Juan Muñoz.

Washington
Author(s): Lynne Cooke
Source: The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 144, No. 1186 (Jan., 2002), pp. 56-58
Published by: Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/889448
Accessed: 20-04-2023 10:15 UTC

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 EXHIBITION REVIEWS

understood Charles Ray's Male mannequin

(1990), Louise Bourgeois's Pregnant (2001)
or Kiki Smith's astonishing Virgin (1993;
Fig.80), so oddly reminiscent of his own
Penitent Magdalen. Sculpture is a more con-
servative art because three-dimensional
works of art remain far more tied to the
body than painting. The abstract sculpture
of Deacon, Shapiro and even Chamberlain
remains closer to figurative art than the
paintings of their peers. And even Serra, I
would argue, remains tied to tradition, for
the expressive power of his sculpture essen-
tially depends upon the movement of our
bodies through his abstract constructions.
DAVID CARRIER

Case Westernm Reserve University/Cleveland Institute

'De Kooning/Chamberlain. Influence and Transform

Essay by Bernice Rose. Fully illustrated in
(PaceWildenstein, New York, 2001). ISBN
1-930743-09-2.
2Richard Serra. Torqued Spirals, Toruses and Spheres. Essay
by Hal Foster. Fully illustrated in b. & w. (Gagosian
Gallery, New York, 2001), $30. ISBN 1-880154-
59-5.
79. Elevational wedge, by Richard Serra. 2001. Hot rolled steel, 12.7 by 330.2 by 660.1 cm. (Exh. Gagos
3Naked Since 1950. Fully illustrated in col. (C&M Arts,
Gallery, New York). New York, 2001), $40. No ISBN.

march, you finally reached menttheGreenberg

centre, expressed
and the hope that
then were ready to repeat thethat movement
best new sculpture could become more
when you exited. The relation between
expressive than painting. When he revised
your experience of entering these
that essay he noted that his Washington
sculp-
in 1958, hopes
tures, your memory of theirhad been dashed. Painting remained
appearance Juan
theMufioz
from the outside, and the view
leading you had
art. Comparing the nine sculptures
standing at the centre, is in
hard to describe
the survey Psychic
exhibition Naked Since 1950 at emigration, inner exile, solitari-
C&M The
and altogether compelling. Arts (closed
effect isDecember) ness
8th with and isolation: such themes haunt the
something like entering a the sixteen paintings
traditional maze, on display suggests
art of Juan Mufioz from its beginnings in
but what gardener made that this conclusion from
labyrinths still remains valid.3 the mid-1980s. Mufioz was, by his own
Donatello
heavy steel? Betwixt the torus and thewould have been
sphere astonished at
uses account, somewhat of a late starter, having
long curved steel panels to thecreate
paintingsfive pas- Picasso and first
by Dubuffet, Roy studied print-making and then ven-
sageways. After you walk Lichtenstein,
through,but you couldcanimmediately have
tured into art criticism and curating before
re-enter on another parallel path. Also in finding his metier as a sculptor. With hind-
the exhibition were Elevational wedge (Fig.79), sight, such tardiness seems less a series of
a site-specific, inclined plane rising to the digressions or diversions than a prolonged
height of five inches on the floor above an gestation. For his earliest works are fully
exiting gallery ramp; Union of the tomrus and the mature statements that co-exist in easy
sphere, in which the two sections constitute companionship with the most recent, as
an interior which cannot be viewed or the current retrospective at the Hirsh-
entered; and Ali-Frazier, two massive blocks, horn Museum and Sculpture Garden,
one eight inches wider than the other, set Washington (to 13th January)' makes
in identical rooms. But these less menacing clear. What should have been a mid-career
sculptures were much less convincing than sampling has become, following Mufioz's
the torqued spirals or Betwixt the tomrus and the premature death in August last summer,
sphere. at the age of forty-seven, a retrospective
Without visible rival, Serra is the most overview, in a tragic shift that burdens this
radical, and (this is a quite distinct claim) the modest but focused selection in unexpected
greatest of contemporary American sculp- ways. Rather than attempting the compre-
tors. Over the past thirty years or so he has hensive in-depth examination that befits the
created a distinguished, highly innovative posthumous retrospective of a key artist, this
body of art, unapproached by anyone else touring exhibition was planned as a number
of his generation. Why then does one of brilliant aperfus, haunting visions that
remain ambivalent about this greatly whet the appetite. Fortunately, the remark-
admired figure ? Part of the problem is that able site-specific installation currently in the
leftist commentators, encouraging him to Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, London, a
think of himself as a social protest artist, highpoint in Mufioz's reuvre, complements
have distorted Serra's true achievement. the American show. It demonstrates the
But the real difficulty is that Serra's art is too depth of imaginative eloquence with which
obviously about menace, about making us he again pursued, or was pursued by, his
feel uncomfortable when we walk in thematic demons, in a virtuoso solution to a
between his high leaning walls. There is fraught space that is too vast, too overpow-
something uneconomical, even unaesthetic ering and very awkwardly related to the
about his dependence upon enormous remaining exhibiting spaces in the museum.
forms. He fascinates and excites me, but Mufioz ingeniously resolved the problem of
makes me uneasy. scale by inserting a false floor punctuated by
80. Virgin, by Kiki Smith. 1993. Paper, glass, plastic
In the original version of his essay
and'The
metho-cellulose, 152.4 by 47 by 22.9 cm. moving elevators, a favourite motif, which
New Sculpture', published in 1948, Cle-
(Rachofsky persuasively
Collection; exh. C&M Arts, New York). occupy the desolate arena,

