Film Review: A Desert of Pure Feeling (2022)
Robert Irwin: A Desert of Pure Feeling (2022)
Written by Belle McIntyre
ROBERT IRWIN: A DESERT OF PURE FEELING (2022) DIR. JENNIFER LANE
A beautiful and elegant tribute to the experimental artist who has created a massive body of work over his lifetime and who is still going strong at 87 years and just as rigorous and dedicated as ever. His mantra seems to be always questioning and evolving - as evidenced by the extraordinary trajectory of his artistic career, beginning as a California painter in the 1950’s who began showing with the iconic Ferus Gallery. Shifting to conceptual installation work his aesthetic influenced and helped define the West Coast Light and Space movement. The early work often involved room sized spaces hung with scrim veiling which altered the light and the perception of space as the viewer moved through them.
His early paintings were painstakingly minimalist following his own edict that paintings should not be about things but about painting. A handsome and charismatic character who clearly lived for his art with intense focus and exquisite exactitude, examining every work and building on those revelations to influence the next work. His is a restless mind, both visionary and philosophical, always observing and open to new experiences. This made him a revered teacher and mentor of other artists during the period when he gave up making art. He also augmented his income at the racetrack during this time.
Robert Irwin: A Desert of Pure Feeling (2022)
When he resumed making art again it was a radical shift in focus embracing human perception against a backdrop of expanded technology and consumerism. His large scale interventions in nature were experimental and often ephemeral and always eye-opening. Walking through his immersive pieces provides the viewer an opportunity to practice seeing in subtle experiential ways. There is a meditative quality which challenges the quotidian ways of observing and expands consciousness.
The film follows his career through all of its iterations culminating in his most massive and challenging minimalist masterpiece in Marfa, Texas. It is a “radical ode to the evanescent elements of light and space” which took 15 years to complete. I imagine many will be lured to experience it in person. It invokes the sense of wonder which is present in so much of his work.
The title “desert of pure feeling” comes from a quote by the Russian painter Kazimir Malevich explaining his revolutionary painting of a white square on white ground. The film is a fascinating and immersive trip through the work of a unique and revelatory artist. I could not recommend it more. It can be streamed through midnight Nov. 27, 2022 on DOC NYC.
