The Last Word
Marcel Duchamp famously stated "The artist performs only one part of the creative process. The onlooker completes it, and it is the onlooker who has the last word."
You folks who read these missives will recognize the through line that I express non-stop. Perceiving my work, looking at that image above, is a mere shadow of the art itself. To understand, to see, to feel the work is to stand in front of it, to move gently from one foot to the other, to wander slowly back and forth. Every subtle shift of your eyes changes what you see. What you see is not what I see, even as I stand beside you. My work "requires" participation of the sort Duchamp suggests in even a more literal sense. Have a look at the attached video links to get a sledgehammer concept of what I am saying. They will show you the shifting of light, color, refracted spectra; but looking at even a hi-res video on a little computer or phone screen will not let you "feel" the piece. These days I am loving working on large format pieces -- "Lotus" is 8' by 8'; "Suspension" is 4' by 8'; "Open Air" is 3' x 5'. The notion is immersion, room to swim around, visually and mentally, your brain processing the experience of dimension where there is no dimension.
In junior high, my dad, an English professor, talked with me about "suspension of disbelief" in god-knows-what context. What a weird phrase. I later ran into it in actual context when studying the British Romantics. The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote in 1817 "that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, (which) constitutes poetic faith." The idea that watching a play, a movie, is not actual life but a narrative of possibility that has value. This IS art. We get that our hero just had a car wreck and, though bleeding from his ears, is now riding a motorcycle on the roof of a market in Istanbul chasing the villian who has a robotic eye and stolen nuclear codes. Suspension of disbelief is required or this is no fun at all. If you have ever enjoyed a story involving time travel, then you are on the team. AND the antecedent of this choo choo of thought goes all the way back to Ancient Greek theatre.
When I started working on "Suspension" I was thinking its title would be "Three Body Solution". I was addressing the physical calculus of the famous three body problem by representing celestial objects exerting their gravity on each other and the viewer. The infinite possibilities of influence... The three forces... And then I realized that the three bodies of the problem are the viewer, the artwork and the artist. And back around to Duchamp we go. He wrote, "The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act."
During the photo shoot of these images in front of you, I was saying to Sarah, the mastermind behind the lens, that the center of this piece feels suspended from above. She asked the name of the piece. I said, "Dunno yet. What do you think?" She said "Suspension". And my brain clicked -- "suspension of disbelief." Boom. I make. We look. Name appears from the third person. Tripartite creation. Third body solution indeed.
The push and pull and off-speed swirl of the creative process is a mystery of conception, application, perseverance, and luck. Not all pieces are as strong. Not every panel vibrates. This one does and pivots nicely as an axis of the whole whirl itself. My artwork requires you and your scrutiny, my diligence, and the self-organizing nature of the universe to spin.
Send me a note now and then so I know you are paying attention. It's optional but rewarding. "Organized perception is what art is all about," said Roy Lichtenstein. That organization is you and me and the thing on the wall.
Thanks for noticing.
Please visit us and "Suspension" at the LA Art Show, February 19th through the 23rd. Part of the proceeds from our sales will be donated to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank and 211LA
Hugs,
B Mac
