On Light and Shadow: A “Fluxus Eleatis” Discourse

“Our life shall pass away as the trace of a cloud, and come to nought as the mist that is driven away with the beams of the sun. For our time is as a shadow that passeth away and after our end there is no returning.” Wisdom of Solomon 2.4

Participants

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German writer

Ernst Gombrich, British-Austrian art historian

Mr. F, wanderer

Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Austrian poet

Ms. B, anthropologist (of unknown ethnicity)

Marcel Proust, French writer

Miss. T, gourmant

Junichiro Tanizaki, Japanese author

Leonardo (da Vinci), Florentine painter, artist, scientist

Martin Gayford, English, Art critic

The Discourse (Fragments)

Ernst Gombrich“By shadow (ombra) is meant that which a body creates on itself, as for instance a sphere that has light on one part and gradually becomes half light and half dark, and that dark part is described as shadow (penumbra)Half-shadow (mezz’ombra) is called that area that is between light and the shadow through which the one passes to the other, as we have said, gradually diminishing little by little according to the roundness of the object. Cast shadow (sbattimento) is the shadow that is caused on the ground or elsewhere by the depicted object . . . .” – After Filippo Baldinucci, Vocabulario Toscana dell’Arte del Disegno, Florence 1681.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Where there is much light, the shadow is deep. A shadow is made when an object blocks light. The object must be opaque or translucent to make a shadow. A transparent object will not make any shadow, as light will pass straight through it.

Junichiro Tanizaki:  Why should this propensity to seek beauty in darkness be so strong only in Orientals? The West too has known a time when there was no electricity, gas, or petroleum, and yet so far as I know the West has never been disposed to delight in shadows. Japanese ghosts have traditionally had no feet; Western ghosts have feet, but are transparent. As even this trifle suggests, pitch darkness has always occupied our fantasies, while in the West even ghosts are as clear as glass. This is true too of our household implements: we prefer colors compounded of darkness, they prefer the colors of sunlight. And of silver and copperware: we love them for the burnish and patina, which they consider unclean, unsanitary, and polish to a glittering brilliance. They paint their ceilings and walls in pale colors to drive out as many of the shadows as they can. We fill our gardens with dense paintings, they spread out a flat expanse of grass.

Mr. F: The opening aria in Handel’s opera Serse (Xerxes), sung by the man character, Xerxes I of Persia, is about the shade of a plane tree.

Ombra mai fu (Never was a shade)

Tender and beautiful fronds
of my beloved plane tree,
let Fate smile upon you.
May thunder, lightning, and storms
never bother your dear peace,
nor may you by blowing winds be profaned.
A shade there never was,
of any plant,
dearer and more lovely,
or more sweet.

Leonardo da Vinci, The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and the Young St. John the Baptist (The Burlington House cartoon)
(London, National Gallery of Art)

Leonardo (da Vinci): Shadow is the obstruction of light. Shadows appear to me to be of supreme importance in perspective, because, without them opaque and solid bodies will be ill defined; that which is contained within their outlines and their boundaries themselves will be ill-understood unless they are shown against a background of a different tone from themselves. And therefore in my first proposition concerning shadow I state that every opaque body is surrounded and its whole surface enveloped in shadow and light. . . . Besides this, shadows have in themselves various degrees of darkness, because they are caused by the absence of a variable amount of the luminous rays; and these I call Primary shadows because they are the first, and inseparable from the object to which they belong. . . . From these primary shadows there result certain shaded rays which are diffused through the atmosphere and these vary in character according to that of the primary shadows whence they are derived. I shall therefore call these shadows Derived shadows because they are produced by other shadows . . . Again these derived shadows, where they are intercepted by various objects, produce effects as various as the places where they are cast . . . And since all round the derived shadows, where the derived shadows are intercepted, there is always a space where the light falls and by reflected dispersion is thrown back towards its cause, it meets the original shadow and mingles with it and modifies it somewhat in its nature.

Martin Gayford: “According to ancient sources, the first artist ever to use this device (chiaroscuro: contrasting light and dark) was an Athenian named Apollodorus. It was he, according to the historian Plutarch, who ‘first invented the fading in and building up of shadow’. Apollodorus was called ‘Skiagraphos’ (‘Shadow Painter’). Before he began to model his figures, Pliny says, there was no painting ‘which holds the eye’.

 

Miss. T: Monsieur Proust “In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower”, the second volume of “In Search of Lost Time”, you define memory.

Marcel Proust: The greater part of our memory lies outside us, in a dampish breeze, in the musty air of a bedroom or the smell of autumn’s first fires, things through which we can retrieve … last vestige of the past, the best of it, the part which, after all our tears have dried, can make us weep again. Outside us? Inside us, more like, but stored away…. It is only because we have forgotten that we can now and then return to the person we once were, envisage things as that person did, be hurt again, because we are not ourselves anymore, but someone else, who once loved something that we no longer care about.

Mr. F: The woman without a shadow.

Hugo von Hofmannsthal: “Er wird zu Stein.”

Ms. B: If the Empress still does not cast a shadow within three days, the Emperor will be turned to stone. The following clip is from a stunning production with David Hockney’s stage designs.

Hugo von Hofmannsthal: “My earliest sketches for the libretto are based on a piece by Goethe, “The Conversation of German Emigrants” (1795). I have handled Goethe’s material freely, adding the idea of two couples, the emperor and empress who come from another realm, and the dyer and his wife who belong to the ordinary world.” (as quoted in wikipedia)

Giorgio de Chirico L’enigma di una giornata (II) ~ 1914 Museo d’arte contemporanea dell’Università di San Paolo

Ernst Gombrich: “Cubism reinstated the role of shadows both to guide and confuse the viewer. Later still the Surrealists exploited the effect of shadows to enhance the mood of mystery they sought, as in Chirico’s dreamlike visions of deserted city squares, where the harsh shadows cast by the statue and solitary figures add to the sense of disquiet.’

Martin Gayford: “Shadows can convey information, but also create illusions.”

Ryoji Ikeda, test pattern [no.5], 2013, audiovisual installation at Carriageworks. Commissioned and presented by Carriageworks and ISEA2013 in collaboration with Vivid Sydney. Image Zan Wimberley | © Carriageworks/WikiCommons
Junichiro Tanizaki:  And so it has come to be that the beauty of a Japanese room depends on a variation of shadows,heavy shadows against light shadows—it has nothing else. Westerners are amazed at the simplicity of Japanese rooms, perceiving in them no more than ashen walls bereft of ornament. Their reaction is understandable, but it betrays a failure to comprehend the mystery of shadows. Out beyond the sitting room, which the rays of the sun can at best but barely reach, we extend the eaves or build on a veranda, putting the sunlight at still greater a remove. The light from the garden steals in but dimly through paper-paneled doors, and it is precisely this indirect light that makes for us the charm of a room. We do our walls in neutral colors so that the sad, fragile, dying rays can sink into absolute repose.

© Roy Zipstein

Junichiro Tanizaki: It has been said of Japanese food that it is a cuisine to be looked at rather than eaten. I would go further and say that it is to be meditated upon, a kind of silent music evoked by the combination of lacquerware and the light of a candle flickering in the dark. In the cuisine of any country efforts no doubt are made to have the food harmonize with the tableware and the walls; but with Japanese food, a brightly lighted room and shining tableware cut the appetite in half. The dark miso soup that we eat every morning is one dish from the dimly lit houses of the past. I was once invited to a tea ceremony where miso was served; and when I saw the muddy, claylike color, quiet in a black lacquer bowl beneath the faint light of a candle, this soup that I usually take without a second thought seemed somehow to acquire a real depth, and to become infinitely more appetizing as well. Much the same may be said of soy sauce. In the Kyoto-Osaka region a particularly thick variety of soy is served with raw fish, pickles, and greens; and how rich in shadows is the viscous sheen of the liquid, how beautifully it blends with the darkness.

 

 

Kallipygos: The nude female behind in Classical Greek and Hellenistic sculpture

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Aphrodite Kallipygos, National Archaelogical Museum, Naples, Italy

“ήν καλλιπύγων ζεύγος εν Συρακούσαις”

Ήταν στις Συρακούσες ένα ζευγάρι κοπελιές μ’ ωραία πισινά”

“There was in Syracuse a pair of girls with beautiful buttocks”

Athinaeos, Deipnosophistae, 554d, Vol. 12

Athinaeos wrote a wonderful story about culture and dining in the Greco-Roman world of the 3rd century AD. His masterpiece is considered to be the first cookbook, but it is a lot more.

He tells a story about two girls with beautiful buttocks and concludes by referring to a temple in Syracuse, dedicated to Aphrodite Kallipygos.

Kallipygos is a composite Greek word, meaning the one who has beautiful buttocks.

Kalos = beauty

pygos = buttock, or behind, or arse

Aphrodite Kallipygos, National Archaelogical Museum, Naples, Italy
Aphrodite Kallipygos, National Archaelogical Museum, Naples, Italy

The statue of Aphrodite Kallipygos in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples is a Roman copy of the Greek original, dating back to the 1st century BC (1).

The woman lifts her dress and turns to see her buttocks reflected in the water of a pond or something like that.

She may be one of the two sisters mentioned by Athinaeos, but we will never know.

The original sculpture is attributed to 2nd century BC, and thus belongs to the Hellenistic period.

