The Nasher Magazine Fall 2018 by Nasher Sculpture Center

THE NASHER FALL / 2018

In celebration of the 15th anniversary of the Nasher Sculpture Centerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s opening, The Nasher has unearthed some of the detailed notes that Patsy Nasher kept on the provenance of each of the sculptures that entered the Nasher collection. Here, her notes describe the very limited edition made of Gaston Lachaiseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Elevation.

The Nature of Arp marks another milestone: It will be the first show of the artist’s work in an American museum in nearly 30 years. Arp’s reputation as a founding member of the Dada movement, a leading Surrealist, and one of the key modern artists of the 20th century, is more than secure, but in recent decades, Arp’s work has received considerably less attention than that of his modernist peers. It’s worth asking why. Paradoxically, I think, part of the answer might lie in the very influence Arp’s sculpture has exerted. When, in the 1930s, Arp moved from making wood reliefs to realizing fully three-dimensional works in plaster, stone, Photo: Allison V. Smith

and bronze, he created a sculptural vocabulary of rounded, swelling biomorphic shapes and hollowed forms that has been imitated by professional sculptors and amateurs alike, to the point of ubiquity. Perhaps the pervasiveness

Just over 50 years ago, in celebration of Raymond Nasher’s

of that vocabulary, the extent to which it has been adopted

birthday, Patsy Nasher offered her husband a special gift:

by others, has diminished our ability to perceive just how

a sculpture by Jean (Hans) Arp titled Torso with Buds. That

inventive Arp’s accomplishment was.

present had a profound consequence: It inspired the Nashers to begin collecting modern and contemporary sculpture,

In looking at Arp afresh, The Nature of Arp reveals an artist

marking the origin of the Raymond and Patsy Nasher

whose work stands in important ways for modern sculpture

Collection and leading, eventually, to the creation of the

itself, but whose ethos and accomplishments make him an

Nasher Sculpture Center.

exemplary figure for our time, as well. Living through the two world wars, a period when nationalist division unleashed

Thirty-five years later—and 15 years ago this October—the

the most devastating carnage in human history, Arp rejected

Nasher Sculpture Center opened its doors to the public for

such division, embracing instead nature, beauty, and humor.

the first time. In the days since, visitors from across the

Collaboration was central to his practice, as he prized

region and around the world have participated in imaginative

working with other artists, even those whose practices and

and influential education programs. They’ve attended film

artistic allegiances might have seemed quite different—even

screenings and concerts, shopped at our award-winning

opposed—to his own. And Arp’s open, experimental approach

store, and eaten at our cafe. They’ve flocked to see exhibitions

allowed him to work with materials—textiles, in particular—

that have rewritten important parts of art history, introduced

that were not necessarily seen as the province of fine art and

new artists to the community and to the world, and provided

were pejoratively gendered as “women’s work,” rather than

insight into the work of the most celebrated modern and

the domain of serious artists. Among Arp’s collaborators was

contemporary sculptors. Above all, they’ve marveled at,

his wife, the prominent artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp, who herself

communed with, and meditated upon the astonishing

worked across several artistic disciplines.

assemblage of masterpieces that constitutes the Nasher Collection, a collection that not only provides essential

The opening of The Nature of Arp culminates years of

documentation of the history of modern and contemporary

research by our Curator, Catherine Craft, and the exhibition,

sculpture but has, in its depth, quality, and range, offered the

catalogue, and brochure offer numerous new scholarly

foundation for progressive reinterpretations of that history.

insights and revelations. Above all, the exhibition presents us the opportunity to see anew an artist whose work has been

As we celebrate the Nasher’s 15th anniversary this fall, we have

before our eyes for many decades, work that challenges

special reason to recall that foundational gift from Patsy to her

our understanding of modernism while providing important

husband, as we present one of the most important exhibitions

lessons for the present moment. I hope to see you here.

in our history, a show inspired by that very same sculpture. The Nature of Arp, a comprehensive retrospective of this essential modernist master, opens at the Nasher on September 15, an opening preceded by special events for our Members. The show marks something of a milestone for the Nasher: In April 2019 it travels on to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy—our first internationally traveling exhibition.

Jeremy Strick Director

Director’s Letter 1

FALL / 2018

THE NASHER A publication of the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, Texas.

EDITORIAL

Jeremy Strick Nasher Sculpture Center Director Leigh Arnold, Ph.D. Assistant Curator Catherine Craft, Ph.D. Curator Gail Host Marketing Manager Lucia Simek Manager of Communications and International Programs Jill Magnuson Director of External Affairs Jed Morse Chief Curator Christopher Mosley Manager of Digital Content DESIGN

Lindsey Croley Senior Graphic Designer WITH SUPPORT FROM

Jacques Haba Senior Manager of Emerging Technologies and Evaluation Lindsey James Manager of Strategic Events and Programming James Jillson Membership Manager Kirsten McIntosh External Affairs Coordinator Anna Smith Curator of Education Printed by Ussery Printing Company

Contributors 2

BRIONY FER Briony Fer is professor of art history at University College London. She has written extensively on diverse topics of 20th century and contemporary art, and on contemporary artists, such as Gabriel Orozco, Vija Celmins, Jean-Luc Moulène, Roni Horn, Ed Ruscha, and Rachel Whiteread. Her books include Gabriel Orozco: Thinking in Circles; Eva Hesse Studiowork; The Infinite Line: Re-making Art after Modernism; and On Abstract Art. MICHAEL A. MORRIS Michael A. Morris is an artist and educator based in Dallas, Texas. His work responds to the rapid changes in how moving images are created and experienced in the 21st century. He has performed and screened his films and videos at museums, galleries, microcinemas, and film festivals internationally. He teaches at several institutions throughout the Dallas/Fort Worth area and curates programs around the region regularly. WALBURGA KRUPP Walburga Krupp, former curator of the Stiftung Hans Arp und Sophie Taeuber-Arp e.V., Rolandswerth, is research assistant at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste and one of the editors of Sophie Taeuber-Arp’s correspondence. She is co-curator for the upcoming Sophie Taeuber-Arps exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Kunstmuseum Basel, and the Tate Modern, London, in 2020-2021.

CATHERINE WOMACK Catherine Womack is a Los Angeles-based arts and culture journalist. A regular contributor to the L.A. Times and Los Angeles Magazine, her work has appeared in the Journal of Alta California, Good, Opera News, L.A. Weekly, D Magazine, and the Dallas Observer. Catherine is also a classically trained pianist and holds a master’s degree in music from Southern Methodist University.

STEPHANIE MADEWELL Stephanie Madewell is an inveterate collector of pebbles, books, and postcards from museum gift shops, who sometimes writes and more often edits, most recently for Broccoli magazine. She lives in a small stone house in northeastern Ohio with her husband, a small son, and a large yellow dog, and has an occasionally updated blog called Even*Cleveland.

K. YOLAND Originating from London, K. Yoland is an artist examining the nature of identity, power, and borders in our society. Yoland makes multimedia live-performance, movingimage, photography, text, and installation works. Often working site-specifically, Yoland collaborates with diverse performers in far-reaching environments to question the hierarchy, control, and freedom of individuals and groups in contemporary and historical times. 3

FALL / 2018

THE NASHER 6 CATHERINE CRAFT THE NATURE OF ARP Curator Catherine Craft has made the first US exhibition of Jean (Hans) Arp’s work in more than 30 years. 14 BY AND ABOUT JEAN (HANS) ARP Read selections of Jean (Hans) Arp’s writings, as well as critical responses to his work from an array of fellow artists and poets. 6

16 WALBURGA KRUPP AN ARTISTIC PARTNERSHIP Art historian Walburga Krupp considers the artistic partnership between Jean (Hans) Arp and his wife, Sophie Taeuber-Arp. 20 CATHERINE CRAFT FOUNDATIONS: THE NATURE OF ARP A look at the permanent collection pieces that Curator Catherine Craft has selected for Foundations, in dialogue with The Nature of Arp. 22 K. YOLAND PROJECT TUMBLEWEED Artist K. Yoland shares part of a work in progress that relates to Arp’s concern with borders, nationalism, and identity. 30 SIGHTINGS: ANNE LE TROTER

The artist’s first US commission considers the ethics of eugenics in a linguistic score and site-specific installation. 32 HENRY MOORE THE LIFE AND WORK OF A GREAT SCULPTOR The Nasher takes a look at the 1966 biography of collection artist Henry Moore, written by poet and essayist Donald Hall, who recently died at the age of 89.

Contents 4

38 STEPHANIE MADEWELL PLACES FOR SCULPTURE: KETTLE’S YARD How the generous, domestic vision of two art-lovers has fostered community and focused-looking for more than 50 years in a house-turned-museum at the University of Cambridge. 46 NASHER PRIZE DIALOGUES: ARTISTS AND AUTHORSHIP An excerpt from the panel discussion presented in partnership with The Common Guild and Glasgow International 2018 on May 2, 2018 at the Trades Hall of Glasgow as part of the Nasher Prize Dialogues series. 54 NEW GEOGRAPHIES Nasher Chief Curator Jed Morse and 2019 Nasher Prize Juror Briony Fer in conversation considering the role of art history within the landscape of contemporary sculpture. 62 CATHERINE CRAFT OTTO FREUNDLICH’S ASCENSION 54

Currently on view on the Nasher’s Terrace, the monumental sculpture offers visitors a rare opportunity to see a landmark work by one of modernism’s pioneering figures. 64 MICHAEL MORRIS SUBCULTURAL INHERITANCE A previous Nasher Microgrant winner shares how the funding helped him make an award-winning film about a Dallas cult figure. 70 CATHERINE WOMACK SOUNDINGS: ORPHEUS UNSUNG This fall, composer Steve Mackey brings his eclectic guitar opera to the Nasher’s Soundings music series. 72 CATHERINE MACMAHON CREATES Curator of Education Anna Smith checks in with 2019 The Great Create co-chair, artist Catherine MacMahon.

62 5

Jean (Hans) Arp Torso with Buds, 1961 Bronze 74 x 12 5/8 x 11 7/8 in. (188 x 32 x 30.5 cm) Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas Â© 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn Photo: David Heald

CATHERINE CRAFT ON

The Nature of Arp i was born in nature. i was born in strasbourg. i was born in a cloud. i was born in a pump. i was born in a robe. i have four natures. i have two things. i have five senses, sense and non-sense. nature is senseless. make way for nature. nature is a white eagle. make dada-way for dada-nature. —Arp, “Strasbourg Configuration” 1

Catherine Craft, Ph.D., is a curator at the Nasher Sculpture Center and the curator of The Nature of Arp. The Nature of Arp is on view September 15, 2018 – January 6, 2019. Nasher Members’ Preview is September 14. Not a Nasher Member? Learn more at nashersculpturecenter.org/join. The Nature of Arp is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, and the Dallas Tourism Public Improvement District (DTPID). Additional support provided by Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger, Charlene and Tom Marsh, the Ruthie and Jay Pack Family Foundation, and Mitchell-Innes & Nash.

n his 1931 poem “Strasbourg Configuration” (see

“direct form of production” hinged on something other than

preceding page), Jean (Hans) Arp (1866-1966)

imitating nature’s appearance:

began with a seemingly simple declaration: “i was born in nature.” Five words establish an

For [Arp] it was no longer a question of improving

allegiance still regarded as fundamental to the

and specifying an aesthetic system and making

artist, who was responsible for an astonishingly

it more precise. He wanted a direct form of

inventive oeuvre typified by organic forms that moved

production, one that exactly conformed to the

fluidly between abstraction and representation. 2 Arp’s wide-

way a stone breaks off from a mountain, a flower

ranging work became a touchstone for several generations

blossoms, or an animal perpetuates itself. He

of artists, prompting Alfred H. Barr Jr., founding director of

wanted imaginative qualities that are not to be

New York’s Museum of Modern Art, to assert that “the Arp

found in any museum. A type of animal-like

‘shape,’ a soft, irregular, curving silhouette halfway between

formation with all its wild intensity and diversities.

a circle and the object represented, appears again and again

The creation of a new body outside of us that

in the work of [Joan] Miró, [Yves] Tanguy, [Alexander] Calder,

lives as we do, perches on the corners of tables,

[Henry] Moore, and many lesser men.” Barr’s masculine

resides in gardens, looks down from walls. He

bias aside, the inspiration that artists as varied as those he

wanted abstraction.5

listed—to which could be added Barbara Hepworth, Paule Vézelay, Robert Motherwell, Ellsworth Kelly, Lygia Clark, and

This rhapsodic evocation of a creaturely art with a life and will

Donald Judd—found in Arp’s drawings, collages, reliefs, and

of its own intimated a more disruptive relation between artist

sculptures suggests that his art’s appeal extended beyond a

and object than mere representation. Taking this passage

signature form to encompass the principles and processes

from “Dada Art” as a starting point, The Nature of Arp was

underpinning its creation. Arp was always adamant in

conceived to present Arp’s oeuvre through the examination

resisting an art based on nature’s appearance: “I love nature

of creative processes, developed over a six-decade career,

but not its substitutes. Illusionistic art is a substitute for

that paralleled not the appearance of nature but rather its

nature.”4 Around 1920, a text titled “Dada Art” by Alexander

workings—“the way a stone breaks off from a mountain, a

Partens (a pseudonym for Arp, Tristan Tzara, and Walter

flower blossoms, or an animal perpetuates itself.”

