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A trip through Spain captured in little black & white squares.

Instagram: www.instagram.com/stillonoir Project Website: www.atravellingsketchbook.com Portfolio Website: www.tanyaheidri.ch

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Daniel Arsham’s Exhibition 3018 at Perrotin NYC

In his latest exhibition at Perrotin in New York City, artist Daniel Arsham transports the visitor to the year 3018. A dystopian future, in which humans have disappeared from the earth and all that remains are the calcified artifacts of cultural and material importance from recent western history. Cloaked in a deceptively appealing aesthetic veneer, Arsham nudges the visitor to look deeper. Underneath lies the dark truth that in the larger context of time, these objects of consumptive excess are meaningless and could lead to the extinction of the human race if it remains unchecked.

The exhibition, Daniel Arsham: 3018, is on at the Perrotin NYC at 130 Orchard St. until October 21, 2018.

Photography from the exhibition by Blair Prentice for iheartmyart.

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Daniel Arsham: Website Galerie Perrotin: Website

Blair Prentice: Website | Facebook

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More exhibitions of artwork by Daniel Arsham on iheartmyart. See more photography by Blair Prentice on iheartmyart.

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Reading Sol LeWitt’s Artist Books as Comics

Serial compositions are multipart pieces with regulated changes. The differences between the parts are the subject of the composition. If some parts remain constant it is to punctuate the changes. The entire work would contain subdivisions which could be autonomous but which comprise the whole. The autonomous parts are units, rows, sets or any logical division that would beread as a complete thought. The series would be read by the viewer in a linearor narrative manner (12345; ABBCCC; 123, 312, 231, 132, 213, 321) even thoughin its final form many of these sets would be operating simultaneously …   Serial Project #1 (1966)

We can use the above excerpt to examine how comics create meaning. “Serial composition”, or sequential images, is one of the most distinguishable features of comics as well as LeWitt’s works, especially his artist books. “Autonomous parts” could be a panel since these are the principle elements of information in comics. When the reader reads a whole work, sequential panels can form a new message, or a “narrative” as LeWitt said above, which is related to but different than the message derived from an individual panel.

Most of his artist books systemically examine the very nature of forms, spaces, geometry and colors, especially in 2D space (plane). Comics are the best medium to study these things due to their sequential nature and LeWitt’s artist books prove this. As LeWitt said above, changing specific parts of forms, geometry, or colors regularly allows readers to see the effect of the parts.

Four Basic Kinds of Straight Lines (1969) and Four Basic Colors and Their Combinations (1971) show this principle. LeWitt explained: 

These drawings, using parallel lines closely drawn, were used to make a finite series. They also provided the vocabulary for further series. Later four colors were used with the four lines. The directions of the lines (vertical, horizontal, and two 45-degree diagonals) were absolute possibilities. The colors used were the three primary colors (yellow, red, and blue) plus black. The page was white. Superimpositions of line and color provided progressive gradations of tone and color. Art-Rite, Issue No.14. (1977)

Mathematics prove that we can make a plane with only these absolute possibilities. Also three primary colors plus black (CMYK) make a whole spectrum of colors in the printed pages of comics. Systemic study of the plane is not unheard-of in comics. For example, Alexis Beauclair’s LOTO series investigate the relationship between movement, narrative, object, line and plane.

Sol LeWitt also analyzed how 2D objects are placed in 2D space as well as how 2D space is composed of its elements, 2D objects. This problem of geometry was the main subject of Locations of Three Geometric Figures (1974), The Location of Eight Points (1974), and The Location of Lines (1974).  “Page composition" or “page layout”, as it is called in comics, has been a main interest of many artists. Recently, poetic or immersive schools of artists such as Aidan Koch, Warren Craghead and Juliacks have studied this problem of geometry in their works.

One of the 2D objects LeWitt exhaustively studied was grids. Grids help us to see his artist books as comics on the surface because of the visual similarities between the two. This is because a grid inherently follows regulated sequential images.

Autobiography (1980) is one of the Photogrids works by LeWitt. It has photographs of his living and working space and the objects in them. The photographs are arranged by their positions within his space and also by categories: bookshelves are on the same page; kitchen wares are on the same page. This narrative by systemic (taxonomical) study is reminiscent of the work of comic artist Jochen Gerner, especially his Contre la Bande Dessinee [Against Comics].

Artists’ books are, like any other medium, a means of conveying art ideas from the artist to the viewer/reader. Unlike most other media they are available to all at a low cost. They do not need a special place to be seen. … art shows come and go but books stay around for years. They are works themselves, not reproductions of works. Books are the best medium for many artists working today. The material seen on the walls of galleries in many cases cannot be easily read/seen on walls but can be more easily read at home under less intimidating conditions. It is the desire of artists that their ideas be understood by as many people as possible. Books make it easier to accomplish this. Art-Rite, Issue No.14. (1977)

The Modernist artists / critics argued that the mass produced works lacked the craftsmanship and individual artist’s vision the Art possessed. Hence, comics were degraded as “mass culture”, rather than the Art objects. In contrary, LeWitt embraced the reproducible, especially printed books, just as comics artists do. This crystallizes him as a comics artist.

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(Scientific) Abstract Comics of Alexis Beauclair

Alexis Beauclair studies fundamental questions regarding the arts, nature, and humanity scientifically in his comics. His major method is abstraction, just like scientists who employ mathematics as a tool to study nature.

Beauclair asks: How do we make art for, from, or against nature? Does abstraction come from nature, like figurative art? If not, where does it come from? What are the principal and formal properties of art? What are the formal properties of space, where “space” might be a physical space in the natural world or a page of comics? How do these properties work? How can we study these questions? How do the arts study them?