The attribution of a work to a period (Classical Greek or Hellenistic) is indicative. A lot of the information on the original sculpture is questionable, and the resemblance of the copy to the original is also subject to scrutiny. It is well known that the Roman copiers had quite an eclectic attitude towards making copies.

Aphrodite Cnidus, Glyptothek, Munich
Aphrodite Braschi, Glyptothek, Munich (Photo by Panathinaeos)

The works included in the post contain a representation of the female nude.

I use the word “nude” rather than “naked”, in reference to a distinction that originated in Kenneth Clark’s “The Nude” (2).

According to Clark, the “nude” is an invention of the Greeks, an “idealization”. The “naked” is the ordinary, the mundane.

I will use the term “nude” differently, to imply a multiplicity of layers of sense and representation, compared and contrasted to the “naked” that has a single layer, the physical / instinctual.

The first Greek sculpture depicting a female in full nudity was most likely Praxiteles’ Aphrodite.

It was the middle of 4th century BC when the Greek sculptor Praxiteles was commissioned by the island of Kos to produce a sculpture of goddess Aphrodite.

He produced two, one fully clothed, and another fully nude.

The citizens of Kos were too conservative to accept the nude sculpture, and it was purchased by the city of Knidos, on the Minor Asia peninsula just south of Kos.

Aphrodite Braschi, back, Glyptothek Munich
Aphrodite Braschi, back, Glyptothek Munich. (Photo by Panathinaeos)

The Aphrodite of the Glyptothek in Munich is one of the many copies of Praxiteles’ Knidian Aphrodite, made in the Roman period.(3)

It shows Aphrodite placing her drape on top of a “hydria” (water jar), as she is ready to take her bath. Her right hand (broken) covers her pubic area.

Until the depiction of the fully nude female by Praxiteles, Greek Art was only depicting full male nudity.

Even after the Aphrodite of Knidos, the dominant theme in nudity was male, be it athletes, warriors, gods, deities, and so on.

The Three Graces Roman copy of a Greek work of the second century B.C. Marble. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The Three Graces
Roman copy of a Greek work of the second century B.C.
Marble. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The impact of the Knidian Aphrodite on the Greek world was huge.

The three graces, surviving today as a Roman copy of the 2nd century B.C. Greek original, is a good example of the impact. The original belongs to the “Hellenistic” period. Its distinctive feature is that instead of one female figure we have a group of three in harmony.

The Hellenistic period was a “lighter” period compared to the “classical”, during which the artists celebrated the joy of life and emphasized earthly, hedonistic aspects of the human existence. They also depicted vices (e.g. The Drunken Woman) It is as if the classical period landed on earth.

The Three Graces Roman copy of a Greek work of the second century B.C. Marble. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The Three Graces
Roman copy of a Greek work of the second century B.C.
Marble. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

We have three female figures, more relaxed compared to the rather uncomfortable Aphrodite of Knidos, ready to take their baths, as their towels indicate, enjoying the moment.

Notice that they do not attempt to cover their body. Their hands rest elegantly on the other graces’ shoulders.

The Roman copy sculpture was placed in a garden or  a public building like a bath.

The Broghese Hermaphrodite, Louvre, PAris, France.
The Borghese Hermaphrodite – front, Louvre, Paris, France.

Hermaphroditus was the son of Aphrodite and Hermes.

The marble sculpture that reclines on a marble mattress sculpted by Bernini in 1620 was discovered in the Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome. It is an early Roman Empire copy of a bronze sculpture created by Greek sculptor Polycles around the middle of the 2nd century BC.

The sculpture was sold to Napoleon and thus it found itself in the Louvre.

Another copy is displayed today in Villa Borghese of Rome.

hermaphrodite_back_750
The Borghese Hermaphrodite – back, Louvre, Paris, France.

This is a highly sensual sculpture.

The hermaphrodite is seemingly asleep, but there is expectation all over.

The breasts and male genitals are visible, leaving no doubt as to the hybrid nature of the creature, man and woman bound together.

A 18th century visitor commented: “This is the only happy couple that I have seen”.

Sources

1. The National Archaeological Museum of Naples. Electa Napoli, 1996.

2. Kenneth Clark. The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form.

3. Raimund Wuensche. Glyptothek, Munich.  C.H. Beck. Verlag, Munich 2007.

Nutcracker: by Jennifer Rubell

2200-gf12540_nocetto_nutcracker

nutcracker: a device for cracking nuts (Oxford Dictionaries).

Jeniffer Rubell: Portrait of the artist
Jennifer Rubell: Portrait of the artist

New York based artist Jennifer Rubell has created her own nutcrackers.

In doing so, she objectified a metaphor of the female body.

Dal Shabet Merilis Foto Teaser “Look At My Legs”
Dal Shabet Merilis Foto Teaser “Look At My Legs”

A 2007 review of studies examining depictions of women in the media including commercials  prime-time television programs, movies, music lyrics and videos, magazines advertising, sports media, video games, and Internet sites revealed that women more often than men are depicted in sexualizing and objectified mannerrs (e.g., wearing revealing and provocative clothing, portrayed in ways that emphasize their body parts and sexual readiness, serving as decorative objects). (Sexual Objectification of Women: Advances to Theory and Research)

Rubell builds dramatically on the SO metaphor, and turns the female body into a nutcracker.

The Nutcrackers Project in Dallas Texas, 2011
The Nutcrackers Project in Dallas Texas, 2011

In the artist’s website, we read the following introduction to her “nutcracker” project:

“In the Dallas Contemporary’s largest gallery space, Nutcrackers consists of 18 life-size interactive sculptures of women surrounding a pedestal holding one ton of Texas pecans. Each prefabricated female mannequin is mounted on her side in an odalisque position and has been retooled to function as a nutcracker. Visitors interact with each sculpture by placing a pecan in the mannequin’s inner thigh, then pushing down the upper leg to crack open the nut so they may eat it in the gallery. Inspired by nutcrackers depicting female figures – especially one of Hillary Clinton – these interactive sculptures embody the two polar stereotypes of female power: the idealized, sexualized nude female form; and the too-powerful, nut-busting überwoman.”

jennifer-rubell
“Lea L” Nutcraker, by Jennifer Rubell. New York Frieze Art Fair 2012

One cannot resist but consider the artful play with words.

phoca_thumb_l_LYSA-II_JenniferRubell_2012_photobyAdamReich-4
Nutcraker, by Jennifer Rubell

A nut-busting woman is a stereotype in a man’s world.

phoca_thumb_l_NUTCRACKERS_JenniferRubell_2011_photobyAndrewShephard_websiteimage_fullres-7

Rubell is explicit. The nut is broken high up, between the thighs.

phoca_thumb_l_LYSA-II_JenniferRubell_2012_photobyAdamReich-5
Nutcraker, by Jennifer Rubell

What can be the source of life (Courbet) can also break one or more nuts.

phoca_thumb_l_NUTCRACKERS_JenniferRubell_2011_photobyAndrewShephard_websiteimage_fullres-5
The Nutcrackers Project in Dallas Texas, 2011

I must confess that the close ups reminded me of Jeff Koons. Although totally irrelevant, Rubell’s parents are art collectors and their collection includes some of Koon’s works.

Having seen pictures from Dallas and New York, I prefer the “factory-like” arrangement of Dallas to the solitary and rather depressing “solo” of New York.

The “contingent” of the factory gives a totally different meaning tot he work.

1470361660_76df5c5365_z615

I think I will return to the work of Jennifer Rubell.

P.S. What is the relationship between sexual objectification and heartbeats?

P.S. 2 Here is the answer.

Γλωσσολογικον πονημα επι του “Σεβαστου” και των παραγωγων του

H Mάτση Χατζηλαζάρου ποζάρει προκλητικά στο φακό του Ανδρέα Εμπειρίκου
H Mάτση Χατζηλαζάρου ποζάρει προκλητικά στο φακό του Ανδρέα Εμπειρίκου

“Η Γκρέτα, καταφανώς εν μεγάλη διεγέρσει διατελούσα, χωρίς την παραμικράν προφύλαξιν, ανέσυρε εν ριπή οφθαλμού το φόρεμά της, και, αποκαλύπτουσα, προς στιγμήν, ένα θαυμάσιον και προεξέχον πολύ, εν μέσω ολίγων αραιών τριχών μουνί (δεν έφερε σκελέαν), ήνοιξε τούς μηρούς της, έθεσε την κούκλαν μεταξύ αυτών, και καλύπτουσα πάλιν το ερωτικόν της όργανον, έσφιξε τούς μηρούς της, και ήρχισε να κινήται ζωηρώς, ζωηρότατα, επί του καθίσματός της, κατά τρόπον που εφανέρωνε ότι ηυνανίζετο με πάθος, τρίβουσα μανιωδώς το αιδοίον της, επί της κεφαλής και των μαλλιών του κομψού ανθρωπομόρφου ομοιώματος, επιδιώκουσα με αφάνταστον ζέσιν να επιφέρη τοιουτοτρόπως την έκχυσιν του ερωτικού χυμού της, αδιαφορούσα τελείως, και, ίσως, τερπομένη επιπροσθέτως, από το γεγονός ότι εξετέλει την τόσον άσεμνον, άλλα και τόσον χαριτωμένην αυτήν πράξιν δημοσία.”

