:gE#B

ilillilltilltilffi
Inside
i6033
the
WhiteCube
TheIdeology
of the GallerySpace

Brian O'Doherty
Introduction by Thomas McEvilley

TheLapisPress
SantaMonica San Francisco
Contents

Acknowledgements

Introductionby ThomasMcEvilley

I. Noteson the GalierySpace

A F a b l eo f H o r i z o n t a l a n d V e r t i c a l . . . M o d e r n i s m . . . T h e P r o p e r t i e so f t h e
l d e a l G a l l e r y . . . T h e S a l o n . . . T h e E a s e lP i c t u r e . . . T h e F r a m e a s
E d i t o r . . . P h o t o g r a p h y . . . l m p r e s s i o n i s m . . . T h e M y tohf t h e P i c t u r e
Plane . . . Matisse. . . Hanging . . .ThPicturePlane as Simile . . .The Wall
as Battlegroundand'Art" . . .The Installation shot . . . .

II.The Eye and the Spectator

A n o t h e r F a b l e . . . F i v e B l a n k C a n v a s s e s. . . P a i n t , P i c t u r e P l a n e ,
O b j e c t s . .. C u b i s m a n d C o l l a g e... S p a c e . . . T h e S p e c t a l o r . . . T h e
Eye . . . Schwitters's Merzbau . . . Schwitters's Performances . . . Happenings
a n d E n v i r o n m e n t s . . . K i e n h o l z , S e g a l .K a p r o w . . . H a n s o n , d e A n d r e a . . .
E y e , S p e c t a t o r ,a n d M i n i m a l i s m . . . P a r a d o x e so f E x p e r i e n c e . .
Conceptuaa l nd BodyAr[ . . . .

III. ContextasContent
T h e K n o c k a t t h e D o o r . . . D u c h a n ] p ' s K n o c k . C e i l i n g s . . 1 . 2 0 0B a g s0 f
C r a l . . . G e s t u r e s a n d P r o j e c r s. . . T h e M i l e o f S t i n g . . . D u c h a m p ' s
"Body" . . . Hostility ro the Audience . . .The Arrist and the Audience . .
T h e E x c l u s i v e S p a c e . . . T h e S e v e n t i e s. . . T h e W h i t e W a l l . . . T h e W h i t e
C u b e . . . M o d e r n i s t M a n . . . T h e U t o p i a n A r t i s t . . . M o n d r i a n ' sR o o m . .
M o n d r i a n ,D u c h a r n pL , i s s i t z k y .. . .

Afterword
Introduction

It has been the specialgenius of our cenrury to investigatethings

in relation to their context,to come to seethe context as formative
on the thing, and. finally, to seethe conrext as a thing itself.In this
classicessay,first published as a seriesof three articlesin Artforum
in1976, Brian O'Doherty discussesthis turn toward context in
twentieth century art. He investigates,perhaps for the first time,
what the highly controlled context of the modernist gallery does
to the art object,what it doesto the viewing subject,and, in a cru-
cial moment for modernism,how the context devoursthe object,
becoming it.
In the flrst of the three sections,O'Doherty describesthe modern
galiery spaceas "constructedalong iaws as rigorous as those for
building a medieval church." The basic principle behind these
laws, he notes,is that "The outside world must not come in, so
windows are usually sealedoff.Walls are painted white.The ceil-
ing becomesthe sourceof light . . . . The art is free, as the saying
used to go, 'to take on its own life.' " The purpose of such a setting
is not unlike the purpose of religiousbuildings - the artworks, like
religiousverities,are to appear "untouc[ed by time and its vicis-
situdes." The condition of appearingout'of time, or beyond time,
implies a claim that the work already belongs to posterity-that is,
it is an assuranceof good investment.But it does strangethings to
the presentnessof life, which, after all, unfolds itself in time.'Art
existsin a kind of eternity of display.and though rhere is lots of
'period' (late
modern) there is no time.This eternity givesrhe gal-
lery a limbolike status;one has to have died already to be there."
7
 In searching for the significance of this mode of exhibition one
must look to other classesof chambers that have been constructed
on similar principles.The roots of this chamber of eternal display
are to be found not in the history of art so much as the history of
religion, where they are in fact even more ancient than the medi-
eval church. Egyptian tomb chambers.for example, provide an
astonishingtycloseparallel.Theytoo were designedto eliminate
awarenessof the outside world.They too were chamberswhere an
illusion of eternal presencewas to be protected from the flow of
time.They too held paintings and sculpturesthat were regardedas
magically contiguous with eternity and thus able to provide access
to it or contact with it. Beforethe Egyptian tomb, functionally
comparablespaceswere the Paleolithicpainted cavesof the Mag-
dalenian and Aurignacian agesin Franceand Spain.There,too,
paintings and sculptures were found in a setting deliberately set
off from the outside world and difficult of access- most of the
famous cave galleries are nowhere near the entrances, and some
of them require exactingclimbing and spelunking to get to them.
Such ritual spacesare symbolic reestablishmentsof the ancient
umbiiicus which, in myths worldwide, once connectedheaven
and earth.The connection is renewed symboiically for the pur-
posesof the tribe or, more speciflcally,of that casteor party in the
tribe whose specialinterestsare ritually represented.Sincethis is a
spacewhere accessto l'righermetaphysicalrealms is made to seem
available,it must be shelteredfrom the appeaianceof changeand
time. This speciallysegregatedspaceis a kind of non-space,ultra-
space,or ideal spacewhere the surrounding matrix of space-time
is symbolically annulled. ln Paieolithictimes the ultra-spacefilled
with painting and sculptureseemsto have servedthe ends of magi-
cal restitution to the biomass; afterlife bpliefs and rituals may have
been involved also.By Egyptian times thesepurposeshad coa-
lescedaround the personofthe Pharaoh: assuranceofhis afterlife
through eternity was assuranceof the sustenanceof the statefor
which he stood.Behind thesetwo purposesmay be glimpsedthe
political interestsof a classor ruling group attempting to consoli-
date its grip on power by seeking ratification from eternity. At one

8
 level the processis a kind of sympatheticmagic, an artempr ro
obtain somethingby rituarly presentingsomething ersethat is in
some way like the thing that is desired.If something like what one
wants is present, the underlying reasoning implies, then what one
wants may not be far behind. The construction of a supposedly
unchanging space.then, or a space where the effectsof charrg. u..
deliberatelydisguisedand hidden, is sympatheticmagic to pio- -
mote unchangingnessin the real or non-ritual world; it is an
attempt to castan appearanceof eternality over the statusquo in
terms of socialvaluesand also,in our modern instance,artistic
va I ues.
The eternity suggestedin our exhibition spacesis ostensibly
.
that of artisticposterity,of undying beauty.of the masterpiece.But
in fact it is a specificsensibility,with specificlimitations and condi-
tionings, that is so glorified.By suggestingeternal ratiflcation ofa
certain sensibility,the white cube suggeststhe erernal ratification
of the claims of the casteor group sharing that sensibility.As a
ritual place of meeting for members of that casteor group, it cen_
sors out the worid of socialvariation, promoting a senseof the
sole reality'of its own point of view and, consequently,its endur_
ance or eternal rightness.Seenthus, the endurance of a certain
power structureis the end for which the sympathetic magic of the
white cube is devised.
In the secondof the three sectionsof his essay.O,Dohertv deals
w i t h t h e a s s u m p t i o n sa b o u t h u m a n s e l f h o o dt h " t u r . i n v o l v e di n
the institutionaiization of the white cube.,,presencebefore a work
of art," he writes. "means that we absentourselvesin favor of the
Eye and the Spectaror."By rhe Eyehemeans the disembodied
faculty that relatesexclusivelyto formal visual means.The Spec_
tator is the attenuatedand bleached-outlife of the self from which
the Eye goesforth and which, in.the meantime, does nothing else.
The Eye and the Spectatorare afl that is left of someone who has
"died,"
as O'Doherty puts it, by entering into the white cube.In
return for the glimpse of ersatz eternity that the white cube affords
us-and as a token of our solidarity with the specialinterestsof a
group-we give up our humanness and become the cardboard

