Molly Springfield: Language

Artist Molly Springfield of Washington, DC, continues my recent project by writing about "language." As usual, I extend an invitation to all local artists who would like to participate in this effort. Just email me!

And have I ever told you
Oil on Panel
16" by 24"
2003

Molly Springfield: Language

You asked me to respond to the word “language.” For me, language – writing on paper, in particular – provokes fascination, and at the same time, suspicion. It's a central concern of my work, but I'm extremely wary of using it. After all, if what I wanted to say could be reduced to language, I'd be a writer, not a visual artist. In fact, what interests me most about language is not what matters most to writers (the ability to express thoughts, the possibilities for fusing sound and sense) or even the stuff that matters to linguists (the structure of language, its evolution, its anthropological or neurophysiological implications). For me, what's ultimately most interesting about language are its aesthetic and material properties: the way it looks, the way it feels, the way in which it seems, somehow, to actually exist as a thing in the world.

It may seem odd to talk about language in such a physical way. A lot of critical theory says the opposite: that texts are not objects at all, but events that occur in the minds of readers. In some sense, that's true, of course. But, in an age of hypertext and email, people forget that there is also a fundamental materiality to language: language has a body; it breathes.

The materiality of language, in my mind, has a strong connection to memory. I've saved practically every note or letter anybody has ever sent me, and have been making drawings and paintings based on my correspondence for a long time. Much of the work I've done over the past two years (painting, drawing, digital video) has been based on a single collection of notes from high school, the sort that your friends would scrawl onto lined notebook paper and pass you during physics class.

The notes are filled with lots of adolescent sentiment and drama that, from this distance, seems both incredibly funny and oddly beautiful. But, because I want to bring out the notion of text as object, I don't actually let the viewer “read” the notes. Instead, I use a variety of different strategies to conceal and obscure the text -- repetition, erasure, reversal, recontextualization. I want to play with the way in which words on paper can command the attention of our eye in a way that's very different from the way they convey meaning to our brains. I’m interested in exploring how writing, stripped of its semantic content, retains a certain kind of wordless poetry.

One art historical precedent that's obviously had some influence on me is Mel Ramsden’s Secret Painting (1968). It's just a black monochrome canvas hung next to a plaque that says: “The content of this painting is invisible; the character and dimension of the content are to be kept permanently secret, known only to the artist.” People always talk about the art of the late '60's and '70's as being defined by the “dematerialization” of the art object, as Lucy Lippard put it, but it's important to realize that this shift was also accompanied by a kind of “rematerialization” of language. In his writings, Robert Smithson talks about “language as a material entity.” “My sense of language,” he said, “is that it is matter and not ideas.” Artists like On Kawara, Hanne Darboven, Susan Hiller, and Ed Ruscha, all explored the differences between reading and seeing long before I came around. In revisiting some of the same territory, the best I can do is to try to build upon their example, adding personal or poetic dimensions that weren’t part of their vocabulary.

Still from Untitled (memory landscapes)
Digital Slide Show
2004

Previous Posts:

Charles Neenan: Tradition
Kelly Towles: Color
Ryan Mulligan: Originality
Matt Hollis: Confinement
Dean Fueroghne: Originality
James W. Bailey: Obligation
J. Coleman: Depiction
Andy Moon Wilson: Decision

Comments

[Joseph Barbaccia]

Molly,

How do you feel about the forms of characters? Does calligraphy figure into your painting? Or is content and meaning and their corresponding evoked images the major concern? How about different languages or alphabets?

[Lennox]

I fell in love with Molly's work since I first saw it at the Arts Club a couple of years ago...

Molly: Call Catriona!

[Molly]

Hi Joseph. Thanks for your questions. Conveying content and meaning through language is not really my concern. What I'm interested in is seeing what happens with language when you take some, or all, of the meaning away, so that what you're left with it its physicality. So in that sense, yes, I'm interested in the gestural properties and rhythyms of handwriting and the differences between the forms of people's handwriting. I’ve done some research on handwriting: how it's taught in schools, how it's evolved through history, and might do more with that in the future. Caligraphy and different alphabets are certainly subjects that have interested many artists, but these things don't really fit into my general project. I am, however, a fan of Xu Bing, who uses mock Chinese ideograms in his work.

There's a great book that came out last year on the role of writing in 20th century art, called "Writing on the Wall: Word and Image in Modern Art” by the British artist Simon Morely. He does a great job of identifying two poles in how artists use writing: art that concerns legibility, discursive communication and the mind, on the one hand, and art that concerns illegibility, direct unmediated communication, and the pulse of the body on the other hand. Although there are elements of both in what I do, I think I’m mostly in the second camp.

[Jame W. Bailey]

Dear Ms. Springfield,

I find your work and thoughts fascinating. I am intrigued by your written expressions of the use of language in your work.

I think a lot of readers of this site, especially younger artists, and even older artists, who have been taught the drill of writting artists statements, may be interested in knowing your thoughts on the value, relevance or even meaning of an artist statement in support of your work? Do you believe in such statements? If not, why not? If you do, what are the struggles you confront, given your thoughts on the subject of language, to write such a statement?

I'm curious...

...and beautiful work, by the way.

Sincerely,

James W. Bailey

[Fred Frost (Bombed The Hilton)]

Suspicious of "language"??? Jeeeeeezuz!

[Molly]

Thanks for your comments and questions. By suspicion of language, I mean that I'm wary of using language to explain or convey something that's irreducibly visual or ineffable. I see artist statements, therefore, as often being a kind of necessary evil. On the other hand, I think its helpful, in order to reach a larger audience, for contemporary artists to be able to clearly articulate the ideas and processes in their work. Some artist statements can actually be significant in their own right: think of Donald Judd's "Specific Objects," for instance.

[Pop]

Exactly what kind of word is "stuff"? If, as you indicate parenthetically that "stuff" is the structure and evolution of language and or its anthropological or neurophysiological implications, what would the anthropologists or physicians have to say about Presidents Bush' use of language. And now that I think about it, how would you portray his language thrpough your art?

Pop