Title

A-B, Print installation.

Author

Hesterman, Heather.

Publication date

1997

Type

Conference paper

Language

English

Country of context

Australia

Full text

A B
By Heather Hesterman

Originally I titled this talk A B, Print Installation, however the 'Print' in this title is obvious, all the works I am about to discuss have aspects of printed media or are print informed. So, although this seems pedantic I would like re title this talk simply A B.

A B.
> A B or points A to B indicate a distance, they denote a position, a stance, a difference from each other. As individual letters and then formulated into words; they are part of a structure of communication forming language conveying thoughts, ideas, directions and dialogue.

> From A to B represents a duel shift in position, a movement away from and a step towards. A step which can vary in its scale. The leaving of the familiar, a comfortable zone and entering into a less certain area, a loss or disolving of known perimeters. The dash between A and B is a space, a pause a place of contemplation; a space where time and distance hover before arriving at their destination.

The word installation means to place into position, to set up, to put together, to assemble. Although installation is a familiar term to us and one that we all nod knowingly when it is mentioned, it is also unidentifiable and ambiguous. It is known and unknown simultaneously. It is used to categorize, a term that bundles the mediums into nice little curatorial boxes, a piece of art talk or jargon flipped around according to fashion.

> Installation is and isn't a thing or an object. It is as changeable as Melbourne's weather. It is about process, and is concerned with space; in establishing a dialogue and discourse with the viewer. It can establish an environment by utilizing one medium and/or by incorporating many medias in a single or multiple presentation. The diversity is endless, exquisitely constructed and fabricated pieces are equally incorporated under the umbrella called installation as is the found, the discarded, lovingly collected and the readymade.

Installation originates from sculpture. By shifting the focal spotlight off the plinth and pedestal, new areas within the gallery began to be considered other spaces, real and literal spaces, the space of the viewer becomes actively charged.

Installation is a broad term reflecting a multitude of perspectives. To quote George Alexander, Installation reflects a polyculture rather than a monoculture.(1)

We now realise the need to listen to many voices, who previously have been excluded from the main discourse. A more global array of voices and visions are being presented in contemporary art.

This is the work of Richard Harding. His artworks reflects and discusses notions of the self, sexuality and environment. For Harding installation is a natural progression in his artistic development it is for him the final act of creating a piece of artwork, an end product of careful consideration of concept and form.

Harding has reviewed traditional methods of pictorial representation realising it was not offering him or the viewer multiple readings. The content was challenging, but the visual translation was singular and presented him little flexibility.

His first site specific exhibition was titled The Longe Room and was exhibited at Linden in 1995. Primarily the exhibition was about visibility and the act of coming out. The closet was once a solid structure and had a sense of security; there was the belief that no one could see in.

The architectural space of the home is a metaphor for the self the movement from the closet to the loungeroom symbolises coming out. The continuous reaffirmation of self and identity is never ending. The exhibition took the form of a continuous plaster frieze of individual cast panels. The panels were constructed from woodcut, intaglio and linoleum plates.

These were presented above eyelevel and were painted a cream colour, similar to the existing white architectural features. For a moment the viewer believed that they were confronted with an empty space, although space is never empty. As the viewer moved towards the frieze they were privy to personal statements of partnership, love, celebration of self, persecution and hatred of others.

Harding's recent exhibition held at Diane Tanzer Gallery in February of this year was titled Rehabbed An Americanism for renovated, rehabilitation and rehabitated. After spending time living in America Harding's new artworks have mimicked his change of environment.

The focus is clearly increased visibility, large multicoloured wallpapered panels were presented on white plaster walls. They were held in place by a frame of picture rails, moulding strips and skirting boards.

Alluding to the dwelling and containment, many of the panels were draped with lace curtaining which "creates a dramatic tension between the hazy focus effect of the overlay and the clarity of the exposed woodcut."(2)

The soft curtaining unifies folds of meaning the domestic, the feminine and the self. The hand covering the groin refers to how AIDS is transmitted through sex and by the sharing of needles. The green dream is the final rest, admitted by oneself or by others to end the suffering and pain caused by AIDS.

