on
Fragmentation of the body and the image: Off with their heads!
on
Delicious Gravity
About
Eric Fischl's "Ten Breaths"
French artist Isabelle Bonzom, a painter as well as an art historian,
is the author of an in-depth conversation with American artist, sculptor
and painter, Eric
Fischl.
Two
parts of their conversation were published by the French website CultureCie
in Spring 2009. To read this published conversation, click here.
For
this website covering the arts and culture, Isabelle Bonzom has also
authored an essay on Eric Fischl's installation of sculptures exhibited
in Spring 2009, at the Templon Gallery, in Paris:
“Ten Breaths, a place for experiment and a return to the origins"
When the visitor steps into the Templon Gallery in order to discover
the “Ten Breaths” exhibition by Eric Fischl, he or she enters
the shadow.
Transforming the space
The artist has plunged the space of the gallery into darkness but it
is not the total obscurity of a dictatorial and oppressive black. On
the contrary, a calming sensation emerges from this space that has become
a mysterious cavity. Eric Fischl has totally transformed the space of
the gallery into an installation full of nuances.
“Ten Breaths” projects a wide range of warm tints of earth
colors, from warm blacks to the most luminous whites. The space is tinged
with a variation of similar tones: colored, almost pearl-like grays,
greenish umber, deep browns, burnt Sienna, crimson ocher, carnal red,
gilded and rusted yellow ocher.
And yet, there are only the wooden floor, the girders and the white
walls, the glass and the steel of the obstructed glass roof. The sculptures
are displayed directly on the floor. They are made of bronze or resin
covered with a patina nuanced with red and yellow ocher. Surprisingly,
the show is very restrained. No excess, no flashiness. It’s rough
and direct.
Fischl has succeeded in composing the emptiness and the fullness of
his sculptures with the space of the gallery so that the viewer can
easily stroll through the works.
Emotional
locks
The installation is housed in two rooms of the gallery. Three sculpture
groupings are gathered in the big room (“Damage”, “Samaritan”
and “Congress of Wits”), while “Tumbling Woman”
is presented in the smaller room. Everywhere, Fischl has organized vast
empty spaces. Those are visual breathing spaces, emotional locks. Thanks
to those quiet moments and breathing spaces, the strong tension of the
works takes all its importance. For these molded bodies evoke an awful
drama of which upheaval is, however, masterly orchestrated. A progression
in the action unfolds from a group of sculptures to another, from left
to right in the large room.
First, the spectator views the “Damage” group from above.
The scene seems to take place following a carnage and presents people
busy around a female body horribly mutilated. The silhouettes are fixed
onto flat bases superimposed and lopsided. Then, the “Samaritan”
duet shows a man with a virile and elegant figure. Gently, he lifts
the body of a limp man. The scene takes place on precariously balanced
plates. Violence, suffering and death have struck dreadfully. These
solemn scenes of rescue are full of tension, humanity and empathy, yet
without expressionist excess. The bodies are dignified and tonic. Dramatic
concentration is so strong that it imposes meditation. Finally, “Congress
of Wits” is an ensemble of dancers all caught in motion. On wobbly
pedestals “Congress of Wits” is formed by a group of female
dancers. Half naked and in real scale, each wears a long skirt of transparent
crimson red mesh. Their bodies, sometimes androgynous, create confusion.
Men? Women? Monsters? Consumed beings but alive.
Separated from his partners, as a free agent, a male dancer completes
“Congress of Wits.” His body stands up, arched on his left
leg. All those figures are muscular and willowy. One thinks of Degas,
but above all, one thinks of El Greco. Totally naked, the male dancer
seems an écorché, as the texture and the colors of the
material evoke muscles, heat, sweat, combustion and open flesh.
Undulation
of a monumental wash drawing
Lit by spotlights often put on the floor, the sculptures are multiplied
by the shadows they cast on all the surfaces of the room: walls, ceiling,
and floor. Shadows link the elements together and create relations
and rapprochements between the groups. The silhouettes of the visitors
and their shadows are mixed with those of the sculptures. Strolling
about, the viewer feels the sensation of a wave motion.
Shadows are more concentrated around “Damage.” They are
very dense for “Samaritan”, while the shadows of “Congress
of Wits” are lighter and more numerous. The bodies dilate and
dilute within the space. As in a monumental wash drawing, those shadows
are like supple ink drawings more or less thinned up on the surfaces.