1.   Scientific Study of Comics

An interesting aspect of Beauclair’s work is that even though he uses abstraction to scrutinize the most fundamental and formal properties of arts, his works recognize nature, in contrast with Modernist Art that strived to deny any earthy influence. By “nature,” I mean that Beauclair engages directly with the physical and biological environment in which we live, governed by scientific laws, rather than presenting a spiritual or mythical view of that environment.

Photon (2014)

Beauclair’s rather scientific view of nature is palpable in his comics. They are abundant with scientific concepts such as: reflection (in Globe and Loto), a quantum photon with wave-particle duality (in Photon), scattering (in Sable), absolute or relative position versus velocity (in Globe and Loto), time (in Sable and Photon), the geometry and topology of space.  

Life sciences – such as biology, environment, and ecology – also inspire his works. In Sable, Beauclair shows the sublime beauty of the natural environment with his abstract drawings. In Globe, we see how completely abstract and geometric objects are derived from nature (e.g., figurative drawings).

Loto #4 (2014)

Another major theme in Beauclair’s comics is his exploration of the mechanisms (process) of art, comics and natural phenomena. The “process”, instead of narrative, drives Beauclair’s comics. This further connects Beauclair’s works to science. Science is not always about the knowledge it produces; scientific information is often later found to be incorrect (e.g. Newtonian mechanics). It is, rather, the scientific method (the mechanism of science) that has made science the best way to examine nature.

2. On Art and Nature

2.1 Sable (2014)

Printing, especially Risography, also plays a major role in Beauclair’s work. He runs Papier Machine, a Risography publisher based in France. All of his works to date have been published using Risography that employs a half-tone, pointillist style where shadow and volume are indicted through density of points rather than line or color.

This property of Risography is highlighted in Sable, where the page is composed of points that represent the titular sand. With the shifting tones of this comic, the sun becomes the moon, dunes become clouds, and the sand becomes the sky.

This transition also works for non-object settings. On the first page, the tone of the background gets darker, causing the silhouette to begin disappearing. This silhouette falls into the desert due to the burning heat, and it becomes harder to distinguish the silhouette from the background. This progression has several possible meanings: the storm might be getting more intense; our perception might be getting worse; or the temperature might be increasing. The simple distribution of points, in this case modified with shifts in density, can be used to display various meanings. Everything looks hazy; it is impossible to separate sky and sand. This might be due to a thick sand storm or perhaps we are seeing a mirage. There are no lines to define precise boundaries, and Beauclair uses this to show that our perception is not perfect.

On the final pages of the comic, we literally see ourselves — a human face – appear in the natural world, but on the next page, it is revealed that these are mere blobs of sands in a dune. We see mirages again. We tend to read humans, thus humanity more generally — art, narratives and meanings — into random distribution of points and abstract shapes.

Sable pays homage to the films Gerry by Gus van Sant and Woman in Dunes by Hiroshi Teshigawara. In those films, an endless, sublime, but ruthless desert drives us to contemplate existential questions. Similarly, in Beauclair’s comic, the vast sands leave the reader pondering the metaphysics and aesthetics of comics.

2.2 Photon (2014)

The reader advances inside the optical instrument introduced on the cover. As a photon, the reader passes through different filters and prisms. Arriving at the end, the reader can flip over the book and read it the other way, thereby going back in time.

– From Alexis Beauclair’s website

We have appreciated and studied nature since the dawn of humanity using artistic and scientific methods. Photon beautifully displays these dual approaches to understanding the world around us.

As in Sable, where points make up everything — every drawing in the comic, and, Beauclair implies, all of art and literature —, in this case a photon, a particle of light, contains every color we use to make art. Nature embodies all the possibilities of art. But it is up to us to capture and portray that: as we need to intervene the white light with a prism to see the whole spectrum of colors, we need to intervene, interpret, or question the nature, including our innate aesthetic criteria, to create the art, rather than merely facsimile the nature.  

2.3 Loto series (2014 - )

Loto #5 (2014)

This series is a more scientific, systematic and geometric study of two-dimensional space and the process of comics than Globe, another Beauclair comic which represents an earlier attempt to address some of the ideas presented here. In Loto, a ball travels under strict physical laws. Each issue of the series surveys a principal mechanism of comics. So far six have been published:

1.   Narration Linéaire [Linear Narration] 2.   Infinite Bounce [Infinite bounce] 3.   Reflect [Reflection] 4.   Dessiner [Drawing] 5.   Mouvement Absolu [Absolute Movement] 6.   Mouvement Relatif [Relative Movement]

Although the art of the Loto comics is completely abstract, we can read narrative into them. The ball is a character. The trajectory of its movement is the plot. We try to read the symbol from mere geometric drawings. Issues 5 (Absolute Movement) and 6 (Relative Movement) present a narrative point of view. The space in which the ball (character) propagates, reflects, rebounds, crushes, and even draws (events or narrative) is the setting of the literature. Therefore, the fact that the Loto series studies space (especially in issue 4) implies that this series studies the relationship between character, settings and narrative. The Loto comics depict both visual art and literature and thus show how the two can be studied together.

Alexis Beauclair studies the formal principles of comics as a branch of art, both fine art and literature: fundamental inquiries of aesthetics such as the relationship between art and nature; geometry and topology of the space as in fine art; and narrative, characters and settings as in literature. A crucial aspect of his oeuvre is that those studies are remarkably scientific both in their contents and form.

This essay originally appeared in Comics Workbook Magazine #9 (2015). 

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Photographed in Orlando, FL. Sequenced and laid out in Bloomington, IN. Copyright Andrei Molotiu 2017

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http://radio.grandpapier.org/Emission-du-27-septembre-2017