Monday, April 23, 2012
Liminality in Art.
Liminality in Art.
The notions of boundaries, borders, limits, thresholds and so on may be as ancient as the human population itself. In Greek/Roman mythology they are expressed by names of different gods/goddesses, hybrids and monsters – Zeus cares for the Olympus, Poseidon is a guardian of waters, Hades rules in the Underground; forests, agriculture, arts and law – every human (divine and monstrous as well) activity and embodiment of the spirit has its own powerful protector/ rules maker and no interference is into each other territory is tolerated.
Religions exist due the numerous polarities, and the most popular story of creation (Book of Genesis) had started exactly from this – from a separation and making sharp divisions between elements and the mater. In order to survive the species would have to define and fight for the territories and the evolution of the human race is an ‘epoch’ of transcending the boundaries of nature, space and time…
The social, cultural and personal identity couldn’t be possible at all without the ongoing, often uncompromising process of the differentiation. And when philosophy tends to look for an unity and structure in the universe despite of all the intrinsic and imposed/created dichotomies, art in general would indulge in exploring the world as seen within the “frame” (think now about Derrida’s “The truth in painting” and his deconstruction attempt of all the ‘frames’ we tend to see the art through) and beyond it.
And so it goes – Christ would be a ‘worthy’ subject, but even some of his disciples not exactly; harmonious human body was only true representation – the ugly/mutilated one was worse than some of the animals; one ‘breed’ of art-view was ‘high’ (read: ‘true’), the others were ‘pseudo-’; painting the landscape naturally excluded the sky-view and the figurative works were exorcised of all the abstract elements (and vice versa). The universe seen as in an atom of a very particular concept/meaning or a set of those (lets say: christian version of god, humanists’ vision of a man, romantic vision of a landscape, modernists’ subversion to the classical art) which had to be frozen, clearly and in a division to its possible and apparent opposites… This is basically what all the history of the Western Art is about. About Old Testament God’s job of making the world happen by creating borders between chaos and order, good and bad, light and dark, sky and earth, the animals and the human beings, the human beings and the Holy one.
Where the ‘liminal’ creeps into all of this? Well – right at the start, I guess and simply because the artistic activity in itself situates man on the existential threshold; a bit like a prayer or a sexual act – two different worlds meet and penetrate each other; the universe as it is (or appears to be) and the universe to be created… And the conscious artist is very likely to aim at or to be the ‘passeur’ -’a boatman’, ‘smuggler’ – the man of passage, the guide who leads his audience beyond the status quo crossing social, cultural, psychological, spiritual and sometimes very physical boundaries in order to show/explain/challenge…
Religions exist due the numerous polarities, and the most popular story of creation (Book of Genesis) had started exactly from this – from a separation and making sharp divisions between elements and the mater. In order to survive the species would have to define and fight for the territories and the evolution of the human race is an ‘epoch’ of transcending the boundaries of nature, space and time…
The social, cultural and personal identity couldn’t be possible at all without the ongoing, often uncompromising process of the differentiation. And when philosophy tends to look for an unity and structure in the universe despite of all the intrinsic and imposed/created dichotomies, art in general would indulge in exploring the world as seen within the “frame” (think now about Derrida’s “The truth in painting” and his deconstruction attempt of all the ‘frames’ we tend to see the art through) and beyond it.
And so it goes – Christ would be a ‘worthy’ subject, but even some of his disciples not exactly; harmonious human body was only true representation – the ugly/mutilated one was worse than some of the animals; one ‘breed’ of art-view was ‘high’ (read: ‘true’), the others were ‘pseudo-’; painting the landscape naturally excluded the sky-view and the figurative works were exorcised of all the abstract elements (and vice versa). The universe seen as in an atom of a very particular concept/meaning or a set of those (lets say: christian version of god, humanists’ vision of a man, romantic vision of a landscape, modernists’ subversion to the classical art) which had to be frozen, clearly and in a division to its possible and apparent opposites… This is basically what all the history of the Western Art is about. About Old Testament God’s job of making the world happen by creating borders between chaos and order, good and bad, light and dark, sky and earth, the animals and the human beings, the human beings and the Holy one.
