Corps de Garde
Debbie Broekers Tuinbouwstraat 83A 9717JD Groningen S1605496
06-28562196
d.broekers@student.rug.nl
University of Groningen Faculty of Arts
Art History and Archaeology (research master) Master thesis of 30 ECTS
Title: Corps de Garde
First reader: Dr. E.C.H. de Bruyn Second reader: Dr. P. de Ruiter Date: 19th of March 2012
Index
Preface: acknowledgement p. 4
Introduction p. 5-9
Chapter one: p. 10-24
Corps de Garde and the Alternative Art Space as Institutional Model
Chapter two p. 25-55
Corps de Garde entangled in History
Conclusion p. 56-59
Answers to the research questions
Reflection p. 60-61
Bibliography p. 62-65
Attachment 1. p. 66
Ben d’Armagnac, Performance at De Mangelgang, 1975
Attachment 2. p. 67
Ben d’Armagnac, Performance at De Martinikerk, 1976
Attachment 3. p. 68
Dan Graham, Video Piece for Shop Windows in an Arcade, 1978
Attachment 4. p. 69
Jack Goldstein, The Murder, 1977
Attachment 5. p. 70
Jack Goldstein, Two Fencers, 1976
Attachment 6. p. 71
David Salle, Bearding the Lion in His Den, 1977
Attachment 7. p. 72
Michael Smith, Down in the Rec Room, 1979
Attachment 8. p. 73
Barbara Bloom, Performance at de Prinsenhoftuin, 1976
Attachment 9. p. 74
Barbara Bloom, The Diamond Lane (poster), 1981
Attachment 10. p. 75
Charlemagne Palestine, performance on the carillon in the Martinikerk, 1976
Attachment 11. p. 76
Impression shot of Z’EV performing
Attachment 12. p. 77
Remko Scha, Guitar Mural 1 Featuring The Machines, 1981 Enclosed: Historical Overview of the Program of Corps de Garde
Preface: acknowledgement
I heartily thank the director of Corps de Garde, Leendert van Lagestein, for accepting my research proposal on Corps de Garde and for enabling me to execute this research. I want to thank Leendert for revisiting his past - retrieving pieces of information, pictures and records from the archive of Corps de Garde, answering countless of questions. This research would simply not have seen fruition without his support. I furthermore want to thank him for his critical attitude, his patience and encouragement throughout the research process. Last but not least, I thank him for the numerous cups of coffee, freshly baked bread and lovely lunches.
Debbie Broekers
Introduction
Today, alternative art spaces are a well-known phenomenon next to galleries and museums. The ‘alternatives’ often present the most experimental and innovative
programs, dedicating space and time to emerging and established artists alike, enabling them to develop work, which doesn’t seem to find an outlet in other institutional models.
Over the years, the alternative art space as an institutional model has grown intensely and has become a prominent feature of the Dutch artistic landscape.
Recently, Metropolis M, the Dutch bimonthly magazine on contemporary art, brought this format into focus. Editor-in-chief Domeniek Ruyters announced The Week of the Art Initiative on the 6th of November 2011, in which, for the duration of one week, different contemporary alternative art spaces and their practices were discussed on the magazine’s website, among them Rongwrong in Amsterdam, Het Nest in The Hague and Onomatopee in Eindhoven.1 Metropolis M wanted to stress the importance of this type of institution precisely at the moment in which its future has become uncertain. Only recently the Dutch government announced their planned budget cuts for the coming years. Precisely at the moment when funds and municipalities are working on their policies for 2013 and beyond, Metropolis M challenges them to consider the future of the alternative art space, which has become rather bleak.
The article situates the origin of the institutional model in the 1980s, but the format was developed earlier, in the mid-seventies. Alternative art- and exhibition- practices flourished in New York City, but early practices were also present in the Netherlands. A noted alternative art space still active today is De Appel in Amsterdam, initiated in 1975 by Wies Smals. Most of the alternative art spaces active then, however, have in the course of history disappeared from our general consciousness, with the consequence that very little is known today about this innovative and experimental period in Dutch history.
This disappearance of the practice of alternative art spaces from history didn’t only take place in our country; it signals a general development. Julie Ault, author of Alternative Art New York, 1965-1985, gives several reasons for this course of events. The most important one being that the documentation of alternative art spaces is frequently fugitive because of the time-based and anti-institutional format of most alternative initiatives. Another reason is the variable accessibility to this material: for some alternative art spaces only a meager paper trail exists - a mention here and there in print. In other cases, histories and data have been compiled and packed, as in the case with the archive by Corps de Garde. What becomes history is to a large degree
1 http://metropolism.com/features/week-van-het-kunstinitiatief/ consulted on the 6th of November and recently on the 5th of January.
determined by what is archived.2 In her book, Julie Ault emphasizes the importance of remembering the alternative art practice and re-presenting it today: It is (…) critical to establish written histories of meaningful situations and processes that challenged the status quo of the art system - to conserve them, to move them from memory and inscribe them, and to supply analyses of their economic and political contexts as well as strategies to be modified and improved upon.3Following Ault, I have taken it as my objective to ensure that the practice of Corps de Garde isn’t written out of the cultural histories of the recent past.
Historical context of my research
The existence of Corps de Garde was only conceivable within a certain timeframe. In my thesis, I will situate the art space and its practice within the historical period of its initiation, the mid-1970s and early-1980s. In this period, changing conceptions and forms of art practice, which can be grouped together under the broad label of post-minimalism (performative, ephemeral, temporal practices), challenged the institutional models of both the museum and the (commercial) gallery.
In this period of change, a new type of organization was envisioned: one that would be more adventurous artistically, less bureaucratic in organization and able to respond directly to the changed needs of post-minimalist practices. The emergence of the alternative art space as institutional model had many causes, - which I will come back to in more detail in chapter one. The emergence of the alternative sector was closely
intertwined with a period of economic recession. Many alternative art spaces were established as direct responses to the limitations of the commerce-orientated art world.
They wanted to break the commercial galleries’ stranglehold in exhibition opportunities and overturn the conditions of cultural consumptions. Alternative spaces facilitated and directly encouraged artistic experimentation that yielded no saleable art object.
The proliferation of alternative spaces and groups was time- and context- based.
A convergence of socioeconomic factors fostered cultural production in New York. In the book Alternative Art New York, 1965-1985 Julie Ault gives a chronology of alternative structures, spaces, artists’ groups, and organizations active in New York in the period 1965-1985. Although some of these organizations struggled unsuccessfully to survive, the list embodies a lively cultural network.
