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Richard Hamilton's Tabular ImageAuthor(s): William R. KaizenSource: October, Vol. 94, The Independent Group (Autumn, 2000), pp. 113-128Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/779218 .

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RichardHamilton'sTabular

mage

WILLIAM

R.KAIZEN

The

effortsf

poets

o come o terms

ith

ndustry

n the

nine-

teenthentury.. areunmemorable,hat s to ay,hard-to-learn,

uninfluential

n

image

orming.

he

media,however,

hether

dealing

withwar or the

home,

Mars or the

uburbs,

re

an

inventory

f pop

technology

.

.

a

treasury

f

orientation,

manual

f

ne's

ccupancy

f

he wentieth

entury....

-Lawrence

Alloway

...

the

mage

hould,

herefore,

e

thought

f

s

tabular s

well

as

pictorial.

-Richard Hamilton

In a

letterfrom

1957 written

o architects nd fellow

ndependent

Group

members

Peter

nd

Alison

Smithson,

RichardHamilton istedhis

definition f the

popular

arts. He

wrote,

"Pop

art

is:

Popular (designed

for

a

mass

audience),

Transient

short-term

olution),

Expendable

(easily-forgotten),

ow

Cost,

Mass

Produced,

Young

(aimed

at

youth),

Witty,

exy, Gimmicky,

Glamorous,

Big

business."l

Hamilton and the

Smithsonshad all

recently

ontributed

to This s

Tomorrow,

heo

Crosby's

multidisciplinary,

ultimedia

xhibitionon

art as

a

cul-

turalprocess, nd werethinking fworking ogether n a follow-up. fter is list,

Hamilton

hesitates:

This

is

ust

a

beginning.

Perhaps

the

first

art

of our task

s

the

analysis

of

Pop

Art

and the

production

of a

table.

I

find am

not

yet

sure

about

the

sincerity'

f

Pop

Art."

Although

he

capitalized

"pop

art,"

making

t

nto

a

proper

noun

and so

recognizing

mass-produced

goods

as a

properly

efinable

phenomenon,

he

was still

unconvinced

that these

objects

were

worthy

f

serious

attention.

He

hesitated

because,

although

the IG

had been

examining

popular

goods

for

ome

time,

hewas

stillunsure f

hey

were

no morethan

ust

passing

ads.

1.

Richard

Hamilton,

Collected

ords

953-1982

(London:

Thames and

Hudson,

1982),

p.

28.

OCTOBER

94,

Fall

2000,

pp.

113-128.

?

2000 October

Magazine,

td. nd

Massachusetts

nstitute

f

Technology.







114

OCTOBER

Crosby

was then

the

editorof the

ournal

Architectural

igest,

here

he

had

published articles on mass culturebyvarious members of the IG, including

Hamilton.

This

s

Tomorrow,

eld in 1956

at

London's

Whitechapel

Art

Gallery,

as

the

physical

manifestation

f these written

xplorations

of

pop

culture.

Crosby

matched

groups

of

architects,

esigners,

nd artists

ogether

nd each

group

con-

tributed ts own section

to the

arger

xhibition.

ach

was

assigned

theme

based

on various

social

and

scientific

oncepts

in

order

to show

how different

ultural

formationsntersect nd

overlap

within

ociety

s

a

whole. For

Crosby

nd the

IG,

culturewas no

longer

the

exclusive

roperty

f

the

bourgeoisie,

quivalent

o

high

culture alone.

This

s

Tomorrow'sision

of culture

was

expansive.

t

included

the

entire

nexus of social

connections

and

communication

by

putting

on

display

generalizedfieldof culturewherehighand low were no longeropposed butparts

of a

larger

ocial

continuum.

By

the

mid-1950s he

G and

Crosby

had

found that t

was no

longer

possible

to

dismiss

mass-produced

commodities

designed

for

eisure

consumption

as

so

much

kitsch.

Thanks to

postwar

rosperity,

he British

conomy

had

shifted.

With

the

improved

tandard of

living

nd

the

growth

n

both

leisure time

and

dispos-

able

income,

onsumer

roducts

looded

the

market.

Mass-produced

ntertainment

was

everywhere

nd

it

became

an

unavoidable

part

of

everyday

ife.

Lawrence

Alloway,

rt

critic

nd IG

member,

escribed the

time s

"edenic for

he

consumer

of

popular

culture."2

echnical

mprovements

n

magazine

color

photography,

ig-

screencinema,and the emergenceofnewproducts uch as long-playingecords

and

television

ad all

recently

ecome

available n

England,

and

the G

set out

to

carefully

xamine these

objects.

At the same

time,

English

historian

Raymond

Williams

was

developing

sim-

ilarly

expanded

cultural

theory.

Williams

had

been

looking

at

the

origins

of

culture

ince the

1940s

when

he

co-founded

he

review

olitics nd

Letters.3

aking

literary

riticism

s its

starting

oint,

his book

Culturend

Society:

780-1950

(pub-

lished in

1958)4

theorized

the

larger

historical arc

that

had

led

to

culture's

equation

with

he

fine

rts.He

traced

the

shifts

f

meaning

n

the

word

"culture,"

from

ts

origin

as

a

tending

of

natural

growth

first

n

agriculture

nd

then in

human,moraldevelopment)to its identificationn the nineteenthcentury s a

2.

