'Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s installations could be described as oneiric mises en scène. Mise en scène is the process of arranging actors and scenery on a stage or film set. Gonzalez-Foerster combines being a filmmaker with being an installation artist and the intersection of the two media in her work is of interest because in installation art the mise en scène becomes the work of art.
'Those who enter a mise en scène viewing it as a work of art enter an environment that is profoundly illusory because the illusion does not take place within the evidently immaterial confines of a two-dimensional surface but in a real, physical environment. One remembers the Surrealists deconstruction of photography. Here was a medium thatwas supposed to be a direct imprint of the real: the camera ‘could not lie’. But Surrealist photography showed that the photograph could be the stage for a profound dislocation of our habituated ways of seeing.
Something similar is happening in the work of Gonzalez-Foerster. We enter rooms that are real enough, and experience objects that are real enough such as ladders and artificial grass, but the overall experience is not real but hyperreal. Typically her work will use devices such as painting the walls of a gallery a particular colour to create the effect of a ‘colour field’ with its concomitant psychological effects; using physical materials on the floor such as sand or plastic grass; and using imagery such as photographs or video to introduce a nonlinear narrative dimension into the oneiric mise en scène. Gonzalez-Foerster speaks of these rooms in terms of ‘narrative’ noting that "colour is an entry into a narrative; the colour rooms and the clues they usually contain give a certain number of elements to which the viewer adds what she/he needs to comprehend the work, link those various existing elements. It is not quite like reading, although reading is a possible means of completion; rather it is a way to generate a narrative, therefore emphasizing the importance of interpretation."
'But to be more precise, we are not speaking about a linear narrative. We are describing something much more oblique and poetic. It appears that one of the purposes of Gonzalez-Foerster’s installations is to place the viewer in a situation in which she or he has to exercise his or her imagination. Now, of course, we always exercise our imagination when looking at art. But Gonzalez-Foerster’s rooms are more demanding because the data is not in one place as is the case in a painting or integral sculpture. And this splitting or fragmenting of the experience into parts differs from immersive experiences such as the instances by Janssens and Eliasson that have been referred to in this text. When we walk into Gonzalez-Foerster’s rooms we walk into a ‘picture’ as is the case in an Eliasson installation and we experience immersive-like sensory effects, such as the colour field of painted walls and the feel of sand or Astroturf under foot. But her work does not end at perceptual experience. Instead there is a demand that we exercise our imaginative-cognitive facilities.
The fact that we have to use our imagination, in particular, is significant because in the philosophy of David Hume (1711-1776) imagination stands in between ideas (thoughts) and impressions (sensations and feelings). It is Hume’s interconnection between bodily-sensory experience and ideas which is especially interesting for a consideration of installation art. In the context of Gonzalez-Foerster’s installations what is significant about such philosophical meditations is that sensation, perception and cognition are intertwined, and I think that Gonzalez-Foerster’s ability to integrate perceptually immersive experience with a demand on the viewer’s cognitive-imaginative faculties is a particularly significant feature of her installations.
'Another facet of Gonzalez-Foerster’s rooms is the way in which they can evoke an absent self that is entirely fictive. In that sense the absent self is an empty signifier that the viewer can fill. When the viewer enters one of Gonzalez-Foerster’s rooms she or he becomes akin to an actor on stage who can assume the identity of absent inhabitant. Or one could imagine a novel in which the author left a blank space for the reader to inhabit. One thinks here, also, of the strangeness of Paul Pfeiffer’s videos of sporting events in which he erases principle props and actors. Placed in such oneiric circumstances we reflect upon our identity as a species of construct woven out of a web of influences most of which have become distant memories.'-- Graham Coulter-Smith
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Further
Dominique Gonzales-Foerster Website
DG-F @ 303 Gallery
DG-F @ Corvi-Mora Gallery
DG-F @ Esther Schipper Gallery
'This was a red jungle.'
'Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster's grand design'
'DOMINIQUE GONZALEZ-FOERSTER: public-personal space'
'Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, chronotopes & dioramas'
'Soy una escritora frustrada'
'Clothes as Personal History'
'interior gulf stream: Housing and studio for Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster'
Video: 'Soleil vert par Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster'
'DOMINIQUE GONZALEZFOERSTER'S TOP 5 PERFORMANCES OF ALL TIME'
'archive and quotation in the work of Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster'
'Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster is taking the town by storm'
'Subjective Histories of Sculpture III: Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster'
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Extras
DOMINIQUE GONZALEZ-FOERSTER INTERVIEW EXTRACT
Gonzalez-Foerster installation at Tate Modern's Turbine Hall
Shortstory by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster
Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster / Atomic Park (2003)
Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster/Ari Benjamin Meyers/Tristan Bera interviewed
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Interview
from Flash Art
Hans Ulrich Obrist:In a previous conversation, we spoke about moving into fields different from contemporary art. You mentioned Friedrich Kiesler. Let’s start from here.
Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster: I think one reason why Kiesler is less famous than other artists is because he never wanted to be only a gallery artist. He was doing architectural work and all sorts of things, such as windows for big department stores or gallery spaces. The methods he developed have indirectly influenced many artists who don’t even recognize it. Certain artists — such as Kiesler or Isamu Noguchi when making lamps and furniture — wanted to expand the field of experiences. But art history makes it difficult for artists to escape a linear way of developing a career, and usually these artists are rediscovered much later. The art world is very conservative when it comes to behavior.
HUO:You have implemented a lot of these expanded projects: a park has happened in
Kassel at Documenta 11, another park in Grenoble, and a house in Japan.
DGF: I always look for experimental processes. I like the fact that at the beginning I
don’t know how to do things and then slowly I start learning. Often exhibitions don’t give me this learning possibility anymore. With the house in Japan, I was constantly confronted with people; they were explaining to me, say, possible grids and at each meeting I was learning something new. I like meeting with people who are very specialized in their field. I don’t find these learning moments in art enough.
HUO:I always felt that routine is the enemy of exhibitions.
DGF: Yes. There is also something very slow in the art world. People build a stage for a concert in one day; they do more in one day than they do in a gallery space in a year in terms of activity. Of course each system has it’s timing, but once you have been dealing with other speeds it is really hard to go back to this slowness.
HUO:When I first came to France I was asked if I wanted a ‘plan d’evasion’! It was a card for buying tickets, like national flights’ tickets. There’s also a book by Laborit, Éloge de la fuite…
DGF: There is something very human in ‘escaping.’ What drives transformation is the fact that at a certain point an environment is not stimulating to you anymore. You feel you need a change; it’s a human drive to escape the too slow or too repetitive or too deadend situations.
HUO:Recently somebody told me about the great landscape architect Dominique
Gonzalez-Foerster! They didn’t know that you had an artistic background. There are
other people who see your films at film festivals and talk about this young filmmaker. Suddenly you are gathering a multitude of identities.
DGF: I don’t want the films to be seen as artist’s films or the garden to be seen as an artist’s garden. I think it is important for artists to develop their role as producers or directors, which means providing a public situation for an audience — an exhibition, a theater piece or a film serve this purpose too. And for that you get a fee.
HUO:There’s a recurrent question in my interviews... what is your unrealized project?
DGF: The thing I have been dreaming of for some years is a swimming pool on the beach. This is why I went to Brazil; I wanted to make it there. It would be a kind of ‘tropical university’: a place, a swimming pool, with some umbrellas to create shades. You sit in the water on the beach and discuss your ideas and projects! It has never been realized until now.
HUO: What is your next project?
DGF: Writing a science fiction novel together with Philippe Parreno, keep thinking about new sorts of public spaces and playgrounds as I did for the current São Paulo Biennale, working on an ‘opera/exhibition’ with lots of artists and friends for the Manchester International Festival, preparing a proposal for Skulptur Projekte Münster 07, and of course remaining unpredictable even for myself!