Ανδρεας Εμπειρικος, Μεγαλος Ανατολικος

____4122822_orig
Georgia O’Keeffe, Series I White and Blue Flower Shapes, 1919, Oil on Board, 19 7/8 x 15 3/4 inches, Gift of the Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation, ©Georgia O’Keeffe Museum

Προ της εισαγωγης

Αποτιω τιμη στην μεγαλη Αμερικανιδα ζωγραφο Τζωρτζια Ο’ Κηφ, που ζωγραφισε ανθη, και με καποιον τροπο πολλα απο τα ανθη της παραπεμπουν στο ανθος του αιδοιου.

Αυτο εξαλλου παρετηρησε και εις εκ των δυο πρωταγωνιστων τη σειρας Breaking Bad, ο νεαρος Τζεσσυ, οταν η νεαρα καλλιτεχνιζουσα φιλενας του τον επηγε να δουνε μαζι το μουσειο της Τζωρτζια Ο’ Κηφ στην πολιτεια του Νεου Μεξικου των ΗΠΑ.

Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O’Keeffe
Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O’Keeffe

Εισαγωγικες παρατηρησεις

Η διερευνηση αυτης της πραγματειας ειναι εκ των πραγματων προσδιορισμενη αλλα και περιορισμενη απο το γλωσσικο ιδιωμα.

Αυτη η παρατηρηση ομως με κανενα τροπο δεν οδηγει σε πολιτισμικη μονοσημαντοτητα.

Το αντιθετο θα ελεγα. Ακριβως η αναγνωριση του περιοριστικου παραγοντα ειναι η απαρχη της αναιρεσης του.

Ο μεγας πρωταγωνιστης της πραγματειας αυτης ειναι το “αιδοιον”.

Χαιρε, ώ χαιρε τετιμημενον!

Η διερευνηση θα στηριχθει στην γλωσσα.

Πρεπει ομως να προειδοποιησω τον αναγνωστη (και την αναγνωστρια) οτι τα πολιτιστικα δικτυα δεν αναγονται αποκλειστικα εις την γλωσσαν, αρα θα υπεισελθουν και αλλα στοιχεια πολιτισμου σχετικα με το τετιμημενον.

Andreas Empeirikos
Andreas Empeirikos

“Εις εν ακρότατον σημείον της ομηγύρεως, μία ομάς εκ δεκαπέντε περίπου ανδρών, παρετήρει, ουχί το αερόστατον, αλλά μίνα νεαράν ακροβάτιδα, ήτις, υπό τους ήχους ενός ντεφιού, που έσειε ένας νεώτερος αδελφός της, εξετέλει διάφορα γυμνάσματα με μεγάλην ευκαμψίαν και δεξιοτεχνίαν. Η νεάνις αυτή ήτο ευειδής και χαρίεσσα. Εις μίαν στιγμήν που περιεστρέφετο επί των χειρών, με τους πόδας της εις τον αέραν, εσχίσθη, εν αγνοία της, η περισκελίς της εις καίριο σημείον, εις τρόπον ώστε, εις ωρισμένην φάσιν της ακροβασίας, να φαίνεται το αιδοίον της ευκρινώς. Εντεύθεν η εξαίρεσις, εντεύθεν η γοητεία. Διότι, εις το γεγονός ότι διεκρίνετο το ερωτικόν της όργανον, ωφείλετο η απόσπασις της προσοχής των δεκαπέντε θεατών από το αερόστατον.”

Ανδρεας Εμπειρικος, Αργώ ή Πλους Αεροστάτου

Sarah Lucas, Chicken Knickers 2000, Saatchi Gallery.
Sarah Lucas, Chicken Knickers 2000, Saatchi Gallery.

Η προσεγγιση

Εν αρχη ην η γλωσσα.

Ο Λακάν στρέφεται στη γλωσσολογία μέσα από δύο βασικά σημεία (1):

1. Υιοθετώντας τη βασική ιδέα ότι η γλώσσα ως συμβολικό σύστημα μαζί με τα άλλα κοινωνικο-πολιτιστικά συστήματα και τις δομές τους προϋπάρχουν της γέννησης ενός ανθρώπου και υπέρ-κεινται αυτού. Κατά συνέπεια, το παιδί με την κατάκτηση της γλώσσας εγγράφεται σε αυτή τη συμβολική τάξη, η οποία επειδή ακριβώς υπέρ-κειται θα το πλάσει ανάλογα με τις δομές της. Με άλλα λόγια, το άτομο αναδύεται ως υποκείμενο μέσα από την εγγραφή του στη συμβολική τάξη της γλώσσας ή, όπως λέει ο Αλτουσέρ (1983), η κατάκτηση της γλώσσας είναι αυτή που με την εισαγωγή στη συμβολική τάξη θα σημαδέψει το πέρασμα από τον άνθρωπο-θηλαστικό στον άνθρωπο-παιδί -άνδρα ή γυναίκα.

2. Θεωρώντας ότι το “το ασυνείδητο είναι δομημένο σαν γλώσσα”, δηλαδή μια δομή που όπως και η γλώσσα αποτελείται από στοιχεία που βρίσκονται σε σχέση, και εξομοιώνοντας τους μηχανισμούς του ασυνειδήτου με τους γλωσσικούς μηχανισμούς της μεταφοράς και της μετωνυμίας.

Θα συναντησομε τον Λακαν και παρακατω, οχι ως μεγιστο ψυχαναλυτη, αλλα ως συλλεκτη εργων τεχνης.

Louise Bourgeois, "Untitled", 2002
Louise Bourgeois, “Untitled”, 2002

Η Κυρία Λέξις, Παραλλαγες και Παραγωγα της

Οι λεξεις που θα αναλυθουν ειναι κυριως ελληνικες. Για λογους ομως που σχετιζονται με την αυθαιρεσια του συγγραφονοτς να κανει του κεφαλιου του και να μην δινει αναφορα σε κανενα, θα εμπλουτισθουν αι λεξεις αυτες, και με καποιες ξενικες.

Μουνί
Θεωρειται απο καποιους χυδαια λεξις. Το ολον θεμα του πως οριζεται η χυδαιοτης ειναι τεραστιον και δεν θα το αναπτυξω εδω.

Θα εκφρασω ομως τη διαφωνια μου με τον χαρακτηρισμο λεξεων και γλωσσικων ιδιωματων ως χυδαια.

Για την ετυμολογία της λέξης, το Λεξικο Κοινης Νεοελληνικης  (3) μας διδει δυο εκδοχες.

Η πρώτη είναι από το ευνή:

(αρχαια) εὐνή `κρεβάτι, κρεβάτι του γάμου΄ – ελληνιστικο υποκοριστικο  *εὐνίον

> μεσαιωνικο *βνίον (αποβολη του αρχικού άτονου  φωνήεντος)

> *μνίον (για την τροπή [vn > mn] σύγκρινε ευνούχος > μουνούχος, ελαύνω > λάμνω)

> *μουνίον (ανάπτ. [u] ανάμεσα σε αρχικό [m] και ακόλουθο σύμφωνο, σύγκρινε *μνούχος > μουνούχος) > (μεσαιωνικο) μουνίν

POLIDORI Gian Carlo(1943-), Italy: Οδαλίσκη και Ευνούχος στο χαρέμι
POLIDORI Gian Carlo(1943-), Italy: Οδαλίσκη και Ευνούχος στο χαρέμι (5)

Και η δεύτερη από τη λέξη μνούς:

(αρχαια) μνοῦς `μαλακό πούπουλο, χνουδάκι΄ ελληνιστικο υποκοριστικο *μνίον

> (μεσαιωνικο) *μουνίον (όπως στην προηγ. υπόθεση) > (μεσαιωνικο) μουνίν

Sarah Lucas
Sarah Lucas

Η παραλλαγμενη εννοια

Η λεξη μουνι χρησιμοποιειται και με απαξιωτικη διασταση, οτι καποιος δηλαδη αρσενικος ή θηλυκος, ειναι σκαρτος.

Παρομοιως, απαξιωτικη ειναι και η εκφραση “τα καναμε μουνι”, ή η παρεμφερης “τα καναμε μουνακι”.

Η χρηση του υποκοριστικου υποδηλωνει μια μικρου ή μεσαιου μεγεθους αστοχια, ενω η χρηση της πληρους λεξεως κατι σημαντικο.

Εδω παραβαλλω και την παραλληλη απαξιωτικη εκφραση “πουτσες μπλε”.

Αποδεικνυεται περιτρανως λοιπον οτι η γλωσσα δεν γνωριζει συνορα φυλλου.

Απαξιωση ενθεν και ενθεν.

L'Origine du Monde de Gustave Courbet
L’Origine du Monde de Gustave Courbet

Παρενθεση: Η Αρχη του Κοσμου  του Γκουσταβ Κουρμπε (The Origin of the World by Gustave Courbet)

Δεν μπορω παρα να παραθεσω παραυτα το μεγαλειωδες εργο του Γκουσταβ Κουρμπε, την Απαρχη του Κοσμου.

Το εργο παρηγγειλε ο Τουρκος διπλωματης και συλλεκτης Χαλιλ Μπεη το 1866.

Αμεσως μετα την ολοκληρωση του, το εργο εξαφανιστηκε απο την δημοσια θεα.

Ο συλλεκτης το τοποθετησε στο λουτρο του, και εβαλε και μια κουρτινα μπροστα, ωστε να το κρυβει σε ορισμενες περιπτωσεις.

