Doctoral Project
James Coleman and the Anamorphosis. The „View from the Side“

Doctoral Project
Schädler, Linda (Dissertation at Universität Zurich, Institut of Art History)
Universität Zurich, Betreuer: Prof. Dr. Philip Ursprung
 

James Coleman and the Anamorphosis. The „View from the Side“ (2011)

The main focus of the research project was the work of the Irish artist James Coleman. In his pieces of art, he questions the modes of perception and thus calls attention to their structures – since the late 1970s also with works, in which he refers decidedly to theatrical and narrative methods and practices. Since his art is highly complex and open to different meanings, and since it is characterised by a dysfunctionality and non-linearity, it cannot (or: should not) be reduced to a straightforward and unambiguous interpretation.

The anamorphosis has been proven an appropriate means of analysis, since it has allowed new insights not only with regard to the structure of Coleman’s work but also with regard to scientific analysis. Developed as an optical technique during the Renaissance, and later used as a philosophical metaphor, anamorphosis concentrates – unlike hermeneutics – not only on the content and thus on the interpretation of a work, but takes further aspects into account: the layout, the space, the mediality, and the position of the viewer as well as his perception by the senses and his relation to the work. With the anamorphosis, a method has been found with which not only Coleman’s work can be analysed adequately but also other complex and narrative works of contemporary artists – such as of Douglas Gordon or Stan Douglas.


Contact


Dr. Linda Schädler