» NORTHWESTERN/ART/REVIEW
VICE ASREV VERSA ECIV ISSUE 8 SPRING 2012 NORTHWESTERNARTREVIEW.ORG
NORTHWESTERN/ART/REVIEW
» VICE VERSA
MADELINE AMOS president mamos@u.northwestern.edu
MARNI BARTA editor-in-chief
EDITORIAL STAFF & BLOGGERS
HANNAH LEE hannahlee2014@u.northwestern.edu CHRISTIE WOOD
marnibarta@gmail.com
ERIN KIM publisher
erinkim2013@u.northwestern.edu
KATHRYN CANNADY events chair
kathryncannady2013@u.northwestern.edu
NANCY DASILVA director of publicity nancydasilva2014@u.northwestern.edu
CLAIRE DILLON director of finance clairedillon2014@u.northwestern.edu
HEBA HASAN web director
hebahasan2013@u.northwestern.edu
christinewood2015@u.northwestern.edu
WILLA WOLFSON willawolfson2013@u.northwestern.edu
CAMILLE REYES
catherinecreyes@gmail.com
KAYLA REUBEN
kaylareuben2014@u.northwestern.edu
FEATURED ARTIST EDITORS
JASMINE JENNINGS jasminejennings2013@u.northwestern.edu ISAAC ALPERT
isaacalpert2014@u.northwestern.edu
DESIGN
LYNNE CARTY
lynnecarty@u.northwestern.edu
MOLLY CRUZ
SAMANTHA GUFF web director
samanthaguff2015@u.northwestern.edu
art history department advisor
PROFESSOR CHRISTINA NORMORE art theory and practice department advisor
PROFESSOR LANE RELYEA
mollycruz2014@u.northwestern.edu
MARCY CAPRON, Webmaster marcy@polymathicmedia.com
EVENTS
SAMANTHA OFFSAY
samanthaoffsay2013@u.northwestern.edu
SINEAD LOPEZ
sineadlopez2015@u.northwestern.edu
NAR is a non-commercial journal published by students at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Images are copyright of their respective owners, and from ARTstor.org and Creative Commons and used within their Terms and Conditions. Written material is © 2012, all rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is prohibited.
Âť NAR
is a student-produced journal based at Northwestern University dedicated to publishing undergraduate essays on the history, theory, or criticism of art. If you are interested in submitting a research paper or art review for publication in the journal, please contact our editor-in-chief at marnibarta@gmail.com. If you are an undergraduate at any institution of higher education and interested in contributing in other ways, please contact the president at madelineamos2013@u.northwestern.edu.
FROM THE EDITOR VICE VERSA
C
utting
across
different
periods
and
in art to convey a quality of a given culture to
styles, art has repeatedly facilitated self-
foreigners and to question to what extent clichés
reflection and reflection on others. From
might reveal a truth. The other two essays discuss
creating self-portraits to capturing the likeness of
artists whose works more explicitly implicates a
foreigners, artists have produced works that evoke
relationship between the artist and the viewer;
introspection and reflection – forcing viewers to
whereas the relationship in Acconci’s work is
re-evaluate their role and placement in the world.
focused upon following the “other,” Nauman aims to control the body of his viewer and establishes
All four essays in the Spring 2012 edition revolve
a means through which his viewers are expected
around a common theme of self-reflection or
to engage in self-reflection. The essays undertake
reflection on the other. Through thought-provoking
important intersecting themes, and through this
art historical discourse, the authors demonstrate
publication, the Northwestern Art Review aims to
how artists facilitate a deeper understanding
promote an even more enriching dialogue.
for their viewers into a foreign subject matter and in some instances, incorporate the viewer
On behalf of NAR, I would like to thank the
into the artwork, provoking them to think about
Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, the Office
themselves.
of the Provost, the Northwestern University Art History Department -- especially NAR advisor
Two of the essays engage in a dialogue on
Christina Normore and Hannah Feldman -- and
stereotypes, and convey how artistic techniques
the Director of Undergraduate Studies. I would
are used to both typify a people and to critically
also like to thank the Northwestern University
analyze pre-existing stereotypical representations.
Department of Art Theory and Practice, especially
The essays discuss how stereotypes may be used
NAR advisor Lane Relyea. Additionally, we are
grateful for the support of the Mary and Leigh
an impressive pool of submissions in which there
Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University
were many engaging essays. It was a pleasure
and look forward to new opportunities for future
reading each of the submissions we received and
collaboration.
was inspiring to see undergraduate engagement in academic art historical and theoretical discourse.
I am exceptionally grateful to Elizabeth Rivard
It is with great excitement that I look forward to
for guiding me through my first edition as Editor-
reading the submissions for the 2012 Fall issue.
in-Chief. I would also like to thank current President Madeline Amos for her leadership
MARNI BARTA
and Publisher-come-graphic designer Erin Kim.
JUNE 2012
Without the exceptional work of the editorial staff,
EVANSTON, IL
this publication would not have been possible; I deeply appreciate the dedication Hannah Lee, Kayla Reuben, Samantha Offsay, Camille Reyes, Christine Woods, Sinead Lopez, and Willa Wolfson devoted to this publication. Finally, I would like to extend thanks to the students across the country who submitted their works to Northwestern Art Review. We received
TABLE OF CONTENTS 1»
a culture of sky blue: hand-tinting in saunders’
CHINESE LIFE &
CHARACTER STUDIES by
K ate Wollman, page 8
2»
viewing, looking and following:
the implications
OF SARTRE’S
GAZE FOR ART by
Nick Van Z anten, page 22
3»
late
& fritz scholder: nineteenth century
roy lichtenstein
american sculpture reworked as
POSTMODERN ART C H , 28 by
hristine
azday page
4coercion » get out of my head: in bruce NAUMAN’S WORK H L , 36 by
arrison
una page
NOTES, page 46
page
8
page
22
page
28
page
36
A CULTURE OF SKY BLUE: HAND-TINTING IN SAUNDERS':
CHINESE LIFE & by
KATE WOLLMAN
northwestern university
CHARACTER STUDIES ith the advent of photography in China, there was a proliferation of images created for a foreign audience – an audience that would buy consistently, using such images as both souvenirs and teaching devices to give people at home a glimpse of China.
