Jon D. Rutter - Dismantling the Face: Toward a Phenomenology of Boxing

Cultural Studies - Critical Methodologies, Volume 7 Number 3, 2007 281-293.

Jon D. Rutter's article provided another intriguing if somewhat disturbing conclusion to our Wednesday discussions yesterday. As its title suggests, Rutter's article explores the phenomenology of boxing with the assistance of the heavy philosophies of Derrida and Heidegger. Though this was an intense read I found elements of it fascinating such as Rutter's speculation about whether the present moment is in fact a lingering moment or a passing moment. Rutter goes on to explain ontology as something that "leaves us with a sense of the uncanny, a sense that we are always not quite at home in the world". This along with the suggestion that the human face is an "opening into fathomlessness" not only struck a cord with me but caused me to think of Francis Bacon.

I believe that these sublime elements are directly related to this thing that Bacon spent his entire career as a painter hoping to achieve. His success in achieving this "fathomlessness" or that strange recurring sense of uncanny homesickness is what made him such an exceptional painter in my view. It is possible that on a subconscious level this is the very thing that all artists strive to articulate - this sense of alienation or aloneness that is such a frequent visitor of the human condition. I refer to that idea Danny explained yesterday about how it is impossible to encapsulate a person when looking them in the eyes due to this constant shifting of emotions.

I attempted to relate our conversation to the ugly and unbearably personal sensations that one feels in the moment before a fist fight or during a stand-off. Never is this sense of the uncanny more prominent than when two strangers attempt to strong arm the other by peering into the other's bottomless uncertainty of this thing we call a soul. If anyone wishes to explore the experience of this shifting uncertainty in greater depth I suggest magic mushrooms. Never in my life have I felt such stark terror and sensory-overloaded confusion as when on that vile hallucinogen. The faces of both friends and strangers alike contorted into the most appalling animalistic abominations. Their entire beings took on sinister undertones as they suddenly presented as conflicted and lost creatures who raced towards death in a state of unaware and hysterical madness. If wondering whether you have completely lost your mind or have simply descended straight into hell whilst cowering from former friends who are talking backwards appeals to you then this drug will be right up your ally.

I was unknowingly ruminating on the uncertainty of the "present moment" whilst walking to university this morning. During my trek I began to feel bothered by this yearning we sometimes feel for the past, this sense that it was easier or grander a few years ago or that the answers to one's life were a whole lot clearer back when...  It occurred to me that living in the present moment, or what some refer to as the power of now, must be one hell of an acquired skill. Given our entire experience is based on memory or what has already happened how is one able to live in the moment without relating it back to experiences of the past. And given the problematic "vanishing" nature of the so-called present how is one ever able to truly live in it. By the time a person registers the present it has already become a Goddamn memory.

Francis Bacon famously stated that he wanted his paintings to look as though the human presence had passed through them leaving a snail's trail of this presence behind (disturbing, yeah?). This remark illustrates Bacon's desire to capture the unstable nature of this "present moment" which we discussed. This desire is elaborated upon in a description of Bacon's Blue Man series as "flickering shadows of light that emerge briefly from the black.. only to be swallowed up once more by the obscurity from which they have come" (Schmied, 2006, p64).

I apologize for my getting carried away and revealing too much of my inner psyche. I suppose what the reading got me thinking about was aloneness and misunderstanding. This idea that we can never be truly understood even in art. Sean left a comment on a previous blog of mine yesterday. It reiterated that question of how an artist should approach the issue of their work being misread or overanalyzed. That this is going to happen seems inevitable. To fight it or to just go with it, that is the question.

References:


Schmied, W. (2006). Francis Bacon. Munich: Prestel Verlag.

Matthew Collings - "Beauty"

Collings, Matthew. (2002). Sarah Lucas. London: Tate Publishing.

Following yet another intriguing and refreshing discussion yesterday there are many avenues that I could continue down today though I am instead inclined to relate certain issues addressed in our conversation to the Sarah Lucas reading which I also found very interesting. Matthew Collings' article offers some good insights into the political, sexual and social commentaries that are apparent in the art practice of Sarah Lucas. Collings compares Lucas' art to the reputable novel Money by Martin Amis and hence suggests her work illustrates specific narratives about the drab sleaziness of the 80s-90s london lifestyle.

Lucas is a London-based artist responding to her environment and in this sense her work has an unavoidable social commentary. However, my appreciation of some of the Sarah Lucas quotes from the article brought me to reflect upon the art world's ability to act as a dictatorship. Lucas is quoted as saying, "There are times when I can get great pleasure from the works I've made, and feel great affection for them... there are other times when it just seems to me as dreary and as paltry as anyone else might think that something like two fried eggs on a table is. There are times when it just seems like, you know - 'What kind of a thing is this to be doing?'". This statement struck a loud chord with me in that it encapsulates the exact frustration that I so often feel as an artist who is simply responding to their inner urges to make. What I am implying here is that despite Lucas' obvious success in encapsulating ideas of an age, I suspect her practice is spawned by a much more instinctual thing. I am proposing that rather than producing some type of extremely well read critique on society that could not be debated from any angle, Lucas is simply responding to her environment by making stuff - that stuff being "art".

The self-doubt implied by Lucas' comment resonates with me as I have never felt inclined to make art that  blatantly references the issues that are generally associated as an important aspect of being a New Zealander. It is for this reason that I have often felt that the relevance of my work has been questioned. As one of many examples; time and again I have had paintings rejected from art competitions. Upon discussing this frustration with acquaintances, many have suggested that perhaps in the explanation section of my application form I should have created a spiel that related more to "underlying New Zealand issues".  Philip Guston described his frustration at the Abstract Expressionism's lack of underlying substance with these words; "American Abstract art is a lie, a sham, a cover-up... A mask to mask the fear of being oneself. A lie to cover up how bad one can be... It is an escape from the true feelings we have, from the 'raw' primitive feelings about the world - and us in it" (Guston, 1970, cited in Hatley, 2003, p.54). Philip Guston's anger towards what he saw as a farcical approach to making fashionable art is relative to my own frustrations about how quickly a New Zealand artist can gain exposure or credibility through competitions and so forth simply by referencing Maori carvings, NZ backyard humour or typically "kiwi" iconography.

My comparisons with Lucas and Guston are presumptuous given they are (or were in Guston's case, R.I.P) famous and respected artists and I am relatively unknown and unestablished, yet what I am referring to (which was a large area of discussion in the reading group) is the social pressures for one to conform to certain prescribed ideas of importance or alternatively risk ostricisation or misunderstanding.  The art world insists upon the capitalization of bogus identities of "kiwiness", being "clean and green" and loving rugby the same way New Zealand as a whole does. Dick Frizzel and Shane Cotton immediately come to mind as a couple who ruthlessly manipulate popular NZ icons and issues as a way of benefiting their own practices. Are these dudes setting up franchises or what?

Whereas Lucas' art fits within a viable pocket of a cosmopolitan city like London she may be left questioning whether making her work for the sheer love of it is a valid enough reason despite its critical success. On the flip-side I sit and ponder whether making my work on behalf of my own inner compulsion is valid enough given its socially unappealing subject matter within New Zealand. Despite all of this at the end of the day I'm bi-winning like my man Charlie Sheen and so is my work and anyone who doesn't like it can go kiss a duck.


References:


Hatley, P. (2003). Philip Guston: Retrospective. Fort Worth: Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth