Bluerider ART 学术评论｜ Angela Glajcar 安格拉·格莱札 Dr. Andreas Beitin

Dr. Andreas Beitin

安德鲁·贝廷博士艺术史、应用文化科学以及现当代历史学家，著作包括二十世纪德国绘画和图形中尖叫主题论文。担任ZKM当代艺术博物馆馆长、歌德学院艺术顾问委员会主席，以及Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft、卡尔斯鲁厄理工学院 (KIT)、RWE 基金会、大众汽车基金会）众多艺术评审团和学术顾问委员。

Angela Glajcar 纸艺装置—— 一个相对面的组合
Angela Glajcar’s Paper Installations – a Synthesis of Opposites
Dr. Andreas Beitin 安德魯·貝廷 博士

雕塑家 Angela Glajcar 由于她创新地使用纸作为材料，创造作品因广阔幅围 和由此产生的空间美学，使她的纸艺装置体现了一个非凡的代表地位。 Glajcar 以她独特的方式展示了纸张不单轻且易碎，也同时具有份量且坚固。 通过她的作品，她为观众提供了对此媒材截然相反特徵的直观感知。

作为一名雕塑家，Angela Glajcar 于 1997 年至 2006 年开始使用钢材和木材等材料创作。而后主要以纸张为媒材，也于近年(2010-083、2011-009)开始使用玻璃纤维布创作。使用纸作为媒介，仍然是她装置的首选材料，对她来说具有特殊的意义，因为纸能够吸收环境光并突出各种色调。这就是为什麽 Angela Glajcar 主要使用「白色」纸的原因:她「不需要有色材料」。1 艺术家非常著迷于:长条形纸排列或大量层层堆叠的纸张主宰环境空间时的存在，这就是为什麽现地製作是她创作中最重要的部分。她对建筑体积的空间、比例和照明条件的直观反应，以及对作品定位位置的任何破坏性因素之反应和克服， 是她创作装置过程中的决定性要素。有时，艺术家面对的不是如博物馆的白色 立方体，而是一个多功能的空间，而且这些空间通常用于展示艺术品以外的其他目的，例如教堂(2009-072、2010-022、 2011-072) 或银行等空间。儘管 Angela Glajcar 会为她精细不朽的雕塑装置製作小型模型，并也在她的工 作室裡模拟如何装置它们的各种可能性，但当雕塑在现场进入最后阶段放置时- 这才是作品最终会形成的展现。在创作装置时，艺术家对纸张所经历的变化特别著迷，例如对环境湿度的不同反应:纸张捲曲和弯曲，都会改变其表面的感 觉，因此揭示了纸张这个媒材的「无常性」。正是纸张的有限性让 Angela Glajcar 持续回到使用纸质材料中创作。因为她对艺术「永恆」的要求不感兴趣。

最初，纸张是图像艺术家使用的材料。自从纸张取代了昂贵的羊皮纸以来，它已经在全球广泛普及。早在 1620 年，英国哲学家 Francis Bacon 弗朗西斯·培根在他的《关于解释自然的真实方向》(True Directions Concerning The Interpretation Of Nature)中热情洋溢地说道:「纸是艺术的独特实例，一种极其常见的东西。 […] 纸 [是] 一种可能被切割或撕裂的物质;因此他几乎可以与动物的皮肤或膜、植物的叶子以及类比大自然的工艺相媲美。因为它既不像玻璃那样脆，也不像布一样织成;而是在纤维中，不是像线组成般，就如同天然材料一样;所以在人造材料中你几乎找不到类似的东西;纸是珍贵罕见的。」2

从早期现代主义开始，纸开始用于绘画—无论是拼贴画还是实际绘画。纸张的雕塑早期实例出现在 20 世纪初，例如巴勃罗毕加索 Pablo Picasso 从 1910 年代开始由纸和纸板製成的雕塑。他甚至将一些纸雕塑用锡、罐头重新切割， 提高它们的耐用性。对于 Angela Glajcar 来说，纸艺的迷人之处之一是，大多数人仅视之于媒材的一部分，但 Glajcar 著迷于纸的可能性。虽然轻盈且脆弱，但亦可沉重且坚固。因此，艺术家经常使用重达 800 g/m2 的重纸(如 2010-026)，几乎是普通打印纸重量的十倍。