W
»
SHANGHAI COOLIES — William Saunders 1863-64
In order to cater to such purposes, early photographers in China cultivated archetypes for the Chinese, dividing them into various stereotypes. William Saunders, in particular, achieved this goal through his use of hand-tinting in his photographic album, Chinese Life and Character Studies. This collection is comprised of fifty photographs representing the “universal qualities about the ‘Chinese character.’” 1 Saunders simplifies the population, cultivating a prototype for each Chinese individual. For instance, Saunders’ Shanghai Coolies shows two young workers, wearing identical clothing, bearing tools and a bucket. Although they are actors and not actual coolies, the photographer still achieves an effective representation of what the typical coolie might resemble. With images like this, Saunders essentially created generic versions of the entire Chinese populace. However, he was not the only one to 10
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— L ai Afong 1880-1890
THREE COOLIES do so. These portrayals of generic Chinese “types” can be found throughout the history of early Chinese photography. Wu Hung notes that the continued presence of such images constituting “anthropological records of racial and ethnic types … were made as scientific data to demonstrate human differences.” 2 This prevailing use of photography to
convey anthropological information can be seen in the juxtaposition of Saunders’ Shanghai Coolies with Lai Afong’s Three Coolies. Once again the image is posed, and it represents what a stereotypical coolie would look like through the eyes of the photographer. Here, there are three youths staged against a classicizing backdrop of sorts, carrying (empty) boxes on their shoulders. Similarly to that of Saunders,
Lai Afong’s photograph strives to cultivate a generic form that foreigners would appreciate as “Chinese.” However, there is an integral difference between these two archetypes. Unlike other photographers, Saunders utilizes the
a culture of sky blue: hand-tinting in saunders’
CHINESE LIFE AND CHARACTER STUDIES hand-tinting technique to add color to his collection of photographs. In the image of the coolies specifically, sky blues, pale yellows, and earthy browns are delicately layered on top of the
ITINERANT BARBERS
albumen print. Aesthetically, the tinted photograph is pleasing to the eye and contributes to the effectiveness of Chinese Life and Character Studies. The addition of color allows the various mod-
— William Saunders 1860s-70s
els illustrated in this series to be conveyed more explicitly. Since the subjects are highlighted with the tinting, the viewer is drawn to them and thus, to what makes them archetypes of this particular character. For example, in Saunders’ Itinerant Barbers, the contrast of the blue of the clothing draws the eye towards the barbers. Hence, the coloring of the image allows it to more effectively convey the stereotype of these Chinese characters. Hand-tinting of photographs also made them more visually convincing to the viewer. In tinting images, Saunders was able to “avoid the gray tones that customers identified with illness and death.” 3 But why might tinting a two-dimensional image suggest truth and what does this concept entail? First and foremost, people live in a world bursting with color. It is only natural to look at a black and white photograph and to disassociate from the depiction, simply because the majority of people are accustomed 12
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to viewing scenes in full color. Thus the addition of hues creates a greater resemblance between photographs and the perceived world. The desire to see the colors of the world in photographs is echoed in a poem by Nora Bartlett, “Paint, warm these hollows. Chafe her white cheek with your persistent hand. Give me back what was mine: that golden hair.” 4 The color gives the subjects more depth, giving them the feel and tangibility of solid objects. Also, the delicateness with which the tinting was applied and the careful attention paid to tonality emphasize the shape and weight of the figures in the scene. The technique of hand-tinting used by Saunders developed out of previous traditions of painting photographs. One of the earliest examples of a hand painted image is Lai Chong’s Portrait of Senggelinqin. This 1853 portrait is a daguerreotype that has been painted over. This attempt to convey the photo more so as
a painting is to be expected, being that Lai Chong is one of the “Chinese painters turned photographers.” 5 In the coloration of the image, variation in the shades can be observed, however it is not quite as intricately applied as Saunders’ tinting work. It is also clear where the paint has been added, unlike the thin layers of Saunders’ images that seamlessly blend the color into the albumen print. In the Portrait of Senggelinqin however, the pigments only coat the clothing, accessories and the props – it looks as though the artist did not touch the face of Senggelinqin. This could very well be due to the opaque nature of the medium that is being used by the artist, as can be noted in the complete coverage of the underlying daguerreotype in the portions that have been painted. The first hand-painted daguerreotypes faced a great deal of opposition from those that believed that the coloration was not applied tastefully enough to be an improvement upon the original image. In 1849, Snelling
explained, “I very much doubt the propriety of coloring daguerreotypes, as I am of [the] opinion that they are little, if any, improved by the operation, at least as it is now generally practiced.” 6 This critic felt that there was a lack of talent, artistic ability, and “a knowledge of the art of mixing colors and blending tints.”10 Thus, his primary concerns were with the images such as Portrait of Senggelinqin, in which the coloration is, by such standards, obscuring the image with its unsightly application. Bisbee was also in agreement with Snelling, stating in 1853 that it is “…probably far better than to have it colored in bad taste…” yet clarifies that “… if the colors are applied lightly, with a fine soft brush, in an artistic style, we consider it a great improvement.” This acceptance of artfully done coloration paved the way for the adaptation of hand-painting used by Saunders. By examining the opinions of early samples of hand-painted photography, it is possible to see how this technique changed over the course of the nineteenth and
— Lai Chong 1853
PORTRAIT OF SENGGELINQIN
THE BRUSH SELLER — William Saunders 1860s-70s
14
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in style, but in their color as well. The sky blue clothing can also be observed in other photographs, including Itinerant Barbers and The Brush Seller, in addition to the majority of photographs in Chinese Life and Character Studies. According to Wu Hung, this uniformity shows that “Represented as such, these images index generality – an entire group of people – instead of portraying individuals.” The fact that all of these Chinese figures are dressed identically, in the same sky blue uniform of sorts, contributes to Saunders’ interpretation of Chinese stereotypes. With the appearance of Chinese Life and Character Studies, a shift away from traditional export painting can be observed. The intended audiences of both export painting and the handtinted photographs remained foreigners. However, the techniques through which they were created became increasingly disparate. Tingqua’s Tingqua Studio in Guangzhou, for instance, reveals the heavy-handed application of gauche and the opaque
twentieth centuries. The particular colors utilized in Saunders’ album are also of great interest. Firstly, neutral browns and yellows seem prevalent, tinting skin tones as well as the ground, wooden objects, and buildings. This “expertly applied color added warm to complexions and detail to attire.” 7 These additions are subtly done, thinned gradually to mask where the print ends and the tinting begins. Less commonly, Saunders employs reds and greens in the tinting of the photographs. In The Brush Seller, these tones are observed in the brushes the salesman holds in his hands and over his shoulder. The scarlet color highlights the negative space between the leaves in the brush, emphasizing the depth, and making it appear more as a solid object than would ordinary black and white photographs. This is also achieved through the green tint, since the cool nature of the color highlights the leaves themselves, contrasting with the dark of the shadows, conveying a sense of tangibility.
a culture of sky blue: hand-tinting in saunders’
CHINESE LIFE AND CHARACTER STUDIES The most intriguing color used by Saunders, however, is the sky blue of the clothes of the Chinese. The bright color draws the eye to the characters themselves, allowing the viewer to focus on the recurring aspects that
make them stereotypes. The generic nature of the individuals is also conveyed through the repetition of the color itself. In Shanghai Coolies, for instance, the two boys are both dressed in clothes that not only match
— William Saunders 1863-64
SHANGHAI COOLIES
The Portrait of Tzu-Hzi (Cixi), Empress Dowager of China took an ordinary black and white image of Cixi and painted it, making her appear flawless, but also emphasizing the capabilities of the camera.
