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Tactile Geometry Alan Johnston

Alan Johnston: The Emptiness of Form Looking through the wall drawing documents for the preparation of this publication brought to mind the notion of askesis as a practice, the practice of denial. In this case a wandering denial, a condition, perhaps a predilection to ‘no’ place was formed.

In searching the garden made by Sesshu in Yamaguchi, ‘a master of “no” space’, a series of geophysical sites, places, locations were continued, formed

as engagements in ‘the marvellous Void’. Perhaps an ironic paradox in this lucid linear extension of tone and ‘almost invisible’ body and mass. The process revealed previous masters, engaged in a dance with tactile shadow.

The drawings made in the places documented in the publication show no predicated direction to place, and follow a passive neutrality, a ‘floating world’.

They are in one sense compounded as Anthony Vidler has outlined, ‘as a modern utopic’, borne of an anxiety of space, yet ultimately open to Semper and Taut’s continuities. This ‘Void’, has for me a deep interest, which is not of threat, but of an exploratory and speculative variety. It has informed the very nature of spatial conception in part from the genesis described so acutely by Vidler. But it is also ‘the Void’ analogous to ‘the Void’ of Sesshu, McLaughlin, Martin, Gunn and also of Pallasmaa.

Penelope Curtis An important part of the thinking which was elaborated and expressed through the Millbank Project at Tate Britain (Caruso St. John, 2013) was symmetry. In building a parcours around the Duveen Galleries the new hang was also essentially symmetrical, and I looked to use the principle of symmetry wherever it seemed appropriate. In thinking about creating a balance across the lower floor it seemed sensible to match the existing Restaurant to the left of the staircase, with the new Café to the right. As the Restaurant housed the Rex Whistler mural of 1926, the Café seemed to call for an equivalent mural treatment by way of a new commission. I invited two artists, Alan Johnston and Richard Wright, to look at both the Café and the upper Rotunda, which was to become the new Members’ Room. Alan Johnston got there first, and proposed a treatment of the Café ceiling which made good sense in a number of ways.

His first sketches, minimal as they were, clearly conveyed the principles. The structure of the vaulting provided the framework, which was itself

symmetrical, and Alan followed this. His proposal suggested a canopy, or net, pulled down from the ceiling, which reminded me, at least, of the origin of the word pavilion, in pavillon/ papillon, or butterfly. His characteristic mark was deployed as usual, but in a way that was more strictly aligned with the existing architectural structure, reinforcing it rather than countermanding it. This meant that he has followed its template, and given shadow to shadow, or light to light. The black and white quality of the work is in keeping with the dominant vocabulary of the Millbank project, but its tone and touch is subtler, suggesting the garden pavilion and the heavy grey English light.

The project was much more arduous than it looks, and engaged the labours of a team of draughtspeople, lying on their backs on specially adapted chairs,

on sections of scaffolding. Achieving the regularity of mark- making which Johnston required was a skill both learnt and managed. Ensuring durability for the graphite on the surface required by the architects was not straightforward, even if the basic premise of the commission was that a ceiling drawing allowed for an apparently fragile work like this, in a way that would have been simply impossible if it had been on the walls below.

The Caruso St. John space is part-found and part-created. The vaulting is reminiscent of Roman or early Christian basilicas or bath-houses, and Johnston’s

drawing seems to suggest the lowering of the ground-level (which was indeed taken down by nearly a metre) and a new tension between the ceiling and the floor. When he first saw the space it was very different, and perhaps the archaeological nature of the building project at that time, with its muddy terrain and fine excavated brickwork helped lead to the work in question, which seems to pull the floor up by means of the newly created pendentives above. Making a ceiling piece for such a low, basement room is pretty much the opposite of what normally would happen (whereby ceiling paintings are put up on the piano nobile) and somehow the lightness of Johnston’s work seems both to contradict its position, and to acknowledge and enhance it.

