Full transcript
0:00[MUSIC - CHRISTIAN WOLFF, "FOR
0:021, 2 OR 3 (PERFORMED BY S.E.M.
0:05ENSEMBLE)"]
0:11JENNIFER ROBERTS: Hello,
0:12everyone, and thank you
0:14for tuning in again.
0:16This is the second of six Mellon
0:18lectures, and now that we're
0:19getting our bearings
0:21on our production routines,
0:22I want to take a moment to thank
0:23everyone at the National Gallery
0:25for organizing the rather
0:27complicated remote production
0:29of these lectures.
0:30Also, thanks to the Center
0:31for Advanced Study in the Visual
0:33Arts for supporting my work
0:35over the years.
0:36As I was preparing this lecture
0:38over the past week,
0:39I realized that the very first
0:41inklings of this project
0:43were developed for the Wyeth
0:45Lecture in American Art
0:46that I delivered at CASVA eight
0:48years ago, in 2013.
0:50So this has been a long time
0:51coming, and I owe a great deal
0:53to the National
0:53Gallery and CASVA for getting
0:55it all started,
0:56and now completing it.
0:59So, as I mentioned last time,
1:01in these lectures,
1:01I'm attempting to open up
1:03new ways of thinking
1:04about the significance of print
1:06and printmaking
1:07in the visual arts.
1:09I've organized the lectures not
1:10around specific artists,
1:12or specific moments in print
1:13history,
1:14or specific print media,
1:16but rather around a series
1:18of physical maneuvers
1:20that embody some of the most
1:21fundamental transformations that
1:22occur in the printmaking
1:23process.
1:25And these are, again, pressure,
1:27reversal, separation, strain,
1:30interference, and alienation.
1:33These terms function, for me,
1:35as a kind of primordial grammar
1:37of printmaking.
1:38I'm interested in this grammar
1:40because it creates patterns
1:41of connection between parts
1:43of the arts,
1:44humanities, and sciences that
1:46are usually isolated
1:47from each other.
1:48It's a grammar that's designed
1:49to be transitive, to open
1:51passages between the material
1:53and the social,
1:54and also to create paths
1:55for crossing
1:56between different media
1:58and different spheres of making,
2:00so between print,
2:01and painting, and sculpture,
2:02et cetera, but also
2:04between the fine
2:05arts, and the decorative arts,
2:06and the industrial arts,
2:07and the domestic arts.
2:09We were able to see some
2:10of that last week, when we
2:11looked into some
2:12of the surprising conceptual
2:13links
2:14that you can see
2:15between printmaking and ironing
2:18when you look
2:18at the idea of pressure.
2:21This week, today, we'll
2:22be testing this proposition
2:23through the operation
2:25of reversal.
2:26Every print made
2:27before the digital era is born
2:29of reversal.
2:30The exact manner of the reversal
2:32differs from process to process,
2:34from place to place,
2:35from past to present,
2:36but reversal is
2:37a fundamental maneuver
2:38of printmaking.
2:39In most cases,
2:41the conspicuous and culminating
2:42act of reversal in printmaking
2:44happens in the press,
2:45between the matrix
2:46and the impression.
2:48And, here, I just remind you
2:49that all prints are the results
2:51of contact between two surfaces.
2:54In all print processes in which
2:56the matrix is positioned face
2:57to face against the support--
2:59so this would include woodcut,
3:01engraving, lithography, most
3:02of the major traditional
3:03processes--
3:05the final print is a reversal
3:06of the matrix.
3:08The matrix is a reversal
3:09of the print.
3:10And I'll
3:10go into a few exceptions
3:12a little bit later.
3:13But, basically, the point
3:14is that if you want to make
3:16a print face a certain way,
3:17you have to create the matrix so
3:18that it faces the other way.
3:20This is a famous print
3:21by Rembrandt,
3:22The Raising of Lazarus,
3:24and its copperplate matrix.
3:26Note, of course, here
3:27the left-right or mirror
3:28reversal between these two
3:29images.
3:30This is a very good
3:31demonstration
3:32of the significance of reversal,
3:34as well as its disruptive
3:35capacity.
3:36Rembrandt was castigated
3:37at the time,
3:38because whereas Christ was
3:39etched properly on the plate,
3:41with his right hand doing
3:42the work, as it should,
3:44the print shows him raising
3:46Lazarus with his left hand.
3:48Almost every act of printing
3:49prior to the digital age,
3:50whether of text or image,
3:52whether in ancient China,
3:53or Renaissance Italy,
3:54or modern Britain,
3:56was also an act of reversal
3:57in this way.
3:59Everything that we evoke when we
4:00evoke print culture or the print
4:02revolution, the reproduction
4:04of images,
4:04the dissemination of beliefs,
4:06the communication of knowledge,
4:08the very properties
4:08of modernity, ultimately depends
4:11upon the reversal
4:12of information.
4:13A forgotten archive of reversals
4:15stands behind the vast majority
4:17of images and texts produced
4:19in modern history.
4:21It's a forgotten archive
4:22because these reversals don't
4:24usually reveal themselves out
4:25in the world
4:26where printed matter circulates.
4:28Once the print has been pulled
4:29from the press, the print moves
4:31on, and the matrix stays behind.
4:33The mirror-pair that
4:35is present at that moment
4:36of emergence
4:37from the contact event
4:39ends up vanishing from the scene
4:41of print culture and, I think,
4:43print studies.
4:44And so when we look at prints,
4:46and books, and newspapers,
4:47and broadsides, and so on, it
4:49seems to me that we see only one
4:50side of them.
4:51The more I've thought
4:52about this, the stranger
4:53it has seemed.
4:54It's as if we were zoologists
4:56studying only the right sides
4:57of animal bodies,
4:59or physicists studying
5:00only antimatter, but not matter.
5:04When we look only at the print,
5:05but not
5:06its originating reversals,
5:07we miss a lot.
5:09We miss the way the print
5:10intersects with problems
5:12of symmetry and topology.
5:14We miss the way printmaking
5:15engages with the structure
5:17of the human body,
5:18our own organization
5:19around a central, corporeal
5:21seam,
5:22and the way we fold ourselves up
5:23around that seam.
5:25We miss the way prints'
5:26reversals open up hinges,
5:28or folds, or even pleats
5:29in spatial and social
5:31experience, and we miss the way
5:33print helps orient us
5:34to that experience.
5:37What would it look like to hold
5:38on to that deep awareness
5:40of reversal in printmaking
5:41and in art history?
5:42What would it look like to put
5:44it to work?
5:45This is what I hope to explore
5:46in this lecture.
5:48Now, I first became interested
5:49in print through the work
5:50of Jasper Johns,
5:51not only one of the greatest
5:52living contemporary artists,
5:54but also an artist for whom
5:55printmaking has driven his work
5:57and thinking in all media.
6:00One of the things that struck me
6:01about Johns from the outset
6:03was the way he allows
6:04the reversals
6:05inherent in printmaking
6:06to occupy his compositions so
6:08that they remain prominent
6:10in the finished print or, often,
6:12painting.
6:13We might say that he refuses
6:15to leave the reversed matrix
6:17behind in his work.
6:19In symmetrical compositions,
6:21like Corpse and Mirror, shown
6:23here, Johns works as if to bring
6:25the matrix and the print
6:26back together.