Where the ‘liminal’ creeps into all of this? Well – right at the start, I guess and simply because the artistic activity in itself situates man on the existential threshold; a bit like a prayer or a sexual act – two different worlds meet and penetrate each other; the universe as it is (or appears to be) and the universe to be created… And the conscious artist is very likely to aim at or to be the ‘passeur’ -’a boatman’, ‘smuggler’ – the man of passage, the guide who leads his audience beyond the status quo crossing social, cultural, psychological, spiritual and sometimes very physical boundaries in order to show/explain/challenge…
Friday, April 20, 2012
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Series. The Dark Whole.
Michel Foucault talks about prisons as heterotopias in his unpublished article "Of Other Spaces" (1967). Heterotopias are marginal spaces that are linked to our real everyday spaces but "act as counter-sites", privileged, sacred, forbidden places, where cultural imaginations of spatiality are contested and inverted. The Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia is such a heterotopia twice: First a heterotopia of deviation, in Foucault's terms, at the time of its (disciplinary) use, reserved for deviant individuals and their out-of-the-ordinary living. And secondly, abadoned in 1971 and kept as a "suspended ruin" ever since, the penitentiary is an urban archaelogical site where culture-tourism is performed and modern art installed. This photograph speaks to its character as a locus of panoptic viewing practices (of its past and contemporary guardians) and the tyrrany of governmental surveillance.
Borderline. West Coast.
"Is [the film] a form of re-performance ... that shows that it's not about the original, but about it's absence, the silhouette washed out to sea?"
The case of Ana Mendieta.
http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-opinion/news/2010-10-12/ana-mendieta/
http://www.alisonjacquesgallery.com/artists/47/works/
https://www.google.com/search?q=images+ana+mendieta&hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-za:IE-Address&prmd=imvnso&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=qteJT9jiOYaHhQfU6LzJCQ&ved=0CCQQsAQ&biw=1366&bih=622
http://www.alisonjacquesgallery.com/artists/47/works/
https://www.google.com/search?q=images+ana+mendieta&hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-za:IE-Address&prmd=imvnso&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=qteJT9jiOYaHhQfU6LzJCQ&ved=0CCQQsAQ&biw=1366&bih=622
Exploring human creativity -Terra Incognita - gravitas of becoming.
Liminality in Art
http://www.amazon.com/The-Postmodern-Condition-Knowledge-Literature/dp/0816611734
http://peterandjoan.blogs.wm.edu/2008/09/19/the-liminal-space/
http://peterandjoan.blogs.wm.edu/2009/03/11/barbara-kruger-a-room-with-a-view/
http://peterandjoan.blogs.wm.edu/2009/03/11/barbara-kruger-a-room-with-a-view/
This is meant to be an attempt in coining a new term in the Art Theory field.
Curiously enough, the term Liminality continues not to be recognised by the modern dictionaries of English; even though numerous (stated below) researchers have been using it in academic papers. It doesn’t exist as an aesthetic concept or any distinguished phenomenon in the contemporary fine art. Yet, what I would like to claim and what is the reason of this article is my knowledge that this very notion has been persistently influencing the way of defining and interpreting art of the last decades at least. Though never or very rarely (in its adjective form of the liminal) applied as such by the art critics and scholars it has been circulating in the air each time the hybridity, borderline qualities, formlessness or intersemiotics of the Postmodernism has been loathed or admired.
From Latin limen meaning threshold ‘liminality’ is an existential (metaphysical) subjective, state and realm of hovering ‘between and betwixt’ of two (or more) different planes, spaces and/or existential qualities. First described in anthropology (Arnold van Gennep, Victor Turner) as a social theory of the liminal states – spaces of a ‘temporary outcast’ when an individual or a group is being placed by the society on its margin in a ritual of purification and/or recognition. It has got also its usage in the contemporary psychology where the liminal means sub- or unconscious state with one’s sense identity being ‘hold’ or dissolved to some extent. In contemporary philosophy J. Derrida has been called the ‘philosopher of the liminal’ due to his deconstruction attempts of the integral and solid tissue of materiality (more about it in the next parts of this series).
