Art, Originality and Demolition
By Luchia Mei Hua Lee
Breaking down as building up ------------------Zen Paradox
Artistic originality and self-criticism are inextricably connected. Artists constantly struggle with their original conceptions. Thus, works of art never fulfill their ultimate completeness.
Voices from A Locked Room is a film based on a true story that happened in London in 1930. （1）The movie tells the story of a symphonic composer named Peter Warlock, who would also assume the identity of one Philip Hestine, a local music critic. Hestine would invariably write scathing reviews of Warlock’s compositions, even going so far as to leave the concert hall during the musical performances because he could not bear to listen to Warlock’s awkward symphonies. For his part, Warlock would send threatening letters to Hestine in defense of his works. The two refused to acknowledge each other. By chance, a singer became the girlfriend of both men and discovered that Hestine and Warlock were actually the same person. This film thriller explores the territory that lies between love, genius and madness. The composer’s pursuit of the perfect work inevitably spawned within him anxious critical thoughts. Almost subconsciously, he became a working self-critic. All kinds of suicidal thoughts and behavior dogged him until the end of his life. Tragically but fittingly, at the end of the film this schizophrenic composer/critic finally killed himself with his self-doubt.
Originality keeps art authentic, pure and intuitive. It is self-referential and self-interpretive. Artists devote their attention and effort so as to manipulate certain material, using their original creativity to transform that material into a visible or performative form. Natural things contain two parts; one is changeable, such as the four seasons, and the sun and moon. The other never changes, like the earth and heavens. In art, structure and principle stay unchanged while original ideas are changeable. When a work is finished its image is ostensibly fixed, yet its immanent ideas are still flowing. Therefore, when we penetrate the image of an artwork, we perceive how its hidden concepts are fluid like water, changing shape all the time. Those conceivable concepts diminish the artist’s original creativity. By re-creating the artwork through another’s new idea of it, originality destructs itself in order to keep the ideal constantly reconstructed. The representational base provides the present’s demolition, and this demolition becomes the seed of a new re-present. Those initiated motivational relationships become an ambiguous psychological chain.
“Each time we celebrate the birth of a newborn child, we must prepare to mourn its death,” A declaration of nature’s ingenuity and demolition, land art usually revealed the ruin of all fertile land, forests and streams, showing a complete and full spatial landscape turning and accelerating into a massive gray, man-made structure. Gradually increasing white space symbolized the contours of emptiness. The erasures of the scene intended to awaken consciousness of the disappearing manmade. Its valued disappearance reminds one perhaps of Derrida’s notion of the erasure of trace cited in Of Grammatology:
”The trace is not only the disappearance of the origin…it means that the origin did not even disappear, that it was never constituted except reciprocally by a non-origin, the trace, which thus become the origin of the origin.”
Henry Tsao, a Taiwanese-Swiss artist.（3） His paintings are typically covered by dense layers of white paint leaving colors invisible; we are left to imagine those works as still under the process of creation. When Henry Tsao puts his work on display, a destructive action is always part of his presentation of the work. During the opening night of the Rain Forest exhibition, he threw and spilt white paint onto the surface of the canvas, covering the forest scene in his painting. After a short mediation, he proceeded along with slow martial art body movements. A folded rice paper lotus was also installed on the ground, and a self-made long brush was placed in a boat-shaped paint container. Those icons are highly ritualistic and spiritually symbolic. (4) When the first broad stroke touched the canvas, it seemed just like he was writing Chinese calligraphy on his finished painting. Gradually, Tsao used his palm to wipe paint out of the canvas. The destructive traces of white paint let his work become an unfinished painting. In those actions, a disappeared forest was formed. At the same time, the question of incomplete product was posed.
Henry Tsao’s “destructive action performance” demonstrates how he tries to wipe out the past. However, this is not a simple discarding of the past, a sort of ‘repacking’ the old past into a new conception. Negation of the old picture’s fa?ade is equivalent to using the newest result to replace the just–passed result. This is an endless process as well as a suicide game. Tsao sets up a trap then finds a trick to escape it. With each exhibition, he diminishes his painting through the process of adding to it. The product-paintings become meaningless, and his ritual process declares its end. Yet the painting is also reborn through his ritualistic actions. The new work is in effect parasitically living off the old one.
