Essay

9/11: A Two Dimensional Picture

Contemporary art and folk art have certain fundamental differences. However, they work according to certain ‘patterns that connect’. How do they approach a contemporary subject matter visually and address a larger audience? Young art historian Bipin Balachandran makes an enquiry into these issues by citing a patua painting on the September 11 issue.  

Art history (liberal humanist), following the fashion of its western originators, has always had the approach of taking its cue from the work of art for reaching out to the individual sensibilities behind it- to the singular agency of the person who produced it. What has been frequently being obliterated here is the fact that in past, before the rise of this predominance of authorship –of the artist-art was a collective activity. If not, it was an out come from a shared belief system or shared life-premises. This characteristic of art as a collective endeavor can be seen as an eloquent demarcation between folk art1 and modern art. Folk art comes into being where ‘the living reality’2 of a ‘collective’ starts to engage itself in a process of ‘self-defining’. Or, it becomes a process of self-defining by living that reality. On the contrary, in the case of modern art, more often, the process of self-defining fails to acknowledge the communicative aspect of art. This obviously presupposes the lack of a common platform, a prerequisite for communication. If any affinity is being shared among the diverse life-views of our time, that is not of an internal living reality but of a rationalized external one. Its commensurability is of a virtual-reality (in which we are) of a reciprocity which is believed to be there in our social life. This inaugurates a world of simulacra when the individual fails to support the society and the society, in turn, fails to support the individual. Another dimension of the same (though in a different context) is explicit in Derridian interpretations. Here it is the double quality of differance which points towards the dilemma of the subject3.

Now, let us have a look at the nature of what is being celebrated as plurality in contemporary art practices. Though these ‘differences’ are being presented as different ‘life-realities’, if one sets off for an enquiry on how these differences does become a reality of life lived or on how can it be shared through a medium, one might be losing one’s way in front of what could be called ‘a self-closed play’4.In short, what is being celebrated is nothing but the ‘differences for its own sake’. This again signifies the lack of a shared platform. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that all these diverse efforts of ‘self-defining’ seek for legitimacy with in the generic concept of art. That is to say, these identities, not having been the living reality of the individual who produces it, are ‘novelties’, seeking legitimacy as Art. Why do these searches for identity become only the peripheral? In order to find an answer one should go so far to the immediate context and premises where this search-for-identity takes shape. Derrida puts it as: “….in the case of culture, person, nation, language, identity is a self-differentiating identity, an identity different from itself, having an opening or gap with in itself.” 5

The ‘gap’ in communication necessarily points out the gap in reciprocity. (Though Derrida may like to call it ‘the loss of what one never had’). Here, the premises is the virtual-real condition of man as a social being and the context is the condition of art as self-expression of artist. As we have already noticed, the individual art practices, no matter how hard they try to redefine, always put forward the generic term- Art. What can be discerned here is an adoption from the collective memory of a particular process which has a particular function. Eventually, this aims to the aspect of communication and therefore, to an ambience to be shared. When it becomes impossible for these goals to be achieved, art becomes ‘simulations of art’ or ‘art of simulations’. If one could evade the tone of negation in Derrida’s interpretation, then, ‘the loss of what one never had’ can be seen transforming to ‘an imaginative anticipation of the not yet’6. From this vantage point folk art seems to be more ‘realistic’ than contemporary art.

Folk art is an ensemble of different hierarchies of skills. It demands various kinds of skills of different people at each stage of its development and conveys a reality which is being lived by a society. To put it in another way, folk art, whether ritualistic or not, always depends on the collective memory of a society. There exists a correspondence between the external and internal orders (structural and social hierarchies) in folk art which determines its ‘life and growth’. Then, the question of formal innovation would be extraneous to folk art since, through innovation, folk art anticipates a ‘linguistic felicity’ (in relation to its life-view) to accommodate the historicity of a specific context where the correspondence between different hierarchical orders become problematic. It can hardly be understood as an identity-crisis, seeking legitimacy as Art. More than that, it is a search for ‘patterns which connect’- which is maintained as the focal point of this essay.

