Victor Burgin: Photopath

At the opening of the Tierney exhibition, one was instructed not to step on Photopath. This prohibition divided the room diagonally, with viewers dancing around a dead center of inkjet prints on the floor. When I returned to the gallery to see the show in daylight, I had a similar experience to the one I had had at the Guggenheim, but with a twist. As at the Guggenheim, from some vantage points I could see the entire strip of photographs standing visually apart from the polished floorboards. And, as in 1971, from other positions, the entire work magically vanished. But at Tierney, from still other spots, only sections of Photopath submerged into the floor while, a foot to the left or right, the work remained discernable as matte inkjet prints. This phenomenon produced a vertiginous “checkerboard” of visible/invisible, on/off sections of Photopath.