Text as Subversion Text is the primary thread that runs through the work. «Text served, from the beginning, to establish a more direct, more intimate relationship with the art spectator, an intellectual interactivity. Presenting my works in the form of recordings or notebooks was a way of interesting the spectator in spending time with the work, of making an effort to understand what the work was about. To transform the spectator into an interlocutor, I created ambiances, spaces for reflection... In this way I was able to create subtle, parallel narratives of texts or of texts and images, introduce speculative thinking, and encourage the interlocutor to reflect in critical fashion on the complex relationships which exist between the work, the art context and his or her own life. «Putting texts into situation, putting thoughts into space... was an integral part of a stance I called "arranging space for the spectator". Addressing oneself to the needs of art spectators at that moment in history was a way of working on bringing the social role of art up to date, in response to the shift of cultural power to a wider base.» Nancy Wilson-Pajic Keywords: art, avant-garde, contemporary art, performance art, performance, anti-performance, installation, sculpture, object, text, sound, video, sound installation, text installation, photography, photo-text, photogram, feminism, feminist art, theatre, film, still life Nancy Wilson Kitchel, recording, site-specific, environment, art context

Text as Subversion

Text is the primary thread that runs through the work.

«Text served, from the beginning, to establish a more direct, more intimate relationship with the art spectator, an intellectual interactivity. Presenting my works in the form of recordings or notebooks was a way of interesting the spectator in spending time with the work, of making an effort to understand what the work was about. To transform the spectator into an interlocutor, I created ambiances, spaces for reflection... In this way I was able to create subtle, parallel narratives of texts or of texts and images, introduce speculative thinking, and encourage the interlocutor to reflect in critical fashion on the complex relationships which exist between the work, the art context and his or her own life.

«Putting texts into situation, putting thoughts into space... was an integral part of a stance I called "arranging space for the spectator". Addressing oneself to the needs of art spectators at that moment in history was a way of working on bringing the social role of art up to date, in response to the shift of cultural power to a wider base.» Nancy Wilson-Pajic

Keywords: art, avant-garde, contemporary art, performance art, performance, anti-performance, installation, sculpture, object, text, sound, video, sound installation, text installation, photography, photo-text, photogram, feminism, feminist art, theatre, film, still life Nancy Wilson Kitchel, recording, site-specific, environment, art context

NANCY WILSON-PAJIC

PAGES:

Perfect Agreement 1977

Two stylized chairs facing each other with speakers in their backs enumerate their concordances in work and daily life, one in English, the other in French (with Slobodan Pajic).

A I want to live differently.

B Moi aussi. Je veux travailler autre chose.

A Me too. I want to be free to move around.

B Moi aussi. Je veux avoir une autre sorte de sécurité

Etc.

Threshold Mysteries 2007-09

Installation consisting of 10 pages of text in French and English in plastic pages pinned to the wall, each with an individual lamp.

Exhibition in the studio at Nogent-sur-Marne.

To be Read Aloud to Each Other 1975

Two texts were juxtaposed, each facing the other side of a table. The sense changed if read individually or in tandem. The piece encouraged the public to manipulate the work (which, at the time was forbidden), to speak out and to become a performer in the piece.

The work was shown, among other places, at Martha Jackson Gallery in the show «Words», at the University of Guelph, Ontario in the influential exhibition organized by Dan Cameron, «Narrative in Contemporary Art», and at the Whitney Museum in «Words: A Look at the Uses of Language in Art 1967-1977.

Notice 1974

Minimal installation of a satirical letter detailing the artist’s reasons for declining an invitation to participate in a group show. The text was simply pinned to the wall and lighted with a painting lamp.

Not only was the text a direct criticism of the art context, the form itself was subversive.

Exhibition 134 Henry Street, New York.

Manifesto 2004

Installation originally consis-ting of 3 Apple computers on black pedestals, upon which are presented 3 long texts in fragments forming a manifesto for a new kind of art, in white letters on black.

Shown at the Galerie Françoise Paviot in 2004.

Limelight, version II 1973

Artists’ Space, New York in the framework of the series of performances «5 Evenings».

Wilson-Pajic’s works centered on the absence of the artist.

Limelight 1971

Ludlow Street Studio, New York

Limelight was a direct attack on performance art, its values and customs. It consisted of a stool, a spotlight, a tape recorder and a text encouraging the public to take the place of the artist and experience directly the situation of being an art star.

Shown in the Ludlow Street Studio.

«V. We come home at night and just there where we cross the line which separates exterior from interior, we are filled with regret. We are flooded with a heavy sentiment of grief, without reason, without object. We have the impression that somewhere, without knowing, we had done something irreparable and that we will have to live the rest of our lives as retribution… (Etc.)»

Audio (excerpts)