A folk art composition (painting/ sculpture) can be divided into its basic units as it follows a definite schema. The different combinations made out of these basic units, more often basic geometric shapes or motifs, constitute the whole of a folk painting/ sculpture. Thus, as far as its meaning is concerned, there are at least two grades or dimensions of correspondence, in which the first level points to a ‘special context’ where the meaning is delivered by the basic units and the second level comes into being on the context of the composite system (the ambience of social life). This schema, getting on quite well with the problems- in- narrative seems more potent and functional than what would be thought of it by the contemporary artists. The scroll painting, depicting ‘the September 11 incident’ from the ‘patva’ folk tradition of West Bengal serves as an adequate example in this respect (see figure), albeit this tradition exists no more as such, with in an atmosphere of shared life-views. In an age of simulacra like that of today we can hardly discern anything ‘Real’ through a single perspective. Reality is being interpreted and presented only to make them possible to be in a multidimensional level. Then, how can the September 11 incident, with all its multidimensionality, be translated into the two dimensionality of a simple folk-painting?

As we have already seen, folk art always maintains a vital relationship with the society which produces it. The ‘growth’ and ‘degeneration’ of the society means the same to its art also. At this point one should know how folk art exists outside its participatory social milieu. Wherever it achieves support from the public domain, outside its participatory class, it must be satisfying a social demand in accordance with an ‘extended/ shared’ belief which transcends the barriers of hierarchical class-orders of society(e.g.: rituals). It’s more a historical/ political reconciliation of two social classes than a negotiation. However, this reconciliation inevitably entails an awareness of a ‘hyper dimension of reality’ which is not susceptible to the rationale of historical/political conditions of the society. In short, here, art functions as something which is efficacious to relate one to the presence of a hyper dimension and thus bridge the gap, the lack of concordance, created by historical time.( Derrida, by presenting ‘differance’ disagrees with the possibility of reconciliation as his approach is hostile towards a ‘hyper dimension’ which can resolve dichotomy)7.However, in other situations where reconciliation is not possible folk art tends to express its attitude towards the social etiquette (hierarchical existence) which has to be maintained by its participatory class in its interaction with the public domain outside. Then, this must be the third grade or dimension of correspondence regarding the meaning delivered by folk- artifacts. Thus, the three ‘dimensions of correspondences’ in folk art can be set out as:

  1. Realm of Universals- the ‘life-view’ of a society-
    The origin and basic principles of folk art
  2. Realm of Particulars- shared believes/ conditions of life-
            The production and function of folk art
  3. Realm of Historicity- the historical/ political relationship of folk art with the ‘other’-
            The evolution of folk art/ conditions of life.

 This observation obviously points to the ‘alienated self’ of the individual in a post/ modern era where the rationale of modernity has already executed the dismissal of shared belief system through the process of demythologization. That is to say, in the absence of first and second dimensions (characteristics of multiple- agency), the interpretational endeavors of art criticism, today, are circumscribed by its access being only to the third dimension, which, in turn, necessitates a redefinition of the function of art( in the absence of first and second dimensions). Of course, it goes without saying that this assessment subscribes to a variance in the tenet (of authorship) of the conformist methodology of art history by compelling it to incorporate two types of agencies, i.e. ‘individual art and collective art’. By deploying a methodology of this kind, I hope, we can have a better understanding of the achievements of art traditions existed in India, Far-East Asia and so on, as this provides us with a paradigm which is far different from that of colonial readings which emphasizes the notion of ‘progress’.

