FIGURING ABSTRACTION

The Shifting of Reality in Po-Mo Art
A Treatise on Lindslee’s “Figuring Abstraction”
“Modern art touches a sore spot, or several sore spots, in the ordinary citizen of which he is totally unaware. The more irritated he becomes at modern art the more he betrays the fact that he himself, and his civilization, are implicated in what the artist shows him.”

-William Barrett, Irrational Man

The image of man in the post-modern world is no longer the image of what the Greco-Roman art and the religious beliefs projected in the past, but an image of l’art brut (brute art)¹: bold, harsh and desolate. It strips man from mythical and illusory beliefs and brings his senses to an awful changing reality of his post-modern society. Philosophers, writers and artists alike depict his iconic existence with bleak image, alone, estranged and alienated from himself and his society.

He is no longer the man hanging on the ceiling of Sistine chapel; neither is he the man of Shakespeare or Leonardo da Vinci for that mater. But he is the man of Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus, Picasso, Einstein, the Terrorists, Cybercafé, Popular Culture, Globalization, Materialism, and so on and so forth.

One can marvel with bitter-sweet feeling at Picasso distorted faces on canvas or his controversial and celebrated “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon”. The painting was first exhibited in 1916 and, at that time, it was considered as immoral. Another controversial and, perhaps, the most influential work was Marcel Duchamp’s “Urinal”. The artist took the urinal, signed it and placed it on display in 1917, New York; it shocked the viewers and the art establishment.

What does urinal signify in the society of materialism and technology?

In the cotemporary art scene, a British artist Damien Hirst earned the ire of animal rights activists when he exhibited his iconic “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living” (1992), a 14-foot tiger shark immersed with formaldehyde in a vitrine. In 2005, an Austrian cartoonist Gerhard Haderer was facing a prison time in Greece for blasphemy due to his satirical book “The Life of Jesus”, which was eventually banned in country.  He portrayed Jesus having a drink with Jimi Hendrix and riding a surf board while stoned and naked².

Is Jesus, supposedly, the Man-God for everyone?

Conversely, art in the po-mo (post-modern) world is constantly shifting and moving forward, not backward, in the midst of man’s changing reality. It is an art that transcends between the ugly and the beautiful, the profane and the religious, the banal and the metaphysical, reshaping and redefining itself amid the signs and designs of the times.

Figuring Abstraction: The Shifting of Reality in Lindslee’s Art
In his insatiable quest for aesthetic meaning, Lindsey “Lindslee” James Lee questions whether abstract art is the end in itself defaced and bereft of figurative elements on a flattened surface of canvas. Or is it an indefinite medium open to a more concrete signification in the context of man’s post-modern life and existence.

In his provocative images (paintings and installations) with thematic title “Figuring Abstraction”, the artist challenges the normative concept of abstract art as a medium. In the same way, as po-mo art questions whether the image of man is confined within the conventional belief, or is it shifting toward a more concrete definition in the post modern society.

Perchance, it is no longer a question: what is art in the modern world, but how art mimics, nay, projects like a mirror the image of po-mo man in relation to his changing environment.

In his “Wake-up Call” installation, Lindslee nestled a taxidermal rooster on top of a backlit box.  At the right side of the box is an inscribed text “Idealism” and on the left “Paranoia”. The rooster, in an elegant posture, is clothed with knitted pink apron in a fashionable manner as though the chicken is geared up to ramp before the audience.

Tinged with satire and sarcasm, the sculptural installation signifies the existential reality of man and his society. Lindslee dissects the darker side of human psyche wallowing within the pendulous tensions of idealism and paranoia. The haunting imagery symbolizes the two opposing sides of man’s perception of reality. He can either be paranoid of reality or he can be desperate to believe on something sublime, which is beyond the reality of his existence.

Another satirical image titled “See You in Heaven”, the artist painted a realistic portrayal of ladder amid the undefined mass of yellow and off-white colors. At the lower center of 4 X 4 feet canvas, a written text that says “Answer Your Own Question”.

Here, Lindslee is anticipating the viewers’ sceptical response: Does heaven exist? And his reply on the canvas: “Answer Your Own Question”. The artist does not only anticipate the possible response to the title, he also foresees the kind of crowd who might view his art, a mixed crowd of progressive minds and sceptics.