PORTRAIT OF TZU-HSI (CIXI), EMPRESS DOWAGER OF CHINA — Lai Chong 1853
nature of the medium used in the painting. This piece, like Saunders’ images, portrayed a distinctly “Chinese” image for the foreign viewer, yet it was done in a more vibrant and more object driven way. Tingqua paints stereotypically Chinese items and architecture, whereas Saunders is subtler in his photographs, highlighting “Chinese” details, but doing so more elegantly, and through the medium of people. He uses the specific characters of China to make a statement about the Chinese stereotype, unlike Tingqua, who uses material objects and landscapes. Hence, with the advancement of photography in China and the proliferation of new photographic techniques, there is a divergence in how foreign-directed art is cultivated. Building up to Saunders’ album, there was also a development in how the public valued photography. Initially, photography was viewed, in the words of See-Tay, as “a shortcut to capturing the essence of painting,” devaluing it as its own individual
a culture of sky blue: hand-tinting in saunders’
CHINESE LIFE AND CHARACTER STUDIES art form.8 Early on, with the presence of hand-painted images such as Lai Chong’s Portrait of Senggelinqin in 1853, artists attempted to make photos more akin to paintings by using them as a basis for the image and subsequently covering them with layers of paint. Yet with the appearance of Saunders’ photographic album in the 1860s and 1870s, photography and painting diverged more into their own specific artistic mediums. The application of color, at this point, was to enhance the existing photograph, not to disguise it to make the photograph appear more like a painting. This trend continued into the turn of the century when in 1904, the Empress Dowager Cixi sent a hand-tinted portrait of herself to President Roosevelt. The Portrait of Tzu-Hsi (Cixi), Empress Dowager of China took an ordinary black and white image of Cixi and painted it, making her appear flawless, but also
emphasizing the capabilities of the camera. This photograph uses color to show the extravagance and “royal authority” of the Empress Dowager, employing greens, whites, and browns to draw attention to her expensive jewelry and beautiful flowers. Additionally, it is gilded, allowing the minute details of the scene that could only have been documented with a camera to stand out in the image. As David Hogge explains, Cixi “masterfully uses the new technology of photography to convey the presumption of realistic accuracy, yet with the artistic license of painted portraiture.” This statement illustrates the prestige won by the camera at this point in time, showing that beginning with Saunders, the technique of hand-tinting was utilized to add onto and emphasize aspects of photographs, rather than to mask them. In focusing on the stereotypes of Chinese individuals, “Saun-
ders created images of a timeless China.” 9 These photographs will forever remain a representation of the way that the culture was viewed historically. The use of the technique of hand-tinting in Chinese Life and Character Studies effectively emphasized the generic qualities of the various subjects and the entire Chinese population for that matter. The colors used in the photographs serve to make specific details stand out and to create depth, making the setting appear as though it were filled with solid objects. The sky blue, in particular, makes the characters in each of the photographs appear as a cohesive population, all dressed in the identical shade. This relates to the notion of generic Chinese characters that is emphasized in Chinese Life and Character Studies. Saunders’ employment of hand-tinting in his photographs made them more effective as tools to portray Chinese stereotypes, and consequently as 18
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goods to be marketed to foreign consumers. Simultaneously, this technique emphasized the development of photography as its own independent art form. At this time, tinted images like those of Saunders complemented the capabilities of the camera, rather than masking them. Hand-tinting remained a prominent technique in the realm of photography into the twentieth century. It only disappeared when “the advent of color film all but replaced hand-painted photography as the standard for colored photography.” 10 In this respect, the level of prestige of photography cultivated by the coloration that was used by Saunders continued to be a driving force in the art world until it was eclipsed by technological advancements. Thus the role of hand-tinting in Saunders’ Chinese Life and Character Studies was not only to convey typical Chinese stereotypes, but also to bolster photography as its own artistic discipline.
TINGQUA STUDIO IN GUANZHOU — Tinqua 1840
VIEWING, LOOKING AND FOLLOWING:
THE IMPLICATIONS
by
NICK VAN ZANTEN
OF SARTRE’S GAZE FOR ART
trinity college
ito Acconci established himself in the New York art scene in 1969 with the provocative performance Following Piece, which remains to this day one of his best known works. The piece addresses issues that Jean-Paul Sartre confronted and explained in his 1943 Being and Nothingness (first appearing in English in 1956), namely the relation of a conscious being to an other and the gaze or look between them.
V
»
— Vito Acconci 1969
FOLLOWING PIECE
All art is by its very nature concerned with the relation to the other through the gaze, and Sartre’s elucidation of this relationship is very useful in interpreting art, especially Acconci’s, which challenges the traditional ways in which art understands this relationship. Using Sartre, Following Piece can be read as an exploration of art’s relationship with the gaze between artist, subject, and viewer. Acconci, however, does not endorse this reading, and instead professes to view the work as an investigation through art of the more general public-private relationship, which is tangential to Sartre. However, comparing a Sartrean interpretation of the work to Acconci’s stated rationale will show that, though Acconci may not have used Sartrean terms, they explain the issues that his work confronts and the way in which they do so almost perfectly, allowing us to understand why we value it. By comparing 22
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All art is by its very nature concerned with the relation to the other through the gaze, and Sartre’s elucidation of this relationship is very useful in interpreting art, especially Acconci’s, which challenges the traditional ways in whihch art understands this relationship. Following Piece to Sartre’s Being and Nothingness, we can explain better than Acconci can how the piece originates in consideration of the gaze. Prior to Following Piece, Vito Acconci was known as a poet, and it was this early piece that drew attention to him as an artist rather than as a writer.1 The piece had two distinct parts. The first part was carried out over twenty-five days in September 1969. At the start of each day, Acconci
would go to a public place, pick a person at random, and follow them until they entered a private space. The following could be long or short, since the followed might immediately get into a car (a private space) or go to a double feature (a public space). In addition to simply following the person, Acconci documented the performance of his following, taking notes and photographs showing where the followed went and what he did there. This documentation was then collected and used in the second part of the piece, which took place over twenty-five days in October. Each day Acconci would send the documentation of piece from the corresponding day in September to an art world notable, dedicating that particular piece to them (confusingly, the totality is called Following Piece but consists of twenty-five distinct pieces, each of which are materially made up of numerous pieces of documentation, most of them now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York). This served to publish the
piece. That he felt the piece needed publication points to the need for a Sartrean interpretation to understand how and why Following Piece functions, as a more straightforward interpretation would imply that this is an embellishment on September’s self-contained and finished performances. In planning the piece, Acconci was primarily focused on playing with the public/private dichotomy and the need to act.2 Acconci viewed the former as being a contradiction set up within his piece, saying that the performances “were designed to be very private pieces…I would know about them; no one else would. At the same time, I wanted it to be known that these things were done.” 3 The contradiction is concretized in the two steps of the performance, the first being the following, which, though public, only Acconci was aware of. The second part, in which the documentation was published (admittedly in a controlled, private
viewing, looking and following: the implications of sartre’s
GAZE FOR ART
manner) made the previously private piece public. While the followed could be anyone, Acconci was careful in choosing who would receive his documentation, using a list that he described as being “chosen for [their] public image” in the art world so that the piece would be “known in an art context.” 4 This connects to his other concern, that of artistic control or freedom, which Acconci sought to flee from. These contradictions are what led him to create the piece, but they do not seem to relate to the facts of the piece, nor does the “it” provide an answer to the questions that they raise, at least in this interpretation. However, Acconci’s influences are realized if we view the piece through Being and Nothingness, and in doing so we can see the underlying mechanisms of the work. Sartre states that the human consciousness exists very dif-
ferently when it is alone than when it is being observed by the other.5 Alone, the consciousness may either act, and in doing so be its action, or reflect on itself acting. 6
In planning the piece, Acconci was primarily focused on playing with the public/private dichotomy and the need to act. Acconci viewed the former as being a contradiction set up within his piece, saying that the performances “were designed to be very private pieces....I would know about them; no one else would. At the same time, I wanted it to be known that these things were done.”