Serner) addressed Arp’s realization that his desire for a

Opposite: Jean (Hans) Arp Three Disagreeable Objects on a Face, 1930 Plaster Overall, 7 1/2 x 14 1/2 x 11 5/8 in. (19 x 37 x 29.5 cm) Museum Jorn, Silkeborg, Denmark © 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn Photo courtesy of Museum Jorn, Silkeborg Right: Portrait of Jean (Hans) Arp, ca. 1926. Photo courtesy Stiftung Arp e.V., Berlin/Rolandswerth Below: Jean (Hans) Arp Objects Arranged According to the Laws of Chance III, 1931 Oil on wood 10 1/8 in. x 11 3/8 in. x 2 3/8 in. (25.7 cm x 28.9 cm x 6 cm) San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Purchase © 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn Photo: Katherine Du Tiel/SFMOMA

Jean (Hans) Arp, Plant Hammer (Terrestrial Forms), 1916 Painted wood 24 1/2 x 19 1/2 x 3 1/8 in. (62 x 50 x 8 cm) Collection of the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag ÂŠ 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn Photo courtesy Gemeentemuseum Den Haag

Jean (Hans) Arp, Untitled (dessin déchiré), 1934 Collage with torn paper, ink, and pencil 9 5/8 x 8 11/16 in. (24.5 x 22 cm) Stiftung Arp e.V., Berlin/Rolandswerth © 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Photo: Wolfgang Morell/Stiftung Arp e.V., Berlin/Rolandswerth

Jean (Hans) Arp, Daphne, 1955. Bronze. 47 3/16 x 13 x 11 3/4 in. (119.8 x 33 x 30 cm). Stiftung Arp e.V., Berlin/Rolandswerth ÂŠ 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG. Photo: Wolfgang Morell/ Stiftung Arp e.V., Berlin/Rolandswerth

Jean (Hans) Arp, Human Concretion, 1934. Marble (carved before 1949). 13 1/4 x 16 x 15 1/2 in. (33.7 x 40.6 x 39.4 cm). Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia. Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 71.3208. © 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Photo: Ed Pollard/Chrysler Museum of Art

Yet just as “Strasbourg Configuration” pivots from Arp being

works earlier than they were likely made; presented artwork

born in nature to having a nature (or, rather, four of them),

he had probably made alone as the products of collaboration;

so, too, the relation of his art to nature cannot be assessed

continued, when he later quoted from “Dada Art,” to maintain

without first taking stock of Arp’s own nature. This proves an

the illusion of its author’s identity as “Alexander Partens”;

unexpectedly complex undertaking, for Arp seems to have

repaired, replicated, or destroyed artworks as he saw fit—

regarded identity to be as fluid and mutable as nature itself.

playing, in other words, with the humanly established limits

By some accounts, the consistency of Arp’s character was a

of knowledge and reason. All this he did with total conviction,

defining quality of his character, as the artist Michel Seuphor

much humor, and in the wholly sincere belief that humanity

reflected a few months before his friend’s death:

desperately needed an art aligned with nature to save itself from the destructive impulses and arrogant self-regard that

When I met Arp in 1926 to me he was the same

had led to two world wars. An examination of aspects of

as he is now. I can see no qualitative difference

Arp’s nature, in both senses of the word, reveals how the

between the thirty-nine-year-old man he was

subversive approach he took to the exigencies of daily

then and the lauded and fêted seventy-nine-year-

existence fed his art and how he devised creative processes

old artist he is now.… Arp knows nothing, but he

analogous to the workings of nature and inspired by the

guesses everything. He guesses that one should

materials of his art.

never run. He guesses that one should go forward prudently, allowing one thing to develop from another, like the succession of leaves on a tree. And what emerges each time is roughly the same.6 The qualities Seuphor described paradoxically encompass tendencies toward both consistency and flux, summoned by comparison with the growth of a tree. Nonetheless, within this impression of constancy, Arp treated the supposedly stable categories of knowledge by which we define ourselves and the world as contingent, to varying degrees, on his creative and personal needs. Remarkably, he regularly gave the year of his birth as 1887 instead of the correct date of 1886; referred to himself variously as Hans or Jean; dated

1 Arp, “Strasbourg Configuration” (1931), in Arp on Arp: Poems, Essays, Memories, ed. Marcel Jean, trans. Joachim Neugroschel (New York: Viking Press, 1972), 47; originally published in French as Jours effeuillés: Poèmes, essais, souvenirs, 1920–1965 (Paris: Gallimard, 1966).

Comparisons of Arp’s work to nature first became pronounced in the 1930s, in part through the context of Surrealism; see Jennifer Mundy, “Nature Made Strange,” in Surreal Things: Surrealism and Design, ed. Ghislaine Wood (London: V&A Publications, 2007), 59–79. Carola Giedion-Welcker’s writings on Arp also emphasized such parallels, particularly in Moderne Plastik, which juxtaposed images of his sculptures with photographs of rock formations and melting snow. Giedion-Welcker, Moderne Plastik: Elemente der Wirklichkeit; Masse und Auflockerung (Zurich: Girsberger, 1937; English ed., Modern Plastic Art: Elements of Reality; Volume and Disintegration, trans. P. Morton Shand [Zurich: Girsberger, 1937]), 88–91. 2

Alfred H. Barr Jr., Cubism and Abstract Art (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1936), 186.

“J’aime la nature, mais non ses succédanés. L’art illusionniste est un succédané de la nature.” Arp, “À propos d’art abstrait,” Cahiers d’art, nos. 7–8 (1931): 358. 4

Alexander Partens, “Dada Art,” trans. Malcolm Green, in The Dada Almanac, ed. Malcolm Green (London: Atlas, 1993), 93; first published as Alexander Partens, “Dada-Kunst,” in Dada Almanach, ed. Richard Huelsenbeck (Berlin: Erich Reiss Verlag, 1920), 84–90. According to Green, this essay was originally meant to be included in Huelsenbeck’s anthology Dadaco, abandoned in early 1920 for lack of funding, meaning that it was likely written in 1919 or even 1918; Green, Dada Almanac, 91. 5

Michel Seuphor, “Introduction,” in Bernd Rau, ed., Hans Arp: Die Reliefs, Œuvre-Katalog (Stuttgart: Hatje, 1981; English ed., Jean Arp: The Reliefs, Catalogue of Complete Works [New York: Rizzoli, 1981]), xxvii. 6

SELECTED BY CATHERINE CRAFT

By and about Jean (Hans) Arp Excerpts from his writings Remarks from fellow artists and poets

i was born in nature.

When I called for him again at lunchtime, the table was festooned with Arpian

vegetation. I did not understand how anyone could produce so much in such a

short time, without inhibition and without a qualm. “What can I do? It grows

out of me like my toenails. I have to cut it off and then it grows again.”

—Hans Richter

on the tables the seeds swell up and if you strike the plants their blossoms jump the lions succumb before their sentry boxes with watering cans full of diamonds in their claws

I see with ARP: vegetation from explosions, tumbling, proliferating asymmetry,

freed from any monastic rule, exploding asceticism, theory, tradition, the future.

—Tristan Tzara

it was man who replaced alarm clocks with earthquakes, showers of rice with downpours of hail. the shadow of man encountering the shadow of a fly causes a flood. and it was man who taught the horses to embrace like presidents. with his eleven and a half tails man counts ten and a half objects in the furnished room of the universe. . . .

I like Arp’s things very much. I feel that he is the only “pure”

artist since neo-plasticism. —Piet Mondrian

i awoke from a deep and dreamless sleep with disagreeable objects on my face sophie said they were a big fly a mustache and a little mandolin. i had no intention whatsoever of removing them quite the opposite i remained motionless so that they wouldn’t fall from my face

Arp is after all the most consistent poet of us all.

—Wassily Kandinsky

the stones are filled with bowels. bravo. bravo. the stones are filled with air. the stones are branches of waters. on the stone that replaces the mouth a leaf-fishbone grows. bravo. a voice of stone is having a tête-à-tête toe to toe with a gaze of stone.

All the sculptures [in Arp’s studio, 1933] appeared to be in plaster, dead

white….Plaster is a material which I have always particularly disliked

because of the absence of tactile pleasure and light-carrying particles—a dead

material excluding all the magical and sensuous qualities of the sculptural

idea. Therefore, my delight in the poetic idea of Arp’s sculptures, although

they lacked these special qualities of material which I cannot do without in

my work, came as a surprise to me….[Seeing] Jean Arp’s work for the first

time freed me of many inhibitions. … Perhaps in freeing himself from material

demands his idea transcended all possible limitations. I began to imagine the

earth rising and becoming human.

—Barbara Hepworth

Sculpture should walk on the tips of its toes, unostentatious, unpretentious, and light as the spoor of an animal in snow. Art should melt into and even merge with nature itself.

One of the interesting aspects of Arp’s sculptures, and a relevant one currently,

is that a good piece is a whole which has no parts. The protuberances can

never clearly be considered other, smaller units; even partially

disengaged sections are kept from being secondary units within or adding

up to a larger one. … The wholeness that most of the sculptures have comes

from the passionate sense of a body; the perception of its wholeness

dominates the impressions of its parts.

—Donald Judd

i draw things that recline, drift, rise, ripen, fall.

All citations from the work of Jean (Hans) Arp unless otherwise noted: Arp on Arp: Poems, Essays, Memories, ed. Marcel Jean, trans. Joachim Neugroschel (New York: Viking Press, 1972); originally published in French as Jours effeuillés: Poèmes, essais, souvenirs, 1920–1965 (Paris: Gallimard, 1966): “Strasbourg Configuration” (1931), 47; “From The Swallow’s Testicle” (1920), 6; “the medal rises…” (1925), 23; “The Big Mosquito the Mustache and the Little Mandolin” (ca. 1935), 187, translation slightly modified; “The Air is a Root” (1933), 71; “Signposts” (1955), 327; “The Inner Language” (1952), 292. Citations by other authors: Tristan Tzara, “Inzwischen-malerei,” Der Zeltweg (November 1919): n.p., available at http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/cdm/ref/collection/dada/id/31940 (accessed February 21, 2018). Translation by Catherine Craft. Hans Richter, Dada: Art and Anti-Art, trans. David Britt (London: Thames and Hudson, 1965), 44-45. Piet Mondrian, letter to A. Roth, November 10, 1931, in Mondrian: From Figuration to Abstraction (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1987), 219. Wassily Kandinsky, letter to Anni Albers, undated (late 1938 or early 1939), in Nicholas Fox Weber and Jessica Boissel, eds., Josef Albers and Wassily Kandinsky: Friends in Exile (Manchester and New York: Hudson Hills in association with the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, 2010), 137. Barbara Hepworth, in Barbara Hepworth: Carvings and Drawings (London: Lund, Humphries, 1952), text facing plate 16. Donald Judd, “In the Galleries: Jean Arp,” Arts (September 1963), reprinted in Donald Judd, Complete Writings, 1959–1975 (New York: New York University Press, 1975), 92.

WALBURGA KRUPP ON

An Artistic Partnership The sudden death in 1943 of Arp’s wife, the artist Sophie

the commemorative book for Sophie is finished. I could say

Taeuber-Arp, shattered a relationship that began with their

perfected, for it has become a beautiful and valuable work

first acquaintance in Zurich in 1915 and had developed in

…emotionally I’m feeling much better, however less well

multiple ways during the French years (1926-1942), when it

physically.”3

had become even closer and stronger, both artistically and personally. Arp’s lament in a letter to Taeuber-Arp’s sister—

Just as collaboration in Arp’s work had previously been an

“Art doubtless bound us together, but it also robbed us of

everyday reality for Taeuber-Arp, after her death, he was

a great deal” —makes art the core of their partnership. In

determined to “carry on” with her work. He did so not by

that he stylized it as a higher power, he was able to think

developing new strategies, but rather by working in the

of Taeuber-Arp and himself as its acolytes, who willingly

same manner he did in his own art. The déchirés, along

followed its dictates. For him, after her death, it was an

with poems and small prose pieces, were a special way Arp

elementary strategy for coming to terms with his loss. Art

dealt with people important to him. The negative aspect of

continued to be the defining constant of his life, and Taeuber-

shredding is minimized, giving way to the recomposition of

Arp would always remain present in his work. 2

the individual fragments. In the 1950s he created a series of

photographies déchirés for which he tore up portrait photos In 1946 Arp illustrated Le Siège de l’air (The seat of air),

and/or photographs of artworks and rearranged the separate

his first French-language poetry collection after Taeuber-

pieces. A déchiré of a photograph of Taeuber-Arp’s 1928

Arp’s death, with a few of the Duo-Drawings they made

embroidery composition Aubette, for example, dates from

together in 1939 (see opposite). Then in 1947 he created

1950 to 1953. In it, the ragged white edges of the torn photo

three papiers déchirés (torn-paper collages) out of torn prints

paper are clearly visible. Arp employed the same method in

of these illustrations, which can be read as signs of a new

the collage for the cover of the catalogue of his exhibition at

beginning (see next page). Though the genre of the déchiré

the Galerie Berggruen, Paris, in 1955.4 He tore up portrait

by definition involves the destructive act of tearing, Arp here

photos and photos of artworks and rearranged them so that

heightened the destruction further by shredding joint works

the déchiré becomes an actual self-portrait of the artist.

as an indication of the dramatic ending of their relationship. In his recomposition of the separate pieces, however, one

A group of collages, some of which have only a single torn

sees the constructive power of art, capable of creating the

element, represent a special hybrid form. One is The Little Prince

positive out of the negative. The completion of Taeuber-Arp’s

(1963; at left); it belongs to a group of dolls, called Poupées—

catalogue raisonné at this time was a relief for Arp: “Finally

decoupages whose wavy outlines describe the human body.

Excerpted from her essay on Jean (Hans) Arp and Sophie Taeuber-Arp in the exhibition catalogue The Nature of Arp. The entire catalogue is available for sale in the Nasher Store and online at store.nashersculpturecenter.org. Jean (Hans) Arp and Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Duo-Drawing, 1939. Ink on paper, 10 11/16 x 8 3/16 in. (27.2 x 20.9 cm). Stiftung Arp e.V., Berlin/Rolandswerth. © 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Photo: André van Linn, courtesy Stiftung Arp e.V., Berlin/Rolandswerth

Jean (Hans) Arp, Untitled, 1947. Collage with print of a torn 1939 Duo-Drawing by Arp and Taeuber-Arp from Arp’s Le Siège de l’air (The seat of air), 11 13/16 x 9 5/16 in. (30 x 23.7 cm). Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck, Remagen. © 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Photo: Mick Vincenz/Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck, Remagen

Arp began making them in the early 1950s, and it has been suggested that they were inspired by a Taeuber-Arp tapestry in Arp’s collection from 1924.5 The figure of The Little Prince has a slight swelling in the middle of the body, which is often associated with fertility—or here, perhaps, with creative union, for to the upper part of the collage Arp pasted a fragment of a watercolor with a vertical-horizontal composition by TaeuberArp. Geometric and organic abstraction, their respective artistic positions, thus appear to be combined. In the broadest sense, one could say that this poupée symbolizes the Arp who has “internalized” Taeuber-Arp. The fragment of her work in The Little Prince is like an emblem of the relationship and the title an expression of Arp’s loss: Just as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s literary figure yearns at the end of his journey for the rose of his home planet, Arp longs for his flower Sophie.6

“[W]ohl hat uns die kunst verbunden aber sie hat uns auch viel geraubt.” Letter from Arp to Erika Schlegel (Taeuber-Arp’s older sister), December 6, 1943, Stiftung Arp e.V. archive, Berlin/Rolandswerth. 1

An outward sign of Taeuber-Arp’s “presence” was the transformation of her atelier in Meudon into an exhibition space; Arp wrote of it: “Sophie’s atelier has been carefully painted. I am delighted to be able to organize in this space exclusively small exhibitions of her beautiful pictures.” (“sophies atelier ist sorgfältig gemalt worden. ich freue mich in diesem raum ausschliesslich kleine ausstellungen ihrer schönen bilder zu veranstalten.”) Letter from Arp to Erika Schlegel, April 26, 1946, Stiftung Arp. Arp even preserved her clothes, as Richard Huelsenbeck reports in Mit Witz, Licht und Grütze: Auf den Spuren des Dadaismus (Hamburg: Nautilus, 1991), 67. In the new house in Locarno that Arp moved into in 1959 with his second wife, Marguerite Arp-Hagenbach, Taeuber-Arp’s works were also always on display. 2

“[E]ndlich ist das gedenkbuch für sophie vollendet. ich darf schon vollendet sagen da es ein schönes und wertvolled [sic] werk geworden ist […] seelisch geht es mir viel besser dagegen weniger gut körperlich.” Letter from Arp to Erika Schlegel, October 25, 1947, Stiftung Arp. 3

Arp (Paris: Galerie Berggruen, 1955).

