Stimuli at Witte de With, Rotterdam (1999-2000)
artdesigncafé | café library | Published 15 September 2009
This review first appeared in Sculpture magazine, 19(6), pp. 72-3 in 2000.
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Ann Veronica Janssens. Corps Noir, (1994–99). Black perspex, 195 cm. diameter.
“Jungles of history, context, and
theory seem to have banned the
body from the realm of vision,”
announces the press release.
“Yet it is undeniable that art
relies more than ever on direct
impulse, on the bodily intake of stimuli.” With this as a starting
point, “Stimuli” included works
by Vito Acconci, Dennis Adams,
Francis Alÿs, Marcel Duchamp,
Justin van Duurling, Peter Fillingham,
Runa Islam, Ann Veronica
Janssens, Rob Johannesma,
Piero Manzoni, Matt Mullican,
Bruce Nauman, Lou Reed,
Nasrin Tabatabai, Fiona Tan,
Koen Timmermans, Ulay, and
Elina Montesinos.
Overall, the works provided
crisscrossing discourses across
medium, approach, and the thematic
thread addressing “various
levels of consciousness, including
hypnosis, trance, and shock.”
Historically, Marcel Duchamp’s
Rotoreliefs (1935) presented a playful introduction and precursor,
with the optical-oriented disks
placed on a series of curatorially
selected turntables used to illustrate
their motion-induced effects.
Piero Manzoni’s Achrome (1962), with
canvas becoming the frame and
framed hair-like fiberglass emerging
outward, is smartly covered
by Plexiglas—the material tweaks
the viewer to try to touch it.
Vito Acconci’s video Theme Song
(1973) plays on superficial TV
and music madness, and Acconci
creates his own variety with
extremely distorting face-front
depth.
Lou Reed’s installation Mental
Music Machine (1975) consisted
of four speakers set in quadrophilia
(four loudspeakers to literally
“wrap” the listener in sound).
Inside a brightly lit, circular, silver-curtained
space, site and sound
enclosed the viewer. Bruce Nauman’s
video installation Clown Torture
(1987), inspired by Andy Warhol’s
endless sleeping films, presents
the artist as “psychotic clown”
playing on hyper-unity, childhood
dreams, appearance, layers, and
performance versus audience—
with two opposing monitors
making viewers constantly
“guard their backs.”
Work from the 1990s included
Rob Johannesma’s Tree Branch
Video (1998), which plays on
the stillness of photography and
moving pictures in a landscape-turned-
dreamscape. Hazy color
makes the viewer’s attempt to
re-focus futile while slight camera
movements twist perception.
Matt Mullican’s Hypnosis Tapes
(1996) consisted of video reconstructions
of two late-1970s
performances. Meanwhile, elements
of Justin van Duurling ‘s
installation Cross Corp (1997)—
fluorescent phosphorus drawings
of extraterrestrial-like shapes
on plastic—were suspended and
lined up mystically, highlighted
by the surrounding absence of
light.
Ann Veronica Janssens’s Corps
Noir (1994–99), a concave form in
black perspex, provided the murky
illusion of the viewer’s reflection, upside down. Approached from
its side, the reflection bubbled
to form magically. Koen Timmermans’s
Cancan (1998), a video on monitor,
consists of a loop of 1950s
pin-up Betty Page, from the movie
Varietease (1952). The loop,
catching the performer in an open-crotched
twirl, makes her look
less human and more like a spider with manic tip-tapping legs. Unfortunately,
the focal point—the
repeated, open crotch—feeds
unflattering readings despite being
billed as a demonstration of concern
for “the human body serv[ing]
as the source of mysticism.”
While hallucinations ran rampant
throughout the exhibition, the
documentation accompanying
Francis Alÿs’s Narcotourism (1996)
takes a shocking step further—
providing a narrative about shooting heroin for art. Exhibited
in Holland, a notorious destination
for drug tourists, the work was
actually created in Denmark. Alÿs
illustrated his sensory-saturated,
secret performances—a series of
walks under drug-induced stimuli:
alcohol, speed, hashish, cocaine,
ecstasy, and heroin. However, what we get is only abstract documentation
framing the apparent performances.
Describing his walks,
he writes, “The project is about
being physically present in a place,
while mentally elsewhere.” In his
narratives concerning the effects
of the drugs, Alÿs adds, “Ecstasy.
Visual brightening and erotic
impulses. Everything I turn to moves, not physically but conceptually.”
While some may find Narcotourism
and Cancan needlessly
contentious, a show that bills itself
as focusing on art that “relies
more than ever on direct impulse,
on the bodily impact of stimuli”
seemed incomplete without even
a dash of 1990s multi-sensory
multi-media. Nevertheless,
“Stimuli” effectively showed a
variety of approaches playing off
hallucination as a theme and acted
as a window into, and context of,
individual artistic explorations.
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