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For some, the written word can be a physical experience. For the poet, for the lover of words, text can touch. The quality of the words, the flow of their forms and meanings across a surface, can provoke a response in the body of the viewer-reader. This contact can be that of a caress, as loving words are felt gently on the skin. Or it can feel like a blow, as words hit the body. The multiple qualities of touch that words produce can come to define a series of textures; textures of text that produce physical sensations as they confront the human body. This exhibition brings together works from the Marieluise Hessel Collection to investigate the relationship between text and physical sensation. The exhibition combines artworks that use words, with additional works that represent experiences involving touch. Several works in the exhibition represent the physical elements involved in the experience of a text, such as the hand, the pen, and the tactile qualities of paper. John Baldessari’s video I Am Making Art (1971) shows the artist’s clumsy hand using a pencil to write this phrase over and over, across the lined pages of a notebook. Sean Landers’s sculptural wall piece Hard Male, Soft Male (1993) presents cut strips of thick paper glued together. Each cut fragment contains a diary-like passage written in ballpoint pen. David Bunn’s framed piece If I Am Lost, How Come I Found You? (1995) is made from old cards taken from discarded library card catalogues. The paper of these cards has worn and dirty edges, which evidence years of contact with readers’ fingers. Bunn’s work also recalls the unique environment of the library, with its many sensual surfaces: hard and soft chairs, smooth wooden tables, the cool of metal shelves. Sophie Calle’s Autobiographical Stories (The Wedding Dress) from 1988–89, references the romantic environment of the boudoir, a place of secrets and intimacy. The black and white photograph of a crumpled dress thrown onto the floor is accompanied by a confessional text, which addresses the conflictive experiences of physical love. The work of Tim Rollins and K.O.S. reproduces the unique space of the pages of a book, combined with references to the suffering of the human body. Their piece, The Temptation of Saint Anthony—Der Tod II (1990), presents this narrative on twelve illustrated pages, drawn in blood. Other works reference the surfaces and orifices of the body that receive touch. Ernesto Neto’s sculpture Ring (2001) is made of stretched nylon filled with styrofoam. Its central hole is meant to be caressed and entered by the hand of the viewer. Jenny Holzer’s Untitled (Selections from Lustmore Text) from 1993–94 includes fourteen photographs of words written onto fourteen different skin surfaces of varying texture and color. These fragments of text, stained into the skin with colored pens, tell the story of a sexual relationship that becomes increasingly violent. Mona Hatoum’s color photograph, Van Gogh’s Back (1995), depicts the circular movement of the artist’s hands across the surface of a man’s hairy back. Nan Goldin’s face becomes the surface that receives brutal contact in her photograph Nan after being battered (1984). Additional works involve texts that express the psychological complexity of touch, the push and pull, desire and repulsion of physical contact. Christopher Wool’s large painting, I Can’t Stand Myself When You Touch Me (1994), presents these confrontational words in fragmented black text. The phrase is painted onto a cool, white enameled surface. Bruce Nauman’s lithograph in this exhibition presents a similar ambiguity and directness of address, with Help Me, Hurt Me (1975). Janine Antoni’s photograph, Mortar and Pestle (1999), shows a tongue licking the surface of an eyeball. This inexplicable act of touching is visceral and aggressive—yet perhaps represents a gesture of lust or admiration. Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s black and white photograph, Untitled from 1992, offers an ambiguous image. The position of this limp, open hand is unclear. This hand may have been cast away from contact, or it may be prepared to give or receive a caress. Some of the words presented within the artworks included in this exhibition are loving; some are hurtful; others ambiguous. Many of these images evoke experiences of gentle contact. Several represent violence enacted upon the skin, while still others present strange, emotionally unclear acts involving the human body. Through this juxtaposition of works, Text, Texture, Touch seeks to create a textural environment in which a range of conflicting encounters with words and touch may be experienced.
Exhibition Checklist Janine Antoni John Baldessari David Bunn Sophie Calle
Nan Goldin Felix Gonzalez-Torres Mona Hatoum Jenny Holzer Jenny Holzer Sean Landers Bruce Nauman Ernesto Neto Tim Rollins & K.O.S Christopher Wool |