6:27Indeed, throughout his work,
6:28what we might call
6:29the "reverse intelligence"
6:30of printmaking breaks
6:32through to the final image,
6:33and breaks out into other media.
6:35This is a composition that,
6:36for me, really epitomizes what I
6:38would call
6:38"printerly intelligence."
6:40Johns made it at Universal
6:41Limited Art Editions in 1976,
6:44working with master printer Bill
6:45Goldston.
6:46It's a print that you can almost
6:48see thinking about what it means
6:50to be a print.
6:51It's organized bilaterally,
6:53mirroring itself
6:54around a central seam,
6:55as if we were looking,
6:56again, at a print pulled away
6:57from its matrix.
6:59The title, here, is worth
7:00comment, Corpse and Mirror.
7:02The "mirror" part of the title
7:04is obvious, but the "corpse"
7:05is perhaps a little more
7:06puzzling.
7:07This refers
7:08to the bodily qualities
7:09of the composition, especially
7:11the way
7:11these bilateral symmetries tend
7:13to evoke bodies in the round
7:15simply through the act
7:16of symmetry.
7:18But, more importantly, it refers
7:20to the surrealist drawing game
7:21known as the "exquisite corpse."
7:24Those of you who know
7:24your surrealism
7:25will remember that, to make
7:27an exquisite corpse,
7:28participants would collectively
7:30complete a drawing on sections
7:32of a folded piece of paper.
7:34One person would complete
7:35a section, then someone else
7:36would pick up at the fold
7:38and create another section,
7:40without being able to see
7:41the previous drawing.
7:42Johns evokes this
7:44in the fold-like divisions
7:45in the work, and, in doing so,
7:47also emphasizes
7:48some other aspects of printing
7:49that we've already discussed,
7:51especially its blindness.
7:53In making an exquisite corpse,
7:54you don't see the final image
7:56until you unfold it at the end
7:57of the game.
7:58Same with printmaking.
7:59It's not until the pull,
8:00not until that reverse,
8:01that you see what the press has
8:03done.
8:04The connection
8:04to the surrealist game
8:05also highlights the collectivity
8:07of printmaking, the way no print
8:09can ever be completely
8:10attributable to the mind or hand
8:13of an individual artist.
8:15The mind of the print,
8:16we might say, exists somewhere
8:18in those seams
8:19between participants,
8:20between materials,
8:21between dimensions,
8:23between the world
8:24and its mirror.
8:26Johns has spoken extensively
8:28about the impact
8:29that printmaking has had
8:30on his other work.
8:31Here's a typical quote.
8:33"Just the process of making
8:35allows you to do--
8:36not allows you to do things,
8:37but makes your mind work
8:39in a different way than, say,
8:40painting with a brush does...
8:42And some of that
8:42feeds back into painting,
8:44because then you see,
8:44you find things which are
8:45necessary to printmaking
8:47that become
8:47interesting in themselves
8:49and can be used in painting
8:50where they're not necessary
8:52but become like ideas.
8:54And in that way printmaking
8:55has affected my painting a lot."
8:58In terms of reversal,
9:00we can see Johns picking up
9:02on it, like an idea, in many
9:04of his paintings,
9:04like this one, Field Painting,
9:06which really works
9:08on the principle of the hinge.
9:10Hinged letters, here, perform
9:12the project of reversal.
9:14Notice how Johns gives us
9:16a text, or letters,
9:17both forwards and backwards,
9:20and he also conveniently
9:21leaves in the painting
9:23the imprinting objects,
9:25these wooden letter blocks, that
9:27match up with them.
9:28And here I'd simply ask you
9:30to note the neon letter R
9:32in this painting.
9:33We will be returning to neon,
9:35and its surprising connection
9:37to print and reversal,
9:38several times later
9:39in this lecture.
9:42Robert Rauschenberg was also
9:43a great student of reversal,
9:45and, here, we might just return
9:46for a moment
9:47to the Hoarfrost Editions, which
9:48we looked at last week
9:49in terms of pressure,
9:51to note the way they show
9:52an incredible sensitivity
9:54to the perpetual reversals
9:56in print media.
9:57These are details from the work
9:59Mule, which has fields
10:01of wrinkled and fragmented text,
10:04oriented mostly backwards.
10:06These are essentially transfer
10:08prints from newspapers, which,
10:10of course, originally read
10:11the right way,
10:12but because they're transferred
10:14in a press,
10:15they read the wrong way when
10:17they come out on the print.
10:19So most of the text
10:20is backwards, but there is also
10:21some right-facing text
10:22in this print.
10:24Here's a good example.
10:25We see part of an Andy Capp
10:27comic strip that's backwards,
10:29but also a moment
10:30of legible text in the bottom
10:31of the bag.
10:32Looking at jumbles like this,
10:34you realize that everything
10:35there that is now backwards
10:37was once forwards, and vice
10:39versa.
10:40The backwards comic strip was
10:41forwards on the copy of the LA
10:43Times
10:43from which it was transferred,
10:45but it was backwards
10:46on the printing plate that
10:47printed the newspaper itself,
10:49and was presumably
10:50forwards on the original line
10:51art which became the print
10:54in the newspaper.
10:56Rauschenberg captures the way
10:57that information switches in
10:59and out of reversal as it moves
11:01between generations of media,
11:03the somersaulting dynamism
11:05of reversal that delivers to us
11:06virtually all printed matter.
11:09Today, I'll be exploring
11:10printerly reversal
11:11and its implications,
11:13especially
11:13its dimensional implications.
11:15After a general introduction
11:17to the quiddities of reversal
11:18in printmaking,
11:19I'll focus on a group
11:20of contemporary artists
11:22who, like Johns
11:23and Rauschenberg,
11:24move fluently
11:24between printmaking and other
11:26media.
11:27In particular, I'll be looking
11:28at artists who use reversed text
11:30in their work, and therefore
11:32create highly
11:32conspicuous reversals,
11:34while also clearly
11:35attaching that project
11:37of reversal
11:38to the rubric of communication
11:40and dialogue, and in doing so,
11:42they show how the reversals that
11:44are native to printmaking
11:45can generate
11:46critical interventions
11:47in social and political space.
11:50Printmakers
11:51and would-be printmakers
11:52need to be able to think
11:54and work backwards as they work
11:55on the matrix.
11:56They need to be able to imagine
11:58source images in reverse,
11:59and to anticipate the printed
12:00image in what we might call
12:01"preverse."
12:03Printmakers' statements are
12:04full of testimony
12:05about the mindset,
12:06and the bodyset,
12:08that this requires.
12:09"The engraver has to see
12:10everything reversed."
12:11"You have to flip everything
12:13in your head."
12:14Indeed, reversal is one
12:15of the most essential ways that
12:16printmaking, to quote Johns
12:17again, "makes your mind work
12:19in a different way."
12:21For highly skilled printmakers,
12:23reversal becomes
12:23automatic and natural
12:25after long repetition
12:26and practice.
12:27It becomes part
12:28of their tacit intelligence.
12:30But for everyone else,
12:31this flipping is not easy.
12:33Although we are beings with more
12:34or less symmetrical body parts,
12:36our experiential orientation
12:37to the world
12:38tends to lean in one direction,
12:40to settle itself into handed,
12:42or sided, routines
12:44and perceptions.
12:45Most of us are not, in fact,
12:46ambidextrous.
12:48Working in reverse on a matrix,
12:51as I have done several times
12:52in a print shop, is almost
12:54like an out-of-body experience.
12:56It pulls you out of all
12:57of your known postures and ways
13:00of thinking.
13:00It actually makes your body feel
13:02different, as if your arms
13:03and head aren't working
13:04properly.
13:05It's very
13:05similar
13:06to the deep disorientation
13:07that a left-hander feels holding
13:09a right-handed pair of scissors,
13:10or an American feels when
13:11traveling in a country where
13:13people drive on the left.
13:15Even the most accomplished
13:16artists who routinely make
13:18prints struggle
13:19with these reversals.
13:20Vija Celmins, whose work
13:22featuring oceanscapes
13:23and starry skies you may know,
13:25had this to say in a 2011
13:28oral history
13:29she gave for the Museum
13:30of Modern Art.
13:31Quote, "The whole printmaking
13:32thing is the most irritating
13:34thing you can do.
13:35They're all backward, you have
13:36to turn your head backward ...
13:38because when you print it,
13:39it goes the other way...
13:40I'm a real 'right there' person,
13:42you know, so it's very
13:43hard for me
13:43to be right there, but upside
13:46down, inside out, or whatever."
13:49One might well ask why, given
13:51this evident discomfort,
13:53Celmins has made so many prints
13:54over the course of her career,
13:56and I think the simplest answer
13:57is
13:57that,
13:57like many other contemporary
13:58artists that have engaged
13:59with printmaking,
14:00this disorientation is precisely
14:02the point of the operation
14:04for her.
14:05Contemporary artists often seek
14:06out the destabilization
14:08of printmaking because it forces
14:09them out
14:10of the technical facility
14:11that they have attained in, say,
14:12drawing, painting, or sculpture.
14:15As they enter that mirror world
14:16of printing, they're taken out
14:18of the bodily and conceptual
14:19complacency that comes along
14:21with their own skills,
14:22out of the comfort
14:23of their own internalized
14:24orientation to their work.
14:26This turn to printmaking
14:27as an experience of estrangement
14:29or difficulty
14:30became a common refrain
14:32as the print renaissance gained
14:33steam after the 1960s.
14:35The archives of the great print
14:37shops are full of accounts
14:38of artists discovering the value
14:40of printmaking
14:41as a way of interrupting
14:42mastery.
14:43One of my favorite examples
14:45is John Cage's first residency
14:47at Crown Point Press, where he
14:49explicitly sought out
14:50the disorientation
14:52of printmaking.
14:53For his first project there, he
14:54did a series of prints
14:55called Seven Day Diary (Not
14:58Knowing).
14:59He made one print per day
15:00for seven days,
15:01each using a new and different
15:03printmaking technique.
15:04As he said, this would be,
15:06quote, "an activity that would
15:08be characterized by my not
15:10knowing what I was doing," end
15:11quote.
15:12This is partly accounted
15:14for by the imperative
15:15toward deskilling that took
15:16over contemporary art
15:18in the 1960s and '70s
15:19and onward.
15:21Making prints was a good way
15:22to refuse the kind
15:23of artisanal facility
15:25that was increasingly seen as
15:27bankrupt at the time.
15:28But it's
15:29more complicated than that,
15:30because this was not so much
15:31a refusal of artisanal skill
15:33as it was an embrace
15:35of the destabilizing experience
15:36of confronting an unfamiliar set
15:38of artisanal skills.
15:41Also, in turning to print,
15:42contemporary artists are tapping
15:44into a centuries-old ethos
15:46in the West
15:47of the critical power
15:48of reversal.
15:51The mythology of printmaking
15:52in the West has long flirted
15:54with the idea
15:55that reversal provides access
15:56to special forms of otherness,
15:58eccentricity, and opposition.
16:01The ability to work and perceive
16:02in reverse has long been
16:04associated
16:04with a seer-like divination
16:06of alternative dimensions
16:08and forms.
16:09It's often
16:09coincident with mystery
16:10or secrecy, inasmuch
16:12as the reverse is thought
16:13to lurk
16:14as the invisible other side
16:16of any form.
16:18As Kathryn Reeves writes,
16:19in an excellent essay called
16:21"The Revision of Printmaking,"
16:23"Printmakers have the capability
16:24to see the dual nature
16:25of all images/texts/identities
16:28which exist always as themselves
16:30and always as their mirror
16:32images.
16:33But this experience of reversal
16:35is not shared with the rest
16:36of the art world nor with
16:37society; this experience further
16:39marks the printmaker
16:40and printmaking as other,
16:42as 'eccentrics' ...
16:44those who do not occupy
16:46the center."
16:48We've already talked a bit
16:49about how printmaking is
16:50associated with critique,
16:51assessment, judgment,
16:53and justice through the work
16:55of Willie Cole.
16:56All of these impulses
16:58are also attached to the process
17:00of reversal.
17:02In this case, let's think again
17:03about the concept of the proof,
17:05which I raised briefly
17:06last week.
17:08In printmaking, the term "proof"
17:09is used to designate a trial
17:11or preliminary impression taken
17:13to be checked for errors
17:14and marked for correction
17:16before a subsequent revision
17:17or final printing.
17:19It designates the production
17:20of a reversal as an act
17:22of testing and correction,
17:24and thus it is that reversal
17:26lurks, as well,
17:27behind the broader concept
17:28of proof as the establishment
17:30or demonstration of truth,
17:32or validity, or authenticity.
17:34To reverse something
17:35is either to validate it
17:37or to expose its weaknesses,
17:39to prove or disprove it.
17:42Now, a good example
17:43of these dynamics,
17:44inspired but not contained
17:46by the print medium,
17:47is Glenn Ligon's ongoing series
17:50of neon sculptures that subject
17:52the word "America"
17:54to various forms of reversal.
17:56Ligon is not primarily known
17:58as a printmaker, but his work
18:00is inseparable from the life
18:01of print, especially typographic
18:03print.
18:04His signature paintings, as many
18:06of you may know, involve texts
18:08printed with stencils.
18:09And here is an earlier work,
18:10to give you an idea of the way
18:12print
18:12is
18:13essential to his entire career.
18:16Now, in these neon sculptures,
18:18Ligon turns letters backwards,
18:21as well as upside down,
18:22and flips them from front
18:23to back.
18:24In the context of proof,
18:25we can see this as a kind
18:27of testing, or proofing,
18:28of America,
18:29looking at it from both sides
18:30and checking on
18:31whether the image of America
18:32is sound.
18:34Hint, it really isn't.
18:36In this work, for example,
18:38each letter is reversed
18:40around its own axis,
18:42but because of the way
18:43the letters have
18:44internal symmetry planes, only
18:46some of them
18:47are obviously reversed,
18:48the C, the R, and the E. The
18:51reorganization of the letters
18:52through reversal
18:53reveals other latent meanings
18:55hiding in the word.
18:57The word "crime," for example,
18:58begins popping out of this text,
19:01as if it were hidden in the word
19:02America, an effect only evident
19:04because the letters are
19:05reversed.
19:06I also see the word "acrimony"
19:08in this piece.
19:11In this work, an upside-down
19:13"America" reads right-way-up
19:16only as a wavering reflection
19:18on the floor in a blood red.
19:21There is something sinister
19:22about this reflection.
19:24I'll return to Ligon later,
19:26but for now, I want to linger
19:27on this notion of the sinister
19:29that is part of reversal.
19:32The critical power of reversal
19:33has long carried shades
19:34of the sinister.
19:35Those of you who are book
19:36historians know that the term
19:38"printer's devil,"
19:39slang for an apprentice
19:41in a print shop,
19:42may have derived from an earlier
19:43belief that a devil, or devils,
19:46haunted every print shop,
19:47causing various forms
19:49of mischief, but, especially,
19:51inverting letters.
19:53Moreover, the very term
19:54"sinister" derived
19:55from the traditional
19:56denomination of "left"
19:57and "right"
19:58as "sinister" and "dexter."
20:01Whether conceived of as sinister
20:03or merely mischievous, the point
20:04is that reversal engenders
20:06critique, a refusal to accept
20:08the status quo, and the insight
20:10that every form is accompanied
20:12by its reverse.
20:14Now, Ligon's work takes reversal
20:16off of the plane
20:17and puts it in space,
20:19so each letter here is suspended
20:21a little bit away from the wall,
20:23and the light and reflections
20:24from the neon project
20:26into the architecture
20:27of the room.
20:28Ligon, in other words,
20:29treats these printerly reversals
20:31in an inherently sculptural way,
20:34but in doing so,
20:34he's not so much adding space
20:36to reversal as he is exploiting
20:38the way that reversal always
20:40already generates
20:41spacial effects.
20:42He's making visible something
20:44that's already latent deep
20:45in the work of print, namely
20:47that reversal can be seen
20:48as a sculptural or architectural
20:50process.
20:53Now I want to turn to some
20:54of the ways in which reversal
20:55can do this, can produce space,
20:57including social space.
21:00Even looking at something
21:01like this reversed letter, which
21:03takes on the simplest
21:04form of reversal
21:05that you can get
21:06between a matrix and a print,
21:08there is a kind of extra space
21:10being generated here.
21:12This mirror relation that we're
21:13looking at is carving out
21:15an activated space
21:17around itself.
21:19This form of mirror pairing
21:20is known as "chiral."
21:22The term "chiral" comes
21:23from the Greek word meaning
21:24"hand," and it's also commonly
21:26used to refer to the left
21:28and right-handed forms that
21:29exist
21:30throughout the natural world,
21:32those that
21:32lean,
21:33or spiral,
21:33in opposite directions,
21:35so
21:35actual hands, certain crystals
21:37and shells, spiral galaxies,
21:40certain stereoisometric
21:41molecules, et cetera.
21:43This mirroring seems
21:44simple enough when you just look
21:45at it,
21:46but what makes it interesting
21:47for us in this spatial context
21:50is that this kind of mirroring
21:51always implies
21:52an extra dimension.
21:54So let me explain what I mean
21:55by that.
21:57Even though it's obvious that
21:58these two e's are closely
22:00related to each other, as they
22:01sit on this 2D plane, they
22:04cannot actually be superimposed
22:06on each other or brought
22:07together on this plane.
22:09So take the "e" on the left.
22:11No matter how vigorously
22:12or creatively you scooch it
22:13around on this page, you cannot
22:16bring it into alignment with
22:17the "e" on the right.
22:19In order to do that,
22:20you have to flip it up and over,
22:22off the page,
22:23and into three-dimensional
22:24space.
22:25You have to imagine it pivoting
22:26around a kind of a hinge,
22:28into another dimension, in this
22:30case, the n+1 dimension,
22:32or the third dimension.
22:34By the way, if you want to bring
22:36mirrored 3D forms
22:37into alignment,
22:39like a left-spiraling snail
22:41shell
22:41and a right-spiraling snail
22:42shell, you have to rotate them
22:45in four-dimensional space.
22:47This is one
22:48of my favorite stories,
22:49but a story for another day.
22:51So this way of implying 3D space
22:53on a 2D plane is fundamentally
22:54different than the way spatial
22:56suggestion is normally handled
22:58in the tradition
22:58of western representational
23:00painting,
23:00with its histories
23:01of perspective and illusionism.
23:03This is why Jasper Johns was
23:05attracted to reversal.
23:07One of the reasons he turned
23:08to print was because it gave him
23:09ways of evoking
23:11complex spatial experiences
23:12without resorting
23:14to optical perspective
23:15or traditional illusionism.
23:19So reversal creates
23:20an implied space
23:21through its generation
23:22of mirrored forms.
23:23At the same time, it can also
23:25generate another kind
23:26of reversal,
23:27a reversal across the picture
23:28plane from front to back
23:30and the creation
23:31of a relationship
23:32between the space in front
23:33and the space behind that plane.
23:36Jasper Johns again provides
23:37an excellent illustration
23:39of this.
23:39Consider the lithograph Skin
23:41with O'Hara Poem of 1965.
23:44Johns made this print
23:45by pressing and rolling
23:46his hands and face
23:48across the surface
23:49of a lithographic stone
23:51and then printing it.
23:53What's most conspicuous
23:54about this image is not so much
23:55the left-right reversal,
23:57but the reversal
23:57across the plane.
23:59In the making of the face
24:00and handprints,
24:01Johns, of course, was always
24:03on this side of the stone,
24:04right?
24:05No matter how hard he smashed
24:06his face against it,
24:08he could never pass through it,
24:10and, in fact, it was that very
24:11obdurate resistance
24:13of the surface--
24:14and we talked, last week,
24:15a little bit
24:15about the resistance
24:16from below that's
24:17part of print--
24:18it was that very resistance that
24:20made the printed mark possible.
24:23But in the print that issues
24:25from this activity, his image
24:26suddenly seems to have leapt
24:28over to the other side
24:29of that impermeable barrier.
24:31The same pressing and pushing
24:32of the artist's body
24:33on this side now appears to be
24:35coming from that side
24:36of the surface,
24:38and as many commentators have
24:39noticed, it appears to be locked
24:41there.
24:42As Kirk Varnedoe put it,
24:43it's, quote, "a figure trapped
24:45and desperately trying to push
24:47forward from a space
24:48behind the surface," end quote.
24:50Reversed by the press, the mark
24:52looks back at the artist
24:54from a space of quarantine
24:56that is inescapably other.
24:58So the image leaves
24:59the immediate sphere
25:00of the artist
25:01and returns in reversed form.
25:03The press takes the artist's
25:04gesture and bounces it back
25:05backwards.
25:06The image returns
25:07from a different perspective,
25:08as if from a distant mirror
25:10on the other side
25:10of the universe.
25:12It's his mirror image,
25:13but it is not quite himself.
25:15This has had an immense appeal
25:17for Johns from the outset.
25:18He has repeatedly spoken
25:19of his desire to detach images
25:21from his own specific subject
25:23position.
25:24Quote, "I want an image to be
25:25free from the way I see it,"
25:28or, as he has said, "Things
25:30become other when you look
25:32at them backwards."
25:34So, for Johns, the reversal
25:35generated by the press
25:36can serve as a device
25:37for the automatic generation
25:39of alterities, of otherness.
25:41It splits apart the singular
25:42viewpoint of the artist,
25:44and opens up
25:44a relational circuit
25:45with some other side.
25:47It installs an alter ego
25:49through reversal and separation.
25:51It really puts someone else
25:52on the other side of the picture
25:54plane.
