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SATURDAY EVENING POST
March 9th, 2024
Thom Mayne’s artistic journey, much like his celebrated architectural career, is a relentless engagement with form, space, and the inherent potential within material, process, and method. It is a process in which discoveries are constantly made, and the freedom to explore is the pinnacle of this endeavour.
Thom Mayne, XCD_20230509-191925_00-72, 2023, UV ink on aluminum, 72 x 72 in. (182.88 x 182.88 cm)
Mayne’s current works, digitally assisted, represents a frontier at the confluence of chaos and order. This is a space where systems maintain enough order to give form and pattern but are fluid enough to allow for adaptation and evolution. It is the realm of complex patterns, unpredictable yet governed by underlying rules, which parallels how algorithms operate in Mayne’s art making process.
Mayne’s process is one of iteration, selection, and evolution. The digital medium allows him to generate a multiplicity of forms, from which he curates the chosen forms that most resonantly manifest his artistic intent. This method can be seen as an extension of his architectural philosophy, where the design emerges from a series of refinements and adaptations.
ABOVE IMAGES:
Thom Mayne, Lawrence Residence 9, Hermosa Beach, USA, 1980, Pencil on paper, 73.5 × 57 cm. © Thom Mayne.
Thom Mayne, Chiba Chiba Golf Club, Chiba Prefecture, Japan 1991 Serigraph 61 × 61 cm. © Thom Mayne
Thom Mayne with Morphosis, BEIMINGTON 2, 2014, Mixed media, 66 × 66 × 5.5 cm. © Thom Mayne
As in his early works, where there was an apparent deconstructionist approach, decomposing and fragmenting architectural elements, where deconstructed elements are used in a Constructivist sensibility. His current artworks reflect a maturation of this thought, it is as if the architectural sketches and models have been distilled into their most abstract essence, transitioning from the physical to the ethereal plane. These ideas are distilled from the three dimensions, into two dimensions, as if now the essence of the architectural structures exist as fluid isometric drawings, but defragmented with the freedom that is hard to exploit in architecture. Mayne has essentially freed himself from the constraints of being an architect.
In one instance early in his career, Thom Mayne was able to visit the Frank Gehry House in Santa Monica in 1978, the year Mayne received his Master’s Degree from Harvard, Mayne says: “I got off the plane from Boston, and went there the next day. It was not quite finished. It was a huge sigh of relief and a breath of fresh air. I was not very interested in the specifics, but I was completely enamoured with the ambition. It justified my instincts in challenging the norm. What I liked was the freedom of thought.”
Frank Gehry Santa Monica Home, 1978
Mayne is most interested in the notion of randomness, his fascination with randomness isn't a mere appreciation for the chaotic but are flection of a deeper inquiry into order and complexity in both art and life. “…I was thinking of a complex order, not in a classical sense. The idea is to stay alert, to continuously observe the world. I am never interested in one thing, and it is always random.” He articulates a worldview where continuous observation and an openness to the unexpected form the core of creative expression. Mayne is never fixed on a single idea or outcome; rather, his practice embraces a spectrum of possibilities, acknowledging that within every meticulously designed algorithm lies the potential for serendipitous surprise.
It is not an overstatement to suggest that Thom Mayne’s current works draws a parallel to the works of Jackson Pollock. Pollock’s work, often seen as emblematic of chaos with his famous drip and splatter paintings, reflects deeply underlying patterns, not entirely unlike the mathematical concept of fractals. These fractals are never ending complex patterns that repeat at different scales and ubiquitous in nature. Pollock's intuitive method of painting captures this sense of complexity in a visceral, tangible form. Mayne's use of algorithms to generate images creates a different kind of complexity—one defined by the rules of the software and computational language, but within those rules, there's a vast space for chance and variation. The digital strokes and shapes in Mayne's work, much like Pollock's drips and splatters, follow the paths dictated by the programmed parameters but materialize in unpredictable ways.
ABOVE IMAGES:
Jackson Pollock, Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist), 1950, oil, enamel, and aluminum on canvas.
Thom Mayne, XCD_230810-140723_00-3, 2023, UV ink on aluminum, 72 x 108 in. (182.88 x 274.32 cm)
Thom Mayne's work, particularly intensely visible in his “black”and “white” work, reflects an intricate interplay between texture, light, and viewer engagement, surprisingly, and much like the works of Mary Corse.
ABOVE IMAGES:
Mary Corse, Untitled (First White Light Series), 1968, Glass microspheres in acrylic on canvas.
Mary Corse, Installation View, Dia:Beacon, Beacon, NY. © Mary Corse. Photo by Bill Jacobson Studio, NY.
Mary Corse, an artist associated with the California Light and Space movement, similarly explores the perception of light and surface. Her works often include glass microspheres mixed into paint, which catch and reflect light, causing the appearance of the painting to shift dramatically with the viewer's perspective. This responsiveness to the viewer's movement is a critical aspect of her work, emphasizing the role of the participant in the creation of the artwork's meaning. Like Corse, Mayne's works invite viewers to become an active participant rather than a passive observer.
