More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
7 January
This is Part III of a review of a current exhibition at Tate Modern of the work of Mira Schendel (Part I is here, and Part II is here), which is due to finish on 19 January 2014
Room 7 is where Schendel’s work begins to get interesting, foreshadowing the work in Room 12, just as do the two works that appear in Room 8, in the series Little Trains, the installation in Room 10.
We are told that the installation of pieces in the series of Graphic Objects emulates the installation in The Brazilian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1968, and where she made use of the transparency of the rice-paper. Whether it is meaningfully claimed that ‘transparency’ had a special usage that Schendel made of it is unclear (pun intended), but this is what the room guide asserts :
Schendel’s concept of transparency was derived from the writings of the German philosopher, poet and linguist Jean Gebser (1905 – 1973), who used the word to refer to human consciousness, experience of time and to a form of the spiritual.
Maybe some significance is lost, and also in not following word for word the philosophy, poetry and lyrics, but the work’s strength, in being an accretion of smaller works, is by positioning them in relation to each other.
In a similar sense, Variants 1977 makes one aware that one could be shorter, or taller, and perceive the installation somewhat differently, inevitably looking through one of the ninety-three panes (one is white on black), or not looking through it except by bending or standing on tip-toe. It does so more effectively than the installation in Room 7, and, as the room guide says, it is a constellation or cloud, a sort of Cloud of Unknowing.
Here, the panels are very small and they interpose a sense of depth, with what is near overlapping, at different points, central and far others. It is beyond proper description of photographic representation, and just deserves to be seen.
Little Trains are sheets of rice-paper that hang loose on a thread, and the smaller, in particular, of the two in Room 8 evokes an oriental mood, as if not so much kimonos as samurais. They consist less in what they show than what we can project onto them, and similarly, with some of the Transformables that are hanging nearby, we are meant to look less at their resemblance to strands of DNA (or some other biological material) than at the patterns of varying shade that they cast. Sadly, these are not hung in such a way to make much of that aspect.
Max Bense was the only one who understood that...these things [Transformables] didn't function as objects, because all that mattered was the light and shadow, a continuation of some drawings of mine, those done on that ultra fine, transparent paper.
(1970 - 1974)*
Room 9 is passed over, because it contributes, with its Calculations, Circumscribed Letters and Typed Writings, as much to what matters about Schendel as the Monotypes and Graphic Objects. Room 10 contains an installation, made for the 10th Bienal de São Paulo in 1969, called Still Waves of Probability - again, it achieves its aims by repetition of the same (or similar) material, and here, as we walk around it, it becomes more or less permeable to our sight, sometimes seeming dreach before our eyes, sometimes seeming as if nothing intercepts the view of the other side of the room.
It means more than this attempt to describe it suggests, more than what Schendel said (as quoted in the room guide) that it meant to her, and more than in the Biblical text that she chose to accompany it (from I Kings 19 : 11 – 12**), in black on Perspex :
And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake:
And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.
One might relate to the work without the text, or without the words being understood in a Judaeo-Christian context – say, as the search at the sub-nuclear level, and what gives matter mass – but it speaks in these gradations of very loud and powerful, yet very quiet and peaceful, and with all the changes of state in between. Arranged before the other installation, and with the sixteen works (akin to the stations of the cross, though not in number ?) that constitute Homage to God – Father of the West (1975) en route in Room 11, this is the richest part of the exhibition.
Again, one might not relate to a Hebraic God – as number 11 has it, The living God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – but there is the notion of a family line and of protection, to which we all, in varying ways, can relate in thinking about the group of people of whom we are part have fared. For others, the stark statement of number 12, God is love, will make it harder to relate to these works, but, as the room guide makes clear, the church was what permitted her to survive, and it could be seen as quite a personal statement, as was, say, her participation in the São Paulo Bienal, which others thought right to boycott.
As a thinker and an artist, Schendel was quite clear about making her own choices of what was best for her conscience and for speaking through her art. Arranged on either side of walls tapering towards each other, this is a rare twentieth-century statement of faith, and rewards attention for the bold marks and the consequence of her choice of medium***.