Μετα την χρεωκοπια του Χαλιλ Μπεη ο πινακας κατεληξε στη Βουδαπεστη, οπου και αλλαξε πολλα χερια.

Κατεληξε στη συλλογη του Ζακ Λακαν στη δεκαετια του 1950, που ηταν και ο τελευταιος ιδιωτης που το ειχε στη συλλογη του.

Σημερα το απολαμβανουν οι επισκεπτες του Μουσειου Ορσαι στο Παρισι.

Jacques Lacan
Jacques Lacan

Αιδοιον

Προερχεται απο το ρημα αιδεομαι, που σημαινει σεβομαι, ευλαβουμαι.

Αποτελει το ουδετερον του “Αιδοιος”, που σημαινει Σεβαστος.

Αιδοιον λοιπον σημαινει “Σεβαστον”.

Renato Guttuso, untitled figure study, 1982. Lithograph, Gardiner Permanent Art Collection.
Renato Guttuso, untitled figure study, 1982. Lithograph, Gardiner Permanent Art Collection.

Con

Γαλλικη λεξις, που μπορει να μεταφρασθει και σαν “μουνακι” και σαν “μαλακας”.

Σε απταιστα Γαλλικα, στο παρον πονημα « con » désignant trivialement la vulve.

412PX-~1
Achille Deveria, French Painter

Μουνακι

“Η Ειρηνη ειναι σνα μια αψιδα πανω απο την θαλασσα. .. Αχ, αχ. Η Ειρηνη καλει τον εραστη της. Τον εραστη της που καυλωνει απο μακρυα. Αχ, αχ, Η Ειρηνη αγωνια και σπαρταρα. Εκεινος ορθωνεται καυλωμενος σαν θεος πανω απο την αβυσσο. Αυτη κουνιεται, εκεινος την αποφευγει, αυτη κουνιεται και του δινεται. Αχ. Η οαση υποκλινεται με τις πανυψηλες τις χουρμαδιες της. Ταξιδιωτες, οι πανωφορες σας στροβιλιζονται μεσ’ τη λεπτη την αμμο. Απ’ το λαχανιασμα η Ειρηνη κοντευει να διαλυθει. Εκεινος την κοιταζει. Το μουνι εχει μουσκεψει καρτερωντας τ’ ολοζωντανο παλουκι. Στ’ απατηλα βουνα της αμμου, μια σκια ζαρκαδιου. Κολαση ας αρχισουν οι καταραμενοι σου να μαλακιζονται, η Ειρηνη εχυσε.”

Λουις Αραγκον, “Το μουνακι της Ειρηνης”.  Μεταφραση Ανδρεας Νεοφυτιδης. Εκδοσεις Γαβριηλιδη, Αθηνα 1989.

Απο τον Αθεοβοβο2
Απο τον Αθεοφοβο2

Μουνάρα

Λεξη επιτιμητικη. Χιλαδες, εκατονταδες χιλιαδες, εκατομμυρια Ελληνων και Ελληνοφωνων εχουν κραυγασει καποια στιγμη του βιου τους “Μουναρα μου!”.

Τι εννοουσαν αραγε;

Εντελως υποθετικα, θα ελεγα οτι η λεξη αρχικα αναφερεται στο υπερτατο θηλυκο.

Η φαινομενικη απλοηκοτης της λεξεως δεν αφαιρει την διασταση του υπερτατου, αντιθετως την κανει πιο εντονη.

Μιλαμε λοιπον για το υπερτατο θηλυκο, και τουτο με την διασταση την σεξουαλικη.

Δεν θα ακουσετε καποιον να λεει “αγαπω μια μουναρα”. Καποιο αλλο ρημα θα χρησιμοποιησει.

Εδω λοιπον, η λεξη μας διδει το εδαφος δια να  θυμηθουμε αυτο που εγραψε ο μεγας Λακαν: ” Η αγαπη ερχεται να αναπληρωσει την ανυπαρξια ερωτικης σχεσης.”

Η “μουναρα” ειναι βαθεια βυθισμενη και σφραγισμενη απο το ερωτικο και μονο το ερωτικο στοιχειο.

Οι αγαπες και οι μαργαριτες ειναι αλλου.

1507711_642672642454408_1706543165_n

Γλυκομούνα

“Διαβάζοντας το βιβλίο Τα αδιάντροπα -Λεσβιακά Λαογραφικά του Βαγγέλη Καραγιάννη με πρόλογο του Μ.Γ.Μερακλή  (Φιλιππότης) Αθήνα 1983, είδα να αναφέρει στην φράση : Είνι γλυκουμούνα μια τοπική συνήθεια που δεν την είχα ξαναδιαβάσει. Γράφει ακριβώς :

Φράση που λέγεται για γυναίκες που έχουν επιτυχίες στους άνδρες, έστω και αν δεν είναι πολύ όμορφες.
Τον παλιό καιρό, στα χωριά της Λέσβου, ρίχνουν στο αιδοίο  του πολύ μικρού κοριτσιού λίγη ζάχαρη, “για να γλυκάν΄” κι όταν θα γίνει κοπέλα πια να την λαχταρούν και να την ζητούν σε γάμο οι γαμπροί.
Απ΄εκεί και η φράση “γλυκουμούνα” (4)”
Tracey Emin Ruined (2007) acrylic, oil pastel and pencil on canvas, 72 5/8 x 72 5/8 x 2 1/2, Photograph by Stephen White. Courtesy of White Cube. © the artist
Tracey Emin Ruined (2007) acrylic, oil pastel and pencil on canvas, 72 5/8 x 72 5/8 x 2 1/2, Photograph by Stephen White. Courtesy of White Cube.
© the artist

Παληόμουνο

Βλεπε σχετικα λεξεις οπως “παληοχαρακτηρας”, “παληοκοριτσο”.

Δια της λεξεως προβαλλει αυτος που την χρησιμοποιει την ιδιοτητα του κακου χαρακτηρα εις την γυναικα.

Μπορει να ειναι μια αστατη γυναικα, μπορει να ειναι μια γυναικα που δεν τιθασευεται, δεν ελεγχεται, δεν υποτασσεται.

Εδω δεν υπαρχει αντικειμενικη διασταση.

Ο χαρακτηριζων αυθαιρετει και χρησιμοποιει την λεξη ασυστολως.

Μπορει λοιπον η ουτως χαρακτηριζομένη γυνη απλα “να μην καθεται” στον χαρακτηριζοντα, να μην ανταποκρινεται θετικα εις τα ερωτικα του κελευσματα.

Καριολομουνο

Black Widow
Black Widow

Φαρμακομούνα

Εδω το “φαρμακο” εχει την ιδιοτητα του δηλητηριου, και οχι της θεραπευτικης δρασης.

(Βλεπε σχετικα την λεξη “ποντικοφαρμακο”. Δεν θεραπευει τους ποντικους, αλλα τους θανατωνει, ειναι δηλητηριον, και δη ισχυρωτατον.)

Και ειναι ενδιαφερον να παρατηρησομε ποσον κοντα αλλα και μακρυα ειναι οι λεξεις φαρμακο και φαρμακι στην ελληνικη γλωσσα.

Κατι που δεν συμβαινει σε αλλες γλωσσες, παραδειγμα στην αγγλικη, οπου εχομε medicine vs. poison. Παντελως διαφορετικη ριζα.

imagesCAYK2DZW

Η διαθετουσα το σχετικον οπλον (η πηγη του φαρμακου ειναι το αιδιοιον) “φαρμακωνει” τον ερωτικον της συντροφον, ή τον συζυγον της.

Κατι κακο θα του συμβει, ισως και ο θανατος.

Παραπεμπει λοιπον στην “μαυρη αραχνη”, που μετα την ερωτικη πραξη, και εκ της συνεπειας της, θανατωνει τον ερωτικον της συντροφον.

Εν προκειμενω η λεξις δεν αναφερεται υποχρεωτικα σε υπαρκτη ιδιοτητα.

Μπορει να εκφραζει και τον φοβο του ερωτικου συντροφου, οτι η ερωτικη συνανστροφη με την φερουσα το φαρμακοφορον αιδοιον θα τον θανατωσει, ή θα τον βλαψει.

Αρα η γλωσσα εκφραζει το ονειρο, τον εφιαλτη, τον φοβο, οποτε οπως θα ελεγε και ο Δοκτωρ Φροϋντ την υποβοσκουσα επιθυμια.

Ο φαρμακοφορος και απειλητικος ερως αντικειμενοποιειται εις τον φαρμακοφορον αιδιοιον.

Ιδου λοιπον και μια εισετι λειτουργια – και δη θεραπευτικη – της γλωσσας.

Δια της εκφρασεως την φοβων και των επιθυμιων εν τροπω αντικειμενοποιησεως, εκβαλλομεν το κακον, το βλαβερον, και του αποδιδομεν υλικη συγκεκριμενη υποσταση.

Παυει λοιπον ο φοβος του θανατου να ειναι μια αφαιρεση, και συγκεκριμενοποιειται ως το Αιδοιον της γυναικος Χ.

Απο το αλμπουμ "Φωτοφρακτης"του Ανδρεα Εμπειρικου
Απο το αλμπουμ “Φωτοφρακτης”του Ανδρεα Εμπειρικου

Οδοντωτον Αιδοιον (Μουνι με δοντια)

Αποδοσις του εις την λατινικην ορου Vagina Dentata – ενω εις την αγγλικην αναφερεται ως Toothed Vagina.

