On Space, Transcendence, and the Dia Beacon
Robert C. Morgan
The theologian
Paul Tillich once spoke of “the space of tragedy” as being a condition
in which the historical sense of time had been lost. In his book Theology of
Culture (1964), Tillich refers to the Greek tragedies as events conceived in
a space that is removed from our daily existence:
“Human existence under the predominance of space is tragic. Greek tragedy
and philosophy knew about this. They knew that the Olympic gods were gods of
space, one beside the other, one struggling with the other … Greek tragedy,
philosophy, and art were wrestling with the tragic law of our spatial existence.
They were seeking for an immovable being beyond the circle of genesis and decay,
greatness and self-destruction, something beyond tragedy.”
So what does it mean to get beyond tragedy – “beyond the circle of
genesis and decay”? Modernists called it “transcendence” –
as their Postmodern detractors would insinuate. From the Greek perspective, transcendence
was an escape from the never-ending circle of tragedy, an escape that would only
further compound the problem. To engage in transcendence would ultimately constitute
a farce, an absurd action, a form of self-delusion.
The denial of transcendence became a fundamental theoretical issue in Postmodernism.
The role of desire on the aftermath of the great Modernist debauchery was to
conceal oneself in the wake of an inevitable hopelessness. Henceforth, the aim
was to enter the secular monolith of art as a space without time or history,
only the on-going myth of protocol. But space needs time, not despair, in order
to live in a context without turning fascist. Without recognition of time and
history we are sacrificed to the omnipresent narcissism of an illusory self.
In Western terms, this is the consequence of our duality, i.e. the self and the
other, Man and God, subject and object. It is a struggle for essence amid dualities.
What defines the notion of the self in the West is the split, the eternal separation
from the Garden of Eden, where authority became dictatorial.
In the East, this separation does not exist, at least not in the same form. In
Buddhism and in the transcriptions of Lao Tze, one may discover a way to relinquish
one’s desires in the practice of daily life. This may occur through meditation,
through a focus and concentration on the undivided self. In contrast to the duality
of selfhood found in the West, the Eastern concept tends to emphasize wholeness.
This difference of perspective on the nature of selfhood also influences the
way in which each culture deals with space, as a separation or a confluence,
as between the space of being and that of architecture.
Through the Eastern concept of wholeness we arrive at another meaning of transcendence,
one that is not contingent on the Greek sense of tragedy or its denial. Through
meditation (samadhi), the undivided Self enters into a process of unknowing,
an experience that suggests a form of transcendence in which the subject consciously
relinquishes its identity in order to attain a level of heightened awareness.
This Eastern view of transcendence exceeds the delimitations of philosophical
cynicism shared by the ancient Greeks and the Postmodernists. Paradoxically,
the practice of contemplation, that is, seeing/thinking, functions on a temporal
level that might be described as reductive accumulation.
Upon entering the foyer of the new Dia exhibition facility in the town of Beacon,
where I have visited on two occasions, my immediate impression, while walking
into the exhibition, was one of contrived ambiguity. The space was simultaneously
too absent and too predominant. Like Piranesi’s fantastic vision of convoluted
interiors or the hyper-Classicism of the Enlightenment architect Claude-Nicolas
Ladoux, I sensed a labyrinth of despair — one that was too dogmatic and overdetermined
in its self-conscious denial of transcendence. The emptiness inside the exhibition
rooms felt disconnected. Where was the balance?
At intervals, the interior of the Dia Center equivocates between a selection
of carefully considered installations and a simulation of oppressive timelessness.
Too many signs with too much repetition inculcates the space, lending a burden
of conflict between pragmatic reductivism and the predominance of space in late
twentieth century Western art. Nonetheless, there are some magnificent works
in the collection that rise above other more glaringly apparent problems. One
is the elegant series of graphite wall drawings in square modules, each divided
into sixteen parts, based on a drawing from 1968. Here the linear and tonal repetition
really functions both aesthetically and conceptually. The visual context is straight-forward,
simple, and direct. Stripped of excessive accoutrements, the room becomes nearly
weightless. Turning a corner, I discover a large stone set in a steel box that
has been embedded into the wall. Like all great stones, it has a certain essence
that comes alive. On the other side of the wall, a grid of plywood boxes with
subtle systemic variations do quite the opposite. Perhaps, they are trying to
prove something; the problem is that art cannot be proven.
The large steel torques downstairs are unnecessarily crowded, too literal as
I move through and around them. At another location, stacks of frayed felt with
copper sheets, multiple frames, and rubble, are arranged as symbolic attributes
of “social sculpture.” However, the attic space upstairs is superb.
It evokes a tender creepiness, a child’s dream that does not scare the piss
out of you. In another section downstairs, a series of mostly white paintings
are exquisitely arranged, proportional and intuitive to the space. They succeed
fully in their restraint and surface intensity.
But the problem with the space appears less about the failure of a vision than
in the administration of a design that is overly conscious of its intention.
The missing factor is the sense of an exhibition context where history has a
place — where the temporal engagement of the viewer is connected to the work
through body, mind, and feeling. My concern is that the emotional aspect of the
viewer be invited back into the experience of Minimal/Conceptual art. Such invitations
should be less contingent on the myth of protocol and institutional bureaucracy
than on the presentation of bold new ideas where objects, installations, and
the architecture coincide in relation to the viewer’s body/mind experience.
Today’s architecture, including the fabrication of interiors – no matter
how ingenious the concept or renovation — cannot afford the error of the early
Greeks, as noted by Tillich. Advanced art on the order of the Dia Collection
cannot signify what it means in isolated segments under the predominance of space.
If the space binds the art into a state of visual paralysis, the significance
of the work loses. Buildings designated for art on a public scale need a sense
of time and history where viewers can breath, open up, and discover new forms
and ideas that go beyond the increasingly banal spectacles that have come to
haunt museums worldwide. The situation in Beacon needs a dose of Eastern transcendence
where energy flows and is not caught in the repetition of the tragic past.Robert
C. Morgan is the a writer, artist, curator, critic, and editor of Gary Hill (2000)
and Bruce Nauman (2002), published by Johns Hopkins University Press. He is a
Contributing Editor to NY Arts.