The perfect presentation is never taken from real literal vision. Instead, it is the intuitive that leads expression. For example, C?zanne did not follow the contours, colors and impressions of nature. It is for this reason that distortions appear in his painting. In This contemporary landscape show, many of photo realistic and abstract paintings depicted the scenery of the nature and its living species, the flora and fauna that live within it. While the artworks presented the beauty of the nature. When the installation works come down, the task of presenting a beautiful exhibition is supposed to have been accomplished. Right now, unless they watch the video on display, visitors cannot know what the real original paintings looked like. Those artists like Tsao dismissed the curator and their own central concepts, leaving audience an unfinished and never finished painting. As a result, the definition of the exhibition was re-decided by the artworks and the audience’s responses to them. Through this declared action, artist and curator changed from exhibition commanders into skeptical escapees from the idea of a complete and precise historical time for the show. The creative development was re-defined over the course of this exhibition.
In the words of Merleau Ponty, C?zanne abandoned himself to the chaos of sensations, which upset standard presentation of objects from nature, constantly suggesting illusion. This is just like the composer Warlock who assumes a false alias. Sensation versus judgment and the critic who listens as opposed to the critic who thinks. Sound versus composition, intuition in place of originality. The composer who wants to make the work and the symphony are the same; too many notions of sensitivity and sensations arise, and the creator begins to judge his own works. For this same reason, C?zanne perceives ideas and nature as pure during the process of creation. Emile Bernard characterized C?zanne’s outlook as suicide: “aiming for reality while denying himself the means to attain it.” C?zanne thought he would never arrive at the goal that he so intensely pursued. That is why the stated positions of many of master artists can be viewed as proclamations of their state of mental agitation.
Merleau Ponty argued that there is a connection between C?zanne’s schizoid temperament and his work because of how Cezanne reveals the metaphysical sense of his artistic disease: his way of seeing the world as reduced to a totality of frozen appearances. The artist is never satisfied with those captured moments because the real world is never frozen. C?zanne memorably said that, “the landscape thinks itself in me.” Think of that idea: you are in the motion of landscape. Moving scenes of life are transformed into a painting. Grappling with that challenge, Marlene Yu tried to depict the serial landscape from sunrise to sunset, spurred by his awareness that natural light changes our sight of reality every second. Tsao devoted himself to the search for the essence of the sc?ne as well as the sense of himself. Did they, could they ever really catch the perfect scenes
One takes the concept itself as raw material. By adding the element of aesthetic theory, he/she becomes an artist. In conceptual art, the work of art might be a “readymade” object or even something invisible, as in Michael Baldwin’s “Air-Condition,” which presents “an extravaganza blandness.” Only the temperature draws our attention and creates the artistic experience. Every part of the work cannot be visually identified. The display room is either all white, all black, or all gray: those environments cannot influence the air. The air is being itself.
Since our concepts are unreliable, any form can have the power of erasure. For this reason, we cannot simply believe that an image is entity. For the conceptual artist, any presentational method becomes seemingly less important and might lose its essence and authentic value. We all believe that the goal of producing a perfect result is a dangerous challenge to the artist. When a work of art is finished, artists change the relationship between themselves and their work. The creator has transferred the apprehension of the work to an intimate spectator. The more the artist reviews his or her work, the more unsatisfied they can become. Self-critically and perhaps even unconsciously, they search out the weakest portions, which compels them toward rejection of their original concept. Such self-contradictory emotions put the artist in a difficult situation. When the work is exhibited, its very self-insufficiency results in the need to persuade the audience to complete work as part of them. Thus, the mission of the incomplete art object is to manifest its determinate completeness in the eye of the beholder.
