I do not remember well, respectively in my memory there seems to be someting substituted, I guess it was The Angels Continue Turning the Wheels of the Universe: Part II In Which the Angel in the Red Dress Returns to the Center on a Yellow Cloud above a Group of Swineherds (1978), maybe also A Salutation to the Wonderful Pig of Knowledge (Jelly Fish, Water Spouter, … There´s a Hole in my Bucket, There´s a Hole in my Head, There´s a Hole in my Dream) (1984) or the majestic From the Series Entitled How to Catch and Manufacture Ghosts, „Collected Ghost Stories from the Workhouse“ (1980) which first attracted my attention to Alice Aycock years ago; if I would have been a child then, which I was and in the future will become, it would have given me a concept of some kind of mystery of the universe, an expression of some mystery of the universe; somewhere there are clock-like forms or eccentric cycles (as an expression/symbolisation or measurement device for cyclical/hypercyclical time (on the one hand repetetive, on the other hand coming from the unknown and progressing into infinity/entropy)) as well as the enigmatic, idiosyncratic, semi-arbitrary looking extensions give you a concept of (the ramifications of) space. I have failed to thoroughly describe it. If you´re a guy with metaphysical imaginarium inside you you will probably think of the regions located in space where the elements are or so, the metaphysical principles are expressed in some kind of form – remember Beckett who announced „Above there is light, there are the elements, some kind of light“, etc. when starting his second Text for Nothing – … and indeed there is also a piece by Alice Aycock titled The Machine That Makes the World (1979) – you may imagine that as the eccentric, accessible-inaccessible center of the universe where a strange mechanics within a strange organisation/compositional system is performed (leaving us in wonder about the idea of any mechanics and any organisation or composition per se as well)… I can only give this kind of resemblances of explanation (necessarily, because of the darkness the metaphysical naturally involves), maybe on another occasion or in some years or some centuries I can add something to it, but as I guess not actually revolutionise it, because the core of what I want and what I can say about it I have just expressed, and the final expression is/are the Machine/s it/themself/ves; I guess Alice has had the same qualities on her mind, centuries ago, and still  quod erat demonstrandum

It is legitimate to say Alice Aycock is a true metaphysical artist. She gives you an impression of the ungraspable whole as well as its elements. Her sculptures are concentrates of the ungraspable whole and its elements. She emerged from the 1970s, the decade when the great (competing) narratives of what art is or should be, respectively when modern art in itself became buried or elusive, and opened space for multiple (non-competetive) styles, increasing individualisation and personalisation, reflecting an increasingly complex society within the postmodern condition. Some say: when the road was paved for degeneration – and it is true that some of the hitherto concentrated innovative power of art increasingly wasn´t that visible (or, probably, possible) anymore; but, as far as I can see now, the death of art, or loss of its greatness within „postmodernity“/postmodernism is overstated (and I hope I can soon be elaborate on that). – With her personalised, complex, idiosycratic vision she made a kind of eccentric counterpoint to minimalism and pop art. Her rejection of an authorial center may be accounted as both postmodern and feminist. That some of her sculptures can be walked on/in was in line with an extension of the understanding of how art can be exhibitioned/experienced pioneered in the 1970s from different angles ranging from the inputs by Robert Morris to Gordon Matta-Clark, and extending those understandings further into the ideas/possibilities of art as an environment. Her personal iconography and mythology puts images of whirlpools, hurricanes, turbines, vortexes at a prominent place, as well as highway intersections, war strategies and roller coasters and amusement parks — Project Entitled: „The Beginnings of a Complex…“ (1977) gives, at least to me, the resemblance of an amusement park, as well as wider allusions to architecture, man-made environment; it seems strange as well as all-too-familiar; useful and useless; harmless and frightening or dangerous; fresh, maybe futuristic as well as it gives resemblance to a ruin respectively an object (object world) which signifies its own entropy… you have a subsumption that seems to be made up of, or at least contain or signify, contradictory elements. With this method, Alice Aycock manages to give us an impression of a (unlimited) totality. In fact, Alice Aycock announces that she wants to create something that is „broad enough to display its own past, present and future“ (i.e. doing metaphysics). In fact, Alice Aycock is interested in an interplay of her artistic sculptures and environment, most notably human architecture. In fact, Alice Aycock´s sculptures have been called „nonfunctional architecture“ (by herself) that „sheds a new light on human-made environment“ (by, for instance, the Journal of the American Institute of Architects).