Αναφερεται εις την μυθικης προελευσεως γυναικα ητις φερει οδοντας εις το αιδοιον της, και ως εκ τουτου δυναται να ακρωτηριασει το πεος του ερωτικου της συντροφου εν τη εκτελεσει της γενετησιας πραξεως.

Βεβαιως υπαρχει και η επιστημονικη αποψη οτι το πεος ειναι αναλωσιμο, ως μια πρωτη υλη. Καθε φορα λοιπον που το πεος διεισδυει εις το αιδοιον, αναλωνεται.

Το οδοντωτον αιδοιον αποτελει και εφιαλτη δια τον ανδρα που ονειρευεται τον ακρωτηριασμο του εν τη τελεση της ερωτικης πραξεως.

Εν τη εννοια τουτη, το οδοντωτον αιδοιον αποτελει μεγαλυτεραν απειλην συγκρινομενη με την φαρμοκομουναν.

Καλυτερα ο ακαριαιος θανατος απο τον ατιμωτικον ακρωτηριασμον.

Castration-pic

Κλαψομουνα

Λεξις ητις υπαρχει και εις το αρσενικον, ως “κλαψομούνης”.

Υποδηλωνει καποιαν η οποια το ριχνει στο κλαμα, ή την κλαψουρα με το παραμικρο, υπερβαλλει, τρεχουν τα δακρυα ποταμι, και ολα αυτα χωρις λογο. Οποτε και δεν την παιρνει κανεις στα σοβαρα, ενω αποτελει και ενοχλησιν μεγαλην, με αποτελεσμα να την αποφευγουσιν οι παντες.

Υπαρχει βεβαιως και η γνωστη ταση του ανδρικου φυλου να υποτιμα τον συναισθηματισμο της γυναικας και να επιχειρει να τον απορριπτει ως κλαμμα ανευ λογου. Προσοχη λοιπον, η γλωσσα εν προκειμενω επιβεβαιωνει δια μιαν εισετι φοραν την αμφισημιαν ητις ενεδρευει.

achille_devc3a9ria_les_petits_jeux_innocens
Achille Deveria: Small and innocent games

Γλειφομούνι

Η πλεον αξιοπρεπης λεξις ειναι η “Αιδοιολειχια”.

Αποτελει πραξιν ητις αποδιδει εις τον πραγματοποιουντα εμπειριαν μοναδικην, καθοσον ενεργοποιουντια οι γευστικοι αδενες και σχεδον ολοκληρη η στοματικη κοιλοτης. Ταυτοχζρονως πραγματοποιουνται και ποικιλοτροπες προσμιξεις υγρων πολλαπλων προελευσεων και πηγων, συνοδευομενες απο οσμες και μυρωδιες μονον δια τους πραγματικους ρεκτες.

Ψευτομούνι. Είδος γλειφομουνίου, με τη διαφορά ότι ο τύπος προσποιείται ότι χρησιμοποιεί γλώσσα, ενώ στην ουσία χρησιμοποιεί δάχτυλο (πιθανόν λόγω σιχαμάρας). Απαραίτητη προϋπόθεση για ένα επιτυχημένο ψευτομούνι είναι η μίμηση του ήχου του γλειψίματος, (6)

Μουνόσκυλο αποκαλειται ο εχων σχεδον εθισμον εις την αιδοιολειχιαν, προσομοιαζομενος ουτω με τους συμπαθεις κυνες οιτινες οπου βρεθουν και οπου σταθουν γλειφονται και γλειφουν.

Παρομοιες στην εννοια ειναι και οι λεξεις Μουνοδουλος και Μουνακιας, παρολον οτι αμφοτερες εχουσιν και μεταφορικην εννοιαν ήτις αφορα την εξιν των ανθρωπων αυτων προς το σεβαστον.

Sarah LucasGot a Salmon On #3 1997
Sarah LucasGot a Salmon On #3 1997

Πλακομουνι

Πραξις ομοφυλοφιλικου ερωτος.

Το σχετικο ρημα αποδιδεται ως “πλακομουνιαζομαι”.

Το δε ουσιαστικον ειναι “πλακομουνού”.

“Οι στασεις ειχαν αλλαξει. Οι τριβαδες μου ειχαν εισχωρησει η μια στην αλλη, αγκαλιαζονταν ασφυκτικα ωστε να εφαπτεται το δριμυ και πυκνο τριχωμα τους, να τριβονται τα μελη τους. Εφορμουσαν, ενωνονταν και απωθουνταν, με το ρυθμο, την επιμονη και τη δυναμη που προμηνυει στις γυναικες το επερχομενο απογειο της ηδονης.”

Alfred de Musset  “Γκαμιανί, ή Δυο νυχτες παραφορας”. Μεταφραση Ανδρεα Στάϊκου. Εκδοσεις Άγρα, 2002.

Louise Bourgeois, "Janus Fleuri", 1968
Louise Bourgeois, “Janus Fleuri”, 1968

Παραπομπες

(1) Μαρια Θεοδωροπούλου, Μ. Saussure και Lacan: Απο τη γλωσσολογία στην ψυχανάλυση.

(2) slang.gr

(3) Λεξικο Κοινης Νεοελληνικης

(4) Αθεοφοβος2

(5) L’ Enfant de la Haute Mer

(6) Slang

The diasappearance of the body from the work of Sarah Lucas

I recently visited a gallery in London, where works by Sarah Lucas are exhibited.

Sarah Lucas, Au naturel, 2008
Sarah Lucas, Au naturel, 2008

I have written about Sarah Lucas before, namely about her powerful metaphors of food, linking eggs, chickens, burgers to genitalia and body parts, recognizable or not.

Sarah Lucas, Penetralia, 2008
Sarah Lucas, Penetralia, 2008

What impressed me the most in the Sarah Lucas exhibition, is the disappearance of the body. Most of her recent works are about genitalia and body parts, twisted, deformed, or otherwise. But the body has disappeared, except in one of the exhibit rooms, where she presented some wall-size photographs of the lower half of male bodies ornated with artifacts.

Jake and Dinos Chapman, Fuckface
Jake and Dinos Chapman, Fuckface

This is quite interesting if you contrast it with the work of JAke and Dinos Chapman.  In @Fuckface@ we have not only a body, albeit a conflated one, but also faces. A merging of genitalia and the human face, accompanied by a rather sad rendition of the rest of the body. But in spite of its sorry state, the body is present.

Sarah Lucas, Nud Cycladic 10
Sarah Lucas, Nud Cycladic 10, 2010

This is not the case with Sarah Lucas. But it does not stop there. Her “Nud Cycladic” Series introduces renditions of body parts that cannot be called recognizable. They may trigger associational processes and as a result various other images, but immediately recognizable they are not.

Sarah Lucas, Pauline Bunny, 1997
Sarah Lucas, Pauline Bunny, 1997

I left the exhibition rather dazed and disoriented. I do not usually get exposed to this bombardment of genitalia and body parts floating about, or standing on their own on the floor, or hanging from the walls or the ceiling. My rescus came from the “Pauline Bunny”, Lucas’ of 1997. I recovered it from my archives and felt that I came back to some sense of regularity. What previously looked like a monster, became like a friend I had not seen for a long time.

Sarah Lucas in her studio
Sarah Lucas in her studio

Could it be that the body has not disappeared but is disappearing? And will eventually come back?

Woman in a tub: a journey from Manet to … to Koons

I saw Edgar Degas’ “The Tub” and Jeff Koons’ “Woman in a Tub”at the Art Institute of Chicago back in April and was inspired to write about paintings and sculptures depicting a woman having a bath.

The following post is relevant to the Art Institute of Chicago

Modern Art

This is a personal view (most views are). I selected the paintings and sculptures I like and/or find interesting. 

One of the most important feature of the paintings and sculptures is – of course – the way the artist has depicted the female body.

Another is the degree of privacy and intimacy of the instance depicted.

Ingres, The bather of Valpincon, 1808, Louvre, Paris
Ingres, The bather of Valpincon, 1808, Louvre, Paris

I would like to start the journey with Ingres. The painting “The Bather of Valpincon” (my thanks for the photo to “The Art Appreciation Blog“) that hangs today in the Louvre in Paris marks in my book the beginning of a new era in the depiction of the nude female. The setting is domestic, the subject is alone. And the body is not perfect. The depicted woman is a real woman. There is no story in the picture. It is a “boring” mundane scene in the domestic life of a woman.

Although there is not tub in Ingres’ picture, in my view he creates the context for the topic of my overview.

Edouard Manet (1832-1883) Woman in a tub 1878 Paris, Musée d'Orsay Pastel on canvas
Edouard Manet (1832-1883)
Woman in a tub
1878 Paris, Musée d’Orsay
Pastel on canvas

The first painting strictly within the context of this article is Manet’s “Woman in a Tub”. Manet painted his picture in 1873.

My adoration of Manet started with “Olympia” (1863) and “The Luncheon on the Grass” (1862-1863), both exhibited in Paris’ Musee d’ Orsay.

I quote from Musee d’ Orsay’s web site:

“This pastel is one of the artist’s most beautiful portrayals of a woman bathing. All the characteristics of Manet’s style are there: a special blend of spontaneity, freshness combined with precise composition, and a taste for light, curving lines against a background of horizontals. The background is in fact divided up into subtly coloured bands, formed by the mirror, the dressing table and the floral cretonne cloth.

