painting that was just transported here in these huge art cases. Very strange! These are my pics from the outside:

the inside:  www.merzbau.org

O’Doherty names two directions (traditions – Gene Swenson) of early modernism: cubism and collage. While the eye accompanies the so called synthetic kubism which redefines the surface, the collage challenges the body. They – eye and body – meet again in the colour field modernism, because these works are both spatial and flat. (61) Minimal art, he says, called for cooperation between eye and body:

„Zuerst nahm das Auge von dem Objekt wie von einem Gemälde Besitz, und dann führte der Körper das Auge um das Werk herum. Dies bewirkte ein feedback zwischen der Bestätigung der Erwartung und der bis dahin latent gebliebenen körperlichen Empfindung. Auge und Betrachter verschmelzen dabei nicht miteinander, sondern arbeiten aus gegebenem Anlass zusammen. Das fein eingestellte Auge erhielt einige Sinnesdaten von der Seite des Körpers, den es verlassen hatte (Empfindung von Schwerkraft, Bewegung etc.). […] Der Betrachter und das Auge sind die Notare unserer Erfahrung. Sie begleiten uns, wenn wir eine Galerie betreten, und die Einsamkeit unserer Kunstwanderungen ist obligatorisch, weil wir die ganze Zeit ein kleines Seminar mit unseren Stellvertretern halten. In diesem Sinne sind wir nicht da. Vor einem Kunstwerk gegenwärtig zu sein, heißt, dass wir uns zugunsten von Auge und Betrachter absentieren, die uns berichten, was wir gesehen hätten, wären wir da gewesen. Das abwesende Kunstwerk ist uns oft näher als das gegenwärtige. (Ich glaube, dass Rothko dies besser als jeder andre Künstler verstand.) Diese komplexe Struktur der Kunstwahrnehmung ist unser Trip nach „Anderswo“, sie ist eine fundamentale Bedingung unserer provisorisch eingerichteten moderne Identität, die von unseren labilen Sinnen immer wieder aufgerichtet wird.“ (63 / 65)

I am not sure I really understand his point here. (I quoted it before.) I get the idea of being absent because we are constantly negotiating between eye and body. But why is the absent artwork more present? And why is the artwork absent in Rothko’s work?

There are also two different aspects here: the modern identity and looking at art. Does our modern identity make us look at art this way? Or does art force us to look at it that way? (Which he seems to imply when describing how the changed art works challenged the perspective)

“Die ersten Betrachter impressionistischer Bilder müssen eine Menge Schwierigkeiten gehabt haben. Wenn sie versuchten, einen Bildgegenstand zu verifizieren, und dazu näher traten, dann verschwand er. Der Betrachter wurde gezwungen, vor- und zurück zu gehen, um einiger Inhaltsbruchstücke teilhaftig zu werden, bevor sie sich auflösten. Das Bild war nicht länger ein passives Objekt sondern erteilte Anweisungen. Fragen des Verhaltens begleiten seitdem die Geschichte der modernen Kunst.“ (65)

This is of course interesting, because it relates directly to minimalism and the black cube in particular. You can relate this directly to the quote from Friedrich Meschede.

This idea of absence and presence we should really work on more, in regard to the black cube but also in regard to our general ideas of situation!

der übergang ist bewacht

dreaming imagening II – AFTER LIFE (1998)

Die Oper, die ich letzte Woche besucht habe, kommt mir im Sinn. Es handelt sich um eine Bewerkung vom japanischen Film “after Life”.

Tote Menschen haben 3 Tage um eine Herrinnerung auszuwählen. Diese wird die einzige Herrinnerung die sie vom Leben in den Tod mitnehmen. Die ganze Geschichte dreht sich um diese schwierige Wahl. Wenn sie sich am Ende sicher sind, wird diese Herrinnerung gefilmt. Und zwar mit den Herrinnerenden im alter und Zustand vor seinem Tod als Hauptdarseller. Auch wenn die Action sich in der Kindheit abspielt. Die Ursache hier, dass ein Erlebnis im Leben festgehalten wird, scheint mir eigentlich weniger wichtig als die Ursache, das jeder Tote ultimativ als Projektion in seiner eigenen Projektion als Bild übrig bleibt. Also als Traum.