Rainer Hüben, “Von ‘Puppen’ und anderen Decoupagen,” in Hans Arp: Poupées (Appenzell: Kunsthalle Ziegelhütte, 2007), 11–24. 5

For Arp’s description of Taeuber-Arp as a flower, see Frey, “Sophie ist ein Himmel, Sophie ist ein Stern, Sophie ist eine Blume,” (“Sophie is a sky, Sophie is a star, Sophie is a flower”), in Arp, 1886–1966, ed. Jane Hancock and Stefanie Poley (Ostfildern: Gerd Hatje, 1986; English ed., Minneapolis: Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1987). 6

Jean (Hans) Arp The Little Prince, 1963. Collage on painted cardboard with a fragment of a watercolor drawing by Sophie Taeuber-Arp, 27 x 9 1/8 in. (68.5 x 23 cm). Fondazione Marguerite Arp, Locarno. © 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Photo: Courtesy Fondazione Marguerite Arp, Locarno

CATHERINE CRAFT ON

Foundations The Nature of Arp

Almost alone among artists of his generation, Arp worked at

that—although based on the features of his mistress, Marie-

the forefront of abstraction as well as Dada and Surrealism,

Thérèse Walter—elaborated the swelling, bulbous forms

and his friendships and participation in collective projects and

he had been developing since the late 1920s in drawings,

movements evince a firm belief in international cooperation.

paintings, and small sculptures that were important

Resisting the sectarian currents that fed two world wars, Arp

precedents for Arp. In England, Barbara Hepworth, who was

collaborated with a staggering array of artists and writers

deeply moved by a visit to Arp’s studio in 1933, and Henry

of widely varying nationalities, and his congeniality and

Moore also developed styles that a contemporary British

enthusiasm for modern art made him a conduit for its leading

critic christened “biomorphic,” a term since applied routinely

concepts and a frequent point of reference for many of his

to the fluid ovals and amoeboid forms pioneered by Arp.

contemporaries. Arp’s impact on his fellow artists surpassed influences The Nasher Sculpture Center’s exhibition series Foundations

based on the use of a shared visual language to encompass

presents a selection of works from the permanent collection,

concepts that radically redefined the practice of sculpture.

specially chosen to complement a concurrent special

His experiments with chance, for example, had a profound

exhibition. Foundations: The Nature of Arp places a group

effect on the young Ellsworth Kelly, who found in them a

of Arp’s sculptures in conversation with works from the

way to incorporate nature into his work without relying on

Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection. Arp’s embrace of

straightforward resemblance. Likewise, Arp’s introduction of

plaster as a sculptural medium received inspiration from

absurdity and humor into the realm of ambitious works of art

the innovations of Auguste Rodin, whose studio Arp visited

reverberates in Claes Oldenburg’s transformations of such

around 1911. Rodin’s studio held multiple casts of his works,

everyday objects as clothespins. Along with, but separately

which he often split apart and recombined—a practice Arp

from, Alberto Giacometti, Arp explored the possibility of a

was to adopt. As a young artist, Arp was also taken with

horizontal mode of sculpture, freed from the pedestal and

Aristide Maillol’s quiet, grounded classicism, the sinuous

countering the grandeur of the monument with a model at

curves of Henri Matisse’s nudes, and Constantin Brancusi’s

once more modest and more subversive than the tradition

focus on the concentrated essence of forms.

of the soaring monolith—a concept also developed in the landscapes of Dorothy Dehner. Arp’s fascination with

Arp had been making painted wood reliefs for more than 15

processes of growth and nature’s animate, effortless unity

years when he took up sculpture in the round around 1930.

despite its ceaseless variety led him to pioneer works that

While this new direction emerged from his own concerns,

challenged conventional concepts of composition and finish;

it also coincided with a broader renewal of engagement

these prompted Donald Judd to praise such works as the

with sculpture, especially among the Surrealists. Arp’s

Nasher’s Torso with Buds as possessing “the passionate

friends Alexander Calder, Max Ernst, and Joan Miró made

sense of a body” and, unexpectedly, to suggest parallels

sculptures that shared strong affinities with Arp’s vocabulary

between Arp’s work and his own artistic goals.

of curving, organic shapes. In 1930 Pablo Picasso established a sculpture studio at Boisgeloup, where he created plasters

Catherine Craft, Ph.D., is a curator at the Nasher Sculpture Center and the curator of The Nature of Arp. Foundations: The Nature of Arp is on view at the Nasher Sculpture Center from September 15–January 6, 2019. Claes Oldenburg, American, born Sweden, 1929. Clothespin, 1974. Bronze, 47 3/4 x 16 1/4 x 7 in (121.3 x 41.3 x 17.8 cm). Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection © Claes Oldenburg & Coosje van Bruggen. Photo: Tom Jenkins

Notions of national borders and citizenship are major themes within the exhibition The Nature of Arp. Born in Alsace-Lorraine, an area ceded by France to Germany after the Franco-Prussian War and later returned to France after World War I, Arp would be concerned about militant nationalism throughout his career, working to break down the barriers meant to divide people so brutally during the 20th century. His dedication to the absurd and uncanny was one way of challenging the strident norms of the era, as was his eagerness to collaborate with imaginative people from many places and of all walks of life. Nearly two decades into the 21st century, the subjects of borders and national identity continue to create tensions globally, including here in the United States, prompting many artists to make work in the tradition of Arp and his peers. To that end, The Nasher asked K. Yoland—an artist whose work centers on themes of otherness, dislocation, and the enforcement of physical and mental boundaries—to offer

a creative response to these subjects within Arp’s work. Yoland has generously offered a portion of a current work in progress called Operation Tumbleweed, commissioned by the Pensacola Museum and slated for exhibition at that museum this September in a show called Stone’s Throw: On Borders, Boundaries, and The Beyond. Operation Tumbleweed consists of fictional letters, documents, video, photography, and a performance without an audience— as Yoland notes: “I’m canoeing down the Rio Grande, so maybe a few cows and the border patrol will see it.” The letters, published here, are between Yoland (partly in character) and a tumbleweed—that scraggly, skeleton of a plant so often associated with the vast untamed parts of America—and the images were dispatched from the Rio Grande while the artist made the way along the US/Mexican border, enacting a complicated effort with misguided, though well-meaning, salvific purpose.

BY K. YOLAND

Where does one begin? Things have gone wrong. I shouldn’t even be writing this down. In a time with so much surveillance, the last thing I need is a paper trail.

The sun beats down and can kill you out here. I’ve heard of people tying cardboard to their bare feet when they had to continue walking.

Let’s just say it started well. It was a good proposition, a solid plan, and it was made in good faith. How can that be doubted? Anyone who knows me would say I have a strong moral compass. For example, there was the time I jumped into a fight against six men in Morocco. A boy was being beaten on the floor and I saw it from the roof of a hotel. I was 18 and didn’t question myself as I hurtled down the stairs three-ata-time. I wished to protect. His problem was my problem. It was our problem. But this time, I’m not sure why it’s not working. I’m accused of kidnapping. This was not the plan. I refuse it to be true. But one thing is true: Things have gone south.

All of this is someone’s territory. “You can shoot a man for trespassing” was a warning given to me several times. “You don’t need a reason other than that?” I once asked and then gave up. Fear of the other. Enough said. The threat was sufficient. Out here it is presumed that you wouldn’t trespass unless you meant harm. There can be no other reason. There is no right to ramble, territory is territory, and you shouldn’t cross the line even if your life depends on it. Go on, I dare you to cross it. Everyone expects you to take a gun to your head and take your own life rather than cross into their private patch. For your problems are your problems and not mine: “Your bad luck is your bad luck. If someone murders your son that’s not my problem. I’m sorry for you, yes, but what do you expect me to do? It’s not actually my problem.”

I first saw them in 2012 from a truck window. Waiting for my soul to join me from a 23-hour transatlantic journey, I was taking notes about scorpions and spiders in the passenger seat of a vehicle, which offered refuge as well as a view of an alien land. The terrain was empty and yet occupied. Deserted and yet private, for as far as my eyes could see. It was here that the idea of possession really grasped me. But was it tangible or completely abstract?

My problems started early this year when I felt the urge to warn a Tumbleweed of the imminent storms ahead. I’d heard word from the frontline that national and international powers were manifesting a unique breed of tornadoes and some of us would get flattened. Their ingredients were simple: Light on Tolerance, Empathy, and Collaboration and heavy on Nationalism. Mixed vigorously, the product would spin Isolationism, Violence, and Militarization. 23

March 13, 2018

Dear Tumbleweed, I wish to protect you from what you are to others and what they might be to you. You may believe you’re indigenous, but you’re not in their eyes. You are part of the invasion of the other. This has been a long time coming and your secret is no longer safe. The tides are changing and tensions are on the rise. I doubt your safety is assured for much longer. For this reason I will put you in a box. For your protection. It is possible, in the long term, I might also be able to take you to a place of safety. A venerable institution is currently considering accommodating your presence, depending on your dimensions. It will be no ordinary box. First, I will make it transparent so that you are not in the dark. No one wants a coffin. I have always found the idea of being trapped in a coffin while alive absolutely horrifying. I would not wish that on any friend and nor upon you, who might be a friend. However, transparent materials tend to be fragile. Glass and acrylic don’t offer much protection from ambush and attack. Furthermore, if you sit in a transparent box you will be able to look out, but you will also be visible to those I wish to protect you from. You may reply that one-way transparency is a solution, but that will only make people suspicious. Therefore, with the already confirmed funds of the institution, I am making your transparent box bulletproof. I should really say “bullet resistant”. The man at the fourth company I phoned said, “Nothing is bulletproof, it can only resist for a limited amount of time. Nothing is more than temporarily resistant to rage, and then it collapses.” So, you will be in a bullet “resistant” box. It is the best that I can purchase. I have spoken to a young man at a fifth company, near San Antonio, and we have figured it out. I hope he is of legal age to advise me. It crossed my mind that he may still be at high school and this is just a spring job, or an internship, but he was so polite, informative, and calm that I feel assured he is the right person for the job. We are in safe hands - you more so than me, as I won’t be behind bullet-resistant polycarbonate. You might ask about my credentials for undertaking such a “protection” task. And you would be right to do so. I do not have much experience, but what I lack in training I make up for with an abundance of energy, dedication, and perseverance. I will succeed. This is a promise. There is no time to waste and so I will mail this immediately to West Texas by first-class mail. I anticipate your reply with great excitement and I have included stamps for your convenience. Your faithful friend, K. Yoland

Maybe you agree with me, maybe you don’t, maybe you’re on the fence. Maybe this is not my fight, maybe this is not the solution, maybe helping one is not enough? Maybe I’m about to do more damage? Well, that letter was written months ago and things have moved on. You’re too late to give me your opinion. I made my move and now the Tumbleweed and I are lying in the hole I dug beside the Rio Grande. Countless times, dragging out the old typewriter, sitting down at my desk, I wrote the Tumbleweed. I explained the danger it was in—physically and symbolically—and in turn the inevitable human retribution it might suffer. You see, Tumbleweeds are simply not indigenous. They are not American. They are not North American. They are Russian. Yes, Tumbleweeds were originally called Russian Thistle. They may be iconic of the Wild West, but they are illegal immigrants, 24

hidden away as seeds in cargo boxes from a bygone era. Of course, you can say all of the existing Tumbleweeds have been born on US soil, but does that make them true citizens? Their parents were not citizens. The tornado will sing in high frequency: “Their ancestors committed a crime. There is no visa or legal document allowing them refuge here. They had no connections when they first arrived in these boxes. They were not invited. They have not been immunized..…” Their invasion will be perceived as covert and the war will be retroactive.

March 15, 2018

Dear K. Yoland, I respectfully decline your offer to protect me from what I am to others and what they are to me. Undoubtedly you will wish to know my reasons for declining your time, goodwill gesture, and the institution’s funds. I therefore ask you to give some thought to the following questions. Who needs protection? What is effective protection? I find many contradictory aspects within law and justice. Acts of protection often lead to restraints, which impede and obstruct the freedom or rights of those the rules claim to protect. In respect to Your existing Your existing Your existing Your existing Your existing

these people, that you say see me as the other, I say this: community is split community feels threatened by the migration of others community were once migrants themselves community were not the first community here community invaded

What is your imagined conflict? What is my conflict? What makes your heart beat like a war drum ready for battle? What makes you ready to spill the blood of your family and neighbors in order to spill mine? Who are the invaders and who are the invaded? Who are at risk and who are not? Whose history are you reading? Where were the original lines in the sand? Pull back further and I ask you whose planet is this anyway? Surely not mine or yours. Only a fool would really believe in property and territory as an a priori truth. They are merely concepts constructed to protect old European settlers and the others who have joined this bandwagon throughout time. There are many people waiting to get on top if they fall. Which they will. No one leads forever. One day it may even be a weed like myself who chooses. Sincerely, Tumbleweed

I didn’t expect this as the first response. Granted it arrived quickly and was well written but why the antagonism? Why dig yourself into the desert sand for principles? Is it worth going down in the fight for that? Years ago I was told of a friend’s unexpected visitor in the middle of the night. In the desert, far from roads or towns, there was a knock on the door. The traveller could not speak from lack of water. He had been beaten severely and had no idea where he was. Initially, I sat paralyzed by the first correspondence. My street-salvaged desk had a big hole in it. Literally. It looked like it had been ravaged by a wild dog. But now it just made me think of the Tumbleweed. The outline of the hole. I sat staring at it. Why were the Tumbleweeds here in the first place? Were they being persecuted in Russia? Were they sent to Siberia? Were they a religious minority? Were they brought here against their will? Were they sleeper cells? Were they politically extreme? Were they trained in military combat? Did they need our help? Did they have a right to help? Should they be locked up and sent back? Since Tumbleweed’s first reply there have been many more letters. I have always tried to reply with decorum and constantly converse with ballistic experts, attempting to increase the protection I can offer this one Tumbleweed. Sending TW its own polycarbonate samples, maps, and newspaper clippings, documenting the growing tension, I hoped I could convince TW of my commitment and the urgency of this mission. I even sent a radio so it could listen to the news. But the response is always disappointing. It seems TW wants others to change. Standing at the water’s edge, I wonder if I might drown myself in my hypocrisy or whether the metaphorical kingdom of light has a place for even me. Have I placed my hat on so firmly that I do not realize it’s on backwards? I hesitate at the figurative border of nations and ideologies. To cross or not to cross? You cross and you’ve committed a crime. You don’t cross and you strengthen the system. And there lies the precipice. TW says I am keeping it against its will. That it is hostage to my perception of ethics. TW says that it has its own young Tumbleweeds on the land where we met. TW says that it may be impossible to find them again. When I hear a cry in the night I know there are others suffering, whom I cannot hear. Once, in France, six years after Morocco, a woman was being attacked in the alley next to my apartment. Waiting for the police to arrive, I ceaselessly shouted at the man to stop. But it became too late. The police took too long, I waited at the window too long, and she could not run. This letter is being sent from a canoe on the Rio Grande. I’m told this will be typed up before you read it. We don’t have electricity, but we do have homing pigeons. When my father was a child, his family moved towns and his pigeons could no longer find their way back to him. I don’t like that story. I hope we will find our way back. Operation Tumbleweed was commissioned by the Pensacola Museum of Art. Photography: K. Yoland

SIGHTINGS:

ANNE LE TROTER Born in Saint-Étienne, France in 1985, Anne Le Troter lives and

the role of opinion pollsters, Le Troter’s sound installation

works in Paris. Her body of work explores the rhythms and

took a familiar form—the political survey—and distorted

physicality of language through sound: “I arrange ‘language

the structure of questions through editing and montage.

blocks’ one after the other, reworking them, using the

Situating the installation in the art center’s former theater,

constraints of each phrase: duration, tone, and breathing.”