From early on, Alice Aycock was interested in covering as much as possible; „I want to play with history. It´s also necessary to play with science“. She loves things that are intertwined and complex. She admits she loves chaos. Alongside this trajectory she became more explicitly interested in giving her art a metaphysical touch; you have diagrams of the cosmos or the world order in  Circling `Round the Ka´Ba: The Glass Bead Game (1985) or in Tree of Life Fantasy: Synopsis of the Book of Questions Concerning the World Order and/or the Order of Worlds (1990-92). One of her principle points of reference is the „tear in the universe“, a vision elaborated in a story of Borges (The Aleph) – a vision „about a half-centimeter in diameter“, hologram-like, where you see „everything that was, everything that is, and everything that will be.“ And it is true that her idiosyncratic sculptures provide such a kind of vision. In her more simple and direct pieces you have beautiful and intriguing twisters, giving us an idea of what sculpture, and the art of sculpturing can ever be. 

H.C. Westermann is not very well known in old Europe; I got introduced to him when I was in Chicago, in 2001, after I have been in New York, when the towers fell. There was an exhibition in the Museum of Contemporary Art – which I, unfortunately, missed (there was something unspectacular, a most contemporary thing instead). But an immediate look at his uncanny-funny, paradoxical and well-crafted sculptures makes you fall in love with them <3 <3 <3 You immediately sense something profound has happened; earth, landscape, was shaken, mixed up; through his art.

But what?

On a visceral level you sense that his sculptures are simply cool and lovely; although they may laugh at you; but you see there is no actual sarcasm in them; you end up laughing with them (not a loud, vulgar, visceral laughter – an intellectual laughter which happens inside); to the educated commentator (like Robert Storr) John Ruskin may come to mind when he said that the grotesque ususally comes both in a „terrible“ and a „sportive“ fashion, there are „few so grotesques so utterly playful as to be overcast with no shade of fearfulness, and few so fearful as absolutely to exclude all ideas of jest“. You may associate this with Westermann´s art, although it may take you some time to register that it would be grotesque at all, respectively that their outstanding moment through which it may possibly be catched would be the grotesque. It is rather a complete juxtapostion of material, aesthetics, concepts; on the whole: the ingredients that make a work of art, of theses and antitheses – although you also soon realise that the language of dialectics appears to be rather inappropriate… Westermann´s art rather seems to be centered in individualistic expression and its own subversion, forming, via that gesture, a whole, which both allows possibilities for openness as well as closure.

Yes, Westermann was an individualist; also some kind of outsider and renegate in the art world. He was, on the one hand, a charming, multifaced, though unpretentious person, but on the other hand a misfit within the art scene which, despite their (assumed) embrace for iconoclasts, requires certain standards of conformism and of being „the right fit“. He disliked the pretentiousness of the epicenter of the American art scene in New York and experienced disdainful snobbishness by New York-based critics in the early days. At any rate, New York with its predominant trends would have rather not allowed him to find his own voice; Westermann moved to Chicago – as a somehow fresh and virgin territory for artists (as well as there was quite a striking a disinterestness of the public in art in those days) – and later to his own farm in Connecticut where he spent the rest of his life, living in an extraordinarily happy marriage with his wife, Jo (which also broadened his vision as an artist concerning the more ethereal aspects of existence).

