Since my trip to Nevada,  I have been thinking a lot about the way that natural structures grow or the way that erosion creates a set of fractal patterns on the earth.  The new work is based incorporating ideas of fractal growth in some of the language of the tiles.

It is important to me that the language of the works is being generated by the geometry of the tiles and the principles of growth.  The space of the floor is naturally incorporated into the space of the work.

Since I began thinking more about Land Art projects,  I have been very interested in the idea of boundaries.  In some boundary situations a series of related objects can be used to define the space of an object that has different kind of geometry.  Often that geometry can be incorporated into the space of the room itself.  The objects create a boundary that is not exclusive and does not comprise the individual integrity of each of its units.

Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to escape to Nevada to do some research on some land art projects.  One of the projects that I visited was Michael Heizer’s Double Negative from 1969-1970.   I am always amazed everytime I make the drive to go and see the site.  The site is always larger an the erosion is more substantial.  It is hard to believe that someone that was 24 years old conceived of a work as a complex as this.

I had two thoughts on visting the piece.  First, that nature has continued Heizer’s original excavation of the slots.  Now the slots are being re-excavated by the wind and rain of the desert.  It makes the entire project a window in the natural processes of nature.

Second, even though the work is excavation, a negative in the solid mass of the mesa, surprisingly the work is still experienced like an obect. The experience of the work is the experience of the excavation.  Of course, this works right in with the Heizer’s title “Double Negative”  meaning two negative make a positive.  The space of the excavations is able to merge with the space of the valley to create an experience that is unlike any other in art.

It has a been a long couple of weeks since I have updated the site, so I will start at the beginning.  In early October, I was at the Art + Environment Conference at the Nevada Art Museum.  The conference was excellent and I met a lot of great people.  During the conference, I had a chance to interview Vito Acconci.  The link to the inter view is here:

http://www.portlandart.net/archives/2008/10/vito_acconci_at.html

Over the last couple of days, I have been working hard on a review of a show of Eadweard Muybridge’s work for PORT (http://www.portlandart.net/).  The review takes Muybridge’s ideas of space and time and applies them to Cubism, Hockney’s photo collages and the movie The Matrix.

The direct link to the post is:

http://www.portlandart.net/archives/2008/08/edward_muybridg.html

Maryhill Overlook by Allied Works

A few weeks ago, Jeff Jahn and I had chance to sit down with Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works Architecture to discuss the influences that art has had on his work.  The coversation went very and it was very interesting.  The first part of the interview has been posted on PORT (http://www.portlandart.net/)

The direct link to the post is:

http://www.portlandart.net/archives/2008/08/art_and_archite.html

Equivalent 1, 2008

I have been working on a series of stainless steel hexagon tile fields in my studio and the Columbia River Gorge.  I am able to draw with the natural geometry of the tiles by simply placing them down and also by removing them.  The more tiles that I remove the more the background (or the space/ environment) becomes a part of the composition.

If there is any art in this work, it is not in any one of the tiles. One tile is not materially different than any of the other tiles. One tile removed from the field does not take a corresponding amount of “art” with it. The tiles are just tiles. It is the way that the tiles interact with the environment that is the basis of the experience of the work.

Equivalent 1, 2008

I have been working on a Project Grant to fabricate approx. 2000 of these hexagons and do four installations in the Columbia River Gorge over the course of the year. 

An interesting thing happens when you take the geometry of a field of tiles that align together perfectly on a flat floor and then drape them over a rock or a log in the Gorge.  The geometry between the tiles deforms according to the surface that they are placed.  In other words,  the tiles are an analog of whatever environment that they are placed in.  You could say that the tiles inabililty to perfectly conform to a natural object produces a form of drawing that is a unique combination of the tiles and whatever they are placed on.

Equivalent 1, 2008

Recently,  I have been working on a series called Equivalents, where the module of the repeating tiles creates a measuring device that can reveal the scale of a found object.  In the case of the log, the number of the tiles along the surface of the log is equivalent to the length of the log.  The change in the relative position/ angle of the tiles is related to the geometry of the log itself. A more complex installation might be installing the tiles so that they describe the topography of a given or the might measure the volume of a given space.

The resulting field of tiles is a collaboration between myself and the environment. The field responds to the phsyical charcteristics or topography of a site and each distribution of tiles is unique. It is a different way of drawing in the environment.

Square, 2008

Rather than drawing designs in the forest,  I have found that it is important to link the position of the tiles to the environment in some way. The translation of the existing environment  into a new material/ form/ approach is the basis for what I hope would be an interesting experience.