Lawrence

Alloway,

Popular

Culture nd

Pop

Art,"

n

Pop

Art:A

Critical

History,

d.

Steven

Henry

Madoff

(Berkeley:

University

f

California

Press,

1997),

pp.

167-68.

Established

cultural

uthorities

disparaged

the

influence f

mass-produced

ulture.

The

Ministry

f

Culture,

ngland's

governmental

arts

agency,

upported

raft

nd

small-scale

roduction

following

he

lead

of

William

Morris

century

before.

The

few

nstitutions

oncerned

with

contemporary

rt,

uch

as

the

Institute f

Contemporary

Art,

upheld

the

conservative

modernism

f

Henry

Moore.

3. WithClifford ollinsandWolfMankowitz. tran from 946-48.

4.

Raymond

Williams,

Culture

nd

Society

780-1950

(New

York:

Columbia

University

ress,

1983).

Williams

had

been

working

n

the

book

since

1950.







Richard

amilton's

abular

mage

115

specialized

field

of

activity

ied

to the

bourgeoisie.

For

Williams,

with

he onset

of

the IndustrialRevolution nd the rise of thebourgeoisie, ulturebecame a setof

specialized

activities

e.g.,

opera,

ballet,

chamber

music,

asel

painting),

n

which

the ndividualwas

set freefrom

veryday

ife.

Culture

became the

fine

rts,

place

for

the cultivation f the ndividual

ubject.

t was

privatized

o that t would

exist

over

and

above the social realm s a

place

that

ould,

by ccessing

beauty

or

teach-

ing

morality,

itigate veryday

ife.

In

his next

book,

The

Long

Revolution

1961),5

Williams

et out

to restore

at

least

in

part)

the

pre-bourgeois

otion of

culture

s

generalized

cultivation.

He

expanded

the cultural

field,

making

t

the whole

way

of

ife of

a

society.

he

fine

arts became one

specific

mode

of

communicationwithin

he

larger

ocial

whole.

Thisundercut heprevious ppositionbetweenhighand low culture hatwas,for

Williams,

reflection f class

division

mposed

by

the

bourgeoisie.

Culture

became

the common

culture,

he various

activities hat

comprise

the social

interaction

f

all

membersof

a

society

who live n a

particular

ime

and

place.

Within

ommon

culture,

rt was

but one of

any

number of

specialized

forms

f

communication

with ts own

particular

history

nd

use to

the

larger

ocial

group.

This

generaliza-

tion of

culture had

two

major

consequences.

First,

that

art

was no

longer

a

rarefied

ctivity,

omehow

more

valuable than

other

types

of social

activity,

nd

consequently

hat

other

types

of social

production

besides

art

could and

should

be

analyzed

withthe same

rigor

that

was

previously

eserved or

art criticism. n

expanding culture to include any and all formsof human communication,

Williams

made

popular goods

acceptable objects

of

nquiry.

The

IG,

with

their after-hours

meetings

at the

Institute

f

Contemporary

Art,

had

begun

to

explore

these

goods.

In

autumn

of

1952,

after heir

first

ear

of

meetings

was

almost

over,

Reyner

Banham

assumed the

convenership.

The sub-

ject

matter,"

amilton

said,

"changed

overnight,"

he focus

turning

o

popular

culture

n

general

and

American

popular

culture n

particular.6

nspired

by

pop

goods

that

artistJohn

McHale

brought

ack

from

trip

to the

United

States,

heir

discussions

ranged

from

Elvis to

violence in

the

cinema

to

automobile

styling.7

Hamilton

contributed

lecture on

how

"white

goods"

(e.g.,

washing

machines,

5.

Raymond

Williams,

The

Long

Revolution

London: Hazell,

Watson

&

Viney,

td.,

1961).

This

book

was

written

s

a

direct

follow-up

nd

clarification

f

the

deas he

proposed

n

Culture

nd

Society.

6.

Talking

rt

,

ed.

Adrian

Searle,

London:

Institute f

Contemporary

rts,

993)

p.

73.

7.

Hamilton

describes

the IG

at

this

time:

"When

John

McHale

visited

the

U.S. in

1955,

he

returned

with

a box

full of

exotic

things

he

had

acquired

there. He

had

gone

around

buying

MAD

magazine

and

comics of

the

most

extreme

kind of

lots of

pop

records.

Elvis

Presley

nd

Bill

Haley's

"Rock

Around

the Clock"

were

being

heard and

discussed

t the

Independent

Group

before

hey

were

evenplayedon theradiohere [inEngland].Theywere nalyzed t the CA and regarded s a sociolog-

ical

phenomenon,

though

there

was

an

admiration

nd

enjoyment

f

them. So

much

that t

directed

our

interests

nto

whatwas

going

on

in

the

popular

arts,

ther

than

the

cinema"

ibid.,

p.

74).







116

OCTOBER

dishwashers,

nd

refrigerators)

ere

presented

n

advertising.

Withtheir

xamina-

tion oftheseproducts, heIG setout to reclaimculture.Theyhad foundthatthe

vertical

yramid

f

bourgeois

culture,

with

high

culture n the

top

and

lowon

the

bottom,

was

becoming

horizontalized,

lattened

ut

by

mass

commodification.

n

horizontalculture

s

in

common

culture,

no one form

f cultural

production

was

inherently

more

valuable

than

any

other.Each

product

would have to be

judged

on

its own

merits,

ach

as

potentially

aluable as the

next

n

terms f

nterest

r

as

a

point

of

critical eflection.

