Page 56 - Studio International - April 1970
P. 56
While Baxter stays in Vancouver, formalizing nature and room, constantly confronted with one's image and
running his commentary on a society which puts every- reaction to that image, will be a concentration of the
thing into bags, Levine has been in New York since relationship between human beings and the mass media.
1964 when he moved from Toronto where it was 'too And 'Iris' is not for contemplation. Levine says, 'Con-
easy to be a sensation, and not much else'. This makes templation is the extreme negative to an environmental
him one of a number of Canadians who are prepared to situation as it is intellectually subtractive, disallowing all
accept the rigours of the New York scene in order to have senses to function at the same level.' He has also said,
its advantages. Physically it seems the right environ- `Looking at paintings may be like going to sleep,' the
ment for Levine. No less an ideas man than Baxter, he assumption being that environmental art can overcome
depends even more on technology. Levine is not sending the change between art time and life time.
up the commercialized mechanical world, he repro- Levine made a series of `T.V. verite' movies in which
duces it. The situations he creates have all the cool he trained the camera on people talking and, Warhol-
come-on of a car showroom; his work is as sensuously like, let it run. Then he created 'Iris'. When image occurs
saleable as a car or refrigerator. in his work correspondence between it and viewer must
In 1963 he began embalming pieces of furniture in be immediate and one to one, otherwise image equals
taut plastic shrouds. Their superhuman precision finish information. 'Electric Shock', 1968 is perhaps the most
has been present in all subsequent work which, like our `abstract' environmental piece to date. A series of
way of living, alternately bores and attracts us with its parallel wires span a room above head level carrying an
repetitious image-making, its impermanence and lack of electrostatic charge. This charge or vibration may be
uniqueness. sent from one person to the next by a slight touch of the
`Slipcover', created in 1966, epitomized this in trans- bodies. It is an important work. You get the shock and
forming a gallery space with mylar and butyrate over that's it; no sophistries about image-making.
walls, floor and ceiling and filling it with heaving The shock is the message of contemporary society,
cushions of the same stuff. All day slides of the Old for ever wearing itself out and renewing itself. Auto-
Masters that normally hung in the gallery were flashed destruction is the ultimate elegance of the industrial
around, while the sound track, made as people came in, process. No taste, no excess, property becomes service
was played back at them a few minutes later. It was in the destructible object, in the disposable, transient
impossible to avoid physical contact with and in Slip- environment.
cover, but it was no lotus-eaters' paradise. The objects for which Levine is best known, his poly-
The indulgence of forgetfulness is equally impossible expandable styrene units, and moulded plastic forms
in front of 'Iris'. This is a giant cybernetic eye which 12 x 12 in., were some of the earliest disposable art.
sees, sorts out what it has seen, and then projects the They were made in multiples, to be sold cheaply, and
images it has digested. The 'seeing' is done by three should, theoretically, be disappearing fast. Probably
television cameras located in the centre of Iris's 7½ft they share the fate of the 250 pieces of cake that Olden-
high 5ft wide facade. The sorting and 'thinking' are berg gave away, only to find that in a few weeks they
done by her temperature-controlled memory. The were being traded as precious objects all over again.
results of this process are shown on six television moni- For all that, instant, persistent and disposable
tors which are encased within Iris's reflective bronze Levine's art goes some way towards reconciling humans
plastic exterior, and covered with vacuum-formed bub- with a society which has nothing to do with the old
bles of red, orange, blue and violet acrylic. humanist values.
Living with Iris, and she was designed for a living-
Les Levine
'Iris', the façade, 7½ ft high x 5 ft wide
2
First day of 'The Process of Elimination'