50 Metres Distance or More JANUARY 27th - MARCH 12th, 2011

COLIMA 55 (ESQ FRONTERA) T y F + 52.55.5208 5579

IRENE KOPELMAN ROMA

MÉXICO, D.F., 06700 labor.org.mx
IRENE KOPELMAN
50 Metres Distance or More
Our gaze is never innocent, not even when we are looking at nature. Irene Kopelman
is well aware of this, as is evident by reading the journal she kept, that documents
her trip along the coasts of Antarctica: “To look at the landscape in terms of
beauty is not something given. It hasn't always been like this. This is an 18th
century inheritance.”
In January 2010, Kopelman started a journey of about twenty days to Antarctica;
this trip was the beginning of 50 metros de distancia o más (50 meters away or
farther), an exhibition composed of various watercolors, drawings and illustrations.
The trip to Antarctica was preceded by journeys to Sierra Cordobesa, Argentina and
Hawaii, where the artist devoted herself to drawing a landscape that has been shaped
by the lava hurled up by diverse volcanic eruptions (shapes which she also cast in
clay). In this way, as part of her practice, the artist comes out to encounter land-
scapes that are constantly changing.
If appreciating the beauty of a landscape is something that appeared overtly in
the 18th century, it was during the 19th century that the representation of landscape
took on a different, or several different, roles. On the one hand, this shift can be
traced to the Romantic tradition, as is the case of Caspar David Friedrich, where
images of the landscape served to convey aesthetic concepts such as the sublime.
On the other hand, representations of the landscape served as a means of documenting
scientific research in disciplines such as Natural History or Archaeology, disciplines
that, in this period, were intricately bound up with ways of classifying and under-
standing the world and which were eventually exhibited in museums. Kopelman has
treated these forms of classification and representation in works such as Espacio
Blanco (White Space), Notes on Linnaeus or For UBX Expression.
The above notwithstanding, however, Kopelman’s approach to scientific ways to
represent of nature and the landscape is not actually derived from direct identifica-
tion with this particular model. The artist recognizes that her approximation to the
aesthetics of scientific museums occurred organically – when she was looking for a
methodology to archive and catalog the vast amount of drawings she had made; her
need for a model to make an inventory of her works eventually led her to a formal
solution which has served as a ground for her work. Contrary to other artists, the cat-
alogue became a tool and not an end in itself.
In the works derived from her experience in Antarctica, Kopelman’s interest doesn't
lie in documenting, at least not scientifically, the landscape of this particular region
of the world, but rather in the relation of the landscape with its pictorial dimension.
“...My experience is an extreme case of perceiving the landscape as something picto-
rial. I see the painting after the painting. White on black. Black on white. Whitish
whites, yellowish whites.”
The result of this expedition is translated in a series of drawings, watercolors and
large format paintings of abstract compositions. As for the paintings, the color space
that is limited to practically two combinations, white with blue, and black with blue,
plays both an important expressive role and, at the same time, makes us lose track
of the landscape’s orientation.
In 1888, Botanist Paul Gübfeldt wrote a text about how superior he considered
drawing to be over photography, since, from his point of view, photography exhibited
everything that was there to be captured, whereas nature drawings made by artists
with a scientific background highlighted the features that really mattered, leaving
out irrelevant details. Kopelman's work seems to draw from Gübfeldt's idea, though
(perhaps to Gübfeldt’s dismay), Kopelman does not focus on the elements solely useful
to scientific research, but rather on the landscape’s formal features, thus turning her
drawings into an exercise in abstraction. If artist/scientists found, with their drawings,
a way of understanding and seeing nature, Kopelman proposes that that same nature can
be seen for its form, color, structure and proportion. Thus, 50 meters away or farther
is not only about capturing images of a certain location, but of revisiting the landscape
through the process of drawing and reflection.
From her artistic expeditions and her interest in scientific models to draw nature
and classify it, it would appear that Kopelman's work has a strong link with mod-
ernist thought born by the end of the 18th century. However, her work distances
itself and even exposes the contradictions implied in the aspirations of this way of
thinking, which, in its zeal for trying to understand and control natural and social
phenomena, documents and classifies. Kopelman starts from the idea that these pre-
tentions, as well as being a gargantuan task, turn out to be absurd. We cannot cover
everything, the landscape shifts constantly, as does our gaze, as can be seen in some
of her works. There is, for example, Mediation piece, an exercise where, for a month,
Kopelman drew a rock she had picked up on a trip to Egypt. Although the rock
is drawn everyday from the same angle, each drawing reveals different features and
details in such a way that the drawings seem to capturing different rocks.
It is with Mediation Piece, that Kopelman began to write her own thoughts about
what she does when she is drawing. In her exercise of learning the landscape as she
draws it, as a process of learning form, the artist takes a step further by reporting
in her journal not only her traveling experiences, but also her thoughts on how
she is looking at and represents the landscape. If in Kopelman's work one can
see her in line with a tradition of traveling artists, it is her writing practice that makes
her unique and distinct from them, where she understands drawing as a thought
process, not just a tool for documentation.
MAGNOLIA DE LA GARZA