After watching Sebastian's lecture on Absence /Presence I was
struck by the potent images of Felix Gonzalex-Torres’ works – “Untitled”
Billboard works. The sense of the body’s increased potency due to its
suggestion and lack of presence despite the whole work invoking this very sense
of presence resonated with what I m exploring in my work – ideas of trace;
loss; remnants of this person who inhabited a physical body in real time upon
this earth as evidenced in photographs, memories and objects belonging to them
yet now they are just not here and all we are left with are the traces.
As Sebastian[1]
articulated in his lecture:
According to Roland Barthes, the represented
forms such as photographic images refer to someone or something "real,"
but that event no longer exists, except in the photograph. Therefore, the
photograph is a kind of absented presence, (SLIDE 2) which, for
Barthes, still holds subjective significance, but not absolute truth.
Therefore, Barthes' assessment agrees with the typical association between
photography and truth, but in a way that thinks past the extreme binaries of
presence = truth and absence = falsity. Another way that philosophy complicates these notions is to draw a "fuzzy boundary" between presence and absence, if there is not absolute presence and absolute absence, but an infinite series of gradations, then sharp distinctions between X and Y are impossible, because Y may be present with X even while not being wholly present X, and X itself may be only partially present.
The boundary between you and me or X and Y operates more like a membrane, whereby the separation between these two ideas of absence and presence and the way we experience them are less oppositional.
This relates to my photography work printed on the tea bags. For me also the tea bag can act as a metaphor for the body – once the tea – spirit/soul has gone from the body all that is left is the shell – recognizable yet unrecognizable. Tea bags also evoke this fluid membrane sensibility as they operate by being permeable.
If absence and presence is more like a membrane, invoking presence is to be of a fragmentary, ‘series of gradations’ yet interestingly the viewpoint of this membrane is purely from my side – I do not have mum’s viewpoint on how/where she is …
The idea of absence/presence takes on a different nuance when the person
is no longer alive as physically they as themselves; the person they were,
their mannerisms, likes dislikes etc is just simply not visible anymore…. Part
of the grieving process for me has been a subconscious and at times more
conscious search for an event, scent, sound or intangible moment where I can
sense mum again and a huge part of the ache is that there have been fleeting
moments where there is a sense or reminder of her yet, like my dreams about
her, she is always out of reach – no matter how far I stretch … even when I was
back home in 2011/12. In fact it was quite overwhelming being at the site that
was so central to her being yet in the midst of many signifiers of her presence
these objects simultaneously shouted of her absence. Coming to terms with this absence
and all the subsequent and ongoing tremors of loss after the initial earthquake
keeps the ground of the grieving unsettled potentially for many years after the
initial occurrence.
This search, my search does not intend to romanticize our relationship,
as it was not a perfect one there were many turbulent times, misunderstandings
and resentments. It is more a search through the murky waters of loss despite
the imperfection and pain of a relationship to see the deeper tie that connected
us together and to our country.
Sebastian also writes about the billboard works:
Another important way to understand this
relationship between Presence and Absence is through their connection to memory
and history. An art object or art image can evoke a past memory within the
viewer’s mind. The past is always out of reach to us as each moment escapes us,
and yet, art can give it a presence – a form or armature in which we can access
it. As seen in Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s 1991 “Untitled” billboard works where
two impressions are left in a bed – both of these bodies do not physically
exist within the frame of the image, but give off a particular emotive feeling
of lived in presence, the present body of the gallery viewer leaning up against
it further compounds the power behind the frozen scene whereby the absent
figures and their indented impressions on the pillows project outwards. Therefor artwork can give presence to an absent form which in-turn heightens our feelings towards the work even though the object or the two bodies in question do not exist within the image plane. The absence of the bodies in this image can connotes a wide range of possible meanings from feelings of loss, trauma, or bring up loving experiences from previous relationships, or impressions left in your own bed or the bed of a family member.
As an artist, hoping to use physical/sensory materials to convey this very lack of being unable physically - through the five senses, to connect with this person, challenges me to try out a variety of ways to communicate this to the viewer as well as hope that some part of my work lets the viewer feel and experience this too and perhaps help them to articulate their own losses.
Other ideas:
·
body cast – materiality -
touch
·
use of sound – sensory
device
·
video - seeing yet ephemereal …
Reference : Felix Gonzalez- Torres ‘Untitled’
billboards[2]
Princeton University to Install 12 Billboards with Art
by Felix Gonzalez-Torres
The Princeton University Art Museum has announced
plans to install 12 billboards around the University, city and state, featuring
the art of Felix Gonzalez-Torres. The selected work,
Untitled (1991), features an empty, but once occupied bed, evoking
powerful emotions of intimacy and loss. “Apart from its sheer beauty,
Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s work invites us to consider issues of love and searing
loss, and to become more aware of the meaning of private emotion and public
space,” says Museum director James Steward. “In an age in which the scourge of
AIDS remains with us globally, Felix’s immersive vision remains essential, and
is a potent reminder of how this disease ravaged the art world twenty years
ago.”
[1] Di Mauro, S 2014, ‘Week 2 Lecture notes: Presence & Absence’,
retrieved from Griffith University QCA, Learning at Griffith web site: https://bblearn.griffith.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-1081180-dt-content-rid-2855250_1/courses/2347QCA_3145_SB/Week2%20LectureNotes_AbsenceAndPresence.pdf
[2] Fudgie, M 2013 Princeton University to Install 12 Billboards with
Art by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, viewed 16 September 2014 http://drivensociety.com/princeton-university-to-install-12-billboards-with-art-by-felix-gonzalez-torres/
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