Explore: Lucy Lippard’s Numbers Shows 1969-74

Text and imagery transmitted from N.E. Thing Co.'s studio to the Vancouver Art Gallery via the Xerox Telecopier or the CNCP Telex machine as part of their work Transmissions of Visual Sensitivity Information (1970).

Publish date: 20 apr 2012

This article is part of Exhibition Histories series

01/10
Rosemarie Castoro came to Seattle to install her work Seattle Cracking (1969), which bisected the gallery wall, windows and floor with aluminium tape to create an irregular crack mark.
02/10
In the centre of a room adjacent to the main gallery space, a construction was built to house work by Rosemarie Castoro and Robert Huot. Daniel Buren’s Papiers collés blanc et vert (Green and White Glued Papers, 1970), work in situ of vertically striped sheets of paper, was pasted to part of the exterior of the structure. On the left is a piece by Harold Hurrell, presented as part of The Art & Language Press Project (1967–69), next to Dennis Oppenheim’s Ground Mutation (1970) and John Baldessari and George Nicolaidis’s Border Project (1969). For their work Transmissions of Visual Sensitivity Information (1970), N.E. Thing Co. transmitted visual imagery and text via the Xerox Telecopier or the CNCP Telex machine positioned in a roped-off corner of the room. The newspaper on the floor in the foreground was initially part of Christos Dikeakos’s Mirror File Case (1970), but Lucy Lippard removed it before the opening.
03/10
Large crosses were drawn in masking tape onto the windows of the museum for John Perreault’s Tape Event (1969). In contrast to his earlier Tape Event works, he stated that it should not be considered a performance work, as he was unable to come to Seattle to install the piece. John Latham’s Still and Chew (1966), a chewed copy of Clement Greenberg’s book taken from the library of Saint Martins School of Art, London, was displayed in a glass vitrine.
04/10
Rafael Ferrer’s work ¿Qué? (What?, 1969) was installed by Tore Haven, a gallery technician, according to a set of instructions provided by the artist that specified that nine stripes of axle grease, each 5-inches wide (12.7cm) and 5-feet long (1.524m), were to be placed on the gallery floor, 5 inches apart. The work was intended to honour an anonymous artist (in fact Haven, with the total number of stripes correlating to the number of letters making up his full name, see fig.80). On the partition wall a poster publicised the Land art film programme, originally produced by Gerry Schum for German television in 1969, and screened daily throughout the exhibition. On the floor behind the partition wall is the end of Barry Flanagan’s 15-metre long Two Space Rope Sculpture 67 (1967) .
05/10
Visitors leafing through books displayed at the exhibition space, among which Hanne Darboven’s 68 (1968), consisting of six books of 366 pages each, and Donald Burgy’s two books Documentation of Selected Mental and Physical Characteristics of Donald Burgy from 1/20/69 to 1/30/69 (1969) were presented on several tables alongside other artists’ books.
06/10
In Vancouver, some works were also installed off-site in the Student Union Building Gallery at UBC. Two films by Bruce Nauman, titled Balls and Noise (both circa 1966), were projected. Richard Artschwager’s blp (1969) is visible high on the back wall, and John Perreault’s Tape Event (1969) can be seen in the windows above the stairs.
07/10
‘c.7,500’ occupied one gallery space within the Walker Art Center. On the table in the foreground is Mierle Laderman Ukeles’s photo-album of Maintenance Art Tasks (1993), next to an album containing N.E. Thing Co.‘s work North American Time Zone Photo-VSI- Simultaneity (1970).
08/10
Athena Tacha was represented by a series of four photographic works that document the positions she could adopt with different parts of her body. Shown here, clockwise from left, are Feet and Shoes (1970–72), Expressions I (A Study of Facial Motions) (1972), Hands (two versions) (1970–72) and Ears (1970–71). Visible to the right in the corner is 100 Identical Drawings (1969) by Nancy Wilson Kitchel.
09/10
Christine Kozlov’s nine books Neurological Compilation: The Physical Mind since 1945, (1961–69) are stacked in two rows on the table along with other artists’ books. In the background from left to right works by Christiane Möbus, Renee Nahum, Agnes Denes, Martha Wilson and Alice Aycock were displayed.
10/10
Text and imagery transmitted from N.E. Thing Co.’s studio to the Vancouver Art Gallery via the Xerox Telecopier or the CNCP Telex machine as part of their work Transmissions of Visual Sensitivity Information (1970).