The Representation of the Object in Modernism (original) (raw)
Related papers
2012
This paper deals with the complex relationship of the modern psychoanalytic subject to his object which is both a material embodiment of the subject in representation (art and literature) and a metaphysical form of the subject as absence. The space of the subject in the world of objects is illustrated through an analysis of Surrealist art and poetry and the continuation of the paradigm in postmodern forms of representation, for which Andrei Voznesensky's poem "Oza" serves as an example.
Facta Universitatis Series: Philosophy, Sociology, Psychology and History, 2011
This paper deals with the complex relationship of the modern psychoanalytic subject to his object which is both a material embodiment of the subject in representation (art and literature) and a metaphysical form of the subject as absence. The space of the subject in the world of objects is illustrated through an analysis of Surrealist art and poetry and the continuation of the paradigm in postmodern forms of representation, for which Andrei Voznesensky's poem "Oza" serves as an example.
Modern and Postmodern Expressions of the Self: Freudian Psychoanalysis of Art
The International Journal of Indian Psychology, 2021
Sigmund Freud's method of psychoanalysis has not only been fundamental for the discipline of psychology, but also for analysing works of art. Freud, beginning with his oft-cited psychobiography of Leonardo da Vinci, introduced the concept of studying an artist and its praxis from a psychic space; a concept that was revolutionary for its society that up until then experienced artworks through a romantic lens. The creation of a work of art was no longer simply the product of an intuitive 'genius,' but also the culmination of psychological factors like suppressed wishes and instinctual desires, familial relationships, childhood experiences, and dream sequences and fantasies, among others. Not only has such psychoanalysis inspired the Surrealist art movement, but also helped scholars in studying works of art, and their artists. In this paper, using Freudian principles, I psychoanalyse eight works of art produced in and beyond the ambit of Surrealism. With such an exercise, my aim here is to examine the creation of the self-portrait (and by extension, the image of an artist's self) as a site of multiplicities. It is a site that is the product of an unconscious that is being constantly shaped, right from the artist's childhood. For every artist, I have provided a small vignette that explains their oeuvre, its influences and aims, and how we can study the subtextual elements of their influential unconscious. With my examination, we can witness the projection of the self in a postmodern world where such sites are by their very nature, deconstructed, transient, and multiple.
Praktyka Teoretyczna
The article discusses the possibilities of the emergence of a neo-materialistic aesthetics of the poem. Each of the analyzed examples—Ewa Partum’s active poetry, Adam Kaczanowski’s toy-art and Andrzej Tobis’s photographic archive—reveals different aspects of this aesthetics. The case of Partum shows that the material concreteness of poetry—today also associated with virtuality— requires other ways of perceiving / commenting / documenting the “poems” happening between the media. Active poetry consists in drawing the text (which eventually turns out to be a jigsaw made of letters) out of the formula of the finished object and making the medium of writing/language the material from which the object of artistic attention is “made”. I call Tobis’s project neo-materialistic, since it shows how we move from the human hybrid level we move to normalization and stabilization (and vice versa). Tobis seems to reach the moment when this normalization is actually happening and, at the same time, ...
Oggetti Poetici: Preliminary Notes for a Surrealist Rereading of Arte povera
ISSS Surrealisms, 2022
As early as 1967, Italian critics such as Carla Lonzi and Marisa Volpi noticed how Surrealism had influenced the works of Arte povera, the most important Italian art movement of the postwar period. The relationship with Surrealism remained for a long time removed from the critical and historical discussion, not least to emphasize the movement’s all-Italian specificity. This contribution, considering critics’ remarks, artists’ statements, and the artworks themselves, will try to recompose this gap, proposing to highlight the surrealist background of many Arte Povera works and actions. In some cases, it will be possible to trace direct and declared influences, made possible by the significant presence of surrealist works in the Italian art market and collections. However, in the most intriguing cases, the influence of Surrealism is more subtle and conceptual, and less direct. It must be traced on a more theoretical level, focusing on the aesthetic functioning of artworks. Building on Gillo Dorfles’ considerations of the value of the object for international artistic research in the 1960s, the contribution will propose an extensive recourse to the surrealist category of “oggetto poetico” (poetic object, objet poétique). The presentation will aim to demonstrate how this surrealist label allows emphasizing the constitutive duplicity of Arte povera works, highlighting the centrality of the materiality and tangible presence of the work, while at the same time underscoring its associative and evocative power. In the first part, I will present a brief historical definition of "poetic objects." I will summarize the Surrealist debate on objects between the 1920s and 1930s and present its Italian reception in the 1960s and 1970s. In the second part, I will consider the Arte povera's anti-object drive. Germano Celant and many of the movement’s artists repeatedly declared themselves against the notion of "object." I will address the genesis of this rejection, highlight its ideological reasons, and propose a partial overcoming of it. Finally, in the third and final part, I will try to apply the Surrealist concept of "poetic object" to some of Arte Povera’s works. Starting from the critical considerations of Gillo Dorfles and Marisa Volpi, considering the Italian reception of surrealist objects, I will address a series of case studies based on works by Giuseppe Penone, Pino Pascali, and Michelangelo Pistoletto. In conclusion, I will focus on a particularly relevant case: Jannis Kounellis.
