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| Meaning and Nothingness | 'Structurally,
fetishism is a matter of separation, segregation, isolation; it's a matter
of petrification, ossification, glaciation; it's a matter of idealisation,
mystification, adoration. Greenbergian modernism was an apotheosis of fetishism
in the visual arts in the modern period. For a long time, Western art aspired
to the condition of nonsignificance. 'Content' said Greenberg, 'is something
to be avoided like the plague.' From: Tea with Madeleine by Victor Burgin The art of Art is in creating something external to oneself. The art-object must transcend the self in the same way as the priest transcends the ordinary by donning his robes. In order for it to be visible as Art it must become Other than the mere substance from which it is made or from the ordinary concept with which it is associated. A frame on an object, whether as a glass case or a gallery, is both a means of separation and a declaration of intent to examine. And, as with scientific examination at the particle level, the act of looking itself changes the object looked at. If one takes an ordinary 'something', a kettle for example, and removes it from its ordinary context into another, the gallery, it becomes in a sense Nothing. Until under examination it becames the recipient of the 'understandings' that are applied to it by the examiner. Age, abandonment, decrepitude are expressions of separation as well as exposures of intimacy. A derelict house, a 'Miss Havisham house' or crumbling splendour are often more eloquent that the splendour in its prime; an ancient face with its lines and creases may tell us more about its occupier than air-brushed perfection. ' I looked upon the scene before me - upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain - upon the bleak walls - upon the vacant eye-like windows - upon a few rank sedges - and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees - with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium - the bitter lapse into everyday life - the hideous dropping of the veil.' From The Fall of the house of Usher, Edgar Allan Poe I am interested in leading towards the fall, the faint, the loss of rational sense. In the moment one loses the boundaries of normal consciousness one is closest to the truth. I am interested in making art that is disguised, that sneaks in under the wire, that is, like the bread of the holy sacrament, not merely bread. As we hurtle slowly towards the event-horizon of our culture in ever more self-referential spirals, I find myself, here at the edge of the world, picking through the scraps, rummaging through the debris, trying to piece together a purpose from the fragments. History is not in matter but in the mind. 'Connection making is seen as replication or renewal for the soul. We pursue metaphor to understand the first thing compared. What we love most is for something to be 'put into words'.' David Salle, 1987 This is the cathartic ceremony - the transference of meaning onto the Nothing object. It is an absolute replication of the transubstantive process by which the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ. What we love most is for something to be 'put into words" and the words are 'In the beginning was The Word'. |
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