The Brooklyn Rail

SINCE THE RENAISSANCE

We can speak of the internal architecture of a painting, or of any other work of art. This architecture of the work, the way in which it is constructed from its frame, the canvas and what is expressed on it (or beneath it), has an exclusive development which, since the Renaissance, has not ceased to distance it further and further from the architecture or place in which the work becomes known. It can be said that the history of modern art (in particular) is the history, recounted and repeated, of the internal architecture of the work, seen simultaneously as content and container. However, ‘the work of art only exists, can be seen, in the context of the museum/gallery surrounding it, the museum/gallery for which it was destined and to which however no special attention is paid’ (extract from Limites Critique, October 1970).

THE HISTORY STILL TO BE MADE SHOWS ITSELF

The history still to be made will take into consideration the place (the architecture) in which a work comes to rest (develops) as an integral part of the work in question and all the consequences such a link implies. It is not a question of ornamenting (disfiguring or embellishing) the place (the architecture) in which the work is installed, but of indicating as precisely as possible the way the work belongs in the place and vice versa, as soon as the latter is shown.

A BIT OF BREAD

An empty museum or gallery means nothing, to the extent that it can at any time be transformed into a gym or a baker’s, without changing what will take place there or will be sold there, in terms of works of art in the future, since the social status will also have changed. Placing/exhibiting a work of art in a baker’s will in no way change the function of the aforementioned baker’s, which will never change the work of art into a bit of bread either. Placing/exhibiting a bit of bread in a museum will in no way change the function of the aforementioned museum, but the latter will change the bit of bread into a work of art, at least for the duration of its exhibition. Now let’s exhibit a bit of bread in a baker’s and it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish it from the other bits of bread. Now let’s exhibit a work of art—of any kind—in a museum: can we really distinguish it from other works of art?

FUNCTION OF ARCHITECTURE DESTRUCTION, EXISTENCE, FRAGMENT

A work taking into consideration the place in which it is shown/exhibited cannot be moved elsewhere and will have to disappear at the end of its exhibition. The idea of disappearance through destruction causes a breach in the dominant artistic ideology which wants a work to be immortal and therefore indestructible by definition, in any case in the surroundings/ shelter of the museum. This indicates one of the difficulties encountered by any work of art which would not take into account, which would not respect this clause—to be protected—but would on the contrary, take its unique form of existence from its individual and continual destruction. Moreover, the implication of the place of exhibition, as an integral part of the work, fragments the aforementioned work into as many occasions as there are places used.

RADICALLY, DIALECTICALLY

Every place radically imbues (formally, architecturally, sociologically, politically) with its meaning the object (work/creation) shown there. Art in general refuses to be implied a priori and so pretends to ignore or reject the draconian role imposed by the museum (the gallery), a role both cultural and architectural. To reveal this limit (this role), the object presented and its place of display must dialectically imply one another.

IT IS NOT A MATTER OF CREATING ONE’S OWN MUSEUM

So it is not a matter of creating one’s own environment, which at best would come down to pushing the problem to one side rather than facing it. It is not a matter of creating one’s own museum, either architecturally or culturally, under the pretext of escaping from museums, which once again would come down to a bid for isolation, extraction from reality, in fact once again making on another scale one’s own little picture.

TENSION-CRISIS

It seems to me that it is much more a matter of showing what a work will imply immediately in a given place, and perhaps, thanks finally to the work, what the place will imply. The crisis between the function of the museum (architecture) and that of art (visual object) will appear dialectically from the tension thus created.

THE NARCISSISTIC DISCOURSE

The radical questioning of the architectural limits in which the work is installed if it does not break them escapes on the other hand the sclerotic limits of the work of art and its narcissistic discourse. In fact, the pseudo-freedom of a work under the pretext that it can be transported from here to there, any where, from one exhibition to another, regardless of the architecture of the place in which it is displayed, presupposes either that this architecture is familiar, or that it is being deliberately ignored.

THE CUBE. WHITE. IDEALISM

To know the architecture without having seen it is to accept working a priori in the context of an aseptic and (so-called) neutral place, cubic, vertical walls, horizontal, white floors and ceiling. This architecture is the well-known kind, since it is more or less what is found in all the museums and galleries of the Western World, a place architecturally adapted to the needs of the market implied and allowed by such a transportable commodity. This white and ‘neutral’ cube is therefore not as innocent as all that, but is in fact the value-giving repository already often mentioned. Certain artists consistent in their work, who know that their work can only be interpreted in a place like the one described above, have places of exhibition specially built inside which do not correspond to these norms, cubic and immaculate spaces. They thereby demonstrate that their work does indeed depend on architecture, but not just anyone, since it cannot submit to any other which is not cubic or white: ideal.

ALIENATION

In both cases it is obviously a question of a setting which under the pretext of illuminating the subject (the work) in order to make it as autonomous as possible— so that nothing which is not the work manages to distract the eye—in fact alienates, in a detrimental way, the aforementioned work in the context of the obligatory architectural frame, which is obviously never mentioned.

A SPIDER’S WEB

As for those who wish to ignore the architectural context in which they exhibit, they are the ones who still believe that a work is self-sufficient, no matter what surrounds it and no matter what the conditions in which it is perceived. This is the case with practically all painting which consoles itself in a debilitating en-soi, which attempts to escape the external difficulties by contemplating its navel and drawing the viewer into the mesh of its woven threads, like a spider’s web catching flies.