Angela Glajcar 使用长条状的纸张创作大型装置中，其灵感来自传统绘画。因 此，她的作品涵盖了二维和三维，绘画与雕塑，更广泛的定义与绘画相关的幻觉领域，以及物质和实质上现实领域材料与概念的融合。

关于这一点，请允许我从艺术史角度切入:在 20 世纪初，艺术经历了根本性的范式转变。然而，视觉美学的真正革命并不仅仅包括从具体绘画到抽象绘画的转变——因为艺术家仍然非常传统地使用颜料和画布——而是从，错觉艺术到再现艺术的转变。

例如，几世纪前绘画中的光即被视为白色或黄色颜料呈现，1920 年代则看到了 艺术家将「光本身」用作艺术中的具体材料的变化。在视觉艺术使用实际光之 前，绘画中使用的材料范围早已有所增加。

早在 1910 年代，金属光反射就被用于绘画上，儘管这些金属仍然是作为媒介 「间接地」，即被动地描绘光。 塞韦里尼 Gino Severini 1913 年的一幅画作可被视为这一发展时期的关键作品之一。这幅名为《舞者 + 海 = 花束》 (Dancer + Sea = Bouquet) 的抽像画主要是用颜料绘製的，但在作品下方 Severini 塞韦里尼使用了「铝」做了一个「光反射」的效果。20 世纪初亚克力玻璃等现代材料，也广泛地运用在光的艺术中。例如，建构主义和混凝土艺术家将其与最多样化的材料结合在一起。这样的偏好不仅在使用最新的科技材料，还在日常材料使用，如纸张，最初在 1910 年代零星地出现，然后在 1920 年代频繁地出现，使创作媒材从帆布画到物质媒介而铺路。二次世界大战后， 义大利成为了对材料多样性创作与讨论的核心舞台。例如，艺术家和理论学家恩里科·普兰波利尼 Enrico Prampolini 在 1944 年提出「多媒体艺术」概念， 试图以「媒材的真实性完全取代绘画的真实性」，为了「将艺术推向最为极端的 境界，使人联想起媒材律动性的空间表现，藉以唤起情感价值。」」3 物质化的 表面振动近几被描述为暴力衝击或破坏，例如可见于自 1950 年以来一直主导 著义大利艺术话语权的艺术家们 阿尔贝托·布里 Alberto Burri 、卢齐欧·封塔 纳 Lucio Fontana 、 博纳卢米 Agostino Bonalumi、吉安尼·科隆博 Gianni Colombo 和 阿吉诺雷·法布里 Agenore Fabbri 。这样的历史脉络可以部分 解释为什麽 Angela Glajcar 的作品在义大利特别受欢迎。

Angela Glajcar 也通过撕开纸张产生间隙来破坏材料。对原始平面、未损坏过 的纸张破坏，表现了对「图像破坏」的历史参照实践。在这种情况下，「纸张」 就是原始完整的、未损坏的图像媒材。Angela Glajcar 单色纸图像被解释为部分地、不曾完全地撕裂，且总是会被打散、搅乱和破坏。关于这一个艺术过 程，文化哲学家鲍里斯·格罗伊斯 Boris Groys 评论:「大多数现代主义绘画都是 通过破坏图像的方式创作的，」因为它们「都是被锯开、切割、破碎、撕裂、 穿刺——不论是像徵性抑或实际性」4 这些代表 Glajcar 作品基础中的艺术史 背景。这也让「纸张的无常性」与艺术家对某些艺术作品「主张永恆」的批判 立场巧妙地吻合。

卢齐欧·封塔纳 Lucio Fontana 是我们在上面已经提到的将反传统做法应用于作 品的主要艺术家之一。儘管他从 1940 年代后期开始于画布进行穿孔和打洞， 以克服二维性来实现无限的空间，但在 Angela Glajcar 的作品中，二维和三 维、物质和非物质并不相互排斥，而是同时存在——事实上，它们其实是相互 组成的一部份。虽然撕裂出的孔洞让撕裂边缘凸显了剩馀纸张的重要性，但缺 失的纸张同时被记录，而不是被间隙隐藏著。