Westermann displayed a natural talent for the arts early on. As a young man however he had to fight in WW2 in the navy. The death and destruction he witnessed – in its climax the destruction of the USS Franklin with 800 men dead – had a lasting impression on him. Nevertheless he enrolled for the Korean War, after he felt unable to find a place escpecially in the art scene and after his first marriage with June Laford had gone wrong. At that time the sentiment was that America was still the good guy fighting evil, as in WW2; yet especially the brutality of the Korean War transformed Westermann into a strong anti-militarist. In the immediate sense Westermann´s war experiences resulted in the Death Ship series. In the more general sense it solidified Westermann´s ambiguous humanism.

What immediately comes to mind when getting exposed to Westermann´s art is its playfulness. And, with reference to Ruskin, both a terrible and a sportive playfulness – but both elements seem to hold each other in check. You may experience to fall into the abyss of the vile aspects of human existence – even existence in a more general sense – as well as you seem to get elevated or levitate to a – probably cosmic – playfulness. That apparent conflict is not directly resolved in Westermann´s works, rather transcended into some kind of meta-stability. Those sculptures/objects somehow strike you with their impenetrability, evoking sentiments of them being autonomous or even sublime as well as humble, shallow and helpless, respectively of being the Great (or Small) Other who materialises in various and unpredictable ways. Maybe Westermann had the same kind of awareness when he often layed bare an „interior“ of his sculptures which is no less enigmatic, for instance in its seemingly arbitrary relation to the exterior or to its apparent arbitrariness in itself … if it is not empty at all or designed to merely to consist of dust which will accumulate over time (as you have it in Westermann´s last work Jack of Diamonds (1981)). In Westermann´s sculptures you have the power and strengh of life, as well as its pitifulness and abjectedness as well as its innocence, harmlessness and its need for protection. His objects/personage gets dehumanised only to appear more human and more identical with itself than before Westermann´s intervention. And when you look at Westermann´s abstract-concrete, uncanny-funny, idealised-degenerated, sportive-terrible, meaningful-meaningless, competent-incompetent, impenetrable-frail, those eccentric sculptures like Brinkmanship (1959), The Evil New War God (1958) or the Angry Young Machine (1959); well, you somehow feel that they actually ARE the definite appearance of the Evil New War God or the Angry Young Machine, and not „eccentric“ representations at all (which may account for the grotesque, since when something eccentric becomes the definite reality what you are likely to have is the grotesque).

Although Westermann´s themes are, to some degree, recurrent, his works are always fresh and they surprise; he does not repeat himself. There is a Westermann style, but it is a style of endless variation, actually his „style“ is rather a territory, an island, where things emerge, where the emanations take place, and they rarely emerge from/at the same spot. (The ends of a personal style are endless repetition and endless variation, and the major artist will always be fresh and virgin if his style is repetition as well as he will have his distinctive signature in variation; the dangers of repetition are of course that it may become boring and insipid, the dangers of variation are that people or critics won´t follow you any longer or that the energy may become too diffused to make a very distinct impact: and such seems to have been the case with Westermann – the perils of individualism. (The other thing is that while Westermann managed to keep his level all over his career he did not actually produce a signature masterpiece which made him very famous or distinguished (in the eyes of the public; he made an impact in the art scene, but rather as an „artist´s artist“))). Upon reflection, Westermann´s oeuvre is a territory (yes, I think we can put it that way).