Art as a Cathartic Expression of the Self Understood as an Existential Object
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), 2022
The article presents an idea of what art is based on the individual's cathartic expression, in which his exploration of the self finds what it expressions reflected in the images it produces, interpreted by those who are willing to admire it. In this sense, the objective of this work is to understand how art came to become an essential element for human existence, composing an elementary part of his psychic health. To achieve this understanding, authors on art and its manifestations over time have been used in a bibliographic research. As a result, the text in question is presented, showing all the cathartic force that it allows to expose. The development of the human mind and civilizing processes make life more masked under the hallucinogenic effects of evolution and the principles of power and sociogenic relationships. Art and its symbolic expression is not a technique that develops only with time or practice; much more than that, it needs to be constantly elaborated and redesigned , starting from the reading of the reality that makes up society and the challenges posed by existence. Artistic abstraction is a complex intellectual construction, where visual and non-visual elements, with objective and subjective characters are present, tying together a brilliant psychological drama that involves various moments of the artist, where their respective worlds are represented as creatures expressed in images, expressing the same feelings as those that inhabit the world as we know it, with the difference that the literal condition of the world was subjectivated by the artist's surreal perception. Finally, it is concluded that art is a profound cathexial expression of what man feels as being repressed by his limited existence in time and space.
Philologica Jassyensia, 2019
In this paper, I focus on the role played by material objects in the evocation of a specific imaginary of the recent past (mainly the 1970s and 1980s) in the literary works of Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov (in the novels “The Physics of Sorrow” and “Natural Novel”) and of Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk (in “The Museum of Innocence”). I analyze the presence of feelings of melancholy and loss accompanied by a fixation on objects in the fictional works and describe their possible overcoming through an externalization in the form of museum exhibitions in the city of Sofia and Istanbul such as the “Inventory depository of Socialism” and the “Museum of Innocence”. By viewing objects as actors capable of creating meaningful social networks, I consider their use in the narration of personal and collective histories and their transformation as powerful symbols of a bygone era.
Topic: Psychoanalysis and postmodernism
Psychoanalysis and postmodernism, 2012
In this work it will be realized the analysis and conclusions of the present subject and of the clinic, the currently of psychoanalysis, and the proposals that the psychoanalysis provides for the treatment of the new subject product of this post-modernity. I`ll tried to define the new product subject now, and who sometimes may not be identified by its logical reasoning, the relevance of psychoanalysis to the treatment of this new subject; it is called into question and finally to explores several possibilities to work with this new subject.
In Search of the Lost World: the Modernist Quest for the Thing, Matter, and Body
Vernon Press, 2023
From a historical perspective, the book studies how modernist artists, as the first generation who began to rethink intensively the legacy of German Idealism, sought to recreate the self so as to recreate their relationships with the material world. Theoretically, the book converses with the topical de-anthropocentric interests in the 21st century and proposes that the artist may escape human-centeredness through the transformation of the self. Part One, “Artificiality,” begins the discussion with the fin-de-siècle cult of artificiality, where artists such as Theophile Gautier, Charles Baudelaire, J.K. Huysmans, and Gustave Moreau dedicate themselves to love stony sphinxes, marble statues, and inorganic appearances. The cult of artificiality is a mischievous subversion to Hegel’s maxim that inwardness is superior to matter. In the cult of artificiality, art is superior to nature, though art is no longer defined as immaterial imagination but rather reconfigured as mysterious appearances that defy signification and subjugate the feeling heart. Part Two, “Auto-philosophical Fiction,” discusses the genre where the artists (Marcel Proust, Walter Pater, and Virginia Woolf) set philosophical ideas in the laboratory of their lives and therefore translate their aesthetic ideals—the way they wish to relate to the world—into a journey of self-examination and self-cultivation. In Pater’s novel 'Marius the Epicurean', the hero explores how a philosophical percept may be translated into sentiments and actions, demonstrating that literature is a unique approach to truth as it renders theory into a transformative experience. Exploring the latest findings of empiricist psychology, the artists seek to escape the Kantian trap by cultivating their powers of reception and to register passing thoughts and sensations. Together, the book argues that de-anthropocentrism cannot be predicated upon a metaphysics that presumes universal subjectivity but must be a form of aesthetic inquiry that recreates the self in order to recreate our relationships with the world.