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| 6.8.07 |
| Traum und Trauma |
'Everything you forget cries for help in your dreams.'
Elias Canetti
"Dream and trauma are regarded as opposites that have a lot in common: the psychoanalytical background, the phenomena of the unconscious and suppression and, not least, their power of transcendence. An aesthetics of the traumatic as found in the works of William Kentridge or Cindy Sherman visualises forms of pain, fear and injury, it shows wounds to the essence of being and existential wounding. It depicts inner states of feeling, altered, crazy and uncanny perceptions of reality (Robert Gober), fragmented bodies (Paul McCarthy, Anna Gaskell) and remnant forms (Urs Fischer). It discovers an art that, in the works of Gregory Crewdson, Tim Noble/Sue Webster, visualises the repressed and depraved and so uncovers pain-filled wishes, desires and dreams. Dreams and trauma reveal their imaginary power in the tension between absence and presence; repression and a surfeit of emotion; abstraction (Olafur Eliasson, Christopher Wool) and visual overload (Aurel Schmidt, Ralf Ziervogel)." MUMOK
Today we spent a few hours in the Traum und Trauma (Dream and Trauma) display. It features works from the Dakis Joannou Collection of Athens. I'm far from being an Art buff, and some of the descriptions (with their -ities and -isms and whatnot) are so convoluted it's difficult to understand what's really being talked about. But I can say that something about this collection affects me on a visceral level. I feel more than think about the art. Something resonates, dark parts included. It's beautiful, it's repulsive, it's fascinating. It pulls me in and leaves me feeling just a little bit unsettled, uplifted, brain working furiously in the background wanting to create in the same manner these people do.
Freud would have a field day in that collection, most definitely. ;)
Artists:
Pawel Althamer, Tauba Auerbach, Hisham Bharoocha, Maurizio Cattelan, Paul Chan, Nigel Cooke, Gregory Crewdson, Gerald Davis, Brian DeGraw, Nathalie Djurberg, Marcel Dzama, Olafur Eliasson, Urs Fischer, Naomi Fisher, Saul Fletcher, Barnaby Furnas, Anna Gaskell, Robert Gober, Matt Greene, Oliver Halsman Rosenberg, Adam Helms, Cameron Jamie, Dorota Jurczak, William Kentridge, Jeff Koons, Friedrich Kunath, Matt Leines, Ashley Macomber, Paul McCarthy, Tim Noble/Sue Webster, Chris Ofili, Poka-Yio, Dimitris Protopapas, Georgia Sagri, Aurel Schmidt, Cindy Sherman, Dasha Shishkin, Kiki Smith, Nedko Solakov, Christiana Soulou, Alex Stein, Nari Ward, Christopher Wool, Ralf Ziervogel
Christopher Wool
Steel Curtain, 1986
I'll quote what the blurb had to say. "The curtain is a complex symbol that hides something unfamiliar and hints at an unknown terrain. It marks a threshold, a zone of transition to another space, another reality. It functions as the seam between what can be percieved and what can only be suspected and relates to the dualism of the conscious and the conscious. The negative character of the representation reveals the trauma as something incomprehensible and unfathomable that cannot be integrated into the subject's horizon of experience"
It looks wicked cool too.
Robert Gober
 Untitled (Dollhouse), 1980
Silva Morosa, 2003
Gorgeous, immense painting. "Nigel Cooke's large-scale works look like landscape paintings. Only a closer, more detailed analysis reveals the apocalyptic inferno: human heads with rigid expressions jut out of the earth, lie scattered over the ground like stones, or are - as in Silva Morosa - imprisoned in a wall overgrown with plants. Seen from a distance, this tropical vegetation takes on the form of an enormous skull with a horrible grin that makes shudder [sic]" Urs Fischer
Pawel Althamer
Untitled, 2006
"The three male figures lying on the ground, cuddling up to each other with the upper parts of their bodies and yet spreading radially into the room, make us think of fallen social subjects in various ways. While they try to communicate closeness to and support for each other, they present themselves as caught up in dull helplessness and as hampering each other's freedom of movement."
 Amazing Grace, 1983
"The extensive installation Amazing Grace is an accumulation of over 280 prams tied together with old firehoses. The worn-out everyday objects hint at countless people's paths through life, thereby expressing time and its passage as well as an individual happiness. Prams are not only associated with mothers and babies, but in the cities of the U.S. homeless people sometimes use them for transporting their few belongings"
 He/She, 2003
"He/She is an installation made of metal leftovers which, brightly lit from a certain point, cast shadow images on the wall. Unexpectedly, the abstract forms reveal themselves as concrete: we see the artists urinating - him standing, her cowering."
 Black Narcissus, 2006 "The artist couple Tim Noble and Sue Webster often use refuse, metallic and wooden objects, dead animals, or banknotes for their scultural works. Lit from a particular angle, the sculptural arrangements cast unexpected shadow images on the wall - usually self-portraits of the artists. Likewise in the case of Black Narcissus, a montage of countless black silicon casts of Sue Webster's fingers and Tim Noble's penis in various stages of sexual excitement reveals a Janus head of the two artist's faces in the projected silhouette."