25:55This essentially activates
25:57both sides of the picture plane
25:58through reversal, and suggests
25:59a model for thinking
26:00of the print
26:01as a dynamic, dialogic surface
26:04that creates
26:05and structures relationships
26:06with an other.
26:08Now,
26:09this simultaneous left-right
26:10and front-back reversal,
26:11the way one generates the other,
26:13holds enormous possibility
26:15for critical artistic
26:16exploration.
26:17The artist that has taught me
26:19the most about how to develop
26:20that social potential
26:22of that splitting
26:23across the picture plane
26:25is the artist Corita Kent.
26:27Now, Kent was
26:28a prodigious screenprint artist
26:30in Los Angeles in the 1960s
26:32and '70s.
26:33She was also a Roman Catholic
26:35nun, where she helped run
26:36the famous art program
26:38at Immaculate Heart College
26:39in Hollywood.
26:41In the mid-1960s,
26:42a strong progressive energy
26:43was running through world
26:44Catholicism, a wave of reforms
26:47attempting to modernize
26:48the faith and its practices.
26:50These included the use
26:51of vernacular languages,
26:52instead of solely Latin,
26:53for the liturgy,
26:54and encouragement for Catholics
26:56to become more involved
26:57in local causes.
26:58Inspired by this,
27:00along with the first stirrings
27:01of pop art in New York and Los
27:03Angeles, Kent began a series
27:05of remarkable screen prints
27:07that fused the vernacular
27:09energies of pop and progressive
27:11Catholicism.
27:12So Kent's prints are
27:13full of text, and they're also
27:15full of double meanings.
27:17She left her slogans and brand
27:18names attached to a kind
27:20of commercial context,
27:22but also appropriated them
27:24for their spiritual
27:25and aesthetic resonances.
27:27So a print like this
27:28is referring both to Wonder
27:30Bread, in a pop art way,
27:32but also wonder
27:34in a religious sense
27:36at the same time.
27:38One of the most distinctive
27:39aspects of Kent's prints
27:41are the reversals to which she
27:43subjected these words.
27:45There are many different ways
27:47that she did this, but let's
27:48just focus
27:48on the backwards texts.
27:50Many of the texts in her prints
27:52read backward, as if seen
27:53in a mirror, like the red text
27:55in this print that says,
27:57appropriately, "turn, turn."
28:00But although this is
28:00a typical mirror reversal
28:02that you'd see in printmaking,
28:03Kent did not talk about it
28:04in terms of mirrors
28:06and reflections.
28:07Instead, she claimed that when
28:08you look at backwards text,
28:10you're seeing the words as if
28:11from behind, from the other side
28:12of the letters.
28:13As she said
28:14on several occasions,
28:15"It is necessary to turn
28:17the words over to see what's
28:18on the other side."
28:20Now, with this idea of reversal,
28:21Kent is inching toward the kind
28:23of crossplane reversal
28:24that we've just discussed
28:25with the Johns print.
28:27She implies that reversing words
28:28from left to right
28:29also suggests a kind of flipping
28:31over of the print, or page,
28:33or screen,
28:34viewing or occupying it
28:35from the other side,
28:36and, for her,
28:37this was a fundamental way
28:39of thinking about the act
28:41of empathy in printmaking.
28:44Now, before going any further,
28:45I want to point out that Kent's
28:46chosen medium of screenprinting
28:49is not quite like other print
28:51media
28:51that we've looked at so
28:52far in the way it handles
28:54the whole project of reversal.
28:56We've been talking
28:57about processes like etching
28:59and engraving that produce
29:00images by forcing ink to move
29:03from the face
29:04of an opaque, obdurate plate
29:06or stone
29:07onto the face of the support,
29:08or paper.
29:09The screenprinting matrix,
29:11by contrast,
29:12is a soft, transparent mesh
29:15through which ink is pushed
29:17with a rubber squeegee
29:18to the paper below.
29:20The mesh is impregnated with
29:22or adhered to a stencil, which
29:24acts as a kind of negative,
29:26blocking the passage of ink
29:27through parts of the screen
29:28and thereby generating
29:29the image.
29:31Now, I'll talk a lot more
29:32about screenprinting
29:32in the coming weeks,
29:33but for our purposes today, this
29:35means that the image
29:36on the matrix is not reversed
29:38as it passes
29:39through to the paper,
29:40or support.
29:40So if you look at this diagram,
29:42you can see that the "W" is
29:43the same way around
29:44on both planes.
29:46It's for this reason
29:47that screenprinting is sometimes
29:49discussed as a nonreversing
29:50print medium.
29:51But, and this is a big but, just
29:53because there's no reversal
29:54on the scene of transfer
29:56doesn't mean that reversal
29:57doesn't inhabit the process.
29:58In fact, as Kent was very well
30:00aware, reversal
30:01is
30:01a prominent and inescapable part
30:03of screen printing.
30:04It's just that it occupies
30:05the process a little bit
30:06differently.
30:07Unlike traditional matrices,
30:09the screenprint matrix
30:11is transparent, and because it's
30:13transparent, the reverse side
30:15of the screen and its stencils
30:16are always visible and available
30:19to the artist.
30:20In fact, while working,
30:21the artist cannot help
30:22but confront the other side,
30:24or back side, of these images
30:26or texts.
30:27Reversed inscriptions are
30:28constantly available to view
30:30as the artist opens and closes
30:33the hinge of the screen--
30:34and here I'll note that we're
30:36looking at a hinge again--
30:37or as the artist engages
30:39in processes to prepare
30:40the matrix.
30:41This is a screen washing
30:43operation.
30:44In fact, the reverse surface
30:45of the screen is usually
30:46the surface on which the artist
30:47actively works, as here,
30:50in a still from a period
30:51film featuring Kent's work,
30:53where we can see her working
30:54on the reverse side
30:55of the screen
30:56from the other side.
30:58So let's review the difference
30:59here between, say, engraving
31:00and screenprint in their access
31:02to an approach to reversal.
31:03So, with engraving,
31:04the right and reversed versions
31:06of the image are distributed
31:07across two different objects,
31:09the matrix and the print.
31:10But in the screen print,
31:11both of these forms
31:13have essentially been collapsed
31:14together into the matrix alone.
31:16Through transparency, the screen
31:18matrix holds both
31:19of these versions
31:20in the same object.
31:22To make them switch from one
31:23to the other, one only need look
31:25at the screen
31:25from one side or the other,
31:26or imagine doing so.
31:29Screenprinting is a 20th-century
31:31invention, for the most part,
31:34and
31:34while this magical doubleness
31:37of the transparent matrix
31:38may seem like a wholly
31:40newfangled way of managing
31:42reversal, the fact is that it's
31:44not completely disconnected
31:46from earlier printing methods
31:48in copper, wood, or stone.
31:50In fact, it's possible to see it
31:51as a continuation
31:53of various reversal techniques
31:54that permeated these earlier
31:56methods.
31:57One of the key problems
31:58in any traditional print shop
31:59was how to preserve
32:01the original orientation
32:02of an artist's design
32:04in the final print.
32:06Take this beautiful drawing
32:07of fossil ammonites
32:08by the British scientist Robert
32:10Hooke.
32:11Now, if you want the shells
32:13to spiral
32:13in their original direction
32:15when they are printed,
32:16you need somehow to transfer
32:18this drawing to the matrix
32:19in reverse.