Now, let us consider the ‘September 11 painting’ at more leisure. At stake here are the first and second dimensions as there is no more an atmosphere of shared belief/ life-view in which the ‘patva’ tradition exists as such and what persists instead is only a response to exotic and academic interests. However what strikes us most in this context is the fact that the analysis of the third dimension, what we have called the evolution of folk art, leaves us in no doubt about the structural formulation of the ‘patva’ tradition. Then, without making any difference in our assumptions, we can call what makes the pictorial language/ schema of ‘patva’ tradition adept at dealing with a contemporary incident, as a ‘life-view’ (first dimension). Here, what is vulnerable to the schema of folk art (patva) is the mythical archetype of ‘the Bush- Bin Laden conflict’; a reason for its being an allusion to the ‘Ram- Ravana conflict’ or to any other mythical context of that kind. What must be recognized at this point is that though the ‘September 11 painting’ alludes to a mythical context, it does not rely upon a previous text, or, here, allusion is not referential, so to speak (not inter-textual). Rather, it depends on mythical archetypes or ‘patterns which connect’, and thus becomes an act (art) of ‘myth making’ (mythopoeia).

This process involves blowing up of the experience of the profane (particular/ historical time) on to the level of universals (eternal time) until a ‘new’ sense of universal patterns/ mythical archetypes becomes possible. Since myth (from the life-view) serves as the paradigm for narration here, it can be called ‘mythical narrative’. Given that the basis of folk art is on the universal significance of these patterns, it is possible to conclude that the historical evolution of folk art does not go for any formal innovation for its own sake but is an interpretation according to a life-view. Further, taking our cue from this, we may also say that a journey from ‘a multidimensional virtual-reality’ to a two dimensional folk picture is more a journey from the particular to the universal than that from complexity to simplicity and thus it confirms the presence of a hyper dimension in the mythical approach of folk art, to be realized just beyond the present time and place, which would resolve the paradoxes existing at the level of particulars.

The art of myth making inherent in the tradition of folk art, however, can be seen continuing even in the age of ‘individual art’ albeit in a different manner since mythical archetypes are rooted in the impressions of a collective legacy which can not be undone by historical evolutions. We may trace here an a-linear movement of these patterns which is beyond the scope of western linear logic of progress, confined by the limitations of the ‘seemingly paradoxical existence’ of mundane reality. While searching for parallels in other fields of thought one would be glad to meet an anthropologist like Gregory Bateson who may be seen as having attempted to see ‘the patterns’ in nature. Bateson has pointed out that logic is unsuitable for the description of biological patterns. Interestingly, he considers stories, parables and metaphors to be essential expressions of human thinking 8. To use his favorite phrase, these are “patterns which connect”. Even after the demythologization project, in literature modernism has produced some subtle but robust voices of myth (coupe 2007) which we realize in ‘the waste land’ or in Kafka’s stories or more recently in the works of Paulo Coelho.

Thus, it can be well assumed that the context of confrontation of folk art with history subverts the notion of linearity by taking in to account simultaneously the aspect of communication (function), the universality of archetypes (meaning) and the necessary self-innovation for appropriateness (form) and therefore we may say that the September 11 picture is not a mere simple translation of an idea into the pictorial language of a folk tradition. In one of his essays, J.Swaminathan envisages a condition where art becomes a living reality beyond the particularity of historical existence. He writes:

“In fact, the parallel (reality of art) disappears and becomes a single reality when man lives through art in nature”. (Brackets added) 9.

Being incapable of patronizing this idea, due to its obstinate act of demythologization, modern age falls into a tragic plight as Herbert Read puts it:

“We have no sense of community, of a people for whom and with whom we can work. That is the tragedy of the modern artist.”10

