Standing on one foot
TPS
- Ben Judson -
(foreground) Edgar Cobián, Relámpago II, 2007; cardboard, bottle of beer, black thread; courtesy the artist
(background) Stefan Brüggemann, sometimes i think sometimes i don’t, 2001; black adhesive vinyl on wall; private collection; photo by Justin Parr
(foreground) Andreas Slominski, Kürbis, 1997; pumpkin, copper, wood; private collection
(background) Bruce Nauman, Good Boy Bad Boy, 1985; video installation; courtesy Fundación Televisa, Mexico City; photo by Justin Parr
In 1975, Laurie Anderson released the song “Walking & Falling,” explaining that when we walk, we are actually simultaneously falling: “With each step, you fall forward slightly. And then catch yourself from falling. Over and over, you’re falling. And then catching yourself from falling. And this is how you can be walking and falling at the same time.” What Anderson leaves implicit, of course, is that sometimes you don’t—or can’t—always catch yourself. This system of movement—of negotiating the world—allows us to support ourselves but also threatens to pull us down, restricting our freedom of movement. With a similar sentiment, the curators of Standing on one foot, Patrick Charpenel and Cynthia Gutiérrez, set about organizing the most ambitious (and successful) exhibition to date at tps (formerly the Triangle Project Space).
At the entrance of the gallery, the viewer sees the curators’ statement on the left, which sets up the first in a series of dualities. Directly opposite the statement, a large piece by Stefan Brüggemann reads “sometimes i think sometimes i don’t” in white text on a black background. The juxtaposition of this piece with the fairly philosophical curatorial statement sets the tone of the exhibition: “one foot” in the title as a point of support, holding the individual precariously upright, while the other foot searches for “equilibrium in unknown terrains.” The curators, in line with this notion, installed twenty-one pieces by as many artists, some with international renown, such as Douglas Gordon, Jim Lambie and Bruce Nauman. Others are heavy hitters in their own right—Jorge Macchi, Jonathan Monk and Erwin Wurm included—but are not necessarily as well known in the Untied States. With one foot in the establishment and the other exploring the terrain of the new or unfamiliar, Charpenel and Gutiérrez highlight discontinuities of contemporary art.
Rubén Méndez & Gregorio Samsa, first years at school and his nightmare, 2007; installation view, TPS San Antonio; courtesy the artist
Tim Lee, Funny Face, George and Ira Gershwin 1993, 2002; 2-channel dvd installation; private collection; photos by Justin Parr
A particularly important video work by Bruce Nauman, Good Boy Bad Boy, is displayed on two synchronized monitors set into the gallery wall, side by side. Each shows a single actor looking into the camera reading a script—a black man on the left and a white woman on the right. The script explores sociolinguistics by conjugating simple sentences with commonplace but value-laden words. “I am a good boy. You are a good boy. We are good boys. This is good.” The actors vary vocal intonation, giving different meanings to each statement as they move through the script. By doing this, Nauman asks the viewer to confront the various relationships that language has to racial identity, sexual identity, the self and the other.
Near Good Boy Bad Boy is a text piece by Douglas Gordon that simply reads “Someone is listening” in vinyl applied directly to the wall. Like the Nauman, this work plays with the impact that social situations have on the perceived meaning of a message. For many people, the Gordon text has Orwellian undertones, although there’s no semantic reason it couldn’t very well be a message of sympathy or hope. “So,” we can imagine the artist asking, “what is it about the current moment that makes us see this as a sinister bit of text?” Meanwhile, we still hear Nauman’s actors speaking over each. “I like to shit. You like to shit. We like to shit. This is shitting.” Indeed.
The show is full of this kind of interplay. While virtually every piece reveals some kind of duality, some explore language while others deal with politics, morality, rationality or poverty. The overarching opposition that Standing on one foot proposes is a movement away from conceptualism in contemporary art and the various forms this movement is taking. Stefan Brüggemann (who “sometimes thinks”), for instance, uses wall text—a popular form among conceptualists—for work that intentionally resists laying a conceptual framework for anything. (Another Brüggemann piece not in this show simply states “not conceptual.”)
Similarly, Goo Goo Muck, Jim Lambie’s contribution to the exhibit, recalls Sol LeWitt’s wall drawings with its brightly colored lines of paint dripping down the wall. Lambie created a set of instructions, which the curators followed to realize the work. These instructions involved dipping drinking straws in paint and attaching them to the wall such that the paint flowed down but the straws remained perpendicular to the wall. Although the use of instructions, choice of colors and repetitive nature of the piece might recall the process of LeWitt’s wall drawings, Lambie really doesn’t raise any conceptual questions; he merely employs strategies pioneered by conceptual artists without actually being one.
Los Angeles artist Pae White draws both her inspiration and technique from the graphic design world. Her large-print Farewell Garland; adieu adieu runs across the entire wall opposite Goo Goo Muck. The work would be right at home in an edgy design magazine such as Emigre, its muted but colorful ribbonlike text so layered that it is rendered completely illegible. Unlike the semiotics-related works by Gordon and Nauman, however, White sets aside the construction of meaning and focuses on the purely formal possibilities of text.
Erwin Wurm’s Pullover Sculpture also dwells on the creative possibilities inherent in the mundane forms that surround us. As with many of the pieces in the exhibition, the curators realized this sculpture according to the artist’s instructions, which called for a pullover sweater and a pair of knitting needles to be installed in a way that teases an entirely unique form out of the construction of a typical sweater. This sculpture takes the idea of the readymade and turns it upside down, presenting a form buried within the sweater. By not presenting it simply as a found object and not using it like a raw material, Wurm explores the plastic possibilities of a quotidian object.
Standing on one foot successfully explores the interplay between art that works within a philosophical framework and art that dwells in aesthetic possibilities. It also demonstrates that the aesthetics and strategies of conceptualism can be effectively put to use for other kinds of work, and that new ideas can flow out of a focus on the formal. Rather than trying to isolate movements or strategies, this exhibition shows us how to keep our balance—and sense of humor—while moving through disparate artistic terrains.
Ben Judson is Director of Salon Mijangos and a freelance writer based in San Antonio.