32:21The drawing needs to be
32:22backwards on the plate
32:24in order to face
32:24in the correct direction
32:25again on the print.
32:27This is why the reverse
32:29of a drawing or design
32:30was a perpetual object of desire
32:32in the world of printmaking.
32:34But how do you get that?
32:35How do you just reverse
32:36a drawing?
32:37How would you turn it around?
32:39You couldn't, until very
32:40recently, just flip it around
32:41in Photoshop,
32:42and it wasn't very
32:43efficient to laboriously redraw
32:45the entire thing backwards
32:46by squaring it
32:47off or eyeballing.
32:49It was difficult enough
32:50that printmakers often simply
32:52didn't bother.
32:53The printer of Hooke's drawing
32:55didn't bother, which is why all
32:56of these beautiful shell fossils
32:58are facing the wrong way
32:59in the published engraving.
33:01This, by the way,
33:02was a common fate befalling
33:04the illustration of shells
33:05in the Age of Enlightenment.
33:07It's too bad, because while it
33:08may not matter to humans which
33:09way a shell is spiraling,
33:10it certainly matters
33:11to the shells.
33:13Anyway, one solution
33:15to the problem of reversing
33:16a drawing that was commonly
33:18arrived at for centuries
33:20across multiple different
33:22processes
33:23was to find a way of essentially
33:25making the drawing
33:26transparent so that it could be
33:28seen from the other side,
33:29and, therefore, seen in reverse.
33:32And this is one of the reasons
33:34that trace paper was actually
33:35invented, or devised.
33:37Various methods were used,
33:39for example, soaking paper
33:41in oil, turpentine, or naphtha,
33:44in order to make it transparent.
33:46So a drawing on a paper
33:47like this, a transparent sheet,
33:50could be held up to a window
33:51and traced from the back,
33:52essentially creating a reversed
33:53image, and then transferred
33:55to the plate
33:56in the usual manner.
33:57You can reverse an image,
33:58in other words,
33:59by looking at its other side.
34:01Left-right reversal
34:02and front-back reversal
34:03are equivalent.
34:05Another way of transparentizing
34:07an image for reversal
34:09was pricking, or pouncing,
34:11pricking tiny holes
34:12along the outlines,
34:13creating a literally
34:14perforated sheet in which
34:16the basic contours
34:17of the reversed image
34:18could be made
34:18available by simply flipping
34:19the sheet around.
34:23On these oiled or perforated
34:24sheets, the drawing
34:25is able to appear on both sides
34:27of the sheet
34:28simultaneously, and therefore
34:30become reversible.
34:31The sheet holds both sides
34:33of a mirror image suspended
34:34in a single form.
34:36As common transfer tools
34:37in every print shop,
34:39these sheets teach us something
34:40fundamental about print.
34:41Any image in print
34:42implies, or derives from,
34:44or carries along
34:45its own reversal.
34:46And these sheets, again, are
34:47embodiments
34:48of the constant desire
34:49and necessity for reversal
34:51in all printmaking processes,
34:53and this is one of the things
34:55that they have bequeathed
34:56to modern techniques
34:57like screenprinting.
34:59So a useful way to think
35:00of screenprinting is essentially
35:01that these intermediary tools
35:03of older printmaking media,
35:04these sort
35:05of delicate reversing
35:06interfaces, have simply migrated
35:08into the position of the matrix
35:10itself.
35:10Screenprinting is a continuation
35:12of these processes, not
35:14a radical break from them.
35:16Now, Corita Kent understood
35:17this very old principle
35:19of reversal and transparency,
35:21and she understood that it could
35:22be used as a way of creating
35:24critical social space.
35:26When we see the screen
35:27of screenprinting as a form
35:29of reversing transparency,
35:31as we have been doing,
35:32we're also then able to see how
35:34closely it relates to Kent's
35:36other forms of transparent image
35:38media that were part
35:39of her work.
35:40One of these, of course,
35:41was film, a 20th-century medium
35:43with transparent
35:44stock that holds an image
35:46in both right and reversed
35:47forms.
35:48Another was the 35 mm slide.
35:50Kent used slides constantly
35:52in her work.
35:53The Kodak Carousel projector was
35:55introduced in 1962.
35:57Anyone in my audience who
35:58remembers using a Kodak Carousel
36:01projector will remember how easy
36:03it was to misload a slide
36:05and find yourself
36:05with a reversed
36:06image on the screen.
36:08Another medium, perhaps less
36:10obvious, was the store window,
36:13especially the grocery store
36:14window, which was a site
36:16of inspiration
36:17for her pop-inspired imagery.
36:19The window is a key site
36:21for images and letters
36:22that can be viewed from inside
36:24or outside, before or behind.
36:26So all of these media, then--
36:28store window, film, 35mm slide,
36:31and screenprinting--
36:33are communications media that
36:35spatially organize communities.
36:37Kent's genius was to recognize
36:39that the transfer
36:39and transformation
36:41that's synonymous with reversal
36:43in print
36:44could be imagined in connection
36:45with these more sculptural
36:46or architectural technologies.
36:49Like the store window
36:50or the slide, the screenprint
36:52matrix generates
36:53a spatial and social
36:54relationship between inside
36:56and outside, before and behind.
36:58Although this screen matrix can
37:00only be seen from one side
37:02at a time, its transparency
37:04permits you to imagine taking
37:05a position on the other side,
37:07or to visualize someone else
37:08in that position,
37:09and this is especially true when
37:11you approach the backside
37:12of a screen matrix, where
37:14the lettering is in reverse,
37:16because the act of attempting
37:18to read the words backwards
37:19forces you as the viewer
37:21to virtually inhabit
37:23the reversed position from which
37:24the words would be read
37:26correctly.
37:27I would even go so far as
37:28to propose that the screen
37:30matrix inherently conjures
37:32the presence of another person
37:34viewing it from the other side,
37:36creating a dialogic milieu
37:38around itself, which serves
37:39as a kind of mediating surface
37:41for a social relationship.
37:43Now, what interests
37:44me about Kent's prints
37:45is the way
37:45they carry this vision
37:47of a transparent dialogic screen
37:49through to the final print
37:50itself.
37:51So, of course, the final prints
37:52that she makes
37:53are not transparent.
37:54They're opaque.
37:55But the reversed words virtually
37:59perforate that picture plane,
38:00and evoke this matrix
38:02of interchange.
38:04For her, that interchange was
38:06named "communion," and this was,
38:08of course, a Catholic way
38:09of thinking about interchange,
38:11communion between conversants
38:13who are facing each other.
38:15This does not, however,
38:16correspond to some model
38:18of easy synthesis,
38:19or palliative harmony.
38:21Kent's printed texts,
38:23with their reversals, inherently
38:25split the community of readers,
38:27even as they suggest
38:28their conjunction.
38:29Kent's surfaces retain
38:31the friction of difference,
38:33and even opposition, while they
38:35also produce a congregation
38:37of those viewpoints.
38:38The reverse texts conjure
38:40the other, but the other
38:42is estranged, defamiliarized,
38:44backwards.
38:44The other, like Jasper Johns'
38:46face, is over on the other side.
38:48And at the same time,
38:49these prints train us to imagine
38:51our own estrangement,
38:52our own reversal
38:53from the other side of the page.
