In a mass of large bubbles The froth, therefore, though lacking long-range symmetry, nevertheless has very definite rules as to its composition. It is pleasing in appearance because the eye senses this interplay between regularity and irregularity. Structure, Substructure, and Superstructure symmetry
We wonder which is real, he of the picture or he who talks? In the tea room the fear of repetition is a constant presence. The various objects for the decoration of a room should be so selected that no color or design shall be repeated. If you have a living flower, a painting of flowers is not allowable. If you are using a round kettle, the water pitcher should be angular. A cup with a black glaze should not be associated with a tea-caddy of black lacquer. In placing a vase or an incense burner on the tokonoma, care should be taken not to put it in the exact center, lest it divide the space into equal halves. The pillar of the tokonoma should be of a different kind of wood from the other pillars, in order to break any suggestion of monotony in the room. Here again the Japanese method of interior decoration differs from that of the Occident, where we see objects arrayed symmetrically on mantelpieces and elsewhere. In Western houses we are often confronted with what appears to us useless reiteration. We find it trying to talk to a man while his full-length portrait stares at us from behind his back. We wonder which is real, he of the picture or he who talks, and feel a curious conviction that one of them must be fraud. Okakura Kakuzō, The Book of Tea repetitionsymmetry
Phenomenal: An Introduction An Essay from Phenomenal: California Light, Space, Surface by Robin Clark Aesthetic palate cleansingUntitled (Light Canvas)Little Blank Riding HoodNot intended to be read until you have seenA vaporous middle-world+5 More
Aesthetic palate cleansing During the 1960s and 1970s, light became the primary medium for a loosely affiliated group of artists working in Greater Los Angeles who were more intrigued by questions of perception than by the notion of crafting discrete objects. ...Often with modest means (a bolt of scrim, a sheet of glass, a bucket of resin, an open window) these artists engaged in a kind of aesthetic palate cleansing, shaking off the art-historical weight and heavy impasto of midcentury painting as it had been influentially practiced in New York and San Francisco. aestheticsmaterial
Not intended to be read until you have seen This is not a catalogue because there is no list of works. The exhibition will comprise three spaces in which three artists will have made their art. At the moment of writing we are not sure exactly what they will do—and we cannot know how what they do will appear to us. Therefore we cannot attempt to help you perceive it. So this is also not truly an introduction to the art. It is not intended to be read until you have seen the exhibition. Michael Compton perceptionseeing
A vaporous middle-world In between these two extremes is a room with three constructions by Robert Irwin. These can be read as individual works of art but their function here is primarily that of creating a climate of fastidious ambiguity. Light turns into a new kind of material; new kinds of material are fused into light; a vaporous middle-world stands midway between total black (Bell) and total white (Wheeler) light