Le Troter transformed the space into a call center, using blue

Le Troter’s process begins with spoken language: She

carpet reminiscent of architectural blueprints, with white

collects found recordings—a telemarketer’s script or medical

outlines on the floor denoting the profiles of the different

dictation, for example—that she then edits and reconstructs

telemarketers whose voices filled the space.

in a linguistic montage, often combining a multitude of voices speaking in conversation, in unison, or discord, with results

For the Nasher commission, Le Troter is developing a

that are hypnotic, and at times illogical bordering on the absurd.

sound piece that comprises hundreds of audio samples she

The artist then builds installations for her audio pieces that

collected from a US-based cryobank, a facility or enterprise

function as spaces to listen. These installations often include

that collects and stores human sperm from sperm donors

banal furniture evocative of transitional places—waiting rooms

for use by women who need donor-provided sperm to

or office cubicles—and fall somewhere between décor and

achieve pregnancy. In the recordings, donors respond to

set design: “I am trying to set up environments that are as

questions on family, life, and their vision for the future, while

stable as possible, to let the words develop. I’m also trying to

employees provide their impressions of donors’ genetic

make a place for the spectator.”

qualities, hobbies, values, and physical traits. Altogether, the samples form portraits of prospective donors, which

Le Troter’s interest in the materiality of language developed

Le Troter distorts through the repetition of certain phrases,

when she was studying sculpture at the School of Art and

utterances, and pauses. Inspired by such science fiction

Design in Saint Étienne (ESAD). When the school acquired a

novels as H.G. Wells’s The Island of Doctor Moreau (1832)

set of audio recorders, the artist used them to record herself

and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932), Le Troter’s

describing out loud the actions she was carrying out, as

sound installation will consider the ethics of eugenics and

well as thoughts that arose in the process. Slowly, words—

the role of language in the endless search for an ideal.

writing, speaking—began to take precedence over objects, and eventually became Le Troter’s primary medium, as she

Sightings: Anne Le Troter is the artist’s first US commission

says, “By using that tool, I became aware of editing, which

and will be Le Troter’s first work in the English language.

in turn enabled me to produce a form of acoustic sculpture based on my own voice.”

This project is supported by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States.

It was only after losing her voice that Le Troter turned to found language and recording the voices of others. Starting in 2015, she began a series of sound sculptures and installations around the standardized language of telemarketers, which culminated in her piece for the Palais de Tokyo in 2017, titled Liste à puces (Bulleted List). Echoing the political events of the time and 30

Exhibition view: Anne Le Troter, Liste à puces (Bulleted List) sound installation, 15 minutes, blue felt carpet, two office chairs. Palais de Tokyo, Paris, February 3 – May 8, 2017. Photo: Aurélien Mole.

n the mid-1960s, when he was offered a staff

of an artist at the height of his career, when the demands of the

writer position at The New Yorker, the poet Donald

market and media, fans and art historians, shaped his day just

Hall declined, not wanting to make the move to

as much as the carving of stone did. Moore’s daily life, in turn,

Manhattan from New England with his small family.

helped shaped Hall’s, who would later write a book called Life

Instead, feeling he needed to offer something by

Work (1993), wherein his own everyday rituals and patterns

way of a literary gesture, Hall asked if the magazine wanted

of poetry writing and work, correspondence, and chores were

a story on the preeminent sculptor Henry Moore. The editor

modeled after the ones he’d seen of Moore decades before.

accepted, and so Hall began a close, yearlong observation of Moore—of his personal life and his studio practice—that

Published here are images from The Life and Work of a Great

would yield the piece “The Experience of Form,” published

Sculptor: Henry Moore in honor of an artist who is a pillar of the

in the magazine in December 1965. The article would later

Nasher Collection, but also in honor of his poetic chronicler and

be expanded into a book, Moore’s first full biography: The

quotidian disciple, Donald Hall, who died on June 23, 2018 at

Life and Work of a Great Sculptor: Henry Moore.

the age of 89.

Hall’s biography of Moore is an intimate account of the habits

Images reproduced with permission from The Henry Moore Foundation

of one of the 20th century’s most important minds—a portrait

and The Donald A. Hall, Jr. Revocable Trust.

Places for Sculpture

Kettleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Yard BY STEPHANIE MADEWELL 38

Left: Three modern Aborigine flints, a crystal candlestick, and a glimpse of David Jones’s watercolor, Flora in Calix-Light (1950). Right: The bell pull at Kettle’s Yard.

Left: Two shells rest on a cake plate pedestal on a sideboard in the lower-level addition. Above a corner of Christopher Wood’s painting, Building the Boat, Tréboul (1930), is visible. Right: Elizabeth Vellacott’s Portrait of Gwen Raverat (1954) hangs below John Blackburn’s Lead relief (c. 1963) and Michael Pine’s Construction (1955). A round stone peeks from the corner.

he bell pull at Kettle’s Yard is the first

They renovated and began installing Jim Ede’s collection —

clue to the place: a hefty rope with a

as he described it, “stray objects, stones, glass, pictures,

thick knot at the end that suspends a

sculpture.” As Assistant Keeper at the National Gallery of

weathered wooden disc, like a giant

British Art (later The Tate), Ede befriended many artists,

bead on a string. It’s unclear if the

including Ben and Winifred Nicholson, Christopher Wood,

wooden object was made or found, but

and David Jones. The house is full of their paintings and many

it is clear it was chosen. The tour guide

others, including an extraordinary assortment of pieces by the

will ask someone to volunteer to ring the bell. Pulling it, a

self-taught artist Alfred Wallis, and the sculpture collection

melodious gong sounds, and then there’s the tap-tap of quick

includes pieces by Henry Moore, Constantin Brancusi, Barbara

footsteps as someone comes to open the door. You step up

Hepworth, George Kennethson, and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska.

into a quiet room: whitewashed and well-lit, a tall and narrow brick fireplace at the center. To the right, a long wooden table

But the magic of Kettle’s Yard doesn’t come from the names on

is tucked into an alcove. To the left, a pair of chairs rest in the

the art; it comes from the way they are arranged in the home

angles of a bay window. And everywhere your eyes go, there

as a whole. Nothing is labeled, so as you wander through the

is the spirit of the bell pull: considered objects that radiate

house, spiraling from small cottage rooms into progressively

intention. Cockle shells are lined up like small sculptures on a

airier spaces, ending in the 1970 addition designed by Leslie

window ledge. Paintings of flowers and ships are hung at knee

Martin and David Owers, the experience is about what

height, the better to be seen as you rest in an armchair with a

catches your eye. Small brass and jade circles resting on top

curious basket-like back. Cut-glass decanters perch on a plinth-

of a bookcase that look like fittings for some sort of wonderful

like cider press screw, with a small, deep-blue painting by Joan

telescope were made by Richard Pousette-Dart. A large,

Miró hanging just above; a lemon resting on a pewter platter

rough-hewn angel resting under the stairs turns out to be a

echoes the small dab of yellow in the painting. Everything here

found piece of burned willow. Collections of pebbles (Jim Ede:

is meant to be noticed, to be thought about, to be enjoyed.

“pebbles are as important as anything else”) are presented with drama and humor: spiraled on a tabletop or piled into a

Kettle’s Yard was the home of Jim and Helen Ede, who gave

bowl by Zoë Ellison, resting in quiet beauty beside, of all things,

the property and everything in it to the University of Cambridge,

a toilet, while seashells are gathered like pearlescent treasures

England, in 1966. In the mid-1950s, the Edes had returned to

on lustrous glass cake plates. A charming painting behind the

England after 20 years abroad in Morocco and France, and Jim

bathroom door turns out to be by the Edes’s granddaughter

Ede wanted to find a “stately home” near a university, where

Jane, while a glass-fronted cabinet holds an insect-patterned

they could live and share their personal art collection with

plate and a squat serpentine duck by Gaudier-Brzeska. A

students and the community through casual afternoon open

mesmerizing convex disc of plexiglass by Gregorio Vardanega

houses and chamber music concerts. As he described it, it

hangs in front of a lush collection of houseplants, catching light

was not to be a museum or a gallery, but a place “of lived-in

and greenness, while rows of blue-and-white china platters

beauty, each room an atmosphere of quiet and simple charm.”

primly march along shelves overhead. The small collections

Great houses were scarce, but the Edes did find a cluster of

of china throughout are unexpectedly delightful, softening the

four derelict cottages in Cambridge; this became Kettle’s Yard.

austerity that can chill an art-filled room.

Left, top: In the sitting room, a silver pitcher, three shells, and a round stone perch on the mantel in front of Ship in Harbour (1928), a small work by Christopher Wood. Left, bottom: Small groupings of pebbles and rocks can be found throughout the house. Here, a hag stone has pride of place. (In folk and fairy tales, looking through one can reveal hidden worlds.) Right: Gregorio Vardanega’s plexiglass Disc (1960) is perfectly positioned to catch the plant-filtered light in the small pass-through conservatory. A cheery row of blue china platters are arrayed over the doorway, drawing the eye to Ben Nicholson’s small painting 1944 (mugs) and William Staite Murray’s large and elegant Jar (The Heron), which is half-hidden by plants.

This sense of thoughtful democracy—of accessibility, of open

continues a music program started by Jim Ede—a concert

mingling—guides every aspect of Kettle’s Yard, not only the

series that features both new music and chamber music and

collection. Jim Ede felt strongly that visitors were just as

taking advantage of the home’s two pianos.

important as the collection—that their experiences with the objects created new meanings and insights and enhanced the

It’s wonderful to imagine the party that opened the 1970

value to all—and he and Helen worked to make Kettle’s Yard

Martin-Owers addition: friends and guests and artists sitting

welcoming, keeping weekday afternoon open houses where

around the Steinway piano in a light-filled space, listening as

people were free to stop by, and by holding small concerts

music by Jacqueline du Pré and Daniel Barenboim filled the air,

around the home’s pianos. In a note to a student in 1964, Jim

while the Edes held friendly court. The Edes would not have

Ede said, “Do come in as often as you like—the place is only

many more years in the house; by then, both were in their 70s,

alive when used.”

and Helen’s health was presenting increasing challenges. They left Kettle’s Yard in 1973, but they realized their goal: More

That generosity animated the Edes’s time at Kettle’s Yard and

than 40 years on, their home remains open and welcome, a

continues today: Admission is free, though tours of the house

free but rich lesson in the possibilities of seeing and living, of

require timed tickets. And in February 2018, a new gallery

the ways we can choose to shape the spaces around us with

space designed by Jaime Forbert opened. Discreetly tucked

works of art, loved things, beautiful music, and the odd handful

alongside the house, it gives Kettle’s Yard a venue for temporary

of pebbles.

installations that complement the collection, including a recent show by Antony Gormley that featured long, narrow steel strips suspended across the entire gallery space, creating the illusion of solid planes; a box of light mimicking infinity; and a human form made of pixelated metal pieces, apparently lost in lonely thought. The new annex also provides more space for community programming, including many events and workshops for local families and children. And Kettle’s Yard 44

Photography by Stephanie Madewell Left: The Dancer Room takes its name from the Henri Gaudier-Brzeska piece on the table. It’s a posthumous 1967 cast of a 1913 work by the artist. Right: A collection of ordinary plates form an orderly line above two collages by Italo Valenti (Nr. 287; Giardino a mezzogiorno; Jardin a midi, 1964, and Nr. 286, Pietra, Pierre, 1964). Lucy Rie’s stoneware Conical Bowl (1971) rests on the table alongside glass fishing floats. (No provenance given in the guidebook for the striking jug in the corner; one can only wonder where the Edes picked it up.)

Nasher Prize Dialogues Artists and Authorship: Reference, Relationships and Appropriation in Contemporary Sculptural Practice The following excerpt is from a panel discussion presented in partnership with The Common Guild and Glasgow International 2018 on May 2, 2018 at the Trades Hall of Glasgow as part of the Nasher Prize Dialogues series. Speakers included artists Christine Borland, Sam Durant, Mark Leckey, and Director of The Common Guild, Katrina Brown.

KATRINA BROWN INTRODUCTION Well, We’re going to be talking this evening about the material of contemporary sculptural practice, through the prism and perspective of Sam, Christine, and Mark’s experiences as artists, and the use of material that may be the fruits of someone else’s labor, the use of things that may be owned by someone else—touching on issues of ownership, perhaps also ethics, maybe legality, but hopefully not the intricacies of copyright law (I don’t imagine that would be a route we would want to go down!). It’s not just about physical material, it’s also about ideas and histories. Mark said this fantastic thing that’s been ringing in my head while I’ve been thinking about this: That there’s wood, there’s clay, and there’s Samsung. It really stuck with me as a sort of echo of the extent to which not just brand names have become part of our common language and common parlance, but also that technology has become such a massive material to work with for sculptors and artists working with three dimensions. There’s a near infinite range of things. There’s an idea about free rein: Do artists today have free rein to work with everything and anything that they want? “Artistic license” is a phrase that’s been used in the past. The other art form reference, I suppose, is sampling. In music there’s a lot of reference to the idea of sampling and writing about art. But also, how does existent material come to be in an artwork? How does it get there in the first place? And what is fair game? Is everything fair game? Or is anything fair game?

technology,

and

specifically

the

internet,

has

undoubtedly opened up entire worlds of reference we may never have had access to before. Maybe societal change has simultaneously closed down opportunities for things to be cited in artworks. Does that curtail the scope of possibilities? Is that a risk—that we all end up clicking through the same chain of references in Wikipedia to find the same results? And what’s appropriate? “Appropriate” takes us to “appropriation,” and that word is of course bound to pop up, but not in the sense of “Appropriation Art” of the 1980s, but that might be a useful reference or a backdrop to think about what we want to talk about today. I’m never one for reading out definitions in situations like this, but I’m just about to do it anyway, and in the handy Frieze A-Z of Contemporary Art, published a couple of years ago, there’s a mildly tongue-in-cheek section under “J” called “jargon,” and it’s an attempt to update Raymond Williams’s keywords. The definition in there of appropriation is: “Very common, often used as a euphemism for theft/immunity from the copyright laws that the rest of us have to follow.” I thought that was quite useful. Interestingly, on the following page it goes on to define a panel discussion as “Interesting subjects turned into interminably long-winded conversations commonly found in museums, biennials, and art fairs. Statements by audience members disguised as questions are optional.” So, there’s a lot to get through, and it might be good to get going.

