WHAT THE

VOID CAN

HOLD

WHAT THE

VOID CAN

HOLD

The Shining| Stanley Kubrick | 1980

Plan Voisin, Paris | Le Corbusier | 1925

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WHATTHEVOIDCAN HOLD_NOVEMBER 03 - DECEMBER 21, 2013_MARXHAUSEN GALLERY OF ARTCONCORDIA UNIVERSITY_CURATED BY ALEX PRIEST

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CONTENTS

Director Statement

Into the Void

Plates

Ephemerality and Images

Exhibition

AppendixAcknowledgements

Selected Reading

Film Series

Notes

JAMES BOCKELMAN

ALEX PRIEST

JOHN KERNER

Director Statement

JAMES BOCKELMAN

Director Statement

The mission of the Marxhausen Gallery of Art is to promote visual and cultural opportunities by presenting a diverse and ambitious gallery program. Under this directive, the gallery encourages the campus and surrounding community to appreciate and understand the role of art and artists through the display of Concordia’s permanent collection. Numbering over three hundred works on paper, this collection is comprised of serigraphs, etchings, lithographs and other original prints by nationally and internationally recognized artists. In short, this small but highly selective print collection highlights the variety of conversations held on a national and international level over the past century.

As the collection continues to expand, so does the need to revisit the holdings from new perspectives. This year, the Marxhausen Gallery of Art initiates a new program that invites artists, art professionals and art historians to curate an exhibition drawn from the permanent collection. This program connects emerging, as well as, established curators with Concordia’s vibrant collection of modern and contemporary art. Curators are encouraged to develop new research avenues and to re–present the collection within a new context. Inviting curators to work with the collection expands the scope of the Marxhausen Gallery by forging new relationships with arts professionals from various institutions who share the common value for making art an integral aspect of any community.

We are grateful for the unique perspectives that Mr. Alex Priest brings to his exhibition titled, What the Void Can Hold. Relying on a variety of texts, both art historical and fictional, Mr. Priest explores how the void can be considered paradoxically — that is, the void can be frightening due to its lack of determined space (the space is empty) or the void could be exciting because of its limitless potential to be filled (THE SPACE IS INCREDIBLY FULL). Here, the exhibition juxtaposes images together from various styles and decades, sometimes revealing formal relationships, while at other times, seeking to highlight areas of shared meaning.

_James Bockelman is Professor of Art at Concordia University and Director of the Marxhausen Gallery of Art.

Intothe Void

ALEX PRIEST

All representations of anxiety or horror in the face of the void, these phantom shapes are, as occasion

demands, sometimes named architecture, sometimes urban

spaces; and their proliferation and mutation has been the object of

representation in the arts for more than a century.

Anthony Vidler Warped Space

Art has always been basically about agony, desperation and

hopelessness.Gerhard Richter

As a projection of self, space is a container of disturbing objects, ideas and forms, harboring our phobias and neuroses. Since the experiments of modernism, we have been set in a spatial matrix in flux. Space has been warped by ar-chitecture and urban planning, am-plifying the anxieties and phobias of the contemporary subject to an extreme degree. What the Void Can Hold seeks to exploit the anxiety inherent in the gallery space, and

through seemingly disparate juxta-positions, re-present the collection under the guise of spatial anxiety.

SPATIAL WARPING Spatial fears result when we perceive our bodies in space. What we see, or do not see, perpetuates these spatial phobias. Anthony Vidler says, “Space is a function of the impression of bodily movement on the mind,” suggesting that the mind is a major component in

space-making. Spatial phobias can be traced to the distorted spatial conditions of modern life, exempli-fied in a post-Bilbao sense of spatial ordering. These digital environ-ments create a non-reality which reverberates through the neurotic psychologies of the viewer.

“Anxiety is always and absolute-ly personal,” says Daniel Smith in an editorial for the New York Times about what he calls “the age of anxiety.” However, in our increasingly disconnected urban existence, the complex and ever-evolving collective relationship to space results in anxious visions and “landscapes of fear.”1

With space and architecture working as a mirror for anxiety, there is a shifting relationship between spatial conditions and identity, where space can be manip-ulated into new orders and myste-rious constructions. “This horrific void full of endless possibilities”2 agitates and destabilizes the com-placency of passive experience.

