Page 47 - Studio International - May 1968

Facing page Jeffrey Shaw and Tjebbe Van Tijen Below left Akira Kanayama Balloon 1968 Photo: S. Morikawa
Head environment February 27 to March 9, 1967
'This work was a pneumatic cinematic environment which included the Below Takis The impossible: man in space November 1960
following :—Glove screen: a cluster of translucent rubber gloves whose Galerie Iris Clert. Paris
state of inflation could be modulated by the audience from a foot valve. 'I needed a realistic replacement for Sinclair Beiles who could not stay
Films were projected from behind into the gloves. Air bed: a large inflated floating for twenty-four hours. A balloon replacement was closer to
pillow which could be jumped around on, thus activating whistles reality than a wooden image would have been, so I bought an elastic
attached around the edge. Tube screen: a 20 ft.-long, 6 ft.-wide polythene aquasuit on Blvd. St. Germain and got a pair of rubber gloves and a
tube into which film was projected. Balloons and whistles inside could balloon, welded them together, and took it to a garage attendant to inflate
be blown by the audience. Head environment: a large balloon bag for with ordinary air. Then I took this elastic inflatable man and attached it
putting your head in only which was serviced by a system of microphones to an iron belt. The attraction of my super magnet made the inflatable float
and earphones, inflated tubes, and water flow through reservoirs and in the gallery.' Paris, February 1968 (in conversation-interview with the
piping.' Photo: Clay Perry author). Photo: Hans Haacke

system dialectic capable of integrating us with the environment. We Air art is an art of absence. Much of it is almost invisible. Inflatable
have reached the end of disinterestedness, impartiality, and con- and immaterial sculpture corresponds to the void in reality. Each
templation. We are embarking on a new phase of artistic awareness work is the manifestation of the artist's immaterial spirit. It is an art
in which interest, partiality, and participation are the chief char- without fixed form. Sometimes without form at all. It is not solid and
acteristics. Involvement mitigates the inside-outside split and des- has little substance. Some of this sculpture is executed as perform-
troys the subject-object duality. Fusion brings us into a single ance and lasts only for the duration of its public presentation. Much
spiritual body. of it is disposable. Some of the air artists want their work to be
thrown away after it is exhibited. Much of it is completely uncom-
I know of no occupation in American life so meaningless and unproductive as mercial in attitude. All of this work goes through simple life cycles—
that of art critic. birth, death, rebirth. Many of the works indicate the identity of inner
Dan Flavin and outer space. Some works are so transparent that light goes
through them rather than on them. To see is to see through. To dis-
The proper response to art is not criticism but art. Today criticism cover the invisible reality one has to break through the false reality-
is useless. It isn't even interesting. Or influential. Language lies. principle.
Metaphors are mistakes. Nothing is like anything else. To think that Air art doesn't interpret reality, it is reality.
things are the same is inane. Words no longer work. They have lost
their significance. Words became meaningless when they stopped
pointing beyond themselves. To become meaningful again, words, like
art and life, have to be emptied out, transparent, void.
The problem is to acknowledge the void, to accept loss. Forever.

Break on through to the other side.
The Doors