barren 15
Open drawing
As we were making box kites the use of thread to wind and strengthen joins revealed a structure that we are reluctant to now clad. The open structures are reminiscent of Sol Lewitts open structures sculptural drawings. Having used line and the frame to open and reveal a pictorial ground for space and construction it now seems that we are embarking not just on space frames but spatial structures that are the skeleton of objects we use to fill a space with.
Lewitts structures (1979) were designed to be without emption but I’m not sure that can be true of these when they signify structures we use and have young memories of. His were logical systems and followed progressional patterns, whereas there is an arrangement here which cannot be defined as merely formal and abstract, the pictorial is here too. He also used wall drawings according to these systems creating optical and abstraction quas-geometirc shapes. He started with the open cube and that is certainly a starting point here but treated as a pictorial frame, a textual frame and space frame. Therein we depart from Sol Lewitt and enter Eco’s domain and the open work where the composition of possibilities is apparent and the interpretative nature of the openness of these familiar frames is revealed. It does require imposing a judgment on the work according to the elements constellated in the space. Perhaps it is best described by Eco.
The Open Work remains significant for its powerful concept of “openness”–the artist’s decision to leave arrangements of some constituents of a work to the public or to chance–and for its striking anticipation of two major themes of contemporary literary theory: the element of multiplicity and plurality in art, and the insistence on literary response as an interactive process between reader and text. (David Robey; 1989)
While semi symbolic there is an indeterminate ambiguity available. The patterns and structures offer a place for conversation and progression rather than a finality. The elements contradict and complement one another but do not resolve as a complete performance. He also tackles the issues of the horizon in terms of providing line as turning the eye this way and that, which on entering this space certainly begins to occur. It is such then that a dynamic site and a multiple site occurs. Essentially then the artist deliberately leaves some of the perception to the public and chance. The multiplicity and plurality of the work is insisted upon whilst engaging in a conversation on the signs presented. This is not a sidestep to interpretation but an attitude to the element presented as they clearly point to drawing, structure, the frame , space and the body but the cross dimensions of these interplay within and upon a stage space therefore I would have to readily agree these works that stand here constitute an open work made from a set of influential/influence lines.
Perec in Species of Spaces listed as areas of open and closed spaces that bore marks of emotional interpretations of space from enclosed, blank to null space intermittently punctuated with formal titles of three dimensional space and edges of space. barren’s compositional elements consist of these:
Edges of space
Wide open spaces
Blank space
Void space
Arched space
Inverted space
Space of a moment
Moment in space
Blank space
Dark gaze space
Wasted space
Organized space
Apollo in deep space
Euclidean space
Projected pace
Unit of space
Structured space
Space frame
Black space
Cold space
Hard space
Ascending space
Mapped space
Cratered space
Lined space
Timed space
Limited space
Written space
Staring at space
Still space
Silent space
Inhabitable space
Ocean space
Drag space
Divided space
Aerial space
These constellate the indeterminate and open aspects of barren’s landscape.