Vielleicht kannst du den Film downloaden. Ich hab den damals im Kino gesehen.

dreaming imagening I – C.G. Jung

Es wird oder wurde gerade ein unbekanntes Buch von Jung veröffentlicht, in dem er (genau wie auch sein Lehrer Freud) seine Träume oder Visionen – bei Jung, der mir hochgradig psychotisch gewesen zu scheint, offenbar eher letzteres – aufgeschrieben hat, aber eben nicht nur aufgeschrieben:

“Er gestaltete sie eigens aus, dank seiner Methode der “aktiven Imagination”, die er auch seinen Patienten empfahl: “Sie sollten versuchen, selbst in das Bild hineinzugelangen – zu einer seiner Figuren zu werden. Als ich zuerst damit begann, sah ich Landschaften. Dann lernte ich, mich in diese Landschaft hineinzustellen, und die Figuren pflegten mit mir zu sprechen und ich ihnen zu antworten.”

Und weiter:

“Träume und Visionen widerfahren einer Person ja nicht nur; sie ist auch lenkend daran beteiligt. “Klarträume” in denen der Träumer in sein inneres Bilderleben wie ein Regisseur eingreift, sind nur der Extremfall. Zweifellos ist Jungs “aktive Imagination” eine explizit lenkende Methode. Der große Visionär Jung dürfte ein mindestens ebenso großer Visionslenker gewesen sein, und zu seinem Glück wird sich beides nie genau auseinander halten lassen.”

Ich bin einfach nie darauf gekommen, dass das Träumen ja das beste Beispiel und gewissermaßen die eigentliche Form der erweiterten ästhetischen Erfahrung ist. Jungs Methode macht für mich mit einem Schlag klar, worum es geht. Genau das ist es, und nichts anderes. Aktive Imagination.
Und auch, die Frage der Wahrhaftigkeit, die hier gestellt wird (Visionen haben oder Visionen lenken) ist die gleiche: ist das, was ich in einem Kunstwerk sehe eigentlich wichtig? Gibt es eine Realität des Werkes IN MIR, also quasi das äquivalent zum traum?

Bitte denk mal darüber nach. Was sind Träume für unsere Fragestellung? Wie aktiv bist du in deinen Träumen? Wie groß ist die Distanz? Kontemplation, Teilnahme, Kreation?

Vielleicht hilft das Thema Traum uns dann auch endlich mal auf den gleichen Nenner in diesem ganzen Projekt zu kommen.

Die ganze Rezension in der Süddeutschen Zeitung

thoughts for BLACK CUBE, October 09

ich halte das thema black cube immer noch für gut, aber ich bin auch skeptisch was die aufarbeitung und präsentation des wissens betrifft. ich hab zwei ideen/gedanken:

1) vielleicht könnte man ja statt unserer eigenen erfahrung, den bericht von tony smith nehmen, wie er diese box auf dem schreibtisch sieht, die autofahrt in der nacht und soweiter. wir könnten tatsächlich in die rolle von tony smith schlüpfen, eine interview-situation spielen… Tony Smith ist aber nicht wichtig für mich, mir geht es um die situation. die interessiert mich. und darum eine situation bei unserem publikum zu kreieren, wo die sich auf ihre eigenen gefühle verlassen müssen. das ist doch das entscheidende: das eigene gefühl, das eigene erlbenis und nicht das, was jemand dir sagt, wie es ist oder zu sein hat! wie kann man das freisetzen?