In the studio, since it is not the environment that changes, I have been interested in creating the equivalent of geometric shapes: a circle, a square and a triangle. Since the hexagons are never able to match the geometry of one of these shapes, it is the difference between the field of the tiles and the shape that creates the work. In other words, it is the hexagons are only able to the approximate one of these shapes. It is the difference the between the approximation and the actual shape that creates the work.

Triangle, 2008

It is the gap between the field of tiles and the shape that they are describing that encourages a deeper understanding of drawing and reproduction.

Triangle (Detail), 2008

Columbia Spiral (for Robert Smithson) 2008

I have been learning about a lot about Robert Smithson over the last couple of weeks.  He did a great job of explaining his relationship to the environment by creating a very clear vocabulary.

I think that if people are going to be thinking about working with and in nature again, one of the first the first things that would have to happen would be that the vocabulary would have to be updated.  We are not same people that we were forty years ago.  We have a different environmental and political climate that requires a new language.

However, I did feel that it might be helpful to use Smithson’s Site/ Non-Site as a starting point for developing a new vocabulary.

Overall,  I think that artists are more interested in boundaries today.  We are interested in one thing becomes another.  Rather than being an either/ or it is an both/ and language.  It is important that the new work adapts and responds to nature rather than working in opposition to it.  We are more willing to accept the transient and opportunistic rather than the large gesture.

( Please forgive the formatting)

 Site                                      Non-Site                               Micro-Site (Field)
1. Open Limits                      Closed Limits                       No Limits-Adaptive
2. A series of points             An array of matter                Integrated with nature
3. Outer Coordinates            Inner Coordinates                 Responsive to natural conditions
4. Subtraction                       Addition                                Fractal
5. Indeterminate Certainty    Determinate Uncertainty       Opportunistic interventions
6. Scattered Information       Contained Information          Overlay of information
7. Reflection                          Mirror                                   Transient
8. Edge                                  Center                                   Boundary
9. Some Place (physical)        No Place (abstract)                One Place (where you are)
10. Many                               One                                        Numberless

For me the new work is about drawing in reverse. Rather than drawing that is accumulation of marks, my new work is about removing and erasing. It might be scrubbing off the black paint of a canvas or remove hexagons on a field in the floor but for me the process and the intent is the same.

Most of my new paintings are divided down the middle. I was interested in exploring the natural center line division that occurs in any rectangle. One side would be covered in black paint and the other side would be erased away.

I am very interested in the idea of a painting being an object. I am interested in the texture of the canvas, the build up of paint along the edges of the frame, basically it is the physical properties of the painting. The paintings are not a window to somewhere else but a tool to make us more aware of ourselves, our space and the present moment.

I am very excited about the new floor piece in the studio. It is made of 800 identical steel tiles. Although they can be arranged in any configuration, I chose this arrangement because its suggestion of the center. As I was putting it together I was surprised to see the relationship between the tiles and the empty spaces create a density that is related to be both size and the ability of the work to integrate itself into the space of the floor. The more tiles I pull away, the larger the piece can become and the more it brings the space of the room into the space of the piece.

In this configuration, the piece integrates the entire surface of the floor into the composition of the work. The floor and the work are interconnected. Even though the work is three dimensional, I am not sure that it is quite sculptural. It seems to me like the work is more about a way of seeing and measuring the space that we inhabit.

One last idea about centering. By definition, a circle describes a perimeter in which the inside moves toward a center point and the outside is everything that exists beyond the circle. But what if the boundary could be blurred so that you were not sure where the circle started or stopped. Rather than being a mathematical definition what if it was an acculmulation of spaces. It is easy to find the center of a circle but if the edge was blurred, how would you know where the circle stops? How would you know what was not in the circle or how far the circle extended into the room?

By removing the tiles and the letting the space of the floor into the space of the tiles, I am able to engage the space of the floor which brings the viewer to an awareness of the space as a whole.

Shiro Nakane of Nakane Associates spoke at PNCA last Monday night.  Nakane is one of the premiere landscape architects in the world.  He and his family have renovated or restored most of the famous zen gardens in Kyoto including Ryoan-ji, Kinkaku-ji, and Saiho-ji.  It was an honor of to get an introduction to Japanese gardens by one of the masters of the art.

 Click here for the post.

Robert Beckmann

Test House-First Light

2008

For me, Robert’s work has always been about the transience of experience. His recent body of work is called Test House, and is currenly part of a group show at Jim Kempner Fine Art in New York. Test House is a based on a series of images of a house that dissolves in an atomic blast in a few microseconds as part of Operation Cue that was at the Nevada Test Site in the mid-fifties.

Rather than contemplating mortality sitting beside a gentle stream in the country, why not use a more contemporary metaphor of the shockwave of a nuclear blast? His paintings are a meditation on the impermanent.

Click here for the post.