Westermann was a very careful, scrupulous craftsman who worked with many materials – and you are under the impression that he managed to establish not only a different perspective on the object of his art, for instance an Uncommitted Little Chicago Child (1957), but also on the material (wood) itself. Likewise Westermann displays his objects not in an actual sense but in a conceptual sense, i.e. his personage, his death ships, his war gods etc. refer to concepts, not to their actual apperance but he does so in a way seemingly indebted to comics. While being conceptual, Westermann´s sculptures are full of idiosyncracies and particularities, establishing an interplay between the abstract and the concrete, the idea and its realisation, leaving us wondering what is actually more alive, more authentic, the „real“ living thing, or coming in with a higher degree of reality: the concept, the idea of something, or the concrete, individual appearance (in a way, the realism or/vs nominalism thing)? Respectively is the common human experience prey to conformism (i.e. not to a „high“ idea, but to a low one, casting light on the concept of idea itself not necessarily as an elevator but as a grand leveller)? Westermann´s Memorial to the idea of Man If He Was an Idea (1958) is, in that fashion, not only one his most well-known pieces, it is also an underlying texture of his oeuvre in a general sense.

Westermann´s sculptures are apparently childish. The art genius is childish; respectively is a hybrid between a child and being as old as time itself. Again, the sportive and the terrible grotesque (and the grotesque maybe, in general, as an extension or abstraction of a fierce individuality?). Throughout his life, Westermann remained an outsider to schools and dogmas. He said in doing his art he wanted to do things that, in the first place, please himself. Because of this, his art is vivid and full of life. Because of this, the impact of his art may not be strong and concentrated but diffuse and surrounding. Because of this, it cannot be fully deciphered as it is based on immediate ideas which are translated and elaborated within an architecture, a personal (though objectified) system of reference to make „sense“ out of them, where, howver, the archaic nature of the idea – and of anything else – remains present. It remains as idiosyncracy. What is the meaning of his art, of his sculptures? „It puzzles me too“, Westermann said. Puzzles and enigmas – that still seem to remain after all is acutally deciphered, said and done or maybe overinterpreted about them – are good. They keep the fires and flames alive. And they do not cease to bother and concern us. H. C. Westermann has left a body of work which allows us to experience the multiple dimensions of existence and the multiple dimensions of art.

Liliana Medina LEYENDO TODO TU ANALISIS SOBRE LA OBRA DE WESTERMANN , VEO COMO TE DESPLAZAS CON TU VERBORRAGIA ,NO SE SI ES ADMIRACION , ESTIMACION SOBRE LOS OBJETOS QUE PARECEN TAN SIMPLES Y SIN EMBARGO TU VES MAS QUE OTROS . LO EXTRAÑO ES QUE NADIE COMENTA TU LABOR ,ACASO NO LO VEN…O TAL VEZ SOY YO , SI TAL VEZ SEA MI ORIGEN , ACOSTUMBRADA A EXAGERAR TODO ,EXACERBAR LOS SENTIMIENTOS LA ADMIRACION A VECES ME SIENTO OBSECUENTE (AQUI EN ARGENTINA SE DICE CHUPAMEDIAS) PERO NO IMPORTA ,ME GUSTA LEER Y A VECES ME SORPRENDO CUANDO ENCUENTRO ESTA GRATA LECTURA SOBRE LA VIDA Y OBRA DE UN ARTISTA Y DE PASO APRENDO UN POCO MAS, TAMBIEN, PORQUE DEBO BUSCAR EL SIGNIFICADO DE ALGUNAS PALABRAS

American Regionalism and the Ashcan School were (pseudo-) movements in the first decades of the 20th century where (among other concerns) American painters tried to establish a territory against European predominance in modern art and tried to find their own voice and to develop their own style. However (as the term „regionalism“ indicates, and also due to the nationalism and conservatism of some of its proponents), they did, on the whole, not transgress and transcend the particular and the peculiar, the „local colour“ as Vincent would have said, into something more universal.

Edward Hopper, who originally was embedded in those traditions respectively who was confronted with them, he did. – The possibility of great art arises when someone embraces the local, the contigent, and penetrates it to such a degree as that he finds the universal and the eternal in it. The idiosyncratic is an emanation of the abstract, of totality, respectively is the modus in which the abstract, totality, seems to actualise itself, as a shade of God; at least that´s how great art presents it to us, the incompetent. In that fashion Hopper was not only a „painter of modern America“ but of universal truths.