2) was mich am black cube sehr interessiert, ist die frage von präsenz und die frage von raum. d.h. die körperliche anwesenheit von uns und etwas anderem im ausstellungsraum. darüebr schreibt eben O’Doherty viel: die trennung von auge und Körper in der klassischen gallerie. das müsste man jetzt aber auch in unsrer arbeit aufgreifen, damit spielen. eine face-to-face-theater-situation wird dem nicht gerecht. stattdessen müssten wir die körperliche präsenz jedes zuschauers im raum herausarbeiten, erfahrbar machen. vielleicht eben durch unsere abwesenheit, durch einen akustischen vortrag ohne körper, durch dunkelheit… die nacht als ort – auch sehr wichtig! können wir damit arbeiten? Erster Teil:  ein dunkler Raum ohne stühle, das publikum darin, ein virtrag von band. Zweiter Teil: eine Vortragssituation mit Licht und Sitzreihen und uns…

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Notes on: Brian O’Doherty “Inside the White Cube” Pt 1

Brian O’Doherty hat in den Siebziger und Achtziger Jahren in einer Reihe von Essays die Gesetze und die Entwicklung des Ausstellungsraums, insbesondere der Gallerie, thematisiert. Auslöser sind die Installationen und Environments der Sechziger Jahre die teils aus ästhetischen, teils aus gesellschaftspolitischen Gründen die Regeln des Ausstellungsraums in Frage stellten. Allerdings geht diese Praxis der, wie er sagt, „künstlerischen Gesten“ zur Infragestellung des Ausstellungsraums auf die Avantgarden des frühen 20. Jahrhunderts zurück, especially Duchamps. He remains in many ways on the surface of his subject, describing and catagorizing artistic gestures and hinting and political implications, but not asking for the deeper layers of meaning and, as Ranciere would say, regimes. In this it is more an account and a polemic on the recent developments than a serious analysis.

The „white cube“ is a space designed not for bodies but for eyes, implying a reduced human, all eyes and brains, no limbs and torso.

„Der Galerie-Raum legt den Gedanken nahe, dass Augen und Geist willkommen sind, raumgreifende Körper dagegen nicht – höchstens dass sie als Gliederpuppen für Studienzwecke zugelassen sind. Dieses Paradox à la Descartes wird durch eine Ikone unserer visuellen Kultur bekräftigt, das Ausstellungsfoto ohne Menschen. Hier endlich sind die Betrachter, wir selbst, eliminiert. Wir sind da ohne da zu sein; einer der größten Dienste den die Fotografie ihrer Rivalin Kunst leistet. Das Ausstellungsfoto ist eine Metapher für den Ausstellungsraum.“(11)

This idea of the bodyless space will be broken up by the minimalists (among others) as we will later see. Greenbergs critic of the „theater of representation“ in Smith Die means just that: an object which invites the body into the space, makes it central again in the act of perception. In O’Doherty’s logic the white cube is the direct opposition to the black cube (Die) in as far as it’s influence on the role of the body is concerned. That is why I included the notion of white cube in the description for the LP in Mannheim. If we work on Die we have to take this dialectic in account.

History / Teil 1

The reason why I think this chapter is important is, that O’Doherty writes art history from the perspective of the space, the gallery,which means, he writes about situations, rather then objects. This is very close to my own desire.

He follows the roots of the gallery space into the salon of the 19^th century. (art – non religious that is – becomes public only after the french revolution. See also Malraux.) A gallery therefore was a salon with a wall full of pictures. Yet the famous „Petersburger Hängung“ as it was used in many salons in the 19^th constituted a very different aesthetic practice than today’s gallery does. How was this justified?

„[Dadurch] dass nämlich jedes Gemälde als eine selbständige Einheit galt, die durch einen schweren Rahmen nach außen und durch ein komplettes System der Perspektive nach innen vollkommen vom hautnah an drängenden Nachbarn abgeschottet wurde. Raum war damals unzusammenhängend und teilbar, genauso wie das Haus, in dem die Gemälde hingen, verschiedene Räume für verschiedene Funktionen hatte. Der Geist des 19. Jahrhunderts war auf Messung und Unterteilung aus, und das Auge des 19. Jahrhunderts respektierte die Hierarchie der Genres und die Autorität des Rahmens.“ (13)