最终它归结为幻觉的哲学辩证法——在什麽不是(这裡:在洞裡)和什麽是 (这裡:在纸上)的意义上。从哲学上而言，在整个西方世界的文化历史中， 对非现实或幻觉的感知总是随著时间的推移而变化。柏拉图 Plato——他脑海中浮现的洞穴寓言之精髓——谴责一切虚幻的事物，因为它阻碍了真理，或者 更准确地说:阻碍了对真理的认识。相比之下，年轻的弗里德里希·尼采 Friedrich Nietzsche 则颂扬一切虚幻，因为在非现实裡、在幻觉中，他看到了 人类生存的基本必备要素。5 最后，20 世纪中叶的狄奥多·阿多诺 Theodor W. Adorno 并没有将幻想与真理视为相互排斥的对立面，而是强调了它们的相互 依赖，因为只有透过与幻觉的区分才能定义真理。6 沿著这些思路，Angela Glajcar 的作品恰是透过「纸的间隙」强调了纸的物质性。此外，Glajcar 通过 穿孔与撕裂，剥离了纸张工业化批量生产的概念，将它们变成独一的艺术品。

「空无」是一个关键词彙，例如，适用于艺术家的大型装置 Ad lucem (2009- 072) 和 Arsis (2009-001, 2009-073, 2009-085)，以及她的 Blocs (例如 2009-055) , 2009-056, 2009-087):「空无」同时增长媒材的发展性。再次使 用柏拉图的话，因为它同时是「视觉的空间」以及「可思考的空间」。

7 它是虚无的、留白的空间，在理性认知中物理性、生物性、哲学性和艺术层 面上有著悠久而多样的传统。几乎就像一个典型范例，构筑虚无抑或空虚。留 白，是 20 世纪艺术反复出现的主题，从卡齐米尔·马列维奇 Kazimir Malevich 的黑色广场(1915 )、阿德莱因哈特 Ad Reinhardt 的单色黑色绘画、伊夫·克 莱因 Yves Klein 的跃入虚空(1960 )，到今天，建构的空隙被概念上的空隙所 取代。在 Glajcar 的案例中，我们面对的是雕塑般的空隙与留白，不是留白恐 惧，而是类似于雕塑家如何从木块或大理石块中去除不必要的、不需要的元 素，Glajcar 撕下纸张以产生一个空白空间——通过减法来产生。

矛盾的是，这是一个人为创作出的空白。在当今世界，经常被大量图像所淹 没，这代表了一个近乎挑衅的立场，使观众陷入双重否定、双重空白。一方面，Angela Glajcar 的大型纸质装置大多由空白纸张或多层纸张组成，它们也 同时被穿孔和撕裂，因此呈现为毗邻空白空间的碎片。然而，「虚空」可以是一种有用的校准工具，可以平息观看者的目光，将其引导至「关注焦点」，从而唤起一种专注的观看方式。在这种情况下， 2004 年至 2005 年的几件纸装置 特别引人兴趣，其中 Glajcar 使用了一侧为白色、背面涂为黑色的纸张(例如 2004-001、2004-015、2005-005、2005 -046)。在这裡，物质性和非物质性 的原则受到了新的艺术审视，因为物质媒介吸光产生的颜色，从而变成了一个空虚，一种非物质。这是现实与非现实的另一种变化，代表了对具象绘画的另 一种参照。实际的物质条件(表面上)是颠倒的，对于你期望不存在的洞会进入空间，但你同时发现了物质实际的存在。而这种物质的存在恰反过来地又被

儘管有撕裂痕迹，Angela Glajcar 所使用各式不同尺寸的纸张，无论是大型悬 挂装置中(例如 2010-002)或是在单件 Blocs 系列(例如 2008-153)皆在 很大程度上保留了工业用纸的外形。 作品的外围维持直线和直角形，而作品中 心大小不一的裂口和撕裂痕迹旁则有艺术家的签名。因此，她的作品是现代主 义或后现代主义两者的交界点:一方面是否定任何拥有个人风格与抹除艺术家 个人的”真迹”而由他人创作的极简主义;另一方面则是表现主义者的主观视 角，结合艺术史学家拉斯洛·格洛策尔 Lazlo Glozer 描述的 1950 年代和 1960 年代西方绘画「从图像中退出」趋势，8 抑或 1980 年代的新意象绘画。这裡 也揭示了与绘画的进一步相似之处:纸的几何四边形类似于画布，图像区块则 是实际表达的领域。