Frames hang from the picture rail in front of the woodcuts, some with curtaining and others with mirrors. They allude to the portrait, the figure removed from view, an absence or loss.

The mirrors and polished copper ( an acknowledgement of Harding's intaglio background) "sets up an interaction between real and imaginary space, exterior and interior."(3) Jaques Lacan discussed the evolution of the self and the separation of the child via the mirror and " in Freudian theory the mirror represents the psyche."(4)

The self is projected onto the outside world. This is evident in Vacant presented in the gallery window its mirror reflects the dialectics of inside and out. Harding challenges you via aesthetic seduction to question these limits, to reconsider space: domestic and public, to re evaluate our positions, our options, to renovate the self /body and to discuss the boundaries of sexuality.

The coloured panels take their formation from the gay and lesbian flag a symbol of pride, it represents the diversity of its community; all backgrounds, races and national origins. Harding imbues these sentiments and none more successful than in the work 'Little Boy Blue Come Blow Your Horn.'

70 images are presented in 5 horizontal strips along a brick wall, echoing the structure upon which they are positioned.

They are essentially of one male image lasercopied with different captions and attention seeking headlines.

Each edition was presented to five ethnically diverse gay men to create their own sequence and configuration.

They are mini posters /adverts /personals that capitalize on media hype and society's want for sensationalism

"climate of fear", "Speak now", "wear your rubbers from uncle sam"

and "Precious and precarious building relationships." The use of text equally dominates the visual language in Harding"s work "'you could never make me love you more", "'just for the hell of it and just for the smell of it" and

"LKG4 GBM" looking for gay black male. The language reflects popular culture, personal advertisements, techno dance lyrics and coded messages familiar in gay politics and culture.

Harding's installations enhance and domesticate architectural space, he changes elements to challenge the viewer and to embrace them in his discourse.

SLIDES A B
Installation provides a multitude of experiences. To quote Terri Bird the "complex affiliations between installation art and the architecture and institutional spaces of exhibitions (are) due to a re evaluation of context."(5)

Some artspaces are purpose built but mainly they have had many previous lives. What was once a home, a place of worship, a factory or shop has been renovated, revamped and now houses artworks. Space even uninhabited is never empty. Loaded with meanings they are a psychological journey according to Gaston Bachelard,(6) who in his book The Poetics of Space describes through poetry a wonderful analysis of positive spaces. From the intimacy of the house we journey through childhood daydreams and memories, wardrobes and chests, from the attic to the cellar and examine the extension of the self in expansive spaces.

Domestic and intimate references are embodied in the print structures of Ruth Johnstone. Her earlier works reflected the landscape of Tower Hill and Warrnambool, large sweeping vistas of space. Punctuated within these spaces are cypress trees; symbols and metaphors for the self and body, they echo our tenuous relationship with nature. Earlier works referenced gardens an interest in the possibility of creating architectural spaces within the garden to quote Johnstone, "The cypress tree can be used as a hedge in a small(er) architectural space, or it can be used in a vast landscape."(7) Johnstone's recent works are sourced from site specific renaissance artworks in Italy and public collections of books and maps and residences in Ireland. A Room with a View, exhibited at Powell Street Gallery, in Melbourne in 1990, saw Johnstone shift and change her presentation from her early work (Cypress etchings and lithographs made during the 1980's) which she states, "was singular in its presentation. It relied on multiple readings of a single form."(8)

Large wall hangings made from paper were attached at the top of the wall near the ceiling and flowed to the floor. The orange woven element references barrier tape that is used around buildings, indicating to the public that renovation or reconstruction works are in progress. They intersect and slice the landscape, boldly indicating non permitted space, creating boundaries and demarking public and private space.

Johnstone's printed panels also act to demark space following existing architectural structures they hide and cover the white walls. However unlike their original function, placed in a new context they invite rather than distance. The rich colourful panels surrounds the viewer and leads them into an illusionary space, the references of the Italian landscape and trompe de l’oeil are self evident.