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Balenciaga Flagship Store, Paris
'Balenciaga’s 60th directly operated store — boasting 40 feet of frontage on the bustling Rue Saint-Honoré — symbolizes how the company has quickly accrued critical mass in retail, which now accounts for more than half of its revenues. (Less than five years ago, it only had three locations.) Balenciaga’s space, formerly a gas station, offered the brand a vast, rectangular space of about 3,200 square feet spread over one level — a rarity in a city full of landmark buildings with higgledy-piggledy layouts. As in all Balenciaga units, creative director Nicolas Ghesquière and the French contemporary artist Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster collaborated on the interior concept. She calls the Rue Saint-Honoré store a “catalogue” of its key boutiques, each of which has a different color scheme and mood. Pedestrians strolling on Rue Saint-Honoré are surely to be struck by the store’s division into vertical strips — like a theater stage with its various backdrops viewed in cross-section.'-- WWD
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Cinema
Belle comme le jour (2012)
'The story of Severine before she married Pierre and became 'Belle de jour'. Staying at the Hotel Regina next to rue de Rivoli, she goes to visit the Louvre and has a deeply disturbing conversation with a complete stranger.'
Noreturn (2009)
'Noreturn 2009 is a short film lasting sixteen minutes featuring a group of school children playing, reading, talking and ultimately sleeping in the cavernous space of Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. The film was shot during the last days of the artist’s installation for the Unilever Series commission for the Turbine Hall, entitled TH.2058. The beds, books, sound of rainfall, replica artworks and large LED screen that comprised the installation are all used in the film as props and staging for the children’s activities, which appear to be unsupervised, suggesting that the children may have taken shelter in the apparently abandoned space. The film’s soundtrack was specially devised and recorded by the musician Arto Lindsay, and provides a jarring acoustic accompaniment to the visual action.'
Trailer
Marquise (2006)
'Marquise is a film that features Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster‘s contribution for the 27th Sao Paulo Biennial in 2006, her work „Double Terrain de Jeu (Pavillon-Marquise)“. The installation consists of several plywood columns Gonzalez-Foerster added to the open groundfloor of a pavillion built by architect Oscar Niemeyer at the public park Ibirapuera in Sao Paulo. The film documents the work „Double Terrain de Jeu (Pavillon-Marquise)“ and fictionalizes it at the same time. While one sees the narrator, a small boy, walking through the installation space with his parents, he recounts the imaginary story of how these columns appeared to him at one point to be movable. But he cannot prove this im- pression to his parents. The film is edited with slight cross fadings, which may give the viewer the impression that the columns appear to move.'
Trailer
Parc Central (2005)
'A collection of 11 short poetic psycho-geographic portraits of cities and spaces from artist Dominique Gonzelez-Foerster. Ranging from the revisiting of a scene of Ming-Liang Tsai's 'Vive l'Amour' through the eyes of its protagonist, to a ticker-tape parade in Buenos Aires, from a reflection on the filmic qualities of Brasilia,to an observation of the observers of the 1999 eclipse in Paris. All soundtracked by a sensitive balance of field-recordings and carefully chosen delicate music.'
Atomic Park (2003)
'Atomic Park is a place in the White Sands desert (New Mexico), not far away from Trinity Site, where the first atom bomb exploded in 1945. This national park provides an ambivalent landscape, as well suited for a picnic as for ballistic tests. A white desert, like a natural exhibition hall every movement can provoke diverse interpretations. Like a faint echo we hear Marilyn Monroe's desperate monologue and accusation about man's violence from The Misfits (1961).'
Bashung(s) (2004)
'Alain Bashung, géant de la musique pop française, nous a quitté en mars 2009. Le plus primé des artistes pop français était considéré comme le meilleur chanteur depuis la disparition de Serge Gainsbourg. Il était aimé de toutes les générations. Sans compromis, excentrique mais toujours très humain et respectueux, il a mélangé tradition de la chanson française, surréalisme et rock & roll avec une dimension poétique abstraite et érotique. Ce dernier documentaire sur lui révèle son travail de création à travers des scènes de composition en collaboration avec d’autres artistes, de tournage d’images projetées en concert, de répétitions de spectacles, de scènes de concert et d’interviews de ses proches. Alain Bashung lui-même se livre à Pierre Lescure et nous aide à recomposer le puzzle de sa personnalité multiple.'
