Scott Wallis
Scott Wallis
For this show, Scott Wallis found inspiration in vintage photographic-slide magazines, slotted metal boxes once popular for transparency storage. He mounts them vertically on the wall and inserts cards bisected with two colours into the 36 slots of each magazine so that viewers see only the top edge of each card. As a set, the cards catalogue all possible pairings among nine hues. The same hues are used in each magazine, but the order of the pairings varies from magazine to magazine. On the remaining gallery walls, transparent Mylar sheets are painted with stripes that document the colour orderings of the magazines. The sheets hang out from the wall's surface, held by springs stretched to screws that jut out from the wall.
In 1966, Sol LeWitt wrote that the serial artist functioned as a clerk whose goal was to categorize the results of a premise. The parameters of the premise Wallis uses remain veiled. The transference from magazine to paint is evident, yet no explanation of a comprehensive system is provided. Reversals of colour pairs, for example, which would double the number of stripes, are apparently disallowed.
On the sides of each magazine, the names of the nine colours are listed. Generic hue determinations replace specific pigment names—"red" instead of "cadmium red medium." The work recalls a 1969 study by Brent Berlin and Paul Kay, who documented the way perceptual colour categories were encoded into language through basic colour terms. They found that colour words entered language in a predictable manner: white, black, red, green, yellow, blue, brown, pink, purple, orange and grey. Wallis has modified their basic colour set, eliminating orange and purple.
These are not minimal works. Singleness, to use Donald Judd's word, is replaced by a visual hypertext. The stripes of Magazine No. 3.1. cause unpredictable spatial dislocations as they visually advance and recede. The painted stripes cast a grid of shadows onto the wall and the gallery lights shine through the Mylar to create bright spots. The suspension of the Mylar sheets invites oblique viewing, dramatically increasing the information generated by each piece and pulling the work from minimal art into a contemporary crossover space between sculpture and painting. The works succeed not because they fulfill a fully articulated premise, but because they operate as meticulously crafted optical experiences. Wallis connects serial art to the machine age to reconsider ideas from the '60s in contemporary form.
Image captions:
Scott Wallis, Magazine No. 1.1., 2004, Vintage "Airequipt" slide magazine, 36 acrylic on card pieces, 13.3 x 5.7 x 5 cm
Scott Wallis, Magazine No.3.1., 2004, Alkyd on mylar, extension springs, brass eyelets, aluminum spacers, 36.8 x 36.8 x 2 cm
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