The history and environments of both Italy and Ireland are acknowledged in her artworks. To quote Johnstone, "Alot of Irish history has been destroyed,(and) so there's just fragments left."(9) Johnstone "is interested in what was left behind" (10), like an archeologist her works physically and conceptually reveal layers of information; signs and images are configured and re formulated challenging and redressing a linear history.

Johnstone says "The images lock in and out of each other so that there isn't a distinct chronology, even though they are physically laid on top of each other.

Each layer is taken into consideration, so that history can be reconstructed in a number of ways."(11)

Johnstone's interest in architecture and domesticity reverberates in her installations.

The viewer is forced to navigate through and around thin passages, corridors and rooms of paper walls. Reminiscent of wallpapers and tapestries, the highly ornamental panels have baroque qualities they redefine the feminine within the masculine architectural structure. Finely printed elements are thoughtfully revealed or obscured by selective lighting enabling Johnstone to have control over what the. viewer reads.

These works are highly sensitive to their architectural surroundings, many are site specific works. It is apt that these intimate sources are then incorporated and exhibited in public galleries; some were previously private residences and others purpose built for the display of art.

Johnstone is an avid collector; small pieces of larve and plaster with fragments of wallpaper are being saved, sorted and studied. Her constructions undergo a similiar process: their history and forms are reevaluated and considered-¬elements are added or obscured, by reprinting blocks several months or years later reflecting how we change and re-arrange our own environments and histories.

Johnstone's installations are finely crafted conceptually and physically. They are loaded with meanings and metaphors; seducing the viewer to meander through history and space.

Installation is a shift for the visual arts. To quote George Alexander, ' It also dismantles the tidy groups of spatial experiences we associate with museums [and galleries] those neat rows of eye level art by forcing us to enter other spaces and take in other information."(12)

Installation which involves printed elements creates a shift. It fundamentally utilizes the basic properties of printmaking and then links and underpins it to the foundations of concepts and ideas. It forms a solid footing upon which to build.

The use of the letters A B originated in part as a way for me to denote separation; the space between where I was and where I was from. This developed in my artwork as a way of indentification,

A was Perth and B was Melbourne. The work was a response to my shifting across Australia. The large horizontal line between the letters, the dash, was a metaphor for the Nullabor. Letters were sent backwards and forwards, and from my. move works were created primarily echoing these concerns; distance, communication, text, documenting of self and of home.

The home and activities that occured within the four walls became a focal point when I shifted to Deniliquin and Leeton in NSW.

This investigation involved researching how women spent their time, in the form of a survey and this and other works were exhibited in a vacant shop in Deniliquin at the end of 1992.

Repetitive activities and chores were documented and married to printmaking methods some labor intensive, others utilized the photocopier.

The works that followed in Melbourne were an investigation into relocation, place and space. Returning from the country to Melbourne was to be a cataylst for a new body of work. To identify place and oneself within space was of importance; to understand about place attachment was essential.

To quote Robert Riley,"Place attachment is not necessarily an attachment of a specific place and it can manifest as an attachment to ideas, people, psychological states, past experiences and culture. Attachment to the, landscape is not simple. It. is a complex set of threads woven through ones life. Childhood landscapes and later attachments to landscapes are not only sources of satisfaction in themselves but the stuff of an ever changing interior drama within the human psyche. Specific landscape imagery and landscape attachments are indices to the total of an individual's solitary and social experiences."(13)

The artwork Documented attempted to address this. The necessity for documentation and ordering creates a structure of logic and meaning. Focusing on the compartmentalisation of objects and documentation of artwork, pushes the artwork into the realm of becoming documentation.

Where the artwork begins and ends, and where the documentation commences, is ambiguous. This then creates a blurring between the two, relying on various codes in an attempt to decipher meaning. The need to record and collect according to Robert Nelson is a strong desire to "create incisive order from Exuberant chaos."(14)

To link and create meaning from collected material, as evidence of events, culminates in documenting our spatial relationship to time. How these items are the arranged and presented, infers other translations of meaning and context.

These works were exhibited at Temple Studio, in Melbourne in July 1996. Borrowed from the domestic, these structures conformed to measurements of my body, head, mantlepiece and furniture. The artworks are print informed but not necessarily print generated.