Acconci observes, and in doing so objectifies, the followed person. Whatever the followed does he does as the object of Acconci’s gaze. Yet the Sartrean description of this situation, where the followed’s freedom has been sucked out by the freedom of the follower stands in stark opposition to the facts of the piece, and this contradiction is what makes this piece interesting. In either case, while at once bound to the facticity of its situation in the world, the consciousness is at the same time transcendent, in that it may choice at any point to act out a new project 24
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– and therefore it is constantly making a choice to be, creating its being through its choosing.7 In sharp contrast to this, the recognition of the other looking at the consciousness leads this freedom to escape from it.8 The other behaves as before, but the original consciousness is now part of the other’s situation, that is to say it is an object in the world that the other observes and passes judgment on as a thing.9 Since this judgment is entirely the subjective choice of the other, the first consciousness may try but will ultimately fail to reclaim its own subjectivity – impossible because the consciousness apprehending the gaze experiences itself as it appears to the other, as an object alienated of possession of its possibilities. 10 Following Piece is a straightforward application of this. Acconci observes, and in doing so objectifies, the followed person. Whatever the followed does he does as the object of Acconci’s gaze. Yet the Sartrean descrip-
tion of this situation, where the followed’s freedom has been sucked out by the freedom of the follower 11 stands in stark opposition to the facts of the piece, and this contradiction is what makes the piece interesting. Acconci, who as subject is completely free to act and judge on his own subjective, transcendent choices, slavishly follows the followed, who is an object of Acconci’s consciousness. Whatever moves the followed makes automatically affect Acconci as well. Thus what Acconci does, and, by the nature of the piece, what Following Piece ends up being, is dictated solely by the choices of the followed. Furthermore, the choices of the followed are, despite Acconci’s gaze and what was stated above, made freely, because the followed is not aware of Acconci’s gaze. So, despite being followed, he continues to exist in one of the ontological structures of consciousness that he would exist in were no one watching him. 12 This highlights an important nuance of the Sartrean gaze,
namely that while it is a relation, it is a relation that affects the existence of the consciousness in isolation. With the realization that one is being seen as an object, one comes to see oneself as that object; therefore apprehension of the gaze, in good faith or bad, is essential. 13 One may be alienated by the gaze of the other when there is no other, or one may be, as is the case here, alienated within an other without being alienated within one’s own consciousness. Acconci acts as he would if the followed were aware of him and thus continuously transcends the transcendence of the followed as an object of his look, yet the followed simultaneously is not for himself so alienated, because he has not recognized Acconci’s gaze. While this explains the free action of the followed, it still does not account for Acconci’s behavior, which is not that of a free subject. According to Sartre, Acconci is clearly existing in freedom
viewing, looking and following: the implications of sartre’s
GAZE FOR ART
relative to his co-participant, but Acconci describes his goal as being the opposite. The rationale that he gives for Following Piece is that “the work began with trying to find reasons for action. I would decide on a scheme of following a person. Once I had decided on that scheme, decisions of time and space were out of my hands” and that “[he] would find some kind of system that already existed in the real world [and] … become a part of that system.” 14 His goal is not the objectifi-
cation of a stranger before the artist, but the reverse, the loss of freedom, and the evidence of the piece points to his being successful, despite this clearly contradicting our Sartrean interpretation thus far. This irony of Acconci being free but not free, which we may now understand through Sartre, is part of what makes the piece interesting. On its own, the first part of Following Piece never accounts for Acconci’s apparent objectification, which is the form in
One may be alienated by the gaze of the other when there is no other, or one may be, as is the case here, alienated within an other without being alienated within one’s own consciousness. Acconci acts as he would if the followered were aware of him and thus continuously transcends the transcendence of the followed as an object of his look, yet the folllowed simultaneously is not for himself so alieanted, because he has not recognized Acconci’s gaze.
which he exists as a slavish following of the followed. Only the second part explains this, and that is why the second part is integral to the resolution of the piece as a whole, not as a resolution of public and private but of subject and object. Acconci documents the free choices of the followed, keeping himself out of that documentation except as its author. He then publishes that documentation by sending it to a third person a month later. In knowing that this will happen in the future, Acconci apprehends himself together with the followed as a unified object of multiple beings, an us-object, and his consciousness takes on that existence (the followed is unaware of this, and so continues to act as if alone).15 As a part of the us-object of participants in Following Piece, Acconci’s transcendence is transcended by that of the viewer of the documentation, who will judge as an object the existence of Acconci at that moment.16 26
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As a part of the usobject of participants in Following Piece, Acconci’s transcendence is transcended by that of the viewer of the documentation, who will judge as an object the existence of Acconci at that moment....he points to it, having said that in the piece, “I am not an ‘I’ anymore...” Though Acconci does not use this interpretation, he points to it, having said that in the piece, “I am not an ‘I’ anymore; I put myself in the service of this scheme.” 17 The scheme, which is identical to the piece in that it exists only in being referred to by looking at the documentation, is the situation that exists in the consciousness of the viewer. Acconci, as the only person in the piece who is aware of its being as a
piece, exists for the duration of his following as transcendence transcended by us, the viewers. Thus his actions are explained by the gaze of a third who will objectify him in the future but is, at the time of the performance, abstract and absent. This fact is present only to Acconci because he has freely chosen to undertake this project. Acconci is aware that having chosen a project as art, he will lose his freedom before the gaze of the viewer, and this is his contradictory but unavoidable fact. He chooses knowing and wanting this outcome. 18 Thus the piece must be published; without the promise of publication his actions in following the scheme would be in bad faith, because he would be free. Being free, his relationship to the followed would be completely different in that they could at any time confront him directly, follow him into a private space, or break any of the other rules of the scheme. But if the piece will be seen, eventually, by a third, he cannot break these rules or
the piece will be broken. In making the piece public, it becomes whole because Acconci is part of it, beside the followed and before our gaze, and as such is committed to carrying out the project. He ceases to be free and is attached by the scheme to the oblivious followed, of whom he becomes an image, a representation. While Acconci did not say so himself, his piece brings forward a crucially important part of the ontological structure of art, namely that the artist himself is not free from the moment that he adopts the role of the artist. He acts before the viewer and his transcendence is transcended by the viewer’s appraisal of him, his actions, and his product because the entire project is defined by anticipation of the abstract and absent but essential eventual presence of the viewer as observing other. We objectify him as he performs and he is never free before his subject, whom we compel him to objectify as an image with his gaze. 19
viewing, looking and following: the implications of sartre’s
GAZE FOR ART
What makes Following Piece compelling is a matter of publicness/private-ness, but not of space; rather it is of the consciousnesses of those involved. The piece is designed around relationships between Acconci and his ignorant participants, but that is quotidian stalking. What makes it art and what makes these interactions interesting is how they take place in front of our gaze, uniting the two of them into an us-object and trapping both of them within a script. What Following Piece stands as proof and embodiment of is also true for all art. Acconci’s own explanation of the piece fails to account for all the factors at play within it, or for our interest in looking at it. Sartre, on the other hand, gives us a much better picture through his theory of the look, and in applying it here we may unpack the performance, discovering a
quality that is universal and defining in performance art and all art: the unification of the artist and subject into an us-object who follow a scheme and whose transcendences are transcended by the outside viewer, the third.