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 EXHIBITION REVIEWS

81. Double bind (detail), byJuan 83. Many times2001.

Mufioz. (detail), Mixed
byJuan Mufioz. 2000. Resin and pigment, dimensions variable. (Artist's estate; exh.
media installation. (Exh. Tate Modern, London).
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington).

Mufioz's
while inserting in limbo - in
a prison/refuge
between the upper and lower
familiar cast of anonymous
purgatory is that of everyman/woman:
their bleak, claustrophobic,
tity-less milieu precludes must
affect (Fig.81). By implication
mentary on the problematic
within any modern museum,
is the culmination of Mufioz's
transformation of the space
and/or public arena into
with melancholic anomie.
In Washington, too, it is when a work the reactionary implications that statuary
wholly occupies a gallery to itself thatcarried for a self-consciously vanguardistmous c6terie occupying a balcony that
82. Wasteland, byJuan Mufioz. 1986. Bronze, steel and linoleum, dimensions variable. (Marvin and Elayneby which the visitor is made to recognise his
Mordes, Baltimore; exh. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington).
abiding vision is most potently
artist. In his euvre such surrogates assumed
realised. decks
Wasteland-(Fig.82),
his an early work,r86es that formerly belonged to fools and
comprises
figuresa linoleum
whosetiled floor with jesters
a in royal courts, clairvoyant, candid
strongly vertiginous illusionistic
for patternsoothsayers who ruefully mock the human
which uncannily destabilises
confining, iden-the visitor who condition. As evidenced in the later group
venture across it,and
communality all the while ob- of idling flaneurs, informally dubbed 'the
served by a the
dark laconic figure of a ventri- Chinese' on account of their Asiatic phys-
com-
substratum
loquist's dummy perched precariously oniognomies (Fig.83), these disturbingly self-
a low shelf in the otherwise
Double bind empty site.absorbed protagonists, even while ignoring
Kindred figures to the dummy, including
persistent the spectator, manage to impart a height-
prompters,
of the shadowy sentinels and dwarves,
art gallery ened self-consciousness so that the viewer
voids
entered suffused
Mufioz's vocabulary as a means tosomehow always feels supernumerary, an
re-engage with the human figure without uninvited extra rather than the proverbial
eavesdropper. Stranded below this anony-
stretches around three sides of one gallery
at the Hirshhorn, the viewer succumbs to
Mufioz's potent mixture of loss, indiffer-
ence, and miscommunication proffered in
an unbridgeable silence. 'A deserted street
is not one along which no one walks' opined
Fernando Pessoa, that Portuguese master of
multiple guises and spiritual father to
Muffoz, 'but a street along which people
walk as if it were deserted'. 'It isn't a difficult
concept to grasp once one has seen it', the
poet continued, 'after all, to someone whose
experience of the equine is restricted to
mules, a zebra must seem inconceivable'.
If in the early 1980s the re-introduction
of the figure into contemporary sculptural
practice seemed highly improbable, by the
end of the decade Mufioz had cannily found
ways to insinuate it or its surrogates so that
the hyper-awareness of the phenomenology
of place and of self that was critical to the
experience of minimal art could now be put
at the service of a more psychologically
charged exploration of space. The protago-
nists of Mufioz's later urbanscapes, most
notably those who people the series of 'Con-
versation Pieces', are not figural devices
through which the spectator contemplates
and communes with his/her surroundings
as is the case in the paintings of Caspar
David Friedrich, for example. Vacated
selves who serve as a stimulus to self inspec-
tion, they become in Mufioz's art vehicles
or her exclusion, or unease, in that place,