A shadow distorts a pose, accentuates a movement; it stresses a gesture
and punctuates an outline. A shadow disinforms and dissolves bodies;
it also reveals passages and instants. It re-interprets. Thus, the
free agent of “Congress of Wits” will eventually dance
with his partners to the point of touching them with his own shadow.
He will drag the Samaritan with him as he runs. Thus, Fischl leads
into an amazing dance of death, fluid and rhythmical.
Slightly isolated “Tumbling Woman” is placed in the center
of the second room. From the first room, one already sees her, curled
up, as if she were falling to the ground. Without a base, she stands
energetically on her shoulders and neck, her body twisted, her legs
rocked to the left, in an impressive equilibrium. She struggles with
energy. As if she were on a stage or on a construction site at night,
the zenithal and point-source lighting falls on her and creates strictly
designed shadows that are pressed onto the floor. Two shadows overlap
and draw a distinct silhouette which figures a body in movement. Shadows
give us the impression that the woman is picking herself up, walking
and slipping away on tiptoe.
Experimenting
the power of the shadow
The statements and writings of art historians and philosophers such
as Michael Baxandall, Victor I. Stoichita and Baldine Saint Girons*
remind the reader of the visual strength of the shadow and penumbra.
They, literally, shed light on the aesthetic stakes. Shadow traverses
cultures and centuries, from the Myth of the Cavern and the Origins
of Painting to Bacon, Boltanski or Kentridge, via Rembrandt, Goya, Spilliaert
and Calder. “Light eats away at everything,” said James
Ensor. Shadows swallow and plunge the viewer into the unknown.
Shadow, in Eric Fischl’s art, plays an important role. In his
painting, it cuts sharply and floods the scenes. It goes through the
screen of the canvas and introduces rhythm onto the surface. Shadow
scratches and scarifies the surface. The shadow is hard and black. In
“Ten Breaths,” the shadow lives in the space and amplifies
the scene. Shadow surrounds us and embraces us. It dances. Because of
the special use of the shadow, this ensemble of sculptures becomes a
real installation. In the gallery space which is made to appear as if
almost underground, the visitor experiences something that upsets and
allows him or her to discern possibilities and transcend horror.
Isabelle
Bonzom, June 2009
*
Michael Baxandall "Shadows and Enlightenment" (2005), Victor
I. Stoichita "A short history of the shadow" (1997), Baldine
Saint Girons "Les Marges de la nuit. Pour une autre histoire de
la peinture" (2006)
Cathy
Stearns and Marie-Christine Bonzom contributed to the translation of
this text in English.
First published by CultureCie.
Read
additional comments by Isabelle Bonzom about the Tumbling Woman
in her lecture Delicious
Gravity and watch her additional take about the woman in Eric
Fischl's work in her lecture Off
with their heads!
Isabelle
Bonzom, who is also a fresco artist and specialist of that technique,
has authored a reference book on buon fresco published in May 2010 by
the French publishing house
Eyrolles.
“With
this beautiful book, Isabelle Bonzom, herself a fresco painter as well
as an art historian, invites the readers to a stirring journey through
time and space. She examines the various technical stages involved in
painting a fresco, communicates information and thoughts, and deals
with the aesthetical stakes of an art which is often anonymous although
it sometimes bears prestigious signatures such as those of Masaccio,
Michelangelo and Tiepolo. This is a specialized book, yet clear and
accessible. It is written in a poetic style well suited to convey the
passion which fuels fresco artists who work with natural materials and
in a total symbiosis with the place where they paint. A book magnificently
illustrated, “Fresco, art and technique” demonstrates the
durability of this total art and its value in contemporary society,
” Joëlle-Elmyre Doussot, in L'Objet d'Art N°462, Nov.
2010
Based on her reseach about the fragmentation of the body
and the image,
this
lecture was given at the New York Academy of Art, on September 2010.
Delicious Gravity
Jubilation in art is a serious matter.
Isabelle Bonzom talked about her approach as a painter. She provided
her thoughts on the notion of vitalism in art. She also discussed
her correspondence on the matter with painter and sculptor Eric Fischl,
while giving her take on his “Tumbling Woman”.
On
June 2010, in Vendée, western France, Isabelle Bonzom also
lectured during the group show
"Jouvences", where 2 of her paintings were presented.
Read about her talk Delicious
Gravity