The artistic climate in New York functioned as a source of inspiration for similar practices in Europe, as it did with Corps de Garde. The director of the art space, Leendert van Lagestein, who lived in New York at the time of the art space’s initiation, brought this climate to the Netherlands with Corps de Garde.
2 Julie Ault, 2002, p. 3.
3 Citation: Julie Ault, 2002, p. 3.
Research objective
Corps de Garde is an art space, which established its practice under the radar of history writing. Corps de Garde was active from 1976 - 1985 in both Groningen and Amsterdam.
Even though Corps de Garde was active for ten years, very little to nothing has been written about the art space or its activities. In order to conserve the practice, to move it from memory and inscribe it into (art) history, I have formulated the following two research questions:
- To what extend does Corps de Garde fit into the framework of the alternative art space, which dominated the art scene in NYC in the seventies and early eighties, according to the historical model of Julie Ault as described in ‘Alternative Art New York, 1965-1985?
- What characterizes the program of Corps de Garde and how is the practice of the art space related to (art) historical developments, which were taking place within the period of the art space’s practice, that is to say, the period between the mid- 1970s till early-1980s?
Both research questions shall be answered in separate chapters. Chapter one will be dedicated to the first research question. There, I will introduce the institutional model of the alternative art space as described by Julie Ault in her book Alternative Art New York, 1965-1985. This model will form the framework for my question. With the answering of this question, the differences between the contexts of the alternative practice in NY as supposed to the practice in Groningen shall be taken into account.
Chapter two shall be dedicated to the second research question. In this chapter, I will discuss several projects by Corps de Garde and research how the practice of the art space relates to the most prevailing shifts and transformations, which were taking place within the field of post-minimalist practices in the mid-1970s - early-1980s.
Taking together, these two research questions, will not give a complete historical overview of the practice of Corps de Garde - but this is also not my goal. With this thesis, I want to locate Corps de Garde within (art) history and I want to inform the reader about the behaviour and characteristics of Corps de Garde and why it is important to look at this art practice today.
Method
I will answer my research questions based on the use of literary sources, archive research at the archive of Corps de Garde and conversations with Van Lagestein. By writing about the practice of Corps de Garde, I bring together two positions and practices, namely archival history on the one hand and personal testimony on the other. These two positions can strengthen and enrich each other, since discrepancies easily come to the fore, when it becomes apparent that the documentation and the history remembered by
Van Lagestein don’t match up. By means of this method, I am placing oral history - remembered by Van Lagestein and thereby made present - in perspective.
Field of Literature
Mapping the field of literature concerning alternative art spaces, it becomes apparent that writing about alternative art spaces and groups has been largely limited to articles for local newspapers, reviews for art journals, and self-published documents concerning specific organisations. Writings of the latter sort are always retrospective accounts on a particular space. Many of these published histories are based on interviews with participants and present multiple perspectives. Usually, they include compilations of information about past programs. A sampling of such anniversary publications includes:
5000 Artists return to Artists Space: 25 years by Gould and Smith, Consider the
Alternatives: 20 Years of Contemporary Art at Hallwalls by Ronald Ehmke and Elizabeth Licata and De Appel: performances, installaties, video, projecten, 1975-1983 by Marga van Mechelen. These publications usually describe a space as being unique, rather than contextualising it within a larger field. These histories, which are all commissioned by the organizations themselves, sometimes result in self-congratulatory language.
Signalling the need for books on the alternative arts practices and the lack of examination of ‘the underlying philosophies of the field’, to quote the author’s own words, Julie Ault wrote Alternative Art New York, 1965-1985.4 The book, consisting out of four layers of information (text, images, documents and a chronology of alternative structures) is comprised of commissioned essays by Lucy R. Lippard, Juli Carson, Brian Wallis, Arlene Goldbard, David Deitcher, Martin Beck, Miwon Kwon and Alan Moore with Jim Cornwell. With this polyphony of approach the book recounts and analyzes the history of alternative art practices from multiple perspectives. All the essays take a directly
interpretative approach and address topics that are related to the histories of alternative art practices.
With the exception of De Appel: performances, installaties, video, projecten, 1975- 1983, almost nothing is yet written about the alternative art spaces which were active in the seventies and early eighties in the Netherlands. By documenting the history of Corps de Garde, I am contributing to the overall knowledge about alternative art practices in the Netherlands and I am taking a first step in assigning Corps de Garde a proper place in history.
4 Citation: Julie Ault, 2002, p. 1. Julie Ault is a participant herself in this history.
Content of Chapters
Chapter one, Corps de Garde and the Alternative Art Space as Institutional Model, will be dedicated to the first research question. In this chapter, I describe how Van
Lagestein’s practice with gallery De Mangelgang was challenged by post-minimalist practices and how he reacted on this challenge. I describe Van Lagestein’s development as an art professional up to the moment he initiated Corps de Garde. In this first chapter, I also introduce the institutional model of the alternative art space as described by Julie Ault. By discussing a segment of alternative art spaces in New York; I modestly question the self-evident use of models and frameworks within (art) historical research. The chapter ends with a description of the practice of Corps de Garde.
Chapter two, Corps de Garde entangled in History, will be dedicated to the second research question. Chapter two commences with a characterization of the prevailing art practice of the seventies, which is performance-based. Since performance art asks for a different manner of presentation than painting or sculpture, I present the following question: How does one present a live, durational work? I, thereupon, describe how Van Lagestein dealt with this question by turning to the work of Polish
dramaturgist Jerzy Grotowksi. I stress Van Lagestein’s interest and involvement in the establishment of the most ideal condition of reception for each project, which is also related to his interest in Grotowski. Subsequently, I present two shifts within the performative field of artistic practice and describe how Van Lagestein reacted to this changes with his practice of Corps de Garde. From this behavior I draw several about the character of the art space.
Chapter One:
Corps de Garde and the Alternative Art Space as Institutional Model
Leendert Van Lagestein directed gallery De Mangelgang together with his former wife Annemarie de Kruyff from 1965 to 1975. In the seventies, a new form of artistic practice challenged the confines of the gallery system: a practice that came to be known under the broad label of post-minimalism.
Instead of letting this transformation in the art world pass him by, Van Lagestein decided to accept the challenge head-on.
In the late sixties and early seventies, partially in reaction to the earlier boom in the art market, many artists deviated from a practice that rooted in the traditional mediums of painting and sculpture and that focused on the creation of marketable objects. The resulting art practice was often experimental and ephemeral in character, consisting of video, performance, music, mixed-media installations, and site-specific works. These different practices can - for lack of a better term - be grouped together under the
denominator of post-minimalism. Post minimalism posted a threat to the workings of the existing art establishment; that is to say, the commercial galleries and museums.