“Trauma, memory and conflict are embedded in urbanization and architecture,” becoming the “pathology of this era,”3 according to Eyal Weizman. Architecture becomes the embodiment of our acted-out anxieties and phobias, giving physical and aesthetic shape

to political agendas. Architectural space can be understood through the specific political forces through which it was built. This space is a sensor for social estrange-ment and is perceived in a state of collective distraction leading to disorientation and impulses of fear. Disquiet, unease, estrange-ment and distance now form our cultural identity.

Spatial phobias, such as agorapho-bia and claustrophobia, articulate the relationship between spatial-ity and psychology. Blaise Pascal, a major thinker on “the void” in 1870, was crippled by both agora-phobia and claustrophobia.4 These diseases were seen as a symptom of modern life, caused by the spatial conditions of the city and the dread of space.

With the onset of the modernist avant-garde in the 1920’s, spaces were designed to “cleanse all mental disturbances.”5 Le Corbusier, a poster child for this movement, saw architecture as a blueprint for social reform. This dogmatic urban utopia, as seen in Plan Voisin, used architecture as an instrument to cure every ailment of the city. He opened the city to rid it of anxiety. The idea of space and the image of modernism have since been linked. “Space,” said Phillip Johnson, “has been

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2 Vidler, 14

3 Weizman, 06

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5 Vidler, 51

the litmus test of true architec-ture.” Nonetheless, the modern period’s clinical experiments with space induced rather than eliminat-ed anxiety. Modernism de-famil-iarized the familiar agitating space with its brutal strategies and tabula rasa methodologies.

FILMSCAPINGThe modern cinematic process complicates our relationship with space through its unique space-making tools. These semi-artifi-cial constructions produce spatial ambiguities and have the rule-breaking potential to warp both space and time. The hyperspace of The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari is infused with a phenomenolo-gy only present in film.6 The film constructs its own reality, bending the Euclidian geometry offered in architecture.

While The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari conveniently fits within the construct of the avant-garde in architecture and art, The Shining provides a truly warped and psy-chologically disturbing space. Stanley Kubrik’s characters actually feel the mental and physical effects of the claustrophobia and agora-phobia in synchronicity with the warped geography of the Overlook Hotel. Jack, Wendy and Danny all fall victim to this anxious architec-ture. Nearly everything in the hotel

is warped in the dramatic space of the film. The family is assaulted by space and thrown into hysteria.

In 1989, Jean Francois Lyotard imagined the kind of spatial unease later found in the Overlook Hotel, as “Scapeland”—a displace-ment, estrangement and shifting of location and judgment from the stable conventions of inside and outside, to a realm where a kind of systematic madness reigns supreme.7

The piecemeal spatial complexi-ties of contemporary metropoli-tan life vary constantly according to the perceptions, introspections and projections of the habitants. Seemingly banal spaces are trans-formed into traitorous, aggressive and freighting voids. Modernism did not eliminate those phobias, but rather enhanced them by producing a labyrinth of ambiguous spaces.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari | Robert Wiene | 1921

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6 Vidler, 103

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“I’M SO EXCITED; I’M SO SCARED.”Jessie Spano’s anxiety brought her to one of her many neurotic peaks in season 2, episode 9 of Saved by the Bell. Until then, her gratingly pedantic character was on the fast track of scholastic success. This came to a screeching halt when a geometry midterm, a Pointer Sister’s music video, and a character-redefining caffeine-pill addiction collided.

Anxious about getting into Stanford, and shocked by a C grade on a quiz, Jessie starts taking Keep Alert pills in order to stay up late and study for her Geometry

midterm. Adding to the pressure, her friends Lisa and Kelly “need her” to join their singing group for a big performance. Faced with the choice between studying and re-hearsing, she makes the complex decision to do both, doubling down on her caffeine pill intake. The next day she takes the test, and then rushes off to another rehearsal and video shoot.

This music video presents a corollary to The Shining through its decisive costume and set al-terations along with its seemingly unaware supporting actors. Space, time and emotions are re-configured to dramatic beats.

Saved by the Bell | S02 E09: Jessie’s Song | 1990

Jessie, as with Jack, mentally unravels frame-by-frame falling into the void. After the shoot, we sense something dramatic is about to unfold.

The night of the performance, strung out from Keep Alert pills, she collapses on her bed, where her friend Zach finds her. She awakes, flustered and sputter-ing, “What am I going to wear? I have to wash my hair.” Zach tells her that there is not any time, and she bites back, “There’s no time. There’s never any time!” It takes on an existential weight. When she reaches for her Keep Alert pills, Zach is stunned and tries to comfort her. Unable to calm down, she starts singing, “I’m so excited, I’m so excited. I’m so…scared.” Credits roll.

Anxiety is the key to her entire existence. This poignant moment contributes to a shifting sense of her complex phobias and psy-chological identity as the series develops. The fusion of her literal Euclidian nightmare (the Geometry midterm), along with her space-warping music video with Lisa and Kelly, begins to illus-trate the inseparable connection between warped space and her psychological condition. We are taken on a ride through her void that is nail-bitingly traitorous.

The relationship between her claustrophobic identity and space are linked through her non-stop anxiety.

MY SURNAME IS ATTAThe frustrated and diabolical life of 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta, as depicted in Jarett Kobek’s novel ATTA, manifests itself in a hor-rifically orchestrated moment. An anxious existence that was warped by sexual frustration, spatial anxiety, and religion, Atta’s banal life took him from being an oppressed boy in Cairo, to being at the forefront of an anti-American crusade.

His too-serious-to-function men-tality begins with his oppressive family structure in Cairo. Although a “delicate child,”8 he is able to make psychological connections others are not. This leads him to architec-ture school in Cairo, and ultimate-ly and importantly, to Hamburg for post-graduate research.

To Atta, Western architecture and modernist urban planning models are symbolic of imperialism and the rape of the landscape. While in Hamburg he sees poor slums razed to make room for “modern rectilinear decadence.”9 This so-lidifies what he sees as his role of exposing modernist assaults to urban planning. A chance study in

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9 Kobek, 40

Aleppo, one of the oldest occupied cities, reveals millennium-old buildings crumbling to “filth”10 in favor of modernist towers. Witness-ing Aleppo succumb to modernism perpetuates his agoraphobic ten-dencies and spatial anxiety.

His disdain for America and Western urban planning is cemented by a trip to Walt Disney World. The myths of American urban design reach their peak at Magic Kingdom’s Main Street USA. Everything is organized according to the strict master plan of Walt Disney, where Disney is function-ing more like Le Corbusier than a cartoonist. It seems to Atta that

only he recognizes this as a freeze-frame from 1920s America, where “the street ends in a crash.”11

As Atta gets closer to the now infamous date, his attitude sickens. He feels as if he is a “being whose purpose is to sour joy.”12 He has no friends. He cannot stand the forced cohort he must work with according to the plans of Al-Qaida. His personal superiority is obvious, and is only reinforced by juxtapo-sition to his nemesis, Ziad Jarrah. According to Atta, Jarrah is a waste of life. Jarrah sees Atta as a brother in Islam, and remarks on their equality. Atta rants, “imagine we are equals, though one is righteous

Mohammed Atta, right | Portland Police Department | September 11, 2001

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and the other a sex maniac rank with Western corruption.”13

As he concludes his attack on the “twin abominations”14 of architect Minoru Yamasaki, he imagines the towers as the ultimate triumph of architectural sin. His assertive attitude falters as he takes control of the plane, and, out of character, he hesitates to kill the pilot when he thinks about his family. Yet he snaps out of his gentle mindset, kills the pilot, and takes control of the plane, putting into action thir-ty-three years of spatial anxiety.