Angela Glajcar 位于科隆圣彼得大教堂:Ad Lucem 作品是他首次在教堂创 作。9 透过每张间隔 7 厘米悬挂的纸张，可以不同角度窥见作品内部由艺术家 手撕之不同尺寸的孔洞，。在作品悬挂最低处的部分，则有著更大开口被撕裂 的孔洞，邀请群众进入悬挂的雕塑观赏有如隧道般的装置搭配周遭反射光的呈 现。隧道般的效果则使得观者无法看穿作品深处，这留给观者无穷无尽的想 像。令人著迷的是，没有任何额外的照明纯白的纸只是吸收了环境光的颜色， 而让它在这座后哥特式教堂的砂岩块中发出暖黄的光。

艺术家以波形起伏的立方体装置映衬了科隆教堂哥特式的拱门，而她在德国赫 尔 KunstRaum Hüll 展出的作品 Arsis(上升之意)则更接近现代主义白色立 方体的概念是。数张八米长的纸张，以抛物线的形状悬挂著，形成像扇子一样 交叉，如同巨大的白色笔触自由地悬浮在空间中。作品中纸张横向的撕裂处则 强调了材料的脆弱性。纸张同样吸收了周围环境光，但展厅的大窗更凸显著这 种自然天光更多是取决于天气而不是建筑人造光本身，更为这件装置提供了几 乎无限量的色调。

20 世纪的重要艺术家之一马塞尔·杜象 Marcel Duchamp 于 1911 年以他的画 作 Nu descendant un escalier 创造了现代性的摇篮本。一个女性人物走下楼 梯，楼梯被分割成几个单独的人物。在此之前的三十几年，英国摄影师埃德沃德·迈布里奇 Edward Muybridge 和法国科学家艾蒂安-朱尔·马雷 Étienne- Jules Marey 也成功地用他们的计时照片永久记录了这个转变。这满足了绘画的一个渴求:透过空间运动来描绘动态和时间。回看 Angela Glajcar 的装置， 例如在科隆圣彼得的作品 (2009-072)、卡斯特尔巴索的作品 (2009-084) 或 安特卫普的 Sint-Anna-ten-Drieënkerk 教堂 (2010-022) 中的装置，令人深刻难忘的是如此巨大的立方体轮廓，却仍具有动态效果:因为映入眼帘的印象 是成倍叠加的纸，每张纸都因为叠加而改变其外观，在空间中起伏移动，就像在拍照中按下快门的瞬间。

再看到在圣彼得的装置，就会发现 Glajcar 在处理每个不同特徵空间时表现出 的敏锐度。因为不仅是时间代表位移，还有声音——特别是「声学运动」空间 中的声波。 Angela Glajcar 将她的装置恰如其分地直接放置在管风琴阁楼 前:就像一个可视化的音符，物化的声波在空间中振盪，一齐如合唱团般的震 盪。非物质的声音，经由纸，被转化成物质，透过纸质它的间隙和它的特性， 吸收光，再次消失在向光的窗边。用一个适合神圣空间的神学礼仪术语来说， 这裡显现了双重的虚拟变形:声音 – 纸 – 光。因此，Glajcar 的现地製作作 品，特别以其在空间中的实体互动给观众留下了深刻的印象，并几乎是表演性 的特徵，因为它们促使观众在作品周为移动。儘管在 Angela Glajcar 的作品 中建立众多艺术史参考点是极有可能的，但她的创作方式和作品远非折衷主义。雕塑家 Glajcar 走出了自己的道路，正如她的现地创作之作品所清楚地展 示般，不仅揭示了艺术多样性的变化与选择，并且以最深思熟虑与能凸显空间本身的方式。使用多样可能性的纸张是 Glajcar 艺术创作的核心，但她更多地扩大了我们的视野，包含了环境、非物质与「可想像的空间」。

很容易找到 Angela Glajcar 作品的参照点、联想和诠释。儘管以下成对的相对面可能并不完全真正的对立，有时可能亦在含义上重叠，但 Glajcar 于上述 帑论例子的作品可以用以下对立面来恰当地描述，有时甚至悖论:安静/动态， 美丽/破坏，轻盈/沉重，绘画/雕塑，律动/沉思和脆弱/力量。仅此多种不同的术语、描述和属性就说明了艺术家作品的细腻複杂性。并非不明确，而是体现 了 Angela Glajcar 对于她的材料选择和过程的艺术精准度。这些对立面也可 以在人类存在中找到，如同一枚硬币的两个面，反映了生命的複杂性。除了非凡的艺术地位，这也是 Angela Glajcar 作品中最令人信服的特点之一。