There are several reasons for this fact. First of all, post-minimalist work tends to literally escape the confines of the gallery space: there were those site-specific
installations that modified the existing gallery’s interior or exterior, one could think of the work of Gordon Matta-Clark in this respect, while most earth works reach beyond the gallery space per definition.5 There are also those works that ask for a different manner of presentation: the projection of film tends to require a black box instead of a white cube.
Besides these ‘spatial’ issues, post-minimalism challenges the commercial function of the gallery space by creating art, which is often immaterial, ephemeral and, as a
consequence, unmarketable.6 With post-minimalist art, the focus shifts from the object to the subject (the performer / spectator) and from the object as such to the process of perception. This change had come, among other places, from recent developments in music and dance, where the spectator’s perceptual process was introduced into the work.
In the works by Bruce Nauman and musicians like La Monte Young and Terry Riley, the performer's and the spectator's physiological responses to both the acoustical qualities of the room and their inside brain time became important.7
5 For a quick overview of post-minimalist practices I recommend Rosalind Krauss’s ‘Notes on the Index:
Seventies Art in America. Part 2’, October, Vol. 4 (Autumn, 1977), pp. 58-67.
6 Although, in the near future it would become clear that nothing could escape the all-devouring capitalistic market system.
7 Dan Graham and Eric de Bruyn, ‘‘Sound is Material’: Dan Graham in conversation with Eric de Bruyn’, Grey Room, No. 17 (Fall, 2004), p 112.
While managing De Mangelgang Van Lagestein undertook multiple activities that can be seen in light of his increasing interest in ‘alternative’ (post-minimalist) practices - one of these activities were his visits to evenings at the Goethe Institut in Amsterdam. The director of the Institut, dr. R. Anhegger, had given the Swiss artist and curator Johannes Gachnang the possibility to organize a number of exhibitions in the newly acquired space at Herengracht 470, which was still vacant. In 1972, Gachnang named the institute Goethe Institut/Provisorium and used the space to give artists the possibility to realize projects that broke new ground.8 He literally wanted to create space for new forms of art practice such as installation art and performance, which hardly found an outlet in the art climate of Amsterdam.
It was through this space and, slightly earlier, Mickery in Loenersloot that Van Lagestein came into contact with the work of Gerrit Dekker and Ben d’Armagnac.9 On the first of December 1974, Van Lagestein witnessed a performance by Ben d’Armagnac and was very moved by this experience because of the work’s directness and closeness to its surroundings. This first acquaintance with d’Armagnac’s performance work, and the intensity of this experience, signaled the beginning of Van Lagestein’s path towards
‘alternative’ art practices; that is to say to those practices which challenged the
institutional and commercial conditions of the gallery space. In 1975, he and De Kruyff invited d’Armagnac to do a performance in De Mangelgang, which took place on the 7th of December.
The performance by Ben d’Armagnac Ben d’Armagnac and Van Lagestein had divided the large space of the gallery by means of a transparent plastic sheet.10 D’Armagnac performed on the farther, smaller side of the sheet, while the audience stood on the other side, making the performance solely visible through the wall of plastic. The performance space was completely white. In the middle of the back wall hung a white bucket filled with blood. Against each small sidewall stood a table on wheels, with clothes of two girls and one man attached to it by means of
transparent wrappings. During the performance, a third table on wheels was carefully moved by d’Armagnac, who wore black trousers and a white t-shirt. His shoes and arms were wrapped in bandages and plastic, secured with rope. When d’Armagnac - and the table he was moving - had reached the bucket, he dipped his hand in the bucket with blood and made a large cross on the tabletop. Thereupon, he drove the table to one of the sidewalls, where he changed tables and drove this one to the bucket and across the room,
8 Marga van Mechelen, 2006, p. 40,41.
9 Mickery was a theater led by director Ritsaert ten Cate. The theater was active from 1965-1991 and became well known for promoting and presenting international alternative theater companies including La Mama and The Wooster Group, and for staging its own innovative productions.
10 See attachment 1, for an installation shot of the performance space.
to the opposite wall. There he changed tables again and rode the third table to the bucket and made a cross with blood. He repeated these actions throughout the duration of the performance. The uncanny atmosphere of the performance was heightened by
distressing, looped sounds, which were triggered by each table while in movement. One could hear the sounds of saws used in a local slaughterhouse.11
The addition of the plastic sheet was a means to communicate the distance Ben d’Armagnac had experienced between himself and his audience during his last
performance. Van Lagestein and d’Armagnac had come up with the idea of the plastic sheet together, while preparing for the performance in De Mangelgang. D’Armagnac’s body of work can be seen as one sustained effort to connect with his surrounding
environment, with the people in his life and in his audience. The plastic sheet embodied d’Armagnac’s inability to achieve this.12
The performance was of importance for Van Lagestein’s development as an art professional. He stated, “For me, that performance was the beginning of a series of activities. (…) It signaled the beginning of a new way of working, a way in which I let myself be called in. I was somebody who could give Ben d’Armagnac the possibility to do things the way he wanted to do them. Ben was very content with how everything went.
My collaboration with him became a model for myself; it represented a position or attitude in the art world, which I thought made sense. (…) The first performance - the way we worked - was a real exploration”.13 The multiple characteristics of d’Armagnac’s work: provisionality, performativity, and ephemerality all posed challenges for the workings of the traditional gallery. It was no longer about presenting an object to be sold;
it was about a different kind of involvement. Being both interested in the new art practices and in developing an alternative for the conventional commercial gallery practice, Van Lagestein was enthusiastic about his collaboration with d’Armagnac and became proactive in thinking about - and developing - a fitting role for himself in the changing artistic landscape.
In 1975, after almost a decade of collaboration with De Mangelgang, Annemarie de Kruyff and Van Lagestein decided to each continue their path separately. De Kruyff continued De Mangelgang in a new location, a school building in de Kromme Elleboog in Groningen, which they had bought together.14 Van Lagestein had thoughts about a new type of art space, one that would operate outside of the market. In this period Wies
11 Louwrien Wijers, 1995, p. 117.
12Ibid.
13 Leendert van Lagestein quoted by Louwrien Wijers, 1995, p. 117. Translated from Dutch to English by myself.
14 The practice of De Mangelgang continued under the guidance of Annemarie de Kruyff for another year in Groningen. The gallery is disbanded when De Kruyff moved to Paris, where she started a gallery under her own name.
