Robert Irwin (b. 1928, USA)
Scrim veil – Black rectangle – Natural Light, 1977

What a bold gesture to install a scrim veil – and that’s it… To let the natural light and architecture to do the rest… I wish I could see it IRL, as now I do not know if something ‘magical’ is really happening there or if it is primarily a conceptual thing.

Anyway, I am interested how this work implies its environment, its context; also, its framing implications – the blurred border of what constitutes the work. The veil? The veil and the gallery space? The veil and the gallery space and the window? The veil and the gallery space and the sun? The veil and the gallery space and the sun and the weather? The veil and the gallery space and the sun and the weather and the gallery goers?…

It is possible that if I had visited this show by chance, without knowing anything about it, I would not know how to approach it, what to look at, how to look at it… Which also raises a question to what extent one should guide the audience when presenting something unconventional… What may be the best path between too instructive a spoiler and the risk of losing audience attention…