testsite 08.3 ~ The Window of Art
Lawrence Rinder & Cliff Hengst
06.15.2008 - 07.27.2008
The testsite collaboration between artist Cliff Hengst and writer/curator Lawrence
Rinder draws inspiration from the presence in Austin—at the Harry Ransom
Center—of two remarkable historic artifacts: the very first photograph
(c. 1826), a simple image of rooftops seen through the window of the photographer
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce’s home in Saint-Loup-de-Varennes,
France, and the archive of the English author Denton Welch (1915-1948). Welch
himself frequently used the image and metaphor of the window to express the threshold
of the imagination and the entry point into the unknown. Echoing the Niépce
photograph while addressing the domestic status of the testsite location, Hengst
has painted on the living room wall an image of the view from the upstairs bedroom
window of the house’s occupant, Laurence Miller. (Hengst has installed
in Miller’s private area a single work that remains concealed from the
visiting public.) Also painted on the walls throughout the downstairs area are
quotations from Denton Welch’s Journals in which the author introduces
images seen through, or thoughts inspired by, windows. The overall project seeks
to inspire reflections on internal and external experience, on the psychological
character of domestic space, and on the charged relationship between public and
private territories.
Image Caption: Joseph Nicéphore Niépce's View from the Window
at Le Gras. c. 1826. Gernsheim Collection Harry Ransom Center / University
of Texas at Austin. Photo by J. Paul Getty Museum.
Artist Biographies:
Lawrence Rinder
Cliff Hengst