While Acconci did not say so himself, his piece brings forward a crucially important part of the ontological structure of art, namely that the artist himself is not free from the moment that he adopts the role of artist. He acts before the viewer and his transcendence is transcended by the viewer’s appraisal of him, his actions, and his product.
roy lichtenstein and fritz scholder:
a late nineteenth century american sculpture reworked as
POSTMODERN ART by
KRISTINA BORRMAN
university of california
- berkeley
n an interview concerning his 1952 End of the Trail painting, Roy Lichtenstein made an ambiguous statement that the work was the “first conscious 1 cliché.” Did the artist mean that his inspiration, James Earle Fraser’s late nineteenth-century End of the Trail sculpture, inaugurated the image of the defeated American Indian as an artistic cliché?
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— Frtiz Scholder 1978
INDIAN CLICHE
EN THE T
roy lichtenstein and fritz scholder: a late nineteenth century american sculpture reworked as
POSTMODERN ART
ND OF TRAIL — Roy Lichtenstein 1952
Or, was the artist referring to his own painting as the first of many works that ironically embrace clichés as a theme? Both interpretations of Lichtenstein’s statement are easy to substantiate. Fraser’s sculpture did popularize what would become a hackneyed image of the tragic American Indian during its immensely popular exhibition at San Francisco’s Panama Pacific Exhibition in 1915, and Lichtenstein’s pop art revision of Fraser’s work was the first of a series of paintings by the artist with cliché Plains Indian costuming, props, and poses.2 Lichtenstein’s End of the Trail stems from the artist’s first artistic fascination with Native American subjects.3 Lichtenstein, inspired by his readings about artist and ethnographer George Catlin and Catlin’s Vanishing Race publication, decided to create paintings based on famous American Indian themed art works of the nineteenth centu-
ry, including photographs taken by Catlin, paintings by Albert Bierstadt, and the sculptures of Frederick Remington and James Earle Fraser. 4 Lichtenstein’s fifties paintings are Cubist abstractions with traces of pop art that defamiliarize the overly familiar iconic American images from paintings, photographs and sculptures. Lichtenstein stated that his images are comprised of “a mixture of every kind of Indian design from Northwest Indians to Plains Indians to Pueblo. They are no particular tribe of Indians... anything that I could think of that was ‘Indian’ got into them... the cliché of the Indian got into them.” 5 Despite Lichtenstein’s admission that his work purposefully incorporates clichés, the artist also paradoxically stated that his paintings depicted the “real” Native American as if for the “first time.” 6 Just how is it that the stereotypical image can also
purport to be real and true? Lichtenstein’s paradoxical statement was echoed by the Native American artist, Fritz Scholder, who stated that his art captures Native American stereotypes (perhaps none as controversially as his 1969 Indian with a Beer Can) while simultaneously depicting his people truthfully.7 Scholder’s interviews record the artist stating that his art captures Native Americans as “real not red.” 8 Despite the similar statements spoken by Lichtenstein and Scholder concerning their pursuit of truth and acknowledgement of cliché, the artists’ works seem to say very different things. I will investigate these differences by examining a subject that both artists have in common: the End of the Trail. Roy Lichtenstein painted End of the Trail in 1952 in oil on canvas, a work that bears little resemblance to Fraser’s original image. The iconic drooping head of horse and rider are disregard32
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ed, as well as the tightly drawn in horse’s hooves. His rider is a conglomeration of abstracted geometric forms: solid blocks of color comprise the body and are intermittently outlined by rows of triangles, which recall the feathered silhouette of the Plains Indian headdress. Lichtenstein’s decision to move away from the defeated cliché pose of the equestrian pair meant that his work relied on its title to make the necessary historical connection between Fraser’s work and his own. Conversely, Scholder’s lithograph self-consciously retains the iconic horse and rider pose; the schematic silhouette of Fraser’s End of the Trail against a fiery sky recalls the long tradition of profile-view sunset streaked prints that have kept the image alive in public memory for the past century. Humorously titled Indian Cliché, Scholder’s 1978 appropriation of Fraser’s horse and rider pose incites a formal connection between the original
Sol Lewitt writes, “All ideas are art if they are concerned with art and fall within the conventions of art. Successful art changes our understanding of the conventions by altering our perceptions.” work and its contemporary rendition, which in turn prompts the viewer to compare their different meanings. Scholder’s work is clearly informed by several of Sol Lewitt’s famous “Sentences on Conceptual Art.” 9 Sol Lewitt writes, “All ideas are art if they are concerned with art and fall within the conventions of art. Successful art changes our understanding of the conventions by altering our perceptions.” 10 By very nearly copying the imagery of Fraser’s End of the Trail, Scholder’s Indian Cliché is a rather mundane painting and is clearly not supposed to astound audiences by its beauty.
END OF THE TRAIL — James Earle Fraser c. 1900
INDIAN CLICHE Indian Cliché is not just about an idea, but it is an idea that plays out when the viewer recognizes the popular image and then notices its new title. By creating a banal painting that fails to formally astound its viewers, 34
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— Frtiz Scholder 1978
and by successfully causing its viewers to understand Fraser’s End of the Trail as indeed clichéd, Scholder’s art conforms to Sol Lewitt’s standards for conceptual art. Like Lichtenstein, Scholder
wrote that his works depicted Native Americans in a novel, truthful way while simultaneously incorporating clichés.11 Though Lichtenstein self-consciously utilized general Native American stereotypes to depict schematized Indians re-
plete with faces adorned in war paint and costume reminiscent of feathered Plains Indian garb, his decision not to duplicate the pose of Fraser’s horse and rider demonstrates that he did not interrogate Fraser’s image itself as a cliché. Scholder’s labeling of his End of the Trail image as Indian Cliché demonstrates the artist’s understanding that Fraser’s work perpetuates American Indian stereotypes, yet how does his work also depict American Indians truthfully? One could argue that prompting the viewer to acknowledge a cliché is a form of truth telling. Beyond this, Scholder’s own mixed Native American and European ancestry allows for the recognition that his art work itself testifies against the stereotypical image of the defeated Native American.12 Lichtenstein’s and Scholder’s uncannily similar remarks regarding their shared interest in dually depicting “truth” and “cliché” are never expressed as if the two terms are at odds. Clichés
roy lichtenstein and fritz scholder: a late nineteenth century american sculpture reworked as
POSTMODERN ART
are defined by their very inability to acknowledge change, to incorporate new meanings into themselves, and instead reiterate the same hackneyed information to changing audiences. Conversely, a “truthful” or realistic depiction resists clichés by acknowledging particularity and difference. The very perseverance of clichés within visual culture demonstrates that seeing is informed by clichés. Hence, when Lichtenstein and Scholder aspired to paradoxically embrace truthfulness and clichés, they were perhaps acknowledging that visual understanding of the world does not operate as if the two terms are polarized. Instead, visual understanding works in a constant feedback loop in which clichés operate as truth until they are acknowledged as stereotype, and even the most particularized “truthful” depictions, if popularized, are subject to reproductions that will inevitably result in cliché. Therefore, the
cliché is chiefly born through the passage of time, and the new ideologies that define each successive generation. In another note concerning the rules of conceptual art, Sol Lewitt writes, “One usually understands the art of the past by applying the convention of the present, thus misunderstanding the art of the past. The conventions of art are altered by works of art.” 13 The End of the Trail surely was not the first image of an idealized defeated Native American, and could easily be deemed cliché at its inception. Yet the collective notion of “truthfulness” and sincerity that attenuated its display in the first half of the twentieth century was fading in the last half of the century; audiences were far more sensitive to its invocation of racial stereotypes than its nostalgic commemoration of the American frontier and romanticized longing for a pre-industrial way of life.
