ARTISTS
Stephan Pascher: Who Got the Chickens
Who Got the Chickens is the title of Stephan Pascher鈥檚 latest show at Steven Wolf Fine Arts. It鈥檚 a lighthearted jab at a well-known artist whose
Liz Wing / The Brooklyn Rail
01 Mar, 2009
Who Got the Chickens is the title of Stephan Pascher鈥檚 latest show at Steven Wolf Fine Arts. It鈥檚 a lighthearted jab at a well-known artist whose name became entwined with a small town in west Texas.
The front room is dramatically lit, dark with a spotlight on a triad of forms resembling a set of Donald Judd鈥檚 concrete sculptures in the outdoors of Marfa. Here, they鈥檝e been replicated in miniature at about one-tenth their original size and laid on a bed of wood chips. Two are made of concrete, and one is made of wood and chicken wire, a few lonely feathers sticking out of the frame鈥攁n empty coop. In the back, a Discman plays a soundtrack of lulling night sounds of crickets and cicadas. It鈥檚 a tableaux which brings to mind a western noir: a moonlit set left over from the scene of a crime.
In the adjacent project room, eight C-prints of tumbleweeds line the walls. Each plant has been captured in flight along Highway 90, the main artery through Marfa, and exact coordinates of its location have been notated on the top of each print. Two small pieces of sculptural bricolage鈥攎ore chicken wire, wood fragments, and industrial foam鈥攕tand atop pedestals.
A story written by Pascher unfolds in a supplementary booklet produced by the gallery; in it, internationally renowned sculptor James Dean and his wife Anne (鈥渁 veteran of the New York art scene 鈥� [who] messed around with art making herself before taking an interest in birds.鈥�) star in a mysterious tale about the disappearance and death of Anne鈥檚 chickens. Possible perpetrators include a fox, an owl, a snake, and an intern from Juarez.
During a talk with Pascher and critic Kenneth Baker, the first question posed to the audience was 鈥淗ow many people here have been to Marfa?鈥� After a show of hands, Baker commented, 鈥淲ell then you know.鈥� Which begs the question鈥擯ascher鈥檚 question, posed by his installation: Know what? and What kind of place is Marfa, anyways?
For those who have 鈥渂een there,鈥� Pascher鈥檚 diminutive sculptures contrast with the physical memory of Judd鈥檚 immense forms, and for those who haven鈥檛, his tumbleweed photographs are a good gag on the concept of site-specificity. Ultimately, however, what Pascher seems to be pointing out as problematic in Judd鈥檚 Marfa project aren鈥檛 the epistemological or phenomenological issues related to Judd鈥檚 utopian installation experience, but the absence of Judd鈥檚 reckoning with the broader cultural context.
Judd鈥檚 patrimony is emblematic of a super-empowered art market redefined by the concerns of Minimalism and Conceptualism. In a way, the Marfa compound is a model for many non-urban, private museums of contemporary art created by megacollectors; the space he defined, now changed with time, embodies the subtle commercial ideology of many museum and gallery spaces. Marfa is also a point on the map of art tourism, existing in relation to other art 鈥渄estinations鈥� ranging from fairs to architectural constructions and other artist-produced 鈥渟ite-specific鈥� spaces.
The gentrification to which Marfa has been subjected as a result of Judd鈥檚 expansion project is an effect of the effort made to create and construct a legacy by both Judd鈥檚 foundations and the De Menils and Dia (it鈥檚 not insignificant to Pascher鈥檚 imaginative critique that Giant was filmed in Marfa). That Marfa is known by many as a sustained monument to Judd testifies to both his artistic vision and his autocracy: 鈥淭his is how he would have wanted it鈥� (see also the humorous WWDJD? bumper stickers).
Certainly, much about the current state of Marfa and the effects of his work on later artistic production are not what Judd would have wanted. Pascher鈥檚 show points out the limits to the control an artist has over his or her work, and the ineluctable transformations time has on a place (bird shit on the sculptures, residencies taken up by artists and the Border Patrol). His beef may not be with Judd per se, but with his denial that the terms of others should ever come to bear on his world.
The front room is dramatically lit, dark with a spotlight on a triad of forms resembling a set of Donald Judd鈥檚 concrete sculptures in the outdoors of Marfa. Here, they鈥檝e been replicated in miniature at about one-tenth their original size and laid on a bed of wood chips. Two are made of concrete, and one is made of wood and chicken wire, a few lonely feathers sticking out of the frame鈥攁n empty coop. In the back, a Discman plays a soundtrack of lulling night sounds of crickets and cicadas. It鈥檚 a tableaux which brings to mind a western noir: a moonlit set left over from the scene of a crime.
In the adjacent project room, eight C-prints of tumbleweeds line the walls. Each plant has been captured in flight along Highway 90, the main artery through Marfa, and exact coordinates of its location have been notated on the top of each print. Two small pieces of sculptural bricolage鈥攎ore chicken wire, wood fragments, and industrial foam鈥攕tand atop pedestals.
A story written by Pascher unfolds in a supplementary booklet produced by the gallery; in it, internationally renowned sculptor James Dean and his wife Anne (鈥渁 veteran of the New York art scene 鈥� [who] messed around with art making herself before taking an interest in birds.鈥�) star in a mysterious tale about the disappearance and death of Anne鈥檚 chickens. Possible perpetrators include a fox, an owl, a snake, and an intern from Juarez.
During a talk with Pascher and critic Kenneth Baker, the first question posed to the audience was 鈥淗ow many people here have been to Marfa?鈥� After a show of hands, Baker commented, 鈥淲ell then you know.鈥� Which begs the question鈥擯ascher鈥檚 question, posed by his installation: Know what? and What kind of place is Marfa, anyways?
For those who have 鈥渂een there,鈥� Pascher鈥檚 diminutive sculptures contrast with the physical memory of Judd鈥檚 immense forms, and for those who haven鈥檛, his tumbleweed photographs are a good gag on the concept of site-specificity. Ultimately, however, what Pascher seems to be pointing out as problematic in Judd鈥檚 Marfa project aren鈥檛 the epistemological or phenomenological issues related to Judd鈥檚 utopian installation experience, but the absence of Judd鈥檚 reckoning with the broader cultural context.
Judd鈥檚 patrimony is emblematic of a super-empowered art market redefined by the concerns of Minimalism and Conceptualism. In a way, the Marfa compound is a model for many non-urban, private museums of contemporary art created by megacollectors; the space he defined, now changed with time, embodies the subtle commercial ideology of many museum and gallery spaces. Marfa is also a point on the map of art tourism, existing in relation to other art 鈥渄estinations鈥� ranging from fairs to architectural constructions and other artist-produced 鈥渟ite-specific鈥� spaces.
The gentrification to which Marfa has been subjected as a result of Judd鈥檚 expansion project is an effect of the effort made to create and construct a legacy by both Judd鈥檚 foundations and the De Menils and Dia (it鈥檚 not insignificant to Pascher鈥檚 imaginative critique that Giant was filmed in Marfa). That Marfa is known by many as a sustained monument to Judd testifies to both his artistic vision and his autocracy: 鈥淭his is how he would have wanted it鈥� (see also the humorous WWDJD? bumper stickers).
Certainly, much about the current state of Marfa and the effects of his work on later artistic production are not what Judd would have wanted. Pascher鈥檚 show points out the limits to the control an artist has over his or her work, and the ineluctable transformations time has on a place (bird shit on the sculptures, residencies taken up by artists and the Border Patrol). His beef may not be with Judd per se, but with his denial that the terms of others should ever come to bear on his world.
