In The Box: The In-Between

In November 1989, almost 30 years ago, the Wexner Center for the Arts opened its doors to visitors. The first major public commission for architectural theoretician Peter Eisenman, the building (which the New York Times called “The Museum That Theory Built”) is recognized among the earliest examples of deconstructivist architecture. The Wex was, in fact, such a highly anticipated work of architecture that it displayed no art during its first months—nothing distracted from its iconoclastic spaces and stark grids. For its inaugural year the curators at the Wex conceived of a trio of exhibitions that directly engaged the integration of past, present, and future in Eisenman’s design and underscored the Wex’s founding mission as a site of creation and risk-taking. The third of these exhibitions, New Works for New Spaces: In the Nineties (opened September 29, 1990), featured commissioned installations by 13 artists, including Gretchen Bender, Chris Burden, Christian Marclay, Ann Hamilton, and Barbara Kruger, each of whom responded to the building and its environs.

One such commission was made by MICA-TV, a collaborative project of Carole Ann Klonarides and Michael Owen. Klonarides, an artist and curator, and Owen, an independent producer, began MICA-TV in 1980, making experimental documentaries about artists by using the specific vernacular of video as a way of revisualizing works of art. Their goal was to create hybrid art documentaries that were heavily influenced by their subjects but could stand alone as works of video art. 

On their approach to The In-Between, Klonarides explains in the center’s 1991 Breakthroughs catalogue: the space is very photogenic—almost as if it were made to be photographed rather than experienced. We didn’t just want to make a beautiful document of the building. We realized our collaborator is the creator of this building, and we’ve got to get beyond the photographic qualities and really get into the theories and ideas that created the building—and then go beyond that. We now know that the building isn’t going to function in the way people want it to function, it isn’t going to house art. One of the things that interested us was how you can get beyond function. First we discussed the idea of changing the building into something else. Michael reworked the notion that it’s a perfect setting for a sci-fi adventure or a futuristic story involving the building. I think you can say images of destruction and violence came to mind amid this perfection. 

Honing in on the idea of a narrative structure, Klonarides and Owen turned to author Susan Daitch, who immersed herself in Eisenman’s world as inspiration for her short story, “Analogue.” In a 1996 interview with Alexander Laurence on the blog The Portable Infinite, Daitch explains: I read his writings about architecture, about the design of that building in particular, as well as his correspondence with Jacques Derrida. The resulting piece, "Analogue," made references to some of Eisenman's concerns: the Gothic components present in the "ghost" of the previous building, an armory which had burned down on the site of the Wexner Center, and referring to his interest in Duchamp I used Rrose Selavy as a character. I also used elements from the Henry James story "The Turn of The Screw" in which apparitions were sited in particularly Gothic spaces.

Captured by Klonarides and Owen with a disorienting combination of tracking shots and surveillance footage, the Wex offers the perfect backdrop for Daitch’s gothic mystery. The camera moves through the empty space as if driven by the building’s own internal force, while characters appear and disappear as though they are apparitions (or perhaps golems sprung from the building itself). Much like the Wex, Klonarides and Owen’s film is grounded in a specific historical moment, yet simultaneously exists beyond time. 

—Jennifer Lange
Curator, Film/Video Studio

MICA-TV (Carole Ann Klonarides and Michael Owen)
The In-Between, 1990
12 mins., video