9
Spectator with the disembodied Eye. For the sake of the intensity
of the separateand autonomous activity of the Eye we accept a
reduced level of life and self. In classical modernist galleries,as in
churches, one does not speak in a normal voice; one does not
laugh, eat,drink, lie down, or sleep;one does not get ill, go mad,
sing, dance, or make love. Indeed, since the white cube promotes
the myth that we are there essentially as spiritual beings - the Eye
is the Eye of the Soul-we are to be understood as tireless and above
the vicissitudesofchance and change.Thisslender and reduced
form of life is the type of behavior traditionaliy required in reli-
gious sanctuaries,where what is important is the repressionof
individual interestsin favor of the interestsof the group.The essen-
tially religiousnature of the white cube is most forcefully ex-
pressedby what it doesto the humanness of anyone who entersit
and cooperateswith its premises.On the Athenian Acropolis in
Plato'sday one did not eat,drink, speak,laugh, and so on.
O'Doherty billiantly tracesthe development of the white cube
.out of the tradition of Western
easelpainting. He then redirects
attention to the sane developmentsfrom another point of view,
that of the anti-formalist tradition representedhere by Duchamp's
installations1,200CoalBags\1938) and Mile of String (1942\,
which steppedonce and for all outside the frame of the painting
and made the gallery spaceitself the primary material to be altered
by art. When O'Doherty recommendstheseworks by Duchamp to
the attention of artists of the seventies he implies that not a great
deai has been achievedin the last forty or fifty years in breaking
down the barriersof disinterestor disdain that separatethe two
traditions.Such lack of communication is impressive,sinceartists
themselveshave attemptedto carry on this dialogue for a genera-
tion.Yves I(lein, for example,exhibited an empty gallery called
"The Void" (Le vide\ (
I958); shortly rhereafrerArman responded
with an exhibition called "The Full" (te pleinl (1960) in which he
dialecticizedKlein's positing of a transcendentalspacethat is in
the world but not of it by filling the same gallery from floor to ceil-
ing and wall to wall with garbage.Michael Asher, James Lee Byars,
and others have used the empty exhibition space irself as their
l0
 primary material in various works - not to mention the
tradition
known as Light and Space.O,Doherty discoveredthe way
to ver_
balize these developments for the first time. His essayis an
exam_
ple.of criticism attempting to digest and analyze theiecent
past
and the present-or shall I saythe recent p..ie.rt. He arguesthat
the communal mind of our culture went ;hrough a sigriificant
shift that expresseditserf in the prominence of the white cube
as a
central material and expressivemode for art, as well as a fashion_
able style of displayingit. He identifies rhe rransirion in question
as modernism bringing "to an endpoint its relentlesshabit
of self-
deflnition." The defining of self means the purposeful neglect
of
all that is other than serf.Ir is a process incriasingly reductive
that
finally leavesthe slatewiped clean.
The white cube was a transitional device that attempted to
bleach out the past arid at rhe same time control the future by
appealingto supposedlytranscendentalmodes ofpresenceand
power. But the problem with transcendentalprinciples is
that by
definition they speakof another world. .rot thir one. It is rhis
other
world, or accessto it, that the whire cube represents.Itis like
Plato'svision of a l"righermetaphysicalrealm where form,
shin-
ingly attenuatedand abstracrlike mathematics,is utterly discon_
nected from the Iife of human experience here below. (pure
form
would exist,Plaro felt, even if this worrd did not. It is little recog-
)
nized how much this aspectof pratonism has to do with moderriist
ways of thinking, and especiallyas a hidden controlling structure
behind modernist esthetics.Revivedin part as a compensarory
reaction to the decline of religion, and promoted, however mistak_
enly, by our culture'sattention to the unchanging abstraction
of
mathematics,the idea of pure form domihat.d trr. esthetics(and
ethics) from which the white cube emerged.Thepythagoreans
of
Plato s day,including plato himself. held that the beginning
was a
blank where there appearedinexplicably a spot which stretched
into a line, which flowed into a plane, whictrfolded into a solid,
which casta shadow,which is what we see.This set of elements_
point. line, surface,solid, simulacrum - conceived as conientless
except in their own-nature, is the primary equiprnent of much

lt
modern art.The white cuberepresentsthe blank ultimate faceof
light from which, in the Platonicmyth, theseelementsunspeak-
abiy evolve.In suchtypesof thought, primary shapesand geomet-
ric abstractionsareregardedasalive- in fact,as more intensely
alive than anythingwith a specificcontent.Thewhite cube'sulti-
mate meaningis this life-erasingtranscendentalambition dis-
guisedand convertedto specificsocialpurposes'O'Doherty's
issaysin this book aredefensesof the real life of the world against
the iterilizedoperatingroom of the white cube- defensesof time
and changeagainstthe myth of the eternalityand transcendence
of pure form. In fact,they embodythis defenseas much asthey
."p..tt it. Theyarea kind of spookyreminder of time, illustrating
how quickly tlle newestrealizationsof today becomethe classical
insightsof yesterday. Though it is common to saythat modernism'
with its exacerbated rate of changeor development,is over'that
rate of changenot only remainsbut is increasing.Articleswritten
todaywili, U1,rOlo, eitherhavebeenforgottenor like these,will
havebecomeclassic.