Christine Borland, Positive Pattern, Detail, 2016. Materials; CNC Milling Foam, MDF, Perspex. Pittenweem Arts Festival, Scotland. Photo: Tom Nolan

MARK LECKEY ON NOBODADDY AT TRAMWAY, PART OF GLASGOW INTERNATIONAL 2018

to be quite raw. I think I kind of bottled it. I wrote a lot of lyrics, and in the end didn’t use any of them. But, anyway, the idea was I wanted it to be medieval, to have this kind of medieval language, and I wanted all of the limbs to speak while the head remained kind of dumb.

KB: Mark currently has an exhibition at Tramway, which has only

KB: And what size was the original figure?

been open for two weeks [as part of Glasgow International], so I know it’s fresh and raw, but I thought it would be really useful

ML: He’s about that big [here ML gestures a foot-and-a-half

just to hear a little bit about how that piece came into being—

with his hands]. And then it got scaled up by people here [in

how Nobodaddy came about. How did you find him?

Glasgow], and painted by this scene painter, Belinda Gilbert Scott. Then there’s a video. So he’s looking at a screen, he’s

Mark Leckey: Online I came across an image in the Welcome

looking at a mirror, which reflects the Tramway, but it kind of

Collection in London. It’s a statue of Job from the Bible, and I

jumps. He’s meant to be in some kind of VR space and he’s

just liked it. I had an image before of a man in a polka dot dress

turning things on with his bowel movement. I was looking for

that I was quite taken with, and I wanted something with holes

some figure that I could use as a puppet, essentially.

in it; I wanted an image of a man with holes. Like a permeable figure, a little figure—lots of holes in it—and Job. Basically, I

KB: And the title is such a fantastic phrase! And that’s from a

spent all the time trying to push him away from Job; I didn’t

William Blake poem?

want “Jobness.” I didn’t want him to be wounded either, but I don’t know if I succeeded in either of those things. Like I

ML: It’s a William Blake poem. Well, it is a reference he makes

say, I just wanted him to be full of holes. Basically, I wanted

to Nobodaddy. It’s a kind of pun on God the Father of All: It’s

to write a song. The thing I had in my head mostly was like …

“nobody’s daddy,” but also “no body.” It’s a daddy with no

Now it’s not so good to mention Kanye, but at the end of “Run

body. It’s just got a nice ring to it. I was trying to get away from

Away,” with the vocoder. It’s like this mechanical anguish. I

Job and the Bible and then I crashed into that. I didn’t do very

kind of wanted to do that. That’s what I was after. I wanted it

well there! I can’t help evoke or invoke Blake.

CHRISTINE BORLAND ON HER SERIES OF SCULPTURES SCANNED FROM BARBARA HEPWORTH WORKS

a transplant. So they wanted something in that space to mark the donors, because the donors were scattered all over Scotland and the north of England. So it was a challenge. I spent maybe a year or so talking to families, observing what was going on there, and I began to think that there was a way to bring the two [projects: Orkney and Institute

KB: Christine, the images that are cropping up across Mark’s

for Human Transplantation] together. Very simply, what

shoulder of the white sculptures you made in 2016, called

we’ve got in these [Hepworth 3D scanned] works are the

Positive Pattern, would you be able to say a little bit about

interior structures that can’t exist without the outside—but

those and what those stand for?

the outside isn’t there. You’ve got something that survives independently of another form. Also, talking to the parents

Christine Borland: Yes, like a lot of my works, that really took

and the relatives, whose stories really struck me, about

many years to sort of come into being from the initial idea.

things that were very physical. For example, meeting

That’s something that is quite important. But this is really an

the person who had their son’s heart beating inside their

incredibly long time. The first piece of work in the series was

body. They were really evocative, and included a lot of very

made in 2011 at the Pier Arts Centre in Orkney as part of a

physical descriptions that I wasn’t necessarily expecting. I

show that I was doing there. They have a permanent collection,

also spoke with young medics who were all about the future

as well, which includes a really beautiful Barbara Hepworth

of transplantation (new materials and new methods). They

piece called Oval, a very modest but incredibly complex carved

described this as a moment in time where we’re doing our

wooden piece from the 1940s. So it was a very simple kind

best with what we’ve got, but this will be looked back on as

of fan-girl need to engage with that piece, and a wanting to

medieval surgery. They were talking about 3D printing and

get hands-on with it and get to know it better. But of course

matching, and growing organs and new technologies that

there are limits with a priceless piece like that! But also, in the

made me feel [the use of the Hepworth scanned works] was

context of the rest of the exhibition, and with Orkney itself (lots

appropriate.

and lots of archaeology going on there). KB: So that was the moment that you got access to the Something I was really interested in was experimental

sculptures. Were there multiple negotiations with all the

archaeology, where the remaking of finds is sort of a really

different owners?

important part of the field now, where local potters are working with shards and patterns and trying through actual making,

CB: Yes, there were. And with the Hepworth Foundation. But,

using the raw clay of Orkney (and Neolithic findings). Some

as a technology, [3D scanning is] becoming sort of known

methods are trying to engage and find out more about what

and museums now and in heritage in general—you know 3D

had been, up to quite recently, quite an academic discipline.

scanning of heritage sites. So it wasn’t actually that difficult

So that kind of remaking was very much in my mind. I worked

to get these permissions. Of course there was the ethical

with a company to laser-scan the Hepworth and to attempt to

question of what Barbara would say. So I had to deal with that,

visualize the interior of it—so to make what was negative with

to think it through, and to talk to them about it.

that (what was a hole) into something positive. It was incredible. As soon as I saw the 3D model, it was a phenomenal shape that you just couldn’t imagine coming out from any other shape in any other way. So how to replicate it is a matter of course, as well as many other things. The actual material itself is really

SAM DURANT ON HIS CONTENTIOUS WORK SCAFFOLD

the cheapest material that you can use for making prototypes through CNC milling. You have a block of this kind of creamy white CNC. Then it’s carved in a really hands-off way, but of course there is a degree of pinning it together and stuff. So that

KB: I’ve got this brilliant list of things that you’ve used before,

was 2011. Then I thought, well, I want to do more. There’s a

Sam. Your work has been sampled from rock-and-roll history,

series of half a dozen of these Hepworth sculptures that were

Minimalist and Post-Minimalist art, 1960s social activism,

made around that time. They all had these kinds of carved,

modern dance, Japanese garden design, mid-century modern

complex interior shapes.

design, and self-help literature. That list was written a couple years ago, so there’s probably been more added to the mix

KB: But they’re not all in the collection of the Pier Arts Centre—

since then… Some scaffolds just appeared on the screen beside us, and it might be the moment to talk about that. It

CB: There are several in the U.K., but also one in the

was made originally for dOCUMENTA (13) in 2012 and then it

Smithsonian, one in Wales, and carved pieces all around the

has subsequently been shown in numerous places, including

world. Simultaneously, I was asked to do a commission for

in Scotland, at Jupiter Artland in 2013. It’s a structure based on

an Institute for Human Transplantation in Newcastle, and that

seven—well, I should let you say what it is—but I thought it

was quite a tough gig because it was a new institute that is

may be useful just to talk, first of all, about what the intention

where people who need an organ replaced will come and get

was when you made the piece and how it functioned in its 49

initial iterations, and then of course in terms of what happens

me about what this thing meant for them, how they felt about

to something in the real world, and how responses to it can

it. And they were very powerful stories, and I believe those

change depending on time and place. It may be useful just to

stories. I don’t want my work to traumatize, especially that

refresh people’s memories about what happened to it last year.

group of people, so I agreed to take it down. I think it was going to come down whether I agreed to it or not. That’s a

Sam Durant: Yeah, I imagine some people saw it at Jupiter

sort of overview of what happened, and there’s been a lot of

[Artland] when it was there. I mean it was a fateful situation

discussion about who’s to blame for this. We always want to

that happened with the work, one that probably many people

find out whose fault it is. How do we fix this and make it all go

have heard about. Originally, it was a project that I started

away and make it all better? One of the things that’s interesting

researching in 2008. It was this idea of looking at the history

about the process for me is that this issue is never going to go

of capital punishment in the United States and the relationship

away, because now the Walker owns a work of art that they

of the state to violence, and even to reach into the idea of US

can’t reinstall without the permission of the Dakotas and my

imperialism, and to connect it a little bit to mass incarceration,

permission. So, now, there’s a kind of three-part ownership of

which is something probably many people have heard is a huge

that work in a way, that’s very interesting.

issue in the United States. So, I selected seven noteworthy gallows—let’s say gallows of historical significance throughout

KB: So, materially, it still exists, but it’s not assembled. There

US history—and put them together into one somewhat

was talk at one point about it being burned, but that didn’t

recognizable (but also, I hope, kind of abstracted) construction.

happen. So it still exists.

It was meant to be used as a kind of platform for people to congregate on to find out what it is, have discussions, think

SD: It doesn’t exist materially. I mean this is an interesting

about it, etc. When it was in The Hague, I was able to program

thing because it also touches on the issue of ownership we

it and work for the Amnesty International and a number of other

were talking about. The whole idea of appropriation is based

organizations—people involved with the International Criminal

on the idea that somebody owns whatever it is: a thing, an

Court there—to do a series of programs, using it as a kind of

idea, knowledge, or whatever. So the Walker still owns this

literal platform and stage. Then it came down from The Hague

idea, basically; but the Dakota owned the ability to reproduce

and the Walker Art Center was interested in acquiring it for their

it. And, as the artist, according to US law, when you create

sculpture garden, which is in this very visible place in central

something, you have a kind of “creator’s right,” which in US

Minneapolis, and eventually they did do that. In the three or

law is an inalienable right.

four years between when it was in The Hague and when it was finally constructed, which would have been around this time

KB: But that’s not the same as copyright? Or is it?

last May in Minneapolis, I was doing all these other projects and it was sort of off my radar. Then this structure went up in

SD: No, it’s not the same. So it’s an interesting kind of legal or

the middle of the city. And the gallows that sort of forms the

ethical situation. We have to keep all these slightly contradictory

perimeter of it is called the Mankato gallows, where the largest

things in mind, and to me that’s really interesting. It’s not black

mass execution in US history took place on that structure.

and white. It’s not easy to sort right from wrong, because there

Thirty-eight Dakota Indians were hanged in a simultaneous,

are all these contradictions that you have to keep in mind. As

unbelievable act of brutality. Descendants of those people

difficult as that is, I think it’s an interesting thing.

hanged on that platform still live in Minneapolis. They were driving by on their way to the supermarket, or taking their kids

KB: You beautifully described this moment when the piece

to school, or whatever, recognized the structure and were

was up, and people were driving past it without knowing what

completely traumatized by it. They didn’t know what it was or

it was—but they were able to recognize it, which is kind of

what it was doing there. There was absolutely no outreach to

incredible. It still had this visual familiarity to people. Of course,

that community done by the museum. So, all of a sudden this

in a managed space it would seem that the way in which it

structure appears in the middle of the city, and they recognized

would communicate would relate to the previous discussion

it, and were just horrified. They couldn’t understand this thing;

regarding the familiarity and recognizability of objects, and how

this sort of monument to our genocide is basically what it was

they have meaning. Of course, in that situation, its ability to

for them. And so they connected with the activist community

speak as its original thing was its downfall, because it spoke

there and they started protesting it very quickly. I became

too quickly. It was out there before there was an opportunity

aware of it a week before this sculpture garden was going

taken for discussion. Do you feel that there could or should

to reopen with all these new artworks, and they proposed a

have been more? Because it’s an issue of proximity, isn’t it? It’s

mediation to talk with the community of Dakota elders, the

about it hadn’t been in other places that were in proximity with

people at the Walker Art Center, and me. And we did that. It

the places that were referenced, until it was put in a place that

was a very complicated, difficult, but also kind of fascinating

was directly connected.

process. In the end, I made the decision to have it taken down, because I felt like I was on their side and the last thing I want

SD: Yeah, it was an issue of a time and a place, for sure. But,

to do is have my work traumatize a community of people that

in particular, a time. Because that community had been doing

are completely victimized by all these years of US history that

a lot of education around the history of the massacre and the

continue today. There are a lot of stories that they were telling

history of what happened to the Dakota people in Minnesota.

View of Spoonbridge and Cherry by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, 1985-1988 and Sam Durant, Scaffold, 2012-2017. Collection Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Purchased with funds provided by the Frederick R. Weisman Collection of Art, 2014. Photo © Dakota Oyate

I did a residency at the Walker 10 years before that. At that

that are personal, but also have resonance for other people.

time there was very little knowledge of that history amongst

I don’t know how anyone could ever anticipate the extent

the indigenous population there, so if the piece had gone up

to which those things that are in your repertoire would

10 years earlier probably many Dakota people wouldn’t have

have the same response. I know with Dream English Kids

recognized it. So it’s a very interesting confluence of a lot of

there’s some archival footage in it, but there are also some

different things. But yeah, I learned a very painful, difficult

fabricated things, right?

lesson about symbols. Previously, I thought if you’re not depicting or representing suffering people or suffering bodies,

ML: The idea was to try and build or assemble something

then the danger of retraumatization isn’t there. So I learned that

that was like an autobiographical thing. Years ago—I think

basically anything can trigger that.

it might have been dumb now—but I had an idea when I was younger to write my autobiography using other people’s autobiographies. I thought I could piece together my autobiography (or memories, anyway). But the reason

MARK LECKEY ON OWNERSHIP

why I ended up making that is because when I went to art school a long time ago, I left art school very confused about art. I felt a kind of inability within myself to understand things. Everything seemed beyond my reach intellectually. The theory at that time was to be impenetrable and it just

KB: I guess that’s what we’re really talking about. These

seemed beyond me. So I didn’t make work for a long time,

objects or materials can function as symbols, as something

and the only reason I came back to making art is that I

that has meaning. Of course, things that are from your own

realized that I could make work about things that were within

personal repertoire are relevant. I’m thinking, Mark, about

myself, that were my own experience. They were local to me

your piece last year, Dream English Kids, which is quite an

and I understood them implicitly. So that’s where I ended up

autobiographical piece, it’s fair to say. There are lots of things

with Dream English Kids. There’s a kind of ownership there. 51

I felt like I could own things. But now I feel conflicted about

ON HOW CONTEXT CHANGES A WORK OF ART + COPYING THE COPY

KB: Picking up on what [Mark] said about past work, you said you would think twice about showing it today. I want to move and I’ve got two more questions to ask, both of which may be super quick. Sam had that extreme experience with the scaffold last year being a piece to bring in a complex ownership situation. Whether it will be shown again is always going to be a complicated conversation. But are there other works from the past that you doubt you can show again? Something about the context, the proximity, the time, and the attitudes have changed, and that would make it very difficult to show now. You don’t need to say what piece it would be, but it would just be interesting to see if you would hold back on something. ML: I feel kind of like everything has changed [all laugh]. I remember a moment in New York at the Picabia show. I just felt like I was inculcated with Picabia. It’s like there was a progression for me from Picabia to Mike Kelley to Cady Noland. And I walked around this Picabia show and I just thought, “This no longer resonates. This belongs to another time.” It belongs to another history and it’s not contemporary. It has very little relevance, if any. It’s to do with sovereignty. It’s to do with the idea of a sovereign artist, or a sense of autonomy. Up till that point I was following this desire to be free. KB: And have free rein over what you use. Nobodaddy by Mark Leckey at Tramway, Glasgow as part of Glasgow International 2018

ML: Yeah. And I don’t feel that anymore. KB: Is that age and experience perhaps?

these things in terms of my ownership with them. Things like these sound systems I made. They came out of my own

ML: I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s age and it’s also just the

history, my own experience of being involved in rave culture.

art world in itself. It just feels like a narrowing. I’m always

But now I wouldn’t show them because it seems they don’t

conflicted. I’m profoundly uncomfortable in it. And it’s just

belong to me in that way.

sort of reached the point where I think I’m too uncomfortable.