ABOVE IMAGES:
Thom Mayne and Morphosis, Sixth Street House (1987-92), Santa Monica, 1990. Screen print with metal foil on paper. Los Angeles, Getty Research Institute.
Thom Mayne, XCD_230308-144329_12-C, 2023, UV ink and copper leaf on wood panel, 24 x 24 in. (61 x 61 cm)
Detailed view of Thom Mayne work with gold leafing.
A nod to his earlier architectural prints for the SixthStreet Residence (1987), the incorporation of metallic leafing beneath the layers of paint and other mediums introduces a luminous quality that changes with the lighting and the position of the viewer. This relationship with light and material creates an experience that is in constant flux, resonating the principles of phenomenology in art.
ABOVE IMAGES:
Thom Mayne, XCD_230916-113550_359-WW, 2023, UV ink on aluminum panel, 48 x 48" (122 x 122 cm)
Detailed views of XCD_230916-113550_359-WW
Phenomenology in art emphasizes the study of an individual's experience of the world, which includes sensory perceptions, thoughts, memories, and the interplay of imagination and reality. In the context of Thom Mayne's work, phenomenology's principles manifest in the interactive nature of his pieces, particularly in how the presence of the viewer and the surrounding light bring the art to life. The tactile permission to engage physically with his works adds a haptic dimension, echoing phenomenology's aim to capture the fullness of experience. His application of precious metals beneath the layers of his work interacts with light, making the pieces appear different from moment to moment and from different angles. This mirrors the fundamental phenomenological concept that our understanding of objects, including artworks, is shaped by how they are experienced from our unique perspective. This is also a physical manifestation of Mayne's architectural philosophy that buildings and spaces should be experienced holistically, not just visually but with all the senses.
ABOVE IMAGES:
Thom Mayne, XCD_20220606-183244_222-S and XCD_20220606-190123_278-S, 2023, UV ink and silver leaf on wood panel, 24 x 24 in. (61 x 61 cm)
In the context of Mary Corse's works, the interactive quality of Mayne's art shares her interest in the phenomenological aspects of perception, where the experience of the artwork is subjective and individualized. Both artists create works that exist in a state of perpetual becoming, dependent on the environment and the audience for their complete realization.
“The general tendency of the titles to reflect what Stella called “‘downbeat’ and ‘depressed political’ situations” suggests they say more about the artist and the world around him than the paintings themselves.”
- Virginia B. Spivey, “Frank Stella, the Marriage of Reason and Squalor.” (Smarthistory.org, 2016, smarthistory.org/stella-marriage/)
Similarly, Mayne’s works take on utilitarian titles such as XCD_231204-144403_387398-RY and XCD_230810-113550_302357359, which say more about his practice than the pieces themselves. The spontaneous, rapid generation of these works necessitates an organizational system that can both identify the time and method that created the unique variation while also telling us something about his general disposition towards problem solving. The titles are what they are because of they fit a particular function and do not serve and aesthetic need. They are the answer to a question that Thom is asking, and the viewer’s understanding is secondary to his need for organization.
ABOVE IMAGES:
Installation view of exhibition
Frank Stella, The Marriage of Reason and Squalor II, 1959, Enamel on canvas, 7' 6 3/4" x 11' 3/4" (230.5 x 337.2 cm). © 2024 Frank Stella / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Thom Mayne, XCD_20231128-094251_15311592-BS, 2023, UV ink and silver leaf on aluminum panel, 60 x 72 in. (152 x 183 cm)
The titles of Mayne’s works tell us just as much and just as little as Stella’s. If we consider XCD_231204-144403_387398-RY, we can likely identify meanings of parts of the work such as a date or colour. We may understand the meaning of “reason” and “squalor” in the same way we may understand “231204” as December 4th, 2023 and “RY” as red and yellow. The connective tissue of “marriage” in the context of Stella’s title offers as many clues for deciphering meaning as “_” in Mayne’s.
The images are generated in sequential variations until a satisfactory solution has been reached. When asked “what did the pieces you didn’t choose look like,” Mayne’s response is “you don’t need to know that.” This is indeed the answer to many questions of why, the number of which are infinite. It is also a fair response, as it is akin to asking a painter why they did not mix an additional drop of colour into their palette, or a photographer choose fraction of a second before the one following or preceding.
Big congratulations to our artist Barbara Astman for her achievement in winning the Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts, alongside seven other distinguished artists: Louise Lemieux Bérubé, Michelle Jacques, Shuvinai Ashoona, Marjorie Beaucage, Dominique Blain, Don Ritter, and Greg Staats.
Barbara Astman is among a generation of female artists that radicalised visual culture since the early 1970s. Over four decades, she has explored a wide range of photo-based media and produced work that has received national and international recognition. She is well represented in public, corporate, and private collections, including the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Deutsche Bank, New York, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
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