Thomas McEvilleY
New York City 1986
 I. Noteson the GallerySpace

A recurrentscenein sci^fimoviesshowsthe earthwithdrawing

from the spacecraft until it becomesa horizon,a beachball, a
grapefruit,a golf ball,a star.With the changesin scale,
responses
slidefrom rheparticularto rhe generat. fni inaiviaualis replaced
by the raceand we area pushoverfor the race_amortal
biped,or
a tangleofthem spreadout below like a rug.From a certain
heieht
peoplearegenerallygood.verticardistanceencourages
' generosity. this
Horizontalitydoesn'tseemto havethe samemoral
virtue.Farawayfiguresmay be approachingand we anticipate
the
insecurities of encounter. Life is horizontal,just one thinq after
another,a conveyerbelt shufflingus towardthe fro.iror.r."sui
;lr_
tory, the view from the departingspacecraft, is different.As the
scalechanges, layersof time aresuperimposed and throughthem
we projectperspectives with which to recoverand correcithepast.
No wonderarr gersbollixedup in this process;its history,per-
ceivedthroughtime,is confoundedby the picturein fronr
of your
eyes,a witnessreadyto changetestimonyat the slightertp.r..p_
tual provocation. Historyand the eyehavea profoundwrangle'at
the centerof this ',constant,,
we call tradition.
All of us arenow surethat the glut of history,rumor,and
evi_
dencewe callthe modernisttradilionis beingcircumscribed
by a
horizon.Lookingdown,we seemoreclearlyits,,laws,, progiess,
of
its armaturehammeredout of idealistphilosophy,its miliiarf
metaphorsof advanceand conquest.What a sigfrtit is_or was!
Deployedideologies,trancendentrockets,romintic slumswhere
degradation andidealismobsessively couple,all thosetroopsrun_
ll
 reports
ning backand forth in conventionalwars.Thecampaign
giveus little
ii-t"i*a up pressedbetweenboardson coffeetables
paradoxical achievements huddle
ideaof the actualheroics'Those
the avant-garde
a"*" rft.t., "waiting the revisionsthat will add
it' Indeed'tradition
erato tradition,or,aswe sometimesfear'end
i*ff, "t the spacecraft withdraws'looks like another pieceof bric-
assemblage
,-U.u. o" the coffeetable-no morethan a kinetic
mythic motors
gf".a1"g.,ft.r with reproductions'poweredby little
in its midst'onenotices
lnd spoitingtiny modelsof museums'And
"cell" that appearscrucialto making the thing
;; .;;;iy riintea
work:
' the gallerYsPace'
by that space;or
ifr. irirr6ry of modernismis intimately framed
with changesin
rathe, the hiitory of modern art can be correlated
now reacheda point
it ur rpu.. and in the way we seeit'we have
(A of the ageis to
*t .r. *. seenot the aribut ttrespacefirst' clich6
An imagecomesto
elalulateoverthe spaceon enteringa gallery')
singlepicture'
.ni.taoi, white,ideaispaceihat' morethan any
;;;;1h. archetypalimageof tw-entiethcentury art; it clarifies'
usuallyattached
itselfthrough a processof f,istoricalinevitability
to the art it contains.
ali cuesthat inter-
ihe ideal gallerysubtractsfrom the artwork
ferewiththefactthatitis"art'"Theworkisisolatedfromevery-
itself'This
it-rir-rg tl-tutwould detractfrom its own evaluationof
givesthe spacea presence possessed by otherspaceswherecon-
ventionsarepreserved throughthe repetitionof a closedsystemof
v a l u e s . S o m e o f t h e s a n c t i t y o f t h e c h u r c h , t h e f o r mjoins
alityo fthe
with
experimental iaboratory
courtroom,the mystrlueoi the
a unique chamberof esthetics' Sopowerful
chicdesignto prodr-,ce
that' once
"t. ,f-t.p"....piuut fieldsof forcewithin this chamber
things
outsideit, uri.u.t lapseinto secularstatus'Conversely'
art focuson
becomeart in a spacewherepowerfulideasabout
mediumthrough
them.lndeed,the objectfrequentlybecomesthe
discussion-a
which theseideasaremanifestedand profferedfo-r
popularform of laternodernistacademicism ("ideasaremoreinter-
.rting tf,unart") .The sacramental natureof the spacebecomes
modernism:
clear,and sodoesone of the greatprojectivelaws of
l4
 As modernismgetsolder,context becomescontent.In a peculiar
reversal.rhe objectintroducedinro the gallery ,,frames,.ihe gallery
and its laws.
A galleryis constructedalong rawsasrigorousasthosefor build-
ing a medievalchurch.The outsideworld must not comein, so
windowsareusuallysealedoff.Wallsarepaintedwhite.Theceil-
ing becomesthe sourceof light.The woodenfloor is polishedso
that you click along clinically,or carpetedso that you pad sound_
lessly,restingthe feetwhile the eyeshaveat the wall. The art is
free,asthe sayingusedto go,,,totakeon its own life.,,The discreet
deskmaybe the only pieceof furniture.In this contexta standing
ashtraybecomesalmosta sacredobject,just asthe firehosein a
modernmuseumlooksnot like a flrehosebut an estheticconun_
drum. Modernism'stranspositionof perceptionfrom life to formal
valuesis complete. This,of course,is one of modernism,s fatal
diseases.
Unshadowed, white,clean,artificial-the spaceis devotedto the
' technologyof esthetics. Worksof art aremounted,hung,scattered
for study.Theirungrubbysurfaces areuntouchedby time and its
vicissitudes. Arr exisrsin a kind of eternityof display,and though
thereis lotsof "period" (latemodem), thereis no time.Thiseter_
nity givesthe gallerya limbolikestatus;one hasto havedied
alreadyto be there.Indeedthe presenceofthat odd pieceoff.rni-
ture,your own body,seemssuperfluous, an intrusion.The space
offersthe thoughtthat wrrileeyesand nrindsarewelcome.irrace-
occupyingbodies,are not-or aretoleratedonly askinesthetic
mannekinsfor furtherstudy.This Cartesianparadoxis reinforced
by oqe of the iconsof our visualculture:the installationshot,sarzs
figures.Hereat lasttl.respectator, oneself,is eliminated.you are
therewithout beingthere-one of the major services providedfor
art by its old antagonist, photography.The installationshoris a
metaphorfor the galleryspace.In it an idealis fulfllledasstrongly
a si n a S a l o np a i n r i n go f t h e l 8 3 d s .
Indeed,the Salonitselfimplicitlydefineswhar a galleryis,a
definition appropriatefor the estheticsof the period.A galleryis a
placewith a wall,which is coveredwith a wall of pictures.The
l5
wall itselfhasno instrinsicesthetic;it is simply a necessityfor an
upright animal.SamuelF.B. Morse'sExhibition Galleryat the
Louvre( lS33) is upsettingto the moderneye:masterpieces as
wallpaper,eachone not yet separated out and isolatedin space
like a throne.Disregarding the (to us) horrid concatenation of
periodsand styles,the demandsmade on the spectatorby the
hangingpassour understanding. Are you to hire stiltsto riseto the
ceiling or get on handsand kneesto sniff anything below the
dado?Both high and low areunderprivilegedareas.You overhear
"skied" but nothing
a lot of complaintsfrom artistsaboutbeing
aboutbeing"floored."Nearthe floor,pictureswere at leastacces-
ihe connoisseur's "near" Iookbefore
sibleand couldaccommodate
he withdrewto a morejudiciousdistance.One can seethe nine-
feenth centuryaudiencestrolling,peeringup, stickingtheir faces
in picturesand falling into interrogativegroups'aproper distance
away,pointing with a cane,perambulatingagain,clockingoff the
exhibition pictureby picture.Largerpaintingsrise to the top
(easierto seefrom a distance)and aresometimestilted out from
"best" picturesstayin
the wall to maintainthe viewer'spiane;the
the middlezone;smalipicturesdrop to the bottom.Theperfect
hangingjob is an ingeniousmosaicof frameswithout a patchof
w a s t e dw a l l s h o w i n g .
What perceptuai law couldjustify (to our eyes)sucha barbar-
ity? One-andone only: Eachpicturewas seenasa self-contained
entity,totallyisoiatedfrom its sium-closeneighborby a heavy
framearoundand a completeperspective systemwithin. Space
was discontinuous and categorizable. just asthe housesin which
thesepictureshqng had differentrooms for differentfunctions.
The nineteenthcenlurymind wastaxonomic,and the nineteenth
,centuryeyerecognized hierarchiesofgenreand the authorityof
the framd
How did the easelpicturebecomesucha neatlywrappedparcel
of space? Thediscoveryof perspective coincideswith the riseof
the easelpicture,and the easelpicture,in turn, confirmsthe prom-
ise of illusionisminherentin painting.Thereis a peculiarrelation-
ship betweena mural - painted directly on the wall - and a picture
l6
Sam uel F B. Morse. Exhibition Gallert at the Louvre, l8j2 - )j,
c o u r l e s y T e r r a M u s e u m o f A m e r i c a n A r t , E v a n s t o n ,I l l i n o i s

t7
 that hangson a wall; a painted wall is replacedby a piece of port-
able wall. Limits are establishedand framed; miniaturization
becomes a powerful convention that assistsrather than contradicts
illusion.The spacein murals tends to be shallow; even when illu-
sion is an intrinsic part of the idea, the integrity of the wall is as
oftel,reinforced, by struts of painted architecture, as denied.The
wall itself is always recognized as limiting depth (you don't walk
through it),just as corners and ceiling (often in a variety of inven-
tive ways) limit size.Close up, murals tend to be frank about their
means - iliusionism breaks down in a babble of method. You feel
you are looking at the underpainting and often can't quite find
il
your "place." Indeed,murals project ambiguous and wandering
vectors with which the spectator attempts to align himself.The
easelpicture on the wall quickly indicatesto him exactiy where
he stands.
For the easdlpicture is like a portable window that, once set on
, the wall, penetratesit with deep space.Thistheme is endlessly
repeated in northern art. where a window within the picture in
turn frames not only a further distance but confirms the window-
like limits of the frame.Themagical,boxlike statusof some smaller
easelpicturesis due to the immense distancesthey contain and
the perfectdetailsthey sustainon cioseexamination.The frame of
the easelpicture is as much a psychologicalcontainer for the a4ist
as the room in which the viewer standsis for him or her.The per-
spectivepositionseverythingwithin the picture along a cone of
space,againstwhich the frame acts like-a grid, echoing those cuts
"steps"
of foreground,middleground,and distancewithin. One
firmly into such a picture or glides effortlessly,depending on its
tonality and color.The greaterthe illusion, the greater the invita-
tion to the spectator'seye; the eye is abstractedlrom an hnchored
'
body and projectedas a miniature proxy into the picture to inhabit
and test the articulationsof its space.
For this process,the stability of the frame is as necessaryas an
oxygen tank is to a diver. Its limiting security completely defines
the experiencewithin.The border as absoluteiimit is confirmed in
easelart up to the nineteenth century.Where it curtails or elides
t8
 subjectmatter,it doesso in a way that strengthensthe edge.The
classicpackageof perspectiveenclosedby the Beaux-Artsframe
makesit possiblefor picturesto hang like sardines.Thereis no .
suggestionthat the spacewithin the picture is continuouswith
the spaceon either sideof it.
, This suggestionis made only sporadicallythrough the eight_
. eenth and nineteenthcenturiesas atmosphereand color eataway
at the perspective.Landscapeis the progenitorof a translucent
mist that puts perspectiveand tone/colorin opposition,because
implicit in eachare oppositeinterpretationsof the wall they hang
on_.Picturesbeginto appearthat put pressureon the frame.The
archetypalcomposifionhereis the edge-to-edge horizon,separat_
ing zonesof sky and sea,often underlined by beach,with maybe
a figurefacing,as everyonedoes,the sea.Formal compositionis
gone; the frameswithin the frame (coulisses, repoussoirs,
the Braille
of perspectivedepth) have slid away.Whatis left is an ambiguous
surfacepartly framedfrom the insideby the horizon.Suchpictures
(by Courbet,CasparDavid Friedrich,Whistler,and hostsof little
masters)arepoisedbetweeninfinite depth and flatnessand tend
to read aspattern.The powerful convention of the horizon zips
easilyenoughthrough the limits of the frame.
Theseand certainpicturesfocusingon an indeterminatepatch
of landscapethat often looks like the ,,wrong,.subjectintroduce
the ideaof noticingsomething,of an eyescanning.This temporal
quickeningmakesthe framean equivocal,and not ah absolute,
zone.Onceyou know that a patchoflandscaperepresents a deci_
sion to excludeeverythingaround it, you are faintly awareof the
spaceoutsidethe picture.Theframebecomesa parenthesis.The
separationof paintingsalonga wall, through a kind of magnetic
repulsion,becomesinevitable.And it wes accentuatedand Iargely
initiatedby the new science - or art- devotedto the excisiono1a
subjectfrom its context:photography.
In a photograph,the locationof the edgeis a primarydecision,
sinceit composes - or decomposes - what it surrounds.Eventually
framing,ediring,cropping- establishinglimits - becomemajor
actsof composition.But not so much in the beginning.Therewas
l9
the usual holdover of pictorial conventions to do some of the work
of framing - internal buttressesmade up of convenient trees and
knolls.The best early photographs reinterpret the edge without
tlle assistanceof pictorial conventions. They lower t}:'.etension on
the edge by allowing the subject matter to compose itself, rather
than bonsciouslyaligning it with the edge.Perhapsthis is typical
ofthe nineteenth century.The nineteenth century looked at a sub-
ject-not at its edges.Variousfields were studied within their
declaredIimits. Studying not the fleld but its limits, and defining
these limits for the purpose of extending them, is a twentieth cen-
tury habit. We have the illusion that we add to a fleld by extending
it laterally,not by going, as the nineteenth century might sayin
proper perspectivestyle,deeperinto it. Even scholarshipin both
centurieshas a recognizablydifferent senseofedge and depth, of
Iimits and definition. Photography quickly learned to move away
from heavy framesand to mount a print on a sheet of board.A
.frame was allowed to surround the board after a neutral interval.
Early photography recognizedthe edge but removed its rhetoric,
softenedits absolutism,and turne d it into a zone rather than the
strut it later became.One way or another,the edge as a firm con-
ventio.n locking in the subject had become fragile.
Much of this applied to Impressionism,in which a major rheme
was the edgeas umpire of what's in and what's out. But this was
combined with a far more important force,the beginning of the
decisivethrust that eventually altered the idea of the picture,the
way it was hung, and ultimately the gallery space:the myth of
flatness,which becamethe powerful logician in painting's argu-
ment for self-definition'The development of a shaflow literal space
(containing invented forms, as distinct from the old illusory space
containing "real" forms) put further pressureson the edge'The
great inventor here is, of course,Monet.
Indeed, the magnitude of the revolution he initiated is such that
there is some doubt his achievementmatches iU for he is an artist
of decidedlimitations (or one who decided on his limitations and
stayed within them). Monet's landscapes often seem to have been
noticed on his way to or from the real subject.There is an impres-
20
C l a u d e M o n e t , W a t e rL i l i e s , 1 9 2 0 ,r r i p r y c h : e a c h p a n e l 6 , 6 , ' x 1 4 ' ,
courtesy Museum of Modern Art, New york.
Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund

2l
 sion that he is settlingfor a provisionalsolution; the very feature-
lessnessrelaxesyour eyeto look elsewhere.Theinformal subject
. matter of Impressionismis alwayspointed out, but not that the
subjectis seenthrough a casualglance,one not too interestedin
"looking at"
what it's looking at.What is interestingin Monet is
this look - the integumentof light, the often preposterousfor-
mularization of a perceptionthrough a punctatecodeof color and
touch which remains(until nearthe end) impersonal.The edge
eclipsingthe subjectseemsa somewhathaphazarddecisionthat
could just aswell havebeenmade a few feet left or right.A signa-
ture of Impressionismis the way the casuallychosensubjectsof-
tens the edge'sstructuralrole at a time when the edgeis under
pressurefrom the increasingshallowness dou-
of the space.This
bled and somewhatopposingstresson the edgeis the preludeto
the definition of a painting as a self-sufficientobject-a container
of illusory fact now becomethe primary fact itself-which setsus
on the high road to somestirring estheticclimaxes.
Flatnessand objecthoodusually find their first officialtext in
Maurice Denis'sfamousstatementin 1890that beforea pictureis
subjectmatter,it is first of all a surfacecoveredwith lines and col-
ors.Thisis one of thoseliteralismsthat soundsbrilliant or rather
dumb, dependingonthe Zeitgeist. Right now, having seenthe end-
point to which nonmetaphor,nonstructure,nonillusion and non-
contentcantakeyou,the Zeitgeist makesit sounda little obtuse.
That pictureplane- the ever-thinningintegumentof modernist
integrity- sometimes seemsreadyfor WoodyAllen and hasindeed
attractedits shareof ironistsand wits. But this ignoresthat the
powerful myth of the picture plane receivedits impetusfrom the
centuriesduringwhich it sealedin unalterablesystemsof illusion.
Conceivingit differentlyin the modern era was an heroicadjust-
ment that signifieda totaily differentworid viei'v,which was
trivialized into esthetics,into the technologyof flatness.
The literalizationof the pictureplaneis a greatsubject.As the
vesselof contentbecomesshallowerand shallower,composition
and subjectmatter and metaphysicsall overflowacrossthe edge
until, as GertrudeSteinsaidaboutPicasso, the emptyingout is
22
 complete.But all the jettisoned apparatus-hierarchies of painting,
illusion, locatablespace,mythologies beyond number-bounced
back in disguiseand attachedthemselves,via new mythologies,to
the literal surfdce,which had apparently left them no purchase.
The transformation of literary myths into literal myths-object-
hood, the integrity of the picture plane, the equalization of space.
the self-sufflciency of the work, the purity of form-is unexplored
territory.Without this change,art would have been obsolete.
Indeed,its changesoften seem one step ahead of obsolescence,
and to that degreeits progressmimics the laws of fashion.
The cultivation of the picture plane resulted in an entity with
length and breadth but no thickness,a membrane which, in a
metaphor usually organic,could generateits own self-sufficient
laws.The primary law, of course,was that this surface,pressed
between huge historicalforces,couid not be violated.A narrow
space forced to represent without representing, to symbolize with-
out benefit ofreceived conventions,generateda plethora ofnew
conventionswithout a consensus-color codes,signaturesof
paint, private signs,intellectually formulated ideas of structure.
Cubism'sconceptsof structureconservedthe easelpainting status
quo; Cubistpaintings are centripetal,gathered toward the center,
fading out toward the edge.(Is this why Cubist paintings rend to
be small?) Seuratunderstoodmuch better how to define the limits
of a classicformulation at a rime when edgeshad become
equivocal.Frequently,painted borders made up of a glomeration
ofcolored dots are deployedinward to separateout and describe
the subject.The border absorbsthe slow movements of the struc-
ture within.To muffle the abruptnessof the edge,he sometimes
pattered all over the frame so that the eye could move out of the
picture-and back into it-witirout a bump.
Matisseunderstoodthe dilemma of the picture plane and its
tropism toward outward extension better than anyone.His pic-
tures grew bigger as if, in a topological paradox, depth were being
translatedinto a flat analog.On this, place was signifiedby up and
down and left and right, by color, by drawing that rarely closed a
contour without calling on the surface to contradict it, and by
23
paint appliedwith a kind of cheerfulimpartiality to everypart of
that surface.InMatisse'slargepaintingswe are hardly evercon-
sciousof the frame.He solvedthe problem of lateral extensionand
containmentwith perfecttact.He doesn'temphasizethe centerat
the expenseof the edge,or vice versa.His picturesdon't make
arrogantclaimsto stretchesof bare wall.They look good almost
anywhere.Theirtough,informal structureis combinedwith a
decorativeprudencethat makesthem remarkablyself-sufficient.
Theyareeasyto hang.
Hanging,indeed.is what we needto know more about.From
Courbeton, conventions ofhangingarean unrecovered history.
The way picturesarehung makesassumptionsabout what is
offered.Hangingeditorializeson mattersof interpretationand
value.and is unconsciously influencedby tasteand fashion.Sub-
Iiminal cuesindicateto the audienceits deportment.It shouldbe
possibleto correlatethe internal history of paintingswith the
externalhistory of how they were hung.We might begin our
searchnot with a modeof displaycommunallysanctioned(iike
the Salon),but with the vagariesof privateinsight-with those
picturesof seventeenth and eighteenthcenturycollectorseie-
gantly sprawiedin the midst of their inventory.The first modern
occasion, I suppose,in which a radicalartistsetup his own space
and hung his picturesin it wasCourbet'sone-manSalondes
Refusds outsidethe Expositionof I855.How were the pictures
hung? How did Courbetconstruetheir sequence, their relation-
ship to eachother,the spaces between?I suspecthe did nothing
startling;yet it wasthe firsttime a modernartist (who happened
to be the flrst modern artist)had to constructthe context of his
work and thereforeeditorializeaboutits values.
Thoughpicturesmayhavebeenradical,their earlyframingand
hangingusuallywasnot.Theinterpretationof what a picture
impliesaboutits contextis always,we may assume,delayed'In
their firstexhibitionin I874,the Impressionists stucktheir pictures
cheekby jowl, just asthey would have hung in the Salon.Impres-
sionistpictures,which asserttheir flatnessand their doubtsabout
the limiting edge,arestill sealedoff in Beaux-Artsframesthat do
 little more than announce "Old Master,,-and monetary - status.
When William C. Seitztook off the frames for his greatMonet
show at the Museum of Modern Art in t960, the undressedcan-
vasseslooked a bit like reproductions until you saw how they
began to hold the wall.Though the hanging had its eccenrric
moments, it read the pictures' relation to the wall correctlvand. in
a rare act of curatorial daring, followed up the implicationi. Seitz
also set some of the Monets flush with the wall. Continuous with
the wall, the picturestook on some of the rigidity of tiny murals.
The surfacesturned hard as the picture plane was ,,over-
literalized."The differencebetween the easelpicture and the
mural was clarified.
The relation between the picture plane and the underlying wall
is very pertinent to the estheticsof surface.The inch of the
stretcher'swidth amounts to a formal abyss.The easelpainting is
not transferableto the wall, and one wants to know why. What is
lost in the transfer?Edges,surface,the grain and bite ofthe canvas,
the separationfrom the wall. Nor can we forget that the whole
thing is suspendedor supported- transferable,mobile currency.
After centuriesof illusionism. it seemsreasonableto suggestthat
theseparameters,no matter how flat the surface,are the loci of
the last tracesof illusionism. Mainstream painting right up to
Color Field is easelpainting, and its literalism is practicedagainst
these desiderataof illusionism. Indeed, these tracesmake \
literalism interesting;they are the hidden component of the
dialecticalengine that gave the late modernist easelpicture its
energy.If you copied a late modernist easelpicture onto the wall
and then hung the easelpicture besideit, you could estimatethe
degreeof illusionism that turned up in the faultlessliteral pedigree
of the easelpicture.At the same timel tl-rerigid mural would under-
line the importance of surfaceand edgesto the easelpicture, now
beginning to hover closeto an objecthood defined by the ,,literal,,
remnants of illusion-an unstable area.
The attackson painting in the sixtiesfailed to specifythat it
wasn't painting but the easelpicture that was in trouble. Color
Field painting was thus conservativein an interestingway, but not
25
 to those who recognized that the easel picture couldn't rid itself of
illusion and who rejectedthe premise of something lying quietly
on the wall and behaving itself. I've always been surprised that
Color Field - or late modernist painting in general- didn't try to
get onto the wall, didn't attempt a rapprochement between the
mural and the easelpicture. But then Color Field painting con-
formed to the social context in a somewhat disturbing way. It
remained Salon painting: it needed big walls and big collectors
and couldn't avoid looking like the ultimate in capitalist art. Mini-
mal art recognized the illusions inherent in the easel picture and
didn't have any illusions about society.It didn't ally itself with
wealth and power, and its abortive attempt to redefine the relation
of the artist to various establishmentsremains largely unexplored.
Apart from Color Field,late modernist painting postulatedsome
ingenious hypotheseson how to squeezea little extra out ofthat
. recalcitrant picture plane, now so dumbly literal it could drive you
crazy.Thestrategyhere was simile (pretending),not metaphor
"like a - ." The
(betieving): sayingthe picture plane is
blank was filled in by flat things that lie obligingly on the literal
surfaceand fuse with it, e.g.,Johns'sFlags,CyTwombly's
"sheets" of lined
blackboard paintings,Alex Hay'shuge painted
"notebooks." Then there is the "like a window
paper,Arakawa's
"like a sky" area.There'sa good comedy-of-
shade," "like a wall,"
"like a -" solution
manners pieceto be written about the
to the picture plane.Thereare numerous related areas,including
the perspectiveschemaresoiutelyflattened into two dimensions
ro quote the picture plane'sdilemma. And before leaving this area
of rather desperatewit, one should note the solutions that cut
through the picture plane (Lucio Fontana3 answer to the Gordian
surface) until the picture is taken away and the wall's plaster
attacked directlY'
Also relatedis the solution that lifts surfaceand edgesoff that
Procrustean stretcher and pins, sticks, or drapes paper, fiberglass,
or cloth directly against the wall to literalize even further. Here a
lot of Los Angelespainting falls neatly-for the first time!-into the
historical mainstream; it's a little odd to seethis obsessionwith

