Rodney Glick
Parmelia Tower Foyer Commission
1997
4m x 10m
Mixed media
On the eastern side of the foyer a very large painting protrudes slightly from the wall. Its appearance is starkly simple, the surface is divided into two areas of equal size, which are painted uniformly in blue and yellow. The simplicity of this basic geometrical structure, the use of standard primary colours and the anonymity of the painted surface suggest references to both the standardisation of the industrial manufacturing processes and the tradition of High Modernist geometric abstraction. However, the up front boldness and extrovert directness of this startling visual statement contradicts the puritanic restraint and self-absorption of much minimalist art. The paintings size and chromatic intensity are such that they visually open up the foyer to the surrounding urban space, from which the work is clearly visible.
Placed symmetrically in front of the painting are two monitors on stilts that show continuous flows of regularly alternating live images transmitted by three video security cameras. The first two cameras are suspended above the painting, the third hangs from a ledge on the exterior of the building. The indoor camera focuses on details of the paintings surface and of the wall behind it generating images, which are split vertically into two different chromatic and tonal areas, thus extending and multiplying the formal idea of painting. They create two new Video Paintings which are conceptually related to the real painting and that change gradually and subtly due to the modification of the light throughout the day.
The outdoor camera focuses on an area of the street corner. This image too is reminiscent of the geometric reductionism of Modernist abstraction. However, the loftiness of this reference is ironically balanced and enlivened by the ordinariness of the flux of everyday life manifesting itself in the chance appearance of pedestrians and vehicles.
Glicks work creatively explores a rich constellation of inter- related issues, including the relationship between art and the everyday, our perceived ideas on the nature of art, and the effects of pervasive surveillance technologies on the way we perceive ourselves and the social space we inhabit.