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Christopher Braddock’s
works in pp 10-18 bring to mind ventilation
covers that are perforated in patterns of small
intricate holes which in themselves recall a
variety of appliances: plug holes, speakers,
apartment intercoms and air ducts. Their indented
forms are reminiscent of fleshy imprints that
might call to mind the body. The use of these
forms in multiple is echoed in the installation
by a sound track of repeated liturgical verse.
This essay explores the view that
a search for meaning around such an installation
is contextually-based and virtually limitless:
“To interpret the aesthetic object is inevitably
to measure its participation in the multiple
codes which govern the collective consciousness”.
1 In this light, I wish to discuss a number
of possible interpretations of Braddock’s
works, as if to peel back layers – a kind
of archaeology of interpretation (to borrow
from Foucault’s terminology). 2
Braddock’s vent works (entitled
Vent) are positioned low in the walls where
air ducts or air conditioning vents might well
be positioned. They therefore seem redolent
of ideas of a passage of air or breathing the
air, both in the gallery and behind the walls:
a cavity experienced, not through sight, but
by the notion of air travelling through it.
The works seem to deliberately
play on assumptions that art would not be hung
so low on gallery walls and that vents do not
ascribe to popular notions of what constitutes
art.
Most viewers, myself included,
would naturally avoid misinterpreting the vent
works as real vents because the objects are
removed from a functional context of real ventilation
covers. This is due, among other things, to
the context of an exhibition and to a similarity
with past works by Braddock, i.e. an association
to other works previously accepted as art.
These vent works could therefore
be said to aspire to symbolic status. Not only
are meanings amplified by associations to (but
dislocation from) collectively understood functional
roles, but there is also a spiraling of further
interpretation around the context which results
in considerations of the symbolic meaning of
air, breath, wall cavities and bodily shapes.
To arrive at this point leads
me to speculate that the passage of air is testimony
to the cavity and the idea that we experience
an inner secrecy by means of the air that passes
through it. One could imagine that this interpretation
has ramifications for our experience of the
body: we do not commonly see and experience
our inner breathing organs other than by way
of breath. The breath becomes symbolic of life:
to breathe life into somebody. Breath externalises
the precious airflow necessary for internal
organs' survival. Given that the works carry
body references in their imprints of buttocks
or heart-like shapes, an analogy from the body
of the building to the human body would seem
appropriate.
These imprints are also very iconocised
and one wonders at the religious aspects surrounding
them. This leads me to speculate that an investigation
of the body might give way to an interrogation
of the body of the church and its absolutions.
An accompanying sound track reinforces
such interpretations and leads to an even more
complex set of associations. The sound of breathing
and a repeated litany of confession (in the
artist’s voice) are overlaid with the sound
of tin being cut - a process implicit in the
making of the works. 3
If the artist’s intentions
were to be considered in a method of interpretation,
the following statements made by Braddock in
a recent interview are interesting:
I recall the deep voice through
the grill of the confessional. The dispatch
of penance for the heart's confidences and out-flowings
of guilt. Father from Father were discernable
by smell of breath and sound of voice. I remember
the Priest’s power to absolve…
I recall, in my childhood, insect
traps made from jars covered with greaseproof
paper sealed airtight with rubber bands. Only
the perforated holes carefully punctured with
nail or needle offered air to the specimen inside.
I remember the power to allow breath….
4
The use a repeated litany in this
installation might be seen to parody the kinds
of liberation that mantras are designed to foster.
Insights such as this suggest an ironical intention
and raise questions as to whether such litanies
encourage exorcism or entrenchment?
One could also suggest here that
the artist is attempting to divert attention
from a personal and uncomfortable negotiation
with those very patriarchal types evident in
the works. Further to this, given that childhood
memories are evoked when discussing these issues
with the artist, one could ask how much Braddock
is aware of these dynamics in the work.
Nevertheless, a point could be
made here that personal recollections defer
to a collective consciousness within specific
cultural contexts.
Added to this scenario of interpretation
are the language systems relevant to visual
art’s particular histories. The multiple
vent works could be seen to rely on Duchamp’s
readymade gesture and the minimalist serial
object. If this were the case, they are implicated
in a risky nod to a patriarchy of modernist
precedents that might be seen to echo their
ecclesiastical counter-parts. An alternative
view might be that the vent works are a handmade
appropriation of the Duchampian readymade in
their reinvestment of the readymade with a strategy
of artistic intervention. So strategies of appropriation
might be seen as a response to ideas that the
readymades “…were intended to mark
the end of art as we know it…” 5
It has been my intention to reveal
layers of interpretation. In following this
process I am arguing that to pursue meaning
is a process by which one problem solved discloses
another and that “it is the nature of works
of art themselves that they should support and
favor [such a] process of interpretation”
6. The movement is outwards towards collectively
understood social dimensions rather than inwards
toward subjectively held private truths. 7 The
limits of such interpretation depend upon cultural
contingencies and an individual’s desire
to know.
Notes:
Bann, S (1996) ‘Meaning/Interpretation’
in Nelson & Shiff (eds) (1996) Critical
Terms for Art History, Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, p.87
Foucault, M (1972) The Archaeology of Knowledge,
London: Tavistock
3 the litany of confession is adapted from:
A Manual of Catholic Devotion (1950), London:
Church Literature Association, p 109
4 Braddock C, (email interview with the author,
August 23, 1999)
5 Carrier D (1989) ‘Art Criticism and Its
Beguiling Fictions’ in Art International
9, pp 36-41, as cited by Jones, A (1994) Postmodernism
and the En-Gendering of Marcel Duchamp, USA:
Cambridge University Press, p 205
6 Bann, p 87
ibid
The artist wishes to acknowledge the assistance
of David Merritt in recording Vent 1999.
Images:
Vents II-III, 1999, tin, Gow-Langsford Gallery,
Auckland
Vent IV, 1999, tin, (close-up) Gow-Langsford
Gallery, Auckland
Safe, 1999, tin, (detail)
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