According to Kobek, it is important to view Atta’s attitudes as the man-ifestation of an inverted pyramid of anxiety, where Atta’s sexual anxiety is the impetus for all his other manifested anxiety. In 1918, Aby Warburg suggested that war is less a confidence in infinite progress than an elaborate defense against phobias.15 Atta’s psycholog-ical disdain reinforces his paranoia. Fear is the common denominator in his personal equation of spatial paranoia, yet his curious relation-ship to architecture and, in particu-lar, modern urban planning, resitu-ates a motive for the attacks. This raises, rather than answers, many questions regarding an aftermath that perpetuates so many American anxieties regarding space (the Middle East) and identity (politics).

REPOSITORY OF MEANINGThe radical spatial experiments of Lucio Fontana and Peter Milton aggressively manipulate space in an immediate awareness of 17th century Baroque spatial represen-tation, yet testify to the urgency of the void in post-World War I ideology. The source of meaning found in the two confronts the contemporary realities of the ex-istential void as well as describe a world on the brink of self-destruc-tion. Both prints, Fontana (1968) and Milton (1971) were made in a time of unrest—a time still under the grip of modernism. At first, their approaches to the void seem as disparate as Jessie Spano and Muhammad Atta. However, they articulate a confrontation that in unison describes an equivalent methodology and ideology that leaves both in direct necessity of eachother. The humanistic void between known and unknown leaves space for anxiety to seep in. Taking the time to register their corollary potential in the anxiety-inducing gallery is both horrific and exponentially stimulating.

CONCLUSIONThe two seemingly incongruent examples, Spano and Atta, begin to illustrate the dramatic effects of manifested anxiety — the first, stuck in the matrix of high school and self-fulfilling prophecies, and

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15 Vidler, 48

the second, nauseated by modern planning models. Yet, seen in comparison, their phobias can be traced back to modern life. Forced into a warped environment and obliged to adjust to the conditions within the void, these contempo-rary subjects bear witness to their spatial realities. Their perplex-ing comparison in warped space erodes boundaries, while escaping time and form to affirm the mon-umentality of what the void can hold.

_Alex Priest is a curator, spatial thinker and designer holding a degree in Landscape Architecture from Iowa State University. His current research includes: Dutch design, post-photographic photography and spatial anxiety. He works as the exhibition assistant at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska.

PLATES

KAREL APPEL JOSEF ALBERSJOHN BALDESSARI THOMAS HART BENTON CHARLES BURCHFIELDPAUL CEZANNEJOHN STUART CURRYSTUART DAVIS RICHARD DIEBENKORN LUCIO FONTANA JOE GOODE ADOLPH GOTTLIEB WILLIAM GROPPER DAVID HOCKNEY ELLSWORTH KELLY

JACOB LANDAU ROY LICHTENSTEIN RICHARD LONG MICHAEL MAZUR PETER MILTON LOUISE NEVELSON PHILIP PEARLSTEIN MARTIN PURYEAR ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG DAVID SALLE RICHARD SERRAANTONI TÀPIES TERRY WINTERSGRANT WOOD

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1LOUISE NEVELSONSky ShadowLead intaglio relief1973

2RICHARD LONG60 Minute WalkLithography and Screen Print1990

Traversing through their urban and rural surroundings, Richard Long and Louise Nevelson use arbitrary circumstances and materials to build sculptures as environments. The artifacts of their epic walks, both formal and conceptual, become the art object. Collected materials, verbage and ideas were reorganized on grand scales creating immersive, yet balanced, formalized terrains. These two and three-dimensional works bring the direct experiences of the artist into the gallery setting.

3GRANT WOODJanuraryLithograph1938

4JOSEF ALBERSWhite Line Series #VIIILithograph1966

Josef Albers and Grand Wood’s corollary approach to composition, space and abstraction pose an interesting juxtaposition. Specifically, these lithographs articulate a disciplined perspectival space made with strategic lines and forms. Similarly, the traumatic world events of The Great Depression for Wood, and WWII for Albers, undoubtedly altered their methodology and internal dialogues about art and the depiction/deception of space.

