phenomenology of the visual arts (even the frame) Phenomenology of the Visual arts (even the frame) Paul Crowther stanford university press Stanford, California 2009 Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 2009 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. This book has been published with the assistance of the Visual Communication and Expertise Initiative at Jacobs University Bremen. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Crowther, Paul. Phenomenology of the visual arts (even the frame) / Paul Crowther. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-8047-6214-4 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Art—Philosophy. 2. Phenomenology and art. 3. Aesthetics. I. Title. n66.c76 2009 701—dc22 2009007529 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper Typeset at Stanford University Press in 10/14 Minion Contents Acknowledgements ix Introduction 1 1 Against Reductionism: The Intrinsic Significance of the Image 9 2 Figure, Plane, and Frame: The Phenomenology of Pictorial Space 35 3 Pictorial Representation and Self-Consciousness 60 4 The Presence of the Painter 72 5 Sculpture and Transcendence 86 6 The Logic and Phenomenology of Abstract Art 99 7 The Logic of Conceptualism 120 8 The Phenomenology of Photography 139 9 Ontology and Aesthetics of Digital Art 153 10 The Body of Architecture 173 Conclusion: Art History and Art Practice—Some Future Possibilities 207 Notes 223 Index 243 illustrations 1 A Kwakiutl Indian split image of a bird motif 47 2 George Braque, Clarinet and Bottle of Rum on a Mantelpiece, 1911 Tate Modern, London 48 3 Marcel Duchamp, Bottlerack, 1961, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia 87 4 James Turrell, Roden Crater, satellite view 93 5 Umberto Boccioni, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, 1913, Tate Modern, London 95 6 Jackson Pollock, Number 1, 1948, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York 100 7 Antony Caro, Table Piece LXXXVIII (The Deluge), 1969–1970, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York 101 8 Eli Bornstein, Tripart Hexaplane Construction No. 1, 2005–2007, Jacobs University Bremen, Bremen 115 9 Marcel Duchamp, Why Not Sneeze, Rose Sélavy?, 1921, replica 1964, Tate Modern, London 128 10 Giovanni Anselmo, Untitled, 1968, Musée, Centre Georges Pompidou—National d’Art Moderne, Paris 132 11 Cassandra Dam, Performance, 1993 135 12 Erwin Redl, Matrix II, 2000, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego 159 13 Char Davies, Vertical Tree, Osmose, 1995 164 14 Parthenon, 5th century b.c., Athens, Greece 186 15 Arch of Constantine, 312, Rome, Italy 187 16 Leon Battista Alberti, Santa Maria Novella, completed 1470, Florence, Italy 189 17 Francesco Borromini, San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, 1638–1641, Rome, Italy 190 18 Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Sant’Andrea al Quirinale, 1658–1678, façade, Rome, Italy 192 Illustrations 19 Le Corbusier, Villa Savoye, ca. 1929, Poissy, France 194 20 Mies van der Rohe, Lake Shore Drive Apartments, finished 1951, Chicago 195 21 Daniel Libeskin, Food Theatre Café (The Serpentine Gallery), 2001, London 196 22 Daniel Libeskind, Jewish Museum Berlin, Aerial View, opened 2001, Berlin 198 23 Kazimir Malevich, Supremus No. 57, ca. 1916, Tate Modern, London 209 24 Barbara Hepworth, Seated Figure 1932–1933, Tate St Ives, St Ives 211 25 Jackson Pollock, Full Fathom Five, 1947, Museum of Modern Art, New York 214 26 Mojca Oblak, The Visitation, 2006, installation/performance/ exhibition, Equirna Gallery, Ljubljana 218 viii acknowledgements In terms of its origins, this book has evolved over a number of years. It consists of new material, together with revised and, in some cases, much extended ver- sions of work previously published (sometimes in hard to find sources). A few very short extracts from Chapter 1 are included in Art History Versus Aesthetics, ed. James Elkins (Routledge: London, 2006), 123–128. Chapter 2 is a much extended version of a paper entitled ‘Pictorial Space and the Possibility of Art,’ published in the British Journal of Aesthetics 48 (2008): 175–192. Part of Chapter 4 was published as ‘Painting, Abstraction, Metaphysics: Merleau-Ponty and the Invisible’, in Symposium 8, no. 2 (2004): 1–14. Chapter 5 appeared as ‘Transcendence and Sculpture’ in Painting, Sculpture, and the Spiritual Dimen- sion: The Kingston and Winchester Papers, ed. Stephen J. Newton and Brandon Taylor (Oneiros: London, 2003), 123–132. Chapter 6 is a much extended ver- sion of a paper entitled ‘The Logic of Abstract Art’ published in The Structurist (Fall, 2008): 58–63. Chapter 9 is a slightly revised version of a paper of the same title that was published in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 66, no. 2 (2008): 161–170. Thanks are due to my assistant Carin Baban for her exemplary work in pre- paring the manuscript for publication. ix