Breaking the box : the alternative, libertarian exhibition spaces created by Rothko & Judd
Date
2008-10-01T22:52:21Z
Authors
Webb, Stephanie Anne
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Abstract
An exhibition space is neither neutral nor universal and meaning is continually
constructed within these mediated spaces. My thesis is an examination of two instances
where artists have broken outside the box and carefully crafted unique exhibition spaces
within which an intentional dialogue between art works and viewer, art works and space,
content and context is established. It considers two twentieth century artists from the
United States of America, Mark Rothko and Donald Judd, both of whom rethought and
ultimately rejected the mediating constraints prevalent in the conventional exhibition
spaces of their time. Seeking to install their work on a permanent basis outside these preexisting,
traditional spaces, the alternatives they created -- the Rothko Chapel, Houston,
Texas and The Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas, respectively -- are predicated, I argue,
upon their anarchism and thus the anarchist paradigms of individual autonomy, liberty
and non-coercion. In light of their politics, I assess how the core tenet of sovereignty not
only had implications for Rothko and Judd -- for it fuelled the drive to create these
alternative sites -- but that there are also implications for the viewer. More specifically,
after an analysis of the sites I reflect upon the consequences for the spectator in terms of
the following: the co-relation between anti-authoritarian ‘open’ social systems and the
‘open’ art experience; the value of directly experiencing anti-representational work; intersubjectivity
and the multiplicity of meanings; and last, the temporal nature of the
embodied viewing experience.
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Keywords
rothko, judd, exhibition space, anarchism