That is a superficial analysis but nevertheless: the role of the frame is a central theme here. What I find interesting is, that the Petersburger Hängung requires a much greater work on the part of the spectator, than todays practice. In fact we are talking about a greater degree of abstraction, since the contemplation into a painted landscape that hangs this close to a Stilleben or Sea Scenery is much more difficult to accomplish. The other central theme is perspective as an artistic strategy. Perspective orders all elements within the frame in such a way as to draw the gaze into it, helping to avoid seeing the rest of the wall. O’Doherty speaks of transgression here:

“Man geht förmlich in so ein Gemälde hinein, oder man gleitet mühelos in es hinein. Je größer die Illusion, desto stärker wird die Einladung an das Auge des Betrachters; das Auge wird von seinem fest verankerten Körper abgezogen und wird in das Bild hinein versetzt, um sich mit dem Raum vertraut zu machen.” (14)

An interesting question would be whether the style of presentation (historically) followed the invention of the central perspective or whether the Petersburger Hängung required such a technique. I assume that the first is the case (perspective came first). However the opposite would be imaginable as well. What made the central perspective necessary? If it is a strategy to draw the eye into the space of the painting, what was this practice trying to avoid? If later artists omitted the central perspective again, what are the social or aesthetic necessities for either development? In fact, the central perspective was merely a phase in painting – maybe 200 or 300 years – not a guiding principle or a technical necessity.

“Bei diesem Vorgang [dem hineingleiten] ist die Sicherheit, die der Rahmen gewährt, ebenso notwendig wie der Sauerstoffbehälter für den Taucher.”(14)

O’Doherty speaks of „neatly tied packages“ of perspective and gold frame. There were very few efforts towards a dissolution of the frame, namely those of CDF: „compositions that create pressure on the frame“, as he calls them. They are „surfaces of multiple meanings“, „oscillating between unending depth and flatness“.(15) The frame now becomes unreliable and the separation of the paintings in the space becomes necessary.

From the middle of the 19^th on O’Doherty sees two different strategies at work: one where the frame is central, which was important in early photography (which accepted the frame) and one which aims at Flächigkeit (two-dimensionality, laminarity) instead of depth and wants to overcome the frame. This development constitutes the first major brake in the concept of the gallery and art itself:

“Die Tendenz zur Flächigkeit trug am stärksten zur Durchsetzung seiner [des Bildes] Autonomie bei. Das Entstehen eines flachen Raumes, der erfundene Formen und nicht mehr wie der illusionistische Raum wirkliche Formen enthielt, übte weiteren Druck auf den Rand aus.” (17)

O’Doherty here throws two things in one (invented forms and flatness or real forms and illusion) which to my mind indeed conditioned and legitimated one another. But how exactly? And in which order and logic? He also totally ignores the development of the panorama, which coincides with CDF’s flat paintings. I don’t think that the argument of Flächigkeit creating autonomy of art holds true when looking at the Panorama: The panorama is totally illusionary, yet it omits central perspective and can be called flat. It does not need to draw the eye into it, because the eye (and the body!) is already in the middle of it! It also reunites body and eye, the separation of which O’Doherty regards as a central operation in the logic of 18t and 19^th century art.

He then writes something which I find very intriguing. He speculates that Monet’s approach to space might have been a result of his technical deficits. The lack of concreteness, the seemingly arbitrary framing of objects – O’Doherty calls them provisionary solutions. The fleeting or unfocused impression his art creates allowed “for the eye to look elsewhere”, he writes. (18) What a strange sentence! Where is this elsewhere? In the gallery space, in the painting? Monet he says painted like he was passing by his objects, instead of stopping to focus on them. If so, does this mean, that they should be perceived like in passing by? Does this technique imply a likewise perception? How so?

I do however understand, how such a neglect of focus further weakens the concept of illusionary space and thereby contributes to Flächigkeit of the painting. Monet also painted the huge Le bassin aux Nympheas, almost a panorama.