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5TERRY WINTERSSystems DiagramEtching, soft ground etching and sugar lift aquatint1996

The diagrammatic works of Richard Diebenkorn and Terry Winters map the variations and formalism present in their processes. The similar environments pull a myriad of influences such as phenomenology, time, spatiality and physicality into orchestrated marks. While both works seem abstract, each pulls from a pragmatic reference. Diebenkorn shows the variations of a coat on a hanger, and Winters the layered information of the digital age. Diebenkorn and Winters track time and transcribe events, reassembling disjointed information into new patterns.

6RICHARD DIEBENKORNUntitledLithograph1991

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7JOE GOODEUntitled. Tissue Tear SeriesDouble layered 3-colored lithograph1975

8DAVID SALLEUntil Photographs Could be taken from Earth SatelliteAquatint1981

9ELLSWORTH KELLYBleu Clair Avec OrangeColor Lithograph1964

Zooming in/out and looking through the active micro to macro views of Joe Goode, Ellsworth Kelly and David Salle make in-between geometry visible. These apertures take an unassuming appreciation for a physical reality seduced by a lyrical sense of minimalistic gestures. Combining the multi-imagery of space and figuration, these three works mimic the cinematic devices of spatial description.

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10JOHN BALDESSARIPlant and Lamp (B+Y; Y+B)Lithograph1998

11WILLIAM GROPPERWinterLithographcirca 1935-1945

The juxtaposing icons of John Baldessari and William Gropper’s lithographs conjure a narrative with exponential reads. At times radical, yet disparate, these works connect the objects seen with ideas unseen. Gropper’s lifelong disdain towards capitalism, and Baldessari’s interest in rearranging contexts display the power of visual language and formal motifs to persuade the nonvisual in a work of art.

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12JACOB LANDAUThe Holocaust SuiteLithograph1968

Extracting the only two prints from a series held in the Marxhausen Gallery of Art collection, the prints of Roy Lichtenstein and Jacob Landau present unpleasant similarities. Lichtenstein’s progression to abstraction in the Bull Series has a tongue and cheek effect, and the somber Holocaust Suite shows a social and moral consciousness. However, seen in tandem, their formal motifs have a nullifying effect on the other. The abstract Bull looks horrific next to the emotionless soldier and piled bodies; and the Holocaust imagery appears almost playful next to the brightly colored line work of Lichtenstein’s Bull. It is this disturbing shift of reads that ruptures perceived knowns.

13ROY LICHTENSTEIN Bull Head IIIFive color lithograph, screen print, linocut1973

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14PETER MILTONIllustration for the Jolly CornerIntaglio1971

15LUCIO FONTANAConcetto Spaziale, AEtching in black, relief on black1968

As the impetus for this exhibition, the two prints of Lucio Fontana and Peter Milton speculate an aggressive approach to describing space as a consistently distorted environment. Synthesizing themes of architecture, cinema, and history, each artist exploits the flatness of the paper and forces dimensionality and reflection. The unmistakable moods of these works echo a persistent use of visual strategies to undermine the very space in which they are working on.

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16MARTIN PURYEAR Three HolesSpitbite, aquatint, etching with Gampi2002

17RICHARD SERRAHreppholar VEtching1991

18MICHAEL MAZURMemory and DistanceWoodcut, etching, aquatint, with chine colle1992

Set in a dialogue, these large prints speak towards material and landscape memory while challenging the perception of the identity, cultural and history. Residing in the threshold of abstraction and pragmatism Michael Mazur, Martin Puyear and Richard Serra investigate minimalist tropes and the reservoir of memory. Site specificity in materiality or naturalistic symbolism creates works that are rich in intellectual references and stark physicality, pushing viewers into a hypnotic self-guided narration.