26
 surface,disguisedasit may be with vernacularmacho,dismissed
asprovincialimpudence.
All this desperatefussmakesyou realizeall over againwhat a
conservativemovementcubism was.It extendedthe viability of
the easelpictureand postponedits breakdown.Cubismwasreduc-
ible to system,and systems,being easierto understandthan art.
dominateacademichistory.Systemsare a kind of p.R.which,
amongotherthings,pushthe ratherodiousideaof progress. prog_
resscan be definedaswhat happenswhen you eliminaie the
opposition.However, the tough oppositionvoicein modernismis
that of Matisse,andit speaksin its unemphatic,rationalway about
color,which in the beginningscaredCubismgray.ClementGreen_
berg'sArt and culturereportson how the New york artistssweatecrr
out Cubism.while castingshrewdeyeson Matisseand Mir6.
AbstractExpressionist paintingsfollowed the route of lateral
expansion,droppedoff the frame,and graduallybeganto conceive
eaqeasa strucruralunit through which the painting entered
lfe
into a dialoguewith the wall beyond ir. Ar rhis point the dealer
and curatorenterfrom the wings.How they- in collaboration
with the artist-presented theseworks,contributed,in the late
foities and fifties,to the deflnition of rhe new painting.
Throughthe flftiesand sixties,we notice the codifiiation of a
new themeasit evolvesinto consciousness: How much space
shoulda work of art have(asrhe thrase went) ro ,,breathe,,Z tf
paintingsimplicitly declaretheir own terms of occupancy,the
somewhataggrieved mutteringbetweenthem becomesharderto
ignore.What goesrogerher, what doesn,t?The esthetics of hanging
evolvesaccordingto its own habits,which becomeconventions,
which becomelaws.we enterthe era whereworks of art conceive
the wall asa no-man'sland on which to projecttheir conceptof
the territorial imperative.And we are not far from the kind of bor-
der warfarethat often Baikanizesmuseum group shows.Thereis a
peculiaruneasiness in watchingartworksattemptingto establish
territorybut not placein the contextof the placeless modern
gallery.
All this trafficacrossthe wall made it a far-from-neutralzone.
27
: r a n k S t e l l a i,n s t a l l a t i o nv i e w ,l 9 6 4 ,
o u r t e s yL e o C a s t e l lC
i a l l e r yN
, en York

28
Now a participantin, rather than a passivesupportfor,the art, the
wall becamethe locusof contendingideologies;and everynew
developmenthad to comeequippedwith an attitude toward it.
(GeneDavis'sexhibition of micro-picturessurroundedby oodles
of spaceis a goodjoke aboutthis.) Oncethe wall becamean es-
thetic force,it modifiedanything shown on it.The wall, the context
of the art,had becomerich in a content it subtly donatedto the art.
It is now impossibleto paint up an exhibition without surveying
the spacelike a healthinspector, taking into accountthe esthetics
of the wall which will inevitably "aftify" the work in a way that
frequentlydiffusesits intentions.Most of us now "read" the hang-
ing aswe wouid chewgum-unconsciouslyand from habit.The
wall's estheticpotencyreceiveda final impetusfrom a realization
that,in retrospect,hasall the authorityof historicalinevitability:
The easelpicturedidn't haveto be rectangular.
Stella'searlyshapedcanvasses bent or cut the edgeaccordingto
the demandsof the internal logic that generatedthem. (Here
ld'ihael Fried'sdistinctionbetweeninductive and deductivestruc-
trfie remainsone of the few practicalhand tools addedto the crit-
id3 blackbag.) The resultpowerfully activatedthe wall; the eye
frequentlywent searching tangentiallyfor the wall'slimits.Stella's
show ofstripedU-,T-,and L-shapedcanvasses at Castelliin 1960
"developed"everybit of the wall,
floor to ceiling,cornerro corner.
Flatness, edge,format,and wall had an unprecedented dialoguein
that smail,uptown Castellispace.As they were presented, the
works hoveredbetweenan ensembleeffectand independence.
The hangingtherewasasrevolutionaryas the paintings;sincethe
hangingwaspart of the esthetic, it evolvedsimultaneously with
the pictures.Thebreakingof the rectangleformally confirmedthe
wall'sautonomy,alteringfor goodthe conceptof the galleryspace.
Someof the mystiqueof the shallowpictureplane (oneof the
threemajorforcesthat alteredthe galleryspace)had beentrans-
ferredto the contextof art.
Thisresultbringsus backagainto that archetypalinstailation
shot-the suaveextensions of the space,the pristineclarity,the
pictureslaid out in a row like expensivebungalows.ColorField
29
. e n n e t h N o l a n d , i n s r a l l a t i o n v i e w . 1 96 7 ,
ourtesy Andr Emmerich Gallery, New york