Returning to the question of Hängung, O’Doherty complains that we know too little about that. I agree, in fact I would love to learn more about this whole historical complex of presentations. He writes that it should be possible “to relate the inner story of a painting onto it’s outer hanging”. (22) What this means is that the concrete situation of encounter -the space in which it takes place – should play a role in evaluating the work. This is pure CATALOG OF SITUATIONS! Only he does not know it…

In the 50s and 60s – which is his main era of concern – the paintings started to take over the wall, literally invade the wall. O’Doherty writes that group exhibitions soon looked like the Balkan, with territory wars waging and everybody trying to steel some ground and push the others aside. The question arose, how much space does a painting need. By breaking the rectangular frame, the wall also became a focus, meaning the audience started to perceive the whole space. The space thereby becomes part of the artwork – which O’Doherty does not say. (But for example Karpow clearly stated)

O’Doherty returns once more to the exhibition photo: „Das Foto einer Colour-Filed Ausstellung kann als der logische Endpunkt der Tradition der Moderne angesehen werden.“ (29) This idea of the exhibition photo that allows only the eye, but not the body, reappears throughout his essays. It is a central trope.

He closes the chapter by summing the problem of space invasion up with another example of artistic gesture: William Anastasie West Wall, 1967.

state of the art – answers

25.07.2009:
During our research we have decided to concentrate on art pieces. An important terminus by defining what comes into the range of art and what doesn’t has been aesthetic intentionality. Let’s assume that we reduce our research on artifacts, on aesthetic phenomenons that are in the world with the intention of making them as they are. The best example to illustrate this differentiation is of course the couple nature/culture or here, the differentiation between the (visual) perception of a natural environment and the (visual) perception of a piece of art. The transcendentalist would argue that there is no essential difference between both. God is the maker of all things as each artist is the maker of his works of art. We are not going to argue on that here. Nature is beautiful. I understand the notion of the picturesque but also the one of landscape (speaking of landscape is always speaking as an aesthete) in this affirmation: “It seems to be made for me to look at it, for me to contemplate.” The thing is that it is certainly not made solely for that purpose and most probably it is not made for that purpose. Nature is ruled by laws of functionality in the first place. Its beauty is a result of this functionality. Let’s accept that here. There is no aesthetic plan behind. We decide thus to be aesthetical functionalists within this project. Our analyze and our research would narrow on aesthetical phenomenons where the primary function is precisely to be apprehended as such.

18.09.2009:
I believe there is more to the nature/culture-separation than this. As we have stated before the concept of space and of Aesthetic as a way of feeling oneselve in a space (room, the world, nature, the totality of things called reality…) (see G. Böhme) is central to our approach. We can then say that art constitutes different spaces or rather a space within a space. Now we can speak of transgression, of movements and of longing (in the sense of directionality).Of course the concept of space is tricky for example in sculpture (see Heidegger) or music. The point I am making is this: we contemplate nature while already being in it. We can gaze at a deep valley from a mountian yet the valley and the mountain where i stand are part of the same spatial continuum. Artistic production means making cuts in the space, drawing borders. The concepts of pitoresque and landscape imply a gradual movement towards such a separation of space. “It seems to be made for me to look at it, for me to contemplate.” – yet it is also not, since i am in it and do not have the safe distance to fully fall into contemplation. This to me is the main differentiation.

I wonder if the phenomenon of the sharp abyss, the depth that seems to draw us down when standing on a verge, is somehow comparable to transgressive art. There might be something of an almost artistic separation of space here. I am not sure.

But we are not out of the problems here. Reading Rancière has taught us that in aesthetics there are no boundaries between disciplines. Rancière positions himself as the anti-essentialist breaking all our certainties about the specificity of one art discipline towards another by trying to define art disciplines outside of the range of their technical realization. Film, he states, existed before the actual invention of the first camera. he doesn’t take here into account natural phenomenons like the camera obscura but narrative techniques that lead to a cinematic experience. Flaubert, he states, was a filmmaker. On the other hand he discusses a picture taken by an SS-officer in Auschwitz and finds its direct lineage in a painting of Rembrandt. Flaubert’s intention was not to make cinema and the intention of the nazi was certainly not to position himself in art history. Rancière, like we two do, positions himself as what he is: a reader, a spectator telling about his experiences with art and analyzing them. Making links.

This to me is why Ranciere is interesting for what we try to do. I am not so much interested in his discussion of disciplines and techniques. But very much in the role of memory and experience in the formation of aesthetic situations.