KB: In what respect? Do you think you belong to a different time?

KB: Okay. And Christine?

ML: I think the problem is the more visible I make them, the

CB: In the early 1990s I was interested in forensic

more they become about me, and the more of a claim I make

methodologies, and that took me toward people who

on them…

were ballistics experts. I started using shooting as part of the process of making work, which was very exciting and

KB: Yeah, they look more like a Mark Leckey than a random

interesting for lots of reasons. One of them being turning up

sound system.

at the army and saying, “I’d like to use shooting as a process to make a piece of work.” It was that kind of entering these

ML: Yeah, they were never mine in the first place. I just wanted

bastions and trying to sort of engage a seemingly impossible

to point to them, I guess. I just wanted to say that these things

situation, but I actually kind of make it happen. There was a

were dynamic sculptures in themselves, that they were

whole series of works that came out of that period of time.

powerful. I mean, a lot of stuff I made was about proving that

But when the Dunblane Massacre happened in Scotland (a

the things I grew up with were as intelligent and as charged

shooter went into a school, which was a situation that hadn’t

and as beautiful and as powerful as anything within the art

happened here before, and killed a lot of primary school

world. I kind of had a chip on my shoulder.

children), then it seemed like the real world had entered in.

So, I moved away from that. Recently, I’ve been doing a lot

because maybe in trying to find something related, you can

of work looking at the anniversary of World War I, and that’s

talk to each other. There’s a community. I grew up in a culture

taken me to controlled explosions—so there’s maybe our

very much about that, amongst artists working together, or

way back into that territory, but it’s a different perspective.

across each other, or collaborating. Yeah, it’s healthy.

I also wanted to comment after Sam’s description of what happened there. You know, thinking about works that go

KB: Sam, anything to add on that note? Seen any rip-off Sam

out into the world, as they inevitably must and should. But

Durants out in the world?

the initial context of making them stray far away from what you first anticipated. I was thinking of a piece of mine that’s

SD: Remarkably, I’m not very aware of much that’s going

depicted there. It’s clay portrait busts they asked sculptors

on. So, there might be. I wanted just to mention something

to make from black-and-white grainy photocopies of images

that Christine said which was about the early work [she] did

of Josef Mengele. It was made for a specific location in this

with ballistics. You came back in a way; now you’re working

country, but ended up in a collection in Switzerland, but then

with a similar kind of thing, but in a different way. And I think

got borrowed for a group exhibition in the Jewish Museum in

that’s really interesting. The thing to me is that the theory of

New York. That was an incredible sort of confrontation. Not

freedom of expression or freedom of speech is that anyone

a particularly good show, and I couldn’t veto the borrowing

can say anything about anything, and the question is then,

of it. I actually decided to go over and be part of the panel

how you do it? And also there are certain things that maybe

of discussion and engage in a way that I was obliged to. But

you don’t have to say something about. It doesn’t mean you

that that kind of anxiety, you know, had me thinking about

should do it. But I really like that… I thought about that with

where that piece belongs. You may not think about it at first,

Scaffold. I decided that the piece should be taken down and

but you know the structures and the institutions and the

given to the Dakota because I realized, “Wow, if I had just

market and all the rest of it can take it somewhere that you

talked to them in the beginning I never would have made the

never anticipate. So I don’t know how you can be aware, but

work like this.” So, I could make a work about this issue, but

it is something that I do think about.

I would just do it differently.

KB: So, last question from me: Have you ever come across

JPMorgan & Chase Co. is the Presenting Sponsor of Nasher Prize.

anyone else using your work? ML: I put my videos up on YouTube in the hope that people will rip them, you know, do something! It’s the idea of it circulating. Going back in! Because, I took it out. I’d love that idea. All my stuff’s kind of digital anyway, so it just seems absurd to concern myself with copying. Although, I do get the huff when I see someone doing a bit of green screen or something. KB: There must be a moment you all have when you see something and think that’s a bit like something I’ve done. ML: Yeah, you have to let that go. KB: Do you? SD: As long as they did it better than you would have… ML: [laughing] Yeah, that’s the problem! SD: No, that’s fine! Then you don’t have to do it. Or do it anymore. KB: Christine? CB: Yeah, I suppose thinking about that Barbara Hepworth work: Would I mind if there were an equivalent thing? If someone did that to my piece of work? And the answer would be, I wouldn’t mind. I suppose when you’re working in universities as well, you’re always thinking about context for other people doing similar things. That’s a good thing 53

NEW GEOGRAPHIES NASHER PRIZE JUROR BRIONY FER CONSIDERS THE ROLE OF ART HISTORY WITHIN THE LANDSCAPE OF CONTEMPORARY SCULPTURE

Each summer since the inception of the Nasher Prize in 2015, a select group of noted curators, artists, and scholars convenes in London to debate at length the merits of potential honorees. The jury is subject to change from year to year, and the 2019 Nasher Prize Jury includes the debut of a new juror, Dr. Briony Fer. The writer, critic, and curator is Professor of Art History at University College London and is the author of two acclaimed books, On Abstract Art and The Infinite Line: Re-making Art After Modernism. Her expansive range of subjects includes ruminations on repetition, minimalist seriality, feminism, and abstraction. Fer has written widely on a number of artists, including Vija Celmins, Louise Bourgeois, and Agnes Martin. She also has curated exhibitions featuring artists as diverse as Gabriel Orozco, Eva Hesse, and Anni Albers. Fer’s retrospective of Bauhaus pioneer Albers premiered at the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen K20 last summer and will open at Tate Modern on October 11. In June, Nasher Chief Curator Jed Morse sat down for a conversation with Briony Fer in her University College London office.

Landshoff, Herman (1905-1986) © Copyright bpk. The artist Eva Hesse with her sculpture Untitled or Not Yet in her studio in the Bowery, 1969. New York City. Inv FM-2012/200.3254. Sammlung Fotografie / Archiv Landshoff. Muenchner Stadtmuseum.

Jed Morse:

the importance of that. I’ve been lucky enough to teach. I’ve

Briony, thank you so much for taking some time to talk

been lucky enough to teach Brazilian and other students from

with me today. I wanted to talk a bit about your work

all over the world and really gained from their insights as they’re

and what you’ve been doing. One of the things I’m

studying here in London. I owe them a lot, but it is obviously

interested in, of course, is that you wrote a dissertation

a matter of great importance to expand the geography of

on the Russian and French avant-gardes. You started

art history. As contemporary art has become increasingly

off in Modernism, but your career has expanded quite

prominent, I have had more opportunities to work more closely

a bit. You’ve done a lot of work on contemporary art,

with artists and even create exhibitions with them. That’s really

and I’m curious what was the path that led you from

been a wonderful development for me.

the Russian and French avant-gardes to the art of today. JM: I wonder—how has that interaction with Briony Fer: Well, it’s lovely to talk to you, Jed. It’s been many

contemporary artists affected how you work on more

years, but I did start off writing on Russian Constructivism.

historical subjects?

I was really involved in Russian art at that time. It seemed to have an urgency in the late ‘70s, early ‘80s. I learned

BF: Certainly for me, the particular artists who I’ve worked

Russian at school. Some people thought it was going to be

with—for example, Gabriel Orozco, Roni Horn, many

the language of the future, actually, at that time. Hopefully

others—and the conversations that I’ve had with them have

not again!

really helped me think again about lots of received ideas or so-called conventional wisdom. Watching how artists work.

I had certain tools that I could bring to it and I was really interested

Thinking about how artists work. What it is to make stuff.

in the networking of avant-gardes. So that’s something that

How hard it is, often. How exacting it is as a discipline. It’s

people have worked on subsequently. I was very interested

helped me understand a great deal about process. A great

in those critical debates about the function of art and what art

deal about the shortcomings of some assumptions that art

could do; how art related to society; how the great Russian

historians often have about how things get made. In my

Formalist critics understood how art works. I came very much

writing I have tried to express how open things might be,

from that set of interests, but I think even when I was young,

rather than predictive or predictable.

even when I started off, I always had this feeling, certainty, that you couldn’t be an art historian, a decent art historian, without

But I’d even go further and say that in my experience,

being engaged in some way with contemporary art. And that

contemporary art, when it counts, makes you see history

contemporary art had to inform your art history in some way.

differently. It reveals different histories. It makes one imagine

So that’s always been there.

other perhaps neglected histories. Different conjunctions appear that could never have been available to think before.

I went on to work at The Open University at a moment that

Take those old narratives of stylistic developments [that]

was incredibly lucky for me, with a range of really cutting-edge

place the clean-cut precision of geometric abstraction over

art historians and thinkers, including Charles Harrison, who

here, and interests in the body or corporeality over here.

was part of [the conceptual artists’ group] Art and Language.

These kinds of opposition between the utterly rational and

That sense of working with artists was absolutely fundamental

the irrational or corporeal simply don’t work. There’s no way

to the way we were trying to reconfigure modernism. And it

you can hold those two things apart when you actually get

was very formative for me; I was forced to expand my research

involved in looking at contemporary art, let alone studying

interests because we were writing about a very wide range of

it. There are many other examples of how my work as an

things. And so that was incredibly facilitating.

art historian has been shaped in experience as well as by theory. Of course I want to maintain some space for thinking

I think I moved up the century, from the ‘20s, including

about larger historical patterns and art historical patterns, but

now questions around Surrealism and sexuality, through to

I really think for me that part of the excitement is the way in

the neo-avant-gardes of the ‘50s and ‘60s. I’ve written and

which contemporary art can unleash different histories that

always been very interested in American art. And obviously

you never even thought were there.

fundamental to me has been the work I did on Eva Hesse. She is an artist who really shaped a lot of my interests

JM: Talking about contemporary art affecting how

in Modernism and particularly American Modernism.

we perceive of the broader trajectories, did your

Subsequent to that I’d become interested—and feel I always

book The Infinite Line—which looks at remaking art

should have been but didn’t have the tools—to think about

after Modernism—come out of a similar dialogue of

an expanded geography of abstraction.

addressing contemporary art and having that help you see more historical periods?

I’ve written a great deal about abstract art and I’ve been interested in abstraction from the very outset. But you know,

BF: Yes, absolutely. The Infinite Line is a book about

how could you be interested in abstraction and not think of

repetition actually. They wouldn’t let me put repetition in the

the great Neo-Concretists? Not take on [Hélio] Oiticia, Lygia

title—publishers don’t like repetition. They think it’s kind of

Clark, and so on? So, it’s many years ago now, but I really felt

boring. But obviously those cycles that repeat, and the way

Hesse, Eva (1936-1970) Tori, 1969. Fiberglass on wire mesh, 47 x 17 x15 (largest of nine units). Purchased with funds contributed by Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Korman, Mr. and Mrs. Keith Sachs, Marion Boulton Stroud, Mr. and Mrs. Bayard T. Storey, and with other various funds, 1990. The Philadelphia Museum of Art / Art Resource, NY . © Estate of Eva Hesse.

in which things repeat in order to maximize difference is still

of what sculpture is. I think now sculpture can’t simply be

something that we see in art today. The book was an attempt

defined by its materiality, and yet questions about the role of

to chart a different way of thinking and suggest that symbiotic

making and what it is to make something are often highlighted

relationship between history and the contemporary. To think

or dramatized in relation to sculpture. I’m interested in work

the contemporary, you have to think its historicity; to think

that presents itself in that expanded sense as a made

history, you have to think of what’s become of these different

thing, a material thing, a fabricated thing. And I think there

trajectories from the past.

is an interesting constellation to be mapped based on that question of what it is to make something and what making

JM: So following that line of thinking—tracing lines of

even means in relation to the digital and the technological

thought or trends within art—are there certain trends

world we now live in. I think these different technologies are

or paths that are being developed in art and sculpture

developing apace and are absorbed in art and art practice,

today?

often indirectly rather than directly, and not kept out.

BF: Well, partly because of the Nasher Prize, I have been

I think that question of making has become quite an urgent

reflecting on this – but it’s also very much to the fore in the

one again in this very context. I don’t just mean making things

work that I do. I have been thinking particularly of the role of

out of clay or traditional materials, though artists can do very

sculpture, but perhaps one could broaden this to art more

surprising things with all sorts of old or artisanal materials.

generally. In any case, we have a more expanded sense

But you can also make something out of anything. And a 57

Albers, Anni (1899-1994) © ARS, NY. Diagram showing method of draft notation: plain weave, Plate 10, On Weaving, 1965 Anni Albers Papers Box 27 folder 5. © 2016 Josef and Anni Albers Foundation © The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York 2018 Photo: Albers Foundation/Art Resource, NY

Roni Horn, Opposites of White, 2006-2007 Photo: Marjon Gemmeke Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth Collection Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, the Netherlands, purchased with support from the Rembrandt Association (partly thanks to its P.H. Soeters Fund for 20th century glass art, its A. Quist-Rütter Fund, its Titus Fund, and its Van Rijn Fund), the Mondrian Fund, and the BankGiro Lottery.

digital space is something that you can shape and make so I

since this is going to be your first time in the jury

think that’s a very interesting question to think about.

room, but I’m curious if you have a sense of how your role as a scholar, as an art historian who works

This leads me to certain questions around scale that seem

on contemporary subjects, will play a role within the

urgent today, even we might call it—I don’t want to be

conversations.

melodramatic—a kind of crisis of scale. One can’t help be tired by some of the bloated critical rhetoric that seems to

BF: As you say, it’s my first time so this is rather speculative,

mirror rather than analyze contemporary cultural overload of

but I’m excited about it because the jury has such a very

one sort or another. It’s not necessarily easy in this context to

wide scope. The artists we’re thinking about, the question

enter into an encounter with the specificities of things, or to

of contemporary art, it means so many different things. The

see how things are made visible in an exacting way—but all

range of artists that one might consider and think about

the more important. I think a sense of scale, is not so much

is challenging to say the least. I think something I would

just about literal size but about how one places things, how

hope to bring is a sense of historicity. I am by no means the

we inhabit that object world. There is a kind of physicality

only person who can bring that to the table amongst the

about an encounter in much contemporary art that I think is

individuals that you mentioned, and the others on the jury.

important to hold onto.

Obviously, a prize is an odd thing, the best work doesn’t get made with a prize in mind by artists or scholars or anybody.