In visual art the ‘threshold’s ‘ aesthetics has been described on the theatre, cinema and performance field (notably S. Zizek, S. Broadhurst) and some curatorial and critical attempts has been made to embrace the liminality of the contemporary artistic expression done by more or less traditional media. Yet, it’s basically the ‘no man’s land’ when painting or sculpture is considered – those realms remain, for the today’s critique and theory (and not surprisingly, by any means) immune to any ‘revolutionary’ ‘new’ aesthetic refurbishment; it became a sort of an ideological cliche – that it’s more convenient to blame painting for its impotency (it’s ‘dead’ anyway, why bother then?…) than to inject any potent conceptual spirit into it by an affirmative reflection.
When J-F. Lyotard has called Postmodernity the nascent state, the state of a permanent ‘becoming’ (The Postmodern Condition, 1979) he basically admitted its innate liminal character; and those artworks that seek to address this condition (both deliberately or not) are probably best recognised for their aesthetics (or anti-aesthetics) of incompleteness – sculptures/installations look as if the artist ran out of the materials to finish them to a decent level; paintings seem to be painfully ‘hanged’ by their own guts with indescribable forms, unidentifiable colours and freaky techniques; videos cry out for any structure, even a hint of a narrative. Their ‘becomingness’ is the only existence they know and it comes invariably as disquieting or even disturbing for the audience. No without a reason the primitive societies considered the liminal states as dangerous, unclean (Turner); and those affected were isolated ‘pro publico bono’.
As hazardous and monstrous in moments as the liminality in art (and beyond it) seems to appear it is also probably the only truly creative state, which – if used wisely – can result in some profound discoveries and metamorphoses. This fructile chaos and the storehouse of possibilities (Turner) is a goldsmith’s workshop of the contemporary art; even though some purists rise an alarm that the state of the constant flux and indeterminacy (where ‘everything goes’) will annihilate all the miserable bits of art that left – let’s be positive… Art is best cared for if it’s accepted just as it appears and shapes itself through the mill of the human spirit; even if refuses to ‘become’ and fit any new uniform – so what?… As far as minds and hearts are enflamed by it, even with a doubt, even with a turmoil – it fulfills its calling of the ‘fifth element’ – the force of life and death, possibility and danger, sanctus and profane.
http://www.amazon.com/Society-Spectacle-Guy-DEBORD/dp/0934868077/ref=pd_sim_b_3
http://www.amazon.com/The-Order-Things-Archaeology-Sciences/dp/0679753354/ref=pd_sim_b_5
Curiously enough, the term Liminality continues not to be recognised by the modern dictionaries of English; even though numerous (stated below) researchers have been using it in academic papers. It doesn’t exist as an aesthetic concept or any distinguished phenomenon in the contemporary fine art. Yet, what I would like to claim and what is the reason of this article is my knowledge that this very notion has been persistently influencing the way of defining and interpreting art of the last decades at least. Though never or very rarely (in its adjective form of the liminal) applied as such by the art critics and scholars it has been circulating in the air each time the hybridity, borderline qualities, formlessness or intersemiotics of the Postmodernism has been loathed or admired.
From Latin limen meaning threshold ‘liminality’ is an existential (metaphysical) subjective, state and realm of hovering ‘between and betwixt’ of two (or more) different planes, spaces and/or existential qualities. First described in anthropology (Arnold van Gennep, Victor Turner) as a social theory of the liminal states – spaces of a ‘temporary outcast’ when an individual or a group is being placed by the society on its margin in a ritual of purification and/or recognition. It has got also its usage in the contemporary psychology where the liminal means sub- or unconscious state with one’s sense identity being ‘hold’ or dissolved to some extent. In contemporary philosophy J. Derrida has been called the ‘philosopher of the liminal’ due to his deconstruction attempts of the integral and solid tissue of materiality (more about it in the next parts of this series).
