Phenomenal: California Light, Space, Surface
Foreword by Hugh M. Davies. Text by Robin Clark
During the 1960s and 1970s, a loosely affiliated group of Los Angeles artists—including Larry Bell, Mary Corse, Robert Irwin, James Turrell, and Doug Wheeler—more intrigued by questions of perception than by the crafting of discrete objects, embraced light as their primary medium. Whether by directing the flow of natural light, embedding artificial light within objects or architecture, or playing with light through the use of reflective, translucent, or transparent materials, each of these artists created situations capable of stimulating heightened sensory awareness in the receptive viewer. Phenomenal: California Light, Space, Surface, companion book to the exhibition of the same name, explores and documents the unique traits of the phenomenologically engaged work produced in Southern California during those decades and traces its ongoing influence on current generations of international artists.
Publisher: University of California Press/Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego
Artists: John McCracken, Doug Wheeler, Peter Alexander, Larry Bell, Robert Irwin, Craig Kauffman, Helen Pashgian, James Turrell, Ron Cooper, Bruce Nauman, De Wain Valentine, Mary Corse, Eric Orr
Contributors: Robin Clark, Hugh M. Davies
Publication Date: 2011
Binding: Hardcover
Dimensions: 9 x 9 1/2 in (22.9 x 24.1 cm)
Pages: 240
ISBN: 9780520270602
Retail: $41.95 US & Canada | £28.95
Status: Available
Robin Clark
Robin Clark is Director of the Artist Initiative at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where she leads interdisciplinary collection research projects that involve long-term collaborations with participating artists. She is an art historian and curator whose scholarship focuses on the intersections of contemporary art and architecture and the conservation of modern materials. She was assistant curator and a contributing author to the Eva Hesse retrospective exhibition and catalogue produced by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2002) and was curator of the Currents exhibition series at the Saint Louis Art Museum (2002–2007). Her more recent exhibitions and publications include Automatic Cities: The Architectural Imaginary in Contemporary Art (2009) and Phenomenal: California Light, Space, Surface, part of the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time initiative (2011). For catalogues published by David Zwirner Books, Clark contributed an essay to John McCracken: Works from 1963–2011 (2014).