JM: You’ve recently written books on Richard

But the chance to recognize really serious work invites us to

Serra, Gabriel Orozco, you’ve done a lot of work

think about why art matters in the culture, and there are a lot

on Eva Hesse, but also contemporary artists like

of many urgent reasons why we need to think and be able to

Roni Horn, Rachel Whiteread, Phyllida Barlow. You

articulate why art matters to us now.

have a broad knowledge of contemporary art and contemporary sculpture in particular. I’m curious if

Art obviously makes visible things that can’t be said through

you’ve seen a change over your career in terms of

other forms of knowledge. It’s very important to try to

where the interest in art lies. This is maybe more

insist on the necessity, the importance of art, sometimes

of a sociological observation, but for a long time,

quite difficult, exacting, not necessarily easy art—it must be

the emphasis was on artists like Richard Serra and

always engaging and compelling.

predominantly male artists, but now there’s more of an emphasis—or starting to seem to be—a bit more

I’m looking forward to it because I think it offers so many

balancing the scales and recognizing great female

interesting perspectives on why sculpture matters now. I

artists. I think your work on Eva Hesse has helped do

don’t think art says something about the world in a didactic

that. I wonder if over the span of your career if you

sense—as if it should make a statement or convey a message.

have a perspective on how that’s changed.

People often want it to, but that’s a different matter. I think art is of the world. It articulates something about our being

BF: Obviously over my career, I’ve really committed a lot

in the world. So I’m less interested in the kind of art that

of my attention to women artists from Eva Hesse through

carries a very overt message and more interested in art that

Agnes Martin, Lygia Clark, Lygia Pape, recently Anni Albers.

articulates something about the world by being of it and that

Yes, for sure, the recognition of those artists has been

rearranges how we think as a consequence.

absolutely transformed, and yes, this has been incredibly important to me. One can see that in museums. There’s still work to do, but I think the transformation has been extraordinary. Likewise, I think, it continues to be vital to try to expand the geography of art. Thinking beyond Europe and North America has become a necessity for anyone thinking about contemporary art. Absolutely a necessity. And not only to incorporate it into the history, but to try to encourage viewpoints from different positions. From the perspectives of the global south, for example. I think all of this is still in transition. But they are vitally important new directions that we need to take account of. JM: The Nasher Prize jury is made up individuals from a variety of perspectives. There are artists like Phyllida Barlow and Huma Bhabha, there are curators like Pablo León de la Barra, directors like Okwui Enwezor and Nicholas Serota, and you’re coming to the jury deliberations from the perspective of a scholar. You’ll have to project what it’s going to be like tomorrow 61

CATHERINE CRAFT ON

Otto Freundlich’s

Ascension Currently on view on the Nasher’s Terrace, the monumental

Jeu de Paume, then the leading Parisian museum for modern

bronze Ascension (1929) by the German painter and sculptor

art. Among the signers—and donors—to this cause were Arp

Otto Freundlich (1878–1943) offers visitors a rare opportunity

and Taeuber-Arp, as well as Max Ernst, Joan Miró, and many

to see a landmark work by one of modernism’s pioneering

others. Pablo Picasso, who had been friends with Freundlich.

figures. Freundlich made abstract paintings of luminous color

Since Freundlich’s first visit to Paris in 1908, Picasso was

and clarity as well as Cubist-inspired sculptures that asserted

among the most generous, with a pledge of 500 francs. The

a massive yet aspirational presence. Freundlich embraced

gambit was successful, and the large, brilliantly hued gouache

a utopian vision of art that was both spiritual and political, a

Homage to the Peoples of Color (1935) was purchased and

combination he deemed “cosmic communism.” During World

entered the museum’s collection.2

War I, he spent time in Zurich, where he first met Jean (Hans) Arp, one of the founders of the Dada movement, which formed

Unfortunately, Freundlich’s best-known sculpture became

in protest of the war. Freundlich became involved with Dada

famous—or notorious—for other reasons. Large Head (1912)

in Berlin and Cologne, where the movement took on more

was prominently included in Entartete Kunst, Nazi Germany’s

political overtones, and in Cologne he was also part of the

exhibition of so-called “degenerate” art, which opened in

Progressive Artists’ Group. Later, in his adopted city of Paris,

Munich in 1937. The following year, a traveling version of

he joined the abstract artists’ groups Cercle et Carré (Circle

the exhibition opened in Berlin, and Large Head—renamed

and Square) and Abstraction-Création, organizations that also

“The New Man” by the Nazis—became the cover image for

included Arp, his wife and fellow artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp,

the touring show’s exhibition guide. Entartete Kunst traveled

Naum Gabo, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, and Antoine

to more than a dozen additional venues in Germany, Austria,

Pevsner as members.

and present-day Poland between 1938 and 1941; Large Head disappeared during this tour, likely having been destroyed.

Freundlich made sculpture somewhat intermittently, first during the 1910s and again around 1930, working mainly

The Nazis deemed modern art “degenerate” due to its

in clay and plaster. Many of his sculptures have a distinctive

experimental nature and presumed connection to leftist politics;

surface quality, created by repeated daubs and strokes that

in the case of Freundlich, his work was further condemned as

catch the light and impart a sense of dynamism to the broad

the creation of a Jewish artist. After the war began and France

planes comprising their forms. Even when largely abstract,

fell to the Nazis in 1940, Freundlich tried without success to

they often allude to figures. In the case of Ascension, heavy

leave France for the United States, then took refuge in the

forms resembling large stones mass together and surge

French countryside; in the Pyrenees, a farming family took him

upward, suggesting both a rising figure and a monumental

in. In 1943, a neighbor denounced him, and he was arrested

bust. A persistent lack of resources prevented Freundlich

and sent to the extermination camp Sobibór, in Poland, where

from pursuing sculpture more intensively and from casting his

it is thought that he was killed upon arrival.

works in bronze.1 Many of his sculptures have been lost and are known only through photographs.

and lack of broader recognition that in 1938 they created a

The plaster for Ascension, which had been shown at Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Paris, in 1938, was safely preserved in Freundlich’s Paris studio during the war. Its posthumous casting in bronze makes available to a broader audience Freundlich’s visionary approach to creating art.

petition whose signers called for the contribution of funds to

Freundlich’s fellow artists were so concerned about his poverty

purchase a work by Freundlich for donation to the Musée du

The work is now in the collection of Centre Pompidou, Paris, Musée national d’art moderne/Centre de création industrielle.

Otto Freundlich, Ascension, 1929 (cast 2006). Bronze, 78 3/4 x 41 x 41 in. (200 x 104 x 104 cm). Courtesy Michael Werner Gallery, New York and London. Photo: Michael Werner Gallery

MICHAEL A. MORRIS ON

SUBCULTURAL INHERITANCE Each year, the Nasher Sculpture Center awards five $2000 grants to artists in North Texas who need assistance realizing specific projects or maintaining a studio practice. We checked in with Michael Morris, a Dallas-based artist and one of the recipients of a Nasher Microgrant in 2016, to find out how the microgrant helped him rework a 16mm film he inherited featuring Candy Barr, a mid-century exotic dancer and a Dallas subculture legend.

allas, like many cities, is one with official and unofficial pantheons of towering figures that mark its history. It’s easy to see who the sanctioned heroes are by looking at murals commemorating them around town: Stevie Ray Vaughan, Erykah Badu, Dirk Nowitzki. If you look in the right places, you may also find monuments to the more occult stars of Dallas: Jack Ruby, Lee Harvey Oswald, or Victor Considerant. Someone who deserves her own constellation in the skies above the city is Juanita Dale Slusher, who danced at the Colony Club on Commerce Street under the name Candy Barr and performed in the 1951 underground stag film Smart Alec. She was an exotic dancer, poet, and powerful woman who shot her second husband when he became violent—how can one not admire someone so resilient and self-determined? Some have called her the first porn star for her performance in Smart Alec, which was shot in a Fort Worth-area motel. She wrote a book of poetry while incarcerated for marijuana possession, and once claimed that for her, exotic dancing was a way of artistically expressing herself. Perhaps most famously, she was personal friends with club owner Jack Ruby. I discovered Candy Barr when I inherited my grandfather’s film equipment and a stack of old movies, mostly cartoons and family films on 16mm and 8mm, but included a print of Smart Alec. Since then, I’ve made two films of my own that deal with the story of acquiring Smart Alec: an early work called Confessors and another called Blue Movie, both of which I exhibited in 2012 at Oliver Francis Gallery. After showing the films, I realized Blue Movie wasn’t finished, and I continued working on it for the next three years. Blue Movie was a project with several layers of process that were tied to the film medium and to the history of Smart Alec. Using the cyanotype process—an early alternative photographic process that produces a deep, blue image—I laid the print of Smart Alec on top of new strips of 16mm 64

film and exposed them under the sun to create new images that became the film. At Oliver Francis Gallery, I’d exhibited an early version of the film as a digitized looping video, but as I continued working on Blue Movie, it became clear that the film medium was so important to the meaning of the work that it needed to be exhibited as a 16mm print. This revelation introduced complication and expense, but also many possibilities. I contacted my friend Lily Taylor, a fantastic Dallas-based musician, to help me with recording a soundtrack. As it turned out, her own mother had crankcalled the Colony Club with jokes about Candy Barr as a child, so she was eager to be part of the project. I’m very lucky this was the case, because her voice perfectly completes the film. Interestingly, the story of Lily’s involvement in the project played a role in helping her acquire an apartment in the Cedars, which is connected to a building that formerly housed Jack Ruby’s club The Silver Spur, where Candy Barr would often visit. Ultimately, Blue Movie was intended as a kind of filmic ode to Candy Barr and a way of commemorating the odd gesture of my grandfather passing on his pornographic films to me. Though the film was completed in late 2015, the process of making a film print with an optical soundtrack is the most expensive step in the process (up to this point, I’d maybe spent a few hundred dollars on the whole film), so in early 2016, I applied for the Nasher Microgrant to help offset these costs. With the funds from the microgrant, along with additional funds from the Dallas Observer, I was able to make two prints of Blue Movie, which have since been shown all over the world and won several awards at festivals, including at Haverhill Experimental Film Festival, Athens International Film and Video Festival, and more. It screened at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as part of Crossroads in 2017 and recently in Hawick, Scotland as part of the Alchemy Film Festival. One of the two prints is currently circulating internationally as part of the Ann Arbor Film Festival’s 16mm touring program, and it will also be featured on its upcoming DVD set, which will place it in homes, institutions, and university libraries all over the country. It’s impossible to overstate the importance of the Nasher’s Microgrant program to artists like me and the value of what it has allowed me to accomplish. It exponentially lengthened the life and reach of the film and helped me tell Candy Barr’s story to the world.

In May, the Nasher announced the 2018 Microgrant winners: Nida Bangash, McKinney DADE (Angie Reisch, Ellen Smith & Diana Antohe DS Chapman), Dallas Arnoldo Hurtado, Fort Worth Jonathan Molina-Garcia, Dallas Colton White, Dallas Learn more at nashersculpturecenter.org/artist-microgrants 68

With a new sound, Orpheus Unsung delivers an old, timeless truth THIS FALL, COMPOSER STEVE MACKEY BRINGS HIS GUITAR OPERA TO SOUNDINGS, THE NASHERâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S CHAMBER MUSIC SERIES, ON OCTOBER 24. BY CATHERINE WOMACK

For millennia, Orpheus has channeled the power of music

A third collaborator was Mark DeChiazza, who choreographed,

through his lyre and his voice, taming the underworld and

directed, and designed the highly theatrical version of the show

conquering death itself. Now, thanks to composer and electric

that premiered at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis in 2016.

guitarist Steven Mackey’s wild imagination and talent, the

(A review of that premiere in the Pioneer Press was headlined

ancient mythical figure has a new melodic weapon: a custom

‘Wordless opera’? ‘Performance piece’? Whatever ‘Orpheus

Tom Anderson electric guitar, deployed in a dynamic work

Unsung’ is, it’s excellent.)

called Orpheus Unsung. At the Nasher this October, the piece will be performed in the second half of the evening’s program,

For the Nasher performance this fall, DeChiazza designed the

preceded by Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina’s more

video that will accompany Treuting and Mackey, and while

sparse, but no less dramatic, Galgenlieder (1996).

there are no dancers involved in this production, flashes of the original choreography will appear in the video.

The tale of Orpheus is perfect fodder for the opera stage in particular. After his lover Eurydice dies from a snake bite,

Alongside Treuting, who performs using a standard drum set

Orpheus descends into the underworld to rescue her from

and a series of tuned gongs, Mackey plays two guitars and a

the grips of death. He is able to bring her back to life through

swath of pedals that DeChiazza describes as “a spaceship at

the power of his music-making, which charms the gods of

[Mackey’s] feet.” One of the guitars is tuned microtonally to

the underworld into releasing Eurydice. Orpheus is allowed to

elicit the sound of the underworld.

escort his love out of Hades on one condition—he must not look at her until they reach the land of the living. But he can’t

When he practices Orpheus Unsung, Mackey says he spends

help himself, and so he looks. She is lost forever, leaving him to

more time rehearsing the demanding, complex footwork

mourn her for a second and final time.

than he does the intricate finger work. The extra effort pays off. The precise timing of the pedal work and complex

Composers have long been drawn to this myth as source

looping sequences created by that “foot spaceship” create

material for their most elaborate, virtuosic writing. The two

the illusion that Mackey is not one performer, but rather a full

earliest surviving operas—Jacopo Peri’s Euridice and Claudio

electronic orchestra.

Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo—are based on the story. Since the early 17th century when those works debuted, composers as diverse as Christoph Willibald Gluck, Joseph Haydn,

“PEOPLE KNOW ME AS THE COMPOSER

Darius Milhaud, and Philip Glass have also found inspiration

WHO PLAYS THE ELECTRIC GUITAR,” HE SAYS.

in Orpheus—with a climax that demands powerful music and

“BUT I’VE GOT ALL THIS EXPERIENCE

an achingly tragic ending, his story lends itself to theatricality

WRITING ORCHESTRAL MUSIC. I BET I’VE

and to the extremes of musical possibility. And there is another

WRITTEN MORE ORCHESTRA PIECES THAN

reason it resonates: At its heart, Orpheus’s premise is that

ANY OTHER GUITARIST, SO I WANTED TO

music is imbued with mystical powers. To be a composer or

BRING THAT EXPERIENCE TO THE GUITAR.”

performer is to summon those powers. For all this, and precisely because it is such a ubiquitous theme

Orpheus Unsung is a large, rich work. Mackey and Treuting

throughout the history of Western music, Steven Mackey was

are the only performers, but together they conjure a mass of

drawn to Orpheus’s story as a backdrop for what he describes

complex, driving, sonic energy. So whether his song is played

as the most virtuosic piece he’s ever written for his own

on a lute in ancient Rome, sung by an Italian tenor in the 17th

instrument.

century, or amplified to produce electronic reverberations today, Orpheus proves his point: Music has an eternal and

“I’m no spring chicken,” the 62-year-old says. “I wanted to

unknowable power.

do the most ambitious thing I could do while I was still young enough to do it. It was important for me to have a story whose contours were familiar, dramatic, kind of operatic, in fact. The working concept for the piece was that it would be a guitar opera. It’s very narrative, but all the singing is in the guitar.” Mackey collaborated with percussionist Jason Treuting to complete the work. “I chickened out about doing solo electric guitar,” the composer says with a laugh. “I needed my friend Jason on stage with me.” Treuting helped the composer flesh out the percussion part of the piece, and Mackey gives him partial credit for the composition: “The overall shape and all the notes are mine, but Jason brought a lot to the piece, he made a lot of decisions.”

