In his discussion of Stephen Vitiello’s Listening to Donald Judd in ‘Beyond the Soundscape, William Montgomery writes that,“Going further than Judd, [Vitiello] opens the gallery door on to the surrounding countryside.” This is perhaps to miss part of the crucial point of Judd’s work at his Chinati Foundation in Marfa.
Judd sought to create an environment where, “...art has to exist as an example of what the art and its context were meant to be.” This statement, in the first catalogue in 1987, states the clear intent of the Chinati Foundation to link art, nature, and architecture. The remote and austere setting of the desert and the former military fort that serves as a gallery space are not merely, “...a suitable architectural environment to house his work,” as Montgomery suggests. Judd chose Marfa not because of this architectural element, but because of the vastness of the greater context. One story goes that Judd had begun drawing circles on a map of the United States, trying to find the largest circle with the smallest amount of people; in the center of one, beside the Chinati Mountains, was Marfa. It is the remoteness of the locale, the vast and empty swathes of landscape that constitute the context, not solely the immediate setting of the buildings. These spaces, left as empty shells, have been converted to maximize a connection to the natural light and surrounding fields of grasses. The sculptures and renovations are inseparable from one another–each is conceived with the other in mind–but to focus on this connection is to ignore the critical regionalist intent of the Chinati Foundation.
Montgomery contends that, “Judd’s attention to obtrusively man-made objects is displaced by the natural sound that leaks in. Here Schafer’s conception of signal and noise is reversed, with natural noise productively contaminating the purity of the artwork.” Vitiello isn’t capturing the contamination of the art and architectural space; he is capturing the remarkable sensory integration of the diverse elements which constitute the essence of place. Judd’s work in Marfa is the recognition of what Mircea Eliade calls “sacred space,” a qualitative break in the formless, neutral expanse of space. This sacred space transcends that limitless space Karsten Harries describes as homogenous, objective space. Eliade’s nomenclature suggests a religious connotation, but what is being described can perhaps be more appropriately deemed ‘place,’ carrying with it a recognition of its inherent value and heterogeneity. This conception of place and space is central to the experience in Marfa, where the expanse of space is necessary in creating our experience of place.
Judd was obviously concerned with form and the object, but the impetus for his move to Marfa was to make work permanent, to have it, “...be placed and never moved again,” as he writes. Judd was unsatisfied with the dominance of the gallery and New York City in the art world, and the lack of permanence inherent in exhibitions. The critical response of the artist to place necessitated a permanence and preservation lacking elsewhere, and Marfa was an opportunity to do just that. Montgomery, to his credit, understands that, “Listening to Donald Judd depends absolutely on the interdependence of artwork and environment,” although he continues to say that, “By capturing the acoustic experience of Marfa, Vitiello offers us a single sensory aspect of Judd’s artworks and their surroundings, tipping the balance away from artwork and towards context.” This statement professes that the context and the artwork are separate, easily divisible elements, a remarkable trivialization that ignores what is perhaps the most beautiful and abstract work of art in Marfa; the place-making Judd has performed.
It is this very sense of place that Vitiello is responding to, crafting a sonic experience that translates the coherence of art, architecture and nature as a single rich experience of place. Listening to Donald Judd is listening to the interaction of the artwork and the environment, displaying a profound connection to the overarching atmosphere in acoustic rendering.
Eliade, Mircea. (1987) The Sacred and the Profane.
Harries, Karsten. (1997) The Ethical Function of Architecture.
Judd, Donald. (1987) Statement for the Chinati Foundation. http://www.chinati.org/visit/missionhistory.php Accessed March 3, 2014.
Montgomery, Will. (2009) Beyond the Soundscape: Art and Nature in Contemporary Phonography.
No comments:
Post a Comment