Art, painting in particular, is about the evocation of things (respectively their inner essence). In the paintings of Hopper what immediately seems to be evoked is the facade of objects; of unspectacular Houses by the Railroad, whose facades seem impenetrable; an unmysterious, unspectacular exterior as an inside-out of an interior supposedly of equal quality; if these houses in the middle of nowhere are inhabited at all. They´re presented as outposts of civilisation, maybe, as evidence that man has penetrated into nature by the means of culture, construction, technology, standardised mass production and taste, yet not into a nature that is presented to us as particularly violent, dangerous or overwhelming (i.e. with which man had to struggle which would involve drama), though also not actually as peaceful and tranquil. In Hopper´s paintings they´re presented as inexpressive objects in a vacuous nature. And that is where the actual artistic quality is rooted. It´s the inexpressiveness and the vacuousness which establishes a dialogue, telepathy, with the recipient. True art does not confront us with the meaning of something within a particular setting, but with meaning per se. It distills objects in a way that they become signifiers of meaning per se. And, as such, can circulate as a currency of meaning within all human context.

As Markus Gabriel notes, the meaning of art is that it confronts us with meaning per se. Art presents us objects of everyday life in a light in which they suddenly seem questionable, respectively in which their meaning isn´t entirely clear anymore. It displaces and disturbs objects in a way that both the objects as well as the entire world in which they are situated become both unfamiliar and hyper-familiar. Within such a loosening as well as definite identification of an object with itself, meaning itself, meaning per se, is revealed, as a both clear-cut and nebulous center which both can be located and always seems to be, evasively, on the move, which can definitely be looked right in the eye just to (make you) twinkle in the next moment, opening another perspective – in sum: a multitude of perspectives, a (pseudo-fractal) geometry of perspectives, etc. The greater the art, the higher and more comprehensive is the evocation of meaning.

In their unspectacularity Hopper´s objects are highly charged with meaning and they are highly evocative. AAAAAAHH… what an evocation of facade! AAAAAAHH… what uneventfulness! AAAAAHH… what flatness! You have ambiguity in unambiguity; metaphysics in flatness; eventfulness in uneventfulness; familiarity in unfamiliarity; alienation in intimacy. A world, an object world (populated by subjects), which is so much identified with itself that it becomes truly meditative. It is not spectacular, but it is authentic. Hopper´s paintings bring out the element and cast light upon it. They function as a regognition of the single element, the uneventful, the imponderous. In great art you have a singling out of elements which then are charged with meaning. In great art the concretisation of the element at the same time means extraordinary abstraction of meaning from a regional context into the universal context.

However it is not a world locked in itself, and although Hopper was somehow conservative he was not reactionary und staunchly unprogressive. It is not a small world, a petty world, a regionalist, xenophobic world that is presented; you rather have the openness of the prairie and of the city – although you have, of course, an ambigous look upon openness as well. Hopper´s paintings usually are cut-outs and out-takes, although, in some way, they are not actually segments. The roads and railroads usually seem to come from nowhere in particular and seem to go to nowhere in particular (House by the Railroad (1925), Road and Houses, South Truro (1930-33), The Camel´s Hump (1931), New York, New Haven and Hartford (1931), etc.). In Solitude (1944) the destination is an uninviteful one. In Road in Maine (1934), however, you have a curved road, leading to somewhere you cannot look at (which I find therefore terribly interesting). In Gas (1940) you have a solitary gas station explicitely as an outpost of civilisation along a street which leads into a seemingly consuming wilderness – it can be noted that in those paintings Hopper presents seemingly frail human architecture which obviously is bound to eventually get digested by nature the same way he seems to present is as an upright, in a humble way even heroic human effort to create his own realm and shelter within nature – and it seems the conflict between meanings is resolved that both visions are true, in addition to that: that there both seems to be a communion between man and his artifacts and nature as well as that there is incommensurability between them. What he actually seems to present is the synthesis of a kind of (meditative) indifference between them and the possibility for both communion or incommensurability, depending on the subject and depending on circumstances. There is, at least, a juxtaposition between nature and culture as well as there is a sense for amalgamation of both realms. (And concerning Gas, it was the metaphysicist De Chirico who spoke of the suggestiveness of an obscure background the picture seems to get drained into.)