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 EXHIBITION REVIEWS

and by extension in the larger

pp. incl. world
60 col. pls. + 85 b. & w. ills. (Hirshhorn Muse-
beyond. Verging on both um andoneiric
the Sculpture Garden,
and Washington/The Art Insti-
tute of Chicago, 2001), $50. ISBN 0-226-04290-1
the visionary, these vacant, transitional
(HB); $24.95. ISBN 0-86559-190-3 (PB). After
junctions, routes and crossroads, become
Washington, the exhibition moves to the Museum of
contemporary counterparts to de Chirico's
Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (22nd April to
tenebrous streetscapes as well and
28thJuly) as on
totothe
Chicago and Houston.
bleaker mise-en-scenes that typify Beckett's
works for the stage. Mufioz's bravura
breaching of taboos that surrounded the
invocation of the theatrical allowed him to
create spaces at once manifestly fictive andIndianapolis
artificial, as befits the dramatic arena inhab-Gifts to the Tsars
ited by actors, and dream-like - virtual -
manifestations of a state of mind. As well There is a tendency nowadays to frown
versed in literature as in the fine arts, ason single-lender exhibitions. In an age of
engaged by the art of the past (and particu-increasing mobility it is argued that people
larly his revered heritage in Spanish paint-might just as easily go to the art as have
ing), as in the work of his contemporaries,the art brought to them and that shipping
whether Bruce Nauman, Thomas Schutte works to another continent adds nothing to
or Robert Gober, Mufioz managed to distilthe sum of knowledge. The exhibition at the
from this complex cultural legacy works ofIndianapolis Museum of Art (to 13th
a haunting poetic intensity. Eschewing theJanuary) from the State Armoury Museum
didactic or expository for a succinct, ellipti-in the Kremlin, however, is much more
cal, even enigmatic reduction, he created inthan a display of the 'treasures from' kind: 85. Covered cup, by Dietrich Thor Moye. Hamburg,
a short fifteen years some of the most indeli-by carefully selecting a body of material 1633-35. Silver, parcel-gilt, ht. 67 cm. (Kremlin,
ble, compelling and eloquent sculpturalalong a specific theme the organisers have Moscow; exh. Indianapolis Museum of Art).
installations of our time. assembled a richly diverse body of work that
An exhibition like this can bear resonant is both historically focused and artistically
witness to significant aspects of this singular unparalleled. Such a focus can probably astonishing - opulence and scale they act as
vocabulary but, as will be the case withonly be achieved by extracting these objects a powerful commentary on the huge impor-
many of his contemporaries, without the from the broader holdings of the State tance that was attached to these missions.
artist to interact with, react to and tweak aArmoury. For the common western view that Russia
venue, the work risks losing something of Although its title, Gifts to the Tsars 1500- before the reign of Peter the Great was a
its finely calibrated emotional tone. This 1700, embraces two centuries, the subject of secondary and backward nation is convinc-
dilemma is not unprecedented, but faces this show is essentially the history of Russia's ingly challenged by an exhibition which
curators and even artists as they considerdiplomatic relations during the seventeenth presents the world from a Russian perspec-
posthumous or much later presentations. century, and the one hundred or so objects tive and with Russia as its centre.
Those dealing with the legacy of Josephexhibited were chosen because they were In the seventeenth century, Russia's dig-