For the This s Tomorrowxhibitioncatalog,Hamiltoncreated the collage

Just

what is

it that

makes

today's

homes o

different,

o

appealing?8

Before

constructing

the

collage,

he had

programmatically

ritten

own

all

the areas

of

popular

cul-

ture

that would

comprise

t:

"man, woman,

humanity,

istory,

ood,

newspapers,

cinema,

TV,

telephone,

comics

picture

nformation),

ord

textual

nformation),

tape

recording

aural

information),

ars,

domestic

appliances,

space."9

He

gave

this ist

to

his

wife,

erry,

nd

to their

friend

Magda

Cordell,

who

spent days

clip-

ping

out

magazine

mages

that

matched

these

categories.

Hamilton then

made a

selection

from

hese

clippings

nd used

these to

generate

he final

picture.

Beneath

his list he

added,

"The

image

should,

therefore,

e

thought

f as

tabularas wellas pictorial."As muchasJustwhat s it .. hangstogether s a pic-

ture,

t

s

also

a

tabulationof

horizontal

ulture.

n

linking

ust

what s

it...

to the

criteria

that

he had

defined for

making

the

collage,

Hamilton's

tabular

image

graphed

his

preconceived

ist

onto a final

representation

onsisting

f

units

sub-

sumed

by

t.

Just

what s

it

..

holds in

suspension

both

the

image

it

presents

nd

the

generative

tructure sed to

build

that

mage.

t is

both a

picture

of

the

mod-

ern

man

and woman

at

home in

the

house of

tomorrow,

urrounded

by

latest

consumer

goods

and

scientific

adgets

and,

at

the

same

time,

t is

the

separate

units

chosen

from the

mass

media

and

used

to

create the

image.

After

he

list

Hamilton

continued

with

longer

tatement:

TV is neither essnormore

legitimate

n influence

han,

for

example,

is

New York

Abstract

xpressionism.

he

wide

range

of

these

preoccu-

pations

(eclectic

and

catholic as

they

were)

led to

a

willful

cceptance

of

pastiche

as

a

keystone

f

the

approach-anything

which

moves

the

mind

through

he

visual

sense is

as

grist

o

the

mill

but

the mill

must

not

grind

o

small

that he

ngredients

ose

their

flavour

n

the

whole.10

8. Itwasalso printed n a posterused toadvertise heexhibit.

9.

Collected

ords,

.

24.

10.

Ibid.,

p.

31.







rrk

-44

rv4v

X

lis:

OptS

3W/

low4

4 <*"

44,

Richard

amilton.

ust

what s

t thatmakes

today's

homes o

different,

o

appealing?

1956.







jo,.

i?ii

~ :i-

i:i

i:::: ?

~i

i:?:::?ii

::::

i

........

..:

Will ~_iRi\~: .:::j

(IN

w ww'-M,7-,

i

iiiiii

il

MM<

. : ::ii-- c-'-'-7 7"i

."7x,gr?3

,M

4MV/,

-4"W/

:

-?rM?

::ii--g

Hamilton.

ommage

Chrysler

Corp.

1957.

This is the tabular

image, appropriating the

new

environment

of

mass-

produced

imagery, utting

t

up

and then

pastiching

it

back

together

without om-

pletely

subsuming

it

in

the

final onstruction.

With the

tabular

mage,

Hamilton

created

a taxon-

omy

of horizontal culture.

Ratherthan build a classical

taxonomy,

here he

world

s

subsumed

by

top-to-bottom

hierarchical

order,

he

spreads

common culture

across

the surface

f

the

pic-

ture,

tabulating

together

various bits and

pieces

of

pop

imagery.

Because

the

separate

units of

Just

what s

it... were filtered hrough

calculated

process

of selec-

tion,

t is as

if

Hamilton

had

polled

the media and

graphed

the results.

He cre-

ates

a

nonlinear

taxonomic

chart

of

pop

culture,

a

sys-

tematic

image

that

can be

read both

point-by-point

nd in toto. Each

separate

unit both

maintains ts exis-

tence

as individualdatum and becomes a

part

of the overallfield

that

s

the sum

totalof all thedata.

After

ust

what

s

it...,

Hamilton

returned o

painting, dapting

his

collage

tabulation

nd

continuing

his

examination

f

the effects f consumer ulture

n

subjectivity.

e created

painted collages

that

depict

the results

f mass culture

n

the horizontal

subject.

His

subject, iterally

he

figure

n

his

paintings,

was the

product

of commodification.

n

the horizontal ulture

hatHamilton nd

the IG

defined,

advertising

nd leisure

goods

were

quickly coming

to

dominate

the

archive f forms

hrough

which he

subject

ntered

ociety. ollowing

Williams,

o

become

a

member of

society

s to be

acculturated,

he

subject entering

ociety

through

he

adoption

of

variousforms

f

culture

ne is

born

nto. Since

the

war,

the cultural rchive

had

been overrun

by

commodification. amilton's tabular

paintings

presented

he

process

of

acculturation

s

mass-acculturation,

epicting







Hamilton.

he.

1958-61.

the

subject

as the site on

which mass culture was

inscribed.

In

his

first

painted

tabular

work,

Hommage

a

Chrysler

Corp.

