Formless: A User's Guide

304 Pages·1997·51.11 MB·English

by  Yve-Alain Bois

Contents
PREFACE
-
-
INTRODUCTION The Use Value of "Formless" 13
-
..
BASE MATERIALISM Abattoir 43 ..
Base Materialism 51
Cadaver 63
Dialectic 67 l1li
-
Entropy 73 ..
-
Figure 79 ..
..
HORIZONTALITY Gestalt 89 ..
Horizontality 93
Isotropy 103
leu LU8ubre 109
Kitsch 117
-
Liquid Words 124
-
..
P U LS E "Moteurl" 133 .I-I.I
No to ... the Informe] 138
No to ... Joseph Beuys 143
Olympia 147 ..
-
Part Object 152 ..
Pulse 161 ..
ENTROPY Qualities (Without) 169
-
Ray Guns 172
-
Sweats of the Hippo 180
-
Threshole 185
-
Uncanny 192
-
Very Slow 198
Water Closet 204 ,.
X Marks the Spot 214
Yo-yo 219
Zone 224
CONCLUSION The Destiny of the Informe 235
NOTES 255
IND EX 291
Page 1
Robert Rauschenberg,
Untitled (Gold Painting)
(detail), 1953.
Gold and silver leaf on
fabric, newspaper, paint,
wood, paper, glue, and nails
on wood, in wood and glass
frame, 10'12 x 11 Y:r x 1%
inches.
C 1997 Robert
Rauschenberg I Licensed by
VAGA, New York.
Pages 2-3
Andy Warhol,
Oxidation Painting (detail),
1978.
Mixed media and copper
metallic paint on canvas,
78 x 204Y:r inches.
Private Collection.
01997 Andy Warhol
Foundation of the Visual
Arts/ARS, New York.
Pages 4-5
Lucio Fontana,
Ceramica spaziale (detail),
1949.
Polychrome ceramic,
23112 x 251A x 23'h inches.
Musl!e National d'Art
Moderne-CCI, Centre
Georges Pompidou, Paris.
Page 6
Kazuo Shiraga,
Untitled(detail),1957.
Oil, watercolor, india ink on
paper mounted on canvas,
71 'h x 95Y2 inches.
Mu~e National d'Art
Moderne-CCI, Centre
Georges Pompidou, Paris.
Preface
Formless: A User's Guide has been in germination since the early
1980s, when it became clear to its authors that certain artistic
practices with which Georges Bataille's name had never been asso
ciated - the sculpture of Alberto Giacometti from the late 1920s
and early 1930s on the one hand and the repertory of surrealist pho
tography on the other - could only be characterized adequately
through the operations of Bataille's iriforme.' Thereafter the oper
ational, performative "force" of the "formless" revealed itself as
necessary to the understanding of other practices: a significant but
overlooked part of the work of Lucio Fontana, for example, or the
reception of Jackson Pollock in the 1960s, whether that be enacted
via Andy Warhol's Dance Diaarams, Cy Twombly's graffiti, Robert
Morris's felt pieces, or Ed Ruscha's liquid Words.2
As this field of relevance began to grow, it became clear to us
that an exhibition bringing together the various effects of this form
less impulse could itself have a kind of operational force, since it
could not only demonstrate the power of the conceptual tool, but
would also pick apart certain categories that seemed to us increas
ingly useless - even as they had become increasingly contentious
namely, "form" and "content:' The only cultural institution to wel
come our project, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, was in
the process of inaugurating a series of "signed" exhibitions. Evinc
ing the belief that modernism itself has meant that exhibitions,
even the most neutral sounding ones, like monographic overviews
(a one-person retrospective, the presentation of clearly established
movements), always take a position, are always driven by argument,
th.e Centre Pompidou decided to stage these "arguments" and allow
their authors to be clearly seen.
Thus it was that the catalogue for this exhibition - L '/nforme:
Mode d'emploi, May 21 to August 26, 1996-was conceived from
the outset as a book with a coherent proposition to develop, not
9
only about modern art's past (the onset of the formless within mod
ernist practice: Arp, Duchamp, Picasso), but also modern art's con
temporary reception (the repression of certain careers or certain
parts of famous oeuvres) and even, possibly, modern art's future.
For having asked us to make this "book" and the exhibition that
supported it, we are extremely grateful to Fran90is Barre, then the
president of the Centre Pompidou, and Daniel Soutif, its director
of cultural development. The exhibition itself could not have taken
place without Germain Viatte, the director of the Musee National
d'Art Moqerne, Isabelle Monod-Fontaine, chief curator and gen·
erous collaborator, and Sara Renaud, our extraordinary assistant. The
origh.al catalogue, .brilliantly designed by Susannah Shannon and
Jerome Saint-Loubert Bie, recorded the exhibition itself.
But the "argument" concerning formlessness - its history and
its destiny - is not tied to an exhibition, however exhilarating.
Thus we are extremely grateful to Zone's editors, Jonathan Crary,
Michel Feher, Sanford Kwinter, and Ramona NaddalT, for the op
portunity to transpose our proposition to bo. . k form, where the
contours of our~ discussion take on, we hope, greater independence
and definition. For the design of this new vehicle we are indebted
to Bruce Mau and, for its editing, to Meighan Gale and Don
McMahon. To this entire new team we extend our deepest thanks.
'0