A large metal tub, always used by Degas in these scenes, occupies the lower part of the pastel. But whereas Degas’ models usually appear to be unaware of the viewer, here the model is unconcerned at being observed by the painter. She knows that her nudity, even though imperfect, will attract a friendly or even tender glance.

After Manet’s death, Degas produced his stunning series of women bathing, where he used plunging perspectives and more sophisticated poses. But it was Degas who, after 1877, first started to produce less innocent scenes of women washing, painted in brothels. It is difficult to determine from that point, which of the two artists had the greater influence on the other. Degas’ sarcasm is absent from Manet’s work; it is Bonnard’s gentle scenes of women at their toilette that are the real precursors of this Woman in a Tub.”

The palette of the picture is light. Only the tub turns to heavy grey.

Edouard Manet La blonde aux seins nus vers 1878 huile sur toile,  musée d'Orsay, Paris, France
Edouard Manet
La blonde aux seins nus
vers 1878
huile sur toile,
musée d’Orsay, Paris, France

Contrast the bathing woman to the bare breasted blonde of the same year. The air of “neutral” intimacy of the bathing woman is gone, and replaced by the naked aggression of the breasts. Totally different.

Woman in a Tub Femme au tub
Edgar Degas, Woman in a Tub, Femme au tub, 1883, Pastel on paper, Tate Gallery, London

I continue with another master, Edgar Degas.

Degas’ picture “Woman standing in her bathtub”, painted in 1883, adorns the exhibition halls of Tate Gallery in London.

It was in London’s National Gallery in 1996 that I saw the exhibition “Degas beyond impressionism”. This exhibition marked the beginning of my admiration for Degas’ work.

The woman seems to be drying herself, and is totally absorbed in what she is doing.

The picture is full of contrasting lights and shadows, of bright and dark colors.

Woman Bathing in a Shallow Tub, 1885 Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917) Charcoal and pastel on paper, Metropolitan Museum, New York
Woman Bathing in a Shallow Tub, 1885
Edgar Degas 
Charcoal and pastel on paper, Metropolitan Museum, New York

Another nude in a tub by Degas is the picture he painted in 1885, which you can see today in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

When Degas exhibited his “suite of nudes,” which included this pastel, at the eighth—and final—Impressionist exhibition, in 1886, critics viciously attacked the ungainly poses of his bathers. After the exhibition, Degas gave the picture to Mary Cassatt in exchange for her Girl Arranging Her Hair (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.).

Edgar Degas French, 1834–1917 The Tub, modeled 1889 (cast 1919/21)
Edgar Degas
The Tub, modeled 1889 (cast 1919/21)

And now the tub I saw at the Art Institute of Chicago.

I quote the Art Institute of Chicago’s text:
“This charming work, cast in bronze after Degas’s death, is a particularly appealing, even playful, variation on that subject. In a round basin partially filled with water, a young woman relaxes and absently plays with the toes of her left foot…The Tub is innovative in another, more subtle way. The female nude is of course a central subject in the history of Western art, associated with many conventions and traditions. However, unlike so many of his predecessors and more conservative contemporaries, Degas did not depict his adolescent bather in the guise of a nymph or goddess, nor did he imbue her features and gestures with eroticism. Instead, she is self-absorbed, modest, and engaged in a mundane activity.”

Edgar Degas, The Tub, c.1896-1901, Pastel on wowe paper, Glasgow Museums
Edgar Degas, The Tub, c.1896-1901, Pastel on wowe paper, Glasgow Museums
Degas also painted this stunning minimalist depiction in a period spanning 5 years, and just crossing into the 20th century. It is almost as if Francis Bacon came to Earth early to paint this picture and disappear until his birth in 1909.
Pablo Picasso, The Blue Room, 1901
Pablo Picasso, The Blue Room, 1901
I cannot help assuming that the great Picasso was influenced by the aura of Degas’ paintings when he painted the blue room in 1901.
Pierre Bonnard, Woman in a tub, 1912
Pierre Bonnard, Woman in a tub, 1912
The next painting in line was made by Pierre Bonnard.
I encountered Bonnard for the first time in a comprehensive way when I visited the exhibition of his works in London’s Tate Gallery in early 1998. It was a wonderful surprise.
 The Bath Baignoire (Le Bain) Date1925  Oil paint on canvas, Tate Gallery, London

The Bath – Baignoire (Le Bain) 1925
Oil paint on canvas, Tate Gallery, London

“Like Degas, Bonnard painted a lot of nudes in the bath. Sometimes he even photographed them.  So the bathtub appears as a kind of original place, Plato’s chora in which forms materialize, or space, the matrix of Derrida.”

“This is one of a series of paintings that Bonnard made of his wife Marthe in the bath. Though she was in her mid-fifties, the artist depicts her as a young woman. Marthe spent many hours in the bathroom: she may have had tuberculosis, for which water therapy was a popular treatment, or she may have had an obsessive neurosis. The bath, cut off at both ends, and the structure of the wall create a rigorously geometric composition. The effect is strangely lifeless, and almost tomb-like; as if the painting were a silent expression of sorrow for Marthe’s plight.”

Matisse, Large reclining nude (The Pink Nude)

Pierre Bonnard La Grande Baignoire (Nu), 1937–1939 The Large Bathtub (Nude) Oil on canvas, 94 × 144 cm Private collection
Pierre Bonnard
La Grande Baignoire (Nu), 1937–1939
The Large Bathtub (Nude)
Oil on canvas, 94 × 144 cm
Private collection

Pierre Bonnard: La Grande Baignoire (Nu), 1937–1939
The Large Bathtub (Nude)

There is a formula, which fits painting perfectly,” wrote Bonnard, “many little lies to create a great truth.”

Nude in the Bath and Small Dog. 1941-46. Oil on canvas. 48 x 59 1/2" (121.9 x 151.1 cm). Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
Nude in the Bath and Small Dog. 1941-46.
Oil on canvas. 48 x 59 1/2″ (121.9 x 151.1 cm). Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

Bonnard 1941-1946: Nude in the Bath and Small Dog (with thanks to Sheila Thornton)

The efflorescent explosion of colors in “Nude in the Bath and Small Dog” (1941-46) almost bars us from making any sense of the painting were it not for a few key recognizable objects–notably the dog and the bathtub, within which the details of the immersed figure of Marthe slowly appears. Bonnard places the figure frankly in the center of this fantastic scene. We witness the inanimate becoming animate as the bathtub mutates to adhere to Marthe’s form: bulging to accommodate the bend of her right knee and expanding with the curve of her head. The walls seem to gently breathe like a living organism, warping in dazzling, undulating waves along with the ripples of the tub water.

Ostensibly the scene is serenity itself, yet Bonnard allows us no rest in front of it. Not only does the bathroom sway in our vision, the whole of it will not come into focus at once from any one position. We must move from side to side and back and forth. By thus “performing” the painting we are made all the more conscious of our movement in contrast to the stillness of Marthe’s body. Marthe died in 1942, at age 72, before Bonnard had finished the painting.
Nude in Bathtub, the last of Bonnard’s treatments of this subject, is one of the great nudes of the twentieth century. The audacity of color that characterizes the artist’s mature work is evident in this painting’s dazzling mosaic of oranges, yellows, pinks, blues, violets, and greens. The originality of Bonnard’s chromatic daring is nearly equaled in this painting by a pictorial construct in which perspective and volume are denied and forms are piled up to hover over the flat plane of the canvas.

Bonnard transformed this domestic environment, with its comfortably curled-up family dachshund, into an exotic setting in which a young woman floats in a pearly tub, her flesh reflecting the opalescent colors that surround her. Marthe appears as the youthful woman of Bonnard’s memories. The result is a sensual, dreamlike, and private evocation.

Jeff Koons: Woman in Tub, Porcelain, 1988, Art Institute of Chicago
Jeff Koons: Woman in Tub, Porcelain, 1988, Art Institute of Chicago

Landing from Bonnard to Koons is a shock.

It is like landing on another planet.

In the website of the Art Institute of Chicago, we read:

Woman in Tub, based on a postcard, depicts a female nude acting out a crude sexual joke in the bathtub. Jeff Koons explained: “There’s a snorkel and somebody is doing something to her under the water because she’s grabbing her breasts for protection. But the viewer also wants to victimize her.” The cartoonlike rendering of the form belies the exquisite hard-paste porcelain finish, typical of 18th-century Rococo figurines. Part of his Banality series, which is characterized by oddly eroticized, comic, and kitsch images, this work demonstrates Duchampian and Pop Art strategies of appropriation and, combining imagery from multiple sources, makes the primary subject taste itself.” (1)

Jeff Koons: Woman in Tub, Porcelain, 1988, Art Institute of Chicago
Jeff Koons: Woman in Tub, Porcelain, 1988, Art Institute of Chicago

An article in Art Tattler International informs us: Koons has a strong connection to Chicago where he came in the 1970s to study at the School of the Art Institute under artists Ed Paschke and Jim Nutt and briefly worked at the MCA as a preparator. For Koons, this was a critical time in his development — what he calls a period of transcendence. In practical terms, working for and befriending the artist Ed Paschke taught him that he could be a professional artist. Koons began to see his ideas in dialogue with Dada, Surrealism, and the Chicago Imagists, all genres that communicate with personal icons: from Salvador Dali’s mustache to Paschke’s tattoo parlors. Through Paschke and others, he looked to the external world to find his personal iconography, which he used to explore his subjectivity, transcend his limits, and fulfill his potential as an artist. 