Why exactly would we make a differentiation between being spectators of art, spectators of picturesque landscape or spectators of ourselves?

Basically the same answer as above. But to be more precise: the spectator in nature knows he is in a continuum of space. In moments of contemplation – when looking down into a valley – he tends to FORGET this continuity and to establish a frame, separating the distant view from the neardby surrounding. He so to speak creates an aesthetic situation out of a real situation. He arranges the surroundings to a picture and thereby creates more distance. This is actually the REVERSE OPERATION from transgressive situations in the contemplation of art. In the pictoresque the spectator steps out of the space, in transgressive art he steps into it!

I relate the best to pieces of art that have freed themselves from their authors. I like the idea of art being an activity where someone abandons something to history. He leaves his work as a historical artifact of its time. His authorship becomes irrelevant at the moment when he offers his work to a public. The art piece is in between it pairs. Experiencing some representatives of Minimal Art in a Museum in Geneva has been the first impulse, the first permission, as Morton Feldman would say, for becoming myself an artist. But experiencing art is also entering in relation with the author of that work.

I am not convinced here. Is this really the case? A) Factual: do we perceive art works like this? If i am in some random gallery and a painting catches my eye, i do not engage in a relationship with an author. Instead I engage in a relationship with an idea, an utterance, an intention. But that is not the same. B) Conceptual: is this the point in art? As we have said, art is offering heightened experiences in the freedom of not having to react, free to contemplate, endure, enjoy or not to enjoy. Is the absence of the artist – or his transformation/disappearance into a fictional role within the work (performance art) – not a conditio sine qua non for this experience?

Someone has had a vision, someone has worked and re-worked a certain material for me to see it how it is. Being myself an artist I need to imagine a fellow artist behind a work and even more important, I need to think a work of art in the continuity of the carrier of the artist. I need to think it in evolution. Maybe that’s the true difference. Every art piece has an author and places itself therefore in history. The cycles of nature are very different. But then again we could argue on the definition of nature. What is that actually? And how often were we placed into an environment that we could call “natural”? Here again a huge discussion opens. Does this mean an environment not touched by man? An environment preserved by man? When do we start to talk about nature? Are the numerous national parks on this planet the last remnants of nature? Are the parks of our cities nature? The plants growing in our houses? The hair growing on our heads? I am not sure that I want to enter into this question of ethics. Let’s stay in the aesthetics.

You are essentionally making the same argument I made some time ago, when saying that we have to have intentionality to talk about strategies – hence we have to omit natural phenomenon. I believe that is NOT the reason. Intentionality is just one aspect of aesthetic encounters. In fact intentionality is NOT the subject of our research, at least not central to it. Instead we are looking at phenomenon, occurrences firstly and then at strategies. But even then the person of the author does not necessarily come into play!

We have talked about transgressive phenomenons in art. To be short let’s say here that they are moments and let’s say here that they are moments where the distance between art piece and perceiver becomes blurry. Moments (and we are back to the idea of intentionality) where the art piece manages to suck the perceiver inside of its reality. This notion is rather vague and needs to be defined more precisely. Is the fact of being moved by something (and let’s assume that we are talking about an art piece here) not already a transgression of my position towards this something? And if we even go further: is the fact of something catching our attention not already a transgression? A transgression of what? Of our freedom to pay attention to things and not to others? It seems to me that we enter here the beautiful world of media criticism. Our notion of transgression, for sure, needs to be clarified.

