Heidegger: Today and Tomorrow

What is nature, what is art?

Well, interestingly I hardly know the answer to either. However, Heidegger does, and his account is pretty reasonable, especially considering Peasant Shoes and the theorem of elements of nature combined with elements of culture.

So I have long been thinking about how that would translate to today's society trying to do the same. And then I remembered three poignant and yet altogether different artists.

Anselm Kiefer

I first encountered Kiefer's sculptures at the AGNSW, the one with the three dresses and no heads.

Women of Antiquity - 2002 Cement, plaster, metal sheets, glass.

My first impression was "very cool". My second, more sophisticated, impression noted his use of concrete, plaster and other industrial materials to produce something elegant, and yet hard and frightening (especially the tantalising, rusty nest of barbed wire, only to be discreetly touched by those who have already had their tetanus shot.) This, I was later to find, was some of his prettier work. Still at the AGNSW, and dominating the second level is a gigantic block of reinforced concrete hung on an equally ginormous canvas acting as a background of plaster, cement, rusty iron, concrete - all forbiding materials but, if anything, the most common aspects of today's constructed world. One need only to look at the buildings on campus to reassure that fact.

It's sort of sad, if not despairing, that the materials we most commonly encounter are formidable and downright harmful (try standing at the bottom of that GIGANTIC concrete slab and your faith in the skill of hanging artworks is very quickly diminished) to our selves. Kiefer's works are explicitly larger than life, parallelling the observation that the things we make, too, are larger than life (consider, for example, the contrete goodness of our uni library). It's almost Frankensteinian in that we make these sorts of equipment which would at best engulf and, at worst, kill their makers.

Nadin Ospina

Ospina is most famous for amalgamating ancient mesoamerican cultural objects with icons of 20th century pop culture, including Mickey Mouse, Bart Simpson and South Park's Eric Cartman. When I encountered his works exhibited in the MCA's 2007 The Hours: Visual Art of Contemporary Latin America (which I still find to be one of the most enjoyable, complex and comprehensible exhibition I have visited) I initially overlooked it (I have a problem with first impressions, I think - like the time I disregarded Bacon's Study of Pope Innocent X :( ... ), disregarding the works as ancient Latin American relics which, like all relics, don't exactly captivate my attention. He began his famous amalgamations after realising he had purchased a fake pre-Colombian relic. Highly interested by the authenticity it seemed to have, Ospina then learnt the craft of counterfeiting, working the materials such that they achieved a genuinely dated look.

Warrior- 2000 40x 24x 20 cm, ceramic

Archaic Piece (Bart) - 1996 Polyester resin

Chaman de Tierra Adentro - 2000. Silver and gold plating, 13x8.5x1 cm

Ospina's works squarely address the idea of a relic. Heidegger, too, comments that things that were once parts of every day lives now reside in, and are defined by, the museums and places of where they are found. He utilises the example of an African Spoon, wherein once it was a simple tool of everyday life, it was later bound by its status as a relic of past African cultures in anthropology museums and later reinvented, prized for its artistic decorations and re-presented in an art museum. Its status, then, in the object of the beholder constantly changes according to context. Ospina demonstrates this idea of the malleable concept of culture through his marriage between explicit pre-columbian art, and an icon as ubiquitous and recognisable as Bart Simpson to confuse us and make us reconsider the entire thing. Whether seen as a parody of characters who are already parodies of something else (e.g The Simpsons as an advanced parody of The Flintsones) or as 'cultural' objects to be seen as relics of a fictitious and television watching tribe (ourselves?) is the confusing and captivating puzzle Ospina's works address.

Richard Avedon

Mostly famous for redefining fashion photography - mainly through treating the model as an individual who is to be regarded in her beauty as well as her personality, Avedon's less famous works are perhaps the most true to Heidegger's theory as we can get to in modernity.

Carmen with coat

Avedon furthers Heidegger's theory, perhaps venturing into phenomenological grounds, through his uncanny ability to capture the essence of his subject. He was said to invite them into his study, make them comfortable and then place them in front of his signature sterile white background, capturing his pictures in black and white. Again, he is most famous for mingling with the starts, and at the same time they were more than keen to have their picture taken by him because he denied them the opportunity to "act" their characters, rather letting them "be" who they are. In some cases he did this without their knowledge, capturing their essence in, perhaps, a sardonic split-second smile or a faraway, reminiscing look to times only known to them.

Marilyn Monroe, actress

Samuel Beckett, playwright

On the one hand, and particularly with the Monroe picture, we are taken aback by how far removed their image here is from what we expected it to be. Again, with Monroe, she remains beautiful and sensual, but at the same time looks beyond trapped in that very image of a vixen, the low cut sequin dress, the perfect make up and hair. Ultimately she looks very, very sad. Beckett, on the other hand looks utterly FIERCE, like a lion who would rip your head off if you didn't give him a cigarette. Unfortunately for Avedon, his subjects once again clouded the skill in which is photographies were taken, a fault that would be overcome through the stunning art in his project Into the American West. This photographic series are, to me, almost the pinnicle in capturing the essence of a culture - that of the working people in the more derelict parts of America.

[from wiki] "Commissioned by the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, [In the American West] was a six-year project Avedon embarked on in 1979, that produced 125 portraits of people in the American west who caught Avedon's eye. Avedon was drawn to working people such as miners and oil field workers in their soiled work clothes, unemployed drifters, and teenagers growing up in the West circa 1979-84. When first published and exhibited, In the American West was criticized for showing what some considered to be a disparaging view of America. Avedon was also lauded for treating his subjects with the attention and dignity usually reserved for the politically powerful and celebrities. "

Avedon's subjects were then identified solely by their name (in some cases no name at all), their profession and their 'essence'. In some cases, the minimalism of the work was reduced to having their subjects stand in front of a large piece of wallpaper stuck to Avedon's tour bus, or the white background of a nearby truck.

Boyd Fortin, Thirteen year old. Streetwater, Texas, 1979

Sandra Bennett, twelve year old. Rocky Ford, Colorado 1980

Ultimately these artists encompass our best attempts at understanding our relationship with nature/culture, and these works (with particular regard to Avedon and Kiefer) are the most universal testaments to capturing the way we live today.