Smals, who would later initiate De Appel and who was a dear friend of Van Lagestein, became an important sparring partner. They both wanted to develop a curatorial practice, which would be able to cope with ephemeral and immaterial works like installation art and performance.15 What had become apparent from working with d’Armagnac was that performance art asked for a different kind of institution and for a different kind of commitment from the art professional.
The alternative art space
What post-minimalist art needed most of all was a platform: a place and a context where the work could be presented. Since commercial galleries and museums weren’t equipped to host these artistic practices, artists and involved art professionals had to create their own model. A new type of art space was envisioned, a non-profit art space that would have a support system for the participating artists. This new type of space was designed with the needs of the (performing) artist in mind, shifting the focus from the art object towards the artist.
The art spaces that were initiated in this period retrospectively came to be known as alternative art spaces. This type of art space has the following characteristics:
- It wants to offer an alternative to the existing system of presentation (many were established in direct response to the commerce-driven art world);
- It wants to show those practices, which aren’t being represented by the museums and most commercial galleries;
- It wants to offer different ways to represent artists and to distribute art;
- It wants to improve accessibility and support low-cost production;
- It claims to fill a particular kind of void, to address needs of artists and audiences not addressed elsewhere;
- It defines itself as anti-establishment, anti-institutional, experimental, artist-initiated, artist-run or artist-centered.16
The alternative art space became the theater of the experimental and the ephemeral. But these spaces weren’t only agencies of change; they were also, viewed in a less romantic manner, a new type of institutional model. It seems perhaps paradoxical to describe alternative art spaces in such terms, since they present themselves as being anti- institutional - they do however constitute an institutional model, which has its own discursive system, functional procedures and spatial dispositions.
A brief excursion to Foucault’s notion of the dispositif is helpful in this respect.
Foucault writes: ‘a dispositif is a thoroughly heterogeneous set consisting of discourses,
15 Information is based on conversations with van Lagestein during my research.
16 Julie Ault, 2002, p. 4.
institutions, architectural forms, regulatory decisions, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements, philosophical, moral, and philanthropic propositions—in short, the said as much as the unsaid’. To relate this back to our discussion, when one thinks of the alternative art space as institutional model, as dispositif, one becomes more aware of the field of forces that are intertwined with this practice. So, an art space has to posit itself strategically within this field of forces.17 Note that the apparatus of the alternative art space is different from the institutional models of the museum and of the commercial gallery.18
The alternative art space arose in the early seventies in different cities around the globe, but the majority of post-minimalist practices and this new type of institutional model were found in New York City.
New York
New York could be considered the epitome of the alternative arts practice. Alternative art spaces blossomed in this city, ‘consisting of venues and voices, practices and projects, agendas and events’.19 There were several socio-economical and political reasons, which brought about this proliferation.
In the early 1970s, New York City was on the verge of bankruptcy, bleeding money and jobs. The city experienced the so-called white flight, where the middle class abandoned the city in favor of the suburbs. The inner cities were left to themselves, resulting in a plethora of neglected or underutilized urban sites, which became of great interest to artists living there and artists who were drawn to the city by the resulting low residential and commercial rents, which were now in quantity abundant.
Another important factor for the concentration of the alternative arts climate in New York was the political context of various civil rights and liberation struggles. Many founders of alternative art venues derived their impetus from feminist models of critique and organization. From this perspective, alternative art practices could be considered to be just one part of a larger movement for cultural democracy.20
To conclude the list of socioeconomic factors that together created the soil for the alternative arts movement, the growth of public funding for culture at the time shouldn’t be left unmentioned. Although a principal impulse of the alternative spaces was the
17 Michel Foucault and Colin Gordon (ed.), Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972- 1977, New York, 1980, p. 194-96.
18 For more information concerning the model of the commercial gallery and the model of the museum, which are not the same, see Brian O’Doherty’s Inside the White Cube: the ideology of the gallery space, California, 1999. First appeared as essays in three issues of Artforum in 1976.
19 To quote the poetic words by Julie Ault on the New York alternative arts scene, Julie Ault, 2002, p. 9.
20 Julie Ault, 2002, p. 6. See Juli Carson’s essay ‘On Discourse as Monument: Institutional Spaces and Feminist Problematics’ in Julie Ault, 2002, for more information on this topic.
requirement to be non-profit and anti-commercial, this did not preclude the need for fund-raising. In the beginning, alternative spaces had been forced to struggle and try to get by on private funding of various kinds. In 1972 the NEA, the National Endowment for the Arts, began providing support. Under president Richard Nixon’s administrations the NEA received its greatest boost. From 1969 to 1977 the NEA expanded greatly,
increasing its budget from $11 million in 1969 to $114 million in 1977. Just one year later, the NEA established a separate granting category for ‘artists’ spaces’, and as funding in this category increased, alternative spaces expanded.21 ‘We got involved in it from the beginning’, noted Brian O’Doherty, who was NEA director of the Visual Arts Program from 1969 to 1976. ‘Government support came in at just the right moment. It was a happy accident that the endowment was there when all this started’.22
Although state- and federal funding for the arts was critical to the emergence and development of alternative art structures, it also had its less beneficial consequences.
Founded on a shoestring budget and without much thought of real survival, these projects were suddenly becoming self-perpetuating administrative projects of their own.
By 1976, The Kitchen Center was operating on a $200.000 budget, nearly half of which was being applied by the federal government. In the same period Artists Space also begun to take advantage of the public money now available. The art practice moved into the Fine Arts Building, a piece of Soho real estate temporarily donated by its owner, which also housed offices to other organizations such as the New Museum.23
By the late eighties, more than a decade after this initial institutionalization of alternative spaces, a peculiar fashion began to appear as the result of the money pressures of the sixties. The museum, with its blockbuster mentality, now began to see the alternative space as a kind of commercial opportunity, a laboratory site for
experiment. This development is evident in the restructuring of the self-image of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, wrought through the activities of its director Thomas Krens and it is evident in the merge between MoMa and P.S.1, which took place in 2000. Brian Wallis charts the symbiotic relationship between public funding and the development of the alternative art sector in his essay ‘Public Funding and
Alternative Practices’. Due to the scope of this thesis, this discussion, however rich, shall not be explored here.24
21 Brian Wallis, ‘Public Funding and Alternative Spaces’, in: Julie Ault, 2002, p. 161-181.
22 O’Doherty, quoted in Larson, ‘Rooms with a Point of View’, p. 35, quoted in Brian Wallis ‘Public Funding and Alternative Spaces’ p. 171.