The shelf's function is to primarily support its contents; a mechanism for display, it presents and forms an underlying structure upon which to position objects. It established a solid platform /surface for the repositioning, adding and removing of objects, trinkets and items of intrinsic value. The position, placement and materiality of the shelf alludes to its function. A shelf seamlessly attached to the wall acts as a fold, integrating as one with the architecture. The coloured shelf 'refuses to act as a border between structure and ornamentation.

Like the shelf, the drawer also infers the domestic. The private drawer defines an intimate space. An internal space filled with memories, scents and histories. Boxes, chests with locks, wardrobes and drawers are metaphors containing our psychological secrets. Boxes are transitory vessels, able to be packed and unpacked; the contents creating either an internal order or exposing a void. Clasps, locks and handles assist in the reading of the box, indicating its duality between private and public, mobile and stationery.

Structural Conversations documents a journey. It has a decorative motif that can be interpreted as representing space,such as a corner of a room or a box. Stitched on bright coloured satin they allude to painting and sit on Judd-like sculptural shelves. Placed at my head height, they are movable like airline pillows they refer to my pillow talk, conversation between a structural engineer and an artist constructing three dimensional forms. The introduction of embroidery/ sewing into contemporary art practice elevates traditional womens activities to stand equally within the sphere of art. It becomes a dialetic tool conveying sematic forms.

The mantlepiece as a three dimensional form references the plinth, without incorporating its function of display. An ambiguity is created with the work oscillating between being disfunctional furniture and echoing minimalistic sculpture.

The screenprinted pile/stacks with the words, I wanted to tell you are documents and evidence of time past. They are moments unsaid; stacked and stored like folded linen in a cupboard within the self, they end up where all unspoken words go.

A B, A to B. The shift between these letters; the space in the middle is not the only element that links Harding, Johnstone and myself. We are all interested in space, architecture and printed elements. We are interested in conceptually based works, not heavily embedded in theory, but in works that challenge and stimulate. A visual dialogue needs to be more than just fancy technique and pretty pictures on the wall it needs to communicate on more than just one level.

To quote Helen Taylor from the catalogue Print as Object in 1985
'I have always considered that the medium should serve the idea, and use whatever print medium I believe to be the most appropriate to the ideas/concepts being considered."(15)

Between A and B is a space, a pause allowing artists a moment to consider their position and stance.

© Heather Hesterman, 1997.
Paper presented at The Third Australian Print Symposium, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1997.

Notes
1. George Alexander, Thrift Store Alchemy: Notes on Installation, Artonview, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Issue Number 7, Spring 1996, p.18.
2. Jane Reid and Kim Stevens, Review of Rehabbed, Imprint, Print Council of Australia, Melbourne, Vol. 32, Number 1, Autumn 1997, p.15.
3. Ibid. p.15.
4. Beatriz Colomina, The Split Wall: Domestic Voyeurism, Sexuality and Space, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 1992, p.86.
5. Terri Bird, Islands Contemporary Installation from Australia, Asia, Europe and America. Like Magazine, Published by the Faculty of Art, Design and Communication, March Vol.2.1997, p.47.
6. Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, Beacon Press, Boston, 1994. First published in 1958.
7. Gary Catalano, A Gap in the Records: An Interview with Ruth Johnstone, Imprint, Print Council of Australia, Melbourne, Vol.31, Number 1, Autumn 1996, p.2.
8. Ibid. p.4.
9. Ibid. p.3.
10. Ibid. p.3.
11. Ibid. p.4.
12. George Alexander, Thrift Store Alchemy: Notes on Installation, op cit. p.16 (the word gallery in italics is my addition).
13. Robert Riley, Attachemnts to the Ordinary Landspace, Place Attachment: Human Behaviour and the Environment, Vol.12, edited by Irwin Altman and Seth. M. Low, Plenum Press, New York, 1992. p.18.
14. Robert Nelson, The Art of Collecting, Agenda: Contemporary Art Magazine, Melbourne, Issue:32 July 1993.
15. quote from Helen Taylor from the catalogue Print As Object, Print Council of Australia, Melbourne, 1985, p.46.

Last Updated

02 Dec 2024