Doug Wheeler è un artista molto affascinante. È il pioniere del movimento "Light and Space", che nacque nel sud della California negli anni 1960 e 1970. Questo movimento è una delle espressioni più riuscite del Minimalismo. Le sue opere in maniera inquietante riducono la materia a luce nello spazio. Il colore, la prospettiva, le forme significanti sono nostre sovrastrutture. I sensi di fronte alla mancanza di espressività sono disorientati, perché siamo abituati a dare certezza alle nostre creazioni emozionali. (RR)
Once upon a time, there was an American boy who loved sitting
next to the pilot of a small plane as they flew above the desert hinterlands of Arizona on their way to visit the pilot’s patients. The pilot, a medical doctor, was the boy’s father. Today that boy is also a pilot, a one-time screenwriter, a minimalist light and space artist, and surely, a pioneer in the world of art. His name is Doug Wheeler. He lives and works back and forth between New Mexico and Los Angeles. Wheeler is widely recognized as a member of the West Coast Light and Space movement of the 1960’s and 70’s, along with James Turrell, Robert Irwin, Larry Bell, Helen Pashgian, and others. Born seventy-three years ago in the town of Globe, Arizona, Doug Wheeler, a man who tends to shy away from interviews, once said, “When I was growing up, the sky was everything for me.” Perhaps that statement contains a key to Wheeler’s “Infinity Environment” now on display until February 25th at the David Zwicker Gallery in New York City. Officially entitled “SA MI 75 DZ NY 12” (1975/2012), some call it the Infinity Environment. Wheeler said to Zwicker while the piece was being constructed in the gallery, “You know it’s really hard to do that kind of piece, don’t you? It’s very hard to create absence.” What it is, basically, is a 2-piece architecturally modified space with DMX control that viewers can enter, made out of reinforced fiberglass; LED lights; high intensity as well as UV flourescent lights; and quartz halogen lights. The effect, one experiencer has said, is “like being inside a giant marshmallow”. One is completely enveloped in light of infinite depth. The piece is intended to augment the impact of light so that viewers can perceive space in ways they normally cannot. There are no spatial points of reference inside the piece, no corners, no edges. In the space of approximately 30 minutes, the color of the light changes from white to varying shades of purple. One viewer was reminded of a journey from dawn to dusk. In 1976 when Wheeler exhibited at the Venice Biennale, then-curator Germano Celant said, “He was avoiding representation of any kind. There was nothing to see—only light. I think it was a big shift.” Indeed, many artists have concentrated on blankness as well as on blackness, but capturing “light” and “absence” is a lofty goal, a bit like capturing a roomful of moonbeams, or coming up with a fresh new design of the Void. Interestingly, a Smithsonian museum that I’ve mentioned here before, the Hirshhorn Museum and
Sculpture Garden, which happens to have one of Wheeler’s pieces on display, has just opened a brand-new exhibit called “Dark Matters” about which they say at their website, “As darkness absorbs light, it absorbs our gaze, engendering feelings of timelessness and infinity.” The total presence of light, as in Wheeler’s work currently on display at the Zwicker Gallery, has been associated repeatedly with infinity, and now, so has the effect of darkness. What shall we make of that? Are light and darkness both portals to the infinite? In art, surely it’s all in the mind of the beholder. Of course, some things appear certain. Einstein once noted, “As the circle of light increases, so does the circumference of darkness around it.” Who can argue with that? UN’AMERICANA A VENEZIA
Once upon a time, there was an American boy who loved sitting
next to the pilot of a small plane as they flew above the desert hinterlands of Arizona on their way to visit the pilot’s patients. The pilot, a medical doctor, was the boy’s father. Today that boy is also a pilot, a one-time screenwriter, a minimalist light and space artist, and surely, a pioneer in the world of art. His name is Doug Wheeler. He lives and works back and forth between New Mexico and Los Angeles. Wheeler is widely recognized as a member of the West Coast Light and Space movement of the 1960’s and 70’s, along with James Turrell, Robert Irwin, Larry Bell, Helen Pashgian, and others. Born seventy-three years ago in the town of Globe, Arizona, Doug Wheeler, a man who tends to shy away from interviews, once said, “When I was growing up, the sky was everything for me.” Perhaps that statement contains a key to Wheeler’s “Infinity Environment” now on display until February 25th at the David Zwicker Gallery in New York City. Officially entitled “SA MI 75 DZ NY 12” (1975/2012), some call it the Infinity Environment. Wheeler said to Zwicker while the piece was being constructed in the gallery, “You know it’s really hard to do that kind of piece, don’t you? It’s very hard to create absence.” What it is, basically, is a 2-piece architecturally modified space with DMX control that viewers can enter, made out of reinforced fiberglass; LED lights; high intensity as well as UV flourescent lights; and quartz halogen lights. The effect, one experiencer has said, is “like being inside a giant marshmallow”. One is completely enveloped in light of infinite depth. The piece is intended to augment the impact of light so that viewers can perceive space in ways they normally cannot. There are no spatial points of reference inside the piece, no corners, no edges. In the space of approximately 30 minutes, the color of the light changes from white to varying shades of purple. One viewer was reminded of a journey from dawn to dusk. In 1976 when Wheeler exhibited at the Venice Biennale, then-curator Germano Celant said, “He was avoiding representation of any kind. There was nothing to see—only light. I think it was a big shift.” Indeed, many artists have concentrated on blankness as well as on blackness, but capturing “light” and “absence” is a lofty goal, a bit like capturing a roomful of moonbeams, or coming up with a fresh new design of the Void. Interestingly, a Smithsonian museum that I’ve mentioned here before, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, which happens to have one of Wheeler’s pieces on display, has just opened a brand-new exhibit called “Dark Matters” about which they say at their website, “As darkness absorbs light, it absorbs our gaze, engendering feelings of timelessness and infinity.” The total presence of light, as in Wheeler’s work currently on display at the Zwicker Gallery, has been associated repeatedly with infinity, and now, so has the effect of darkness. What shall we make of that? Are light and darkness both portals to the infinite? In art, surely it’s all in the mind of the beholder. Of course, some things appear certain. Einstein once noted, “As the circle of light increases, so does the circumference of darkness around it.” Who can argue with that? UN’AMERICANA A VENEZIA |
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