Let’s start to shed some light by analyzing the terms you proposed. You are using here three metaphors, which are indeed central to our issue. But the metaphorical does not imply the factual!
The first one is “to be moved”(1). What do you mean by this? I assume that the common meaning of the expression derives from the concept of fluids and electric currents moving through the body. Very simply put: Being in a state of excitement means there is a lot of movement going on within. Being moved could then refer to the internal, to bodily and cerebral activity. So when we say, I was moved by this or that, we do not mean that we are moving in space or that we change position. We are in this sense constantly moved, e.g. stirred, stimulated, by our surroundings. Böhme speaks of the “ecstasies of the things”, meaning that all things extend and thereby influence what is around them. But this is not specific to art and it does not constitute a transgression of spatial frontiers.
“catching attention” (2). The term implies in fact a violent movement of grasping, of intentionally changing the given direction of a thing, person. The figure implies consciousness as something in constant movement – maybe inside the brain, maybe outside (the gaze wandering around from object to object). And the objects are in this figure less ecstatic as they are – let’s say – sticky. So they catch the gaze, and indeed they manipulate us insofar, as they change the course of our consciousness’ traveling. This is the way attention is created. So why should we speak of transgression here? I would not use this term here, since the catching and changing does not imply any experience of spatial movement or confusing.
“to pay attention” (3). This figure implies, that our attention is given, paid, to something, one. In this way we are giving out attention to the objects, and by doing so – I suppose – we activate their aesthetic potential. So you were right in forming an opposition between “catching” and “paying”. I wonder however if one is possible without the other. Can we decide to pay attention to an object, if it does not extend toward us, if it does not make itself “sticky”, to remain in this terminology.
What I am trying to show by these awkward word-plays is, that while the terms seem to imply a certain transgression or violence, forcefulness in the act, we are not dealing with transgressions here in the sense we are using it. Reading Böhme’s ideas about ecstasy and atmosphere might really make this more clear to you.

The notion of transgression is a very powerful one when we talk about art. It has been used a lot since the late 80’s to talk about art that intentionnaly is meant to shock the audience (G. Bataille, histoire de l’oeil should come on our list). So we are primarily talking here of transgression of moral rules valid in society. The transgression we are talking about is an aesthetic one. It presupposes the autonomy of the viewer towards the art piece and the autonomy of the art piece towards the viewer. This is very questionable whilst desirable from a political point of view.

Why is that so? Is the autonomy of the art piece not the very idea of art? What is your concept of autonomy here?

Our contemporary visual culture is constantly working on transcending the visible to all the senses. Installation art is art where you are in the art work, going to the cinema nowadays with the possibility of the Dolby Surround is an experience of total submersion into an universe. But is this different than the horrific experience made by the first viewers of the movie L’arrivée du train en gare de la Ciotat from les frêres Lumière? Is the progress of the technique not just accompanying the progress of our habits as viewers? It is a common sense to say that the visual is ruling our contemporary culture. Didi-Huberman goes back as far as to one of the first theologists, Retullus, in order to reverse the common sense and speak of “la haine du visible”, the hatred of the visible. We constantly want to go beyond the visual, to transgress its possibilities. But is this such a strange thing?

I totally agree that there is a movement towards the desolution of the frame, the frontiers between art and reality. Maximum realism. But the quest for maximum realism is necessarily a dead-end-street. How could it be otherwise? What would be the aesthetic gain of a TOTALES KUNSTWERK? If I don’t know it is art, how and why should I enjoy it? The joy of art lies precisely in it’s limitations, it is in the alternation, not in the sameness. This is not a political claim, but an observation.

I’ve spent a lot of time in forest those days and in the past few years. I enjoy being there in the company of trees. Walking a forest is each time a little adventure to me. You see things from a different point of view, apprehend time in an other way, get in contact with the wild, sometimes you can get lost in a forest and then you can only look for an issue with the hope that you won’t walk in circles. I mostly walk in forests with a photo camera at reach. When I see something that appears picturesque to me I start to shoot. How could I state that this picturesque impression is purely visual? This would be omitting a lot of parameters like my capacity of attention at that moment, boredom, exhaustion after a long walk, the loneliness of my thoughts. I like the idea expressed by Werner Herzog in Wim Wenders’ documentary Tokyo Ga: “Sometimes making a picture is the reward of a lot of efforts. It has taken a whole day to climb that mountain, a lot of sweat. And now finally you are on the top and you are ready to make that picture. Pictures have their price!” I write here what I remember of this interview taken ironically in a elevator bringing Herzog and Wenders high above the skyline of the city. From that point of view I understand Rancière (again him) stating that images are not an exclusivity of the visible.