Art & Art History
The Ecstasy of Limits
Artists: Vito Acconci, Vincent Fecteau, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Laurel Fredrickson, Lucy Gunning, Annetta Kapon, Craig Kilpakjian, Karen McGarry, Joe Scanlan, Tony Tasset, Franz West, Jane and Louise Wilson, and Julie Zando
The Ecstasy of Limits is a group exhibition, curated by Yvette Brackman, which explores themes of power, desire, and limitation. In Brackman ’s words, “The Ecstasy of Limits considers desire as an external framework that orders and manipulates the surrounding environment. This exhibition examines issues of desire and control as they are played out in social, physical, familial, and sexual forms of power.” As the title might suggest, the works in the exhibition test and highlight boundaries, both for the artworks and for the audience members, playing on fears and keeping the audience on the edge of discomfort. Annetta Kapon ’s Floor Scale forces the gallery viewers to step on one of the many bathroom scales tiled around the entrance to the gallery, publicizing their potential insecurities. For Routes 1 & 9 North, Jane and Louise Lisbon allowed a stranger to hypnotize them in a motel room, surrendering themselves both to the hypnotist and the viewers, allowing themselves to slip into a state in which their own self-imposed boundaries no longer apply. Self-imposed limitations are also at work in two video pieces: Lucy Gunning’s Climbing Around My Room, in which a girl in a red dress slowly climbs around a room without touching the ground; and Tony Tasset’s Location Performance, in which the artist lies face down on the gallery floor, performing a deliberate anticlimax and presenting an endurance challenge both to the artist and the viewer.
Altogether the works in the exhibition signal the relative safety and comfort in which most of the viewers live, and point to the thrill of pushing the edges of those comfort zones. As Brackman put it,
contemplation limitation can elicit ecstasy. Many of the works point critically to an illusory continuity, an ideal. This perfection is denied in each work offering up instead a deferred rapture.
MEDIA COVERAGE
Wilk, Deborah. “The Ecstasy of Limits.” New Art Examiner, Feb. 1995, p. 38.
EXHIBITION CHECKLIST
Vito Acconci
Undertone, 1972
Video
Vincent Fecteau
Dramatization, 1994
Photo collage, approx. 10 x 9 in.
Shirley Temple Room #5, 1994
Cardboard and fabric, 12 x 12 x 6 in.
Shirley Temple Room #6, 1994
Cardboard and contact paper ;12 x 12 x 6 in.
Shirley Temple Room #9, 1994
Cardboard, fabric, and shoelace, 13 1/2 x 9 x 13 in.
Peter Fischli and David Weiss
The Way Things Go, 1989
Video
Laurel Fredrickson
Pinch, Nip, and Tweak, 1994
Bronze, wood, and felt, each 4 x 5 x 4 in.
Lucy Gunning
Climbing Around My Room, 1993
Video
Annetta Kapon
Floor Scale, 1991
204 floor scales, 348 x 60 in.
Craig Kilpakjian
Bullet Proof Blanket and Pillow, 1992
Retractable bed, kevlar, pillow, and quilt with text, 26 x 78 x 40 in.
Waiting Room, 1994
Office dividers, video monitor, approx. 180 x 180 in.
Karen McGarry
Suck, 1994
Video
Joe Scanlan
Mirror, 1994
Aluminum foil, glass, and wood, 21 x 18 in.
Nesting Bookcase, 1993
Wood, screws, and carrying strap, 20 1/4 x 43 1/4 x 9 1/4 in.