 In case it wasn't clear just what objects were forming those two faces. :>
Aaand so end this post about a lovely day at the MuseumsQuartier. :)
Labels: Art |
posted by K @ 9:33 PM
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| Idle hands, and restless feet |
While I'm able to sit around and do nothing without self-combusting, I have to admit that eventually the ennui sets in and I feel that if I don't do anything 'productive' soon, I will go stark raving mad.
I've done the geeky thing and bought books for next semester's classes (Gerichtsmedizin, Augenheilkunde, Zahn-Mund-Kiefer-Heilkunde). Strangely, have no desire to learn about the intricacies of violent deaths. I guess the summer + vacation drains the murderous intent. :p
I've done the über-geeky thing and stitched together a trench coat for Hellboy. (Because mine did not come with one. Yes I will have pictures of this tiny feat soon) And stitched a second one so I could ruin the first one and call it "battle damaged". On a side note I previously made a leather trenchcoat for The Punisher. It looked wicked cool. But failed on an engineering level as apparently the only way to put on and remove it involves practically popping off an arm.
I´ve done the food-geeky thing and made various gelato, with cones, fudge topping and such from scratch. Baked various cake things, bread. Cooked various meals, etc.
I´ve pretty much watched every movie that remotely interested me. Hot Fuzz (Simon Pegg Rules! Shaun of the Dead remains my favorite, though :D) Harry Potter (Eh.), Transformers (More than meets the AURKGH. *eyestabs*) Buncha other movies I can't remember.
I've been playing through Final Fantasy III on the DS, job level grinding inanely because I can't figure out what to do next. Yes, I know about GamFAQs. But I don't want to go that way yet. I've been trying to pick up FFXII again but can't seem to work up the desire to continue it. I've also been playing TimeSplitters with J. I am frustrated that there are no buttons for dodge or jump, whereas the PC seems perfectly adept at doing so when you're trying to fill them with lead. And the co-op stories are effing hard. I miss Battlefront 2 :(
And I'm still feeling restless. End of August we're heading off to Italy, and after that I get to visit my parents in the Philippines (YAY!) and we go to Hong Kong! (DOUBLE YAY!). But end of August is still quite far... and I crave the joy that is discovering things new.
I guess now that I've sated my hands with crafts, my feet now want to go places and see things. :>
Plans for tomorrow: Traum und Trauma at the MUMOK. (Museum ModernerKunst, Museum of Modern Art) in the MuseumsQuartier.
Because I really want to see this:
Because it breaks my brain that this seemingly innocent pile of junk can create a shadow like that. I wish I could see the others.
But just this one would be pretty damn cool. And there are many other interesting things there. Pictures to follow. If they let me. If I can sneak past them despite them telling me I can't.
And after that, who knows? There's still 18 days to fill before our trip. :)Labels: thoughts |
| posted by K @ 1:07 AM
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| Im Namen unserer Träume |
"The good fight is the one that's fought in the name of our dreams. When we're young and our dreams first explode inside us with all of their force, we are very courageous, but we haven't yet learned how to fight. With great effort, we learn how to fight, but by then we no longer have the courage to go into combat. So we turn against ourselves and do battle within. We become our own worst enemy. We say that our dreams were childish, or too difficult to realize, or the result of our not having known enough about life. We kill our dreams because we are afraid to fight the good fight."
"The first symptom of the process of our killing our dreams is the lack of time. The busiest people I have known in my life always have time enough to do everything. Those who do nothing are always tired and pay no attention to the little amount of work they are required to do. They complain constantly that the day is too short. The truth is, they are afraid to fight the good fight.
"The second symptom of the death of our dreams lies in our certainties. Because we don't want to see life as a grand adventure, we begin to think of ourselves as wise and fair and correct in asking so little of life. We look beyond the walls of our day-to-day existence, and we hear the sound of lances breaking, we smell the dust and the sweat, and we see the great defeats and the fire in the eyes of the warriors. But we never see the delight, the immense delight in the hearts of those who are engaged in the battle. For them, neither victory nor defeat is important; what's important is only that they are fighting the good fight.
"And, finally, the third symptom of the passing of our dreams is peace. Life becomes a Sunday afternoon; we ask for nothing grand, and we cease to demand anything more than we are willing to give. In that state, we think of ourselves as being mature; we put aside the fantasies of our youth, and we seek personal and professional achievement. We are surprised when people our age say that they still want this or that out of life. But really, deep in our hearts, we know that what has happened is that we have renounced the battle for our dreams - we have refused to fight the good fight."
“When we renounce our dreams and find peace, we go through a short period of tranquillity. But the dead dreams begin to rot within us and to infect our entire being. We become cruel to those around us, and then we begin to direct this cruelty against ourselves. That's when illnesses and psychoses arise. What we sought to avoid in combat - disappointment and defeat - come upon us because of our cowardice. And one day, the dead, spoiled dreams make it difficult to breathe, and we actually seek death. It's death that frees us from our certainties, from our work, and from that terrible peace of our Sunday afternoons."
Paulo Coelho, from The Pilgrimage. (Source: Older, but no wiser) |
| posted by K @ 12:54 AM
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