As indicative in his incisive use of symbols, the artist completely deconstructs the finitude of abstraction by substituting it with a more sensual and perceptible elements.  The use of taxidermy, for instance, and the aleatory portrayal of figures, amplifies the inevitable reality in the context of his own image of man within and beyond the borders of his creation.

He proposes two constitutive elements within the anatomical composition of his works. The first proposition is the conceptual aspect on how to elevate abstraction into a higher level by integrating new objects, which are not inherent in the medium. The second proposition is the execution of these objects as figurative representation of his art from metaphysical to the tangible realities of a post-modern man in his society.

Apparently, the shifting of reality in Lindslee’s art is not only evident in his use of symbolic materials, but also evident in his intellectual maturity to engage his viewers toward an aesthetic dialogue. It is a dialogue that situates man face to face to an awful reality of his changing environment.

Figuring Abstraction: The Equivocal Meaning
Figuring Abstraction, as an ambiguous theme, is the artist’s discursive proposition from savoir-faire (conventional or commonly accepted norms) to savoir-vivre (the ability to live and explore beyond the conventions or the given sets of rules and values).

The savoir-faire, as employed by this writer in the context of modern aesthetics, is the inherent principle of art as an end itself with fixed essence and nature – i.e., material composition, form, color and texture – its capability to become in-itself and for-itself. Art, therefore, in this manner, is defined based on its composition and its causality as a principle0 in itself.

The savoir-vivre, on the other hand, is the symbolic principle transcending beyond its material composition – the source of revelatory meaning in contrast to what is conventionally accepted as a norm. It is the becoming of art as a metaphysical symbol and as an independent reality from its material composition.

For instance, in one of his abstract paintings, the artist sliced the taxidermal goat in half and attached the rump to the painted canvas with rear end facing the viewer. Novel and waggish, the imagery that the artwork evokes is mixed with satire and dark humor.

The artist seemed to be indulging with mischievous sarcasm as though telling his viewers that abstraction is not only about obscure forms or colors on canvas, but it can also be seen at the butt of his life-size goat.

In another work on 4 x 6 feet canvas titled “Defining Gravity”, the artist painted a varying tone of black, white, and grey colors.  At the upper left of the canvas, is an undefined mass of crimson lake adjacent to the realistic figure of man (self-portrait) standing on his side. The textures and colors of the canvas are arbitrarily arranged, which is, evidently; the characteristics of abstraction.

However, what makes the artwork arresting amid its mass of undefined forms and colors is the realistic figure within the canvas. Otherwise, without the figurative aspect of the composition, the canvas is bleak and dreary. Obviously, the artist intentionally infused the figurative element to create a pictorial tension. Hence, the title “Defining Gravity” literally creates a gravitational impact within the composition and from the perspective of the viewers.

The artist, subsequently, redefines the two basic principles of abstraction.  First, he explores the aleatory symbol of selected elements, i.e., the realistic depiction of man, chicken, ladder or bicycle, as a shifting device to put gravitational weight on the surface of his canvas.

Second, the artist does not only explore what is abstraction in literal sense. He uses his auxiliary skill as a taxidermist to heighten the symbolic meaning of reality within the form and structure of his creation.

 The resultant images of his works generate a magnificent force of symbolic structure and meaning – the savoir-vivre of the medium in relation to the artist’s unrestricted freedom to create.

The Taxidermal Elements
As an abstract and taxidermy artist, Lindslee skilfully concocted a more challenging formula in his art by integrating the two aesthetic entities into his works.

Taxidermy³, from Greek word means “the arrangement in the skin”, is the art of mounting or reproducing animals and Humans for display (e.g. as hunting trophies) or for scientific and artistic of studies. The process of taxidermy is to carefully clean out the animal’s internal organs and treat the anatomical structure and skin with substances in order to preserve a life-like figure of the animal.

The unique use of taxidermal elements in Lindslee’s art is arbitrarily born out of the desire to explore and elevate his aesthetics to a more concrete expression of reality, a reality from which the artist wishes to reveal be it beautiful or ugly.

In his abstract work titled “Sex and Painting”, he stuck the taxidermal bust of rabbit facing toward the viewer with inscribed text at the lower right portion of the canvas that says: “I am first”. The artist seemed to be asserting that he is the first one to do it, or is it related to a sexual virginal encounter?