Tony Tasset
Location Performance, 1992–94
Video
Franz West
untitled, 1993
Three steel chairs, steel table, “Paßstück,” and video installation
Jane and Louise Wilson
Routes 1 & 9 North, 1994
Two C-prints and video
Julie Zando
The Bus Stops Here, 1990
Video
CURATOR BIOGRAPHY
Yvette Brackman is an American artist and writer who lives in Denmark. Her work often draws upon the history of the Soviet Union, from which her family emigrated in 1959. Brackman ’s art evokes Russian Constructivism, a revolutionary art movement that originated around 1919 and saw art as a practice directed toward social purposes. Brackman ’s artistic output includes creating platforms for distribution and exchange with a performative character. In her work she engages audiences and communities in exploring issues of common responsibility and social relations. She draws upon various mediums of expression in which she uses a combination of crafted elements and time-based media to create narratives that unfold in space. Brackman received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA and an MA in art history with a minor in women ’s studies from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
EXHIBITION CHECKLIST (EXPANDED)
Vito Acconci
Undertone, 1972
Video
Much of Vito Acconci’s early work engages the body as a vehicle or tool to be controlled or used as a means of dominating its environs. In Undertone Acconci sits at the head of a table facing the camera. He changes his body position, keeping his hands out in front of him on the table or slipping them under the table where they are not visible to the viewer. As he shifts between addressing the camera directly and looking downward and addressing himself, his narrative changes. Confronting us, as if confessing, he puts his hands out where they can be seen. He needs us to be there. He needs us to keep him answering questions. Turning his head down, he puts his hands back under the table and continues a sexual fantasy gradually developing more erotic detail, one time fantasizing about a girl under the table exciting him, and then, fantasizing that there is no one under the table, only his own hands.
Vincent Fecteau
Dramatization, 1994
Photo collage, approx. 10 x 9 in.
Dramatization depicts a cat circling around and closing in on its prey, ET. According to Vincent Fecteau, Michael Jackson considered ET to be a stand-in for himself. A small photo collage represents a performance of Jackson’s relationship to his friends, the media’s relationship to Michael, the public’s relationship to the media, and the anticipated viewer’s relationship to the work. These vicious voyeuristic circular relations brilliantly entrap the audience in a closed cycle.
Shirley Temple Room #5, 1994
Cardboard and fabric, 12 x 12 x 6 in.
Shirley Temple Room #6, 1994
Cardboard and contact paper; 12 x 12 x 6 in.
Shirley Temple Room #9, 1994
Cardboard, fabric, shoelace, 13 1/2 x 9 x 13 in.
Vincent Fecteau often works in thematic series. The group of works shown in The Ecstasy of Limits uses the celebrity of Michael Jackson as its prototype to reflect on issues of containment, control, and voyeurism as they relate to Jackson, the media, the public, and the art community. The titles for Fecteau’s works are somewhat cryptic. Fecteau made an installation at the gallery Kiki in San Francisco entitled Ben, referencing the 1970s film of that title for which Michael Jackson sang the theme song. The film is about a rat called Ben that kills people for a young boy. Shirley Temple Rooms are cages for the rats as well as models for the guest room off of Michael Jackson’s bedroom where his friends stay over. This guest room was nicknamed “The Shirley Temple Room” by Jackson. The works portray spaces that are thoroughly invested in the obsessive control of the body and the environment.
Peter Fischli and David Weiss
The Way Things Go, 1989
Video
The Swiss artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss collaborate to create complex, labor-intensive environments and performances. Often interested in challenging notions of perception, their works critique artistic practices as well as the institution of art. The Way Things Go documents a self-perpetuating experiment that never reveals its evolution or terminus. A highly elaborate series of chemical and mechanical events take place with the use of kitchen chemistry sending tires rolling into beams of wood that catapult on contact thus releasing fluid, which ignites a fire on a neighboring table. These events perpetuate themselves seemingly without initiation or guidance. Taking on the role of mad scientists in the studio laboratory, Fischli and Weiss create a work of art that takes on a life of its own with rules and regulations.
Laurel Fredrickson
Pinch, Nip, and Tweak, 1994
Bronze, wood, and felt, each 4 x 5 x 4 in.
The work of Laurel Fredrickson offers a gauge of control: the measurement of flesh between two fingers. The aggressive act of pinching measures and maintains the body, not allowing it to spill out of its boundaries. Fredrickson mimics nineteenth-century casting methods to model what appear to be scientific objects that resemble documentary evidence of body measurement. In symbolic form, the three verbs—pinch, nip, tweak—act out their aggressive controls. Transforming the body can be performed through dieting, exercise, or plastic surgery. The actions themselves are contained as sculptures within Fredrickson’s boxes that label and enclose. Her title alludes to the body and how it may be forcibly controlled and measured in order to conform to standards of beauty.
