Leap into the void

Looking at the work on the wall – the white space and the breathing room – it’s not how my experience of the landscape feels. It is balanced to some extent, it tells the story of time passing, it draws the viewer in to look into the details, and sends them back to a distance to take it in. I can stand up close and spread out my arms and reach the edges of sections, move up close and see where my breath fogs up the picture surface, where the details pool around my eye level. But… there’s not enough contrast, not enough chaos, it’s not overwhelming or layered enough. It feels safe to leave it as is and move on to another work but as suggested, perhaps I return to the work again, build up more layers, drag out the artifacts that emerge. Treat this large work as a landscape in itself, already mediated by distance and memory, by material constraints, by the terroir of its creation. Perhaps take prints from the work, wet the pigmented areas and print to new paper, film the drips, photograph the light on the surface.

Watching the film the layers are darker, the breath pale, rising and falling over deep layers where intricacies are searched out, where malevolent faces kaleidoscope out of glitches. Working with photographs of the work and with screen shots from the latest iteration of film new images emerge. Working digitally has a feeling of dipping my toe into the void before the leap. I’m worse than that though, much to my girls’ dismay I usually get into the pool by the steps.

Photograph on post link: Klein, Y. (1960), Photographed by Shunk H., and Kender, J.. Leap into the Void. Gelatin silver print, 25.9x20cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

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