38:55So if these are sites
38:56for communal understanding,
38:57they can produce
38:58that understanding only by first
39:00acknowledging what Claire Bishop
39:02calls a "moment
39:03of mutual nonidentification."
39:07Now, as models of interaction
39:08occurring
39:09through and upon screens,
39:10Kent's prints
39:11have obvious resonances
39:13with our own contemporary lives,
39:15especially over the last year,
39:16when virtually all
39:17of our social lives
39:18have been conducted
39:19through screens.
39:21But her reversals are more
39:23radical in their acknowledgment
39:24of difference and otherness
39:26than almost anything
39:27that we're used to
39:28in our contemporary screen
39:29experience.
39:30We speak of interacting
39:32in social networks
39:33through our screens, of course,
39:35but the disorienting reversals
39:37that Kent saw as
39:38inherent to the work of print
39:40have been mostly expunged
39:42from our devices.
39:43So, for example, when we
39:45exchange texts, our experience
39:48of the letters on the screen
39:49tends to absorb us
39:51into an illusion of shared
39:52orientation.
39:53After all, we are all looking
39:55at the letters on our screens
39:56in the same way.
39:58Imagine, instead, what texting
40:00would be like if your friend's
40:01texts came to you in reverse.
40:04Only then would you
40:05be participating
40:06in a spatial network that
40:07recognizes otherness in anything
40:09like what Kent had imagined,
40:11and what the reversals
40:12at the heart of print might
40:14truly suggest.
40:15A reversed text suspended
40:17on a veil
40:18between different parts
40:19of the social body
40:20provides a shared plane
40:21of communication and opportunity
40:23for dialogue, but does not
40:25assume or demand that both sides
40:27share precisely
40:28the same perspective.
40:31So we have reversal as alterity,
40:34critique, judgment,
40:35relationality, estrangement,
40:36displacement.
40:38These powers of reversal
40:39run, whether as latent potential
40:41or actual agency,
40:43through every print
40:44and every printmaking process.
40:47A look around contemporary art
40:49will turn up several examples
40:50of artists who, like Kent,
40:53and often explicitly
40:54inspired by Kent,
40:56have used textual reversal
40:58to harness these dynamics.
41:00I've already mentioned Ligon,
41:02but now that we've been talking
41:03about the relationship
41:04between transparency
41:05and reversal a little more,
41:06we can better understand the way
41:08neon is working as an adjunct
41:10to print in his work.
41:11Think
41:12of the quintessential space
41:13for a neon sign, a window,
41:16suspended between inside
41:17and outside, usually of a place,
41:20like a bar or a restaurant,
41:22that evokes comfort,
41:23and community,
41:24and belonging, at least to those
41:26who feel like they belong there,
41:27at least to those
41:28who are not excluded.
41:30A neon sign is like a text
41:32on a silkscreen or trace paper.
41:33You could see it from the front
41:35or the back, and depending
41:36on which side of the window
41:37you're on,
41:38you see it differently.
41:40Ligon's neon pieces explicitly
41:42position the idea of America
41:43as something
41:44that has an inside
41:45and an outside.
41:46That tension, which is usually
41:48suppressed
41:49in our national mythologies,
41:51that tension leaps into view
41:53through the critical power
41:54of reversal.
41:55There are many other examples
41:57of the way
41:57these printerly reversals can
41:59speak to the problem of space,
42:00community, and belonging.
42:02This very recent work
42:04by the artist Virgil Abloh
42:06is literally a silkscreen,
42:08with the words "Watch Your Back"
42:10stenciled both forwards
42:11and backwards into the mesh.
42:14Not only does this create
42:15an exaggerated expression
42:16of the double-sided
42:17reversibility
42:18of all silkscreens, it also
42:20speaks to the way
42:21that that reversibility, when
42:23understood as an analog
42:24for the body,
42:25can express a sense
42:26of acute vulnerability.
42:28If either side can be the front
42:30or the back,
42:31then, theoretically, both sides
42:32can be the back,
42:33and convey the attendant sense
42:35of 360-degree vulnerable
42:38exposure to power and violence.
42:43Ed Ruscha is another artist
42:44to bring in here.
42:45He has been famously working
42:47with palindromes
42:48and other reversal wordplay
42:50for decades.
42:51His work, which has always
42:52developed in and through print,
42:54as well as painting,
42:55is incredibly
42:56canny in the connections
42:57it draws
42:58between reversibility and
42:59spatial experience.
43:01To give just one example,
43:02here's a work, titled OH/HO,
43:05that might serve as a kind
43:06of mascot
43:06for this entire lecture,
43:08because it explicitly interprets
43:09the active word reversal as
43:11equivalent to rotation
43:13and inversion in space.
43:16Here's a work, related
43:17to that project, in which Ruscha
43:19has added his signature
43:20along both the top
43:22and the bottom of the image
43:23to indicate that he considers
43:24the work to be vertically
43:26reversible.
43:27So, one day, you can hang it
43:28as "Ho," and the next day,
43:29you can hang it as "Oh."
43:31This, of course, is playful,
43:33but there is also a kind
43:34of terror lurking in it.
43:36Like Abloh's screen, it suggests
43:38vulnerability, because we
43:40realize here how thoroughly
43:41our experience of language,
43:43the supposedly stable space
43:44of sharing and communication,
43:46depends
43:47upon our specific spatial
43:48orientation.
43:50These words have
43:50no stable meaning apart
43:52from our individual perspectives
43:54on them.
43:56Another necessary inclusion
43:58in this lecture is Deborah Kass'
44:01very well-known recent sculpture
44:03OY/YO.
44:05Here it is as it was installed
44:06in 2015 in Brooklyn Bridge Park.
44:10Kass is a printmaker
44:11well-trained in the adventure
44:12of reversal.
44:14These two letters, O and Y,
44:16reverse when walked around,
44:19changing not only in sound
44:21but also in meaning,
44:22in both cultural referent
44:24and in audience,
44:26changing from Spanish
44:27to Yiddish, from urban slang
44:28for a greeting to urban slang
44:30for dismay, and so on.
44:33The front and back of the word
44:34are undecidable.
44:36It's not clear which
44:37is the front
44:37and which is the back.
44:39This is a piece
44:40of free-standing typography
44:42that both refers to and actively
44:44generates a community that
44:46coheres, but retains
44:49its differences, and it retains
44:52a sense of equality
44:53in its differences.
44:56Bruce Nauman is another artist
44:57who's deeply invested
44:58in printmaking and its
45:00implications, especially
45:01reversal, although he tellingly
45:03calls it not "reversal,"
45:04but "front-back interplay."
45:06In some cases, as with Ruscha,
45:08these reversals
45:09are
45:10playful or punning, such as Ah
45:11Ha, here.
45:13Note this is a screenprint,
45:14so it's replicating
45:15the experience
45:16of the double-sided matrix
45:18in many different ways.
45:20But more generally, Nauman's
45:21work plumbs the darker side
45:23of reversal.
45:24Like Ligon, his disorienting
45:26reversals of text are often
45:28pursued simultaneously in neon
45:30and in print, both of which,
45:33as the critic
45:34John Yau puts it, throw Nauman's
45:37words into a, quote,
45:38"continuously
45:39irritated condition,"
45:40end quote, while also implying
45:42double perspectives
45:44and conflict.
