Ceci n’est pas une eglise There is a strain of thought in postmodern art which I do not entirely buy into, but still find interesting, that says that the metaphor is dead. Because all words that we use to refer to things, to give them meaning, are only defined by what other words are not, it follows that there is no ultimate meaning, only an endless cycle of references referring to other references. There is, then, no deeper meaning to be found, only surfaces, and what art that can be made about a place should only be a presentation of what it is, as itself, and not as a way to something “higher”, “deeper”, or anything “else” at all. While I think there are cracks in this argument, it has produced some art that I’ve found interesting, particularly in the field of sound art. Alvin Lucier, for example, has “performed” a piece in many locations, in which he sits in a room with a microphone, speaker, and tape delay, reading a sentence that states that he is sitting in a room with a microphone, speaker and tape delay. He reads it once, and the microphone has picked up slight echoes from the room he is in, broadcasting it from the speaker. He then lets the tape recorder endlessly repeat what he has just read, and each time, the particular echoes of the space he is in reinforce themselves slightly further, until after many minutes the original words are lost in distortion, and you are listening to the abstract, unique acoustics of that space rather than the content of his sentence. The art is about nothing but the space he is in, nothing more. The goal of Ceci n’est pas une eglise- “This is not a church”- is simply to present you with no new information whatsoever. Here it is; you are already here. It is an exercise in ridiculous site-specificity, as it would be completely pointless if shown anywhere else. If you go inside, you see the exact same view you would see if the room were empty. But there are two problems with this ideal approach, besides the slight flaws in its execution. The first is, of course, that the experience of viewing the original building and the artwork are different. You have walked around the outside of the building and into it, and although there is absolutely nothing new here, you know they are not the same thing. It therefore becomes an exercise in perception, on the role of the body in how we perceive spaces and objects. Your awareness of both the Art Center and the artwork are likely somewhat different. The second thing about this that interests me is that the Foothills Art Center is a rather ambiguous space. If I were to show this piece anywhere else, it would simply be a nice little church. But here, it is not. But if I have built a small church, how can the original building from which it is exactly copied not be a church? This was to me the most interesting way to engage- confront is too strong of word- this particular space, which has fascinated me since I first walked into it. The title refers to Rene Magritte’s painting of a (tobacco) pipe, with the words denying that it is a pipe painted onto the canvas. He was simply reminding the viewer that you are looking a representation of a pipe, not the real thing. That certainly applies to this piece, as well, with the additional insistence that the structure is not what it clearly appears to be. I do like ambiguous spaces!
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