This is the raw material we are using for "editing" an article for the georgian art magazine LOOP. this is a conversation between Audrey Bartis and Alexios Papazacharias, on July 2006.
1 - Audrey Bartis and Alexios Papazacharias, talking about Rachel Whiteread. Brussels, july 2006.
Audrey Bartis - we were talking about Gordon Matta-Clark and the link between him and Rachel Whiteread, obviously because of the house as a life unit, a psychological box, there is also a lot of meanings about family, individuality, identity… but they are both working on what Gordon Matta-Clark explained, that he wanted to transform a space into a state of mind. What I really wanted to analyse is the way to obvioulsy she’s transforming the void into a matter. Gordon Matta-Clark by cutting the matter, the architecture, makes voids , and makes the matter visible. It’s about making imposssible things visible, invisible things tangible…
Alexios Papazacharias - Signifiing… it’s a process of signifiing. They are both castrating the experience of the space, but Rachel Whiteread is making this directly, it’s a petrified place, it’s full of plaster so you can not enter the space. You can experience it but by looking at it, meaby by touching it, but it’s not possible to enter inside…
Audrey Bartis - but there is an experimentation…
Alexios Papazacharias – there is, of course, but is not the usual one. With Gordon Matta-Clark you have a rich experience, wich is completely altered from the usual experience of the space. so they both propose an experience of the space, like opposite. They have two, we could say, opposite kind of techniques, but in the result, not the same, not exactly the same, but they manage to both have altered experience of the space…
(…)
Alexios Papazacharias - for exemple, the House of Rachel Whiteread was a normal house, in front of normal houses, ant it looked like them. And suddenly, there is one of theme that is in concrete. In fact, there is concrete, and it looks like a grave, like a fossile. So, if you combine this with the fact that british people… heu, their life is not completly bright and colorfull… in every part of London, it’s true. So, looking at something that looks like your house but it’s petrified, it’s quite shocking…
Audrey Bartis – it’s like a face-to-face process…
Alexios Papazacharias – yes
Audrey Bartis – it was the same with Gordon Matta-Clark because the house was inside of, you know, a middle-class kind of american suburb where the houses look all the same, so it’s the same case, the house was a regular house, like the others, and obviously, cutting this house in two, was both transforming their point of view on their own environment, as you said, but also pushing them to the limits. But in a very subtil way. It was not possible to take a body and cut it in two, it was not possible to take a person in London, and full it with concrete…
Alexios Papazacharias – (smiling) non, it was not possible…
Audrey Bartis – but, what is interesting, is that the people react in front of those pieces the same way, they react the same way, in front of those new « beings ». just like in alchemy, in the alchemy imaginary, there are those beings that are created through alchemy, they are like monsters. It is something impossible that has been made, and when something impossible has been made by human hands, because it’s something like that… when you believe in God, you can accept any kind of beings because God is something superior, so It can create anything he wants, so it’s ok. But if it’s created by human hands, then it’s just like human hands have magic, and the ability to transform everything that surrounds it, and inside of it (human). So in the alchemy imaginary, when this kind of monster lives, the people around have to kill it. And it’s like that, those houses got killed. Those houses got killed because it was unbearable to let them live, to let them stay in front of them. It is what interest me with Rachel Whiteread, it is that she was schoking, by destroying the link with reality and the way poeple just see the reality, and the House got destroyed, but now she has this strong image of one of the best british artists… she is one of the best british artists. Now, she’s recognized by the institution, she’s… elle est non seulement acceptée mais elle est fêtée, mise en valeur par l’institution. As you said for the public space, it was possible to put Rachel Whiteread’s pieces back into public spaces because she came into the institution, and the institution was like eating it, eating her work, because it was not possible to let it stay outside, and for me, having this institution wanting her being inside, was for protecting the outside world from this work. You see…
Alexios Papazacharias – Humm..
