SECTION 1 - via - School of Visual Arts

God might see but we see only through a glass darkening. We see only in a distorted fashion.
These mirrors are not just amusements, they teach these deep, deep principals in quite
extraordinary ways.
[Both please]. There is, of course also a whole industry and engineering component here. The
ascent of glass in secular surroundings becomes really evident in wealthy residents proliferating
throughout pre-revolutionary Europe and I want to make a distinction. These are from the
Huntington Library late 18 th century but this witty, totally artificial person is a courtier—this is
by Larmessin who did prints of the trades and this is a spectacle—obviously the spectacle and
mirror maker but what I want to point out to you is that he is dressed in, but I want to point out
how small the glass is. It’s only in the late 17 th and beginning in the 18 th century we can begin
as the advertisements said to get glass as smooth and level as a pool of water because there’s a
new kind of engineering and what happens? When you get glass like that then suddenly the
flesh and blood occupants of Parisian salons and London drawing rooms begin to generate airy
companions, of doubles, artificial persons that came and went according to the [sounds like
“Bour’s”?] movements and position. [Next on the left, please.] And here is an example. This is
the origin of the rear view mirror. This is a very large and very unusual claw glass that came in
many different formats. This one is probably the salon and unusual because you see them from
behind and the tinting also gives a kind of unification to that view. So, again in my plea for the
complexity of mirrors; people say, “oh, mirrors are so boring,” you know this is repeating and
think of all the theoretical drivel dismissing my [sounds like “niches”?] as simple mirroring—as
if that were a simple concept. But anyway I want to point out that mirrors are not just a
replicating technology. That’s what they get dismissed as but they’re taught coordinating
system. They coordinate the space and you don’t necessarily just need mirrors.
[Both, please.] They’re smart, we have smart furniture. If I could please—I had a whole wall, a
whole wall with this kind of stuff and actually paintings by Zoffany, by Chardin that all showed
the uses of reflecting everything from a Georgian dessert service which shows you both convex
and concave mirrors to a bulbous chocolate urn, to [next on the right], a faceted crystal bowl
where furniture—it’s kind of being big versus little science. This is kind of the little science and
I’m not making this up. Until the end of the 19 th century there were wonderful books written on
the [sounds like “Ouzen Metier”?] Museum in Paris, the Museum of Arts and Technology and
they pointed out that they had exhibits of coffee pots where people could look at them and like
in a fun house mirror, can look at yourself in a spoon and that would teach you principals of
science without fancy equipment. So, again a very, very old way of using simple objects to teach
rather complex topics.
I want to switch again both please], take us from the realm of light into the obverse, the whole
world of shadow and shade equally complex. Shadow arises from the expanding and
contracting effects of light swiftly traveling over a surface and shades and it’s this connotation
that we need also and certain artists Tony Oursler to certain length has gone back in the
contemporary world shades are phantasms. In myth they are directly associated with death and
resurrection and I have a whole section in the catalogue called, “Techniques of Epiphany”
where I show really that there’s a whole other theory of the origin of the art. You know you all
know the Corinthian potter, the shadow cast on the wall like this, these Montmatre ballet of the
hands which themselves link back the cave painting and recent periods of the perception but
there’s a whole other theory of the origin of art that’s put forward interpreting the black and
red figure vases of people like Sir William Hamilton as showing you the mysteries of Eleusis
8