Excerpt
Central (2001)
'Gonzalez-Foerster has said that ‘I think I’m obsessed with a world through which one walks in spirit’. In one of her favourite books, Adolfo Bioy Casares’ Morel’s Invention (1940), the narrator - a nameless exile - pitches up on a tropical island inhabited by a group of sophisticates, including Faustine, a woman who instantly captures his heart. Like Casares’ novel, Gonzalez-Foerster’s Central ponders the gap between the viewer and the viewed. A sign, slightly weathered, tells us that we’re at the Star Ferry Terminal, Hong Kong. The camera cuts to a boat, then to the waterfront, then to various solitary souls standing on its edge. It’s all very melancholy.'
Excerpt
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Sculptures & installations
Et la Chambre Orange, 1992
La bibliothèque clandestine, 2013
Tapis de Lecture, 2007
Three dioramas, 2008
Repulse Bay, 1999
Untitled, 2011Book: Robert Bolano's 'Los Detectivos Salvajes' and sand
Dominique Gonzales-Foerster as Edgar Allan Poe
Splendide Hotel, 2013
Bahia Desorientada, 2005
The daughter of a Taoist, 1991
Chandigarh book, 1996
Cité de la nuit, 1993
Moment Dream House, 2004
Human Valley, 2011
Une chambre en ville, 1996
T. 1912
Valise Biographique (Hannah Hoch), 1992
from euqinimod & costumes, 2014
Cosmodrome, 2000
*
p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. I've never read a full Lacan tome. Just things. He sure is important to a lot of writers and thinkers I love, though. That Oscar Wilde quote about Whistler is really great. My mom was really into Whistler. I think for her generation he was slightly cool to be into. His name has always connoted fustiness to me, but I've never paid that much attention, it's true. ** Torn porter, Oh, wow, you're in the same place. I kind of liked it. Everything was so white, the buildings, I mean. There was a pretty okay record store/cafe there. I don't remember much else in detail. It was nice to walk around in mostly, I guess. Hi to Ratty, assuming she's there now. Yeah, Turrell did an installation in a Vegas mall. Here's a thing about it. Right, I saw that google selfie thing somewhere yesterday. They're kind of really beautiful. Like super clean bad ghost costumes. Heart, me. ** Marilyn Roxie, Hi, Marilyn! Really nice to see you. How are you doing? No, I don't know those three games you mentioned, and I'll be excitedly off to investigate them in a bit. Cool. Thank you so much! ** Kier, Hi, Kier! Yeah, I hope the suckiness blows over or that ... what's the best case scenario? That they quit maybe? Awesome re: the great psych meeting. I haven't seen any of those horror films. I'm so behind. I don't have a working TV anymore. I miss how in the States there were always the endlessly horror movies-unrolling Sy-Fy Channel and Chiller Channel to flip to and zone out before. Starbuck from 'Battlestar', cool! I miss 'Battlestar'. My cold continues to upswing and gradually fade out, I think. It's really hot here suddenly, which doesn't help though. Being sick when it's hot is always horrible, which is weird, I guess, because it seems like theoretically it would be better, like the heat would help dry the cold out, but it seems like the heat just heats up the cold and makes it feel muddier or something. How was your Friday? ** Keaton, I didn't know or remember that Beckett quote. One or the other. Oops. Yeah, 'words are all we've got' seems like a bad way for writers to think especially. The less you trust or believe in language, the better the writing in my opinion, I think. I never use emoticons but I'm absolutely positive that Mac provides emoticons to whoever wants them. Cheap Trick were/are definitely right. Now sure about Burroughs. I'm more into adult hate, I think, although I'm not really into hate very much. Richard Albert, yeah. That guy. That square, blue book. I'll look up Rorty. There are socialist party posters everywhere all the time. You'd be very flipped out. There it is, I think: your 4th of July post. Wow, it's 4th or July. I didn't know that until this very moment. It looks really neat. I'll root around in it a bit later. Everyone, to mark the big 4th of July American shebang holiday thing, Keaton, whom you should all know from his brilliant memes post here recently, has created a special image/text stack over on his blog, and it's either called Lacanianism or Lalacan or both, and it runs the gamut from Chewbacca (sp?) to Billy Corgan, and, yeah, go caress it with your eyes please. ** Sypha, There are a lot of experimental horror computer games. It seems to be a big genre. They're all kind of the same, but they look really fun. Enjoy your last rural day. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Ah, you're old school. Is the Y 'n' Y compendium going to be in the classic Y 'n' Y form? Yes, everyone, well, a lot of people, are very hot and bothered about the France vs. Germany match today. I'll be squared away doing auditions for Zac's and my film when it's happening and trying to talk over the citywide yelling. ** Steevee, Thanks. Glad you've at least reached the tolerance phase. I think the tolerance phase is when it starts speeding up? ** Kyler, That was a cool arts camp. Or a confusing one, what with the Kate Smith assault. I don't know. My parents used to send me away to summer camps. They weren't very arty, though. One of them was famous because it had been the 'summer camp' in that movie 'The Parent Trap'. The other ones were on Catalina Island. Far-ish away, which was nice about them. You're on Gawker! Now you can say 'As seen on Gawker' about your book, which I think is only positive? Everyone, d.l./writer/mystic Kyler's imminent novel is squibbed on Gawker in an article called 'Cult Rush Week: Pretzels and Wine With Peaches Geldof's Sex Cult', and maybe you want to go experience that. Wait, no maybe. Here you go. Trippy. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff! Thanks. About the post. Yeah, those games are cool. Very cool that you've entered the right path in your novel. And that the path leads into the mountains is a nice double-duty thing. Great! No, I still haven't gotten it up to read any Bolano, although I can feel myself getting there. Mm, I would say the new Blake is more intense and uncompromisingly Blake than the earlier novels. More explosive. I think it's incredible so far. He's really going for it, and he's really getting it. I just read something very enticing about the Steve Lehman album. Yeah, I'll go score it. Thanks a lot for the tip, man. If you're not yet in the mountains, get there very un-problemmatically. ** Misanthrope, I've only read part of 'Moby Dick', but I thought it was really incredible, so I guess I disagree with you on that. The 'Mockingbird' movie is really good, though, I think, in my memory. See, I would have quit reading 'The Kite Runner' after about five pages. Have you read that Donna Tartt book that everybody's thinking is God and all that, 'The Goldfinch' or 'Goldfinch' or whatever it's called? I picked it up and flipped through it in the store the other day, and that was plenty, as far as I could tell. So, you're doing the 4th of July up all proper and everything. Have fun. ** HyeMin Kim, Hi.I played a little but of 'The Path'. I liked it. It's very slow and repetitive in this way I liked. We're try to rent a live wolf for one scene in Zac's and my film, if we can. The wolf just needs to walk up and sniff someone. I'm not sure if we can afford the wolf, though. We're checking it out. ** Rewritedept, Hi. Yeah, head cold. It's bettering itself. I'm still a little ugh and spacey and blowing my nose a lot. More bbq-ing and whatnot. The 4th of July lives! Cool, I guess. You guys have those great fireworks stores around Vegas, lucky you. I've seen all of those PTA movies. I liked 'Boogie Nights' a lot. I was okay with Magnolia' with certain qualifications. I really liked 'Punchdrunk Love'. My favorite thing in '1991: The Year Punk Broke' is Dinosaur Jr. playing 'Freak Scene'. My least favorite thing is Thurston showing us his dump. No, haven't seen the Lightning Bolt doc. Would like to. My Friday will be occupied by performer auditions for our film with fingers very crossed. Yeah, it was the 'Bellagio', bingo. Have a superb anniversary of America's whatever it is! ** Nicki, Hi, N. Wow, you're last today. Glad you liked the games post. Cool stuff, yeah. Well, Lacan only got talked about because someone brought him up. If someone doesn't bring up Spivak, she won't get talked about, which I guess is my argument not to delete. Besides, I wonder if anyone here has ever read her. I haven't. Complete lack of knowledge hampers referencing and discussing. So, go for it, is what I'm saying. I try to introduce people to artists and people they quite possibly don't already know all the time here. Take today's post for example. So, yeah. ** Right. My galerie hosts a show by the awesome French artist Dominique Gonzales-Foerster today. I also know her a little bit, and she's a great person. So, enjoy, do your thing, do your other things. See you tomorrow.