For various members of Tate staff the work, once revealed, was something of a shock, precisely because it lay on the threshold of visibility. The contrast

between the intensive labour and the delicate result was considerable. This was surprising, and even difficult to manage, but also delightful. It was like a kind of spell, a piece of magic, which enabled one to take visitors in to see the new commission, which at first sight was not there to them, but became apparent as they looked, and especially if they walked to the end of the room and turned back. Suddenly the vaults became a little more solid, a little more defined, and yet this was done with a skein of lines which made it lighter and more porous, like something natural, a web or a scatter of shadow. The work can disappear and reappear, almost at will, and sometimes one has to go into the smaller room to see the angles which ‘pull’ or ‘anchor’ the canopy down, to be sure that the drawing is there.

The three Millbank commissions reprise the black and white patterning of the larger Millbank site, echoing our common interest in responding to the

original architecture in ways which were knowledgeable but did not employ pastiche. All take their place within the fabric of Tate Britain in a manner which is quiet and thoughtful, and also seem to speak to each other in ways which are convivial. It is based in equal measure on the real and the artificial, and is in many ways a modern trompe l’oeil which does indeed partner Rex Whistler’s ‘In Pursuit of Rare Meats’ across the hall. It creates a new view, both far-off and close-up, and with it, new ways of viewing.

Photography Page 2/3. Tactile Geometry, Ceiling, Tate Britain, 2012. Scott Masser Page 4. Wall Drawing bei Konrad Fischer, Dusseldorf, 1978. Alan Johnston Page 7/9. Tactile Geometry, Ceiling, Tate Britain, 2012. Alan Johnston Page 10/12. Shimada Wall Drawings, Yamaguchi, 1989. Kaz Fujimoto Page 14/15. Tactile Geometry, Ceiling, Tate Britain, 2012. Alan Johnston Page 16. Wall Drawings, Bury Farm, Adam + Carolyn Barker-Mill, 1996. Alan Johnston Page 18. Akiyoshidai Cubes, AIAV with Shinichi Ogawa, 1999. Alan Johnston Page. 20 Wall Drawings, Tate Gallery, ‘Intelligence’, 2000. Alan Johnston Page 22. Wall Drawings, Safn, Reykjavik, 2003. Alan Johnston Page 24. Wall Drawings, Colnaghi Haus, Hans-Ulrich + Maria Iselin, 2000. Christoph Kern Page 26. Wall Drawing, Arts Interdisciplinary Research Laboratory, Tbilisi, 2001. Alan Johnston Page 29/31. Tactile Geometry Ceiling, Tate Britain, 2012. Alan Johnston Page 32. Wall Drawing, Clonegal, 2001. Alan Johnston Page 34. Concrete, Paiboon with Shinichi Ogawa, 2012. Alan Johnston Page 37. Tactile Geometry, Ceiling, Tate Britain, 2012. Alan Johnston Page 38. Wall Drawings, Cairn Gallery, Pittenweem, 2005. Alan Johnston Page 40. Wall Drawing, Museum of Fine Art, Houston, 2002. Alan Johnston Page 43/45. Tactile Geometry, Ceiling, Tate Britain, 2012. Alan Johnston Page 46a. Cube Drawing, Gwangju Biennale with Shinichi Ogawa, 2002. Alan Johnston Page 46b. Wall Drawing, Concept Space, Shibukawa, 2014. Alan Johnston Page 48/49. Tactile Geometry, Ceiling, Tate Britain, 2012. Alan Johnston Page 54/55. Tactile Geometry, Ceiling, Tate Britain, 2012. Scott Masser

Alan Johnston: Tactile Geometry Published in August 2015 BARTHA CONTEMPORARY 25 Margaret Street London W1W 8RX www.barthacontemporary.com info@barthacontemporary.com

Contributors Penelope Curtis, Charles Esche, Gavin Morrison and Kiyoshi Okutsu

Thanks Adam & Carolyn Barker-Mill Ward Bouwers Kazz Fujimoto Maria & Hans-Ulrich Iselin Susan Johnston Christoph Kern Marina & Piet Meijer R. B. Robertson John Snijders Jane Warrilow Astrid, Eck, Lotta, Nicolas, McCoy, Murdo, Thad Lucy Dawkins, Caroline Kerr, Piers Townshend, Andrew Wilson, Tactile Geometry Drawing Team Outset Contemporary Art Fund, Caruso St John Architects, Reiach and Hall Architects Baillie Gifford

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ISBN 978 0 9933621 0 1

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