Helen Chadwick. Constructing identities between art and architecture PDF
Preview Helen Chadwick. Constructing identities between art and architecture
Helen Chadwick HELEN CHADWICK CONSTRUCTING IDENTITIES BETWEEN ART A ND ARCHITECTURE Stephen Walker Titlepage_HelenChadwick_v1.indd 1 9/3/13 2:05 PM Published in 2013 by I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd 6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 www.ibtauris.com Distributed in the United States and Canada exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 Copyright ! 2013 Stephen Walker The right of Stephen Walker to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. International Library of Modern and Contemporary Art: 14 ISBN 978 1 78076 007 0 A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record for this book is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress Catolog Card Number: available Printed and bound in Great Britain by T.J. International, Padstow, Cornwall from camera-ready copy edited and supplied by the author to Julia, Felix and Benjamin Contents List of illustrations viii Acknowledgements ix Preface x Integration of sources xiii Introduction: New negotiations 1 Part One: The creative process and the creative persona 1: The creative self 23 2: The creative process and total pattern 37 Part Two: Experience, architecture and identity 3: Body and self 53 4: ‘Multistability’ and viewing position 77 Part Three: Artifice and nature 5: The grotto and architectural conceit 99 6: Architecture, the divinities and the authority of science 121 7: ‘Viral architecture’ and the rapprochement of art and science 141 Part Four: Theory and practice 8: Geometry, ‘stereonomy’ and surface 161 9: The role of making 179 Conclusion 205 Notes 209 Bibliography 219 Index 221 Illustrations All works by Helen Chadwick. All images © Leeds Museums & Galleries (Henry Moore Institute Archive) and The Helen Chadwick Estate 1 Examples of Chadwick’s notebooks and books from her library xvi 2 Menstrual Toilet, 1975–6 3 3 In the Kitchen, 1977 4–5 4 Model Institution, 1981–4 7–9 5 Train of Thought, 1978–9 13–17 6 Le Bateleur from her Notebook 2003.19/E/5.88–9 25 7 The Juggler’s Table, 1983 28 8 Eroticism, 1990 88 9 Enfleshing I, 1989 89 10 The Philosopher’s Fear of Flesh, 1989 91 11 Of Mutability, 1986–7 112–13 12 Viral Landscapes, 1988–9 142–3 13 Ego Geometria Sum, 1983–5 166–7 14 Nostalgie de la Boue, 1989 182 15 Piss Flowers, 1991–2 188–9 16 Cacao, 1994 190 Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the support of the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, the staff there including Penelope Curtis, Martina Droth, Ellen Tait and Jon Wood, and in particular to thank the archivists Victoria Worsley, Ian Kaye and Claire Mayoh. Jeremy Till and Andrew Ballantyne gave their advice and support during the formative stages of this research, and Louisa Buck and Ashley Givens provided their help with particular details on the way through. I am very grateful to Andrew Benjamin, Mark Haworth-Booth, and in particular Philip Stanley and Marina Warner, all of whom generously gave time to discuss their personal recollections of Helen Chadwick. At I.B.Tauris, I would like to thank Philippa Brewster, Liza Thompson and Alex Higson for their enduring support throughout the process of publication. Annie Jackson was once again a patient and sympathetic proofreader. I would also like to thank Florance and David Notarius from the Estate of Helen Chadwick for generously granting image rights, and the editors of AMBIT magazine for their permission to reproduce Chadwick’s articles. Finally, I am grateful to the Henry Moore Institute for their financial support during my initial archival research, and to the Arts and Humanities Research Council for a Research Leave Grant that was invaluable for the writing of this book. Preface The artist Helen Chadwick (1953–96) produced such a diverse range of work it is not possible to name a ‘typical’ piece or say for what she is best know. Perhaps her Piss Flowers or her chocolate fountain Cacao, or her photographic works Viral Landscapes or Meat Abstracts or Wreaths to Pleasure, or her operatic installations Ego Geometria Sum or Of Mutability. Her impact in the art world remains similarly hard to pin down; the first woman nominee for the Turner Prize, some-time broadcaster, curator, teacher and mentor, her contemporaries and younger generations of artists frequently acknowledge her influence. Yet despite such acknowledgements, or perhaps because of such diversity, her realised work has never really established a place for itself in the public eye. It might be said that she was an artist slightly out of her time. Work that was controversial and experimental when it was produced now seems too easily accepted; her work was far too prescient for its own good. While most art-historical reception of Chadwick’s work has understandably concentrated on her realised projects (and within these, the later projects such as those just mentioned), her notebooks reveal the extent to which these were informed by expansive research work and theoretical developments that were as creative as the realised pieces. Considered through this lens, her apparently diverse œuvre becomes far more coherent: life-long preoccupations were tirelessly explored, interrogated and developed in concert with her artistic making. Nevertheless, it is not my intention to demonstrate such consistency in this book, although it might emerge as something of a by-product. My primary concern is to enjoy the range, depth and continuing currency of Chadwick’s research and theoretical positioning. Chasing one of her enduring preoccupations—the construction and maintenance of personal identity—Chadwick’s work can offer insights into a number of major, enduring questions: the relationship between body, space, self and world;
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