Geoff Park - 'Theatre Country'

In ‘Theatre Country’ Geoff Park (114)suggests that the Claude glass contributed to the way of looking that led people to see the landscape as they would the stage of a play, as “picturesque”. From reading Catherine Wood’s contribution ‘ Theatre Pieces’ to the 2006 Tate Triennial catalogue my attention was drawn to the artist Dan Graham whose work ‘Performer/Audience/Mirror’ (1977) can be seen as working in opposition to the heirarchical approach to viewing that an object such as the Claude glass promotes.

Where the Claude glass creates a 'picturesque scene’ by having the viewer turn their back on nature and toward a mirror, Graham uses a mirror in his performance to bring the audience literally into the picture. In his work the performer faces the audience who, as they watch him, simultaneously see their own reflections in the mirror behind him. Throughout the performance the performer turns his back to the audience and toward their reflection (and his own) and then turns back around to face them, thus making the audience aware of their position as both an outside observer and inextricably part of a larger picture (Graham 124-125).

In his own writing Graham considers the development of stage design, drawing a link between the shift from the open amphitheatre to the enclosed Renaissance theatre and that of the emergence of the bourgeoisie in Europe. He notes that the combination of fixed seating with the baroque’s deep stage promoted a “privileged, ‘ideal’ viewing point” (Wood 150). Where the Claude glass represents “private possession” (Park 116), Graham’s work questions one person having such a position and instead gives the power (that comes from and is connected to being in a position to see) to the public body.

Through the use of a mirror the audience is able to instantaneously perceive itself as a public body (as a unity), offsetting its definition by the performer. This gives it a power within the performance equivalent to that of the performer. (Graham 125)

What both Graham’s work and Park’s text remind me of is how closely connected seeing – what we see, who see’s what, how seeing is conceptualised by language – is to power and control.1

1.I read a sentence somewhere recently that discussed the relationship between sight and power as seen in French language – voir: to see; savoir: to know; and pouvoir: to be able to. I cannot for the life of me find it again, but I thought it was worthy to include for its simple demonstration of the connection.

Works Cited:
Graham, D. Two-Way Mirror Power: selected writings by Dan Graham on his art edited by Alexander Alberro. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1999, pp. 124-134.
Park, G. ‘Theatre Country’ in Theatre Country: Essays on landscape and whenua. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2006, pp. 113-127.
Wood, C. ‘Theatre Pieces’ in Tate Triennial 2006 New British Art edited by Beatrix Ruf and Clarrie Wallis. London: Tate Publishing, 2006, pp. 150.