Beuys, for example, have long debatedpresented to the Tsars by ambassadors from nity was frequently dented by its immediate
such questions, while certain artists, notably virtually every neighbouring state and most neighbours, the Ottoman Empire, Poland
Donald Judd, have attempted to realise western European powers throughout this and Sweden. Diplomacy with these coun-
long-term installations of their work in situ-period. As such, these pieces do more than tries was largely driven by Russia's determi-
ations closely devised by themselves. Whilemerely illustrate the history of diplomacy: nation to gain access to the Baltic and Black
challenges to the purported autonomy of by their surprising - in some cases, quite Seas and by her neighbours' equal deter-
the modern work of art contributed signi- mination to prevent this; other nations,
ficantly to the evolution of what became notably England and Holland, wanted to
known as site-specific installation, in turn gain access to Russian markets or to cross
the limitations and then the very viability of Russian territory for trade further afield. In
that mode of practice gradually became evi- addition to those issues that affected the spe-
dent to many artists. By the 1990s they were cific interests of Russia, diplomatic missions
struggling to negotiate between the pres- also reflected broader swings in the Euro-
sures and seduction of the market place on pean balance of power in which Russia's
the one hand and the temporary sanctuary involvement could be decisive, such as the
offered by the museum on the other. Mufioz embassy of Emperor Leopold I in 1684 to
explored these questions as energetically persuade Russia to join the 'Holy League'
and inventively as any of his peers. Ulti- of Poland, Austria and Venice against the
mately, his finest works are his most encom- Turks (a success) or that of Charles XII of
passing ones such as A place called abroad at Sweden in 1699 to keep Russia out of the
Dia Center for the Arts (1996) or Double bind, Northern War (a failure). All these missions,
at Tate Modern, entailing the animation of whether commercial or strategic, were
space and place as crucially and profoundly characterised by a strictly choreographed
as the manipulation of matter, or image. performance revolving around a deeply
But equally charged spaces may take the mystical and almost hieratic veneration for
form of reflected - literally and metaphori- the Tsar.
cally mirrored - or imaginary sites, as attest- These carefully staged receptions, the
ed in his beguiling archaeological tale, La gifts that were presented and the moti-
posa, and the radio piece, A man in a room vations behind them are discussed in the
gambling. Such is the complex, contradictory several essays written for the catalogue.' But
condition of sculpture at the beginning of there is a tendency throughout the book
this new century, a condition Mufioz did perhaps to overstate the differences be-
much to limn and characterise. tween the kinds of gifts presented to the
LYNNE COOKE Russian Tsars and those given in western
Dia Centerfor the Arts, New84.
York
Dagger and sheath, Persia, early seventeenth cen- European countries. The great difference in
tury. Steel, gold and precious stones, 30.8 cm. long. the Russian case is not that such things were
(Kremlin, Moscow; exh. Indianapolis Museum of given but that they tend to survive. Much of
'Juan Muioz. Essays by Neal Benezra, Olga M. Viso,
Michael Brenson; interview by Paul Schimmel.
Art). 228 the donated plate and luxury materials were

58

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