1 Angela Glajcar in a conversation with the author on July 7, 2009, in Cologne.
2 Francis Bacon, Neues Organon, lateinisch – deutsch, Wolfgang Krohn (Hrsg.),Meiner, Hamburg 1990, S. 419.
3 Enrico Prampolini, „Polymaterielle Kunst (Auf dem Weg zu einer kollektiven Kunst?)“, in:Materialbild. Italia 1950–1965, hrsg. v. Peter Weibel, Mailand 2009, S. 186 [erstmalig publiziert unter dem Titel „Arte polimaterica (Verso un’arte collectiva?)“ in: Antizipazioni, n. 7, serie Arti, O.E.T., Rom 1944].
4 Boris Groys, „Der Kurator als Ikonoklast”, in: Peter Weibel (Hrsg.), Boris Groys. Die Kunst des Denkens, Hamburg 2008, S. 96.
5 Friedrich Nietzsche, „Sämtliche Werke“, in: Kritische Studienausgabe in 15 Bänden, Giorgio Colli und Mazzino Montinari, München u.a., 1988,
Band 7: Nachgelassene Fragmente 1869–1874, S. 199 [1870/1871].
6 Theodor W. Adorno, Gesammelte Schriften, Rolf Tiedemann (Hrsg.), Frankfurt am Main 1997, Band 7: Ästhetische Theorie, S. 154ff.
7 Platon zitiert in: Karl-Heinz Barck u.a. (Hrsg.), Ästhetisches Grundbegriffe. Historisches Wörterbuch in sieben Bänden, Band 1: Absenz – Darstellung, Stuttgart, Weimar 2000, S. 2.
8 Laszlo Glozer, „Ausstieg aus dem Bild. Wiederkehr der Außenwelt“, in: Westkunst. Zeitgenössische Kunst seit 1939, Ausstellungskatalog Köln 1981, Köln 1981, S. 234.
9 A wave-like construction of two parallel metal rods was suspended along the nave of the almost 500-year-old church, from which 150 paper sheets 250 cm high and 130 cm wide were hung at regular intervals.

Angela Glajcar’s Paper Installations – a Synthesis of Opposites
Dr. Andreas Beitin

The paper installations by the sculptor Angela Glajcar represent an extraordinary position due to her innovative use of paper as a material, the works’ expansive scope and the resulting aesthetics. In her distinct way, Glajcar demonstrates that paper is not only light and fragile, but can also be very heavy and robust. With her works, she provides viewers with an immediate perception of these diametrically opposed characteristics of the material.

As a sculptor, Angela Glajcar began by working with materials such as steel and wood (1997-001 intermittently until 2006-028). However, she has mainly used paper as her raw material for many years now, and has recently also begun to use glass fabric (2010-083, 2011-009). Paper as a material, which remains the material of choice for her installations, has a special meaning for her due to its ability to absorb the ambient light and accentuate its various hues. This is why Angela Glajcar predominantly uses white paper; she “has no need of coloured material.”1 The artist is fascinated by the presence a seemingly light material such as paper can have, when long sheets or great stacks of it dominate its environment. This is why working on-site is the most important part in the creation of her works. Her intuitive reaction to the space, its proportions and lighting conditions whilst negotiating the architectural volumes, and also the reaction to and the surmounting of any disruptive factors that may be present at the given location are decisive aspects during the creation of her installations. Occasionally, the artist is not confronted with a white cube, but with spaces that are not museums, but multi-functional, and which often serve other purposes than that of presenting art, such as churches (e.g. 2009-072, 2010-022, 2011-072) or banks. Although Angela Glajcar prepares for her monumental sculptures and installations by making a small-scale model and by going through various possibilities of how to set them up in her studio, it is ultimately the phase of the site-specific installation when the sculpture takes its final shape. When working on an installation, the artist is particularly fascinated by the changes the paper undergoes, for example when reacting to the ambient humidity: the paper curls and buckles, changes its surface feel and thus reveals its transience. It is precisely the finite nature of paper that keeps Angela Glajcar returning to the material. She is not interested in art’s claim to eternity.