(1958),

car

parts-

a

bumper, headlight,

a tail-fin-are

fragmented,

decomposed

and

hybridized,

dissolved into lines and

washes of

chrome, red,

and

sootyblack. The vaguestout-

line of a

salesgirl

stands

behind the car

parts, nly

her

lips

and one breast

visible,

he

breast a mechanical

drawing

of

the

support

structure f a

bullet bra.

Surrounding

both

woman

and

car are a

variety

of

painterly

marks

dispersed

across the

ground, uggesting

an interior,ut one thatnever

meshes nto a

proper

rchitec-

tural

space:

a block of color

hints at a

wall,

horizontals

lines

hint

at floor

boards.

Different

painterly

marks,

each made

in

a

separate

tech-

nique

(wash,

dry

brush,

solid

painted

black

bar,

small red

cross,

hatch

marks),

loat

n

the

background.

ome

of these marksworkto

provide spatial

cues;

others reference

nothing

but their

own existence.Together,withthe scrapsoffigure nd car,theyputon display

range

of

plastic tyles.

Much of the

painting

s leftwhite s

if

eitherunfinished r

as

if

these

pieces

were

collaged

onto

paper.

Each

separate

elementof Hamilton's

image

is

distinctly

isible,

cattered round the fieldof the

painting.

While

they

exist

together

n the

plain

of the

painted

urface,

ach retains ts ndividual den-

tity

s much as it makes

up

the total

mage.

In

creating

he tabular

mage,

Hamilton

hoped

to

upend

the

long-standing

tradition

n

Western rtthat

a

painting

s to be

experienced

s a

totality

een

and

understood ll at once before ts

components

re

examined."ll

Hommage

.. consists

grr

'I'M

.

.

7V "N'

11.

Ibid.,

p.

104.







120

OCTOBER

of

separate

marks r

images,

ach

presented

ide

by

ide,

one next

to the

other,

n

the canvas.The final mageneverquitecomestogether. ikeJustwhats t ..

,

the

total

mage

has a clear overallreference

automobile

advertising

n this

case),

but

unlike

Just

what

is it

..., Hommage

...

does not cohere

in

perspectival

space.

Hommage..

maintains

surface

heterogeneity

hat

presents

ts ack-its

construc-

tion as

image-openly.

The

separate

units need to

be read and understood

both

as

individual

units and as over-all

mage.

With

Hommage

.. Hamiltonwants

the

image

to

be "scanned ike a

poem

or a

comic

book"12 ather

han read all at

once

in

its

entirety.

ike a comic

book,

each

frame,

r in

the case of

the tabular

paint-

ing,

each

separate

unit,

exists

both

for

tself

nd for

the overall

meaning

of

the

entirework.

In $he (1958-61), his nexttabularpainting,Hamiltontakes advertisements

for

kitchen

ppliances

as the

basis

of

his

image.

He

depicts

a woman n a

kitchen,

caught

n

a web of

labor-saving

evices,

the domestic

nterior

ransformednto

a

grotesquerie.

Her

refrigerator

rips

blood that

pools

around a

toaster nd a vac-

uum

cleaner. Her

body

is

in

fragments;

er

hips

and

ass rise from

he canvas

n

plaster

relief,

ransformednto a

toilet

eat. Her one

eye

s a

plastic toy

hat

winks

on and

off,

mechanical come-on

to

viewers s

they

walk

past.

$he

s a

pastiche

of

bigger

nd

better

ppliances,

the

subject

ost n a void

of

appliances

that

overflow

their

use.

$he

exists as the

product

of

consumer

dentity,

Frankensteinian on-

struct uiltfrom

abor-saving

evices,

he

branded

subject

of

consumer

dentity.

In "An Expositionof $he," Hamiltonelaborated his source material.13 e

described

each

tabular

unit

comprising

he

painting

next to

reproductions

f

the

original

advertisements e

used

to

create the

final

mage.

As

in

his

essay

n

the

This

s

Tomorrow

atalog,

he

seems

to

describe the

tabular

mage

tself:

The

ad for

the

Westinghouse

acuum

cleaner

demonstrates n

endear-

ing

characteristic f

modern

visual

techniques

which I

have been

at

pains

to

exploit-the

overlapping

f

presentation

tyles

nd

methods.

Photography

becomes

diagram,

diagram

flows

nto

text.

This casual

adhesion of

disparate

onventions as

always

een

a

factor n

my

paint-

ing.

I

want

ideas to be explicitand separable, so the plasticentities

mustretain

their

dentity

s

tokens.The

elements

hold

their

ntegrity

because

they

re

voiced

in

different

lastic

dialects with

the

unified

whole.

14

These

plastic

dialects

are

the

formal

methods

through

which

Hamilton

presents

each

separate

element.

Like

the

various

techniques

employed

in

the

ads,

12.

Ibid.

Hamilton s

describing

he work

f Paul

Klee,

whose

work

he

cites,

long

with

Duchamp's

LargeGlass, s predecessors fthetabular mage.

13.

Ibid.,

pp.

35-38.

14.

Ibid.,

p.

38.







Richard amilton's

abular

mage

121

Hamilton uses

a

variety

f

painterly echniques

to

separately

efine each

tabular

unit. Each element standson its own,the unitscomprisinghis overallsubject,

while

remaining

isually

istinct.