l0
 4

e n e D a v i s , i n s t a l l a t i o n v i e w , 1 9 6 8 .c o u r t e s y F i s c h b a c h
Gallery,
ew York (photo: John A. Ferrari)

ll
william Anastasi,Westwal!,DwanMain Gallery,1967
(photo: walter Russell)
j2
H e l e n F r a n k e n t h a l e r ,i n s t a l l a r i o nv i e w . 1 9 6 8 .
cou rtesy Andrd Emmerich Gallerv

33
painting,which inevitablycomesto mind here' is the most impe-
rial of modesin its demandfor lebensraum.The picturesrecur as
reassuringiyasthe columnsin a classictemple.Eachdemands
enough tpu.. so that its effectis over beforeits neighbor'spicks
up. Otherwise,the pictureswould be a singleperceptualfield,
frank ensemblepainting,detractingfrom the uniquenessclaimed
by eachcanvas.The ColorFieldinstallationshot shouldbe recog-
nizedasone of the teleologicalendpointsof the moderntradition.
There is somethingsplendidlyluxurious about the way the pic-
tures and the gaileryresidein a context that is fully sanctioned
socially.We areawarewe arewitnessinga triumph of high serious-
nessand hand-tooledproduction,Iike a RollsRoycein a show-
room that beganasa Cubistjalopyin an outhouse'
What commentcan you make on this? A comment hasbeen
made already,in an exhibition by William Anastasiat Dwan in
New Yorkin 1965.He photographedthe emptygalleryat Dwan'
noticed the parametersof the wall, top and bottom' right and left'
theiplacementof eachelectricaloutlet, the oceanof spacein the
middle. He then silkscreenedall this data on a canvasslightly
smallerthan the wall and put it on the wall. Coveringthe wall
with an imageof that wall deliversa work of art right into the zone
where surfaie,mural, and wall have engagedin dialoguescentral
to modernism.In fact,this history was the theme of thesepaint-
ings,a theme statedwith a wit and cogencyusually absentfrom
For me, at Ieast,the show had a peculiar
ou-rwritten clarifications.
after-effect;when the paintingscame down, the wall becamea
kind of ready-made mural and so changedeveryshowin that
sDacethereafter.
II. The Eyeand the Spectator

Couldn't modernismbe taught to children as a seriesof Aesop,s

fables?It would be more memorablethan art appreciation.Think
of suchfablesas"Who Killed Illusion?" or "How the EdgeRevolted
Againstthe Center.""The Man Who Violatedthe Canvas,,could
follow "Where Did the FrameGo?" I would be easyto draw mor-
als:think of "TheVanishingImpastoThat SoakedAway-and Then
CameBackand Got Fat."And how would we tell the storyof the
little PicturePlanethat grew up and got so mean? How it evicted
everybody,including FatherPerspective and Mother Space.who
had raisedsuchnice real children,and left behind only this horrid
resultof an incestuousaffair calledAbstraction,who looked down
on everybody, including-eventually-itsbuddies,Metaphorand
Ambiguity; and how Abstracrionand the picture plane,thick as
thieves,keptbootingout a persistent guttersnipenamedCollage,
who just wouidn'tgiveup. Fablesgiveyou more latituderhan art
history.I suspectart historianshavefantasiesabout their fields
they would like to make stick.Thisis a prefaceto somegeneraliza-
tionsaboutCubismand collagethat seemequallytrue and ficti-
tious,and thuscomposea fairy talefor adults.
Theforcesthat crushedfour hundredyearsof illusionismand
idealismtogetherand evictedthem from the picturetranslated
deepspaceinto surfacetension.Thissurfacerespondsasa fieldto
any mark on it. Onemark wasenoughto establisha relationship
not so much with the next aswith the estheticand ideological
potencyof the blank canvas. The contentof the emptycanvas
increased asmodernismwent on.Imaginea museumof such
potencies, a temporalcorridorhung with blank canvasses-from
1 8 5 0 ,1 8 8 0 ,1 9 I 0 ,1 9 5 0 ,1 9 7 0E
. a c hc o n r a i n sb,e f o r ea b r u s hi s l a i d
on it. assumptions implicit in the art of its era.As the series
approachesthe present,eachmemberaccumulatesa more com-

