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Ladder Suspended


  gently coming in from the far top right,
a single, dangling line comes down and hooks
j-like upward to catch the bottom edge of a
fairly massive ladder. It is laid flat against
the wall, small end towards the yarn and tilted
so that the bottom edge slow rises (about 20 degrees)
towards the left

More properly the supported edge of the ladder should be
just below the top of the ladder; viz:



  

Ladder Suspended, 1a





Alternatively the ladder can be hung the other way.



  Same as above, but this time, the large end
is being balanced on the end of the j-tip of 
the yarn

Ladder Suspended, 2




Several aspects are worth commenting about.

Clearly the work fits into my ideas of "up from minimalism"
in that they extend from some of the basic wall installations
of "suspended without a frame". For example, in the MOMA-FW's
Donald Judd "tower" we see:

  

This picture (as badly cropped as it is) doesn't really do the
work justice, so with a bit of digital legerdermain, i created
a virtual space for it, viz:

  

Leaving this as our starting point of minimalism from which
to be up from, "Ladder suspended" (working title only) clearly 
juxtaposes the two physical aspects of line. The yarn definitely
"reads" as traditionally drawn line element. But in almost no
case, will the ladder read as a flat, 2d object.

In working on this, i had considered (and went so far as to
purchase and locate materials to this end) creating a mock
ladder out of geometric shapes - mostly trapazoids. In keeping
with my usuall "black ink on white paper", these would have been 
coloured black. The choices were construction paper (which even
with v. high quality materials) often do NOT have a consistent
black colour to them. The alternative then was black card stock
-- approaching museum board, matting board, etc. In these 
cases they clearly are 3-d when mounted. Of course they could
be masked and painted onto the wall, but then we lose the 
physicallity of the yarn as trying to be read as 2d. 

Hence, the one approach would be to create a flat of corregated 
cardboard (eg, a refridgerator box), painted (carefully) flat 
black. This could then be mounted OFF the wall using mounting 
foam tape. Viewed from the ceiling looking down the side of 
the wall to see the spacing we get:


     ===========================         cardboard
      ----                  ---          mounting tape (poss. sev layers) 
 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX  wall itself

This idea of "lifting" these off the walls goes more towards
things like Richard Diebenkorn and/or even Frank Stella's 
shaped canvases. But, then it brings in a parallel "feel"
(i think/hope/intend) that mirrors the fact that the yarn
is definitely NOT attached so rigidly to the wall - indeed
part of it BEING yarn is that it *isn't* a painted/drawn
line on the wall surface.

Note that an important aspect is that the yarn "j" should extend
as high as possible as if it passes (like Paul Scheer's
"A Ladder for Booker T. Washington") thru the ceiling - that
is: In the limit it achieves total and actual freedom.

    

A difference here is that Scheer's work (like Brancusi's 
"Infinite Column" depends on forced, false perspective
or what i usually refer to as "anti-perspective". In the
case of the yarn "j", it's un-likely to "read" as infinitely
tall, but the idea that it somehow escapes the physical 
space of the room is sufficient to let it be "read" as
infinity for the most part. 



Metaphysical Considerations


The title "(untitled; 2007.12.11)" is (to my way of thinking)
simply too mundane since eventually some accounting and/or
insurance person will attach a title "ladder with yarn" or
something. And indeed, we all know the problems with things
like Marcel Duchamps "The Large Glass" in this manner. Recall
also, that Konstine Brancusi was arrested by custom's guards
for "smuggling" (presumably gold) into the country; ie, 
his "Bird in Flight". 

Alas; i, digress.

Thus, the several titles that naturally engendered themselves
to me were (in approximate time-increasing order)

   Greg's Iconoclastic Dilemna

This derived from a discussion during a show of one of my yarn
drawings where-in i had tacked my 4-foot level to the wall to
create a constant line end-point. That i should leave the level
up on the wall was simply something that i hadn't thought of
before even though i free preach the gospel of "the thing used
to make the art IS the art".

So, naturally one of my old nemesises, the rickety old wooden
ladder came to mind.

But, of course in keeping with questions concerning the exact
deeper meaning of works (eg, "For Carl Andre" by Linda Benglis;
viz:



   a large mound of oil scluumph't

"For Carl Andre"




That is: Once we attache a NAME (ie, a person's name) to a work, it
automatically attaches the entire works, life, time, etc of that 
person to the work - even though only one single aspect might be
*intended*.

Thus, it's better to simple title the work:

   < insert picture here &gr;

     "Iconoclastic dilemina"
      

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Links


  -[]-

  -[MOMA-FW.org site]-


   
Other people's various rants, blogs, and articles...

     -[Judd and minimalism, etc]-

     -[The probs with the Richard Serra sculpture]-

 http://paulscheer.tumblr.com/post/20284614
  Scheer's ladder]-