SOUNDINGS TICKETS ON SALE NOW at nashersculpturecenter.org/soundings Buy a season subscription and save 20% on performances for the ninth season of this highly acclaimed concert series. Newman, Barnett (1905-1970) The Song of Orpheus, 1944-45. Oil pastel on paper, 20 x 14 7/8 in (50.8 x 37.8 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Annalee Newman, 1992. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. © 2018 The Barnett Newman Foundation, New York/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Image source: Art Resource, NY Soundings: New Music at the Nasher is supported by Charles and Jessie Price, Kay and Elliot Cattarulla, Laura and Walter Elcock, the Friends of Soundings, TACA, the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs, and the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University. Additional support is provided by Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger. Media Partner: WRR 101.1 FM

CATHERINE MACMAHON

In anticipation of the next celebratory The Great Create—a fundraiser that benefits Nasher Education programs—Curator of Education Anna Smith poses a few questions to artist Catherine MacMahon, one of the 2019 event chairs.

Tell me a little bit about what you are working on now.

Currently, I am reading and reflecting on the voices of many

I have been developing a body of sculptural drawings, based

great women who serve as precedents for me. To name a

on my interests in architectural lines and structure. Thread

few: Louise Bourgeois, Agnes Martin, Linda Nochlin, Rebecca

(a flexible line capable of working in both two and three

Solnit, Anne Truitt, Lois Weinthal, and Virginia Woolf.

dimensions) wraps, weaves, or is otherwise met with rigid structural materials such as steel rods, demolished concrete,

What advice do you have for artists who are also parents?

rebar, wood, and stretched canvas. This work explores physical

Pragmatically, having kids has made me far more organized

expressions of the line, fed by my long-standing practice of

and productive. When my children were babies and in those

reading and writing and engaging with critical theory.

very early years, it seemed almost impossible that I would ever create a body of work; I could barely finish a few pieces in a

You’ve worked across a variety of disciplines, including

year. But making art for me is like breathing air… as long as

architecture, sculpture, and textiles. How do these inform

I’m breathing, I’m alive. This past year my youngest child went

your current practice?

off to school, so it was the first time in 10 years that I have

Although architecture, sculpture, and textiles are different

been able to have a consistent studio practice. It feels like that

disciplines, they all share a sense of tactile, physical presence

moment in a slo-mo video when the action speeds back up

in relation to our bodies, albeit at different scales. Thinking

again. I guess that’s life in general.

of an idea in one scale and then fluidly allowing myself to slip into a completely different scale or mode of operating

The beautiful thing about being a parent, for me, is how much

encourages ideas to evolve without feeling redundant. It’s

I am learning about humility and humanity. As a parent, you’re

easy to see a work and trace its lineage backwards through

not just raising kids, you’re raising human beings who have

various thought processes and periods in my life, but the

their own identity and who are becoming part of the social

making process is intuitive. It relies on the contingencies

fabric of our world. There is only so much control a parent has

or interactions of varied disciplines, so that every choice is

over that process. It is a humbling and beautiful lens through

made in the moment of making, but always relates back to

which to see the world.

the thought process in an unpredictable way. What are you looking forward to with The Great Create What inspires you right now? Have you been reading

2019?

anything or looking at any artists that you want to share?

Everything! The energy. The creativity. The joy. The Nasher.

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the history of women in the arts, especially in the male-dominated fields of architecture and sculpture—where I find opportunity for female perspective. I have been cultivating my own critical studies short list that feeds the work in my practice. And though there are many

Learn more about the Nasher Sculpture Center’s

men, whose work I admire and reference, I’m looking for that

fundraiser by artists, for kids, The Great Create, at

maternal, if you will, lineage.

nashersculpturecenter.org/thegreatcreate.

Photography: Allison V. Smith

The Nasher Sculpture Center is a Member-supported organization. Art-lovers like you enable the Nasher to showcase world-class exhibitions from established and emerging artists, to host community discussions and public events throughout the year, and to welcome thousands of students and families into the galleries through free educational programs. Thank you for your incredible support.

Individual and Institutional Donors In recognition of gifts of $10,000 and above 400 Record / Thomas and Nasiba Hartland-Mackie Suzanne and Ansel Aberly American Airlines Baldwin Gallery Carl B. & Florence E. King Foundation Nancy and Clint Carlson Joanne Leonhardt Cassullo and the Dorothea L. Leonhardt Foundation, Inc. Kay and Elliot Cattarulla Central Market / H-E-B City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs Classic BMW / Sheryl and Eric Maas Communities Foundation of Texas Michael Corman and Kevin Fink Camilla Cowan Dallas Art Fair Foundation Dallas Tourism Public Improvement District (DTPID) Dallas Symphony Orchestra David Kordansky Gallery John W. Dayton Maureen and Robert Decherd Dior The Donna Wilhelm Family Fund Jennifer and John Eagle Laura and Walter Elcock The Eugene McDermott Foundation Fichtenbaum Charitable Trust Stephen Friedman Frost Bank Gagosian Mark Giambrone Fanchon and Howard Hallam Hauser & Wirth Timothy C. Headington Marguerite Steed Hoffman and Thomas W. Lentz Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation JPMorgan Chase & Co. The Kaleta A. Doolin Foundation Jeanne and Michael Klein Lennox International, Inc. Locke Lord / Carol and Don Glendenning & Diane and Stuart Bumpas Lyda Hill Foundation Charlene and Tom Marsh Kimberly Chang Mathieu The Meadows Foundation Cynthia and Forrest Miller Susan and Bill Montgomery 74

Museum of Street Culture / Encore Park Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger National Endowment for the Arts Nancy M. O’Boyle Nancy Perot and Rod Jones PNC Jessie and Charles Price Allen and Kelli Questrom Cindy and Howard Rachofsky Selwyn Rayzor and Richard Moses Betty S. Regard Regen Projects Resolution Capital / Debbie and Eric Green Richard Gray Gallery Nancy and Richard Rogers Catherine and Will Rose Deedie Rose The Rosewood Corporation Samuel H. Kress Foundation Roy & Christine Sturgis Charitable Trust Ruthie and Jay Pack Family Foundation Samuel H. Kress Foundation Ann and Donald Short Nicole and Justin Small Sotheby’s Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia Target® Avo Tavitian Texas Commission on the Arts The Tot Trammell Crow Center Vaughn O. Vennerberg II Sally Warren and Jeff Jackson Martha and Max Wells Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. Angela Westwater, Sperone Westwater White Cube Christen and Derek Wilson Sharon and Michael Young Patron Members In recognition of Membership gifts of $1,000 and above Director’s Circle Kaleta A. Doolin and Alan Govenar Jennifer and John Eagle Charlene and Tom Marsh Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger Allen and Kelli Questrom

Rodin Circle Kay and Elliot Cattarulla Michael Corman and Kevin Fink John W. Dayton Nancy M. Dedman Laura and Walter Elcock Lyda Hill Dr. and Mrs. Mark Lemmon W. W. Lynch Foundation / Harry Lynch Jenny and Richard Mullen Nancy Perot and Rod Jones Matisse Circle Mr. and Mrs. John L. Adams Mr. and Mrs. Christopher Bancroft Mr. and Mrs. Richard M. Barrett Jean and James Barrow Joanne L. Bober Joanne Leonhardt Cassullo Lindsey and J. Patrick Collins Mary McDermott Cook and Dan Patterson Carol A. Crowe Lisa Dawson and Thomas Maurstad Claire Dewar Tania and Roberto Díaz Sesma Mr. and Mrs. Uwe Duenhoelter Amy Faulconer Marion T. Flores Drs. Eugene and Rhoda Frenkel Kathleen Gibson Debbie and Eric Green Mr. and Mrs. Richard E. Gutman Fanchon and Howard Hallam Marguerite Steed Hoffman and Thomas W. Lentz Roger Horchow Mr. and Mrs. Robert L. Hull Elisabeth and Panos Karpidas Amy and Harlan Korenvaes Mr. and Mrs. Gene Lunceford Linda Marcus Mr. and Mrs. John D. McStay Susan and Bill Montgomery Cyrena Nolan Mr. and Mrs. Jay A. Pack Mr. and Mrs. H. Ross Perot Caren Prothro Cindy and Howard Rachofsky Elizabeth Redleaf and Forrest Colburn Betty S. Regard Catherine and Will Rose Deedie Rose Melissa and Matt Rubel Mary Jane and Frank Ryburn

Cindy and Armond Schwartz Ann and Donald Short Elizabeth Solender and Gary Scott Kristine and Marshall Sorokwasz Stephen Stamas Jaqueline and Peter Stewart Gayle and Paul Stoffel Wendy and Jeremy Strick Mr. and Mrs. Peter Townsend Patricia Villareal and Thomas Leatherbury Alice Walton Martha and Max Wells Marnie and Kern Wildenthal Donna M. Wilhelm Christen and Derek Wilson Brancusi Circle Suzanne and Ansel Aberly Mr. and Mrs. Ben Baldwin Jennifer Baxter and Anna Baxter Diane Boddy Dr. and Mrs. David Brehm Robert Brownlee Dr. and Mrs. Richard Chang Mr. and Mrs. Mahbub Dewan Talley Dunn Angie and Dan Eckelkamp Mr. and Mrs. Richard Eiseman, Jr. Bess and Ted Enloe Dr. and Mrs. Chip Fagadau Dr. and Mrs. Kyle Fagin Kay and Brent Franks Mr. and Mrs. Edd Fritz Diana George and Christine Gannon Mark Giambrone Jenny Gibson and Joel Schubert Kathryn and Graham Greene Elaina and Gary Gross Amanda Guerra Mr. and Mrs. Peyton Harris Kate Heckenkemper and Aric McCumber Dr. William Hwang and Dr. Chiufang Hwang Mr. and Mrs. Mark Kreditor Laura Lee and Addison Wheeler Mazen Mashfej Mr. and Mrs. J. Kenneth Menges, Jr. Cynthia and Forrest Miller Nancy M. O’Boyle Mr. and Mrs. John Bailey Owen Mr. and Mrs. John Parks Angela D. Paulos Lucilo Peña and Lee Cobb Janelle and Alden Pinnell Bonnie Pitman Karen and Richard Pollock Mr. and Mrs. Robert G. Pollock Dr. and Mrs. Karl Rathjen Mr. and Mrs. Frank A. Risch Ruth Robinson Noel Rodriguez and Christopher Ruckel Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Rohde Mr. and Mrs. Richard L. Rome Mr. and Mrs. James Jay Rosenthal Mr. and Mrs. Dan Routman Mr. and Mrs. William Rowan Lisa and John Runyon Mr. and Mrs. Philip Samson

Mr. and Mrs. Julian Samuels Jay Shinn and Tim Hurst Emma Siegel and Carlos Elguea Lisa K. Simmons Mr. and Mrs. William T. Solomon Mr. and Mrs. Alan Stamm Leigh and Jason Taylor Stephanie Wang and John Sturdivant Sally Warren and Jeff Jackson Karen and Howard Weiner Mr. and Mrs. Peter York Sharon and Michael Young Miró Circle Naomi Aberly and Laurence Lebowitz Mr. and Mrs. Gene H. Bishop Mr. and Mrs. Garrett Boone Faye C. Briggs Mr. and Mrs. Ike Brown Bonnie Cobb Mr. and Mrs. John R. Cohn Camilla Cowan Lee Cullum Judy Cunningham Mr. and Mrs. Stuart Cutshall Joan Davidow and Stuart Glass Maureen and Robert Decherd Elizabeth and Rick del Monte Charron Denker Barbara and Steve Durham Mrs. Richard D. Eiseman Julie and Robert England Melissa and Trevor Fetter Meg Fitzpatrick Jacqueline Fojtasek Svend Fruit Diane and Toby Gerber Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Glimcher Dr. Joseph L. Goldstein Larry Green and Logan Green Dr. Barbara B. Haley Lara and Stephen Harrison Linda and Mitch Hart Mr. and Mrs. Velpeau E. Hawes John A. Henry, III Billy Hibbs, Jr. Amy and Scott Hofland Mr. and Mrs. Ed Howard Mr. and Mrs. Kevin James Jennifer Ritchie and Mike Kelly Mr. and Mrs. J. Peter Kline Patricia Kozak William A. Kramer Mr. and Mrs. Peter A. Kraus Mr. and Mrs. Jeff Kurz Mr. and Mrs. John Lawrence Mr. and Mrs. John Levy Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Mankoff Irene Martin Holly and Tom Mayer Mr. Gordon McDowell Mr. and Mrs. Casey McManemin Margaret J. Mitchell Mr. and Mrs. Stuart Morse Mr. and Mrs. Paul R. Moser Dr. and Mrs. Steven A. Nash Mr. and Mrs. Greg Nelson Mr. and Mrs. Erle A. Nye

Danna Orr Byron A. Parker Ella Prichard Dr. W. Paul Radman Michele Renault-Rutt and Larry Rutt Mr. and Mrs. John J. Reoch, Jr. Sandra D. Roberdeau Mr. and Mrs. Peter H. Roberts Dr. and Mrs. Randall Rosenblatt Dr. and Mrs. Richard Sachson Betty J. Sanders Dr. and Mrs. Donald W. Seldin Robyn and Michael Siegel Cece Smith and John F. Lacy Mr. and Mrs. Darwin Smith Mr. and Mrs. Andre Staffelbach Phyllis and Ronald Steinhart Dr. Dennis Stone and Dr. Helen Hobbs Greg M. Swalwell and Terry G. Connor Rosalie Taubman Cynthia Thomas and Bert Headden Shelby K. Wagner and Niven Morgan Mr. and Mrs. George D. Wendel, Jr. Ms. Ann L. Wessel Megan and Brady Wood

Friends of Soundings In recognition of gifts of $1,000 and above for Soundings: New Music at the Nasher Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University Kay and Elliot Cattarulla City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs John W. Dayton The Donna Wilhelm Family Fund Laura and Walter Elcock Marion T. Flores Ann Glazer and Barkley Stuart Mr. and Mrs. Robert L. Hull Mr. and Mrs. David King Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger Nancy M. O’Boyle Charles and Jessie Price Dr. and Mrs. Randall Rosenblatt TACA Sally Warren and Jeff Jackson John D. Wilkinson

Donor and Member listing as of July 31, 2018

2001 Flora Street, Dallas, TX 75201 USA Tel +1 214.242.5100 Tuesday – Sunday, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. nashersculpturecenter.org COVER: Jean (Hans) Arp Awakening, 1938 Plaster, painted green, 18 5/8 × 9 1/2 × 9 in. (47.4 × 24 × 23 cm) Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau, Gift of Marguerite Arp-Hagenbach © 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG-Bild-Kunst, Bonn Photo: Jörg Müller/Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau BELOW Photograph: Steven Visneau Support for all Nasher Sculpture Center exhibitions and programming is provided, in part, by the generosity of our Members and donors, and by the Texas Commission on the Arts.