Rose Nolan
Per­for­mance Architecture

How should one approach Rose Nolan’s exhi­bi­tion ​‘Per­for­mance Archi­tec­ture’? Often mak­ing work for floors and walls, Nolan here address­es the ceil­ing, sus­pend­ing more than 280 hand­craft­ed pen­nants across the lat­er­al walls of the gallery — a mini-Michelan­ge­lo. Viewed from a dis­tance, the effect of this new work, titled Big Words (Not Mine) — Read the words ​“pub­lic space”…, is akin to the pro­lif­er­at­ing units of her ear­li­er Flat Flower Work. And whilst the dense mass­ing of flags sug­gests an autum­nal-hued arbor, this time cre­at­ed from paint­ed hes­s­ian, the work doesn’t quite mim­ic veg­e­ta­tion. The pen­nants are uni­form­ly strung, enabling a lengthy text to be sequenced along their size­able 100-meter exten­sion. The text is drawn from a 1995 lec­ture enti­tled Pub­lic Space in a Pri­vate Time by Vito Acconci, the Amer­i­can artist turned archi­tect and land­scape design­er. Pas­sion­ate­ly voic­ing the right to non-com­mer­cial com­mu­nal space, Acconci’s text is admirable, but also in places baf­fling and rant-like. In this sense, it’s not so remote from the deliri­ous and provoca­tive per­for­mance and video works of the 1970s that he is best known for. The extract­ed text exhorts us to ​“Read the words pub­lic space lit­er­al­ly, dogged­ly, dumb­ly”, and con­tin­ues with an ambi­tious three-part def­i­n­i­tion of what makes pub­lic space pub­lic. Acconci then pro­pos­es that ​“the space becomes an occa­sion for dis­cus­sion, which might become an argu­ment, which might become a revolution”.

Nolan’s work has repeat­ed­ly employed pithy state­ments and sin­gle words drawn from ver­nac­u­lar use, but she has also utilised ​“found” texts from sources as diverse as Sol LeWitt and adver­tis­ing. Words are always a provo­ca­tion in Nolan’s work. They should nev­er be tak­en for grant­ed. Through inces­sant rep­e­ti­tion, Neo-Cubist rup­tur­ing, ungain­ly scale (both big and small), and com­pet­ing positive/​negative forms, Nolan has sought ways to shift lan­guage from some­thing famil­iar to some­thing strange. Acconci’s text is pos­si­bly the longest series of words she has employed in a sin­gle work, and she oblig­es the view­er who wish­es to read it in full, to mir­ror its zigzag­ging route though the gallery at some dis­com­fort to the neck. But isn’t that what look­ing is all about – hard work? Owing to the tri­an­gu­lar shape of the pen­nants, only the upper half of Acconci’s text is ful­ly leg­i­ble. Enough remains to get a sense of the text, but the brain needs to strug­gle to make this hap­pen. But does any of this mat­ter? We appre­ci­ate the beau­ty of Japan­ese or Ara­bic let­ter­ing with­out com­pre­hend­ing the actu­al lan­guage they sig­ni­fy. Nolan assists this alter­nate read­ing in Big Words (Not Mine) — Read the words ​“pub­lic space”… by using a sub­tle geo­met­ric pat­tern­ing which over­lays the words, empha­sis­ing their dec­o­ra­tive qual­i­ties. Fur­ther pat­tern­ing is revealed on the reverse of the flags, half of which are always in view. Splodges of red and white colour leach through the rough fab­ric to cre­ate small, infor­mal abstract com­po­si­tions that pro­vide a strik­ing con­trast to the ful­ly paint­ed sides.

In what sense does a dense mass­ing of flags con­sti­tute archi­tec­ture, let alone one that is per­formed? Although the title of Nolan’s exhi­bi­tion is not drawn from Acconci, it’s clear­ly asso­ci­at­ed with a sim­i­lar nexus of issues involv­ing pub­lic space and the role of archi­tec­ture found in his lec­ture. Flags, ban­ners and bunting have his­tor­i­cal­ly con­tributed to tem­po­rary archi­tec­tur­al man­i­fes­ta­tions, espe­cial­ly heraldic and fes­tive ones. These events almost always involve large crowds, and strings of flags are used to demar­cate the large spaces required to con­tain them. As with mil­i­tary stan­dards, strung flags become ral­ly­ing points. They also trans­form spaces for an alter­nate func­tion by the­atri­cal­is­ing them – Swanston Street becomes the set­ting for a Moom­ba parade. This is a ubiq­ui­tous fea­ture of con­tem­po­rary polit­i­cal and sport­ing events, but also many com­mer­cial spaces, be they shop­ping malls, car sale­yards, and on occa­sion, art gal­leries. All are sites of per­for­mance, of actors and audi­ences. The degree to which these spaces are made pub­lic may at best be pro­vi­sion­al or illu­so­ry, and that is exact­ly what Nolan’s project prob­lema­tis­es here.

Leon Bat­tista Alber­ti, the Ital­ian Renais­sance poly­math, cod­i­fied human­ist archi­tec­tur­al prac­tice in his 1485 trea­tise De re aed­i­fi­ca­to­ria. Fol­low­ing ancient Roman exam­ples, he advo­cates writ­ten inscrip­tions as being the most appro­pri­ate and dig­ni­fied orna­ment for pub­lic build­ings. Nolan’s use of Acconci’s text for ​‘Per­for­mance Archi­tec­ture’ must be one of the few instances of an archi­tec­tur­al inscrip­tion, how­ev­er low­ly its actu­al for­mat, that direct­ly address­es the issue of pub­lic space whilst at the same time orna­ment­ing it.

Might Nolan now also acquire Alberti’s per­son­al mot­to, Quid tum? — What next?

Michael Graf, Mel­bourne April 2013