In visual art the ‘threshold’s ‘ aesthetics has been described on the theatre, cinema and performance field (notably S. Zizek, S. Broadhurst) and some curatorial and critical attempts has been made to embrace the liminality of the contemporary artistic expression done by more or less traditional media. Yet, it’s basically the ‘no man’s land’ when painting or sculpture is considered – those realms remain, for the today’s critique and theory (and not surprisingly, by any means) immune to any ‘revolutionary’ ‘new’ aesthetic refurbishment; it became a sort of an ideological cliche – that it’s more convenient to blame painting for its impotency (it’s ‘dead’ anyway, why bother then?…) than to inject any potent conceptual spirit into it by an affirmative reflection.
When J-F. Lyotard has called Postmodernity the nascent state, the state of a permanent ‘becoming’ (The Postmodern Condition, 1979) he basically admitted its innate liminal character; and those artworks that seek to address this condition (both deliberately or not) are probably best recognised for their aesthetics (or anti-aesthetics) of incompleteness – sculptures/installations look as if the artist ran out of the materials to finish them to a decent level; paintings seem to be painfully ‘hanged’ by their own guts with indescribable forms, unidentifiable colours and freaky techniques; videos cry out for any structure, even a hint of a narrative. Their ‘becomingness’ is the only existence they know and it comes invariably as disquieting or even disturbing for the audience. No without a reason the primitive societies considered the liminal states as dangerous, unclean (Turner); and those affected were isolated ‘pro publico bono’.
As hazardous and monstrous in moments as the liminality in art (and beyond it) seems to appear it is also probably the only truly creative state, which – if used wisely – can result in some profound discoveries and metamorphoses. This fructile chaos and the storehouse of possibilities (Turner) is a goldsmith’s workshop of the contemporary art; even though some purists rise an alarm that the state of the constant flux and indeterminacy (where ‘everything goes’) will annihilate all the miserable bits of art that left – let’s be positive… Art is best cared for if it’s accepted just as it appears and shapes itself through the mill of the human spirit; even if refuses to ‘become’ and fit any new uniform – so what?… As far as minds and hearts are enflamed by it, even with a doubt, even with a turmoil – it fulfills its calling of the ‘fifth element’ – the force of life and death, possibility and danger, sanctus and profane.
http://www.amazon.com/Society-Spectacle-Guy-DEBORD/dp/0934868077/ref=pd_sim_b_3
http://www.amazon.com/The-Order-Things-Archaeology-Sciences/dp/0679753354/ref=pd_sim_b_5
Friday, April 13, 2012
Madison Ancient & Tribal Show.
Madison Ancient & Tribal Art Show
May 9-13, 2012
We are pleased to announce our participation in the Madison Ancient & Tribal Art at The Arader Gallery, located on Manhattan’s Upper East Side near the Whitney Museum and the Metropolitan Mus...eum of Art. The show forms part of New York Tribal Week, which includes a sister show at the nearby Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion and important tribal art auctions at Sotheby's, Christie's and Bonhams.
MATA exhibitor list:
P. M. Boyd African Art, African Art
H. Kellim Brown, African Sculpture
Conru African & Oceanic Art, African & Oceanic Art
Bruce Frank Primitive Art, Oceanic & Indonesian Art
Huber Primitive Art, Precolumbian Art
Joe Loux, Asian & Tribal Art
Amyas Naegele Fine Art, African & Oceanic Art
Adrian Schlag Tribal Art Classics, African and Oceanic Art
James Stephenson African Art, African Art
http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=53585
May 9-13, 2012
We are pleased to announce our participation in the Madison Ancient & Tribal Art at The Arader Gallery, located on Manhattan’s Upper East Side near the Whitney Museum and the Metropolitan Mus...eum of Art. The show forms part of New York Tribal Week, which includes a sister show at the nearby Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion and important tribal art auctions at Sotheby's, Christie's and Bonhams.
MATA exhibitor list:
P. M. Boyd African Art, African Art
H. Kellim Brown, African Sculpture
Conru African & Oceanic Art, African & Oceanic Art
Bruce Frank Primitive Art, Oceanic & Indonesian Art
Huber Primitive Art, Precolumbian Art
Joe Loux, Asian & Tribal Art
Amyas Naegele Fine Art, African & Oceanic Art
Adrian Schlag Tribal Art Classics, African and Oceanic Art
James Stephenson African Art, African Art
http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=53585
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Monday, April 09, 2012
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