Duchamp sent a urinal as sculpture to the independent artist association, intending to challenge the definitions of “artist” and “art.” The Fountain piece contained a visual image as well as conceptual elements of “art.” It was absolutely not just a porcelain urinal on display, as Duchamp was purposefully manipulating the art community. He himself escaped the whole event, not only in the beginning by his use of “Richard Mutt” as phony name of the artist, but also in the process of acknowledging the discourse with the ‘spectators’ as part of the artwork. He jumped at the opportunity to demolish the idea of artistic originality. He overthrew the artwork’s authenticity, and totally subverted traditional aesthetics. Moreover, by playing his tricks Duchamp was smartly avoiding the possibility of the work being deemed a failure. If we say that the composer Peter Warlock was an escapee throughout his creative career, aren’t we also obliged to recognize Duchamp’s cunning scheme?
Merleau Ponty has asserted that, “Thus it is true both that the life of an author can teach us nothing and that if we knew how to interpret it—we can find everything in it.” When Duchamp declared that the act of viewing was an important part of his work, his mock urinal became a simple frontal, iconic art object. Incidentally, this original idea of his did find resonance in the lay audiences, whether the work was dubbed a “Buddha of the Bathroom” or “Madonna of the Bathroom.” We might think that art critics and art historians would take note of these audience’s discoveries. And indeed, research of Duchamp’s intentions is still ongoing even today. In his Fountain piece, the artist was the first interpreter, and the audience was the interpreter’s interpreter. If this creation and the subsequent interpretations were from the subconscious, or if they were a ideal stereotypes derived from the collective memory, then who will discover the real secret code and be able to decode this sublime mystery that already exists a thousand years ago? Do we really believe what we see is a complete artwork, or is it just a temporary performance or image? Did Duchamp or Tsao understand that nothing will ever be perfect nor last long? Since the artist’s idea acts like half part of a shifting circle, “doubt” will make up the other half and be like a shadow that always follows it.
Another point of view is that the role of artistic development can be seen to resonate with the paradoxical Zen notion of “Breaking down as building up.” Artists like Henry Tsao or Duchamp or the composer Warlock started out with the intention of becoming an artist. On a pilgrimage in search of the Tao or a way of creating art, they finally come to the realization that art is construed only in and by one’s own heart and mind. It can be manifested only through one’s concrete actions, and art as Dharma or way of Being goes hand-in-glove with art as a Dharma or way of Nonbeing (to use Buddhist terminology).
It is for this reason, therefore, that thinkers like Jacques Derrida have argued that phenomenology is a quest for radical origins and beginnings, containing within itself the seeds of its own undoing-- its own self-overcoming, its structural self-conflict. The deconstructed subject is not only pure refusal; “it is rather a ludic affirmation of self-differentiation.” 5） The seed is the source of reincarnation and an eruption of the original. The secondhand offspring product contains elements of the first; it can also be recalled from the collective memory. What the artist gives up is finding recovery of the truth. Art is progression but at the same time a recession.
Another question is: ‘Who is the inventor and who the follower?’ In each era there have been pioneers who have thrown themselves into an intersection with the future. Theirs is the role of decision-maker, and once their road becomes a genre, followers begin to accept established paradigms. Other followers may lose their way in the next generation of artists. The paradoxical situation that becomes apparent is that there are only very few masters who are so precisely because they understand that every form and style is temporary. Following the ebb and flow will cause many to lose their way in the waves. In writing this paper, I myself throw forth the original subject and concept again and again, trying to grasp a solid entity. But I cannot find it until the paper finished. Even then, I am still not quite sure if this is a good final paper and wonder about how the force of a deadline cuts me down. Right now, only the “reader” can interpret and decide.
Theoretically, artistic creation is a private affair. To Henry Tsao, the process of creation and action are intimately connected. Like a composer of music, composition and performance in public venues are not two separate parts of the artistic process. In front of the audience, the painting was covered up with new paint. At each point: from the artist’s self-criticism to the spectator’s reinterpretation, through the texture still tracing out the original outline, the artwork gathers additional, incremental meanings. Artistic originality and demolition were inter-dependent; at the same time, there is a cross-destruction.