t>
plex latent content.Modernism'sclassicvoid endsup stuffedwith
ideasall readyto jump on the first brushstroke.The specialized
surfaceof the moderncanvasis as aristocratican invention as
human ingenuityeverevolved.
Inevitably,what went on that surface,paint itself,becamethe
locus of conflictingideologies.Caughtbetweenits substanceand
its metaphoricalpotential,paint re-enactedin its materialbody
the residualdilemmasof illusionism.As paint becamesubject,
object,and process, illusionismwas squeezed out of it.Theinteg-
rity of the pictureplaneand the morality of the medium favorlat-
eral extension.The mainstreamasscheduledfrom Czanneto
Color Fieldglidesalongthe wall,measures it with verticaland
horizontal coordinates,maintainsthe propriety of gravity and the
upright viewer.Thisis the etiquetteof normal socialdiscourse,
and through it the mainstreamviewer is continually reintroduced
to the wall, which in turn supportsthe canvas-its surfacenow so
sensitivethat an objecton it would causeit. asit were,to blink.
But ashigh art vacuumedthe picture plane,the vernacular
surpasseditselfin transgressing its vulgar equivalent.While the
Impressionistsoccludedtraditional perspectivewith a curtain of
paint, popular paintersand photographersin many countries
gamedwith illusion from Archimboldesquegrotesqueries to
trompe lbeil. Shells,glitter,hair.stones,minerals,and ribbons
were attachedto postcards, photographs,frames,shadowboxes.
This tacky efflorescence, saturatedin the Victorian'scorrupt ver-
sion of short-term memory- nostalgia- was,of course,a sub-
stratumof Symbolismand Surrealism. Sowhen, in l9l l, Picasso
stuckthat pieceof oil cloth printedwith chair-caningon a canvas,
someadvancedcolleagues may haveseenit asa retardataire
gesture.
That work is now collage'sExhibit A. Artists.historians,critics
are alwaystrampingbackto l9l I to take a look at it. It marksan
irrevocable through-the-looking- glasspassage from the picture's
spaceinto the secularworld, the spectator'sspace.Analytic Cubism
didn't push laterallybut pokedout the picture plane,contradicting
previousadvancesin definingit. Facetsof spaceare thrust forward;
J6
PabloPicasso,Srill Lifewith ChairCaning,tgll
sometimesthey look stuckon the surface.Bits of Analytic Cubism,
then,couldalreadybe seenasa kind of.collage manqud.
The moment a collagewas attachedto that unruly Cubistsur-
facethere wasan instantaneousswitch.No Ionger ableto pin a
subjecttogetherin a spacetoo shallow for it, the multiple vanish-
ing points of the Analytic Cubistpicture showerout into the room
with the spectator. His point of view ricochetsamong them.The
surfaceof the pictureis madeopaqueby collage.Behind it is sim-
ply a wall, or a void.In front is an open spacein which the viewer's
senseof his own presence becomesan increasinglypalpable
shadow.Expelledfrom the Edenof illusionism.kept out by the
literal surfaceof the picture,the spectatorbecomesenmeshedin
the troubledvectorsthat provisionallydefinethe modernistsensi-
bility.Theimpurespacein which he standsis radicallychanged.
The estheticsof discontinuitymanifestthemselvesin this altered
spaceand time.The autonomyof parts,the revolt of objects,pock-
etsof void becomegenerativeforcesin all the arts.Abstractionand
reality- not realism- conductthis rancorousargumentthrough-
out modernism.The pictureplane,like an exclusivecountryciub,
keepsrealityout andfor goodreason.Snobbishness is,afterall, a
form of purity,prejudicea way of being consistent.Realitydoes
not conformto the rulesofetiquette,subscribe to exclusivevalues,
or wear a tie; it hasa vulgarsetof relationsand is frequentlyseen
slummingamongthe senses with other antitheticalarts.
Both abstraction and reality,however,areimplicatedin that
sacredtwentiethcenturydimension,space. The exclusivedivision
betweenthem hasblurredthe factthat the firsthasconsiderable
practicalrelevance - contraryto the modernmyth that art is "use-
less."Ifart hasany culturalreference(apartfrom being"culture")
surelyit is in the definitionof our spaceand time.Theflow of
energybetrveenconcepts of spacearticulatedthroughthe artwork
and the spacewe occupyis one of the basicand leastunderstood
forcesin modernism. Modernistspaceredefinesthe observer's
status,tinkerswith his self-image. Modernism'sconceptionof
space,not its subjectmatter,may be what the public rightly con-
ceivesasthreatening. Now,of course,spacecontainsno threats,
l8
 hasno hierarchies. Its mythologiesaredrained,its rhetoriccol_
lapsed.It is simply a kind of undifferentiatedpotency.This is not a
"degeneration"
ofspacebut the sophisticated conventionofan
advancedculture which has cancelledits valuesin the name of an
abstractioncalled"freedom.',Spacenow is not just where things
happen;thingsmakespacehappen.
Spacewasclariflednot only in the picture,bur in the place
wherethe picturehangs-the gallery,which,with postmodeinism,
joins the pictureplaneasa unit of discourse. If thepictureplane
definedthe wall, collagedefinesthe spacebetweenthe wails.The
fragmentfrom the real world plonked on rhe picture,ssurfaceis
the imprimaturof an unstoppablegenerativeenergy.Do we not,
throughan odd reversal, aswe standin the galleryspace.end up
insidethepicture,lookingout ar an opaquepictureplanethat pio_
tectsus from a void? (Could Lichtenstein,spaintingsof t].ebaik of
a canvasbe a text for this?)As we movearoundthat space,looking
at the walls,avoidingthings on the floor,we becomeawarethat
that galleryalsocontainsa wanderingphantomfrequentlymen_
tionedin avant-garde dispatches-the Spectator.
Who is this Spectator, alsocalledthe Viewer,sometimescalled
the Observer, occasionally the perceiver? It hasno face,is mostlya
back.It stoopsand peers,is slightlyclumsy.Its atrirudeis inquiring,
its puzzlementdiscreet. He-I,m sureit is more male than female_
arrivedwith modernism,with the disappearance of perspective.
He seemsborn out of the pictureand,like someperceptualAdam.
is drawnbackrepeatedly to contemplateit.The Spectatorseemsa
little dumb; he is not you or me.Alwayson call,he staggers into
placebeforeeverynew work that requireshis presence.This oblig-
ing stand-inis readyto enactour fanciestspeculations. He tests
them patientlyand doesnot resentthat we providehim with direc_
"The viewerfeels
tions and responses: . . ."; ,,theobserver
"
notices. . ."; the spectatormoves. . . .,,He is sensitiveto effects:
"The effecton
the specrator is . . . .,, He smellsout ambiguitieslike
a bloodhound: "caught betweentheseambiguities,theipec_
tator. . . ." He not oniy standsand sitson command;he liesdown
and evencrawlsasmodernismpresses on him its final indignities.
)9
Roy Lichtenstein, Stretcher
Frame,196E,
courtesyIrving Blum (photo: RudolphBurckhardt)
Plungedinto darkness, deprivedofperceptualcues,blastedby
strobes,he frequentlywatcheshis own image choppedup and
recycledby a varietyof media.Art conjugateshim, but he is a slug-
gishverb,eagerto carry the weight of meaning but not alwaysup
to it. He balances; he tests;he is mystified,demystified.Intime.the
Spectatorstumblesaround betweenconfusingroles:he is a cluster
of motor reflexes,a dark-adaptedwanderer,the vivant in a tab-
leau,an actormanqu,evena triggerof soundand light in a space
land-minedfor art.He may evenbe told that he himselfis an artist
and be persuaded that his contributionto what he observes or
trips overis its authenticatingsignature.
Yetthe Spectator hasa dignifledpedigree. His genealogy
includesthe eighteenthcenturyrationalistwith an astuteeye-
Addison'sSpectator, perhaps,whosegalleryequivalentis called
"the onlooker"and "the
beholder."A closerantecedentis the
Romanticself,which quickly splitsto producean actor and an
audience,a protagonistand an eyethat observeshim.
ThisRomanticsplitis comparableto the additionof the third
actorto the Greekstage.Levelsof awareness are multiplied,
relationships reformed,new voidsfilledin with meta-commentary
by the audience.The Spectatorand his snobbishcousinthe Eye
arrivein goodcompany.Delacroixcallsthem up occasionally;
Baudelairehobnobswith them.Theyarenot on suchgoodterms
with eachother.TheepiceneEyeis far more intelligentthan the
Spectator, who hasa touch of male obtuseness. The Eyecanbe
trainedin a way the Spectatorcannot.Itis a finely tuned,even
nobleorgan,esthetically and sociailysuperiorto the Specrator.It
is easyfor a writer to havea Spectatoraround*there is something
of the EternalFootmanabouthim. It is more difficultto havean
Eye,althoughno writer shouldbe without one.Not havingan Eye
is a stigmato be hidden,perhapsby knowing someonewho has
one.
The Eyecanbe directedbut with lessconfidencethan rhe Spec-
tator,who, unlike the Eye,is rathereagerto please.The Eyeis an
oversensitive acquaintance with whom one must stayon good
terms.It is often quizzeda little nervously,its responsesreceived
4l
respectfully.It must be waited on while it observes- observation
being its perfectlyspecializedfunction: "The eyediscriminates
between. . . .Theeyeresolves. . . .Theeyetakesin. balances,
weighs,discerns,perceives. . . ." But like any thoroughbred,it has
its limits. "Sometimesthe eyefails to perceive. . . ." Not always
predictable, it hasbeenknown to lie.It hastroublewith content,
which is the lastthing the Eyewants to see.It is no good at all for
Iookingat cabs,bathroomflxtures,girls,sportsresults.Indeed, it is
so specialized it canend up watchingitself.But it is unmatchedfor
looking at a particularkind of art.
The Eyeis the only inhabitantof the sanitizedinstallationshot.
The Spectatoris not present.Installationshotsaregenerallyof
abstract works;realistsdon,tgo in for them much.In installation
shotsthe questionof scaieis confirmed (the sizeof the galleryis
deducedfrom the photo)and blurred (the absenceof a Spectator
couldmeanthe galleryis 30 feethigh).Thisscalelessness conforms
with the fluctuationsthrough which reproductionpassesthe suc-
cessfulwork of art.The art the Eyeis broughtto bearon almost
exciusivelyis that which preservesthe picture plane- mainstream
modernism.The Eyemaintainsthe seamless galleryspace. its walls
sweptby flat planesof duck.Everythingelse-all thingsimpure,
includingcollage-favorsthe Spectator.The Spectatorstandsin
spacebrokenup by the consequences ofcollage,the secondgreat
forcethat alteredthe galleryspace. When the Spectatoris Kurt
Schwitters, we arebroughtto a spacewe can only occupythrough
eyewitness reports,by walkingour eyesthroughphotographs that
tantalizeratherthan confirmexperience: his Merzbauof 1923at
Hanover,destroyed in 1943.
"It growsabout the way a big city does."
wrote Schwitters,
"when a new buildinggoes
up, the HousingBureauchecksto see
that the whole appearance of the city is not goingto be ruined.In
my case,I run acrosssomethingor other that looks to me as
though it would be right for the I(deE ICathedralof Erotic Mis-
eryl, so I pick it up. takeit home,and attachit and paint it, always
keepingin mind the rhythm of the whole.Then a day comeswhen
I realizeI havea corpseon my hands-relics of a movementin art
 --.-'
K u r t S c h w _ i r t eir4se, r z b a u , b e g uln9 2 l _ d e s r r o y e d
1941,
Hanover,Germanv

