Lit Review #1

“Space is the Place,” by Timotheus Vermeulen in Profiles, 24 April 2015, Frieze, Issue 171

In his article, “Space is the Place,” Timotheus Vermeulen compares the spatial theories of philosophers Henri Lefebvre and Michel de Certeau. He argues that contemporary discourses about ideas of space and place have centred around their two distinct schools of thought. For De Certeau, space is an activation of the static point that is place. Space is action and movement, so it has the potential to be chaotic.[1] For Lefebvre, space is the interplay of three forces; conceived space, lived space, and perceived space. Conceived space is made up of the powers of control like governments and bureaucracies. Lived space is the desires (past and future) of those dwelling in the space. Perceived space is the present way in which the dwellers use the space. These three forces are in a constant state of fluctuation, “eventually turning struggle into synthesis.” [2] 

Vermeulen suggests that in Lefebvre’s model, place is the momentary synthesis of this spatial struggle. I can see parallels between Lefebvre’s trialectic theory and an artist’s practice. The conceived space would be art institutions like art schools and galleries, lived space being the artist’s ideas, and perceived space is in the making. These three forces are in constant flux and the struggle turns to synthesis in the presentation of an exhibition.

The author finds flaws with De Certeau’s popular post-structuralist philosophy, taking a flippant tone in describing it as his “shtick.”[3] He disagrees with De Certeau’s linguistic take on our environment, whereby place is likened to the elements of language, and space is akin to the action of that language being spoken. For De Certeau, “space is a practiced place,”[4] a fixed stage with possibilities for activation. Vermeulen then turns to championing LeFebvre as a rebellious figure whose capricious thinking separated him from his peers. He suggests that as a maverick, Lefebvre was able to follow more diverse ideas that perhaps make him more relevant to our current era.

Like Vermeulen, I relate more to Lefebvre’s thinking than De Certeau’s. Although Lefebvre’s “spatiology”[5] was a political theory and rooted in Marxist ideology, his concepts, and the language he uses to convey them, connect to the central thesis of my art practice, that is, to create objects that hold space. Turning struggle into synthesis is precisely how I feel about my methods of making. For Lefebvre space is active, complex, and generative. It is connected to process and to understand it requires “exploring how space is actively produced.”[6]  It encompasses “individual entities and particularities, relatively fixed points, movements, and flows and waves – some interpenetrating, others in conflict.”[7] There are certainly similarities in this description of space with the formal qualities of my spatial constructions.

Lefebvre’s idea of multiple forces fluctuating, negotiating, then landing in a momentary synthesis, aligns with the progressions of my art making. I manipulate and temporarily attach pliable surfaces in a struggle of making, unmaking, and remaking, until they land in a cooperative state, provisionally uniting to hold space. The act of bringing my material surfaces together is a conceptual and physical struggle that results not in my triumphing over the material, but in reaching an interim understanding with it.

The idea of momentary synthesis is important to the work. They hold space rather than contain it. To contain suggests a closed-in permanence, a hollowing out, or a controlled enclosure that excludes the viewer from perceiving the space within. To hold implies a more provisional approach, a transitory measure to allow multiple surfaces to come together embracing an intangible space.

Vermeulen concludes his article with a plea to the reader to give credit to Lefebvre’s spatial theory and desist from putting so much credence in De Certeau’s ideas of space and place. He looks to art galleries as potential places for optimism if we embrace Lefebvre’s ideas and “understand space as an open process, and place as the moment we can intervene in its unfolding.”[8] Vermeulen is probably referring more to the idea of intervention as political action and activist occupation, but I associate it with my own practice. There is an open process at play in my methodology and this idea is emergent in the work, with the potential to lean into it further so that the objects expose more of the mutable activity that produced them.

[1] Timotheus Vermeulen, “Space is the Place,” Profiles, Issue 171, Frieze, 24 April 2015, https://www.frieze.com/article/space-place, accessed 3 March, 2024.

[2] Vermeulen, “Space is the Place.”

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Oxford, England: Blackwell,1991), 404

[6] Andy Merrifield, Henri Lefebvre A Critical Introduction (New York: Routledge, 2006),105.

[7] Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 88.

[8] Vermeulen, “Space is the Place.”