GET OUT OF MY HEAD:
NAUMAN’S COERCION IN BRUCE
by
HARRISON LUNA boston university
WORKS
oko Ono’s Cut Piece of 1964 and 1965 was one of the first works of art to exhibit a shift in the direction of experimental American art. In this piece, Ono relinquishes her agency by allowing a participant audience to approach her and remove her clothes, snipping away with scissors.
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CLOWN TORTURE — Bruce Nauman 1987
As each viewer does so, she sits passively and looks straight ahead, even as a viewer may get carried away in the action to a point where the audience stops him or her. Ono plays a type of game with the viewer in which she creates an uncomfortable social situation and asks for a response to it. In 1970, Bruce Nauman makes a seemingly similar statement of his own work in an interview with Willoughby Sharp: “Quite a lot of these pieces have to do with creating a very strict kind of environment or situation so that even if the performer doesn’t know anything about me or the work that goes into the piece, he will still be able to do something similar to what I would do.” 1 Nauman implies that to experience his work, one must do something. It is not simply a problem of viewing, as with a traditional sculpture or painting, but rather a language game à la Wittgenstein in which Nauman aims to go a step further than 38
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— Bruce Nauman Ono’s voluntary participation.2 By creating “strike-proof game(s),” Nauman gives the ‘viewers’ no choice in their participation.3 Rather than asking for a response, Nauman demands it. In his work Please Pay Attention Please, the simple act of viewing
the work completes a response to its command. As one reads the words “please pay attention please” one is paying attention, and therefore responding to the request. Danto sees the necessity of participation as unfairly coercive, a sort of thinking trap. The theme of coercion repeats throughout Nauman’s di-
verse oeuvre, and one therefore asks questions about the intent and efficiency of such force on the viewer. As Nauman forces us through cramped corridors, screams at us to “Get out of my mind! Get out of this room!” and assaults us psychologically with flashing images of violently sexual figures, where does he draw the line between a confrontational challenge and abuse of power? The clearest cases of Nauman’s restriction technique come through in his corridor pieces. In the first of these, Nauman places the corridor he had constructed for his 1968 film, Walk with Contrapposto, in a gallery space for a group show. Viewers were neither told to enter the corridor nor not to enter. It is significant to note that during this first installation of the corridor works, viewers did not grasp the call for participation. Jonathan Fineberg says of Nauman, “whereas minimalists like [Donald] Judd wanted to be in control, he wanted precisely not to be,” 4 but in this work one
get out of my head: coercion in bruce
NAUMAN’S WORKS can see Nauman’s distinct interest in controlling an audience, though it is more subtle than Minimalist control over the art object. This fact brings forth the assumptions Nauman makes regarding his audience: that they are receptive to the type of engagement and participation he puts forward, and that they are willing to be challenged psychologically. Had viewers entered the corridor, they would have been
physically restricted in space to a point where they would almost simulate the exaggerated manner of movement performed in the studio of Nauman’s early video works like Walking in an Exaggerated Manner Around the Perimeter of a Square from 1967-68. This notion highlights Nauman’s interest in recreating physical acts in the participant viewer or, more succinctly, in controling the body of the viewer. Donald Kuspit discusses
— Bruce Nauman 1968
GET OUT OF MY MIND, GET OUT OF THIS ROOM
BODY PRESSURE the experience of being in one of Nauman’s corridors as one “in which one feels as though one were blind and at the mercy of a system.” 5 Such control takes another step in Nauman’s 1970 One40
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Man-Show at Nick Wilder Gallery, in which he incorporates a disorienting use of closed-circuit video. A corridor may have a monitor at the end of it and the camera at the beginning so that one sees oneself walking away
— Bruce Nauman 1974
from oneself, or a monitor for a given camera may be around a corner so that viewers only catch a glimpse of themselves as they turn out of the camera’s range. Nauman’s reason for placing cameras in these confined spaces is to reduce the variability of body technique in each viewer’s
‘performance’ of the work. Nauman remarks, “I mistrust audience participation. That’s why I try to make these works as limiting as possible.” 6 Although Nauman mistrusts the viewers, he still consistently engages their bodies as a medium in his work. To Nauman, the body is an object as opposed to a person. He manipulates his viewers’ bodies for the sake of his own work in the Corridor pieces while still delivering a valuable experience to the audience as a result. Even in his videos of himself, he makes a point to either cut his head out of the shot or show as little of his face as possible. He seems to have instruction at the front of his mind. In his 1974 work Body Pressure, Nauman stacks instructions (printed on pink paper) for a performance piece meant to be taken by viewers and recreated, but the instruction is rarely so explicit. Most of his self-videos are made to be recreated by the viewers themselves.7 It seems
get out of my head: coercion in bruce
NAUMAN’S WORKS masturbatory at first that Nauman wants to force the viewer to recreate his own experiences, but in his interview with Willoughby Sharp, he justifies his statement about creating a strict environment: “An awareness of yourself comes from a certain amount of activity and you can’t get it from just thinking about yourself.” 8 He fully believes that he is coercing the viewers for their own good; that he is in a way leading them to the nirvana of selfawareness. He asserts famously, “The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths.”9 Nauman pushes us down corridors because he wants us to know what it is to move one’s body through space, but these pieces also raise uncomfortable questions about the extent of an artist’s power and the ethics of the use of that power. Nauman works under the assumption that his challenges will yield a productive experi-
ence, but Nauman enters an ethical minefield by limiting the viewers’ ability to choose their place in the game. In the ‘strikeproof game,’ the player (in this case the viewer) loses autonomy. These games make the viewer function in a system of imperfect information and destroy his or her ability to choose for him or herself. One may argue that the viewer retains the choice over whether to expose him or herself to Nauman’s work in the first place, but this decision often lies in the hands of the institutions of art rather than in those of the individual viewer. If someone were to visit a museum with a Nauman in the permanent collection, he or she may encounter the work without knowing it was there in the first place. This exhibits another problem of incomplete information. If the viewer is accidentally exposed to one of these works, he or she must ad-
dress the issues that the piece brings up without any vestige of autonomy. One may argue that this confrontation aligns with the type of dilemmas that arise in everyday life. People are often faced with situations that challenge their worldviews and are forced to respond as best they can. There is a problem with this line of thought, however, in that Nauman’s works are constructed explicitly for the limiting of freedom, and life challenges arise naturally without this intent. Therefore, the key difference lies in the intent. The fact that Nauman wants to do an injustice to the viewer, whether he calls it injustice or not, and whether or not it is an explicit or implicit goal, is ethically problematic. In works like Please Pay Attention Please and his Corridor installation series, this injustice seems more or less innocuous, but in later works Nauman begins to do more than mere physical or rhetorical coercion. In more mature 42