Originally, paper was the material used by graphic artists. Ever since it replaced the far more expensive parchment at the beginning of the modern age it has made a unique, triumphant advance across the globe. As early as 1620, the British philosopher Francis Bacon in his True Directions Concerning The Interpretation Of Nature enthused: “A singular instance of art is paper, a thing exceedingly common. […] Paper [is] a substance that may be cut or torn; so that it imitates and almost rivals the skin or membrane of an animal, the leaf of a vegetable, and the like pieces of nature’s workmanship. For it is neither brittle like glass, nor woven as cloth; but is in fibers, not distinct threads, just like natural materials; so that among artificial materials you will hardly find anything similar; but it is altogether singular.”2

Starting with the early days of Modernism, paper began to be used in painting, too – be it in the form of collages or for actual paintings. Early instances of paper used for sculpture occur at the beginning of the 20th century, for example with Pablo Picasso’s sculptures from the 1910s onwards, made of paper and cardboard. He even had some of his paper sculptures re-cut in tin to give them greater durability. One of the fascinating aspects of paper for Angela Glajcar is the fact that most people attribute properties to it that are only part of the story, as it were. It is not only light and fragile, for example, but it can also be heavy and robust. Consequently, the artist frequently uses heavy paper weighing up to 800 g/m2 (e.g. 2010-026), which is almost ten times the weight of regular printer paper.

Angela Glajcar’s use of long sheets of paper for installations clearly references painting, despite its enormous scale. Thus, her oeuvre encompasses a constant material and conceptual synthesis of the realms of two-dimensionality and three-dimensionality, of painting and sculpture, and in a wider sense, of the sphere of illusion associated with painting and the realm of facts and reality inherent in material and substance.

On this note, permit me to indulge in a brief detour via art history: At the beginning of the 20th century, art experienced a fundamental paradigm shift. The actual revolution in visual aesthetics did not, however, merely consist of the transition from concrete to abstract painting – for artists still worked quite traditionally with paint and canvas – but of the change from illusionist art to representative art.

Whilst for example light in painting had been rendered for centuries by means of white or yellow paint, the 1920s saw a change towards artists using light itself as a concrete material in art. The use of actual light in the visual arts was preceded by an increase in the range of materials used in painting.

As early as the 1910s, light-reflecting metals were used in painting, although these still depicted light indirectly, that is, passively. A painting by Gino Severini from 1913 can be considered as one of the key works of this development. The abstract painting entitled Dancer + Sea = Bouquet was largely painted with paint, but at its lower section Severini used light-reflecting aluminium. The development of modern materials such as acrylic glass at the beginning of the 20th century has also promoted the actual use of light in art. For example, constructivist and concrete artists have combined it with the most diverse materials. This interest not only in the use of the latest technical materials but also in the use of everyday materials such as paper, emerging at first sporadically in the 1910s, and then more frequently in the 1920s, paved the way from canvas paintings to material paintings. After the Second World War, Italy in particular became the scene of intensive and varied approaches to the material discourse. The artist and theoretician Enrico Prampolini, for example, in 1944 demanded a “polymaterial art,” intended to “replace painted reality in its entirety by the reality of the material,” in order to “drive art to its most extreme consequences, and to invoke the emotional and evocative value of the materials for its rhythmic-spatial play.”3 The vibration of the materialised surface up to what can almost be described as its violent breach or destruction, as seen, for example, in the works of Alberto Burri, Lucio Fontana, and also Agostino Bonalumi, Gianni Colombo and Agenore Fabbri, has dominated the artistic discourse in Italy since 1950. This historical facticity may serve in part to explain why Angela Glajcar’s works are particularly appreciated in Italy.

Angela Glajcar, too, engages in a destruction of the material by producing holes by means of ripping the paper sheets. The destruction of the form of the originally plane, undamaged paper represents a historical reference to the practice of iconoclasm, that is, the destruction of the image. In this case, the “image” of the originally whole, undamaged material is paper. The monochrome image of paper to be interpreted is partly, never wholly torn by Angela Glajcar, and always disturbed and destroyed. On this artistic process the cultural philosopher Boris Groys comments quite generally that “most Modernist paintings have been produced by means of iconoclasm,” for they were “be it symbolically or in reality – sawn apart, cut, fragmented, pierced, stabbed.”4 This is the art historical background that represents the substrate for Glajcar’s works.

It is also a position which dovetails neatly with the transience of paper and the artist’s critical stance with regard to the claim for eternity of some works of art.