(…)
Audrey Bartis - … it is quite instinctive, what I will say, but I think that even institution doesn’t know what to do with this work, except presenting it, but it is not really possible to make it quiet. You see ?…
Alexios Papazacharias - I can totally get it because, the thing with Rachel Whiteread is that her pieces are silent, but they are not quiet at all. That’s one of her amazing qualities, it’s petrified, it’s completly silent but it’s not quiet, it’s talking in a silent way…
Audrey Bartis – in a very deep way
Alexios Papazacharias – in a very deep way…
Audrey Bartis – and this depth goes really, no… it goes deep in human mind, and what I think really interesting ins strong is this kind of universality…
Alexios Papazacharias – Oh, yes…
Audrey Bartis – it is something really, really, really important. Just in Gordon Matta-Clark’s work, it’s something that’s spread itself into the world. Because cutting a house is a simple idea, fulling a house is a simple idea, fulling a void is a simple idea, creating a void is a simple idea, it’s like the most simple human gesture. So it’s dangerous for human mind and the outside world because it can change reality, but in a very large way, because of this spreading thing. People get transformed for a few minutes, in their own cognitive abilities, first, then, they keep the sensation wich is completly physical, you feel that your body can be a void, that’s it’s not completly full, that… you have a very strange contact to this matter, because you know it was a void, it’s not a void anymore it’s full. And then you feel your own body like really heavy, you feel your own matter… for my part, this is something I feel with Rachel Whiteread pieces, is my bones are like vibrating, I feel my bones…
Alexios Papazacharias – yes, you can not resist penetrating this concerte space, this petrified emptyness. And I think this was, with large spaces like House or Ghost, her preoccupation was to give you feel this, to make you feel and souligner your unability to enter the space and your constant trying, to make you understand what is going on and use your usual perception methods you have.
Audrey Bartis – because also it’s not only about experiencing, it’s about being…
Alexios Papazacharias - yes, it’s experiencing living in it…
(…)
Alexios Papazacharias – yes you can feel the void by feeling it. But not only as feeling « f.e.e.l » but also as « f.i.l.l. ». and you know, by felling the void, is also the way dancers work. They have to do « 1,2,3,4 », you remember, they have to feel the movement. It’s a very basic thing, the way you experience the world, with voids, and suddenly, matter. Matter, void, and the links in between. And suddenly, someone castrates that, totally. And that is violent.
Audrey Bartis – you are talking about the violent part, wich is interesting. You use the word « castration », wich is meaningfull. It’s cutting. It’s cutting but also making something sterile.
Alexios Papazacharias - hum…
Audrey Bartis – ok
Alexios Papazacharias – unchangeable
Audrey Bartis – unchangeable and sterile. Ok. But meaby we can also say that it’s not only about castration, but also about making something visible.. so we have, let’s say, the « negative » meaning, …
Alexios Papazacharias – it’s not exactly negative, the word is negative, but it’s not a negative concept…
Audrey Bartis – ok, but you know, it’s just a balance, and of course, there are no perfect words to explain that, so we are turning and turning and turning around the concepts. And words have a precise meaning, and it gives meaning when you use certain words… so we keep the castration concept because it’s true. This ability to be in the space, to enter the space, to breathe in the space, (is castrated)… and also because this matter is full, completly full, it won’t any possibility to survive in it. In fact, if you were in the space when it was filled, then, ah ah…
Alexios Papazacharias – ah ah… (laughing)
Audrey Bartis – we will be just be dissapearing, crushed… !
Alexios Papazacharias – you know, it happened, it happened several times in history. Pompei. It’s something that was happening. But anyway, what’s important, and where I can see the very positive meaning of castration, is that usually, the best way, the most complete way to experiment something is by it’s loss.
Audrey Bartis – yes, absolument,…
Alexios Papazacharias - you experience the value of something by it’s loss. So for me, well… Rachel Witheread’s work looks dark, but it has a very positive beauty.
Audrey Bartis – ok I see, you’re talking about melancholy…
Alexios Papazacharias – not exactly…
Audrey Bartis – when you experiment something by it’s loss, then …
Alexios Papazacharias – but it’s not your personnal loss
Audrey Bartis – no, no, not especially, but there is a kind of melancholy in the Rachel Whiteread’s work. For example with the books… but, can we say that in a way, this loss meaning can be transformed into something else ? when I tell about positive and negative thing, I think more about the photographic concept, you know, plain and void, void and plain, it’s the same, it’s positive and negative of the same thing, the same object. So we have… the works are more like positive voids.
