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Bourouina Gallery
Bourouina Gallery Charlottenstrasse 1 – 2,
10969 Berlin,
Tel. + 49 (0) 30 75512477 www.bourouina.com
Amel Bourouina
The space
Artist Boudewijn Payens walking through the space (Nov. 2011)
The newspapers of Bourouina Gallery
Nr. 12 LE GUN The unknown Room
Nr. 14 David Kroell / Päivi Takala
Exhibition SYNECDOCHE
29.10.2011 until 21.1.2012
Once gallerist and curators combine to bring art works to the fore, it is interesting to see when the art works selected and put on display seem to still remember the great art works of the past. At least, this feeling I had when visiting the Bourouina Gallery which had an exhibition of collages in November 2011. What had been achieved already in the past must also be a goal for contempory artists, told us Amel Bourouina sitting behind her desk and telling us visitors that she was very pleased with what the curator Johannes Sperling had put together. This exhibition of collages pertains primarily to form. For one or another reason Feiniger keeps coming to my mind. Insofar here an attempt is made to uphold form in art, what impulses shall enemate from such an exhibition and line adopted by the Bourouina gallery for future artistic work? A simple answer cannot be expected from a short visit to the gallery nor alone from the art works on the display. Yet already the special publications – in the form of newspapers – something can be gathered here aesthetics means as well ongoing reflections from sketches to completed art works. As to the exhibition itself, the concept as explained in the press release was to transform a 'figure of speech' into something in which a part replaces the whole or vice versa the whole the part.
It could mean reality can be perceived in a double way: by giving something a definite form, it is brought into existence (water begins to exist concretely as lake or river) and by reflecting how certain formulations or figures of speech come to mind when we see and experience things, the analogy of things is made evident. Having said this, there is no need to remind that 'parts and whole' played a crucial role in the aesthetics of Matisse. At the same time, the claim of truth in relation to the whole has not only undergone radical changes in the twentieth century, but has been permanently disturbed by what was at least in Eastern European countries definitely not 'prawda'. The theater maker Johannes Schall would shudder if recourse would be taken to the truth as a whole. The alterations started not only in politics, but as well in physics when Heisenberg's relativity principle replaced Einstein's quest for the unity theory. To Heisenberg, it was only possible to detect either the parts or the whole; they were exclusive to one another, and besides the observer in the experiment was as well a disturbance. Thus the whole could not be identified together. It led in philosophy Adorno to counter Hegel's claim the whole is the truth with a statement coming directly from 'Negative Dialectis', namely 'the whole is not the truth'.
Whether or not this was conscious to the artists participating in the exhibition or to the curator cannot be deduced from the materials made available. The opening took place on Oct. 28Th 2011 and the exhibition shall continue until January 21, 2011.
As to the reference to collage as an art form, certain aesthetical configurations come into play with that. They may remind of past achievements while wishing to uphold certain criteria in the present. Thus it is like saying this is art. Not by pointing a finger, but still by making a strong emphatic statement. The question is if this artistic direction shall acquire in importance over time with many other artists adopting such a strong aesthetical principle?