As to the tail of the exhibition, what appears in Room 13, with its concentration on day and night, is subject to quite a bit of interpretation, manipulation even, where the room guide says ‘They [tempera and gold] also refer to the determination of the Self’. Of them, and of the concluding trio of series in Room 14, I say that they are not on a par with the striking pieces that occupy Rooms 10 to 12 :
Itatiaia Landscapes feel like a rehash of a series of the Mononotypes in Room 6, whereas, a little in the way that the Roy Lichtenstein show had him persevering to the end with his Benday dots, making landscapes (I recall that being true of another Tate one, and, whilst I could be thinking of Damien Hirst, I think that it was probably not) : it could have been Miró, because nothing pf his that was shown transcended, for me, the four triptychs that were displayed in pairs of two…
Even if one ultimately thinks that Imogen Robinson is harsh about Schendel's works in her Review : Mira Schendel at the Tate Modern for Just A Platform, it is of interest to find comments where she echoes finding pretension in the curation and the claims made
End-notes
* Taken from the exhibition's chronology of Schendel's life.
** The words are well known from the ending of John Greenleaf Whittier’s hymn ‘Dear Lord and Father of Mankind’.
*** Where it falters is with the curatorial choice of translation for the description of number 16, Der Geist – rendered The Ghost, the word ‘spirit’ might have been a better choice.
Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
28 November
This is Part II of a review of a current exhibition at Tate Modern of the work of Mira Schendel (Part I is here), which is due to finish on 19 January 2014
Any show of this kind has a Room 1, where the firstlings are exhibited – these are pretty good early exhibits, and the wall notes tells us that, in an exhibition at this time, Schindler had her work reach out into the gallery space by how it was displayed. That said, such use of what conditions how art interacts with where the viewer is, and some of her later preoccupations, invite comparisons (none are drawn) with other twentieth-century iconoclasts, perhaps Marcel Duchamp, Hans Arp, or even, in a very different way, Kurt Schwitters.
Then, in Room 2, colourfield works make one inevitably think of Rothko’s approach to composing a canvas (as in Room 3 ?), but, curatorially, there is again nothing. As will emerge later, one asks for whom has this exhibition been mounted – those who would be helped by such comparisons being made, or those who are cognisant of where Schendel fits ? What, indeed, is the purpose of a room guide* (the leaflet that contains them credits curator Tanya Barson for the text) or a wall note ?
Yet, on another level, the room guide in Room 1 makes the claim that follows (it is not expressed as a possible view, but as fact) :
Her work constitutes an experimental investigation into profound philosophical questions relating to human existence and belief, often addressing the distinction between faith and certainty, and examining idea of being, existence and the void.
The paragraph concludes by telling us something of what the artist thought (although not how we know this, or how we can guess at what ‘activating the void’ means) :
Schendel saw her work as activating the void, thus poised between being and nothingness.**
In a different vein, in this room, one canvas, with verticals and two painted square apertures (as against the actual shapes cut into neighbouring works), seems very strong, and prefigures trompe l’œil works in the next rooms, where, for example, a painting appears to be four square tiles with grout, but this appearance has been rendered on the surface of the canvas (or other substrate, since, by now, Schendel sometimes used jute, apparently to give an effect of roughness).
In Room 3, making remarks about Sem título*** (Fachada) (Untitled (Facade)), from the 1960s (there are two works on this wall), the wall note says it is ‘suggesting a continuing preoccupation with the theme of home and with exile or displacement’. What the note fails to say is what other examples of ‘the theme’ there are, and I do not recall any other notes that talk about it (though, logically, they must be in Rooms 1 and 2): if there is a preoccupation that continues, one should, at least, be able to say where one has seen it before, and ‘exile’ is a strong word to use (although true in Schendel’s case, because her Jewish ancestry made her leave where she lived, in the German-speaking world).
The work does not necessarily need to be read as a building exposed and on its own, although that suggested description in the wall note seems to fit its neighbour – on one interpretation, the detail top left of the first work could be part of a complete façade represented by the rest of the surface****, rather than being the empty background in which it sits. We are reminded, by the room guide, of ‘the void’ :
[…] Schendel’s use of dark tones and archetypal forms re-state [sic] her interest in the relationship between being and the void and reinforces the fact that her work is underpinned by an investigation into the philosophy of existence.
Later, we are told about when Schendel came to England and read Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations : there are two things here, painting (art) and philosophy, and it is not self evident that reading (or carrying out) the latter is somehow portrayed or depicted in the former, although the reading, etc., may inform the artist’s views and practice. How much does it help, if Schendel read ontological works in the 1960s, to know that ? Would it help any more or less, if Bacon, Hockney, Riley read them, too ?