Such a kind of outtakes which – paradoxically – do not actually appear to be segments but expressions of a, probably obscure, continuum Hopper not only sets within geography and space but also within time. Hopper suggests that he is displaying moments in time both in animated scenery and in unanimated, uninhabited scenery (Five A.M. (1937), Seven A.M. (1948), Early Sunday Morning (1930), or in the Cape Cod series, although Hopper may admit that their primary purpose is the study of light at a specific daytime). In the animated scenes Hopper seems nothing to depict but a moment. He is, on the surface, not at all a narrator. Yet those moments seem to reveal the narration of a whole life, not only in the physical dimension but also in the metaphysical dimension. – It has been remarked that Hopper is a painter who captures lonelieness, melancholia and alienation – and indeed, one of his significant epiphanies he had as a young painter who has spent some time in Paris and became aware of the stark contrast between the French joie de vivre and the vibrating intensity of Paris and the compartmentalised, secluded social life which was standard in America. But what Hopper actually seems to reveal is not a culturally relative isolation and melancholia – it is the shallowness of the ordinary human experience, an uneventful narrative, a drama of mundane scenes.

You are inclined to get to know what´s on those people´s minds or what they are looking at, reflecting upon. What are those women in Eleven A.M. (1926), Morning Sun (1952) or Room in Brooklyn (1932) gazing at as they look out of the window – or gazing into themselves as their view seems to be unfocused? What does the piece of paper the scene in Office at Night (1940) obviously is revolving around contain? What film are people watching in New York Movie (1939), with the exception of the female usher who seems to be mulling over her own thoughts (apparently it is a romantic, but trivial Hollywood movie)? What do those women read in their magazines in Hotel Lobby (1943) or Compartment C, Car 293 (1938)? Apparently there is no actual secret, and those people are but an reflection of their unspectacular circumstances, a mirror image – „emptiness reflected in emptiness“ (as one scholar, Wieland Schmied, puts it). More generally, in Hopper´s paintings – from his perspective of the „silent witness“ – you get a seemingly painfully precise and voyeuristic view on the most intimate realm of people – but what is revealed is that there actually seems to be nothing in particular, no secret, or what you would like to expect.

Likewise Hopper often depicts people who are on the move, who are waiting in a hotel lobby, riding a train, who are on vacation or who are in a transitory situation: in a restaurant, in a cafeteria, etc. The possibility of connection between strangers might arise, for instance in Sunlight at a Cafeteria (1958) or in People in the Sun (1960) but it is indicated they will not unfold. A scenario of a permanent transition which is a mirror image of a permanent stasis (in a more general sense, Hopper depicts moments that on the one hand are opened up into the unconcrete, the unspecific, the potential, the durable, the continuum; on the other hand they are frozen and static). Like everything in Hopper´s paintings the mimics and gestures of people are reduced but on the other hand more clear-cut and precise, evoking the essence and the core of the object/subject portrayed, yet again diffuse and ambiguous. Hopper´s people apparently do not display joy, it may be indicated that they express melancholy and inner tension but also that is resolved in some kind of quiet desperation, then some kind of stoicism, finally into a facade which does not actually reveal nor hide a lot – that´s the physiognomy of Hopper´s personage. Kind of unsettled are also the women/girls who look up at the sun or into a greater outside world (Summertime (1943), High Noon (1949) or Second Story Sunlight (1960)) where possibilities of another life seem to be indicated – though as a potential that is not likely to become actualised. (The light, in general, remains external in Hopper´s world. It is not a world of light but a rather dismal world where a cold light from above simply lays bare existential shortcomings, be it of the object world or of the subject world. Only the artist, the metaphysicist is light itself: As Hopper´s wife, Jo, surmised, the lighthouses Hopper often depicts in his paintings may be an alter ego; when asked about one of his last paintings, Sun in an Empty Room (1963), should express, Hopper at least replied: „Myself“.)