CYNICAL, IGNORANT

A work is thus dramatized or emphasized (against its will or by request) by a so-called neutral architecture, or indeed the work turns up its nose at any external influence and attempts, despite everything, to attract the eye regardless of the context. This second attitude seems presumptuous to me, since the context (the architectural frame) always wins, rounding on those who ignore it. The first attitude is cynical (we know what the work needs to triumph and we eliminate a priori any conflict likely to undermine this triumph). The second attitude is idealistic or ignorant (and in both cases succumbs to attacks from outside). The two attitudes both stem from art as it is, in the majority of cases, up to the present day: reactionary, depending on and accepting the ruling ideology.

WITHOUT AN ESCAPE ROUTE

To imply in the work the place where it is situated (whether internal or external) is to give the limits materially and visually, without leaving an escape route. It is also to bind oneself to a certain given reality which the work

FUNCTION OF ARCHITECTURE

if necessary will undertake to criticize, to emphasize, to contradict, in a word to dispute dialectically. The sharpness of the comment will depend on the precision of the invention.

THE ARCHITECTURE

The architecture in which the work of art is exhibited must be taken into account, under the threat of permanently reducing the work to nothing. It is therefore certainly not a matter of carrying out a work of architecture. Nor is it a matter of choosing an architecture to suit the point one wants to make. All architecture must be able to be used. Few works can lend themselves to the experiment. It is not a problem of architecture on one side and a problem of art unknown to it on the other. Neither is it a question of art submitting to architecture, nor of architecture wedding art.

FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE

It is a question of a conflict relationship, where both parties are on trial concerning a difference. And first of all concerning a fundamental difference with art, as it attempts to establish itself. The point of intersection or point of rupture with modern art—between a work and its place (the place where it is seen), is situated ‘somewhere else’, outside the work and no longer entirely in the place, a central point which is continually off-centre and a point on the edge, asserting its difference at the same time.

BOURGEOIS ART ‘FREELY’

In normal artistic settings, which as we have seen in the majority of cases are white cubes, the problems set by architecture attempt to conceal themselves, in order to support (artificially) the triumph of a bourgeois art, which thus given value can assert itself ‘freely’, within the soft shelter which receives it. SUBVERSION So the questioning work has an obligation to employ all possible means, including subversion, to reveal the false discretion of these depersonalized architectures and to make them emerge from their false neutrality. In the case of triumphant architecture (anti-neutral), an excellent example being the Guggenheim Museum in New York, subversion would consist of accentuating what is already in place and making any other situation inside the Museum untenable, except the one chosen by the subversive work in question. Hence the exclusion of this work (cf. ‘Gurgles around the Guggenheim’, Studio International, June 1971, pp. 24650).

THE OVERBEARING MOTHER

The Guggenheim Museum is a perfect example of architecture which although enveloping and welcoming, in fact excludes what is exhibited there (normally) for the benefit of its own exhibition. Holding out its arms, yes, but in order to smother. Any work venturing unconsciously into such an ‘envelopment’ is irrevocably absorbed, swallowed up in the spirals and curves of this architecture. The role of protector, acquired by the Museum, is here taken to the point of paradox by the architect himself. The Guggenheim Museum behaves like an overbearing mother to the art it houses. Such architecture is damaging to art as it is, and by the same token very clearly reveals the limits of the so-called art. This architecture is heartening.

HOLES IN THE ARCHITECTURE

In so-called neutral architectural places, the non-neutral points/axes breaking the neutrality and generally never used for this reason are the windows, the doors, the narrow corridors, the air vents, the heating pipes, the light sources, etc. In fact, holes in the architecture. Passing places. Disturbed places. Unstable places. Windows disturbed by what happens behind them. Doors disturbed by those who open them. Corridors disturbed by those who walk along them.

THE TOWN

When we say architecture, we include the social, political and economic context. Architecture of any sort is in fact the inevitable background, support and frame of any work. There no longer exists an architecture peculiar to painting/to the work of art (there no longer exists a history peculiar to painting/to the work of art), which could be conceived without considering the architecture peculiar to the place where it is exhibited. Whence the impossibility of conceiving a work outside the place where it will be exhibited. Whence the uselessness of the artist’s studio and the absurdity of its survival. The architecture of a gallery, in which the work must take shape, is perhaps not only the actual exhibition room (where the goods are shown), but also the director’s office (where the goods are sold), the store-room (where the goods are kept), the reception room (where the goods are discussed). It is perhaps also the external architecture of the gallery, the staircase up to it, or the lift, the street leading to it, the area where it is situated, the town….

ARCHITECTURE AS THE ACT OF MAN When we say architecture, we mean an urban place (inhabited or not), a cultural place. Certain artists, who will not accept that architecture should be at the same time the inevitable background and the frame of the work, are forced to exhibit in the country, in forests, mountains, seas or deserts. This is an attempt to escape from men, from oneself. It is an attempt to deny architecture as the act of man. Translated from the French by Helen Meakins.

Endnotes

1. Extracted from: Greenberg, Reesa., Bruce W. Ferguson, and Sandy. Nairne. Thinking about Exhibitions. London ; Routledge, 1996.
2. This essay was first published in English in Studio International, Sept–Oct 1975, and subsequently in Museums by Artists, ed. A.A.Bronsen and Peggy Gale, Toronto, 1983, pp. 69–74.