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19PHILLIP PEARLSTEIN Mummy Cave Ruins at Canyon de ChellyColor line etching and aquatint with roulette work1980

20CHARLES BURCHFIELDSeptember GladeWatercolor1951 – 56

21ADOLPH GOTTLIEB Green ForegroundScreenprint1972

The collective unconsciousness of landscape saturates the works of Phillip Pearlstein, Adolph Gottlieb and Charles Burchfield. Through transcendental, yet precisely abstracted forms, each landscape depicts the incongruities in the perception of landscape. Each expresses an expansiveness agoraphobic aspect without recourse to nostalgia. The clinical clarity developed in each print allows simple forms to overwhelm the viewer, while consolidating the suggestive power of expansive fields. The brutalness of Gottlieb’s forms shed new light on Pearlstein and Burchfield’s actual landscapes and vice versa with complicated results.

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Expanding the antics of Regionalism, Karel Appel, Thomas Hart Benton, Paul Cezanne, John Stuart Curry, David Hockney and Antoni Tàpies all capture their personal locale. Appel’s work with the European regionalist CoBrA, contrasted with Benton and Curry’s depiction of Midwest regionalism articulates a commitment to capturing, mentally and physically, their indigenous surrounding. Meanwhile, Cezanne, Hockney and Tàpies synthesize their memory of people and place situating a new view on this place-based art movement. The common underlying principle of an expanded regionalism suggests a visible description of what is immediately outside the artist’s milieu.

22JOHN STUART CURRYThe PlainsmanLithograph1945

23DAVID HOCKNEYMother with a ParrotEtching and Aquatint1983

24KAREL APPELJules En ReposeColor Lithograph1968

25PAUL CEZANNEPortrait of Guillaumin with the ‘Hanged man’Etching1873

26ANTONI TÀPIESQuatre ruis de sangEmbossed etching1972

27THOMAS HART BENTONThe Lonesome RoadLithograph1938

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28STUART DAVISArch IILithograph1929

29ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG Horsefeathers Thirteen-VColor Lithograph, screen-print, pochoir collage, embossing1972

Working in the ‘gap between art and life’, while using specific references, the lithographs of Stuart Davis and Robert Rauschenberg present a theatrical space of seemingly banal props. Both increasingly complex pre-Pop artists anticipated the Pop Art movement through an innovative combination of non-traditional materials, everyday objects and urbane references. At times, these highly composed still-life’s generate more questions than answers through their flattened, edited and pictorial artifice.

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Ephemerality and Images

JOHN KERNER

IMAGE AS MEMENTO MORISusan Sontag makes the case in her work “On Photography” that the photograph is not just a record of appearance, but a kind of physical imprint. One cannot help but get the sense in photographs of “this was, but now isn’t,” and this is the essential characteristic of the image.

Memento mori is a Latin saying that means “remember that you will die.” Semantically memento

mori is linked to memory and death. It originated in Christian art as a motif in the form of skulls, prompting the viewer to consider the divine judgment of one’s soul. These early forms of memento mori were prescribed this meaning and premeditated by the artist (Fig. 01). The viewer has to be aware of the meaning of the symbol to gain knowledge from it.1

With the advent of photography and the daguerreotype process,

Architecture is usually analyzed and taught as a discipline that articulates space and geometry, but the mental

impact of architecture arises significantly from its image quality that integrates the various aspects

and dimensions of experience into a singular, internalized and

remembered entity. The material reality is fused with our mental and

imaginative realm.Juhani Pallasmaa, The Embodied Image

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1 (Online Etymology Dictionary).

memento mori was pushed from a premeditated symbolic art form to an image depicting a scene. The daguerreotype process was the earliest form of photography, using a camera obscura, a copper plate and silver. This process involved the setting up of a wooden box that contained the copper plate and silver along with chemicals that would capture the brightly lit scene in front of it. The daguerreo-type gave rise to the portrait, with one kind of portrait often taken of individuals being post-mortem portraits. During the Victorian era the middle class was not able to

afford painted portraits, but the da-guerreotype democratized self-rep-resentation. Due to high mortality rates, post-mortem portraits were common. The deceased sitter would be arranged in different positions, depending on the age of the individual and the prefer-ence of the family (Fig. 02). Often children would be staged with their parents, much like a family photo. With this genre of photography we see cultural artifact, death and time col lapse into one .2