Hopper´s people are usually reduced to their social roles, or their genders, indicating they are, on the whole, identical with themselves, with not very much room for maneuvre. Children, who symbolise growth and potential, as well as innocence and complete absorption as well as realisation in themselves and in the moment they are situated, are absent. As Füssli/Fuseli remarks, children are lovely and charming to us because in their gestures the fullness and richness of the moment is revealed. In Hopper´s adults you seem to have the same thing – but it appears as a moment which is drained of its own substance, and of jouissance. And nevertheless: You never know what kind of drama may actually depicted and be the true substance of these mundane scenes. If the realities depicted in Hopper´s paintings do not strike you as truly meaningful to the spectator – respectively to the „silent witness“ – who knows what meaning and importance they carry for those who are situated in them? To reiterate: Great art establishes a constant dialogue with the spectator concerning what is the meaning the artwork carries, what does it try to tell, and it is, in those respects, always fluctuating. That is how those pieces of art are alive and are full of life. Yet another aspect of great art is that it immerses you. Not only intellectually or concerning pure curiosity, but also emotionally and ethically. You feel with those people and even with those unanimated scenes in Hopper´s paintings. They demand dignity and respect. They attract empathy. In the uneventfulness of the scenes a lot might go on. There´s a lot of potential, you see. In those moments, those segments, those outtakes you equally see the continuum. In those definite scenes you sense the possibility of openness. In those depictions of everyday lives, objects and people you have a singling out, an emphasis of the specific element, of the concrete, an appreciation for it. That makes the meditative, transcendent quality of Hopper´s paintings. That is how communion is established. 

Hopper´s paintings are epiphanies of everyday life. While the Hyper-Genius presents a world that constantly explodes, into negatively curved space; while the Hyper-Genius constantly dislocates objects from their meanings and therefore opens room for maneuver, the Genius strictly identifies objects and meanings, to establish lucid clarity and (ambiguous) harmony. In doing so, he reveals the complexities and the ambiguities of the world as well. The gestures and the approaches differ, the significance is the same. In Hopper´s view upon the world there is only a narrow space between an entity and its possibilities. But there is vibration and fluorescence all alike. Luminosity. That is to say the artist casts light on the world and we see a lotta more. That will feel good.

With reference to Schopenhauer Nietzsche calls art „the highest task and the true metaphysical activity of this life“. – Metaphysics aims at discovering the true, comprehensive design of reality. The true, comprehensive design of reality is not given to us, only to a hypothetical omniscient being (and I doubt whether such a being can ever exist). The metaphysicist or ultimate truth-seeker – the true scientist, the true philosopher, the true artist, and the true saint ( = the ethical genius) – aims at breaking open another window, or to remove another brick in the wall, in order to establish a potent view, a fresh perspective on the fabric of reality and its (so-called) mysteries. The scientist, the philosopher, the artist, the saint, are avatars of the truth-seeker, and the higher the personal truth of the metaphysicist the more she will encircle all those aspects, respectively embrace them, establish familiarity with them; in her endeavours to establish a new, potent perspective upon reality, therein trying to imitate omnipotence, and omniscience.