45:46Nauman's interest
45:47in the profundity of reversal
45:48actually first developed
45:49in his sculpture practice
45:51in graduate school,
45:52where he found himself as
45:53interested in the molds
45:55and negative spaces
45:56of the objects he made as he was
45:57in the objects themselves.
46:00A work such as A cast
46:01of the space under my chair
46:03demonstrates the eerie sense
46:05of disorientation that follows
46:07from the reversal
46:07of positive and negative space.
46:10It also inaugurates another
46:11of Nauman's
46:12long-standing motifs,
46:14the suspended and reversed
46:15chair.
46:17Like printmaking itself,
46:18these upside-down and inside-out
46:19chairs suggest displacement
46:21and a loss of security
46:23and stability.
46:24In much of his work,
46:25these chairs explicitly refer
46:26to torture and to the condition
46:28of the disappeared.
46:30John Yau said that, in observing
46:32these, "we learn about what it
46:33means to be deprived of gravity,
46:35orientation, and privacy."
46:39This is not to equate
46:40printmaking with torture,
46:41but the process
46:42and its reversals
46:43does open out
46:44to these disorienting
46:46deprivations and estrangements,
46:48and it makes it a medium
46:49uniquely suited to working
46:51through these ideas.
46:54Finally, I want to linger
46:55on the work of Edgar Heap
46:57of Birds,
46:58a Cheyenne-Arapaho artist who
47:00lives and works in Oklahoma.
47:03He uses reversal very
47:04effectively in his work, much
47:06of which
47:06is emphatically text-based.
47:08He recently designed the cover
47:10of Art in America,
47:11and note the way
47:12the word "America" is reversed.
47:15And the cover featured one
47:17of a series of short and painful
47:19monotype prints
47:21that he had been working on,
47:23prints with texts that contend
47:25with the destruction
47:26of Native American culture that
47:28haunts American history.
47:30His word work is a kind
47:32of fragmented poetry.
47:33It alludes to vernacular signs,
47:36protest posters,
47:37but most importantly, it points
47:39to the history
47:40and ongoing presence of state
47:41violence
47:42against Native communities.
47:44Each of these is a monotype,
47:46which means there's only one
47:47copy of it.
47:49Each is created by writing
47:50backwards on a plate, so,
47:54in each of these,
47:55the texts originate in reverse,
47:57and help us to see how
47:58central that reversal
48:00and the spaciality of print
48:02is for his work.
48:05These are made by coating
48:06an acrylic plate with ink,
48:08into which Heap of Birds
48:09writes the text in reverse
48:11with his finger.
48:13It does not become legible
48:14in the correct orientation
48:16until the print is pulled
48:18from the plate,
48:19although you can also see it
48:21in the correct orientation
48:22when you're looking at the plate
48:24and you reverse it,
48:25so, in this case,
48:26it's a transparent matrix,
48:27like the screenprint is.
48:29Meanwhile, however, in working
48:31in reverse, Heap of Birds
48:33engages in an act
48:34of communication
48:36with a white American audience
48:38in which he refuses to fully
48:40inhabit the orientation
48:42of the English language,
48:43to fully inhabit that space.
48:46His annunciation comes,
48:47literally,
48:48from
48:48an oppositional perspective,
48:50from the other side,
48:51from a space of critique
48:52and judgment.
48:54If you know his work,
48:56you may have seen a sign
48:57from his series called
48:58Native Hosts, which has been
49:00ongoing since the late-1980s.
49:03These are commercially printed
49:04signs that masquerade
49:05as official road signs.
49:08They're site-specific,
49:09and all have the same structure.
49:11For each sign, the English place
49:13name of the site
49:14is printed in reverse, followed
49:16by the words "Today your host
49:18is" and the name
49:19of the Indigenous tribe
49:20that is native to that area,
49:22and in many cases,
49:23there will be multiple signs
49:25for each place, corresponding
49:27to the multiple different tribes
49:29that might have been associated
49:30with it.
49:31Heap of Birds
49:32claims that, quote,
49:34"the real mission of my art
49:35is to reset history,"
49:38and I'd argue that it's
49:39the reversal of printed text
49:40in these works that does
49:42a lot of that work,
49:43allowing that to happen.
49:45The history that needs resetting
49:48is the historical imaginary
49:49of American settler colonialism,
49:52and its orientation
49:53towards the Indigenous peoples
49:55who were relocated in order
49:58to form the American state.
50:01As codified around
50:02the 19th-century doctrines
50:03of Manifest Destiny
50:04and the vanishing race,
50:06the march
50:07of Anglo-European civilization
50:08was presented
50:09as a progressive westward sweep,
50:11before which the Indigenous
50:13populations had no choice
50:15but to vanish.
50:17This is an imaginary which
50:19treats Indigenous peoples
50:20as the so-called "vanishing
50:21race,"
50:22with the violence of that
50:24process obscured
50:25under a romantic narrative
50:26of inevitable, rather
50:27than forced, decline.
50:30All of this is perfectly
50:31embodied in this
50:32turn-of-the-century photograph
50:34by Edward S. Curtis.
50:35As Curtis's photograph suggests,
50:38the whole vanishing race
50:39ideology is already a kind
50:41of road sign,
50:42a directional indicator.
50:44The Navajo, here, are leaving
50:46the scene, retreating away
50:48from us into a fuzzy pictorials
50:51space in the distance.
50:53We look into a picture space,
50:55and Indigenous presence there
50:56is one of moving away,
50:58retreating, receding.
50:59We're in the space
51:00of annunciation and vision,
51:02as if our perspective itself was
51:04driving these figures away.
51:06This is a one-way process.
51:08Heap of Birds' reversed text,
51:10with startling efficiency,
51:12resets, repopulates,
51:14and unsettles this picture.
51:17Part of this comes from the way
51:18the signs use language
51:19to reinstall the Indigenous
51:20tribes in the present,
51:21for example, by insisting
51:23on the word "today."
51:24It also insists on the presence
51:26of Indigenous voices
51:27before settlers, by presenting
51:29them as hosts for arriving
51:32visitors.
51:33But the reversed text does all
51:35this even more pointedly,
51:37generating, as in Corita Kent's
51:38work, a double directionality
51:40that meets along the plane
51:42of the sign.
51:43This is a live and present
51:45encounter, a confrontation,
51:47with voices converging from two
51:49different directions.
51:51The settler finds her place name
51:53reversed, estranged, voiced
51:55from the other side.
51:57Now, inasmuch as the threat
51:58to Native sovereignty
51:59in American history
52:01was synonymous with the loss
52:02of land, this installation
52:04of a two-way dialogue
52:06also does something very
52:07important in terms of position
52:09and placement.
52:11The reversals which open spaces
52:13on either side of the plane
52:15give the Indigenous speaker
52:16a place to stand,
52:18a location in the present,
52:19an active dialogue
52:21with the reader, not retreating,
52:23but standing, and standing up,
52:25through reversal.
52:29OK.
52:30That's it for this week.
52:31Thank you again for watching,
52:32and thank you for watching all
52:33the way through to the end.
52:35Next week, we will have
52:36separation.
52:37Thanks, again.
52:42[MUSIC - CHRISTIAN WOLFF, "FOR
52:441, 2 OR 3 (PERFORMED BY S.E.M.
52:46ENSEMBLE)"]