One of the major artists applying iconoclastic practices to his work was Lucio Fontana, whom we already mentioned above. Whereas he pierced and perforated his canvases from the late 1940s onwards in order to overcome the materiality of two-dimensionality and achieve infinite space, in Angela Glajcar’s works two-dimensionality and three-dimensionality, materiality and immateriality are not mutually exclusive but exist simultaneously – indeed, are their reciprocal constituents. While the torn edges that result from tearing the holes emphasise the materiality of the remaining paper, the missing paper is at the same time documented, not concealed, by the gaps.

Eventually it comes down to the philosophical dialectics of illusion – in the sense of what is not (here: the holes) – and what is (here: the paper). Philosophically speaking, the perception of non- reality or illusion has always varied throughout the cultural history of the Western world, depending on the time period. Plato – the quintessence of his allegory of the cave springs to mind – condemned all that is illusory, because it stands in the way of truth, or, more precisely: the knowledge of truth. The young Friedrich Nietzsche, in contrast, glorified all that is illusionary, for in non-reality, in illusion, he saw a basic prerequisite for human existence.5 Finally, Theodor W. Adorno in the middle of the 20th century did not conceive illusion and truth as mutually exclusive opposites, but emphasised their mutual dependence, for truth could only be defined through being differentiated from illusion.6 Along these lines, the works of Angela Glajcar stress the materiality of paper precisely through the absence of some of it. In addition, Glajcar strips the sheets of paper of their property as industrially mass-produced objects and, by ripping and tearing, turns them into individual works of art.

Absence is a key term that applies, for example, to the artist’s large installations Ad lucem (2009- 072) and Arsis (2009-001, 2009-073, 2009-085), as well as to her Blocs (e.g. 2009-055, 2009-056, 2009-087): the absence of material that simul-taneously serves to increase knowledge, for it is a “space of the visual” as well as a “space of the thinkable” – to use Plato’s words once again.7 It is the void, the empty space, whose intellectual comprehension at a physical, biological, philosophical and also at an artistic level has a long and varied tradition. Almost like a paradigm, the constructed void or emptiness, the blank, is a recurring theme of 20th century art, from Kazimir Malevich’sBlack Square (1915), Ad Reinhardt’s monochrome black paintings, Yves Klein’s Leap into the void(1960) up to today. The constructed void is replaced by the conceptual void. In Glajcar’s case, we are confronted by a sculptural void. Not for her the horror vacui. Similar to how a sculptor removes unnecessary, unrequired material from a wooden or marble block, Glajcar rips off paper to produce an empty space – production by means of reduction.

Paradoxically, this is a produced void. In today’s world, overwhelmed by the oft-quoted torrents of images, this represents an almost provocative position, subjecting the viewers to a double-negative, a two-fold void. For on the one hand, the large paper installations of Angela Glajcar mostly consist of blank paper or sheets, which are then also torn and ripped and thus presented as fragments adjoining the empty spaces. However, the void can be a useful calibration instrument, calming the viewer’s gaze, directing it to what is essential and thus evoking a focused way of seeing.Of particular interest in this context are several paper installations from 2004 to 2005, where Glajcar made use of sheets of paper that are white on one side and painted black on the reverse (e.g. 2004-001, 2004-015, 2005-005, 2005-046). Here, the principle of materiality and immateriality is subjected to a fresh artistic scrutiny, for the material is negated by the light-absorbing colour, thus being turned into a void, a non-material. This is another variation on the theme of reality and non- reality and represents another reference to the illusionism of figurative painting. The actual material conditions are (seemingly) inverted, for where you would expect the hole of non-existence to yawn into space you now find material existence. And this material presence in turn has its existence reinforced by its outline, its edge, that is, its border to the actual void.

Despite the rips, the differently sized paper sheets used by Angela Glajcar largely retain their outer shape of an industrially mass-produced product, both in the airy, suspended installations (e.g. 2010- 002) or with the monolithic Blocs (e.g. 2008-153). Straight lines and right angles are the external principle of these works. The artistic signature is revealed in the tears and rips of various sizes. Thus, her works are the culmination of two other principles of Modernism or Post-Modernism: on the one hand, the minimalism negating any individual style, whose proponents have their works produced by others, and on the other hand the expressive subjective perspective of Expressionism, combined with some tendencies of Western painting of the 1950s and 1960s, described by art historian Lazlo Glozer as “exit from the picture,”8 or with the New Image Painting of the 1980s. Here too, further parallels with painting are revealed: the geometric quadrangle of the sheet of paper is analogous to the canvas, and the image area is the actual field of expression.

