Page 35 - The Documenta issue of World of Art magazine (2002)

BeLA cziTROm
TOpic WAx scuLpTure
by Andrea pagnes unique ediTion
cm. 36 x 27 x 18
AndreA pAgnes is A freeLAnce
criTic And ArTisT bAsed in veneziA in. 14 x 10 x7
2002 © 2002 digiTAL imAge seLf-porTrAiT zAkAReLy BLOj

The Loss of Lyricism

yricism, intended as a central position assumed by the used to affirm a depressing and lamentable individuality, and this
subject in reference to the world, cannot, categorically, is an agony we are all guilty of having brought about. Art is art.
Lbelong to our world. This does not mean that in the poetry is poetry. Writing is writing. And this is all.
works currently being produced there are no lyrical insinuations. The origins of this agony can be found in the figure of
however, they are uniquely due to the singularity of sporadic contemporary man himself. At the end of the 20th century, in
intuitive sparks typical of an author, and not to a natural order to survive (in the existential sense) his de-centrality in
“ingenuous state”, a natural inspiration that characterises its reference to reality, to the impossibility of affirming himself as a
substantial uniqueness, its essence or its hypothetical creativity. being in the world, man struts forth as a grand actor representing
This no longer occurs. Any work whatsoever, nowadays, even himself, a manipulator of his own, and therefore others’, image,
though it maintains a certain level of systematicity, always lacks a hoaxer who loves (even though in the end he is forced to do
organicity. in the current context, man, and hence the artist, is it) to continually represent himself within different scenarios.
de-centred within a void, within flatness and the uniform nature A chameleon, a manqué protagonist who has lost all trace of
of existential chaos, ensnared within the demagogic viscosity of behavioural innocence, even though he fully intends not to forego
a phantom creative belief system. contemporary art desires to an attempt to retrieve an improbable and indefinable naturalness
retrieve and experiment. by exasperating formal expression, it of action and production: a standard-bearer, in other words, of
seems to endlessly want to offer new possibilities, new openings. constant contradiction. This is a behavioural trait that is obviously
And yet the formal characteristics of a work only rarely coincide induced and dictated by artificial needs. but this is the historical
with or clearly express contents in their entirety; more often than condition of current man; this is his new nature, and these are the
not (perhaps even despite the author’s own conscious wishes), mechanisms of his cultural production. not to accept this given
they are mystified. openings are therefore dilated to such an would imply the onset of incalculable risks, not the least of which
extent that they become a murky whirlpool where only fiction is that of offering the current territories of society’s imaginary
and simulation survive in any definite form. form collapses, and constructs, and therefore art, an other, a different territory.
along with it the contents, as form is the substance that lies perhaps this territory might appear to be purer, more just, but it
hidden behind the qualities of content. hence, totally devoid is imaginary none the less. in art, which in any case has to remain
of naturalness, art becomes and is an essentially voluntary, faithful to its time if it is to maintain any sense, past meaning must
gratuitous, hence vulgar, act. be made to resound, as the qualities of any work are determined
more and more often by singular choices. man stands on the
* ** verge of the 21st century as an extremely hyper-individual being;
he is exasperated and continually wrong-footed by reality, by his
artifice is none the less a serious and complex problem that offers
contemporary thought is eclectic. man is moving ever closer own and others’ misleading, artificial appearance. The problem of
to a culture of becoming, and not of being. Art, in general, thus vast opportunity for replies and reactions. The only possibility
becomes an evocation of other possible worlds, provided that it of saving the naturalness of being and producing, as a means of
does not have history at its complete disposal without having first guaranteeing the survival of human quality, is to lead artifice to its
run through its spatio-temporal context. but nowadays this does extreme consequences, and that is further, beyond…
not happen. now man is disappointed by art because he expects This is an extremely difficult and complicated task precisely
from it the realisation of something that is other-than-himself. he because it is paradoxical. but art cannot, nor, above all, should it,
expects new indications, while art can only manage to pile dust on balk at this task, even though it is now abandoned and reserve-
dust. The most tragic and painful aspect is that in this culture of less in the process of disillusionment from which the concept of
becoming man is ever more aware that he is a creature that can the “poetic” arose in our century. but an art that gives no illusion
in no way go beyond itself. faced with the rapid-fire mutations or that is only reasonable – to indirectly cite Leopardi – is like a
of objective evidence, he is destabilised and incapable of finding reasonable beast: there is simply no such thing.
his centre within the real. The artist, the poet, incapable of taking in order to communicate and rediscover the dimension of
charge of the real that is incessantly eluding his grasp, substitutes the sensitive, man has no choice but to go beyond himself,
it with a universe of signs, colours and words that endlessly further than himself. communication, as dino formaggio has
repeat the painful truth: “man is a creature that possesses no it, is an act of the body; it is neither intellectual nor intellective.
means with which to move beyond itself. he is a prisoner of his communication has nothing to do with information: it is an
own making, incapable of fighting himself”. This is an implacable emotional reaction, it is communion. Art that expels emotional
repetition that, however, remains immutable before the void of reaction only breeds fraud and deception. sign, word and colour
life; it continues to repeat itself precisely in order to find an escape must be linked and organised together within the body. The body
route, a solution to dramatic, anxiety-ridden tension. yet in our era, takes no prisoners, and when it gives in to deception, it confesses.
people often become artists to satisfy a need for identity; art is Always.

WORLD of ART 33