Page 39 - Studio International - November 1971

I
Weight Displacement total 600 lb
gypsum 400lb, removed concrete block 200lb,
Installation view, May 1969, Galerie Yvon Lambert,
Paris
Photo: André Morain
2 Dennis Oppenheim and Bob Fiore
Stills from Arm and Wire
16 mm black and white, six minutes, no sound
2
Do : The fact that one of my pieces was presented private and doesn't exist in a social situation
as a film was a very incidental aspect of it. It had which, after all, is a necessary feature of its being
nothing to do with the idea of the piece. I felt communicated.
my past interests were far more expansive in DO: Well, let's take a situation not unknown to
terms of methods of articulating ideas. Film the dancer, akin to the procedural exercises a
placed me back within a traditional spectrum dancer would go through—practice. Training,
which I would have preferred to avoid. developing skills in order eventually to make a
ws : Did that relate to the fact that films had to presentation. Consider that in a sculptural
be shown in a gallery context ? context, with the artists practising eight hours a
DO: I thought the large-scale work should be day six days a week for one year to be able to
outside this range of accessibility. After the develop a particular position or gesture. Then
radical move had been made, filming the work one could say that behind his movement lay the
tended to demythify it on a negative level. The vestiges of ten thousand hours of practice. He
work made different demands upon the could then demonstrate this position at will, any
spectator. It suggested becoming part of it, time. To me something like that makes an
flying out to see it. All these aspects of the opposition to the rigour of film. In some cases,
experience could still be generated. Whereas the there is really no distinction between when a
static position of the gallery is the first thing I person might be actively engaged in a project
confront with every show. I must immediately and when he might not. You have to ask some-
condition my thoughts to a particular place and times : Are you doing a piece ? I think this is very
time. In other words, one has to alienate oneself true of Vito Acconci's work. At least on a very
to consider the gallery as a neutral place, and esoteric level, the distinction is being obscured,
thoughts aren't neutral, they're dynamic. and that may be the first sign we have that soon,
ws: How can one then adjust to the shock of a sculptor will walk in and you won't have to
stopping, of housing oneself in this alien ask—you'll know he's doing a piece.
chamber ? ws : Aren't Gilbert and George doing that all the
Do : There's something inherently wrong about time ?
the whole gallery/museum concept, and DO: I meant on a more integral level.
probably about film also. It is difficult to pin this ws : I think the kinds of distinctions we are
down precisely because my interests in regard to making are residues of a more traditional
film have shifted since the production of approach. Maybe you should go on to some of
Backtrack. But in relation to Cancelled Crop, your other projects, such as Arm and Wire.
Void, and other system-oriented works, making DO: Arm and Wire incorporates a very close
a film was permitting the work to be too shot of my arm rolling across electrical cording,
accessible, removing one layer of accessibility. receiving the impression on the skin. Basically I
ws : How did the ideas for those early film pieces make no distinction between the material and
originate ? the tool. The impressions produced by the
DO: Most of them began as sculptural concepts. expenditure of downward pressure are returned
Certainly not from an interest in film. Looking to their source and registered on the material
back at these early pieces, I see them stemming that expends the energy. It was this economy
from interests in certain phenomena, in specific that I found interesting. Arm and Wire was an
perceptual frameworks for which film was a attempt to make what you are making and how
passive vehicle. Recently I have begun to feel that you are making it one and the same thing. It
the camera was excess baggage, that it wouldn't consolidated output and compressed it into a
be too difficult to throw it away. single act.
ws : What do you mean ? ws: Why did the picture fade on to the land
DO: For instance, I would consider doing mass ?
something with my fingers or fingernails, even DO: That was in another film, Arm and Asphalt.
begin to do it, and then I would have to think Because I was interested in land as a parallel
about where to put the lights, the camera, all that surface to skin. Another example is Land
baggage. Which usually ends up distorting the Incision made with Bob Fiore, in which I wanted
project so badly you can't recognize it. These to correlate an incision in my wrist and the slow
are all retrograde factors. healing process with a cut or large ditch in the
ws : Yes, but doesn't an idea become a work terrain.
through being subjected to the camera ? I think ws : Did you cut your arm with a knife, and then
we haven't reached the point where we can take time sequences of it ?
accept some activity as art unless it is presented DO: Yes. At the same time I made Wrist, which
through the media, and is thus capable of being involved the slow flexing of my wrist constantly
verified by others. Otherwise art remains fading on to land bearing a morphological
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