The first time Angela Glajcar realised an installation in a church was for the Kunst-Station Sankt Peter: Ad Lucem – to the light.9 Into sheets hanging at intervals of 7 cm, the artist tore out lateral openings of various sizes, revealing glimpses into and through the work. In the section hanging the lowest, the holes had been torn such that visitors (to mass) were able to enter the hanging sculpture and look into the tunnel of paper and reflected light. The curvature made it impossible, however, to look out of the installation, leaving the visitor to sense and imagine what might be beyond. It is fascinating to see how the pure white paper – without any additional lighting – actually absorbs the colour of its environment, for it glows in the warm yellow of the sandstone blocks of this late Gothic church.

While the artist responded to the Gothic arches of the church in Cologne with an undulating and yet strictly cubic installation, her reaction to the KunstRaum Hüll, more of a modernist white cube, wasArsis (engl. rising), a large installation more aptly described as painterly. Numerous paper sheets eight metres long were hung in the shape of parabolas. Crossing fan-like, they appeared like great brush-strokes of white paint, freely suspended in space. Some of the sheets had lateral tears, stressing the material’s fragility. The sheets also absorbed the light of their environment, but the large windows of the exhibition room meant that this light was more dependent on the weather than on architecture. This provided the installation with an almost infinite amount of hues.

Marcel Duchamp, one of the major artists of the 20th century, created one of modernity’s incunabula in 1911 with his painting Nu descendant un escalier. A female figure descends a staircase fragmented into several individual figures. Three dec-ades before that, the English photographer Edward Muybridge and the French scientist Étienne-Jules Marey also succeeded, with their chronophotographs, in permanently documenting movement. This fulfilled one of painting’s desiderata: depicting dynamics and time through movement in space. Looking at Angela Glajcar’s installation, such as the one in St. Peter in Cologne (2009-072), in Castelbasso (2009-084) or in the Sint-Anna-ten-Drieënkerk in Antwerp (2010-022), one is struck by the dynamic effect they have, despite the severity of their cubic outline: for the impression is that of a multiplied sheet of paper that changes its appearance with every sheet, moves through space in an undulation and has been captured as if in a snapshot.

Another look at the installation in St. Peter reveals the sensitivity shown by Glajcar when dealing with the different characteristics of each room. For it is not only movement that represents time, but also sound – in this case, an acoustic movement, a sound wave in space. It is very fitting that Angela Glajcar has placed her installation directly in front of the organ loft: like a visualized note, the materialised sound wave oscillates through space into the direction of the choir. Immaterial sound is transformed into material, into paper which, through its gaps and its properties, absorbs light, and dematerialises once again towards the choir window. To use a theological-liturgical term befitting the sacred space, a two-fold, virtual transsubstantiation occurs: sound – paper – light. Thus, Glajcar’s site-specific works in particular impress the viewer with their physical presence in space, and exhibit an almost performative character, since they prompt the viewer to move. Although it is eminently possible to establish numerous art-historical reference points in Angela Glajcar’s works, her way of working and her works are far from eclectic. The sculptor has embarked on her own path, which, as her site-specific works demonstrate clearly, not only reveals a great variety of artistic options, but also deals with various spaces in a most reflective and careful way. The versatile material paper may be at the centre of her artistic endeavour, but it also expands our perspective to include the environment, the immaterial, the “spaces of the thinkable.”

It is easy to find points of reference, associations and interpretations for Angela Glajcar’s oeuvre. Although the following pairs of opposites may not always be true opposites and although they may sometimes overlap in their meanings, the works of Glajcar, some of which were discussed above as examples of a whole, can be described fittingly with the following opposites and sometimes even paradoxes: quiet/dynamics, beauty/destruction, lightness/heaviness, painterly appeal/sculptural expansion, movement/contemplation and fragility/strength. This variety of different terms, descriptions and properties alone illustrates the complexity of the artist’s work. It has nothing to do with indecision, but instead embodies the artistic precision with which Angela Glajcar selects her materials and her procedures. These pairs of opposites can also be found in human existence, and are two sides of the same coin, reflecting life in all its complexity. In addition to the extraordinary artistic position, this is one of the most convincing characteristics of Angela Glajcar’s oeuvre.

空间撕裂Torn Space
— 安格拉·格莱札 Angela Glajcar 中国首个展
◼ Open to public 大众开放：
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2022.7.16-9.4
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