When I think about the abject,
When I think about the abject, I think of my familys living situation, and especially our perceptions of our isolation and of the fact that we are never alone. We see this in the way we view a photograph, and we are never truly alone. We see it in the way we view an empty building—the apartment, which is almost always empty—and a small, bare-bones bathroom, which makes us feel as if we were not alone, even if we are all in the same place. We see it in the way we look at a naked woman—an ordinary woman with an over-the-top body, a top hat, and a black leather jacket. And we see it in the way we look at a guy in a T-shirt, jeans, and white sneakers, standing as if waiting for a cab. We see it in the way we look at a woman in a tight white dress, looking up at the camera as if waiting to be seen. And we see it in the way we see a man walking across a black-clad pavement. We see it in the way we look at the face of a young woman who has nothing to do with what is going on around her, but whose hair is dyed a bright pink. And we see it in the way we view an empty building, a typical suburban house, with a signpost in the window advertising a post office. We see it in the way we look at a woman on a phone—her face distorted into a smile, her mouth a blank, she seems to be talking into her ear. We see it in the way we view an empty bathroom. We see it in the way we see a man on the street. We see it in the way we view a young girl. We see it in the way we view a guy with a camera—an ordinary, typical tourist.
When I think about the abject, I feel a bit of this. Perhaps the most remarkable example of the abject in art is Marcel Duchamps famous inverted Cheval de Chasseur, 1916, a discarded bouquet that he used as a trompe loeil wood carving of the figures of the present. Duchamps inverted Cheval de Chasseur is a classic example of the artistic—and, I think, the human—abjection. The work is an extreme case of the art-mimetic-abject, a contrast between the abject and the monumental that is as much about the emotions as it is about the body. Its in this context that I find myself thinking about Edmund Burkes paintings, and also about the work of Marcus Aurelius. Burke paints figures that are well-known (the works of Franz Kline and Jasper Johns) and very easily identifiable, but one would have to be a devoted Burke to know the names of these artists and their works. For example, there are two works of Burke that are just a few years old, both of which have become much more famous. The oldest is a painting of a young woman with a red-lace bra. The other is a large piece of mud in which Burke has written the words mud and earth . . . and, in a big sign, earth and mud.The mud work is also about the body, and Burke has said that he wanted to make a painting of the mud that would be absolutely beautiful. The image that emerges is one of the body, a body in the mud. The body is painted black, and there are some scratches. In one area of the mud, a long-necked figure looks at the viewer; in another, a figure looks at Burke. In a third, a woman is turned to the right and one of her hands is pressed against the mud.
or rather, the gloomy, in general, I tend to think of the work of Bernini, which was often quite beautiful, and whose people, as in the case of Berninis, are usually beautiful. It is true that Bernini was quite serious about his art, and to some extent he was even on the right side of the philosophical argument that the abject is not art. That is, he was rather horrified by the idea of art as a means of reducing the human condition to a mechanical, inert, self-effacing, essentially trivial and self-evident, as in the works of Helion, of which there are numerous examples in this show. But he also seems to have appreciated the fact that art is a way of fighting against the death of the author. He saw art not as an end in itself, but as a means of making the flesh tremble and the flesh crack.
When I think about the abject, I think of a lot of works by, for instance, László Moholy-Nagy. But while Moholy-Nagy didnt have to worry about the extinction of his sculpture as soon as he died, the legacy of that work is the problem of its imminent disappearance. Moholy-Nagys work was often close to the real thing; that was the case, for instance, with the Kaprow Gallery, which showed only a single sculpture by the Hungarian-born artist in its recent exhibition. But even if we discount the grand scale of the Kaprow show—and, as with all the curators, we should—the show still offered a good opportunity to get a feel for the different ways that Moholy-Nagys sculpture might work with the space in which they are exhibited. In this case, the walls were covered with plastic sheets, some of which were painted white, while a few of them were covered with black. The plastic was taken from the floor, and the sheets were then covered in paper, paint, and paper. The work was also made from sheets of paper, which had been cut out and folded, and then unfolded, and then folded. The paper, paper, and the sheet of paper all seemed to have been stacked upon each other, as if the construction were something between a table and a folding chair.The work of Moholy-Nagys grandson, Sebastian Botenhäber, might also be seen as part of the same project, which, as in his own case, would be impossible to fully gauge. The grandson, who is also a painter, seems to have approached the work as if it were a small piece of the world. His sculptures—sometimes quite small—have been likened to cars, but they are more concerned with the development of sculptural presence than with making a car.
When I think about the abject, I think of Rembrandt. In the foreground of the painting, an amorphous, open-eyed figure with a human body appears, floating on an amorphous, open-eyed blue ground. It is like a topography of a new city. And it is like a topography of the new city—that is, of the world. The city seems to be overflowing with blood. The figures head is marked by a slit at the throat, like a stylized human tongue. But it is not the mouth that is the prey of a beast; rather, it is the slit in the throat. Is it Rembrandt, or the human body? And who is the beast? Rembrandt asks in the painting. Is it Rembrandt or the beast? Rembrandt asks in the painting. Is it Rembrandt or the human body? Rembrandt asks in the painting. Rembrandt asks in the painting. Is it Rembrandt or the human body? Rembrandt asks in the painting. Rembrandt asks in the painting. Rembrandt asks in the painting. Rembrandt asks in the painting. Rembrandt asks in the painting. Rembrandt asks in the painting. Rembrandt asks in the painting. Rembrandt asks in the painting. Rembrandt asks in the painting. Rembrandt asks in the painting. Rembrandt asks in the painting. Rembrandt asks in the painting. Rembrandt asks in the painting. Rembrandt asks in the painting. Rembrandt asks in the painting. Rembrandt asks in the painting. Rembrandt asks in the painting. Rembrandt asks in the painting. Rembrandt asks in the painting. Rembrandt asks in the painting. Rembrandt asks in the painting. Rembrandt asks in the painting. Rembrandt asks in the painting. Rembrandt asks in the painting.
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