Equally thought-provoking is the artwork “Ugly Painting”, an installation of taxidermal duck sitting on a bench painted, at the right portion, with the figure of Jesus Christ (Sacred Heart). Below the bench is a huge white egg, which is five times larger than the life-size duck.

The symbolism of the duck, giant egg and a religious icon elicits a haunting reality. The poignant imagery signifies two realities. First, it symbolizes the complacency of man’s faith still being hatched on the figurative symbol of egg. Second, the work itself becomes a symbolic icon of complacency in art. It is a common experience among artists, who have already attained the pinnacle of their creativity, as though nothing is worth exploring anymore in art.

The taxidermal elements did not only signify the reality that Lindslee wanted to portray in his art. But it also magnifies that same reality to a higher level of man’s consciousness and his struggle to create and to become. As a supplementary device to his art making, the artist has achieved his artistic freedom with magnificent force, creating a powerful medium in his quest for a highly sensitive aesthetics.

Any art that carries a persuasive element or device can only be real and authentic if they derived from the development of the artist’s consciousness. Lindslee’s penchant for animals, not only in his art, but the live ones (chicken, goat and rabbit) is reflective of his bucolic environment as a child surrounded with domesticated animals.

Consequently, the uniqueness of Lindslee’s art is rooted from the environment that nurtured his ideals and his perception of life.

The Aesthetic Symbol as a Revelation of Truth
There is a parallelism of art and religion in using symbolism to reveal the truth. Religion uses earthly symbols to teach and reveal the Divine and spiritual realities while art, on the other hand, uses it to reveal and magnify the concrete realities of human existence.

Symbolism, as an aesthetic genre, was first introduced in France in the late 19^th century as an offshoot to the realistic approach of impressionism. It serves as a catalyst resulting from the darker sides of Romanticism, which is leaning toward abstraction. ⁴

Symbolism, per se, is the systematic use of symbols and allegorical portrayal on literary works or in the pictorial compositions of canvas. The artists in the 19^th century used dreams, religious and mythological elements to express the visual language of the souls. However, in the post-modern society, symbolism has gone further from mere subjective expression of the soul. It concretizes that expression to a more engaging discourse based on the concrete condition of man and his society.

The use of symbolism in Lindslee’s art is generally coherent and rational but, at times, it can be capricious and satirical. In his painting titled “Vindicated”, the artist reveals a bleak symbolism, epitomizing his existential outlook in life.

Typical of his abstract works, the canvas is pullulating with undefined mass of forms and colors. At the upper left portion of the canvas, is a realistic figure of a tilted diamond ring. An inscribed text is passing through the ring cascading down to the bottom of the canvas that says: “Things are made to be broken“.

Obviously, the symbolic meaning is about a broken relationship. At a second look, however, there is something temporal, and a sense of intangible sadness in the presentation of symbolic element on canvas. There is that feeling of resign and surrender that all things in this world will pass away and what remains is the fleeting reality of death and mortality.

“Everything is meaningless”, says the artist, “because someday, like man’s life, my art will vanish and disappear in oblivion”.

Despite the drab portrayal of reality, the artist’s symbolism persuasively touches the looming shadows of one’s soul.  His revelation of truth is a symbol of the here and now, penetrating the human psyche with urgency, anchoring man’s existence to his bleak and harsh reality.

At the outset, the symbolic meaning of art, in general, goes beyond its mere signification of reality in contrast to religious symbol. It elevates its own meaning to become the tangible revelation of the present and the temporal. Lindslee, in this manner, brings his art viewers to an encounter into their own reality, not a flight from it but to a rational acceptance of life as it is with no pretension.

The symbolic forms in visual art, therefore, are like emblematic elements, gearing toward the unity of consciousness and experience, from metaphysical to a more concrete encounter of one’s existence.

The Satire and Arbitrariness of Symbolism
Lindslee’s conquest for aesthetic meaning is characterized by a child’s mischievousness, and a curiosity to communicate and to know the truth. His works are like his toys and his studio is like his playground. His thoughts and emotions revolve around his playground and he identifies his world through his toy-works.