Fig 01 | Life, Death Time | Philippe de Champaigne | 1671

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Fig 02 | Victorian Post-Mortem Portrait

IMAGE AS EXAGGERATED REALITY Images and photography have often been used to record events. Susan Stewart argues that the wedding has “fully moved into its contem-porary status as a photograph-ic, rather than primarily social, event.” The photograph becomes the reason for the occasion and the replacement for it. With these kinds of events, the physical dimension is greatly reduced and spatial orien-tation is removed.3 Reduction of the physical dimension occurs in conceptual art when the image is used not to record an appearance, but rather to document an idea.

The idea comes to the forefront of the piece and both medium and physical dimension are deempha-sized. An example of this could be Dennis Oppenheim’s Reading Position for 2nd Degree Burn. In the piece the artist exploits photog-raphy as a means of “dematerializ-ing” the art object. An emphasis is put on the immediacy of the photo-graph, using the image as a trans-parent lens for his performance of, and experience in making, the piece.

Much like the Victorian post-mortem portraits, the event is staged. The imaged reality is not a lived reality, but an exaggerat-ed one, and the exaggeration fluc-tuates between the real (the sitter is deceased) and the fictitious (the sitter is in a dignified position, as if he were alive).

IMAGE AS WORLD OPENING AND WORLD CLOSINGJacques Lacan asserts that, similar to the way the memento mori operates in a Christian context, the Freudian death drive compels the creative nature of human beings. Neil Leach examines the rela-tionship between Lacan and the Freudian psychoanalytic concept of the death drive. Leach observes:

“Death, therefore, anticipates and depends upon the vital force of life; the one presupposing the

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other…Death naturally heightens our awareness of life.”4

This awareness of life is what has pushed the image of memento mori to a spatial condition. The image is capturing more than just a staged scene; it is connected to us on a deeper level of living. The spatial memento mori is also a mental condition of the viewing subject. (Fig. 04)

If we view images as carriers of memento mori, then they have a paradoxical relationship with the viewer and the world. On one hand, the image captures an ephemeral world—one that can never be relived. On the other hand, the image opens that world in a new form, refracted, and to a new audience, in a new medium. It is the death of the experience and the creation of a cultural document. Images like these haunt us, and compel us to engage with humanity and time.

Fig 03 | Reading Position for a 2nd Degree Burn | Dennis Oppenheim | 1970

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Fig 04 | Temporal Shroud | Justin Wang + John Kerner | 2013

_John Kerner is an architect, artist and writer. He received extensive honors and awards while pursuing his degree in Architecture from Iowa State University. He consistently works in the threshold of art and architecture investigating themes of identity, experience, place and perception. Kerner is an intern architect at OPN Architects in Des Moines, Iowa.

EXHIBITION

Appendix

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am unbelievably grateful to Concordia University for the opportunity to research, develop and curate my inaugural exhibition with carte blanche within the exceptional collection of the Marxhausen Gallery of Art.

I would like to thank James Bockelman for the constant back and forth visits, emails and support during the entire curatorial process. Thank you for your persistent challenge to push the ideas brought forth in the exhibition to their current conclusion.

This exhibition, now over a year in development, was developed over many unique conversations. The literary suggestions of Mira Engler, Anna Gray, Ryan Wilson Paulsen, Jarett Kobek, Hesse McGraw, Heather Johnson, Karin Campbell, Micol Hebron and Daniel Naegele took me down a wormhole that I am still attempting to find my way out of. Jarrod Beck’s nine-month dialogue of constant ideas and opinions helped form the indispensible structural and conceptual underpinnings of this exhibition and catalogue. Kelly Fuglsang’s graphic aptitude to challenge me in an ongoing conversation is one that I find constantly inspiring.

John Kerner’s enthusiastic acceptance of the challenge to write a supplementary essay for this exhibition is sincerely appreciated.