43
rhat is now pass.So what happensis that I leavethem alone,only
I coverthem up either wholly or partly with other things,making
clearthat they arebeing downgraded.As the structuregrowsbig-
ger and bigger,valleys,hollows,cavesappear,and theselead a life
of their own within the overallstructure.Thejuxtaposedsurfaces
give rise to forms twisting in everydirection,spirallingupward.An
arrangementof the most strictlygeometricalcubescoversthe
whole, underneathwhich shapesare curiouslybent or otherwise
twisted until their completedissolutionis achieved."
Witnessesdon't report on themselvesin the Merzbau.Theylook
4f it, rather than experiencethemselvesin it. The Environment
was a genrenearly forty yearsaway,and the idea of a surrounded
spectatorwas not yet a consciousone.All recognizedthe invasion
of space,the author being,asWerner Schmalenbachput it, "pro-
gressivelydispossessed." The energypowering this invasionis not
recognized.though mentionedby Schwitters,for if the work had
any organizingprinciple,it was the mythos of a city.Thecity pro-
vided materials,modelsof process,and a primitive estheticof jux-
taposition-congruityforcedby mixed needsand intentions.The
city is the indispensable contextof collageand of the galleryspace.
Modern art needsthe soundof traffic outsideto authenticateit.
The Merzbauwas a tougher,more sinisterwork than it appears
in the photographsavailableto us.It grew out of a studio- that is,
a space,materials, an artist,and a process.
Spaceextended(up-
stairsand downstairs)and so did time (to about l3 years).The
work cannot be rememberedasstatic,as it looks in photographs.
Framedby metersand years,it was a mutating, polyphonic con-
struct,with multiple subjects,functions,conceptsof spaceand of
art. It containedin reliquariesmementoesof suchfriendsasGabo,
Arp, Mondrian, and Richter.It was an autobiographyof voyagesin
the city.Therewasa "morgue"of city scenarios(TheSexCrime
Cave,TheCathedralof EroticMisery,TheGrottoof Love,TheCaveof
theMurderers). Culturaltraditionwaspreserved(TheNiebelungen
Cave,The Goethe Cave, the absurdMichelangelo Exhibition\.It
revisedhistory (TheCaveof Depreciated Heroes)and offeredmodels
of behavior(TheCaves of HeroWorship)-two built-in systemsof
44
 value that, like their environment,were subjectto change.Most of
theseExpressionist/Dada conceirswere buried, like guii, by the
later constructivistoverlaythat turned theMerzbaulnto a utopian
hybrid:part practicaldesign(desk,stool),parr sculprure, part
architecture.Asthe Expressionism/Dada was collagedovea
esthetichistory was literalizedinto an archeologicalrecord.The
Constructivismdid not clarify the structure,which remained,as
Schmalenbach says,"irrationalspace.,,Both spaceand artist_we
tend to think of them together-exchanged identitiesand masks.
As the author'sidentitiesare externalizedonto his shell/cave/
room,the wallsadvanceupon him. Eventuallyhe flitsarounda
shrinkingspacelike a pieceof movingcollage.
Thereis somerhinginvolutionaland inside-outabourthe
Merzbau.Itsconcepthad a kind of nuttinessthat somevisitors
acknowledgedby commentingon its lackof eccentricitv.Its
numerousdialectics - betweenDadaand constructivism, structure
and experience,the organicand the archeological,the city outside,
the spaceinside-spiralaroundone word: transformation.Kate
Steinitz,the Merzbau'smost perceptivevisitor,noticed a cave,,in
which a bottleof urine was solemnlydisplayedso that the raysof
light that fell on it rurnedthe liquid to gold.,,Thesacramental
nature of transformationis deeplyconnectedto Romantic
idealism;in its expressionist phaseit testsitselfby performing
rescueoperationsamongthe most degradedmaterialsand sub_
jects'Initially the pictureplaneis an idealizedtransforming
space.
The transformation of objectsis contextuar,a matterof relocation.
Proximityto the pictureplaneassists this transformation. When
isolated,the conrextof objectsis the gallery.Evenrually,rhegallery
itselfbecomes, like the pictureplane,a transformingforce.at this'
point,asMinimalismdemonstrated. art can be literalizedand
detransformed; the gallerywill makeit art anyway.Idealismis
hard to exringuishin art,becauserhe empryg"il.iy itselfbecomes
art manqudandso preservesit. Schwitters,sMerzbaumay be the
fir-stexampleof a "gallery,,as a chamberof transformatibn,from
which the world can be colonizedby the convertedeye.
Schwitters'scareeroffersanother exampleof an intimate space
45
definedby his proprietaryaura.During his stayin a British deten-
tion campfor enemyaliens,on the Isle of Wight, he establisheda
living spaceunder a table.This creationof placein a campfor dis-
placedpeopleis animal,ludicrous, and dignified.Inretrospect,
this space,which, like the Merzbau,wecan only remember,sig-
nifies how firmly Schwittersforceda reciprocalfunction between
art and life. mediatedin this caseby just living. Like piecesof Merz,
the trivia of sub-tabularoccupancy,curtainedby moving feet,are
transformedin time.by day-to-dayliving, into ritual. Could we
now saythis waspartly a performancepiecein a self-created
proto-gallery?
Schwitters's Merzbau,like otherCubistcollages, sportsan odd
letter-lettersand wordsbeingdonorsof, in Braque'sview,"a feel-
ing of certainty."Collageis a noisybusiness. A soundtrackaccom-
paniesits wordsand letters.Withoutgoing into the attractivecom-
plexitiesof the letterand the word in modernism,they are disrup-
tive.FromFuturismto the Bauhaus,wordscut acrossmediaand
literally forcethemselveson stage.All mixed movementshavea
theatricalcomponentwhich runs parallelto the galleryspacebut
which,in my view,doesn'tcontributemuch to its deflnition.Theat-
rical conventionsdie in the gallery.Schwittersmay haverecog-
nizedthis when he separated his two kindsof theater:one wasa
chaoticmulti-sensory actualization of the Merzbau,enveloping
the spectator;the other a clariflcationof the conventionalstage
through Constructivism. Neitherreallyintrudeson the gallery
space,thoughthe immaculategallerydoesshow sometracesof
Constructivist housekeeping. Performance in the gallerysub-
scribesto an entirelydifferentsetof conventionsfrom stage
performance.
Schwitters's brokethe conventionsof ordinarylife-
recitations
talking,iecturing.The way his properlydressedpersonframedhis
utterances musthavebeendisorienting - like a bank tellerpassing
you a hold-up note aftercashingyour check.In a letter to Raoul
Hausmannhe reportson a visit to VanDoesburg'sgroup in 1921-
24:
"Doesburg reada verygooddadaisticProgram[in the Hague],in which
46
 he saidthe dadaistwould do somethingunexpected.At that moment I
rosefrom the middle of the publick and barkedloud. some peoplefainred
and werecarriedout, and the papersreported,that Dadameani barkine.
At oncewe got Engagements from Haarlemand Amsterdam.It was soli
out in Haarlem,and I walked so that all could seeme, and all waited that
I shouldbark.Doesburgsaidagain,I would do somethingunexpected.
This time I blew my nose.Thepaperswrore phat [sic] I didnot bark,that I
blew only my nose.In Amsterdamit was so full, that peoplegavephan_
tasticprises[sic]to getstilla sear,Ididnt bark,nor blow my nose,i recited
the Revolution.Aladycouldnot stoplaughingand had to be carried
out."
The gesturesare precise and could be briefly interpreted - ,,I am
a dog, a sneezer.a pamphlet." Like piecesof Merz, they are col-
laged into a set situation (environment), from which they derive
energy.The indeterminacy of that context is favorable ground for
the growth of new conventions,which in the theater would be
smothered by the convention of '.acting.,,
Happenings were first enacted in indeterminate, nontheatrical
spaces- warehouses,desertedfactories,old stores.Happenings
mediated a careful stand-off between avant-gardetheater and
collage.Theyconceivedthe spectatoras a kind ofcollage in that
he was spreadout over the interior-his attention split by simul-
taneous events,his sensesdisorganizedand redistributedby firmly
transgressedlogic. Not much was said at most Happenings.but,
like the city that provided their themes,they literally crawled with
words. Words,\nd.eed,, was the title of an Environment with which
Allan I(aprow enclosedthe spectatorin l96l; I4lords contained
circulating names (people) who were invited to contribute words
on paper to attach to walls and partitions. Collage seemsto have a
latent desireto turn itself outside-in; there is somethine womblike
about it.
Yet the realization of the Environment was oddly retarded.Why
is there almost nothing Environmental between Cubism and
Schwitters- barring forthcoming Russiansurprises- or between
Schwitters and the Environments of the late fifties and early sixties
which arrive in a cluster with Fluxus, the New Realists,Kaprow.
I(ienholz, and others?It may be that illustrarive Surrealism,con-
47