This

two-level

plit

n

Hamilton's tabular

mage

points

toward

he

divide n

consumer ulture t

the institutional nd the

ndividual

evels.

At the

institutional

level,

consumer

ulture

endstoward

homogenization.

t creates

arge

numbersof

identical

products

that t

markets o the

largest

possible

number of

people.

This

reduces the

subject

to

pure

consumer.

But at the micro

evel,

the evel

of

the

indi-

vidual

subject,

this

system

reaks down.

The

subject's

desire

constantly

ries to

escape

the

homogenizing

pull

of mass

culture.

Hamilton's

two-level

abulation

shows this

split,

his

subjects

comprised

of

various

points

drawn

from

the

mass

archive.His tabularsubject s theproductofconsumer ulture, onstructed rom

the vast

array

f

consumer

goods

that

compete

for

attention n

the

mass-market

place, fragmented y

nd

composed

of

the forms

f

mass commodification.

Hamilton's tabular

mage

depends

on

this

subject,

and his individual

units

always

ome

together hrough

iguration. Although

ome

of

my

pre-Poppictures

may

eem to the casual

observer o be

'abstract,"'

e

has

said,

"I

believe

t

s

trueto

say

that

have nevermade a

painting

which

does not show

n

intense

wareness

f

the human

figure."'15

ut

he

creates this

figure

rom

bjects

of

mass

production,

constructing

them

from

consumer

images

and

things.

Unlike the

advertised

image,

which

presents

unified

ubject,

he

fantasy

ubject

of

happy

ommodifica-

tion,Hamilton reveals the subjectas the object of commodification.f capital

makes all

things quivalent

by reducing

their

tatus

o

goods

in

the

marketplace,

Hamilton's

figure

resents

he

subject

as

the

product

of this

eveling

ut. His

fig-

ure

is

no

longer

the

singular,

nified

ubject.

The

various

pieces

that

comprise

t

jostle

together

nd drift

part

across

the

painting's

urface.

Though

theymay

be

contiguous,

hey

nevercome

together

s a

unified

whole.

They

are the

tabulation

of

consumer

ulture.

Over the next tenyears,Hamiltonpursuedthe tabular mage through ev-

eral

series

of

paintings,

ach

centeredon

a

different

heme:

fashion

both

men's

and

women's),

architecture,

inema, and,

in

the

series

Swingeing

ondon,

the

news.16

n

1967

Hamilton's

art

dealer,

Robert

Fraser,

was

arrested

long

withtwo

of the

Rolling

Stones

for

drug possession.

Because

rock stars

were

involved,

he

trial

was

extremely

ublic

and

the

tabloids had a

field

day.

The

bust

was

reported

15.

Ibid.,

p.

269.

Even

in

later

work

wherehe

explores

the

environment

nd

landscape

it s

always

n

relationship o thefigure.

16.

Although

will

only

discuss

the

print

Swingeing

ondon

67,

the

entire series

consists f

several

different

rints

nd a

painting.







122

OCTOBER

for

days.

Fraser's

gallery

hired

a

press agency

to

collect

any

and all

reports

f

the

trial.Hamilton took the clippingsand turned theminto a collage of headlines,

body copy,

nd

photographs.Among

the

clippings,

he

distributed

arious

mages

relatedto

the trial

the

cover

of

an incense

packet,

the

gallery's

etterhead,

Mars

Bar

wrapper'7)

all

of

which

were accented

with mall

spots

of

watercolor. sked

to

create an

edition

for

talian

printmakers

D

912,

Hamilton

turned

the

collage

into a

poster.18

e

punningly

ntitled t

Swingeing

ondon

67,19

combination

of

the

udge's

swingeing

entence and

the

newly

oined

phrase

"Swinging

ondon"

whichhad first

ppeared

in

1966 in

the British

magazine

Time. 0

In

Swingeing

ondon

67,

Hamilton

tabulates

the

way

n

which an

account

of

an

event s

necessarily

nfluenced

by

the

observer's

particular

disposition

oward

it.Byplaying ne report fthe trial gainst henext,he presents lightlyifferent

truths. ruth s

revealed as a

constellation

f

multiple

truths.

ach

report

takes

claim

to

facticity,

o

the

existence f

a

particular

vent

hat

happened

in

a

particu-

lar

way

n

a

given

place

at

a

given

ime,

but

each

is

different.

Hamilton

chose his

clippings

ery

arefully,

ocusing

n

articles

hat

describe

the

colors of

the

defendant's

lothes and

the

colors

of

the

various

pieces

of

evi-

dence. He

selected

color

as

the basis of

his

tabulation

because its

description

s

always

mperfect.

t

is

a

factual

phenomenon

that

breaks

down at

the

subjective

level.

While

it

is

possible

to

analyze

any

given

hue

spectroscopically,

he

human

description

of

color

is

always

rbitrary.

or

example,

the

various

reports

of

the

color of the defendant's clothes are all in the same general range-browns,

greens,

blues-but

each

has a

different

ay

of

describing ny

particular

brown,

green,

or

blue.

Hamilton

reinforces

his

by

adding

washes

of

the

colors

described

in

the

text s

spots

of

pigment

cattered

hroughout

he

print,

etting

he

color's

physical

resence

against

ts

multiple

inguistic

escriptions.

