I’ve been wanting to post on Philip Hall’s sculptures for a while, but at each attempt, though many thoughts have tumbled out, I’ve been struck with a strange inarticulation. And now (having recently mentioned this situation to him in an email) I get that this is the point – these works have a curious effect of stymieing words, which I see as a core to their strength.
Philip Hall
Belief System, 2006
plaster, foamcore, 28 x 40 x 6-1/2 in
The works present to me double spaces – the visual, and the textual in the all-important titles. I shuttle between the two, unable to resolve their incompatibility. On my bookshelf is an academic text on the insurmountable boundary between the visual and the textual, but these works show me more about this than that book.
Philip Hall
Trap, 2006
plaster, foamcore, 30 x 40 x 5-1/2 in
The works alert me to the doubling that occurs in the viewing of any art work – in that sense they are both art and they are meta-art. I’m also reminded of my recent post on Polanyi: just as you cannot derive one level of spoken meaning from another, so it’s not possible in these works to derive the title from the work in space, or vice versa. We are left with this inherent contradiction, and in that position cannot help but bring ourselves into the work. The works won’t depict and they won’t describe, and how do we respond as individuals? I’m left with a sense in myself of something beyond both the textual and the visual, coming as a phantom, just glimpsed, easily overlooked but essential.
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I received a nice response from Philip Hall on this post:
“Thanks for the kind words. I think they reproduce well, and yes, the plaster is a very beautiful material. It seems to reflect and absorb light–and color–in equal measure. Melville has a lovely chapter in Moby Dick on ‘whiteness’, which I was happy to come upon, and gave me a chill of recognition. Very interesting….
Yes, your words make sense, in that they’re wrestling with a column of smoke. The association between title and form is more insistent for me, but I would never try to delineate it verbally. The title lays over the work once the form is made real. But for reasons I can’t explain.