Helen Chadwick. Constructing identities between art and architecture 9781780760070, 1780760078

Table of contents :
List of Illustrations viiiAcknowledgements ixPreface xiIntegration of Sources xvIntroduction: New negotiations 1Part One: the creative process and the creative persona1: the Creative Self2: the Creative Process and 'Total Pattern'Part Two: experience, architecture and identity3: Body and Self4: 'Multi-Stability' and Viewing PositionPart Three: artifice and nature5: the Grotto and Architectural Conceit6: Architecture, the Divinities and the Authority of Science7: 'Viral Architecture' and the Rapprochement of Art and SciencePart Four: theory and practice8: Geometry, 'Stereonomy' and Surface9: the Role of MakingConclusionNotesBibliographyIndex

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Helen Chadwick

HELEN CHADWICK CONSTRUCTING IDENTITIES BETWEEN ART AND ARCHITECTURE

Stephen Walker

Titlepage_HelenChadwick_v1.indd 1

9/3/13 2:05 PM

Published in 2013 by I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd 6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 www.ibtauris.com Distributed in the United States and Canada exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 Copyright ! 2013 Stephen Walker The right of Stephen Walker to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. International Library of Modern and Contemporary Art: 14 ISBN 978 1 78076 007 0 A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record for this book is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress Catolog Card Number: available Printed and bound in Great Britain by T.J. International, Padstow, Cornwall from camera-ready copy edited and supplied by the author

to Julia, Felix and Benjamin

Contents

List of illustrations Acknowledgements Preface Integration of sources Introduction: New negotiations

viii ix x xiii 1

Part One: The creative process and the creative persona 1: The creative self 2: The creative process and total pattern

23 37

Part Two: Experience, architecture and identity 3: Body and self 4: ‘Multistability’ and viewing position

53 77

Part Three: Artifice and nature 5: The grotto and architectural conceit 6: Architecture, the divinities and the authority of science 7: ‘Viral architecture’ and the rapprochement of art and science

99 121 141

Part Four: Theory and practice 8: Geometry, ‘stereonomy’ and surface 9: The role of making

161 179

Conclusion

205

Notes Bibliography Index

209 219 221

Illustrations

All works by Helen Chadwick. All images © Leeds Museums & Galleries (Henry Moore Institute Archive) and The Helen Chadwick Estate 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Examples of Chadwick’s notebooks and books from her library Menstrual Toilet, 1975–6 In the Kitchen, 1977 Model Institution, 1981–4 Train of Thought, 1978–9 Le Bateleur from her Notebook 2003.19/E/5.88–9 The Juggler’s Table, 1983 Eroticism, 1990 Enfleshing I, 1989 The Philosopher’s Fear of Flesh, 1989 Of Mutability, 1986–7 Viral Landscapes, 1988–9 Ego Geometria Sum, 1983–5 Nostalgie de la Boue, 1989 Piss Flowers, 1991–2 Cacao, 1994

xvi 3 4–5 7–9 13–17 25 28 88 89 91 112–13 142–3 166–7 182 188–9 190

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the support of the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, the staff there including Penelope Curtis, Martina Droth, Ellen Tait and Jon Wood, and in particular to thank the archivists Victoria Worsley, Ian Kaye and Claire Mayoh. Jeremy Till and Andrew Ballantyne gave their advice and support during the formative stages of this research, and Louisa Buck and Ashley Givens provided their help with particular details on the way through. I am very grateful to Andrew Benjamin, Mark Haworth-Booth, and in particular Philip Stanley and Marina Warner, all of whom generously gave time to discuss their personal recollections of Helen Chadwick. At I.B.Tauris, I would like to thank Philippa Brewster, Liza Thompson and Alex Higson for their enduring support throughout the process of publication. Annie Jackson was once again a patient and sympathetic proofreader. I would also like to thank Florance and David Notarius from the Estate of Helen Chadwick for generously granting image rights, and the editors of AMBIT magazine for their permission to reproduce Chadwick’s articles. Finally, I am grateful to the Henry Moore Institute for their financial support during my initial archival research, and to the Arts and Humanities Research Council for a Research Leave Grant that was invaluable for the writing of this book.

Preface

The artist Helen Chadwick (1953–96) produced such a diverse range of work it is not possible to name a ‘typical’ piece or say for what she is best know. Perhaps her Piss Flowers or her chocolate fountain Cacao, or her photographic works Viral Landscapes or Meat Abstracts or Wreaths to Pleasure, or her operatic installations Ego Geometria Sum or Of Mutability. Her impact in the art world remains similarly hard to pin down; the first woman nominee for the Turner Prize, some-time broadcaster, curator, teacher and mentor, her contemporaries and younger generations of artists frequently acknowledge her influence. Yet despite such acknowledgements, or perhaps because of such diversity, her realised work has never really established a place for itself in the public eye. It might be said that she was an artist slightly out of her time. Work that was controversial and experimental when it was produced now seems too easily accepted; her work was far too prescient for its own good. While most art-historical reception of Chadwick’s work has understandably concentrated on her realised projects (and within these, the later projects such as those just mentioned), her notebooks reveal the extent to which these were informed by expansive research work and theoretical developments that were as creative as the realised pieces. Considered through this lens, her apparently diverse œuvre becomes far more coherent: life-long preoccupations were tirelessly explored, interrogated and developed in concert with her artistic making. Nevertheless, it is not my intention to demonstrate such consistency in this book, although it might emerge as something of a by-product. My primary concern is to enjoy the range, depth and continuing currency of Chadwick’s research and theoretical positioning. Chasing one of her enduring preoccupations—the construction and maintenance of personal identity—Chadwick’s work can offer insights into a number of major, enduring questions: the relationship between body, space, self and world;

PREFACE

xi

between art and science; between artifice and nature; between theory and practice, creative self and creative process. Chadwick was as witheringly critical of the damage done to people by monotonous physical surroundings as she was of the impact of limiting political, philosophical and scientific constructions. Never backing away from a fight, she was determined to find ways of renegotiating our relationship with and understanding of the world, even if this meant taking on the whole of the Western tradition: !"#$%"&'()*()'%+,$-($.*/$0"$*$1)((1"$&2*%3$('$41*).$('$(2/$('$3)+.*%(1"$*%3$ '5(.*%'"562"$(7"$#"+("2%$)%7"2)(*%4"$82'.$91*('$('$:"+4*2("+$('$;2"53$