23 Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois, Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, 2004, p. 577.
24 Brian Wallis, ‘Public Funding and Alternative Spaces’, in: Julie Ault, 2002, p. 161-181. Despite disadvantages of the system, the importance of the NEA funds cannot be stressed enough. Although many economic and political factors have led to the decline of the alternative space movement, the withdrawal of NEA funds in the 1990s was unquestionably the final straw for many organizations.
Taken together, these factors amounted to a concentration of alternative practices and alternative art spaces in New York. In Alternative Art New York, 1965- 1985 Julie Ault gives a chronology of alternative organizations active in the period 1965- 1985, counting seventy ‘alternatives’ active in New York City alone, and this is a mere selection of an even bigger number - in order to give an indication of this highly active and productive atmosphere. Ault chooses to speak of an alternative arts movement. She considers the term preferable to something less coherent or less influential: A movement implies shared concerns and overlapping agendas; it conjures up social configurations as well as communication and degrees of collaboration between individuals - one thing leading to another, migration of ideas and models, generative social processes.25Although this sense of interdependency is definitely present, the usage of the term bypasses the many differences that exist between the art spaces, their practices and the artists and art professionals involved.
In her essay ‘When (Art) Worlds Collide: Institutionalizing the Alternatives’, Arlene Goldbard discusses the existing differences between the people involved, stressing the difference between artists wanting nothing less than revolution and others who were happy with a show in a good gallery, merely looking for a slice of the pie.26 In a similar fashion, the one art space also isn’t the other. I would like to stress the existing differences between the alternative art spaces and how they behave as organizations because it gives us a better understanding and richer view of the field. In a way, you could consider each alternative art space to be a presentation of a position within an institutional field of possibilities. Although these differences are by no means clear-cut and although they constitute a grey area in art-historical research, it is important to acknowledge and stress these differences in order to gain more insight into the field of the alternative art space’s practice.
PS1 The P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center (originally the Institute for Art and Urban
Resources) has as its mission to create space for alternative art practices. The initiation of P.S.1 was inspired by Alanna Heiss’s experiences of the available studio and exhibition facilities she had seen in London, particularly at St. Catherine’s Dock where Bridget Riley and Peter Sedgely ran a warehouse called The Space.27 When she returned to New York, Heiss wanted to set up an organization that would provide the same services. In 1971, she founded P.S.1; an institute dedicated to converting abandoned and
25 Julie Ault, 2002, p. 4.
26 Arlene Goldbard, ‘When (Art) Worlds Collide: Institutionalizing the Alternatives’, in: Julie Ault, 2002, p. 185.
27 Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois, Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, 2004, p. 577.
underutilized buildings in New York City into performance, exhibition and studio spaces for contemporary artists.28
From 1971 to 1975 the Institute operated in several locations, such as the Idea Warehouse and the Anchorage at the Brooklyn Bridge. In 1973, the Institute had moved into the Clocktower in Lower Manhattan. The Clocktower Gallery contained exhibition rooms and studios for artists, who were selected each year by a committee of visual professionals as part of P.S.1’s National and International Studio Program.29 The Studio Program was initiated at a time when artist-in-residency’s were still a rare phenomenon.
With this program PS1 acquired, in a relatively short period of time, a name and support system for itself. In 1976, the Institute acquired P.S.1, a derelict public school building in Queens, which it rented from New York City for twenty years at the cost of $1 per year.
P.S.1 now had studio space to offer on a vast scale along with acres of exactly the
‘alternative’ space required by the kind of art that had in part been bred by such arenas in the first place.30
Alanna Heiss transformed P.S.1 into an exhibition and studio program space in 1976, renovating it only minimally in order to preserve and promote the décor of the alternative. I use the word décor since there is a difference between the practice of most alternative art spaces and the practice of PS1, which operates more akin to the official or established institutional model. The multiple exhibition spaces, studio program and other activities required thorough and long-term planning and an elaborate hierarchical
organizational structure. In this way PS1 differs from other alternatives, which are often more flexible and less hierarchical in organization. Under the directory of Alanna Heiss PS1 assumed the look of the alternative, while behaving as its counterpart.31 From a European perspective the practice of PS1 could be compared to that of a kunsthalle. But since this institutional model doesn’t exist in the United States (where governmental or municipal support for the arts is unusual), PS1 hovers between the two institutional models.
In 1976, the first major exhibition of PS1 Rooms opened, for which 78 artists were invited to break through the building’s walls and install pieces where they pleased. The exhibition, featuring Richard Serra and Walter De Maria, presented post-Minimalist installation art.32 Since that moment, P.S.1 has presented hundreds of exhibitions, projects, and permanent site-specific installations by James Turrell, Keith Sonnier,
28 Julie Ault, 2002, p. 33
29 In 1978 Ben d’Armagnac was one of the artists that made the cut and spend a few months working in New York at P.S.1.
30 Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois, Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, 2004, p. 577.
31 That PS1 is now a satellite of MOMA is only a logical consequence of this strategy.
32 For more information about this exhibition and about the works that were featured I recommend Rosalind Krauss’s ‘Notes on the Index: Seventies Art in America. Part 2’, October, Vol. 4 (Autumn, 1977), pp. 58-67.
Richard Serra, Lawrence Weiner, and others.33 So, with PS1, Heiss created the conditions and possibilities for artists to execute and present work, which went beyond what was possible in the galleries.
Artists Space Irving Sandler, consultant to the New York State Council on the Arts, and Trudie Grace, director of its Visual Arts Program, were keen on providing a site for alternative
practices. With financial backing from the New York State Council on the Arts they founded Artists Space in 1972 as a pilot program of NYSCA, with the goal of assisting young, emerging artists.34
The concept of Artists Space was to create a service organization for emerging artists. They realized this in several ways. In 1974, they initiated the Unaffiliated Artists File, which gathers and holds résumés of thousands of artists.35 Artists Space uses the file to curate its regularly scheduled group shows called Selections, and it is also
accessible as a resource.36 Irving Sandler and Trudie Grace also initiated the Emergency Materials Fund, which assisted artists with the presentation of their work at an
established non-profit venue, and the Independent Exhibitions Program, which
supported the needs of artists who were involved in the production and presentation of work outside the context of an existing institutional structure.37 The direct distribution of funds to artists, without delays and the usual frustrations concerning funding, has remained a consistent goal of Artists Space. Because of these services, Artists’s Space was appealing for young artists and curators alike.