In 5 X 3 feet painting titled “Fried Chicken”, Lindslee engages his viewers with a mischievous and naiveté question when he asked: “Does chicken have a conscience?”

The artist seemed to be to raising a pointless question, eliciting a sardonic affront in the human intellect. However, as absurd as it may sound, the Lindslean query, if this writer were to term it, conveys a pungent issue touching directly the sore spot of the human soul. Could it be that the question is bluntly directed toward anyone’s conscience, or is it a question that does not bear any consequential meaning at all?

Dissecting the artist’s textual and figurative elements on the artwork, the symbolic imagery poses a problematic question that does not fall within the casuistic answer of ethical principles or that of chicken’s for that matter; it goes beyond the norms of man’s belief and reason.

If, indeed, the chicken had a conscience, what category of ethical principle does it apply, man or chicken?  It seems preposterous to discuss what is right or wrong for the chicken, but as an aesthetic symbol, the rationality of the question explores the symbiotic relationships between man and chicken or other animals, for that matter.

“Sometimes, I wonder what is the basis of right or wrong”, said the artist with a trace of sarcasm while watching his chicken. “Does it have a conscience?  If man had a conscience, do animals have too?”

The symbolic question whether the chicken has a conscience can be answered subjectively and categorically in relation to one’s conscience. In the end, if one were to reverse the question: ‘If chicken had conscience, does man have too?’

As introvert person, Lindslee uses his art to communicate his thoughts and emotions. And within the process of communication, he expresses his joy and sadness, his frustration and anger, his playfulness and humor on his canvas. But most often, because of his reticent person and his childish characteristic, his art does not only provoke but it also taunt and ridicule with the element of cynicism and sarcasm.

The Unity of Art and the Vision of Reality
Is the interpretation of art limited to a particular medium or genre? Or, is it open to a more daring concept that reflects the shifting image of man in the post modern society?

As an artist of magnificent vision, Lindslee questions the parameters of abstraction, goes beyond its conventional form, and redefines his own modal structure of art making. The unity of aesthetic concept and his vision of reality culminate not from mere painting the surface of his canvas, but by integrating and fusing one or more mediums into his art.

In the context of his first proposition, “figuring abstraction” questions whether abstraction is limited as an artistic expression of thoughts and feelings, or is it a medium that goes beyond its genre of signification? Figuring abstraction, therefore, is to ask whether the essence of artistic medium is to become a medium other than itself.

In the second proposition, the artist literally deconstructs the characteristics of the genre by introducing new elements on a seemingly bleak and dull canvas. Here, the artist literally infuses realistic figures along with the three-dimensional or taxidermal elements in his paintings.

Generally, abstract art is flat and abstruse, plane and simple. However, the artist goes beyond from its flattened surface to a more concrete signification of reality. He proposes, vis-à-vis, a dialectical concept of what it could become as a symbolic entity in contrast to the pre-conceived reality of art as a genre in-itself and for-itself.

In the end, the shifting of the artist’s vision, his dialectical concept and his departure from the normative practice of art making has become a liberating device to embrace the limitless possibilities of art rather than being confined within the conventional principles of aesthetics.

To sum, symbolism in po-mo art, be it visual, literary, film or music is boundless and metaphysical. It transcends the bleakness of the world and conquers the absurd by magnifying and revealing concrete realities so that the post-modern man may live with profound meaning and understanding of life within a changing society.

Creative freedom, like the infinite space of the universe, is boundless and eternal.

References:
Barrett, William (1990). Irrational Man. New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday, pp. 57.

Diver, Krysia (in Stuttgart). “Cartoonist faces Greek jail for blasphemy”, The Guardian, Wednesday, March, 23 2005. Online publication retrieved March 15, 2008. Link

 

“Taxidermy.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 7 Mar 2008, 00:48 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 14 Mar 2008. Link

Nabis, Les. Symbolism: Late 19th Century. Online article, last retrieved March 19, 2008. Link

About the Author:
Danny C. Sillada is a Mindanaoan painter, poet, musician, philosopher, critic (art/ literary) and performance artist. He studied priesthood at the UST Central Seminary, Manila, and San Carlos Seminary, Guadalupe, Makati, but left his vocation in 1992 shortly before his ordination to the priesthood to become a full-time artist.