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works, Nauman’s environments begin to exert force not only on the viewer’s body, but also on his or her mind, especially in video installations such as Clown Torture and Get Out of My Mind, Get Out of This Room. Here the ethical problem of coercion crystallizes. As Nauman begins to attack the mind, he steps away from his earlier concern with body awareness and toward an interest in challenging the viewer for the sake of the challenge itself. Clown Torture consists of a darkened room around which several videos of clowns performing absurd activities play. One video shows a ‘clown taking a shit,’ another shows a clown recoiling in fear from the viewer, shouting “No!” and kicking at the air, etc. The reaction of these videotaped clowns to the viewers’ entry into the space makes the viewers feel that they have intruded. The clown screams “No!” in agony as the viewers approach, so although the viewers know
CLOWN T — Bruce Nauman 1987
TORTURE
they should be in the space (if it were not for viewers the work would not function), they cannot help feeling like they are attacking the clown. This feeling is, in some ways, Nauman attacking the viewer. In an interview with Joan Simon, Nauman remarked that he wants to make art that feels “like getting hit in the face with a baseball bat.” 10 Nauman attacks the audience by altering the passive role of “viewer” without the viewer’s concession. Nauman frames the viewer, when really he is behind the pain in the clown’s expression. Many viewers respond to the absurd victim relationship by doing what clowns are designed to make one do: by laughing. The work has all the components of a great joke. It is surprising, extreme, and involves clowns.11 But at the heart of the joke is the discomfort of being blamed–of being framed psychologically to deal with the transgressions of another. Whereas Clown Torture can be seen as a matter fit for laugh44
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ter, Nauman’s 1968 Get Out of My Mind, Get Out of This Room is explicitly confrontational and pushes his artist-viewer conflict to what may be its most legible form. A bare light bulb dimly illuminates an empty room within which the viewer hears the artist’s voice harshly whispering, “Get out of my mind! Get out of the room!” The voice comes from hidden speakers, making it seem like the voice is coming from everywhere at once. Paul Richard describes the work as “just about unbearable”, and notes that the artist himself acknowledged the space as “really frightening.” 12 Peter Schjeldahl discusses his reactions to this work in detail: “Nervous urbanites (including me) found such work conducive less to mind expansion than to anxiety attack.” 13 Schjeldahl does, however, admit that the work “induced physical self-consciousness.” 14 Because Nauman’s implicit aim in pushing the viewer around is to create “an aware-
The work has all the components of a great joke. It is surprising, extreme, and involves clowns. But at the heart of the joke is the discomfort of being blamed–of being framed psychologically to deal with the transgressions of another. ness of yourself,” 15 in doing so one could claim the work is successful, but this claim may be flawed. If the only definition of a successful work is that it does what the artist intends it to do, then the work is irrefutably successful. Even to the nervous urbanites of New York, Nauman succeeds in instilling a body awareness in the viewer. But if the success of a work is defined not only on its efficiency, but also on its method, the picture becomes fuzzier quickly. Nauman is not trying to bully the viewer and offer nothing in return, but he assumes a receptive audience who will engage the
work intellectually (even when he tells the viewer to do the opposite as in Get Out of My Mind) and who understands the idea of participation, that his reaction is important. One of these assumptions makes it very hard for his work not to succeed. The implications of a participant viewer preclude self-consciousness in his or her reaction. If viewers understand that they are important to the very completion of a work, they will begin to think introspectively before they even enters the space. As their attention is already channeled inwardly as well as outwardly, they will experience some level of self-awareness regardless of what they actually experiences. To illustrate, imagine you walk into a gallery whose shows is titled “Participant Observation.” In the first room you see one wall that has been covered in some way or another with a mirrored surface. Yes, you will have your attention turned toward yourself because of the mirror, but imagine the
get out of my head: coercion in bruce
NAUMAN’S WORKS same circumstances with no mirror (i.e. an empty room). You will still reflect on yourself because you have been primed by the explicit intent of the artist to experience whatever space you confront in a certain way. This is not to say that Nauman’s works are unsuccessful, but it is important to note that his assumptions about the audience have a heavy hand in the success of his work. To definitively evaluate the success of the psychological installations, one must think about the ethical implications of these works. Does artistic liberty justify Nauman’s victimization of the viewer? The concept of artistic liberty rests on the implicit assumption that the artist knows what is best. To question the autonomy of artistic liberty may be to question the power, or even the omnipotence of the artist, but it must be done in the name of ethics. The viewer’s autonomy is sus-
pended in the name of an unseen future benefit, namely selfawareness, through the creation of the strike-proof game, which Nauman has displayed in the self-fulfilling request “please pay attention please,” in the confining, confounding videos of the corridor works, and in the complicated victim-viewer-offender relationship in Clown Torture. Is this warping of agency ethical? To ask this is to question the power of the artist. If he really does “reveal mystic truths,” it is hard to argue the harm in a temporary suspension of autonomy in a cost-benefit analysis. But if the artist is no Promethean giver, if his provisions are not as useful or mystical as he claims, one has a hard time arguing the ethical suspension of agency even on utilitarian grounds. The defining question is whether or not the artist helps the world by revealing mystic truths. Like Nauman, I am ambivalent.
NOTES 1» A CULTURE OF SKY BLUE: HAND-TINING IN SAUNDERS’ CHINESE LIFE & CHARACTER STUDIES 1. Sarah Fraser, Chinese as Subject: Photographic Genres in the Nineteenth Century, Brush and Shutter, ed. Jeffrey W. Cody and Frances Terpak, (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2011), 92. 2. Wu Hung, “Introduction: Reading Early Photographs of China,” Brush and Shutter, ed. Jeffrey W. Cody and Frances Terpak, (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2011), 6. . 3. Mary Warner Marien, Photography: A Cultural History, 3rd ed. (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2011), 61. 4. Heinz K. and Bridget A. Henisch, The Painted Photograph: 1839-1914, (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996), 30. 5. Jeffrey Cody and Frances Terpak, eds., “Through a Foreign Glass: The Art and Science 46
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of Photography in Late Qing China,” Brush and Shutter, (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2011), 59. 6. Henisch, The Painted Photograph: 1839-1914, 23-24. 7. Marien, Photography: A Cultural History, 62. 8. Cody and Terpak, Brush and Shutter, 37. 9. Regine Thiriez, “The 19th Century Photograph as a Reflection of Reality,” Chinese Torture, 2002, Institut d’Asie Oreitnale, accessed November 12, 2011. 10. Michael and Susan Ivankovich, Early Twentieth Century Hand-Painted Photography, (Paducah, Kentucky: Collector Books, 2005), 12.
