Bending the Rule

by D. Scott Atkinson - Curator

When viewed in its entirety, Bending the Rule is at once physically imposing, yet wraithlike. Suspended from monofilament line, stretched taut between floor and ceiling, the twenty-four translucent panels comprising Bending the Rule appear to float as a series of gleaming shields held at attention. Separately each panel hovers in space; together they form a three-dimensional sculptural footprint. Their surfaces—simultaneously reflective and luminous—render Bending the Rule virtually un-photographable. Closer examination, however, reveals horizontal, vertical and diagonal graphite and red pencil lines that the artist subtlety inscribed on large sheets of Rives paper impregnated in resin.

By any definition Allen Guilmette is a minimalist. His work fits the classic definition: it is without gesture, devoid of illustrative content, grounded in geometry and stripped to its barest essentials. As many minimalist work, Bending the Rule is eriela by conception, and is about systems and order. Nevertheless, these are dynamic drawings; the cross-hatching, formed where the lines intersect, provides a sense of volume creating the illusion of both interior and exterior dimension. Although Guilmette attended art school on the east coast, Bending the Rule is linked formally and conceptually to west coast minimalism. In their ability to transform light and space into perception defining properties, Guilmette’s translucent panels are akin to Larry Bell’s glass cubes on transparent pedestals and Robert Irwin’s wall mounted light disks. Their hard, shiny resin surfaces are also reminiscent of the fiberglass planks John McCracken leaned against gallery walls.

Each of Guilmette’s complex linear schemas challenge the ratios existing in nature and codified by the ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras. More commonly known as the rules for Harmonic Proportion, artists and architects have applied them for centuries as a means of accurately ascertaining scale between objects in need of compositional reduction or enlargement. Bending the Rule makes visual the consequences of corrupting these fundamental principles by the imposition of three new fundamentals to the equation. Thereby, a three steps removed process unfolds logically as a sequence of twenty-four individual compositions. *

As a mutation of its neighbor, each panel of Bending the Rule is interconnected, with a geometric language resonating between them. They fall into logical groupings; three panels form a phrase, six a sentence, the twenty-four together equaling four geometric sentences equivalent to a stanza or paragraph. In so doing, they turn the thought processes of the mind into graphic pictorializations of non-tangible concepts. That they are deviations on a hallowed system is, for Guilmette, an added appeal. For him, each panel of Bending the Rule is “a map of the mind that transcribes rational thought.”
D. Scott Atkinson
Curator

* THE PRINCIPAL FOR SCALNG A RECTANGLE
A diagonal line is drawn within a host rectangle, between opposing upper and lower corners. A single point is then placed on the diagonal line from which a horizontal and a vertical line are drawn to the edge of the host rectangle. The desired height and width is established in the process. The outcome is a rectangle scaled to the host.
BENDING the RULE
Guilmette bends the rule once, by selecting two variable points on the diagonal. He bent it a second time by adding an opposing diagonal and selecting three variable points between the two diagonals, and a third time by incorporating a diagonal axis as a perimeter line with a two-point variable. By implementing the three new fundamentals, three mutants are formed. Guilmette then applies this logic to their interior, exterior and diagonal relationships.