Finally, I am tremendously grateful to Anthony Vidler’s research on Warped Space, to which this exhibition owes it title and principal research.

Alex Priest

SELECTED READING

Warped Space: Art, Architecture, and Anxiety in Modern CultureAnthony Vidler 2002The MIT Press

ATTAJarett Kobek2011The MIT Press - Semiotext(e)

Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary Anne Umland 2013The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Ghost Milk: Recent Adventures Among the Future Ruins of London on the Eve of the OlympicsIain Sinclair 2012Faber & Faber

Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of OccupationEyal Weizman2012Verso

Eyal Weizman: Forensic Architecture, Notes from Fields and Forums: 100 Notes, 100 Thoughts: Documenta Series 062 (100 Notes-100 Thoughts / 100 Notizen-100 Gedanken: Documenta (13))Eyal Weizman2012Hatje Cantz

Architecture and ViolenceBechir Kenzari2011Actar

The Poetics of SpaceGaston Bachelard1994Beacon Press

The Inhuman: Reflections on TimeJean-François Lyotard1992Stanford University Press

Destroy the Picture: Painting the Void, 1949-1962Paul Schimmel2012Skira Rizzoli

The Embodied Image: Imagination and Imagery in ArchitectureJuhani Pallasmaa2011Wiley

Spatial Intelligence: New Futures for ArchitectureLeon van Schaik2008Wiley

On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the CollectionSusan Stewart1993Duke University Press Books

Camouflage Neil Leach2006The MIT Press

Primacy of PerceptionMaurice Merleau-Ponty1965Northwestern University Press

Design on the Land: The Development of Landscape ArchitectureNorman T. Newton1971Belknap Press of Harvard University Press

FILM SERIES

The ShiningStanley Kubrick1980

The Cabinet of Dr. CaligariRobert Wiene1921

Beau TravailClaire Denis1999

Upstream ColorShane Carruth2013

Alice in WonderlandWalt Disney1951

Mr. NobodyJaco Van Dormael2009

LoveWilliam Eubank2011

Another EarthMike Cahill2011

INTO THE VOIDNOTES

Barnhart, Don, dir. “Jessie’s Song.” Saved by the Bell. NBC. 03 Nov. 1990. Television.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Dir. Robert Wiene. 1921.

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What the Void can HoldCurated by Alex PriestNovember 03 – December 21, 2013Opening reception: Sunday, November 10 | 1 – 4pmGallery Talk: Sunday, November 10 | 2pm Thom Auditorium

Editor: Daniel ScheuermanAssistant Editor: Jessica LockCatalogue Design: Alex Priest | PRIESTSCAPE

Director Statement: James Bockelman - Marxhausen Gallery of Art

Essays Into the Void: Alex PriestEphemerality and Images: John Kerner

Plates: Alex Priest

First printed 2013 | Omaha

Typeset in Georgia + Helvetica Neue Bold

Catalogue printed on the occasion of the exhibition What the Void can Hold curated by Alex Priest November 03 – December 21, 2013 at the Marxhausen Gallery of Art | Concordia University.

Marxhausen Gallery of ArtConcordia University800 N Columbia Ave | Seward, NE www.cune.edu

What the Void can Hold seeks a new read, both visually and conceptually, on the permanent collection of Concordia University’s Marxhausen Gallery of Art through seemingly disparate dualities.

Extracting specific works and making deliberate forced juxtapositions, the space of the gallery is warped into moments of anxiety and ease. By distorting conventionality, disturbing moments of tension arise. It is within this agitation that the anxiety and paranoia of the subjects are exploited. As the collection is dissected, works are re-contextualized, thus forming new understandings on preconceived thoughts. In this juxtaposition, there is a shift in perspective and re-arrangement of the senses.

What the Void can Hold is an exercise of exploring the void as an aggressive paradigm, inspiring horror and introspection. This void is far from a vacuum of emptiness. Rather, the void is full of endless possibilities and a passage to further exploration. It poses as a means to reverberate the shifting relationship between anxiety and perceived knowns.