Page 50 - Studio International - December 1972

was passed over by Edward F. Fry as he At the Krefeld, Kadishman showed range of lines — verticals or horizontals,
traced The Forest to a Cubist orientation. The telephone directories acquired all over the fillibrated or flowing cardiographic waves,
principal motivation is rather the drawing world: London, Cologne, Manhattan, loops and cross-hatchings. Although choice
created in nature by the movement of the Tel Aviv, etc. In the stylized typographical exists, there seems to be no deliberate purpose
travelling eye than the 'perceptual or pictorial lay-out of these pages, geographical or behind the act of dematerializing the
situation', as Edward Fry puts it. The work linguistic changes play a minor role. typographical page into 'nothingness'. In
exists in a 'perceptual and pictorial situation' The uniform lines of the columns' grid some of those pages where the type is almost
only inasmuch as it is a documentation of the and the random justification of names and obliterated, Kadishman approaches Jasper
conceptual event as a forest within a forest. addresses, set with little heed to their Johns's game of 'hide and seek'
Installed at the edge of Central Park alongside attractiveness, are exploited by Kadishman to which, as Barbara Rose puts it, is established
the Upper Manhattan traffic roaring up Fifth create great visual complexity. Various bays 'by the mysterious appearances and
Avenue, then dismantled and re-erected in the and indentations are outlined and scraped disappearances of forms as their ghostly
serene environment of the Krefeld's park, out in flower-bed-like arrangements. The imprints, the type of activity which defines
The Forest exists as a growing remembered typographical spacing is marked by a multiple a game of entrances and exits'.
experience. The restrained and meticulous typography
A new element was added to the work at of the pages from telephone directories could
the Krefeld; in addition to the metal sheets, have been reason enough to select them for
in another part of the park, a number of glass this serial. However, the melancholy they
sheets were screwed to the tree-trunks. The evoke and Kadishman's description of them as
semi-visible and thus semi-material glass 'Diaries of my Travels' or as 'the only book
provokes a seen, unseen act in the forest. to be found in the many hotels I have passed
These glass rectangles provide a redefinition through', leads to specific associations with
of the forest; through the glass the forest can Jasper Johns's 'homeless representation'. The
be seen and on its surfaces climatic conditions same feeling of alienation hovers over the
are registered in ever-changing patterns. Dust endlessly erased telephone pages as the
and fog, temperature and humidity, participate expectant, unused table-settings or the empty
in the environmental life of the forest and, coat-hanger. And, though it is far removed
reflected directly on the sensitive surface of the from it in intention, it is possible to detect a
glass, become sensory stimuli for the eye. path between Kadishman's Telephone Directory
The different forest and transposable and Duchamp's Larousse Dictionary: 'Take
rectangles, as well as the perceiver's responses a Larousse Dictionary', suggested Duchamp in
to their encoded documentation, change with the Green Box, 'copy all the so-called abstract
cultural and individual experience, through words, i.e. those that have no concrete
time and space. In its different realizations, the reference; substitute for them schematic signs
conception seeks a perpetually moving to form the basis of a new alphabet'.
transformation. In the words of one of Rilke's Duchamp's words without concrete reference
sonnets: 'And Daphne, transformed, feeling are for Kadishman the non-communicative long
herself laurel, wants you to change into wind'. list of telephone subscribers. The
In his scored typography pages, Kadishman's substitution of schematic signs arrived at by
primary preoccupation is with printed matter chance for abstract words which Duchamp
disposed on a page as physical object. The proposes is effected by Kadishman through a
page possesses its physical qualities by nature typographical 'metronome' which has no
of shape and colour, size and position of type. deliberate purpose. The preoccupation with
The arrangement of the letters, distribution of definition is turned into an 'absence,
space and measure of the type are traced and withdrawal, non-existence, non-residence,
indented, erased and altered through the non-presence, non-attendance, disappearance,
process of the page's transformation. Whether dispersion' of the Directories' customers.
thin or thick, long or short, light or dark, Although each of the pages can be seen
straight or curvilinear, the lines used to erase separately, they are best considered as a serial.
the typographical markings or to fill in the These two aspects could be experienced at
spaces on the page are employed without the Krefeld: while some of the pages were hung
reference to volume, expression or movement. on the wall like traditional paintings, another
The denotative rather than connotative quality group of pages was mounted like the leaves of a
is revealed even more strongly by the use of book. While turning the pages, the viewer
colour. Although a large range of colours and participates with the object in both time and
paints is used, the potential of this range is space, and at the same time discovers the
fulfilled purely through the abstract capacity motive common to the execution of each page.
for defining location. Some of the early In Kadishman's latest works at the Krefeld,
coloured pages were photographed in black and concepts and their realization are in strong
white so as to create richer values of grey (Top) competition. The very execution of the works
The Forest
tones, and were developed as both positive and comes close to overpowering the ideas that
Krefeld's Park, 1972
negative prints. The sense of scale remains determined them, and it is difficult not to
unchanged in blown-up photographic (Centre) become lost in the visual aesthetic experience
reproductions of the pages. In the enlarged Telephone-book 5972 per se. Works such as Telephone Directory
Installation view Krefeld, 1972
pages, the sense of place is externalized, for it without Entries or Doorway Blocked with
is the continuous surface rather than the (Bottom) Broken Glass remain within the irresolvable
Cracked Land and Glass 1971
isolated forms which are magnified. Installation view Krefeld, 1972 dilemma of art as product and art as idea.
244