thinkingblueskyagain


HOME THINKING BLUE SKY SKIES WHAT IS UP THERE? WHERE HAVE ALL THE GODS GONE? HOW TO TAME THE SKY? CORY ARCANGEL LISE AUTOGENA GASTON BACHELARD JAMES BENNING CORREGGIO GILLES DELEUZE SIMON FAITHFULL CAMILLE FLAMMARION WERNER HERZOG DEREK JARMAN GERHARD RICHTER JACQUES TATI JOELLE TUERLINCKX RICHARD WILSON PETER WEIR QUADRATURA WHAT OF OUR PLANETARY SKY? ABOUT REFERENCES	HOW TO TAME THE SKY? Sir Jame Frazer describes the sky as an image that from the earliest of times has "inspired men with wonder and awe and found a place in their religion" (Frazer 1926). Mircea Eliade argues that "the sacred meaning of the sky remains a living idea everywhere and in all circumstance " (Eliade 1958). A phenomenon that resonates in such a rich and universal way is a daunting subject. The sky's deep religious and symbollic meaning is not the only thing that makes it a difficult subject to tackle. Its peculiar relationship with western modes of representation also complicates matters. As Gaston Bachelard described, the blue sky is a rare example of an 'imageless-image'. It is the most abstract of images and at times unrecognisable as sky (unless clearly labelled as such). Art Historian Hubert Damisch points out that the blue sky has no status within western representation for “How is one to represent, feature by feature, a body that has no contours? How is one to trace its portrait?” (Damisch,1972). Looking for guidance on how to address these pressing questions I turned to art history. Firstly, to Yves Klein, Yves-the-monochrome. His words emerged from the depths of the atmosphere. ‘Mon chéri, embrasser le ciel, sauter dans le vide’. He tackled the sky by collapsing critical distance and falling headlong into monochrome blue immateriality. Klein gave himself to the sky and the sky became his. Barking his disapproval at Klein’s self-absorbed abandonment, Kasimir Malevich appeared before me and proceeded to offer up his solution. ‘преодолеть небо’: he called for resistance as opposed to collapse. For Malevich it was imperative that the ideology of the sky be destroyed. The only way to break with religious symbolism and pictorial conventions was to overcome the very lining of the heavenly and fly free within the infinite white space of a new page: ‘преодолеть небо’. Amid the confusion of these two opposing voices, neither of which seemed to offer a contemporary solution to the problem of the sky, I heard another. It was that of a literary fox. The fox proposed that the sky need not be all-consuming nor banished and tied in a bag. It need simply be 'tamed'. "What does that mean - 'tame'?" "It is an act too often neglected" said the fox. "It means to establish ties... To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To you, I shall be unique in all the world..." "What must I do to tame you?" asked the little prince. "You must be very patient," replied the fox. "First you will sit down at a little distance from me - like that - in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstanding. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day..." (Saint-Exupéry, 1943) The fox's account of 'taming' made me think of James Benning who waited and watched for over a year to make his film Ten Skies (2004). I was reminded of Lise Autogena who is still measuring her Most Blue Skies (2006), and Cory Arcangel who gamed in a sky of zeroes and ones until it became part of his daily reality. Like Benning, Arcangel and Autogena I too adopted the strategy of patience. I exchanged looks from the corner of my eye, and then one day, 'boo!,' the sky was right there in front of me. I was no longer just like a hundred other humans.	Image: Maurizio Nannuci 'Image du Ciel' (Image of the sky), Venice Biennale, 1978 Image: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry drawing of a fox made for 'The Little Prince' (1943)