If,

n

his

earlier

work,

Hamilton

revealed

the

construction

of

subjectivity

through

his

manipulation

of

the

images

of

horizontal

culture,

here

he

goes

deeper,

pointing

toward

he

emergence

of

horizontalization

within

he

subject's

very

nception,

where

subjectivity

tself

merges

as

a

construction

of

the mass

media.

Through

his

added

spots

of

color,

Hamilton

uses

the

actual,

physical

res-

17.

One of

the

most

notoriously

ublicized

and

never

proven)

parts

of

the trial

was

the

allegation

that

agger

nd

his

girlfriend

ere

having

ex

with

candy

bar

when the

police

bust

occurred.

18.

Again

echoing

the

reproduction

f

Just

what s

it

.. as

both

a

poster

dvertising

his

s

Tomorrow

and

in

the

exhibition

catalog.

19.

Released

in

1968.

20. A

swingeing

means,

n

British

lang,

harsh

punishment

r

stinging

ebuke.

The

edition

was of

2,000.

Though

not

huge

by

commercial

tandards,

his

s

quite

large

for

fine-art

rint.

Hamilton's

largestpreviousrunhad been 125. Exceptfor the poster nserthe designed forthe Beatles's White

Album

n

1968,

which

was

printed

n

an

edition

of

approximately

ive

million,

his

editions

usually

ran

150 or

less.







i rii Ir4?;F?~

.i:?~

- -------

S

WNES

'A

TR

G

W

Brianr,

mande

Y1atene

O'A'

J

d

c

vat

v

7/7'

rdi~lY'*~"

i-:_AV

w

vy:

Hamilton.

wingeing

ondon.

March 968. TheMuseum

f

Modern

rt,

New

York,

ohn

.

Jakobson

oundationund.

(Photo

2000 The

Museum

f

Modern rt,

New

York)







124

OCTOBER

ence

of

the colors

against

the

descriptions

around

them.

These added

colors

become the real-world oint thatthe reportsmisrepresent, nd, throughmass

dissemination

n the

tabloids,

these

misrepresentations

ecome

part

of the

com-

mon

culture.

They

enter into the

larger

social

sphere,

becoming

part

of

the

cultural archive that

forms

ubjective dentity.

n

Swingeing

ondon

7,

this

rchive

is

shown

o be founded n

misrepresentation.

wingeing

ondon

67 tabulates

the

ack

at the center of

the consumer

system,

he

inability

f mass

forms o

account

for

individual

ubjectivity.

In

his

description

of

Andy

Warhol's

Ambulance

isaster

1963),

Hal Foster

describes

this

ack

as a missed

encounter

with

he

real: "these

pops,

such

as a

slip-

ping

of

register

r

a

washing

n

color,

serve as visual

equivalents

of

our missed

encounters with the real .

.

. Through these pokes or pops we seem almost to

touch

the

real."21

Hamilton's

Swingeing

ondon

67 also

presents

this missed

encounter

with

the

real. The sum

total

of

the different

escriptions

f

the trial

circle

around

each and around the actual

spots

of

color,

but

they

never

quite get

to

the

actual event. Even

the

washes

of

color

that Hamilton

puts

next to the

descriptions, laying

he

literal

gainst

the

descriptive

ccounts,

are

mechanical

reproductions

f the

color he

placed

on the

original collage.

Hamilton's

real

is

missed

because

it

points

toward he

lack

in

the

system's

bility

o

process

nforma-

tion

that sn't

mass-mediated.

Referring

o

Ambulance

isaster,

oster

alls

this ack

"traumatic

ealism." he

paintingfeatures wo mages,one over the other, f a crashedambulance with

dead

woman

hanging

from

he

wreckage.

n

the bottom

mage,

the

woman's

face

is

obscured

by

a

large

blotch,

n

imperfection

purposeful

r

not)

that

occurred

in

Warhol's

ilk-screening

rocess. Following

acques

Lacan,

Foster

describes this

blotch

as a

tear or

a

"trou (in

French

a

hole,

gap,

or

deficit

ut

also

a

pun

on

the

English

"true")

that

eaps

out

at

him,

a lack

in the

technical

process

of

the silk-

screen

reproduction

f

the

original mage.

It

is

in

this

delinquency

f

technique,

Foster

ays,

especially

hrough

he

floating

lashes'

of

the

silkscreen

rocess,

he

slipping

and

streaking,

lanching

and

blanking,

repeating

and

coloring

of the

images"

that he

traumaof

Warhol's

mage

can be

located.22

Withboththerepetition fthe mageand thebreakdown n themechanical

process

of

reproduction,

oster

s

touched

by

the

real

that ies

behind

Warhol's

image.

For

Foster,

his ack

is the

punctum

that

ocates

the

trauma of

the

image,

more so

than the

horrible

mage

of

the

crash or

Warhol's

repetition

f

that

mage.

The

trou

s

the

gap

between

the

two,

between

the

horror of

the

crash

and the

banality

f

its

repetition.

t is

the

deficiency

hat

points

back

toward

he

system

21.

Ibid.,

p.

136.

22. Hal

Foster,

he

Return

f

he

eal

Cambridge:

MIT

Press,

996),

p.

134.







Richard amilton's abular

mage

125

that

generates

truth

through

mass mediation.

Like Hamilton's

spots

of

color,

Warhol'strou ignalsthatthe real is alwaysmissed n anyaccountofan event,but

particularly

n the

representations

f the mass media.

