Words of art
Art begins with void – the empty abyss of white emanating from paper or canvas. But void ends with the emergence of awareness, and thus thought – “silent naming”. So, the word is a huge creative force because it is an absolute “meta-component” of a picture.
We have no influence over the language that “resides” inside us. This is so because we do not select a language, it “selects” us as its “carriers”. We are born into it and live with it in mental symbiosis. It is a bridge, a medium that materialises ephemeral thoughts into sounds. We produce words, and then sentences. Thanks to them we can describe the world and give names to its elements. Also, language allows us to create new words and infinitely long sentences (see Recursive images). However, we can move freely only within its grammatical rules and lexical principles. We live in a “golden cage” on the border of “inner” and “outer speech”, “intra-” and “extra-linguistic” reality (see Inner speech and tacit knowledge).
One day in a gallery I saw a poor exhibition. The curator was talking nonsense. I listened to him almost to the end. Finally, exasperated, I left the place and after a moment I breathed the fresh air in the silence of the old courtyard.
It seems that the picture, understood here as a material product, is merely an excuse for a monologue about ourselves. Should a picture not defend itself?
After all, art begins with void – the empty abyss of white emanating from paper or canvas. But void ends with the emergence of awareness, and thus thought – “silent naming”. So, the word is a huge creative force because it is an absolute “meta-component” of a picture. Hence my belief that art does not exist without language, and not just artistic language, but also spoken and conceived.
Words are like people: they are born, during their lives they change their shapes and meanings – they evolve, and finally they die.
Words are like people: they are born, during their lives they change their shapes and meanings – they evolve, and finally they die. Some words are gaining in importance, others are loosing it. And when are pictures born? With the first thought or the last stroke of the brush?
Since we never cease to think, a picture may be not so much a “vessel” of a finished and confirmed thought, but rather a never-ending process, exploration, prediction, and testing of the relationships between thoughts and objects seemingly unrelated to each other.