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Indepth Arts News:
"Katya Sander : A Landscape of Known Facts"
2010-04-23 until 2010-06-26
Project Arts Centre
Dublin, ,
IE Ireland
Katya Sander’s A Landscape of Known Facts is a newly commissioned
artwork that will completely transform the gallery of Project Arts
Centre. Sander’s landscape is projected like a lighthouse, a beam that
scans the circular room in a slow, continuous, 360˚ revolution.
Influenced by the early development of cinematic special effects, A
Landscape of Known Facts brings to life the history of the panoramic
spectacle, while also layering the projected image with iconographic
matte painting and textual metaphors. Inside the panorama we eavesdrop
on the conversation of ghost-voices – people who travel to new
destinations, purchase tickets, behold a spectacle, and consume images.
For the first decades of the nineteenth century and during their
renaissance at the end of the same century, panoramas were a popular
choice of entertainment and spectacle. Often installed in purpose-built
structures for extended periods of time, a visit to a panorama aroused
sensations of likeness and deception, sensations that had perhaps never
been experienced in such an overtly illusionist setting in the visual
history of painting. Designed to present a panoramic view of the world,
their battle-scenes and romantically envisaged landscapes drew in the
crowds. Visual deceptions engrossed visitors, the Duke of Wellington
having been observed chafing with excitement against the barriers during
a painted portrayal of the Battle of Sabrao. The enthusiasm of artists
and the art establishment was mixed: the exhibitions were dramatically
innovative (Sir Joshua Reynolds), excellent teaching tools (John Ruskin)
but also the panorama was considered ‘without the pale of Art because
its object is deception’ (John Constable). The permanent structures
for housing circular panoramas or cycloramas, such as the Regent’s
Park Colosseum, thus became a meeting place for spectators across the
classes.
'The real success story of the panorama lay not in the creation of
great lasting works of art, but in the creation of a new public for art
and a new conception of what a work of art could be. The only lasting
reminder of its impact is the frequency with which we employ its name
today.' Scott B. Wilcox
Legacy issues for panoramas are serious, with few structures surviving
into the twentieth century. Painted canvases were cut up to be
redistributed on the market, or rolled and stored in unstable
conditions, of which very few have survived unscathed.
The artist who first patented the idea of the 360˚ exhibition as la
nature à coup d’oeil or nature at a glance was Edinburgh-based
Irishman Robert Baker. His 1787 patent focused on the conditions of
viewing, detailing the platform structure, lighting, barriers and other
architectural features that could be positioned and constructed to
restrict and open the field of vision with the maximum potential for
suspending one’s disbelief.
The development of cinema marked the end of a mass-fascination with
panoramas. The forms of viewing that had begun in the cyclorama
constructions had later developed into moving panoramas, complete with
stage-lighting and other dramatic effects. The panorama as spectacle was
eclipsed by the moving image, but it had also prepared spectators for
the moving-screen experience. As prototype cinemas, the panorama asked
the spectator to create movement by circling around the interior,
believing in the illusion and surrendering oneself to the fantasy of the
real.
Like the few modern panoramas that exist today, the action of building
a view in order to consume a view was at the heart of the exhibitions.
The construction of an image becomes the construction of a space, and to
conquer an image you must first consume it.
Related Links:
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