In the time Van Lagestein was in NY, Helene Winer was the director of Artists Space. During her directory, she organized a run of important shows, amongst others Pictures by Douglas Crimp.38 Prior to Pictures, Helene Winer organized many exhibitions featuring the artists who would be included in that 1977 show, as well as their fellow travelers. All of them provided important opportunities for artists like, David Salle, Matt
33 http://momaps1.org/about/ consulted on 3-12-2011. In partnership with the City of New York (which provides financial support and leasing of P.S.1’s properties), Alanna Heiss and Glenn Lowry, the director of the Museum of Modern Art, agreed to merge the two institutions in 1999. The objectives of the merger were to share complementary resources, interests, and constituencies, and to ensure financial stability for P.S.1.
34 Julie Ault, 2002, p. 35, 36.
35 Renamed the Irving Sandler Artists File in 1997. Today the file is accessible online on http://local-artists.org/
36 Julie Ault, 2002, p. 35,36.
37 Both programs were run from 1973 to 1991. Source: http://www.artistsspace.org/history/ consulted on 3-12- 2011. Located at 38 Greene Street, Artists Space is currently active with generally its same mission and methods.
38 The exhibition Pictures at Artists Space presented the work of Sherrie Levine, Jack Goldstein, Phillip Smith, Troy Brauntuch, and Robert Longo.
Mullican, Barbara Bloom, Dara Birnbaum, Laurie Simmons, Richard Prince, and Michael Smith.
Yet her support for a particular group of artists within the Artists-Space-nexus ran up against the chaotic democracy-in-action exhibition program as it had been originally conceived.39 Artists Space had from the start offered an exhibition program determined by artists selecting other artists and in addition artists could only show once, to make room for others. Perhaps unavoidable, a system to avoid conflicts of interest began to show signs of nepotism in the artists’ choices. With his typical humor, Paul McMahon, assistant director of Helene Winer, suggested that they should title their next show Studio Assistants, Lovers, and People I Owe Money To.40
112 Greene Street 112 Workshop / 112 Greene Street was initiated in 1970 and run by artist Jeffrey Lew.
He turned the ground floor of his building at 112 Greene Street into a first-come-first- serve studio and exhibition space. The raw and unfinished character of 112 Workshop inspired specific artistic responses and uses of materials: artists often made interventions and altered the architecture itself. People came, working with scrap metal, cast-off wood and cloth, industrial paint, rope, string, dirt, lights, mirrors, video.41 Most of the work was site-specific and ephemeral: there one day, gone the next.
Jeffrey Lew and co-founder Gordon Matta-Clark did not control or even organize the program of Workshop 112 but rather provided the site and generated the attitude for things to happen. Artists like Vito Acconci, Italo Scanga, Laurie Anderson, Joseph Beuys, Phillip Glass, Fran Lebowitz, Richard Mock, Richard Serra, William Wegman, Dennis Oppenheim and Chris Burden made work there. The workshop lost its space in 1978 and relocated to 325 Spring Street in 1979. Because the activities of 112 Workshop had been determined largely by its physical environment, it was renamed White Columns in its new incarnation.42
112 Greene Street was really a space for experiment and site-specific works. It was a space of interest for the emerging and established artists alike, because it created the conditions to execute works, which weren’t conceivable within the limited gallery space.
39 Douglas Eklund, 2009, p. 94, 95
40 Gould and Smith, 5000 Artists Return to Artists Space, p. 85, in Douglas Eklund, 2009, p. 94
41 Holland Cotter, ‘The Boom is Over. Long Live the Art!’ in The New York Times, published on 12 February 2009. Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/arts/design/15cott.html?pagewanted=1
42 Julie Ault, 2002, p. 29, 30.
The Kitchen The Kitchen started as an artist collective in 1971 by artists who were frustrated by the fact that museums and commercial galleries didn’t provide an outlet for video art. A group of artists, most notably Steina and Woody Vesulka, began screening their video pieces in the only available place at the Mercer Arts Center - the kitchen.
Two years later the Kitchen was incorporated as a non-profit art studio and became a platform where video artists, experimental composers and performers could share their ideas with like-minded colleagues. Robert Stearns ran the Kitchen in its early years. The organization has expanded its scope and size throughout its history, becoming a venue for performance (John Kelly, Eric Bogosian, Karen Finley), experimental music (Phillip Glass), dance (Bill T. Jones, Molissa Fenley), film and literature in addition to their prior focus on video.43 Eric Bogosian, producer and founder of the dance series
‘Dancing in the Kitchen’, introduced such choreographers as Bill T. Jones and Karole Armitage to New York audiences.44
From a closer look at only four alternative art spaces it becomes apparent that there is no such thing as the one alternative art space. On the contrary, there exists a whole gamut of practices, ranging from the most experimental and underground art spaces to the highly institutional and established ones, which, on both ends of the spectrum, relate to the ideals of the alternative art space practice. P.S.1 institutionalized ‘the alternative’, offering artists a highly professional outlet for their works, while 112 Greene Street yielded experimentation in a highly unstructured fashion where artists could - and had to - ‘do it themselves’. Artists Space, on the contrary, was a real service organization; a practice appealing to the younger artist looking for a production and exhibition outlet.
The Kitchen was established to offer a platform for video artists, extending its practice throughout the years to incorporate other media that struggled finding an outlet.
This entry on New York is not only illustrative in introducing the framework of the alternative art space as institutional model but the city also stands in special relation to the coming about of Corps de Garde. When Van Lagestein had quit his practice with De Mangelgang, he’d spend a lot of time in New York. He’d moved to the City in the summer of 1975 together with his girlfriend, the CalArts artist, Barbara Bloom, who he’d met in Amsterdam. While living in New York, they acquainted themselves with the artistic climate the city had to offer. They visited countless alternative art spaces and met numerous artists.45A lot of CalArts artists came to New York at that time;
43 Rhys Chatham was the music director spanning the periods 1972-1973 and 1977-1980.
44 www.ericbogosian.com/bio.html consulted on the 6th of January 2012. Eric Bogosian was dance curator at The Kitchen from 1978-1981.
45 Helene Winer even proposed that they could stay in a room at Artists Space, where they could stay between the move from their apartment on Greenwhich to Bleecker.
