Category Archives: From the Center

Moving with Me

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Photo of artist Janine Antoni dancing the 5Rhythms by Meg Calrk

Janine Antoni dances the 5Rhythms. Photo: Meg Clark

After giving a brief overview of her work last Wednesday evening as part of the ongoing series Conversations with Artists, Janine Antoni calmly stepped away from her podium, took off her shoes, and walked to the center of the floor. Slowly she began to sway, moving her arms limply from side to side, gingerly tilting her head back, and lifting her feet. But she also continued to address everyone in the room, orally and physically guiding us through her movements of the dance, the 5Rhythms. “Our feet are on the same ground,” she told us, “you’re moving with me.” And as I leaned in closer, I noticed everyone around me was too.

Up until this point, I had only encountered Antoni’s work through research. I knew about her various pieces: rubbing one rock against another for a span of days in And (1996-99), tightrope walking over the ocean in Touch (2002), harnessing herself to a dollhouse replica of her home in Inhabit (2009)—and I understood that in all this, the artist was seeking connection between herself and other people. But I never felt connected. These works seemed too narrowly based in personal relationships of motherhood, womanhood, and love to include me. The nature of their subject matters and their intimacy seemed to belong exclusively to the artist.

But in sharing Antoni’s experience of dancing the 5Rhythms with both her and the audience, I began to feel connected.

Photo of Curator at Large Klaus Ottmann and Janine Antoni as they sit down for a conversation after her dance. Photo: Meg Clark

Curator at Large Klaus Ottmann and Janine Antoni sit down for a conversation after her dance. Photo: Meg Clark

Toward the end of the evening, Antoni sat down for a conversation with Curator Klaus Ottmann. He spoke about the expression of love, relationships, and gentleness in Antoni’s work, asking, “Where does that come from?” In reply, the artist revealed her work stems from “a deep loneliness.”

Immediately, I harkened back to Antoni’s dance . . . “you’re moving with me,” she had said. Before this Conversation, I saw Antoni’s work as a private and personal journey into the bodies, thoughts, and feelings of others. I didn’t understand the role of the audience, the part I could play in Antoni’s work. I didn’t understand that my role was necessary to her art’s meaning. But when I felt Antoni’s feet pounding the floor, and when I heard her voice calling out to the audience, and me, I felt connected . . . I was moving with her. Suddenly, I didn’t feel alone that evening, and I don’t think Antoni did either.

I’ve found that Janine Antoni and every participant in theConversations with Artists series has enhanced my understanding of their art, not only as ideas that must be talked about, but also as entities that must be experienced. To explore this season’s theme–Art as Experience–we began with Wolfgang Laib in October and continued with The Otolith Group, Jill Downen, Anthony McCall, and, of course, Janine Antoni. Tonight, the experience draws to a close at the season’s final Conversation with William Pope. L. It will be another packed program, but standing room may become available for those willing to come a bit early and wait in line. Hope to see you there!

Madeline Bouton, Center for the Study of Modern Art Intern

Class in Session in the Galleries

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Phillips Librarian Karen Schneider (right) with students of the Center's spring 2012 art history course. Photo: Megan Clark

I recently ventured over to the galleries to listen in as Librarian Karen Schneider led a discussion with graduate students enrolled in the Center‘s spring 2012 art history course, The Exhibition and the Invention of Modern and Contemporary Art, 1913–Present.

The course is taught by Anne Goodyear, associate curator of prints and drawings at the National Portrait Gallery and adjunct professor of art history at the George Washington University, in collaboration with the George Washington University. It focuses on the evolution of exhibition practices and collecting of modern and contemporary art starting with the Armory Fair of 1913 and ending with examples from present day.

Karen spoke to the students about the history of The Phillips Collection and spent some time outside the library’s Reading Room so that students could observe photographs and archival materials that speak to the museum’s early history. Karen also led the students on a tour of works in the collection relevant to their discussion of Duncan Phillips’s relationship with fellow collectors and artists, including Arthur Dove, Katherine Dreier, Marsden Hartley, and Alfred Stieglitz.

Blissing Out

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Anthony McCall, You and I, 2007; Horizontal (III) Installation view at Sean Kelly Gallery, New York, 2007. © Anthony McCall; Photography: Steven Harris; Courtesy: Sean Kelly Gallery, New York

During his appearance at our series Conversations with Artists on February 15, Anthony McCall elaborated on the experiential character of his “solid light” installations. At one point he said:

You are incorporated into [the installations], and they’re absorbing . . . people always reach out and touch these membranes because they’re very paradoxical . . . I don’t like the blissing out . . . it doesn’t need you to think, it just needs you to be there.

When I heard McCall say this, I couldn’t help feeling confused—disillusioned even. What did he mean by “blissing out”? Why didn’t he like it? Did this mean viewers like me couldn’t like it either?

Interaction with light is an experience necessary to fully understanding McCall’s enormous ‘solid-light’ installations. Often featuring huge three-dimensional cones, waves, and lines of light projected in darkened lofts or galleries, these installations transcend projectors and screens, playing with the dimensionality of light and blurring the distinctions between cinema, form, and space. It’s easy to lose yourself in such an atmosphere. At times it seems the installations are almost begging you to bliss out. So why must McCall tell us to control ourselves when it is so tempting to abandon our thoughts in his art?

Further into the conversation I found my answer. McCall explained that he avoids creating wholly immersive environments where the viewer is prone to unconscious pleasure. Meaning, he doesn’t believe art should overwhelm or sedate the mind.

“Blissing out” is not the wrong way to experience his art, but it is not a fulfilling way. It allows viewers to detach themselves from active aesthetic experience and understanding. If I’m in a position to lose myself in a McCall installation, I don’t need to think or be present; I wouldn’t need the art, and the art wouldn’t need me.

With this renewed perspective, I’m looking forward to March 28, when I’ll have the chance to hear from Janine Antoni, the second of three Conversations this spring. In her work, Antoni forces herself and the viewer to be physically engaged in art; there’s absolutely no opportunity for blissing out when Antoni’s around. Her performance-based pieces are more aggressive than Anthony McCall’s subtle, ethereal sculptures, and it will be interesting to weed out the similarities between these artists’ radically different approaches to engaging the viewer.

Madeline Bouton, Center for the Study of Modern Art Intern