There is the idea that modernists have an impulse to protest against and bury cultural traditions, be they Eastern or Western. And we sense that out of this impulse has further developed a counteraction against and wish to terminate any conceptual construct. Whether it be traditional or modernist, any –ism of the future -- and even the concept of artists themselves -- should be perceived with the following in mind: once a thing has taken from another, it automatically becomes an object to be overthrown and annihilated.
Note:
1. “Voices From A Locked Room” Director by Malcolm, Jeremy Northam and tushka Bergen was Main actors; this is a darkly fascinating psychological drama that details the lives of 1930s London critic Philip Heseltine and composer Peter Warlock. With a pretty sound track, a compelling story and decent acting, this proves to be a satisfying find.
2. “Rain Forest: Contemporary Paintings by International Artists” opened on Dovember 2, 2001. Henry Tsao’s creative ritual process was a program presented in conjunction with the exhibition’s opening reception. Held at the Taipei Gallery in New York.
3. Hsiang Fa Tsao , born in Matsu in 1963, grew up in Taiwan, studied in National Institute of Art, karlsruhe, Germany. Now resides in Jona SG, Switzerland.
4. In Buddhism, paper lotus symbolizes mourn the death of life, lotus can purify a dead person‘s spiritual and lead them up to the heaven, also protect spiritual from evil disturbance. Ship is a symbol of Buddha vehicle, when people died, their spiritual start another life voyage and the boat can lead them to go to high level space-time, therefore, they will reincarnate to a next better life.
5. According Richard Kearney in Modern Movement in European Philosophy, Jacques Derrida insists that his programmed of deconstruction is not simply a affirms that it is a radical emancipation of meaning. In Derrida’s discoveries of Phenomenology: that meaning is always other than consciousness, extending infinitely beyond the self into the ever receding horizons of historical signification, By deconstructing transcendental subjectivity into the patio-temporal play of language, Derrida does not do away with the subject altogether-as several of his critics and disciples have claimed; he simply opened the subject to its own desire for what is other than itself. The deconstructed subject is not pure negation; it is rather a ludic affirmation of of self-differentiation.
Works Cited:
“Camfield, W. “Marcel Duchamp ‘s Fountain: Aesthetic Object, Icon, or Anti Art?” the writings of Marcel Duchamp, ed. Sanouillet M. & Perterson E. New Tork: Da Capo Press, 1973, pp.138-142.
Derrida, J. Memoirs of the Blind: The Self-Portrait and Other Ruins, Chicago: U of Chicago press, 1993.
Kearney, R. “Jacques Derrida” “Phenomenology”, Modern Movement in European Philosophy, UK: Manchester U press: 1986, p112-133.
Michael, B. “Remarks on Air-Conditioning: An Extravaganza of Blandness” Conceptual Art: A Critical anthology, Edit: Alberro & Stimon, B. MIT Press: Cambridge, 2000: p32-34.
Merleau-Ponty, M. “Cezanne’s Doublt” The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader - Philosophy and Painting, translation ed.: Smith B., Northwestern U. Press 1998: p59-75.
_________. Phenomenology of Perceptio. Tran from Franch by Colin smith, First published in Graet Britain 1962, by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd: Suffilk. Reprinted ten times.this edition is published in the journal of British Society for Phenomenology, vol 10, no. 1, Jan. 1979.
_________ , The Visible and the Invisible, ed. Edie M.J. Translation ed: Lingis A., Northwestern U. Press 1990.
“Rain Forest: Contemporary Paintings by International Artists” exhibition catalogue, New York: Taipei Gallery, Chinese Information and Culture Center, September 2001.
Selkirk, D. Apollo movie guide’s review of “Voices from a Locked Room.” http://appologuide.com/movfullrev.asp.
Shih, J.J. “Physical Dynamism Liberated form Mundane Form,” H.fa Tsao 1990-2001 Siddhartha, 1986-2001 White, Tran. by Decker, J. 2001.
“Voices From A Locked Room.” 92 minutes, Director by Malcolm, Jeremy Northam and tushka Bergen was Main actors; Studio/distributor: Columbia TriStar. Produced in 1999.
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