Permanent shift: the topology of Didier Vermeiren's Cariatide à la Pierre

Photographic documentation of sculpture produces significant consequences for the way in which sculptural space is conceived. When viewed as discrete mediums the interaction of the photograph and its sculptural subject is always framed by notions of loss. However, when taken as a composite system, the sculpture-photograph proposes a new ontology of space. In place of the fixity of medium, we can observe a topology at play: a theory drawn from mathematics in which space is understood not as a static field but in terms of properties of connectedness, movement and differentiation. Refracted through the photographic medium, sculpture becomes not a field of fixed points in space, but rather as a fluid set of relations - a continuous sequence of multiple ‘surfaces’, a network of shifting views. This paper will develop a topological account of studio practice through an examination of the work of the contemporary Belgian sculptor Didier Vermeiren (b. 1951). Since the 1980s, Vermeiren has made extensive use of photography in his sculptural practice. By analysing a series of iterations of his work Cariatide à la Pierre (1997-1998), this paper proposes that Vermeiren’s use of photography reveals patterns of connection that expand and complicate the language of sculpture, while also emphasising the broader topology of the artist’s practice as a network of ‘backward glances’ to previous works from the artist’s oeuvre and the art-historical canon. In this context, photography is not simply a method of documentation, but rather a means of revealing the intrinsic condition of sculpture as medium shaped by dynamic patterns of connection and change. In Vermeiren’s work the sculpture-photograph, has a composite identity that exceeds straightforward categories of medium. In their place, we can observe a practice based upon the complex interactions of objects whose ontology is always underpinned by a certain contingency. It is in this fundamental mobility, that the topology of Vermeiren’s practice can be said to rest.

Autographed portrait of Mayer Lehrberg Portraits Men

Mayer Lehrberg was a publisher and philanthropist in Frankfurt

Portrait of (l-r) unidentified man, Thomas Mann, Singer (painter), Lion Feuchtwanger and unidentified man Portraits Groups Men

Digital Image

A 'Teague' and a 'True Briton': Charles Johnstone, Ireland, and Empire

Charles Johnstone's literary output - which included Chrysal: or, the Adventures of a Guinea (1760) and a series of novels between 1762 and 1781 prior to his departure for Calcutta in 1782 - features a marked geographical and historical preoccupation with empire. The trajectory of Johnstone's life from Carrigogunnell and Dublin in Ireland, to London, and finally to Calcutta, indicates the remarkable possibilities for self-transformation which empire from Ireland to India offered during the eighteenth century. This paper examines the significance of empire in Johnstone's oeuvre, and identifies for the first time a series of articles written by him in The Calcutta Gazette in 1785.

Suite de la Clef, ou Journal historique sur les matieres du tems

1760/07 (T88)-1760/12.

Suite de la Clef, ou Journal historique sur les matieres du tems

1760/01 (T87)-1760/06.

Monumens [sic] recueillis pour l'histoire de France par Mr de Gaignières - Maisons étrangères - 1ère Partie : Maison d'Anjou-Sicile. Ayant pour auteur Charles de France 7° fils de Louis VIII et frère de St Louis par son mariage avec Beatrix de Provence en 1246

Collectionneur : Gaignières, Roger de (1642-1715)

L'empereur Charles d'Autriche, [son épouse Zita] et ses enfants [Félix, Robert, Otto et Adélaïde, reproduction d'une photographie] : [photographie de presse] / [Agence Rol]

Référence bibliographique : Rol, 58305

Le prince Otto, fils aîné de l'ex-empereur [Charles] d'Autriche : [photographie de presse] / [Agence Rol]

Référence bibliographique : Rol, 58306

La princesse Adelaïde, fille de l'empereur Charles d'Autriche : [photographie de presse] / [Agence Rol]

Référence bibliographique : Rol, 58307

Les enfants de l'empereur [Charles] d'Autriche, le prince Otto et sa petite soeur la princesse Adélaïde : [photographie de presse] / [Agence Rol]

Référence bibliographique : Rol, 58308