Dorothea Rockburne: Indication Drawings

Eadweard Muybridge, Woman Dancing , 1887

The indication drawings capture a series of unfolding gestures within a static image, bringing to mind the chronophotography of Eadweard Muy- bridge (such as Woman Dancing , 1887 ), or Étienne Jules Marey’s studies of human locomotion. This comparison seems more plausible once we consider Rockburne’s longstanding interest in dance, and her participation in per- formances and happenings by Robert Morris, Claes Oldenburg and Robert Rauschenberg during the early 1960 s. Looking back on her experiences as a dancer, Rockburne has highlighted correspondences with her later artistic practice, considering the floor as a continuous surface over which the body moves, the dancer’s costume as a topological manifold, and the body’s move-

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