xelovnebis saerTaSoriso Jurnali - Artisterium

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rachel Whiteread, ‘untitled’ (Library) 1999, Courtesy Anthony d’Offay, London
AP: In a very deep way…
AB: And this depth goes really on… it goes deep in human
mind, and what I think really interesting and strong is this
kind of universality… It (universality) is something really, really,
really important. Just like in Gordon Matta-Clark’s work, it’s
something that’s spread itself into the world. Because cutting
a house is a simple idea, filling a house is a simple idea, filling
a void is a simple idea, creating a void is a simple idea, it’s
like the simplest human gesture. So it’s dangerous for human
mind and the outside world because it can change reality, but
in a very large way, because of this spreading thing. People get
transformed for a few minutes, in their own cognitive abilities,
first, then, they keep the sensation which is completely
physical, you feel that your body can be a void, that’s it’s not
completely full, that… You have a very strange contact with this
matter, because you know it was a void, it’s not a void anymore
it’s full. And then you feel your own body like really heavy, you
feel your own matter… For my part, this is something I feel with
Rachel Whiteread pieces, my bones are like vibrating, and I
actually feel my bones…
AP: Yes, you can not resist penetrating this concrete space,
this petrified emptiness. And I think this was, with large spaces
like House or Ghost, her preoccupation was to make you feel
this, to make you feel and souligner (underline) your inability
to enter the space and your constant trying, to make you
understand what is going on and use your usual perception
methods you have.
AB: Because also it’s not only about experiencing, it’s about
being…
AP: Yes, it’s experiencing living in it… Yes you can feel the void.
However, not only as feeling ‘f.e.e.l’ but also as ‘f.i.l.l’ and you
know, by filling the void, is also the way dancers work. They
have to do ‘1,2,3,4’, you remember, they have to feel the
movement. It’s a very basic thing, the way you experience
the world, with voids, and suddenly, matter. Matter, void, and
the links in between. And suddenly, someone castrates that,
totally. And that’s violent.
AB: You are talking about the violent part, which is interesting.
You use the word ‘castration’, which is really meaningful.
It’s cutting. It’s cutting but also making something sterile…
Unchangeable and sterile. OK. But maybe we can also say that
it’s not only about castration, but also about making something
visible. So we have, let’s say, the ‘negative’ meaning…
AP: It’s not exactly negative, the word is negative, but it’s not
a negative concept…
AB: This ability to be in the space, to enter the space, to
breathe in the space, (is castrated)… and also because this
matter is full, completely full, there won’t be any possibility to
survive in it. In fact, if you were in the space when it was filled,
then, ah ah…
AP: Ah aah… (Laughing)
AB: We will be just disappearing, crushed…!
AP: You know, it happened, it happened several times in
history. Pompeii. But anyway, what’s important, and where
I can see the very positive meaning of castration, is that
usually, the best way, the most complete way to experiment
something is by its loss.
AB: Yes, absolument…
AP: You experience the value of something by its loss. So for
me, well… Rachel Whiteread’s work looks dark, but it has a
very positive beauty.
AB: Ok I see, you’re talking about melancholy…
AP: Not exactly…
AB: When you experiment something by its loss, then …
AP: But it’s not your personal loss
AB: No, no, not especially, but there is a kind of melancholy in
Rachel Whiteread’s work. For example with the books… But,
can we say that in a way, this loss meaning can be transformed
into something else? When I tell about positive and negative
thing, I think more about the photographic concept, you know,
plain and void, void and plain, it’s the same, it’s positive and
negative of the same thing, the same object. So we have… The
works are more like positive voids.
AP: Yes!
AB: And in fact … What is interesting… Because i used to talk
with many architects, as you know (laughing), and what they
say is that architecture is not about building but creating
spaces. So it’s about creating voids, in fact. It’s about building
limits…
AP: Exactly…
AB: … of the space. It’s about inventing the way people will
experiment it, living in it, go through it, etc… So, by destroying
the structure, the pure beauty of the space is appearing to us.
So and this is the positive side, I can see the beauty of the void
of the stairs…
AP: In the case of Stairs, and the concept of architecture the
way you explained it, it’s an ideal piece to talk about that. The
difference between an architect who’s working and creating
spaces where people live or go through, etc… Because a
staircase is a passage, so in a staircase you never stay, it’s
a place where you’re not supposed to stay; it’s a place where
you always move. And the architect is obviously creating a
space by putting limits, the stairs, the wall, the roof, anyway…
In the case of the Rachel Whiteread’s stairs, she… she did a
composition of the space, without using the limits, she used
pure space in order to make a composition, and there is, by
this work … This work makes obvious her great ability of deeply
understanding this void concept… This is why it is a late piece;
it’s not one of the early pieces. She gets mature and mature
and mature all the time in using the concept of void and
emptiness, so she can manipulate the space on a first level,
while the architecture is manipulating the space on a second
level. The architect manipulates the limits of the space. She
manipulates the space directly, for itself.
AB: Yeah and she makes it an object.