Alexios Papazacharias – Yes !
Audrey Bartis – and in fact, … what is interesting… beacause i used to talk with many architects, as you know (laughing), and what they say is that architecture is not about building but creating spaces. So it’s about creating voids, in fact. It’s about to build limits…
Alexios Papazacharias – exactly…
Audrey Bartis - … of the space. It’s about inventing the way people will experiment it, living in it, go through it, ans so on… so, by destroying the structure, the pure beauty of the space is appearing to us. So and this is the positive side, I can see the beauty of the void of the stairs…
Alexios Papazacharias – in the case of stairs, and the concept of architecture the way you explained it, it’s an ideal piece to talk about it. The difference between an architect who’s working and creating spaces where people live or go through, etc… because straircase is a passage, so in staircase you never stay, it’s something you’re not supposed to stay, it’s a place where you always move. And the architect is obviously creating a space by putting limits, the stairs, the wall, the roof, anyway… in the case of the Rachel Whiteread’s stairs, she… she did a composition of the space, without using the limits, she used pure space in order to make a composition, and there is, by this work … this work makes obvious her great ability to, of deeply understanding this void concept… this is why this is a late piece, it’s not one of the early pieces. She gates mature, and mature and mature all the time in using the concept of void and emptyness, so she can of manipulate the space on a first level, while the architecture is manipulating the space on a second level, he manipulates the limits of the space. She manipulates the space directly, for itself.
Audrey Bartis – yeah, and she makes it an object.
Alexios Papazacharias – and she makes it an objet.
Audrey Bartis – she makes it an object and she removes it from its original place, into another one. And this is really interesting. The fact that, this is why in fact artistic institution is not really able to make it quiet, because, in fact it’s transforming the art place itself. So, for example the stairs, they get made, made into an object, for the Basement stairs, it’s turned, just like a fallen thing, but it’s not falling, it becomes a complete plastic object, …
Alexios Papazacharias – completly
Audrey Bartis - … then, and it’s the case also for Richard Nonas, because you know i’m working on his work too, when you have an architecture sign into another kind of space, into any kind of space, then, the object that has been putted there transforms the space, but it’s not like other objetcs, not like other sculptures, it’s different. Why ? because our mind is rebuilding the architecture from, for example with Richard Nonas, from a corner, and Rachel Whiteread also used corners, wich is really interesting, and a corner means « two walls », or « at this place it could have been two walls », so, it signifies at this precise place in the space, that another architecture is possible.
Alexios Papazacharias – exactly, another possibility…
Audrey Bartis – yes, so there is a vitual architecture in the architecture. And the stairs for example. They are upside down, so two things : first, there is a virtual space here, it’s not a possibility, it IS there. It is why the « ghost » idea, the word, is really good. Because we have this space that has been made in a matter, so there is a matter, so the thing is visible. Just like a ghost, it’s not supposed to be there but it does exist. And it’s there, and it’s visible, and it’s tangible. So this architecture does live in the space, in the exhibition place, in the museum, or whatever, so it is a happening, it’s not a virtual thing, it is a concrete and objective object that tells « here is an architecture, a piece of it ». and the mind is reconstructing the rest, all the possibilities of architectures all around the stairs, for example. Richard Nonas is the same, he’s putting a stone, or a huge steel piece that usually is on the roof (beam), he puts it on the floor, and then, what happens, we can imagine there is a wall, or there is a roof, ar any kind of thing… (…) there is a rebuilding of reality.
Alexios Papazacharias – it triggers. You know, the thing with Rachel Whiteread it taht her work rebuilds also your behaviour, it rebuilds also in your mind, your own behaviour in silmilar spaces. So it king of generates a very nice dialog, a very poetic one, like a sign, like a book that brings you things in your mind, it works this way, in a more abstract way, in a more freeer way…
Audrey Bartis – just like Proust ! (laughing)
Alexios Papazacharias – just like Proust (smiling). Well Proust is more precise in the directions he wants you to take, but there is still a lot of freedom. Actually, nobody can put borders in your imagination, and …
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