It is time to recap.

What a journey!

Edouard Manet
Edouard Manet

Manet’s picture is effecting a dialogue between the woman/model and the observer/painter.

There is no idealization of the female body.

Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas

Degas is painting with passion, but the woman looks like an object enclosed in a solitary space.

We can see her, but she cannot. She is alone.

No idealization of the female body here.

Pierre Bonnard
Pierre Bonnard

Bonnard moves us to a different world.

The interplay between the flesh and th water, the function of the tub as the defining space, the luminosity of the tiles, they all contribute to create a world of ever changing illusion.

Jeff Koons
Jeff Koons

Koons is ending the journey as a hurricane, There is violence, panic, and sensuality. And a very peculiar sense of humour.

Relevant posts: 

Painting the human body, October 2011

Three female nudes, October 2010

A crouching Aphrodite in London

I was in London for a few days and had the opportunity to visit the British Museum.

This post is about a crouching Aphrodite in the Museum. All the photos are mine, unless stated otherwise.

The statue’s official description given by the Museum’s web site is:

“Marble statue of a naked Aphrodite crouching at her bath”

Roman, 2nd century AD; a version of an original from Hellenistic Greece

The woman portrayed is a young woman, who literally sits on a jug of water which she presumably used to bathe herself.

Aphrodite or not, the woman is ordinary. There is nothing exceptional about here.

There is a very strong sense of motion in her body.

The body is turned to the left, but the face is looking at something to her right.

There is a sense of surprise in her look.

Her right hand is almost touching her hair on the left.

The overall posture of the body seems to be unusual by today’s strandards, and this is not only because of the jug.

Why did she assume this highly uncomfortable position?

What was the reason she turned her head to her right?

Was her name Aphrodite? Or the artist named the model in such a way due to commercial reasons?

This statue is sometimes known as ‘Lely’s Venus’ since it once belonged to the baroque portrait painter Sir Peter Lely (1618-80). It was subsequently acquired by King Charles I (reigned 1625-49).

(Source: British Museum’s website)

The three-dimensionality of the statue is typical of Hellenistic sculpture, as is the hairstyle with its elaborate top-knot. (Source: British Museum’s website)

Other versions of the crouching Aphrodite are known: some have an additional figure of Eros, the god of love, while others show the goddess kneeling on a water jar to indicate that she is bathing. (Source: British Museum’s website)

The way of expressing the human figure is realistic.  The idealization of the classical period has gone.

Another classical feature that is absent is the focused sexuality of the female body.

I look at this body and it has strength, it has tension, it stands solidly on earth, but is not the body that invites to sexual pleasures by its posture or disposition.

Compare and contrast with this statue, which stands next to the crouching Aphrodite.

It is this unique ability of the artist to portray a normal woman taken by surprise after taking her bath that moved me. It is real, it is strong, it is right in front of you and makes a statement: “I exist”. The nakedness of the body is not shocking, or arousing. It comes naturally. This simplicity and directness and total respect for the unadulterated human body, makes this statue special.

 

When eros makes life impossible: A “Fluxus Eleatis” discourse

In the surging swell,
In the ringing sound,
In the world-breath
In the waves of the All
To drown,
To sink, to drown –
Unconscious –
Supreme bliss –

Tristan and Isolde: Act III, Scene III

MM: Mathilde A jumps in the torrent created by the rain. Her body is recovered a few hours later.

Mrs. T: Mathilde B shoots Bernard first, and then she shoots herself. Both are dead instantly.

Mr. FFF: Diane runs screaming to her bed and she shoots herself.

von Grimmelshausen: Werther new that one of the three of them, Albert, Lotte and Werther himself, would have to die. He could not kill anyone but himself.

Mathilde A: (reads her suicide note) I am going before your desire dies. Then we’d be left with affection alone, and I know that won’t be enough. I’m going before I grow unhappy. I go bearing the taste of our embraces, your smell, your look, your kisses. I go with the memory of my loveliest years, the ones you gave me. I kiss you now so tenderly, I die of it.

Mathilde B: I needed to talk to him (Bernard). This is all I was thinking about when I was in the hospital (recovering from a nervous breakdown). But when the time came for me to go, and I put on my raincoat, without plan, withour hesitation, I got the handgun that Philippe (my husband) ket in his study and put it in my pocket. I kissed hm passionately. We rolled on the floor. And when he was on top of me, and when the last intercourse was over, I pulled the gun and I shot him. He did not even realize what was happening. I then turned the gun to my left temple and pulled the trigger. It was over in less than thirty seconds.

Diane: When I saw the blue key on my coffee table I knew that the deed was done. Camilla was no longer in this world. It had to be this way. She betrayed me. She was going to marry Adam. She was also fucking about. She was no good. She had to go. But I had to go as well.

Werther: And so it is the last time, the last time that I open these eyes…Lotte, it is a feeling unlike any other, and still it seems like an undetermined dream for one to say to himself: this is the last morning. … Lotte, I have no idea about the meaning of the word: the last! To die! what does it mean? I have seen many people dying; but humanity is so limited that it has no felling for the beginning and the end of its existence. .. All these are perishable, but there is no eternity that can erase the warmth of life that I tasted yesterday in your lips and I now feel inside me! She loves me! These arms have held her, these lips have touched hers trembling, this mouth has whispered something to hers. She is mine! You are mine! Yes, Lotte, for ever.

Mrs. T: Who is this von Grimmelshausen?

Mr. FFF:He is a German scholar from the Black Forest.

MM: How come he is here with us?

Mr. FFF: He is traveller. He goes to places. He meets people. That’s how.

Mrs. T: Have you seen what is inside the brown leather bag he is carrying with im like a treasure?

Mr. FFF: I recall you back to order!

Mrs. T: Ok, I was just curious.

Madame Guyon: The noonday of glory; a day no longer followed by night; a life that no longer fears death, even in death itself, because death has overcome death, and because whoever has suffered the first death will no longer feel the second.

Matthias Claudius: Man’s way of thinking can pass over from a point of the periphery to the opposite point, and back again to the previous point, if circumstances trace out for him the curved path to it. And these changes are not really anything great and interesting in man. But that remarkable, catholic, transcendental change, when the whole circle is irreparably torn up and all the laws of psychology become vain and empty, where the coat of skins is taken off, or at any rate turned inside out, and man’s eyes are opened, is such that everyone who is conscious to some extent of the breath in his nostrils, forsakes mother and father, if he can hear and experience something certain about it.

Horace: How is it that no one is satisfied with his own condition?

Filippo Ottonieri: The reason is that no condition is happy. The servvants, as well as the princes, the poor as well as the rich, the weak as well as the powerful would all be extremely well satisfied with their lot and would feel no envy for the others were they happy; for men are no more impossible to satisfy than any other species; but they can be content with happiness only. Now, as they are always unhappy, should we wonder if they are never satisfied?

Julia Kristeva: To be sure, analytic discourse does not, or at any rate does not always suffer from the apparent excesses of amorous language, which range from hypnotic fascination with the presumed ideal qualities of the partner to hysterical sentimental effusion to phobias of abandonment. Nevertheless, it is want of love that sends the subject into analysis, which proceeds by first restoring confidence in, and capacity for, love through the transference and then enabling the subject to distance himself or herself from the analyst. From being the subject of an amorous discourse during the years of my analysis (and, in the best of circumstances, beyond them), I discover  my potential for psychic renewal, intellectual innovation, and even physical change. This kind of experience seems to be the specific contribution of our modern civilization to the history of amorous discourse. The analytic situation is the only place explicitly provided for in the social contract in which we are allowed to talk about the wounds we have suffered and to search for possible new identities and new ways of talking about ourselves.

Arthur Schopenhauer: Selfishness is “eros” (in Greek ερως), sympathy or compassion is “love”  (in Greek αγαπη).

Friedrich Nietzsche: The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets through many a dark night.

Christiane Olivier: Is love, then, an impossibility? The couple is the fantasy of finding again, at last, a mother whom one has never yet met: for the woman, desiring; for the man, not stifling. It is the dream so well imagined by Verlaine: “I often have this strange, affecting dream of an unknown woman, who loves me and whom I love, and who each time is neither quite the same, nor quite other.” 

MM: Eros and Thanatos.

Mrs. T: Libido and Mortido.

Mr. FFF: Life instinct and death instinct.

MM: We are back in the field of the philosophy of the opposites!

Mrs. T: But are we? It appears to me that somehow Eros leads the actor to Thanatos! I see no opposites here, I see two complementary instincts.

Mr. FFF: I wish it were as simple as that. In my view Eros not only leads to Thanatos in the cases under consideration, it seems to me that Eros appeals to Thanatos to seal its eternal meaning. As if Eros does not attain its ultimate state unless it reaches Thanatos.

Jacinta: I was sixteen when, one night while I was sleeping, I had a dream. (Woe is me! And even when I was awake I relieved that dream.) I was going through a lovely forest and in the very depths of the forest, I met the most handsome man I had ever in my life seen. His face was shadowed by the edge of a fawn cape with silver hooks and catches. Attracted by his appearance, I stopped to gaze at him. Eager to see if his face looked as I imagined, I approached and boldly pulled aside his cape. The moment I did, he drew a dagger and plunged it into my heart so violently that the pain made me cry out, and all my maids came running in. As soon as I awoke from this dark dream, I lost sight of the fact that he had done me such injury, and I felt more deeply affected than you can imagine. His image remained etched in my memory. It did not fade away or disappear for ever so long. Noble Fabio, I yearned to find a man with exactly his appearance and bearing to be my husband. These thoughts so obsessed me that I kept imagining and reimagining that scene, and I would have conversations with him. Before you knew it, I was madly in love with a mystery man whom I didn’t know, but you must believe that if the god Narcissus was dark, then surely he was Narcissus.