Today’s artists, having found themselves in an open society where social hierarchies does not exist any more, if not, exists minimally venture to anticipate a ‘wide-audience’ for their art. But, unfortunately, what is to be communicated becomes a myth of myth-less-ness, in the absence of a commonly shared platform of life-view. However, this prompts the artist to invoke myths in his/her art whilst he/she attempts to understand the meaning of ‘the other’ and tries to transform all otherness into the repeatable and available genre of a medium. Obviously this would demand an agency that can maintain the past, and art as a generic term, always carries with itself a promise of continuity, for an artist. Yet, the art of myth making becomes an ‘anticipation of the not yet’ where virtual-reality stands for the reality and when identity is fragmented. In the absence of an integrated life-view, the mythical archetypes are nothing but a repeated experience varying from individual to individual. 11 It might be inviting scorn to say that the dichotomy of the appearance/ real has to be resolved in terms of a higher dimension as it may sound totalitarian or logo centric to today’s thinkers. The proclamation of the death of grand narratives still hovers above us! However, we can infer from what has been discussed so far that folk art on its traditional premises was efficacious in resolving the dichotomy of ‘man/nature duality’; the process for which being a kind of self-defining in relation to ‘the whole’. Nature can not be defined through objects but through relationships. The experience of art involves the revelations of these relationships as ‘patterns which connect’. Art, then, becomes an effort to materialize this realization even on the hardest plane of life and at once an invitation for fellow beings to participate in that ‘magical experience’- the age- old urge to outlive the limitations of historical existence!

NOTES:

  1. Folk art: collective art: produced through collective authorship (multiple agency), i.e. its authorship can not be attributed to a single individual (singular agency).
  2. Living reality:  denotes the vital relationship between the life of an individual/ society and a form of discourse. An inevitable condition/ conception for the integrity of life.
  3. “Derrida illustrates this doubled character with regard to subjectivity in an interview in the 1990’s: ‘it is because I am not one with myself that I can speak with the other and address the other ’. The subject is not able to be one with itself because the interpretative features that makes up its world and that allow its self relation are not expressions of an essential self-identity, at the same time; it is those interpretative features that allow it to both relate to itself and others”. Hegel, Derrida and the Subject- by Simon Lumsden, cosmos and history, vol3 nos-2-3, 2007.
     
    What should be noticed here is that it is the presupposition of the subject as a divided self which prompts Derrida to take the double quality of difference as the model of subjectivity.
  4. Self-closed play: isolated system: a condition where a discourse –form fails to be the living reality of an individual/ society.
  5. Deconstruction in a nut shell: conversation with Jacques Derrida- John D Caputo(ed),
    New York, Fordham university press- 1997. For further information, see- Hegel, Derrida and the Subject- by Simon Lumsden, Cosmos and history, vol3 nos-2-3, 2007.
  6. A ‘desire-concept’-an un avoidable anticipation of an ambience of shared beliefs even while the historical time is not favorable.
  7. “This dichotomized subject might be seen as the central problem that humans have to
    overcome: to reconcile their singularity with the whole, but in Derrida’s case he is happy to leave that division unreconciled, as for him  ‘it is out of this  dislocated affirmation that something like subject, man or whoever it might be takes shape’”. - Hegel, Derrida and the Subject- by Simon Lumsden, Cosmos and history, vol3 nos-2-3, 2007.
    However, the revolution now sweeping over physics is a realization of hyper dimensions which can resolve the dichotomy of appearance/ essence. Michio Kaku writes: “(But) when we formulate the laws (of nature) in higher-dimensional space-time,…….., we see their true brilliance and power; the laws become simple and powerful”.- Hyperspace, a scientific odyssey through the 10th dimension-by Michio Kaku, Oxford university press, 2007..
  8. “Yes, metaphor. That is how this whole fabric of mental interconnections hold
    together. Metaphor is right at the bottom of being alive”. Gregory Bateson in conversation with Fritjof Capra..
    For further details see- Un common Wisdom, conversations with remarkable people- by Fritjof Capra, Flamingo,1989.
  9. J. Swaminathan- pre naturalistic art and post naturalistic vision: an approach to the
    Appreciation of tribal art- Lalit Kala Contemporary-40, march 1995.
  10. Herbert Read- Paul Klee on modern art- Faber and faber, 1979.
  11. “ tendency to form and reform images in relation to certain kinds of repeated
    experience, and so varying from culture to culture and from individual to individual, rather than as an eternal and universal form”- Estella Lauter and Carol Schreier Rupprect- feminist archetypal theory: interdisciplinary revisions of Jungian thought-1985.
    For further details see- Myth-by Laurence Coupe, the new critical idiom series, Routledge, 2007.