THREE ELEMENTS IN JOANNA HOFFMANN’S ARTISTIC LANGUAGE
By Grzegorz Borkowski*
W.Einthoven's invention of 1903 of a device
recording human heart activity under the guise of electrocardiogram enabled to
visualise one of the most meaningful processes occurring inside the body.
Keeping in mind research-oriented and diagnostic importance of this method, we
should not forget that it also introduced new, easily recognisable factor to the
domain of visual language. For many persons it is just a sign of life that is
typical for heart-powered creatures. Those who perceive electrocardiogram as
entirely unique signature, characteristic for a given being, and a sort of a
recorded life-moment of this being, belong to minority. Correct recognition of
these two overlaid elements is possible for insightful observer. It is only
possible if one juxtaposes various recordings gathered in various moments of a
given person’s life. Similar state of affairs is to be found in the field of
arts, where comparing of several works by one author allows grasping
interrelations between general creative stance and detailed qualities of works.
Motive and notion of cardiogram appears in Joanna Hoffmann's work throughout
several years' creative period. For the first time, they could have been used in
installation shown in Potocka Gallery in 1996. Walls of two gallery rooms have
been lined with black rubber strip, which reproduced the cardiogram recording.
The strip was burdened with little stones in one room, and weights in the other
room. Simplified image of individual blood pulse through employment of
gravitational forces has been encoded into a given space, typically used for
art. presentations. Cardiogram as a form used by medicine - delineated onto
minute scale on paper - was not present directly, but as a kind of visual matrix
rooted in collective memory. It is important to note that a small book which
consisted of only two pages (pages were simultaneously the cover of the book)
accompanied this individual exhibition. Elastic band, which limited the angle of
possible opening of the book, has been mounted onto the opposite inner pages.
This line was also a segment of the copy of authentic cardiogram inserted inside
the book. In last several years, some of Joanna Hoffmann's artist's books were
closely related to her spatial works that, as Jerzy Ludwinski
noted, they constitute a kind of installation resume for this artist. Admittedly,
they often serve as a condensation, shortened transposition of the idea of an
installation instead of its description. Hoffmann's installations, ephemeral out
of necessity, could be also treated as momentary appearances of books scored for
gallery space.
We
can enter this score, or version, not only mentally but also physically. It is
noteworthy to recall one of "One-sided Thoughts", noted by Joanna:
Book
is a piece of space which is filled with individual time. Therefore, I think
that artist's books belong to a category of source reality in Hoffmann's works.
The individually created source reality is much more basic than artist's spatial
realisations. The contents of each book reflect one specific idea, one mental
experience presented with rigorous precision, like in a deduction of a
mathematical formula. The sensations connected with opening books, leafing
through them and touching them are counterparts of the acts of entering and
moving in the installation space. With delicate premeditation, Hoffmann's books
register these facts until the near annihilation of the recording contained
therein. "Music for inert repetitions" is a book of undeveloped
photographs which are gradually being
developed during their examination. Readers' fingerprints are easily discernible
on the pages of this book. They document the act of reading and involuntary
interference of the watcher into the contents of the tale that gradually
vanishes but is deposited in the memory. It is memorised that the pages
contained uniformly spaced musical pentagrams, each with one short recording of
an electrocardiogram of a single heartbeat. Two recognitory codes of
individuality are being juxtaposed here: fingerprints and pules lines.
Joanna Hoffmann's artistic language, apart from
cardiograms and undeveloped photographic paper includes one typical element,
which hasn't been mentioned yet. It is the sound of heart beating, which is
being transformed in a multitude of ways. Its semantic message is certainly
similar to cardiogram lines, but sound is present in space in a different way
than the graphic sign. it makes its appearance in
installations as an integral element, simultaneously modifying the situation of
presentation of artist's books and stimulating viewers to
ponder
the surrounding space. It was the case of work "Music of Spheres",
shown in
Ujazdowski
Castle
in an exhibition on conceptual reflection. Processed sounds of heart beating
were associated with the work of Johannes Kepler, who tried to find the acoustic
equivalents of the Solar System planets. Each of the planets was depicted by a
separate book placed on a special pedestal equipped with sound-emitting
loudspeaker concealed inside. Acoustic sphere was permanently present, while
contents of the books made themselves familiar only after the
viewer decided to look inside. Two orders of perception could have distinguished.
Sound and the totality of spatial arrangement were creating environment for
"reading". It was also a model depicting the situation of reading
person, always immersed in a certain set of individual and external contexts. In
this case, the author tried to partially
determine these contexts, connecting the act of reading book with the reading of
the complex surroundings. In Joanna Hoffmann's work entitled "here and now",
spatial object for reading and turning in one's hands, the distinguished
position of "and" is really curious. We won't find it between "here"
and "now", but at the top of two connected bases, on the staircase
pyramid created by the remaining words. This conjunction mark-out resembles
statement attributed to Heidegger. He was alleged to say that in the title of
"Sein und Zeit", it is the "small" word in the middle that
is the most important"
Grzegorz
Borkowski,
art
critic and curator at the Centre for
Contemporary Art in
Warsaw
, text from the catalogue "Book And What
Next", issued by Gallery AT
Poznan, 2000