Ana Cardoso: SANS IMAGE
25 Sep – 8 Nov 2008
“What does Rousseau say without saying, see without seeing? That replacement has always already begun; that imitation, principle of art, has always already interrupted natural plenitude; that, having to be a discourse, it has always already broached presence in difference; that in Nature it is always that which supplies Nature’s lack, a voice that is replaced by the voice of Nature.”[1]
It is never easy to write about an image. Words and Images are what one may call intimate enemies. It all stems from a family feud, for once they were one. Words were images, i.e. ideographs. Symbols. The theological unity of the transcendental and the material object was, however, disrupted when the alphabet got invented.
Plato still made an attempt at restoring that broken unity, by choosing the word ‘eidos’, which literally meant silhouette to signify ‘idea’. Unfortunately, adjustments made to the supra-structure never affect the infrastructure, though Plato wouldn’t know it since he was no Marxist. He achieved something else, notwithstanding. He managed to distort the ancient theological unity into a relationship between appearance and essence. Art History is the History of such a relationship. All images, which thereafter partake in the history of Art History are the accurate description of all the possible forms that relationship may assume. Outside of Art History lay the remains of the old symbolical unity. Anthropology calls them animistic beliefs and psychoanalysis calls them the narcissistic state of omnipresence of thoughts. Voodoo dolls and other items of cultural kitsch. For all of us who know perfectly well that a signifier is never identical to what it signifies –except perhaps when carving our beloved’s name in a street bench- it is also perfectly clear that neither words nor images have any power whatsoever over the things they represent. Besides the power of representation, that is. And within the new hierarchy the power of representation establishes the images always occupy the lower echelons. To know means to possess, even if it is a possession in the transcendental sense, through one’s consciousness. That is why Art Images are images, which convey a discourse, rather than images, which are discursive. They hide their secret deal with the viewer, the private entente that always already makes them readable. For their role as images is precisely to signal their belonging to that very discourse. Yet, while doing so they also annul themselves as images. For they annul their very possibility to signify a rupture in the linearity of language or in the representation protocols. Such images have thus, no ‘destiny’ as images.
I will have spent my life trying to understand the function of remembering, which is not the opposite of forgetting, but rather its lining. We do not remember, we rewrite memory much as history is rewritten.
Such are the words of San Soleil’s fictitious narrator. In Sans Image, Ana Cardoso, while trying to understand the function of representation, finds a notion of abstraction which is not the opposite of representing but rather it’s lining. Through her negative images we can thus Access the negative of meaning production, which is not alike no-meaning but rather the impossibility of making meaning become stable.
Ana Teixeira Pinto
Berlim, Setembro 2008
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A relação com Sans Soleil é incontornável. A exposição chama-se Sans Image que, livremente retirado do livro "Le Destin des Images" de Jaques Ranciere explica para mim um conceito e atitude em relação às imagens. As pinturas na exposição têm diferentes direcções e a sua instalação tem uma importância espacial e não convencional.
Há uma imagem roubada a Courbet, que é um fantasma da imagem original – 2 mulheres deitadas numa cama; uma paisagem usa a ideia de a Abstracção ser sempre uma imagem; há pinturas aparentemente concretas ou abstractas que contornam ou ligam imagens, representações residuais.
Não consigo definir uma imagem porque algumas hipnotizam e o significado é uma superficie opaca.
Sans Image, Conteúdo Negativo
"SANS IMAGE", SÉRIE EM PROGRESSO, INCLUI TODAS AS IMAGENS COM QUE TRABALHO. REPRESENTAÇÃO E ABSTRACÇÃO SÃO NÃO IMAGENS.
Fazer assegura um ponto vital. Por meio da improvisação, transmutação e disfuncionalidade da imagem, a pintura cria um lugar indefinido onde a sobrecarga de informação exclui o pensamento linear. O que é a imagem? Qual o conteúdo? A abstracção é um estado mental, uma forma de expandir categorias genéricas.
Uso o arquivo de possibilidades da História da Arte. Mas a "colagem" auto-referencial, a identidade que ensaia não-imagens, desinforma. O fazer e refazer despe as imagens de conteúdos pré-definidos, coloca-as numa situação de carimbo, alinhamento e presença.
"Sans Image" aplica-se a qualquer imagem de conteúdo negado - processo meditativo que revela uma imagem fantasma.
Esta negação assume diferentes formas através da interpretação de textos, ideias ou momentos históricos. Interessa-me a mistura do construtivismo com a arte pop, ou da pintura europeia do final do séc. 19 com a estética punk. Se o conteúdo negativo é ao mesmo tempo "demasiado ruído sobre nada", é também uma chave para o panorama da pintura actual, uma experiência ultra-complexa, onde o conteúdo é apenas o que não conhecemos, o espaço residual deixado pela inteligência. O desafio é uma imagem não-representável, simulacro ou tensão porosa e abrangente. Neste momento, ver a reprodução de uma paisagem equivale eventualmente a olhar para riscas pintadas. Ver é um jogo social, representação em tempo real, subordinado ao contexto.
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An Interview
Int: Why do you call this show (Sans Image) a group show since it is in fact a one-person exhibition?
AC: Because images are appropriated, they're briefly mine, maybe never. And soon never again... they are randomly taken from History and then back to its tracks.
Int: And, why Sans Image? Are you driven towards the anonymous?
AC: Not really… Sans Image refers to a lack of reference and a frustration in pinning down the world through images, our substitute for language and a potential place for creativity… if/when it happens.
It is a show about nothing, actually. A meditation…
Int: On the impossibility of clearly expressing oneself…
AC: Well, more or less. The impossibility of not being able to express oneself through the boring task of coherence…
Int: I see…
AC: I think images, like most families, are dysfunctional although they gather like particles – it is a mystery.
Int: And you are also attracted by this magnetism.
AC: I am. I see painting through this perspective – images have different dynamics, like quantum physics! I am attracted to images I don’t quite understand – images that devolve some mystery or just strangely relate to your actual thoughts.
Int: Thank you!
AC: My pleasure.
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ANA CARDOSO: SANS IMAGE
VPF Cream Art Gallery, Lisboa
25 Sep – 8 Nov 2008
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