Lucy Gunning
Climbing Around My Room, 1993
Video
In Lucy Gunning’s video Climbing Around My Room, a young girl in a red cocktail party dress climbs around a room, never touching the ground. She climbs barefoot, all the way around the room, no music, no talk, just her body inching along the shelf, then the molding, onto the floorboard, up onto a boudoir, along the window frame, then in and out of the bookshelf, until she reaches the ceiling and from there proceeds to scoot along a shelf close to the ceiling and the wall again. Strong, unadorned except for the dress, she is determined and perfunctory about following through with the obsessively controlled activity. Like watching a child use all of her concentration and energy to avoid the crack in a sidewalk, this work offers an investigation of the maintenance of self-imposed rules to create an uncannily eccentric image.
Annetta Kapon
Floor Scale, 1991
204 floor scales, 348 x 60 in.
Generally Annetta Kapon uses domestic objects in her work, activating their wry metaphoric potential. Floor scales are set up in such a way as to not allow the viewer to pass through the installation without stepping on them. Kapon tyrannically forces viewers to weigh themselves, thereby symbolically evaluating their self-worth by the number on the scale, directly referencing obsessions with standards of beauty. Once stepped upon, the scales become a pedestal for a human sculpture whose weight is calculated as pure mass. Placed in a grid on the floor of the gallery, the scales recall minimalist works like those of Carl Andre. Dividing the gallery space, they create a formal weighing station within the space of the exhibition.
Craig Kilpakjian
Bullet Proof Blanket and Pillow, 1992
Retractable bed, kevlar, pillow and quilt with text, 26 x 78 x 40 in.
Many of Craig Kilpakjian’s works address some aspect of surveillance and containment. “Field distance sensors,” roadblock spikes, Tensabarrier posts, and metal detectors all create an environment of restriction that enforces a tremendous sense of security. Taken to an extreme of self-protection, Bullet Proof Blanket and Pillow fosters a vision of hostile environments as envisioned on such television programs as “911” and “Cops.” The bed, a place of supposed comfort and safety, becomes the location of a potential war zone.
Waiting Room, 1994
Office dividers, video monitor, 180 x 180 in.
In the office cubicle of Craig Kilpakjian’s Waiting Room, the anticipated participants enter and find themselves in a space vacant of all comforting amenities. The only furnishing within the container is a video monitor, mounted above the entrance, displaying a virtual waiting room on CD-ROM. The virtual reality of Waiting Room encloses, protects, and instructs the implied viewer to become part of its institutional tutelage. The sculpture is complete once the viewer enters. They become part of the installation to be seen by the expected oncoming participant. Upon entering the installation, one becomes part of the endless loop of wait and due process.
Karen McGarry
Suck, 1994
Video
Karen McGarry’s work is often extremely direct and funny. She frequently uses her own body to explore notions of exhibitionism and its necessary counterpart, voyeurism. Suck portrays two hands “caught in the act.” We are given the straight visual facts, one hand clasped in a fist and the other approaching it with its index finger extended. McGarry uses explicit sexual innuendo and playful sign making to display sucking and penetration simultaneously. The video is also a peep show of a “hand job” for a viewer’s voyeuristic pleasure. With very few visual effects they are led to conclusions that imply control on a fundamental level.
Joe Scanlan
Mirror, 1994
Aluminum foil, glass, and wood, 21 x 18 in.
Many of Joe Scanlan’s pieces address a concern with personal surroundings. Working with readily available materials, he creates works that serve basic domestic and bodily functions. His economy of material and method is visible in his choice of subject matter as well as in the appearance of the objects he makes. The careful measurement and control of the environment is an important consideration for making objects that can be collapsed, are reversible, and use widely available and easily manipulated materials. His means of production are simple and accessible to a wide range of people. Scanlan’s works start with his immediate environment. In the past he has made candles in the form of packages of products that he consumed, like a Quaker Oatmeal container or a quart of milk. His gauge of measurement is his own home and his own body. Mirror is made from aluminum foil and is framed in wood. The image is hazy—one has to focus to be able to make one’s features. It abstracts the reflection, causing the viewer to use their imagination to fill out the image. Incapable of giving a detailed image, it instead offers only a general reflection. This mirror levels any hierarchy of images, restricting any narcissistic investment.
