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Sally Fisher
Space Transformation
July 26 – August 07, 1976
Nancy Davidson and Edith Altman
Void
Location: The Renaissance Society
Admission: free
Work Sheet: E Altman and N. Davidson
INTENTION: In our discussion of the piece we understood each others emotional response and felt it was an exciting idea to work togetehr as an extension of Fisher's original concept of sharing with other artists. The process of void was accomplished by use of paint, dirt, removal of grass and inate quality of video as low contrast image.
MEDIA: Video, paint, grass, dirt, marking materials, and body movement
10:00 A.M. Altman and Davidson confronted area to be voided: paced off inner space (8' x 8' x 8') of cube by physical contact with the sides corners and back of structure.
11:15 A.M. Measured and marked area of grass to be voided.
12:20 P.M. Voided ground by cutting and rolling sod to expose dirt. Displaced rolled grass to space directly in front of opening of cube.
3:10 P.M. Altman and Davidson painted interior of space black--from right front and left front to center of back wall. Experienced transformation of perception of structural space to intense density of solid inner space. The experience of the white cube as a defining structure of outer space is re-defined when interior space is chagned to a (black) void.
3:50 P.M. Unrolled 8' x 8' of grass to fill space 8' x 8' in front of cube.
4:00 P.M. Video monitor is blank------Void.
COMMENT: Because of the time/risk factor: the need to physically complete the piece and then restore the space by painting the walls and replacing the grass, we were barely conscious of the final moment when the void occured. Only the ability of the documentation to encompass the extended viewer's space gave us the total experience of the process.
Edith Altman and Nancy Davidson
Eugene Wildman
How to Write and Autobiography
Location: The Renaissance Society
Admission: free
Eugene Wildman will do a reading in the space of Sally Fisher's wooden cube as part of Fisher's exhibition Space Transformation.
"My only interest is in the story. As a writer, working with a physicallly inert medium--print, paper--I am alwasy looking for ways to allow thematerial to come off the page. usually that has opened the material up for me in useful wasy. In this cse I wanted to see what would happen in a real, actual, phyiscal space,a dn working with another (relatively) quiescent medium--video--that was also coompletely new to me. So I learned some things.
Eugene Wildman
Kit Schwartz
Location: The Renaissance Society
Admission: free
I worked under the auspices of Sally Fisher and The Renaissance Society in the quadrangle of The University of Chicago with the assistance of Mary Katherine Kahous (make-up), Sherri Ruzoko (pedicure), Tony Savalla (hair), David Schwartz, Barbara Sykes.
Kit Schwartz
Schwartz installed a Michigan Avenue beauty salon in the passive Cube and learned how soap residue clogs her skin pores, then has toes manicured to the muted trumpets of hair-salon muzak.
| Tue, Jul 13, 1976 | 12:00 am |
Freya Hansell
Filling the Cube
Location: The Renaissance Society
Admission: free
FILLIING THE CUBE:
The piece was conceived to discover the association of what the cube will receive as a physical space in terms of individuals. How many individuals would it take to fatally displace the emptiness (volume) of the space? I decided that it would take 45 people by using myself and a friend as human measure within the space.
Luckily one day a group came by the cube site (Western Skies #3, Scarsdale, New York.) Taking advantage of their presence, I asked them if they would participate in the idea. There were exactly 45 people in the group. Everyone pressed in tightly. The compression was very great and nine more could have been packed in. The feeling of density to the occupants and visually was a part of the volume experience.
IN AND OUT OF THE CUBE BLINDFOLDED:
Here is the assoicationof self to a space.
The self is the ultimate object of measure for his space.
When removed, the persons's presence may be felt. The cube is animated by who was there.
The blindfold present the physical condition in isolation. The blindfold also present the psychological inner space of the occupant.
Freya Hansell, July 1976
| Wed, Jul 14, 1976 | 12:00 am |
Andrea Blum
Location: The Renaissance Society
Admission: free
For the past three years I have been doing impermanent sculpture, sculpture that exists for a certain period of time, is documented, and is then destroyed. These pieces are impermanenet because of their content, because of their placement, and becuase I believe that once a piece is realized there is no need for it to be "forever." My work deals with formalist problems (shape, size, medium, etc.) but in addition it deals with elements which are intangible, i.e. mood, illusion, memory. The juxtaposition of the elements is based on a structural as well as aesthetic interdependence. The elements are chosen becuase of their everytday familiarity and a paradox is creted when they are reinterpreted into an aesthetic context.
In working with the idea of the "given, the 8 foot cube, I decided to work with a material as temproary as the concept of the piece, i.e. dry ice; work with the effects of the outdoors, i.e. wind and time of day, when the vapor of the dry ice enhanced by white fluorescent light will be most effective, at dusk; and superimpose another structural form to inter-react with the existing one, i.e. a cinder block wall.
The documentation on tape shows four different attempts to create a "successful" piece. In the final stage, with the help of two others, I cut a diagponal across the cube in the form of a wall, to create a positive (dry ice) and a negative (white light) triangle. As the ice "sublimed," the areas reversed and the lit triangle becaem the positive.
Andrea Blum
| Thu, Jul 15, 1976 | 12:00 am |
Dennis Kowalski
Location: The Renaissance Society
Admission: free
Although "Sally's cube" seemed in dynamic contrast with its surroundings a neutrality remained that made me feel that successful additions could be made to the cube without sacrificing its integrity.
Besides its location the thing that most intrigued me aobut the cube was its open face. I wanted to limit the open invitation into the cube and somehow make it more mysterious, less of an invitation, more difficult.
Placing the slanted boards on the side softened the transition between the cube and the landscape, while heightening the ambiguity of the shelter--my main concern.
Dennis Kowlaski
| Fri, Jul 16, 1976 | 12:00 pm |
Bob Gottleib
The Second Sitting of the President's Dinner for the Queen, Elizabeth II.
Location: The Renaissance Society
Admission: free
The entire state dinner that President Ford gave for Queen Elizabeth will be recreated in a formal setting for 20 by artist Robert Gottleib on the lawn of the University of Chicago Quadrangle at noon on Friday, July 16.
The diners will be able to watch the video-taped progress of the original meal on a video monitor centerpiece.
Says Gottlieb, "The event demonstrates what we choose--or are forced--to watch."*
The meal, served elegantly by waiters, will last nearly three hours.** The event is part of the art exhibition Space Transformation by Sally Fisher. Her large hollow wooden cube is the focus of invited artist's activities: they work within the cube or deal with the space it occupies. Gottlieb's dinner table for 20 will begin in the cube but extend well beyond it.
Annotations by the artist added after the event:
*"what we choose--or are forced--to watch": a bit strong, I think. The people involved (one way or another) seemed to enjoy it--and I myself learned a good deal which will be of use in the future.
**lasted about 4.5 hours
| Sat, Jul 17, 1976 | 12:00 pm |
John Schact
Ritual Embrace
Location: The Renaissance Society
Admission: free
To define space through the development of ritual.
Determination of ritual dictated by limitations of cubic enclosure.
Space altered for ritual use by crew of seven workers.
Ritual evolved by suspending subjecct in body harness from center of cube.
Ritual realized by securing subject's limbs to walls of cube in geometric configuration.
Ritual limitation established by inability of subject to continue.
Ritual formalized by videotape and photographic documentation.
Ritual organized by editorial manipulation of video and photographic documentation.
John Schact
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