In horizontal

ulture,

ruth

only

exists

as

the

homogeneous

surface

floating

on

top

of the

mass-cultural

archive.The trou

oints

backto the

real,

to desire

that s

unmediated

by

consump-

tion,

to a

point

behind the

system

f

mass

production.

Swingeing

ondon

67

is

the

image

of tabulation itself.

Hamilton

presents

a

metatabulation

of the

systems

f

horizontal

culture.He

uses the

newspaper,

he

point

at whichfactual

nformation

nters

nto

arger

ultural

irculation,

o

point

toward he

general way

n

which

mass

production

forms

he

subject.

n

replaying

the

trialover and

over,

ach account circles

round

the

real.

Through

the

repeti-

tion and reconstructionof mass-producedinformation the news), Hamilton

demonstrates he

gap

between

the

thing/event

s

object

and

its

subjective

epre-

sentation within the

spectacle. Though

the

final

mage

may generate

a

single

overall

meaning,

ts

parts

fall

apart.

n

each

instance,

using

the field

of

mass

pro-

duction

n

which

ameness s

inherent,

wingeing

ondon

7

demonstrates he

ways

this

field

breaksdown. Hamilton

uses the

tabular

mage

to show

that t

the

heart

of this

system

f

commodification ies

a

fundamental ack-the

human

subject's

inability

o access

any

desire

beyond

thatof the

marketplace.

If,

s Foster

ays

of

Warhol's

traumatic

ealism,

he

subject

s

touched

by

the

real,

Hamilton's

tabular

image

also

proposes

that

the

real

touches the

subject.

Hamilton's trous a tear in the meaningof the image,the central ack around

which the

image

is

constructed,

ut

it is

also the

point

at

which

meaning

s con-

structed

pon

the real. It is

the screen

of culture

where

subject

and

object

meet.

Lacan,

in

his

seminars

f

1964

gathered

together

s TheFour

Fundamental

Concepts

of

Psychoanalysis,

heorized

the screen

as the

place

where

ndividual

subjectivity

and the

gaze

of the

object

merge.

In

the

fourth

eminar,

Tuche and

the

Automaton,"

acan

recounts

he

story

of

Freud's

grandson

playing

with wooden

spool

attached to

a

length

of

cotton.

The

child,

his

mother

having

eft

he

room,

takes

the

spool

in

hand

and

tosses t

away,

elling,

fort "

"gone ").

With

tug,

he

reels t

back

n,

"da "

"here ").

Again

and again,thechildplays hisgame,backand forth,n thesymbolic epetition f

his

mother's

bsence. For

Lacan,

this

s the

very

moment

when

the

child

becomes

possessed

by

desire,

when

need is

transformedrom

ry

nto

speech.

The

need for

the

mother

s

represented

y

the

reel

of

string,

n

extension

of

the

child nto

the

world.

Like

language,

the reel

s

a

pulse

that

xtends

hen

returns o

the sender.23

For

Lacan

the

child's

fort-da ame

is

the

very

pulse

of

symbolization,

he

game

of

speech

in

which

the

speaker

reaches

forever

oward

he

Other.

The

turn

23. Even f

here s no

reply,

or

Lacan,

every

ct

of

speech

implies

return.







126 OCTOBER

of the reel is used

by

the

child

to

enact

language

for the

first ime. t is

the

foun-

dational trauma of the mother's bsence, the tuchi f loss thatpushes the child

into

symbolization

nd into social

life.

The

fort-da ame,

as the instantiation f

anguage,

also marks

he

formation

of

subjectivity

ithin

he

child's unconscious.As

the

child

plays,

he

reel

symbol-

izes the

division

between

ubject

nd

object.

The

alternation

etweenthere

fort )

and here

(da ),

comes

to define the

pulse

of the child's

subjectivity

s

it

reaches

out

with

anguage

and

is in turn

ffected

y

the

anguage

of others.The reel s

the

locus of the

signifier,

he

object

thatcomes to define

the

subject.

n

so

doing

it

s

the

thing

hatforever

inks

he

subject

o the

objects

of the outsideworld.

Coming

between

subject

and

object,

unfurled

by

the

subject

but

presupposing

the

exis-

tenceof theobject,the reel sLacan's objectetit, thethingwhich s bothself nd

other,

he

thing

n

which

he

two

become

intertwined.

Lacan

asks,

"Where

do we meet this

real?"24

f the

real

is

what eludes

us,

what exists

beyond

or

before)

signification,

ast

words nd

the

possibility

f

con-

scious

knowledge,

where can it be

found?

n

severalof the seminars

hat

follow,25

Lacan identifies ision

as one

possible place

where

we are touched

by

the

real.

With

these

seminars,

his

goal

is

to "..

.

grasp

how the

tuchi

s

represented

in

visual

apprehension."26

acan tells

the

famous

tory

f the

sardine

can.

When

he was

a

young

man,

working

n

a

fishing

oat,

a

sardinecan was

floating

ut on the

waves,

glinting, aught

n

the

sunlight.

You see

that an?"

one

of

his

companions

on the

boat saysto him,"Do you see it?Well, t doesn't see you "27But Lacan couldn't

shake the

feeling

hat

t

did

indeed see

him.