Charlemagne Palestine, Jack Goldstein, David Salle, Troy Brauntuch, Jim Casebere, Eric Fischl, Jim Lapine, Ross Bleckner - to mention only a few. They became friends.46Among the spaces they visited regularly were 112 Workshop / 112 Greene Street, The Kitchen, P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Artists Space, Franklin Furnace, Printed Matter, Colab, Jaap Rietman Books, Paula Cooper and Castelli/Sonnabend. The latter three weren’t alternative art spaces, but an influential bookstore and two commercial galleries that were closely involved with the scene.47
So, in 1975 Van Lagestein found himself in the Mecca of the alternative arts scene exactly at the moment in which he was envisioning a proper function for himself within this climate. He encountered different types of institutional models, which influenced the coming about of Corps de Garde. Even though New York suited him, he wanted to start an alternative art space in the Netherlands, in Groningen. This decision was based on several reasons. First of all, Van Lagestein wanted to return to Groningen because he had a family there, which he wanted to be close to. Secondly, he considered it important to bring a part of the existing art activity from New York to Groningen, a city located a-centric from the viewpoint of art production in the Netherlands. He wanted to give local artists - and Dutch artists in general - the opportunity to keep themselves informed about the art developments taking place abroad, most notably in NYC. With the practice of Corps de Garde, Van Lagestein brought a part of this climate to Groningen by means of the art space’s residency program, which hosted among others the American artists Jack Goldstein, David Salle, Barbara Bloom and Michael Smith. Thirdly, an alternative art space was still lacking in Groningen: there were several galleries and one municipal museum active, but both these institutional formats weren’t equipped to show the new art practices taking place.48 So, when Van Lagestein received an offer for the Corps de Garde building in Groningen, he accepted and decided to divide his time between New York and Groningen. This close relation to New York would shape the art space’s program throughout the years of its practice.
Groningen versus New York
Corps de Garde was founded in Groningen and received the name of the building it was located in. Groningen is a very different type of city in relation to New York: it is located a-centric in relation to the art activity, while New York forms an important centre for the entire art world. Further more, Groningen is a very small city, that today counts about
46 Van Lagestein, quoted in a conversation on the 11th of October 2011.
47 The information for this paragraph came from conversations with Van Lagestein during my research.
48 Information for this paragraph is based on conversations with Van Lagestein and based on material from the archive, most notably the first written documentation concerning the practice of the art space; a small booklet stating the objectives of Corps de Garde.
120.000 inhabitants, while New York counts more than 8 million people - to briefly indicate the difference in scale.
There are also important differences in the way in which art institutions are financed in both countries. In America, private parties fund most galleries and museums.
This system is supported by profitable tax arrangements, which make it appealing for investors to invest in art. The period that the NEA (government money) supported the arts was an exception to the rule. In the Netherlands this system is lacking; private funding happens only incidentally. Hence, institutions need governmental- and
municipal-support to supply for the basic financial infrastructure of their organizations.
But as came to the fore in the discussions concerning the NEA, this arrangement has its difficulties.
The program of Corps de Garde commenced in February 1976. The first year of its practice Corps de Garde got by on private money and incidental sale-exhibitions, which were organized in order to gain the art space some extra income to be able to continue the experimental non-commercial line of activities they had set out to offer. But after the first year, when it became apparent that Corps de Garde had developed itself as a non-profit art space, a different financial structure had to be developed: Corps de Garde became a foundation. This institutional format is only possible in countries where the government and the municipalities support the arts. Initially, Van Lagestein had wanted Corps de Garde to become a fund, but this format wasn’t possible since Groningen - and the Netherlands in general - lacked a collectors environment.49
Another important difference between alternative practices in New York and Corps de Garde in Groningen was how they positioned themselves in relation to the existing art establishment: the majority of alternative art spaces in New York were established as anti-establishment and anti-institutional. In addition to wanting to offer an alternative to the existing art circuit, they wanted to really react against the existing system. This is different from Corps de Garde, which was initiated more in reaction to Van Lagestein’s own history with De Mangelgang and his consequent development as an art professional. Corps de Garde worked on a more collaborative level instead of an oppositional one. Van Lagestein recalled: There was a lot of curiosity from more
established institutions in what we were doing with Corps de Garde. Even to the extent that there were more requests than could be accepted. The relation with the museums and politics were good. In that sense it was more akin to the climate in Canada than to the climate in NY. The climate in NY was far more vicious.50
49 Information based on conversations with Van Lagestein during my research.
50 Van Lagestein, quoted in a conversation on the 11th of October 2011.
Corps de Garde
Corps de Garde was a non-profit art space with an artist-in-residency program and a program for the installation of projects. Corps de Garde focussed on production and its practice was artist-centered: focussing on the artist and his or her needs in relation to the artistic process. This also comes to the fore by the central position of the residency
program, which lay at the heart of the art space’s activities. Besides this core activity, the art studio had an open door to the public as much as possible: they had the intention and the capability to make the projects of Corps de Garde public in manifestations and other public formats like the Groninger summer event, called: De zomermanifestatie.51
The program of Corps de Garde had no restrictions concerning the content of the program or concerning the selection of artists. Van Lagestein didn’t limit his practice to one particular medium, but was equally interested in all of them - whether it be dance, performance, music, installation, sculpture, painting or stand-up comedy.52 Neither was Van Lagestein interested in creating / presenting a coherent program. Thus, the program of the art space is solely based on Van Lagestein’s interest in certain artists and their practice.
Artist-in-Residency Program
Central to the practice of Corps de Garde was its residency program. On invitation artists could work in the studio space of Corps de Garde in Groningen, where facilities and a small staff were available for assistance with the development and execution of projects.
The artist-in-residency periods didn’t have to be concluded with a finished work. It could also be a period for the artist to develop his of her practice without a visible testimony of this development -although this was almost never the case. In 1981, Corps de Garde acquired a second building in Groningen. With this addition, the building of Corps de Garde in the Oude Boteringestraat started to focus on presentation, while the residency function moved to the new building at the Stoeldraaiersstraat.
It was very unusual to offer artist-in-residency programs in this period of time, especially for a small-scaled art space like Corps de Garde. PS1 offered foreign artists the chance to spend some time in NY in their studio’s at the Clocktower, but this was still a rather large organization. The idea to offer residencies had grown naturally from Van Lagestein’s experience with De Mangelgang - where he had worked with artists - among others Ben d’Armagnac and Gerrit Dekker - for longer periods of time, while hosting them in the city. He took this manner of working with him in his practice of Corps de Garde, where he incorporated it in the program.
51Zomermanifestatie is Dutch for summer manifestation.
52 Leendert van Lagestein, Gerlof Leistra, Rene Cuperus, ‘Art in Residence’, Verbeeldt 2. 1976.
The residency program as a format suited Van Lagestein’s manner of working as an art professional. He was very interested in the process of production and he was often closely involved within this period, as for instance in determining the most ideal
condition of presentation for the work. The residency format created the perfect circumstance for this manner of working.