Arthur Schopenhauer: They tell us that suicide is the greatest act of cowardice… that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.

Herodotus: When life is so burdensome, death has become for man a sought-after refuge.

ΜΜ: Freud claimed the death instinct drives people to death so that they can have real peace, and only death can get rid of tension and struggles. This is the case of Werther.

Mrs. T: When people feel extreme joy, they want to die and hope time will stop at that moment, which is also the evidence of death instinct, the transformation of life instinct into death instinct. This is the case of Mathilde A.

Mr. FFF: The death instinct exists in almost everyone’s subconscious. It is an irresistible instinctive power in human beings’ consciousness. Many people may deny that there is a death instinct in their consciousness. Indeed, people’s life instinct is very strong. However, if they examine their flashes of idea in their consciousness, they can find that just like death instinct, their desire for death is sometimes also very strong.

Jacinta: Because of this obsession I could neither eat nor sleep. My face lost its color and I experienced the most profound melancholy of my life. Everyone noticed the changes in me. Who, Fabio, ever heard of anyone loving a mere shadow? They may tell tales about people who’ve loved monsters and other incredible things, but at least what they loved had form! I sympathized with Pygmalion who loved the statue that ultimately Jupiter brought to life for him, and with the youth from Athens, and with the lovers who loved a tree or a dolphin. But what I loved was a mere fantasy, a shadow. What would people think of that? Nobody would believe me and, if they did, they’d think I’d lost my mind. But I give you my word of honor as a noblewoman, that not in this or in anything else I’ll tell you, do I add a single word that isn’t the truth. You can imagine that I talked to myself. I reproved myself, and, to free myself from my obsessive passion, I looked very carefully at all the elegant young men who lived in my city and tried to grow fond of one of them. Everything I did simply made me love my phantom more, and nowhere could I find his equal. My love grew and grew so great that I even composed poetry to my beloved ghost.

Julia Kristeva: Loss of the erotic object (unfaithfulness or desertion by the lover or husband, divorce, etc) is felt by the woman as an assault on her genitality and, from that point of view, amounts to castration. At once, such a castration starts resonating with the threat of destruction of the body’s integrity, the body image, and the entire psychic system as well. As a result, feminine castration, rather than being diseroticized, is concealed by narcissistic anguish, which masters and protects eroticism as a shameful secret.

MM: I love you so much I want to kill myself.

Mrs. T: I love you so much I want to kill you.

Mr. FFF: I love you so much I want to kill myself, but I will kill you first, before you kill me.

Albert Camus: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.  Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.  All the rest – whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories – comes afterwards.  These are games; one must first answer [the questions of suicide].”

Arthur Schopenhauer: To those in whom the will has turned and denied itself, this very real world of ours, with its suns and galaxies, is – nothing.

MM: Driven to suicide by eros is one thing, killing your lover and then killing yourself is another.

Mrs. T: It may not be premedidated, but evolutionary. You start by wanting to exterminate the cause of your living hell, your lover, and you do. And then, after you have done it, you figure out that the road has now opened for your own departure from this world as well.

Mr. FFF: This theory may apply to both Diane and Mathilde B. I would like to note though, that Time could be the differentiator. In Mathilde B’s case, she kills herself imeediately after she has killed Bernard. Whereas Diane kills herself after she realizes that the “contract” on Camille’s life has been successfully executed.

Participants

Albert Camus, French philosopher

Matthias Claudius, German poet

Diane Selwyn, protagonist in David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive”

von Grimmelshausen, a German nobleman and writer

Madame Guyon, French mystic

Mr. FFF, wanderer

Herodotus, Greek historian

Horace, Roman poet

Jacinta, character in Maria de Zayas’ “The enchantements of love”

Julia Kristeva, French-Bulgarian psychoanalyst

Mathilde A, the hairdresser in Patrice Leconte’s “The Hairdresser’s Husband”

Mathilde B, the woman next door, in Francois Truffaut’s “The Woman next Door”

MM, partner

Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher

Christiane Olivier, French psychoanalyst

Filippo Ottonieri, a very thin disguise for Giacomo Leopardi himself

Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher

Mrs. T, unknown ethinicity, gourmant

Werther, a fictional character created by Goethe

Diane Arbus, American Photographer

Diane Arbus

Photographer

American

Female

“Diane was fascinated by weirdos,”

“Not just by their weirdness, but by their commitment to weirdness.” James Randi

“I go up and down a lot” Diane Arbus

…violent changes of mood…

 48 years old

fully dressed in a bathtub

her wrists slit

………….

Lynda Benglis – American Artist

Lynda Benglis at Le Consortium

Today’s post concludes a sequence of three consecutive posts dedicated to female American artists (poets are artists).

Lynda Benglis: Roberta (1974)

Sculpture, enamel, sculpmetal and tinsel on aluminium screeing and foil
Primary Insc: not signed, not dated.
79.1 h x 89.1 w x 41.3 d cm

Lynda Benglis is an American artist, mainly sculptor with Greek blood. Her father’s family was Greek in origin and she still has family on the tiny Greek island of Kastellorizo.

She was born in Louisiana in 1941 and after graduating from college moved to New York in 1964.

Christopher Knight writes in Los Angeles Times:

“When she arrived in New York shortly after, in the mid-1960s, art’s purity police were out in full force, busily patrolling what artists shouldn’t do when making paintings and mustn’t do when making sculptures.

If you sense a collision coming, take a bow. Benglis, after surveying Manhattan’s art landscape, did the only reasonable thing. In the face of its ponderous penitential virtue, she brought Mardi Gras to Soho.

The fiesta was undertaken neither lightly nor at random. Ambitious, she looked hard at the local art that had come before, from the 1940s to the early 1960s. Much of it was great; still, it’s always helpful to know how we get to where we are.

She looked at Jackson Pollock’s skeins of dripped paint and at Helen Frankenthaler’s big puddles of stained color. Barnett Newman’s zip-lines — those ambiguous vertical bars of color dividing fields of painted light and darkness — came under scrutiny. So did more recent work: Carl Andre’s checkerboards of metal plates that turned the floor into an artistic pedestal for people, Donald Judd’s orderly sculptural subdivisions of space and Richard Serra’s molten lead splashed into studio corners — all of them sculptures directly challenging the postwar primacy of painting. “

Lynda Benglis: Smile (1974) cast bronze

Benglis has a powerful sense of humour, which she manifested gloriously in her 1974 advert in Artforum magazine.

Hilarie Sheets comments in her New York Times article:

“She (Benglis) lampooned both the machismo of the art world and the way artists were expected to promote themselves in a market-driven system by exposing herself, with a dildo between her legs, in a 1974 Artforum advertisement that she paid for, earning her as many fans as detractors.”

Lynda Benglis: Phantom

Arttatler offer the followng insight into Benglis’ work:

“Benglis’s best-known works question the rigors of Modernism and Minimalism by merging material, form, and content; bringing color back into sculpture; and taking painting off the wall. These works include her richly layered wax paintings and poured latex and polyurethane foam sculptures of the late 1960s and early ’70s; innovative videos, installations, and “knots” from the 1970s; metalized, pleated wall pieces of the 1980s and 1990s; and pieces in a variety of other mediums, such as glass, ceramics, photography, or cast polyurethane, as in the case of the monumental The Graces (2003-05)”

Lynda Benglis: The Graces

In her 2010 interview to the “frieze”, Benglis talked to Marina Cashdan about her art and work in a comprehensive way. I copy here one of the questions and the answer:

MC: Is Robert Pincus-Witten’s term for your work, ‘the frozen gesture’, a misnomer, because your work feels more like it’s living, an act as opposed to a confined object?
Lynda Benglis: Well ‘the frozen gesture’ was something that I think both Yves Klein and Franz Kline had done. Symbolically, Klein jumped out the window: he was involved with gesture, process (his ‘women brushes’ painting with their bodies) and the symbolic (sponges soaked with his paint on monochromatic blue canvases). Kline took the gesture and made it iconographic. Frank Stella said that Kline was one of his favourite artists, so I think Stella himself took the canvas, the stretcher bars, and turned them on their side to make them painted objects, as did other artists who were using materials and geometry. They were presenting something that was, in a way, rebellious and sometimes simplistic, and it was called Minimalism. I saw that and understood it in the context of where art could go, but for me it was a statement that seemed very rococo. It was way out on a limb. I felt that art had to have more content, a multiplicity of meaning and associations. And even many of those so-called Minimal artists broke out of their own self-created mould! ”

Lynda Benglis at Le Consortium

On the occasion of her first major retrospective in the UK, Benglis talked to “The Guardian’s” Laura Barnett, and concluded as follows:

“You can say, ‘Is there the influence of Greece?’ or ‘Do these works look like the sea?’ Those things are all there, but there are many other associations. I think all good art is really abstract. That’s how it transcends cultural differences. That’s how it speaks to us.”

Lynda Benglis: Untitled