Page 76 - Studio International - July August 1975

The gallery is blacked out. The Seeing things in a mirror is a perfectly normal At the Whitechapel, in 1974, the installation
occurrence, completely familiar, and there is usually occupied spaces which might be said to lie
walls are illuminated only by no question of anyone being taken in. 'Seeing some- outside the normal arena for viewing work.
their own image. Everything is thing in a mirror is not like seeing a bun in a shop Projections were positioned on the stairs leading
seen in its own light. window' as Austin said. We understand perfectly well to the upper gallery, offering now useless views
what's going on. of mirrors which reflected round blind corners
In the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, a squared- where other mirrors had once stood. The gallery
up ground plan was superimposed on the actual was itself locked and the viewer could only look
Slides of the space were projected back on to the
ground plan of the gallery in which, eccentrically,
sections from which they were taken. An image in through the wire-mesh of the window in the
no wall meets another at ninety degrees. door. All he could see was an image of the door-
of an open door was projected on a closed door.
Photographic transparencies were taken
It was not intended that people be taken in, but way he was looking through, taken from the
perpendicular to the sides of this squared plan, point he was looking at. It was as if the function
that they be presented with a simultaneous
to make apparent the angular shift of each wall.
disparity between the door as it is pictured and of the gallery had been reversed or negated :'the
When projected, again square to the 'ideal'
its present state in actuality. In one way, the space for showing work was closed to us; access
ground plan, the images could be clearly seen to
viewer is fooled. In another, there is no doubt. was denied.
be out of register with their 'originals.'
Falling in with the illusion is just part of the
game; like falling in with the game of art. 'Blind corners and dead ends, empty reflections.
'A pale' 'replica'' lying flush with its "real" Being on the outside looking in, inside out.'
counterpart (chameleon) conceals nothing, does
'Type of transparency, merely amplifying existing
no more than confirm what is already there —
anomalies, throwing any additional information into According to Wylie Sypher, Michelangelo's
redundancy — some form of reassurance needed —
grave doubt: an accelerating process illuminating Laurentian Library offers us 'a world of frustra-
inadequacy? Two things present instead of one.
minor discrepancies, breeding uncertainties. tion where all the forces seem active, yet frozen
Duplicity.'
Alignments placed in jeopardy— a world slides out of and paralysed by a "highly artificial", severe
sync.' and uncomfortable system ... the observer (is)
To complicate matters, mirrors— about the size of everywhere in doubt about structure and function
a person, each capable of being lifted — were Unlike the angled space at Oxford, Gallery House ... There is an insoluble conflict between logic
leant against the walls due to whose angles there
posed the problem of dealing with a number of and appearance, horizontal and vertical move-
appeared reflections not of the camera but of
interconnecting rectangular rooms: a large main ment, motion and rest, energy and paralysis.'
some other wall. Secondary mirrors, reflected
room with two smaller rooms opening from it and
in the photographed mirrors, introduced yet
at right angles to it. Again, mirrors were
further parts of the space into the camera's field
incorporated in the photographed space and in
of vision so that as much of the gallery as the projection installation. But this time,
possible entered, directly or indirectly, into each
selected objects made an appearance and, as in
shot. Five mirrors were used, and these were
the photographic pieces made at the time,
moved to new positions when the slides were
daylight, artificial light and darkness became
projected. They thus reflected parts of the
constituent elements.
projected images on to other walls, building up,
layer upon light thin layer, a complex of
'Darkness in art is not darkness. Light in art is not
projections and cross-reflections on the inner
light. Space in art is space. Time in art is not
surfaces of the gallery space by whose geography
time.' (Ad Reinhardt)
they were determined.
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