The minimalist
approach of the exhibition Suicide
Narcissus had an instant impact on me the moment I entered the exhibition as I was walking towards a black rectangle leaning against the wall. I began wondering, what was I about to encounter when getting closer: A threshold to another realm? My
own reflection? Something that would reveal itself to me as distance vanished? As I approached the unreflective work I
started to notice white migratory traces, which then turned into dotted lines. Both seemed to randomly trace events as well as the form of the globe in longitudes and latitudes: as if a carefully concerted fragment of the Cosmos
had fallen to earth.
I liked the poetic
approach of the piece even more when I saw the title: All the Dead Stars. The stars, and earth/universe relationship
always takes me instantly to Immanuel Kant, who claimed that there are two things that fill the mind with ever new and
increasing admiration and awe: "the starry sky above [..] and the moral
law within [..]".
The poetic entry was very promising.
But as I was thinking about the show’s title, its relation to the collapse of
stars, and the experience of nature and the questions of moral
responsibilities, I was wondering whether and how a dead star and the idea of moral
collapse could collide? As I approached the next body of work these raw forms began to crystallize. The works by Haris Epaminonda and Daniel Gustav Cramer, titled The Infinite Library, 2007 to the present
(showing 12 out of 60 artist's books), depicted floral illustrations that were
blackened out by geometric shapes, for instance, a black rectangle, circle, or in
some cases, the original image had been eliminated altogether. Keeping the
title’s promise, the glass vitrines under which they were place reflected not
only my own image, but also the space above it – so that it became partially
impossible to see the content in its entirety (which can be frustrating in and
of itself, but I guess that’s the point), for the pictures always already
translated into a new composition.
And - there is the sudden shock, when unexpectedly confronted with your own image when looking at something (other than a mirror).
I was positively suprised, in the tranquility of the space (videos were placed in a way they would not disrupt that sensation of stillness) by the kinetic installation of Thomas Baumann, Tau Sling, 2008: A rotating rope that is driven by a little electrical motor. The mirror placed on the floor onto which the rope fell (the impact produces a dull sound) as it wiggled itself under great effort and constraint - until it was pulled up again- ad infinitum. Its simplicity – both in its conceptual and representational approach- I found striking. After staring at it for some time, the rope began to look animated and evoked the uncanny feeling that it is alive. It also reminded me of the never-ending Sisyphusian struggle, and on a very abstract and larger scale of the Wagner Opera Parsifal – which contemplates the importance of compassion as the ultimate basis of morality (which was based on Schopenhauer’s Ethics).
More than the
question of “What is the true nature of reality, (The opening question of the exhibition- essay) I was interested in the question of the
relationship between infinity, loss, and suffering, and how much of the objects
in the exhibition are exposed to Will and willing (as for instance the rope
installation, or the “rape of the earth,” James Dickey’s novel, suggested in
the exhibition-essay). Because, according to Schopenhauer,
“denial of the will to live is the way to salvation from suffering.” Not only
that, but the denial of the will allows for an awakening. A self-less being. This
is confirmed and also compliments the line of thought of the exhibition, when
he claims, “...[T]o one who has achieved the will-less state, it is the world
of the one willing that has been disclosed as 'nothing'. Its hold over us, its
seeming reality, has been 'abolished' so that it now stands before us as
nothing but a bad dream from which we are, thankfully, awaking...[t]o those in
whom the will has turned and denied itself, this very real world of ours, with
all its suns and milky ways, is — nothing."
In fact,
Schopenhauer’s approach would be opposed to the Cartesian one stated in the exhibition-essay, which claims, “The will to survive, however has become the right to
survive, a right whose abuses and excesses have made startlingly clear the
fragile parameters governing terrestrial life. We flirt with extinction, an
irrational provocation turned desire.” According to Schopenhauer, all suffering
and life’s tragedies are manifestations of the will to survive and
consequently, the Individual’s strive for ever more success and satisfaction of
desire: The never-ending will to live
continuously revs the motors of this Cosmic spectacle. A gloomy perspective
either way.
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