Lit Review #2

“Agonism, decision, power – The art of working unfinished” by John Pløger

John Pløger’s essay investigates the usefulness of an agonistic approach to urban planning, based on the political philosophy on agonism of Chantal Mouffe. Mouffe’s theory examines how conflict can be harnessed in a positive, inclusive way by agreeing to make temporary decisions, or de-cisions, rather than suppressing opposition with hegemonic final decisions. As Pløger explains, “a de-cision is not a no-decision, but a decision that can only be temporary and unfinished.”[1] He acknowledges the challenges of including dissent in planning practice but suggests using the idea of the sketch as an applicable way for working provisionally. Although the article centres on the decision-making processes used in planning, the ideas presented can be employed in the processes of art making, particularly in my own practice.

Working in sketch mode allows me to have more of an open scope for risk taking and what-ifs. If it feels like it doesn’t matter so much because it’s just a sketch, it takes away the pressure that comes with the intent to produce a final work of value. Value is an attribute decided upon by a dominant group. It encompasses art schools, museums, galleries, critics, publications, the art market, and art history. That’s a lot of pressure and it’s easy to buy into it. In the isolated struggle to make art it’s tempting to pursue the reward of complementary words like ‘resolved,’ ‘accomplished,’ or the most elusive ‘important’ in relation to your work. Withdrawing the idea of finished value leaves room for reserving final judgement. Pløger says, “To work unfinished from a sketch transforms the planning process from being a matter of reaching a final decision to a strife about how to understand the present and the contours and directions to move on from.”[2] As an artist, it invites a richer process allowing for multiple iterations that serve the work rather than striving to make a final work to impress others. Such a productive process is more likely to give you a bouncing off point for innovative ideas.

Working de-cisionally undermines the power of dominant forces. As Raphael Rubinstein points out in his essays on provisional painting, “the provisional work is always opposed to the monumental, the official, the permanent. It closes the door on the era of the high-production-value art market (Hirst-Koons-Murakami-Currin). It wants to hover at the edge of nonexistence. It wants to rest lightly on the earth.”[3] The idea of resting lightly resonates with me. Taking the sketch approach to making allows the work to land lightly in a temporary resting place – to be finished for now.

Even if it is finished to the point of public exhibition, it still contains the potential to change. Can my artwork then be a “space for doing ‘aporetic’ decisions?”[4] That is, an artefact that holds an irresolvable internal contradiction or a paradox. In some ways my work already does. Externally, it has Modernist elements of space, abstraction, construction, surface, and truth to materials, but the space is more real than illusory, the abstract form is a consequence of construction and response to materials (rather than a pre-meditated aesthetic design choice), and the surface defies the material. The work pushes against hubristic ideas of monumentality and legacy by being held together with notches and tension rather than permanently with glue and nails. In this way it always contains the potential to be revisited and re-worked – finished for now.

Rubinstein points out that the idea of finishing provisionally in art has been around for an exceptionally long time. He refers to a Chinese text by Tang Dynasty historian Chang Yen-Yuan from the year 847, “one should not fear the incomplete, but quite to the contrary, one should deplore that which is too complete. From the moment one knows that a thing is complete, what need is there to complete it? For the incomplete does not necessarily mean the unfulfilled.”[5] There is a nod here to the pitfalls of overworking, something that I have been prone to in the past. Pløger’s idea of working in sketch mode limits the potential for overworking to occur. The work is in the process.

The art of working in an agonistic space is about listening to conflicting ideas as part of the decision-making process. Keeping the work in a sketch state for long enough so that it is open to questioning and risk taking, alterable in multiple ways, and free to journey into illogical or disjunctive territory. To work unfinished is to avoid stagnant thinking and getting stuck in the well-trodden ground of your own making. It allows you to find new ways forward or to circle back around and find value in previous ideas that might otherwise have been discarded because they lacked merit at the time. As Pløger aptly puts it, “a de-cisional mode of working respects the realisation that a decision gets ‘its rights from the ones to come’.”[6]

[1] John Pløger, “Agonism, decision, power – The art of working unfinished,” Raumforschung und Raumordnung | Spatial Research and Planning. 81. 10.14512/rur.1668, 2023, 450.

[2] Pløger, “Agonism, decision, power,” 450.

[3] Raphael Rubinstein, “Provisional Painting Part 2: To Rest Lightly on Earth,” Art in America, February 3, 2012, https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/features/provisional-painting-part-2-62924/, accessed 7 March, 2024.

[4] Pløger, “Agonism, decision, power,” 452.

[5] Rubinstein, “Provisional Painting.”

[6] Pløger, “Agonism, decision, power,” 458.