That Person’s Work: How to make something from nothing?
Matt Mullican
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2006, Acrylic on paper, video, Courtesy of the Artist, Tang Museum, February 11 - September 10, 2006
2006, Acrylic on paper, video, Courtesy of the Artist, Tang Museum, February 11 - September 10, 2006
Working under hypnosis, Matt Mullican created this large drawing in the Tang Museum on February 6, 2006. It continues an investigation of what the artist refers to as “that person’s work”—aspects of his own creative psyche and impulses that emerge only under hypnosis. For the Tang session, which lasted approximately an hour and a quarter, Mullican underwent hypnosis with the assistance of a local psychiatrist experienced in hypnotherapy.
As the accompanying video demonstrates, the artist worked deliberately to fulfill the task he set for himself of “wiping the slate clean” and creating “something from nothing.” Faced with a huge, seemingly blank drawing surface, he began by numbering the staples holding the paper to the wall, returning to that effort repeatedly over the course of the session. The video also reveals Mullican’s bizarre trance state as he does this work, making strange noises with his mouth, occasionally talking to himself, and at times playing with the objects surrounding him.
That Person’s Work: How to make something from nothing? functions as an oblique record of Mullican’s search for meaning in the act of art making. The phrase, “the same thing alway(s), the same thing” appears prominently on a horizon-like line across the middle of the paper. It can be read as a commentary on the artist’s essential problem: how to make something out of nothing again and again. Tellingly, it can also be read as a statement of an artist’s worst fear: running out of things to say and merely repeating oneself, saying the same thing again, and yet again.
The Tang Museum would like to thank Dr. Clifford Passen, the hypnotherapist who worked with Matt Mullican to complete this project. Thanks also to John Wager, producer, and David Freedman, director of photography, for their work on the video documentation.
As the accompanying video demonstrates, the artist worked deliberately to fulfill the task he set for himself of “wiping the slate clean” and creating “something from nothing.” Faced with a huge, seemingly blank drawing surface, he began by numbering the staples holding the paper to the wall, returning to that effort repeatedly over the course of the session. The video also reveals Mullican’s bizarre trance state as he does this work, making strange noises with his mouth, occasionally talking to himself, and at times playing with the objects surrounding him.
That Person’s Work: How to make something from nothing? functions as an oblique record of Mullican’s search for meaning in the act of art making. The phrase, “the same thing alway(s), the same thing” appears prominently on a horizon-like line across the middle of the paper. It can be read as a commentary on the artist’s essential problem: how to make something out of nothing again and again. Tellingly, it can also be read as a statement of an artist’s worst fear: running out of things to say and merely repeating oneself, saying the same thing again, and yet again.
The Tang Museum would like to thank Dr. Clifford Passen, the hypnotherapist who worked with Matt Mullican to complete this project. Thanks also to John Wager, producer, and David Freedman, director of photography, for their work on the video documentation.