I am inclined to say that one has to be most careful with the collage as form. First of all, the claim that this suits our present time comes close to being a sort of rationalization with the claim of actuality not so easy as it sounds. Secondly, collage can mean the application of the Surrealist principle of juxtaposition: opposites are brought together like a feather and chain saw, but then which parts match and go together that is altogether a matter of the departure point is the fragmentation of what was a whole in the past like a vase which broke after falling onto the floor or if we follow a dective collecting pieces of the puzzle to have a clue about when on that specific night. Thirdly, the Bauhaus did not assemble a diversity of texts, symbols and messages to make up something like a collage, but it was meant to fit an architectural principle of unity. Hence the design was intended so that living and space could go together even though this could fall into the trap called 'dictatorship of architecture'. The latter was reinforced by a totalitarian ideology based on the claim that the whole was greater than its parts and the determination of even a collage would specify what role each part had to play to make it appear to be a functioning whole. Interesting in that sense was what fitted, what not and therefore was suppressed, sidelined, silenced and thrown away as if unnecessary ballast? Fourthly, a collage can represent a scene in which everything is engulfed in a kind of collatoral damage. This is certainly the case when seeming contradictions in daily life are nevertheless affected by the overall war. People could sit in an ice cafe while one street further a car bomb would go off to leave in its wake many pieces and human parts. In Israel this is the case after a suicide bomber had struck and special people come to pick up the human parts to safeguard the spiritual wholeness of the persons who have died. A collage like this could reveal when the overall message of peace is lost in the mess created by times engulfed in war. Fifthly, it is natural to expect that a collage nowadays is much more refined, but the question if there is still space for a surprise i.e. something unexpected entering the frame and bringing all the previously existing pieces in disarray like when men standing in a room are disturbed once a beautiful woman enters and draws their attention upon her.
Of course, a collage can involve as well that well known element of someone cutting out of magazine an assembly of images depicting cars, dolls, streets, symbols and people on the move. It is also possible to recreate an entirely new image out of the variety of just symbols. And if there is something more to tell, then a piece of wood in the collage would take on another texture if the rest was made of drawings on paper. The moment different levels interplay, then the entire picture becomes something else. This is how transformation works and which might interest a particular artist. Yet a grumbling in the background can be heard when this is suggested merely as a possibility. For many collages remind too much of a mere mechanical re-arrangement of different parts and still after having moved the furniture around for the x-time, nothing seems to fit. While every worked out collage has its own secret, transformation may just be in play as when Picasso made the handlebar of a bicycle become suddenly the horns of a bull. However, that is not collage as such if it remains as it is a distinctive part set apart from everything else.
Given the claim made by this specific exhibition that the collage is the most suitable form to reflect the present, then one has to note that this is done with a descriptive extension of the collage as a „pool of possibilities“. The danger here is tht these possibilities turn out to be static entities once fixed within a certain arrangement, and which are disposed to argue with form, colour and texture about only certain things while leaving out the rest. That would explain a kind of askese in search for pure forms if that happens.
However, over and beyond all that there exist in all art forms different layers of meanings as to what is possible with the strongest statement still being what is declared as being impossible. Here the collage proves its own limitation. For the individual parts cannot easily give up their insistence of having their own respective and distinctive parts for otherwise they would dilute and flow over into the larger surface surrounding them to become one with something else. Set apart, the parts have to deal with uniqueness at a different level than the image as a whole. Maybe this is also not the intention of the collage and follows Heisenberg insofar as the viewer may see only details but not the whole or else if the whole is viewed the seperate parts disappear like objects in a big fog. The advantage of the latter is that the fog allows the focus on one particular object e.g. the latern.
Yet if this reflective discourse is a faint reminder of something, then the contradiction collages entail. They need certainty to tell their story and cannot deal with uncertainty not as a wavering in opinon but as ensuring the work on the art work continues in order to let the colours breathe (Chagall). If there is by contrast too much certainty due to the particular and peculiar delineations between the various parts without being sure what this means altogether, then any viewer thereof can have the feeling of experiencing something arbitrary. It would suggest that the flight into the collage may be in reality a kind of order sought for feelings of insecurity about form prevail too much and therefore it is impossible to give meaning to existence as perceived by the eyes when walking not merely through the streets of a city, but through life! The jump into the unknown can happen anytime, and this not only as a moment of surprise, but as a basic metaphysical presence. Thus a collage which would hide still the most evident question about existence would favor an order to suppress that unknown. Such an order would not come out of the interplay of the parts, but be imposed finally, even if at first in a seemingly un-structured and not orderly way. It would be of interest where this is possible to tell what is happening in the individual art works on display. Definitely the use of the collage to express 'figures of speech' supposed to reflect the present may entail as an expression something else called fear of arbitrariness. Hatto Fischer 4.12.2011
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