Review | visualizing the soul...

Generated on 2020-11-18 19:41:50

visualizing the soul. decay, life and death. absence and presence. shadows. flames.

Result #1

visualizing the soul. decay, life and death. absence and presence. shadows. flames. . . . It was as if the sacred flame of the soul had been transformed into a flame of the body.The show included several works from the 1980s, including a series of photos, Untitled, of the artists in the hospital where he was treated for a brain tumor in 1980; a group of color photographs of the artists in the hospital; and several paintings, all Untitled, that were also made in the 1980s and are also on display at the gallery. These works, like the photographs, have the same motif of a skull with the head of a woman, the head of which is drawn in black and white and covered with a layer of black paint. The paintings have a similar sense of scene: a tree, a grassy path, a house. They are also covered with black paint. The photographs have been moved to the wall, as if the black paint were the window from which the artist looked out.The skull is also an object of study: a lost object, a relic from a prehistoric culture. But this is not a lost object. It is a reconstructed object, and one can recognize it from the images, which show it to be the exact same object as the skull, just shrunk and turned upside down. The reconstructed object is not lost, but it is a hollow shell, a shell with a head that is nothing but empty. Theres no head in the shell; only the empty shell, which is the mirror image of the real head. The skull, then, is a real object, just one that has been cast in black and white. It is an empty shell, and that emptiness is the mirror image of the real skull. This is a reflection on the process of forgetting, of forgetting and forgetting, the memory of the object. We forget.The photographs of the skull are also shown in the gallery. They are a series of images that were taken from the internet.

Result #2

. . . . The paintings seem like a misprinting of the painting of a group of portraits of some of the artists in the show. The works are like the dust that has accumulated in the gallery after the show is closed, a ghostly residue of the action. The first impressions are of the images of the paintings that were on display in the opening. The art world is populated with artists who use the most disparate styles and methods, and one has to wonder why the same artists, in different ways, were able to come up with paintings that are so different. Perhaps it is because these paintings are so unassuming, that the paintings themselves are able to retain the mystique of the originals. The paintings are not so much the work of an artist as they are the work of an audience, and the audience is able to come and go. They dont need to see the paintings, but can come and go and look.

Result #3

visualizing the soul. decay, life and death. absence and presence. shadows. flames. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Result #4

Result #5

visualizing the soul. decay, life and death. absence and presence. shadows. flames. vernacular and contemporary. Tarsias and Harnishs approach is unmistakably that of the Deobandi painter; they seek to demystify the mark as a symbol of the human condition, to reveal the self in the flesh. They are not interested in the symbolic power of the mark as a sign of power, however, nor are they concerned with the question of the marks role as a sign of identity. Instead, they explore the implications of the marks relation to the body, to its erasure as a sign of selfhood.The artist has a tendency to use a style that is minimal and concrete, in a way that can be interpreted as a low art. And yet, in this show, Tarsias and Harnishs use of materials and processes that are familiar to any viewer of the art world is as rich as the forms of the artists own art. In this way, they are as much concerned with the relationship between the body and its environment as they are with the relationship between the body and itself. The artist has said, The body is a corpse, and that corpse is a corpse. The body is dead; its skin is gray. The gray skin is a corpse. The body is a corpse. The gray skin is a corpse. This is the gray skin of the body. It is the body that is dead. The body is a corpse. Tarsias and Harnishs works are rich in the possibilities of the body, of its death, and of the body that is dying. The body, like the artist, is a corpse. Tarsias and Harnishs work is not about the body, which is not dead, but about the body that is dead. The body is a corpse, and the body is gray. The gray skin is not the skin of the body; it is the gray skin of the body.