2. Ibid., 46. 3. Vito Acconci, interview by Willoughby Sharp, “UBUWEB-Film and Video: Vito Acconci,” UBUWEB (accessed November 10, 2011), http://www.ubu.com/film/ acconci_sharp.html. 4. Ibid., “UBUWEB-Film and Video: Vito Acconci.” 5. Jean-Paul Sartre, “Being and Nothingness,” in Basic Writings on Existentialism, trans. Hazel Barnes, ed. Gordon Marino (New York: Modern Library, 2004), 405. 6. Ibid., 400. 7. Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, trans. Hazel Barnes (New York: Pocket Books, 1956), 71. 8. Sartre, “Being and Nothingness,” 403. 9. Ibid., 406
2» VIEWING, LOOKING AND FOLLOWING: THE IMPLICATIONS OF SARTRE’S GAZE FOR ART
10. Ibid., 392.
1. Hans-Ulrich Obrist, HansUrlich Obrist: Interviews (New York: Charta/Fondarzione Pitti Immagine Discover, 2003), 45.
13. Ibid., 395.
11. Ibid., 395. 12. Ibid., 432.
14. Obrist, 46. 15. Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 540.
16. Ibid., 40. 17. “The Metropolitan Museum of Art-Following Piece,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, http://www.metmuseum.org/ collection/search-the-collections/190036953. 18. Obrist, 50. 19. Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 540.
3» ROY LICHTENSTEIN & FRITZ SCHOLDER: LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY AMERICAN SCULPTURE REWORKED AS POSTMODERN ART 1. In her article, Grace Glueck interprets Lichtenstein’s statement as the artist’s own “conscious cliché.” See Glueck, “A Pop Artist’s Fascination with the First Americans,” New York Times, December 23, 2005, accessed April 1, 2012, http:// www.nytimes.com/2005/12/23/ arts/design/23lich. html?pagewanted=all. Gail Stavitsky maintains in her essay that Lichtenstein recognized Fraser’s original work as the “first conscious cliché.” See Stavitsky, American Indian En-
counters (Rutgers Univ. Press, 2005), 15. 2. These rather unknown paintings by the prolific artist were shown in the exhibition “Roy Lichtenstein: American Indian Encounters” which premiered at the Montclair Art Museum of New Jersey on October 16, 2005, the first of a five city tour that would end in April 2007. For more, see Glueck, “A Pop Artist’s Fascination.”
often repeated quotation and his own comments on his paintings’ subject matter and style, see Werner Gunderscheimer, “Real Not Red: The Indian in the Art of Fritz Scholder,” Fritz Scholder: Paintings, (Tucson, AZ: Nazraeli Press, 2001).. 9. Sol Lewitt, “Sentences on Conceptual Art,” first published in O-9, New York (1969) and Art-Language, Coventry (May 1969), 11.
3. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
11. Gunderscheimer, Fritz Scholder: Paintings, 5.
5. Stavitsky, American Indian Encounters, 15. 6. Ibid., 10. 7. Scholder’s major retrospective exhibition of Native American themed art premiered just three years after Lichtenstein’s “American Indian Encounters” show. Titled “Fritz Scholder: Indian/ Not Indian,” the exhibition was held concurrently at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washingtong, D.C. and the George Gustav Heye Center in New York City from Movember 2008 to August 2009.. 8. For more on Fritz Scholder’s
12. Ibid. 13. Lewitt, “Sentences on Conceptual Art,” 11.
4» GET OUT OF MY HEAD: COERCION IN BRUCE NAUMAN’S WORK 1. Willoughby Sharp, Janet Kraynak, and Bruce Nauman, “Interview with Bruce Nauman, 1971 (May 1970),” in Please Pay Attention Please: Bruce Nauman’s Words: Writings and Interviews (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003), 139..
2. Arthur Danto, “Bruce Nauman,” in Bruce Nauman (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 147..
Press, 2002), 218.
3. Ibid.
12. Paul Richard, “Watch Out! It’s Here!” in Bruce Nauman (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 218.
4. Jonathan David Fineberg, Art Since 1940: Strategies of Being (New York: H.N. Abrams, 1995), 301.
13. Peter Schjeldahl, “Only Connect” in Bruce Nauman (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 192..
5. Isabelle Graw and Dorothea von Moltke, “Just Being Doesn’t Amount to Anything,” The MIT Press 74 (1995): 135 http://www. jstor.org/stable/778825.
14. Ibid.
6. Nauman, Kraynak, and Sharp, 113. 7. Ibid., 142. 8. Ibid. 9. JP McMahon, “Nauman’s The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths”: Smarthistory.khanacademy.org.. 10. Joan Simon and Bruce Nauman, “Breaking the Silence” in Bruce Nauman (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 160. 11. Robert Storr, “Flashing the Light in the Shadow of Doubt” in Bruce Nauman (Baltimore: Johns Hopskins University 48
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15. Nauman, Kraynak, and Sharp, 142.
FROM THE PRESIDENT Dear Reader, The thoughtful perspectives framing the writings of Vice Versa, our eighth journal, have prompted me to stand back and evaluate the current standing of the Northwestern Art Review as an organization. I found the title Vice Versa particularly helpful in this endeavor, as the term speaks not only to the thematic undercurrents of this issue but also applies to the compendium of success achieved by our group. By this, I mean that the phrase “vice versa” gets at the applicably converse nature of engagement between the key constituents that make up our organization. A level of symbiosis has been reached between our scholarly journal and extramural events, our online community and campus presence, and our executive leaders and supportive staff, creating and maintaining imperative, two-way relationships that foster the unique dialogue and approach of NAR’s network. The journal supports our events programming and vice versa. Our online community betters our campus presence and vice versa. Our outgoing, veteran staff inspires our eager, new members and vice versa. On a personal level, it has been enjoyable and gratifying to witness the development and interaction of NAR’s staff and features over the past three years. Particularly of note has been our reputable expansion beyond the review to create opportunities for the discussion, appreciation, and democratization of art through
an established calendar of events and programming. Continuing in their success, our weekly blog posts often inform about current exhibitions, our quarterly Coffee With a Professor events facilitate conversation between students and faculty, and our yearly Career Panel events assist an investigation of the career possibilities in the art world. Additionally, this year brought about new, exciting traditions— NAR’s Abandoned Art Market silent auction of student artwork and a facultyled Campus Architecture Walking Tour. Despite the exponential growth of NAR’s programming success, it is this very document you are reading, our journal, which remains the backbone of the group. With each publication, we are called upon to refocus our attention on the mission of NAR. As indicated by our name, the Northwestern Art Review is rooted in a chief goal of and commitment to publishing a scholarly undergraduate journal that aggregates the best undergraduate writing about art in hopes of creating a discourse on art and art history. However, the rapid development of our events calendar and online supplements do not distract nor take away from the journal; rather, they work together, in this same ‘vice versa’ relationship, to promote our founding overarching purpose— to provide a forum for greater exchange among an expanding community of individuals who devote their time to studying, thinking and writing about art.
Without the unwavering support of the Department of Art History, the Department of Art Theory and Practice, the Mary & Leigh Block Museum, the University Career Center, our faculty advisors, and our faithful student following, achieving this purpose would not be possible. NAR is grateful of our sponsored ability to provide a platform for integrated student involvement in art on Northwestern’s campus, in the Chicagoland area, and across the World Wide Web. On behalf of our entire group, thank you for bestowing this opportunity of creating the unique forum for pedagogic engagement and interest in visual art outside of the classroom that is NAR. We hope NAR continues to inspire your engagement, and vice versa.
MADELINE AMOS JUNE 2012 EVANSTON, IL
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