"It

was

looking

at

me

at the

level of

the

point

of

light,"

he

realized,

"the

point

at which

everything

hat

ooks at me is

situated-and

I

am

not

speaking

metaphorically."28

iterally,

hen,

as he

looked

out into

the

world,

s his

gaze

reeled out

toward he

can,

the

light

of

the

world

stabbed back

into his

eyes,

tuchi

iercing

his

retina.

The

can's

gaze

touched

back

as

it

was

touched

by

Lacan's

eyes.

It

is

this

return

f

the

ook

thatLacan

named

"the

gaze."

As the

subject

ooks

out

at the

world,

the world

looks

back,

much

like the

child

enacting

anguage

through

he

fort-da

ame.

Vision s

forever

aught

between

subject

and

object

on

the screen,"thelocus ofmediation"29 etweenthemwhereeach sees the other.

The

screen

s

the

place

where

the reel

comes to

rest,

he

midpoint

f ts

pulsation

24.

Jacques

Lacan,

Four

Fundamental

onceptsf

Psychoanalysis:

he

Seminar

f

acques

Lacan,

Book

XI,

ed.

Jacques-Alain

Miller,

rans.

Alan

Sheridan

New

York:

W.

W. Norton

nd

Company,

978),

p.

53.

25.

All

grouped

under the

heading

"Of the

Gaze

as

Objet

Petit ."

26.

Ibid.,

p.

77.

27. Ibid.,p. 95.

28. Ibid.

29.

Ibid.,

p.

107.







Richard amilton's abular

mage

127

fromhere

to there.

On the

screen,

the

subject

s formed

rom he

object

and

vice

versa."Thisis the function hat sfound at theheartof the institutionf thesub-

ject

in the

visible,"

Lacan writes. What determines

me,

at the most

profound

level,

n the

visible,

s the

gaze

that

s

outside.

It

is

through

he

gaze

that

enter

light

nd

it s from he

gaze

that receive ts

effects."30

nd it s on the

screen

that

the

subject's

ook

and the

object's

gaze

oin.

Echoing

Williams's ommon

culture,

oster

describesthe

screen as "the

cul-

turalreserve f whicheach

image

is one

instance."

1

For

Foster,

he

screen

s

the

archive

of

culture,

nd this s the

cultural eserve

hatHamilton

accesses with

he

tabular

image.

Hamilton's

subject

s forever

aught

up

in

the screen

of

culture,

which for the

postwar ubject

means the

screen

of

commodification.

is

tabular

image revealsthat vision is screened throughthe culture of capital. Hamilton's

subject

s the

figure

hat

reates

nd

is

created

by

this

ommodification.

Fdlix

Guattari

ositions

acan's

psychoanalysis

istorically.

e

links

t

to

capital's

domination

of the

twentieth-century

ubject by

pointing

out

that

the

subject

Lacan describes s

screened

through

he

representations

f

capital:

"What

n

fact

does

Lacan

say?

He

says

that .. desire

can

exists

only

insofar as

it

is

represented

...

I think

hat

Lacan

is

completely

ight

n

terms f the

unconsciousof the

capitalist

social

field

...

."2

Lacan's screen

is the

place

where the

subject's

desire

and the

desire of

capital

meet. The

subject's

desire,

the

same

horizontal

subject

that

Hamilton

portrays

ith

he

tabular

mage,

s

formed

hrough

desire's

commodifi-

cation.

This is

the

figure,

Hamilton's

tabular

figure,

that

Lacan

described as

graphed

through

icturing,

r,

better

till,

raphed by ight:

I

must,

to

begin

with,

nsiston

the

following:

n

the

scopic

field,

he

gaze

is

outside,

am

looked

at,

that

s

to

say,

am

a

picture.

This is

the

function

that is

found at the

heart of the

visible.

What

determines

me,

at

the

most

profound

evel,

n

the

visible,

s

the

gaze

that s

out-

side.

It

is

through

he

gaze

that enter

ight

nd it s

from

he

gaze

that

I

receive ts

effects.

Hence

it

comes

about

that the

gaze

is the

instru-

mentthroughwhich ight s embodiedand throughwhich-if youwill

allow

me to

use

a

word,

as

I

often

do,

in

a

fragmented

orm-I

am

photo-graphed.33

This is

how

Hamilton's

tabular

image

functions-as

the

photo-graphic

creen

where

the ook

of

the

subject

nd the

gaze

of

the

object

are

founded on

the

desire

30.

Ibid.,

p.

106.

31. Foster,TheReturnf he eal,p. 140.

32. F61ix

Guattari,

oft

ubversions,

d.

Sylvire

otringer

New

York:

emiotext[e],

1996),

p.

18.

33.

Lacan,

Four

undamental

onceptsf

sychoanalysis,.

106.







128 OCTOBER

of

the

commodity.

What

s

traumatic

n

the

tabular

mage

is

not the return f the

real per se, a real that can neverreturnbecause it was both neverthere and is

always

here

as

lack,

as the hole

in

the center

of the

system).

ather,

t

s the turn

of the

reel,

where

subject

and

object

come

to rest on

the

screen

of

horizontal

culture,

hat ocates the traumaof the tabular

mage.

This is the

trou

f the

tabu-

lar

subject,

the truth

that,

by

the

mid

1950s,

meaning

was

caught

in

the

never-ending

epetition

of

commodification.

With

the turn

of the

reel,

the

real

returns s

unfulfilled

esire.

richard hamilton tabular image

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