On location
Next to the residency program, a second prevailing characteristic of Corps de Garde is its presentation of projects on location. This term ‘on location’ referred to all those works which were created in situ, which could refer to installation- and performative-based practices; all those projects which are created for certain period of time at a certain location.
Van Lagestein’s main goal as an art professional was to support artists who made work in situ: during his practice with Corps de Garde he encouraged artists to present projects on location, also outside the conventional parameters of the art space. This objective matched the artistic practices of the mid-1970s - mid-1980s, with which Van Lagestein would be involved.
To conclude this first introduction on Corps de Garde, I want to emphasize the art space’s modesty in its objectives and practice. Van Lagestein preferred the idea to start small: with a limited number of activities for an audience of interested people, and let the practice grow naturally from there; like rings in the water after a stone pebble is thrown in.53
Reflection
When the existing art establishment was challenged by post-minimalist practices, Van Lagestein accepted the challenge and began his search for a fitting role within the perpetually changing artistic landscape. So, as an art professional he developed in sync with the changing art practice. This is worth emphasizing because it is rather unusual to follow the changes while they are taking place instead of simply casting them aside, since they don’t fit the framework one is working in. Instead, Van Lagestein embraced the
‘alternative’ by hosting a performance by Ben d’Armagnac in De Mangelgang and by visiting the Goethe Institut, where alternative practices found an outlet. He had numerous conversations with Wies Smals about a new kind of practice and he went to New York, the capital of the alternative arts scene. Van Lagestein took all these
experiences with him in his search for a fitting role within the shifting artistic landscape.
With the initiation of Corps de Garde, he found himself that role.
53 Information based on conversations with Van Lagestein during my research.
Chapter Two Corps de Garde entangled in History
On the 6th of February 1976, the program of Corps de Garde premiered with a project by the Dutch artist Gerrit Dekker (b. 1943). His work was presented on the first floor of Corps de Garde. People could visit his work from 8 till 10 pm. The room of the building at the Oude Boteringestraat 74 was dimly lit. One could listen for two hours to an audio recording of a knocking sound. It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the sound. The knocking happened very regularly, with now and then an interruption, appearing to be sometimes near and then in the distance. After a while, it became clear that the recorded sound came from the artist himself, who had stumbled around the darkened gallery space before the audience had
arrived, wearing very heavy boots, hitting a wall occasionally.
Dekker’s performance and the manner in which the audience experienced his work at Corps de Garde testify to the important changes that have taken place within the post-minimal field of art perception. The spectator is no longer fashioned as the
disembodied eye of the modernist perception, but has become a fully embodied, viewing subject.54 He or she is invited to move through the architectural space to experience the work. Moreover, the impulses delivered by the presented work are no longer solely visual, but include all the senses. That is to say, the audience of Dekker’s performance could have been startled by the knocking sound they heard, they could have felt the presence of other people in the room echoing the sound, they could have become aware of their own bodily presence.55
It can be said of the majority of art made in the seventies that you had to be there. The same goes for the projects undertaken by Corps de Garde. A performance by Ben d’Armagnac had to be experienced and an environment by Gerrit Dekker allowed the spectator to move around, and listen to multiple sources of sound. The same goes for installations by Maryanne Amacher or Michael Brewster and there were even some works, like Dan Graham’s Video Piece for Shop Windows in an Arcade, which needed the presence of an audience to be activated. The prevailing mode of practice was thus
performance-based - a term that refers not only to the strict denominator of ‘performance art’ but to all types of work that are realized in a specific situation and possess a
durational aspect.56
54 See Clement Greenberg’s famous essay ‘Modernist Painting’ (1961) for the modernist mode of visual analysis.
55 This was not the first time Dekker surprised his audience with work in which the sensual experiences, besides the visual, were explored. Not long before this performance, Dekker had treated the floor of De Appel with bleach. Source: Lily van Ginneken, ‘Groningen: Galerij der Galerijen’, Volkskrant, February the 13th 1976.
56 Douglas Crimp, ‘Pictures’, October, Vol. 8 (Spring 1979), p. 75-88.
Obviously, the presentation of a performance is rather different from the presentation of a painting or a piece of sculpture, which are presented in the white cube of a gallery. Because performance deviates from this traditional format, extensive thought had to go into the manner of presentation: How does one present a live,
durational work? In thinking about these questions Van Lagestein turned to the work of Polish theater maker Jerzy Grotowski, which offered him a model. Grotowski’s theater company looked for the essence of theater and discovered - by gradually eliminating everything that proved itself to be superfluous (make-up, costume, scenography, a separate performance area (stage), lighting and sound effects, etc.) - that the one thing the theater cannot exist without is the actor-spectator relationship of perceptual, live, direct communion.57 Stressing the virtue of the simultaneity of production and reception and the possibilities that are inherent in this moment of communal co-presence of actor and spectator, Grotowski’s theater company revealed the backbone condition of the medium and acclaimed this to be its greatest reformist potential.58
To be able to speak of this greatest potential of the theater, Grotowski has to turn to analogy, since the true potential of the medium cannot be captured in words.
Grotowski uses the analogy of the ‘discarding of masks’ to refer to theater’s reformist possibilities: ‘it [theater] is capable of challenging itself and its audience by violating accepted stereotypes of vision, feeling and judgement (…). This defiance of taboo, this transgression, provides the shock, which rips of the mask, enabling to give ourselves nakedly to something which is impossible to define but which contains Eros and Caritas’.59
Since this discarding of masks is only possible when there is a actor-spectator relationship of perceptual, live communion, Grotowski’s theater strived to abolish all existing distance between the two: ‘Let the most drastic scenes happen face to face with the spectator so that he is within arm’s reach of the actor, can feel his breathing and smell the perspiration’.60 The removal of distance didn’t limit itself to the establishment of physical nearness; it was equally about getting nearer to one another in a
psychological sense. He found it the performer’s task to give him or herself fully: to be without defence. At the same time, this act - revealing, opening up, emerging from oneself as opposed to closing up - would act as an invitation to the spectator to commit, according to Grotowski. He compares this gesture of commitment to a bond of genuine love between two human beings.61 ‘Because of this’, the Polish dramaturgist writes, ‘each challenge from the actor, each of his magical acts becomes something great, something
57 Jerzy Grotowski, 1968, p. 19.
58Ibid.
59Ibid. p. 21, 22.
60Ibid. p. 1968, p. 22.
61Ibid. p. 212.
