2 Aspects
JOHN STURGEON
2 Aspects
©1976, B&W, 4:08 minutes, sound
Using the desert floor like a drawing surface for a diagrammatical enactment of the function of conjunction and opposition, Sturgeon combines a delicate and precise ritualistic structure with the vastness and unpredictability of the windswept landscape. A goblet of water arcs at the end of a string; shadow patterns form symbols in a focusing diagram. By placing himself as a balancing agent between two glasses of water, he struggles for equilibrium; eventually glasses tip and spill alternately bowing to the force of one side or the other. Finally, he steps out of the scene, strolling off accompanied by the empty water pitcher rolling away in the wind.
Through his performances and videotapes, John Sturgeon has developed a personal language system that explores the relationship between opposites: left-side/right-side, rational/intuitive, abstract/symbolic, mental/physical. He uses the human body in both ritualistic and mythic motions as a tool to explore that which is usually not expressible verbally.
Video Data Bank - video tape review
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
2 Aspects photo featured in:
Still Moving, The Film and Media Collections of The Museum of Modern Art, by Steven Higgins, Published M.o.M.A. 2006, Chapter: The 1970s, photo 2 Aspects, video John Sturgeon 1976, p. 274
JOHN STURGEON
My tapes germinate from experiences, visions and dreams; expanding in a gestation process where ideas are manipulated as notations, drawings and hieroglyphs. I view my work as poetic, as a synthesis of drawings, painting, and sculptural concerns, as well as sound and time compositions. The intent is to distill the creative process into concise metaphors, which convey the initial power and energy of the psychic experiences. The structure attempts to suspend the viewer's conscious act of intellectualization and place him in a state conducive to direct experience. Each video traces an expansion of my boundaries, electromagnetic diagrams of self, a continual probing and documenting with the video eye, the video ear, the whirling texture of being.
© John Sturgeon
Artist's Catalogue Statement
Southland Video Anthology, 1976
Long Beach Museum of Art
The landscapes in his work are minimal and primitive. Sturgeon has a tendency to perform at beaches, in deserts, and on salt flats. In all of these cases, one cannot help but notice that the basic elements of which the visual field is comprised are earth, air, water (provided in ritualistic form by Sturgeon when necessary), and fire. The logic of the ancients is presented in its most direct form, and the abstractions of the micro and molecular worlds melt into nothingness in the face of these vast panoramas.
Steven Kurtz, “Radical Mysticality: The Work of John Sturgeon”
M . o . M . A . P U B L I C A T I O N S
c o n t r i b u t i o n s t o p u b l i s h e d b o o k s
Still Moving, The Film and Media Collections of The Museum of Modern Art, by Steven Higgins, Published M.o.M.A. 2006, Chapter: The 1970s, photo: 2 Aspects, video by John Sturgeon, ©1976, p. 274.
Organized by Steven Higgins, Curator, Department of Film.
In late 2006 The Museum of Modern Art published Still Moving: The Film and Media Collections of The Museum of Modern Art, the first-ever survey of MoMA’s world-renowned holdings in the art of the moving image. In conjunction with this book the Museum presents a regular series derived exclusively from its film collection, featuring works that have been acquired and preserved by MoMA over the last seven decades.
Date Completed: June 1976, Venice, California
Production: El Mirage, dry lake - Mojave Desert, CA
Non-Verbal (with sound and image)
Copyright: John Sturgeon, ©1976
Length: 4:08 minutes, black/white, mono
Original Master Format: 1/2" Reel-to-Reel AV
Sub-Master: Beta Cam SP, DVCam NTSC
CREDITS:
Artist / Performer: John Sturgeon
Camera: Jay Willis
Sound & Edit: John Sturgeon