In other words, is someone showing off here : Schendel that she read this matter, etc., or Barson that she can make remarks about Schendel having done so, and asserting that it is in (or is part of) the work ? In Part I of this review, I commented on the works in Room 6, and what it is that these Monotypes, employing, with words in other languages, three related terms in German, Umwelt, Mitwelt, and Eigenwelt – so what, exactly, is the Italian phrase (cut up as indicated, and complete with spelling mistakes****) doing here ? :
I TUOI / CAPELI / D’ARANCIO
Unless Schendel is being philosophically playful, why is she writing in Italian when she cannot do so without making mistakes ? For whose benefit is she putting a phrase in that language in her work – mine, that I can work out what she means ‘Your orange hair’ ? The room guide has a lot to say :
The Monotypes are marked by Schendel’s use and exploration of language. Often combining different languages, Schendel addresses concepts of belief, being and nothingness, and ‘the void’. Drawing on philosophical ideas of phenomenology (the study of consciousness) – she considers how we exist in the world (Umwelt or environment), with the world (Mitwelt or social world), and within ourselves (Eigenwelt or inner world).
In an essay (or a lecture), one might ‘address’ these concepts, or ‘consider’ these terms, but we have rough assemblages of these words on sheets of rice paper, and that is supposed to be doing those things ? Here is a collection of descriptions from the first part of the exhibition, which make similar claims (or report others’ claims) :
Room 4 :
These paintings [still-lifes] can also be seen as dealing with a philosophy of being (plus references to Heidegger)
Untitled (Landscape) :
Mario Schenberg describes these paintings as “ontological landscapes” linking them to reflections on being or existence
Room 5 :
Such words conveying a positive or affirmative relate to the themes of assent, acceptance or of conscious decision-making in her work. Therefore the work reveals the importance of an examination of conviction or belief in Schendel’s work and of ideas addressed in John Henry Newman’s An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent 1870
The room guide in Room 6 goes on to talk about ‘radical ways that they [the individuals linked to Signals gallery] attempted to reframe the contemporary art of their time’, in which that gallery was part of its time, but one is still drawn back to what putting words on a sheet does in the art / calligraphy / poetry sphere – did the Monotypes ever ‘say’ anything, and what can an observer in 2013 / 2014 be expected to make of them ?
Mira's writings are not texts. They are not about anything, and so they cannot be read as representations. They are pre-texts. They are what texts are before they becomes texts. [...]******
Vilém Flusser, 1965
At the same time, also displayed in Room 6, Schendel was keeping in notebooks a Diario de Londres, where, rather than writing roughly on sheets in ink, she has begun to use (as is seen later) rub-down lettering (which was sometimes marketed under the name Letraset, and which, contemporaneously with Schendel’s use in the late 60s and 70s, I was using).
Room 6 is host to a third type of exhibit, with rice paper used again, but in a sort of knotted paper-chain, either climbing upwards (as arranged), or suspended as mobiles – in either case, the apparent bulk is effectively without mass. The breakthrough seems to come for Schendel in combining works on paper with hanging it, as becomes apparent in Room 7…
Even if one ultimately thinks that Imogen Robinson is harsh about Schendel's works in her Review : Mira Schendel at the Tate Modern for Just A Platform, it is of interest to find comments where she echoes finding pretension in the curation and the claims made
End-notes
* By ‘room guide’, I mean the introductory text to each room, as against ‘wall note’, a piece next to a work (or group of them) and regarding it / them.
** There seems no consciousness that this phrase quotes the title of one of Sartre’s seminal works on existentialism.
*** A designation of almost all of Schendel’s work, which must make curation a challenge – in the other Tate Modern show, for Paul Klee, we see that he added the year, a sequence number for that year and a title to each work and kept a register of hose details. A British composer of whom I heard recently also does not use titles, but uses a letter (such as ‘V’ for ‘violin’) and the year to denote each piece.
**** It should read I TUOI / CAPELLI / D’ARANCIA.
***** Likewise, the detail bottom right could be the atrium of a large building occupied by the rest of the panel (not out of place, say, in Brazilia).