Nesting Bookcase, 1993
Wood, screws, and carrying strap, 20 1/4 x 43 1/4 x 9 1/4 in.
Nesting Bookcase is made from affordable materials and designed to be easily transportable. Each shelf collapses into the other ones. When it is fully assembled it takes on a pyramidal form. The organization of materials on the shelf could reflect that stratified structure.
Tony Tasset
Location Performance, 1992–94
Video
In many works by Tony Tasset, he questions the very structure of art. Creating objects that critique the rules of sculpture, performance, photography, etc., he reveals the dynamics of artistic discipline and the art establishment, and the role of the artist in them. Location Performance investigates several of these controls. The artist is videotaped on location in the gallery lying on the floor. The documentation is then exhibited unedited in the gallery, in the same spot on the floor. The artist seemingly reveals himself with a minimum of convention. The work fulfills the functions of sculptural object, performance, and video documentation. Yet all of these conventions are just barely what they purport to be. The work exudes a defiant impassivity. Being witness to the process of lying still on the floor for an hour becomes an endurance test for both artist and viewer. No artistic ingredients are lacking: only the spectacle is missing.
Franz West
untitled, 1993
Three steel chairs, steel table, “Paßstück,” and video installation
Franz West creates evocative sculptural objects and installations that are meant to be used. His intention is the release of the psychological energy of the participant. West’s works are raw interactive compositions, simply hewn from plaster and wire covered with various materials. The plaster sculptures that should be handheld are often painted with Neapolitan colors. His furniture is similar in attitude, welded steel with newspaper or rugs often covering the surfaces. His works do not restrict the viewer, but rather gently direct and guide the movement of the body. Untitled has several components, including a platform that sets it slightly off the ground, thereby separating it from the remaining gallery space, two wire chairs designed by the artist, a daily newspaper that covers the chair, the Paßstück sculpture, and a video demonstrating how the Paßstück could be used. The viewer is invited to walk into the installation, use the Paßstück, watch the video, or even just sit and read the paper.
Jane and Louise Wilson
Routes 1 & 9 North, 1994
Two C-prints and video
Artists and twins Jane and Louise Wilson create works from their experience on the road. Their installation Routes 1 & 9 North was created in a motel in New Jersey where they rented a room and hired a professional to hypnotize them. The installation consists of the documentation of this event. What is most significant in the video is the physiognomic transformation that takes place in the two women as they descend into hypnosis. They physically relax into an unconscious state. Upon leaving consciousness they become, in a sense, part of the furniture of the room. Like their photographs that explore the surfaces of a space, they too become yet another detail to be explored in the room. Their loss of self-possession is given an even greater aura because of their doubled twin-ness.
Julie Zando
The Bus Stops Here, 1990
Video
Julie Zando is a video artist whose work addresses issues of sexuality and power relations. The Bus Stops Here investigates psychological power relations and sexual dynamics between three individuals. The main characters are so intertwined that the boundaries between them are unclear. As a result each one is constantly struggling with maintaining and breaking down emotional boundaries between themselves and each other. The main characters are a therapist and two sisters. One sister is the lover of the therapist while the other is his patient. The dynamics of the psychological triangle between the three characters extends beyond them into a complex family history of the sisters that is referenced through visual flashbacks and personal reminiscences. The character of the therapist is an invasive authority figure who pries into the private journal of his lover and overly identifies with the sister’s authoritarian father. The sister in therapy is emotionally controlled by a wide variety of antidepressants prescribed to her by the therapist and a pharmacologist. The three main figures in the video are somehow being controlled, while attempting to control each other.
PRINT COLLATERAL
Postcard: The Ecstasy of Limits
EXHIBITION SUPPORT
The Ecstasy of Limits is supported by the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Art and Design’s College of Architecture, Art, and Urban Planning.
The Ecstasy of Limits
Catalog essay by Yvette Brackman
Gallery 400, School of Art and Design,
University of Illinois at Chicago, 1994
21 pp., 8.5 x 5.5 in., with black-and-white reproductions
This catalogue can be purchased for $3.00 plus shipping by calling Gallery 400 at 312 996 6114.