****** Taken from the exhibution's chronology of Schendel's life.
Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
24 November
This is Part I of a review of a current exhibition at Tate Modern of the work of Mira Schendel (Part II is here, whereas Part III is here), which is due to finish on 19 January 2014
When it is a matter of referring to works (tiresome though titles can be, with their weight of meaning), it has to be said that Schendel could have done herself a favour by not calling almost everything Sem título (‘Untitled’) : curatorial difficulties apart (in knowing what on earth piece one is requesting on loan from where), the viewer could at least be able to refer to a work, if she had adopted the approach, say, of Paul Klee (in addition to a title) of giving everything a sequence number and its year of production, uniquely identifying it.
When surveying a period of 35 years or more (the early paintings are from the 1950s, and a final series from 1987), a retrospective, even in the typical space of 14 rooms*, will tend to group pieces by date, style, technique, theme, and run chronologically. I take issue with this show in two regards, as to inclusion and extent :
(1) Starting with the huge Room 6, both issues arise in relation to some of the ‘works’ on rice paper (apparently, a medium that Schendel started using in 1964) : not wishing to say that there necessarily is not blurring between the realms of art, poetry and calligraphy** when an artist imports words onto the substrate.
However, there is a contrast to be drawn with the works in Room 5 (where the words sim (‘yes’), passe (‘pass’) and que beleza (‘how beautiful’, slang for ‘how cool’)) figure on the canvas in a similar way, say, to that Ceci n’est pas une pipe does on that of Magritte. For the words on rice paper in Room 6 are (a) all that the work comprises (on its own or in relation to other such sheets), (b) sometimes scrawled (although perhaps legible to a native and / or sympathetic reader), and (c) not obviously any more than a rough sketch, rather than some sort of displayable work.
Seeing much of this, in one of the four largest rooms in the exhibition, may be a preparation for Room 7, but the lesson that one learns there is that the nature of this mass of hanging written material is not – though some of it can be – to be read. The work (in no ways a preparation for the sheer beauty and effect of the installation in Room 12), which was in Brazil’s pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1968, does not require one to have seen, at such length, constituent elements to appreciate it – those in Room 6 are Graphic Objects (against (the Monotypes) in Room 6). I have no doubt that there are more than 2,000 Monotypes, because I cannot conceive it to be difficult to have generated them.
(2) On the calligraphic level, and still in Room 6, I am invited to consider the manipulation of the trio of German words Umwelt, Mitwelt and Eigenwelt, which I am told are terms used in Heidegger’s thought and in European philosophy, as some sort of work or statement, but I would say that, in relation to the Magritte work referred to earlier, I am not required to study Hume, for example, before I can approach it. However, whatever Schendel is about, even though – as far as I recall – the words are legible, is unlikely to mean anything to the average person trying to approach the work (even though the wall notes translate and explain the terms).
The opacity of the work – which inclines me to believe that it belongs on the page (not in the gallery), where those who want can refer to it – is akin to the barrier (perhaps deliberate) in scrawling texts (whether or not original) elsewhere in the Monotypes. Contrast this with the calligraphic simplicity of the word ZEIT (German for time, and written in capitals), displayed nearby, with the tail of the ‘T’ extended down the sheet. A calligrapher, in English (using the word TIME), could just as easily have extended that letter, or the three spokes of the ‘E’, but it would be craft, not art, and displayed alongside settings of lines from Blake or Keats.
Moving on to Room 9, and some of these abstruse notations or scribblings have become books. However, I have to ask whether the jottings of Einstein have any more – or any less – place in a gallery than, amongst other things, the Calculations : what branch or level of mathematics am I supposed to be familiar with to make any sense (if any is actually to be made) from these notations ? Do they have aesthetic or artistic appeal beyond any such understanding ?
These comments – maybe criticisms – are at a curatorial level. Even if a work forms a sizeable part of an artist’s work, does one have to give a proportionate amount of wall-space to make the point. For it has to be said that the installations in Room 12 (already mentioned) and Room 10 are world-class art, but, one somehow feels, some of the space devoted to other work is less worthwhile. If it is an intrinsic part of Schendel’s journey, one needs, I feel, to know more fully why it is – the basic question is whether it is truly integral to a survey of her work, or could have been given less time without impairment : I do not feel that that the notices in each room make the case for why this work merits our attention, and, with a less patient visitor, might lead to switching off from what, in my opinion, is of outstanding merit.
Continued, with other positives, in a separate posting…
Even if one ultimately thinks that Imogen Robinson is harsh about Schendel's works in her Review : Mira Schendel at the Tate Modern for Just A Platform, it is of interest to find comments where she echoes finding pretension in the curation and the claims made
Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