Nevertheless the arts do not seem to be in a very good shape today. True metaphysical effort does not seem to actually be around; no omnipotence, no omniscience. We might attribute this to „the postmodern condition“, (playful) rejection of universalism, respectively the insight that the global perspective cannot effectively catch or pay tribute to the many perspectives that have legitimately been established or found their own voice in postmodern, post-colonial society from the 1970s onwards, in addition to the differentiation of art and the medias with which the expression of art became an increasing possibility, going hand in hand however with the notion that the display of true innovative power has become less and less possible in an age where, concerning modern art, all seems to already been said and done, only footnotes could be added or the perspectives upon modernity could be changed/challenged, multiplied or subverted – yet not revolutionized…

Indeed, the true metapysicist, who – in order to put it simple and in convenient terms – aims at revolution and establishing a revolutionary perspective upon the totality of reality, at first experiences herself to live in an ungrateful epoch, a non-epochal age nowadays. The non-epochal age does not seem to reveal comprehensive or ultimate truth, neither about itself nor about history in general. The grasp on „totality“, including the possibilities of establishing such a grasp, seems to be gone. Hence the depression of the true metapysicist in the postmodern age.

However, after a while the true metaphysicist will realise that she will find truth and the possibilities of establishing views upon totality in every thing, notably in local aspects, in the unglamorous, in non-places. Apart from that, and foremost, metaphysical activity means exposing the essence of a thing, to reveal something about its inner core. The inner core might well be ambiguous, reveals itself to be embedded in a semi-darkness respectively extends into a seam which vanishes into, or amalgamates with, the „infinite“, or with the „primal ground“ – signifying the flexibility of meaning, of the multiple aspects of reality, and of any real thing. The signature of the truly metaphysical artwork is that you immediately realise someone has revealed, and is permanently revealing, the inner essence of a thing. In the case of some metaphysicists that may strike as that something, respectively the whole structure, seems to permanently emerge, to step out of itself. It fluctuates, it may even explode, it seems to process itself, it seems to live. The essence of something seemingly gets chased through its form, permanently, it seems to run over. It seems in the perception of the metaphysicist the inside of a thing is permanently turned out, and to permanently emerge out of this constellation, due to its own inner intensity.

Things of that order, of that kind, of that magnitude usually aren´t around in today´s art world. Therefore I was delighted to get acquainted to Duncan Wylie a while ago when he got featured in the Drome art magazine. When you look at his paintings it immediately arises that there is someone who actually has enhanced and refined painting, and the possibilities of painting – and that he obviously has established a deep perspective upon reality, respectively a perspective upon the deep structure of reality, from which new possibilities of painting – the deep structure of painting – arise.

(What is the deep structure of reality? All aspects of that what is given, of what is actualised as well as the projections of the virtual. What is the deep structure of art, of writing, of science, philosophy, of any human effort to grasp reality? The Experimentierfeld, the field of experimentation of its own possibilities. That is the deep structure of painting.)

What you seem to look at and gaze into when you get exposed to Duncan Wylie´s paintings is – the multiverse, the multi-layeredness of reality. They give impression of the density of the world, of the richness of the world. In the works of the art genius a typical signature is that behind the „given“ world, as presented via the object that is portrayed, a second, a hidden and a subtle world seems to emerge, where enigmatic though profound meanings seem to be located, including the possibility that they are only illusory, deceptive, unimportant, a wrong path, or a kind of Bedeutungsrest, leftovers of meaning in a twilight zone… When both of these worlds are given, presented, illustrated, you have, so to say, the totality of reality. You have an indication of the thing and the thing in itself. You have metaphysics. That is how it has always been in great art, in great painting. In an age like ours, via the seemingly infinite layers that you have in the works of Duncan Wylie you have the metaphysical painting of our post-postmodern age.

Duncan Wylie, a nomad and a white deviant from Zimbabwe who has been living in a number of countries, has his eccentricity somehow rooted in his origins and in his biography. His early paintings through which he has developed his peculiar style are revolving around the traumatic experience of the danger of having his house destroyed, his home, his shelter, by the government. His early works indicate violence and destruction and especially in the mechanical, semi-anonymous way the acts of destruction are undertaken, they seem to expose the direness of reality, respectively that at the core of reality there is no shelter, no possibility of a refuge, that the core of reality is not meaningful architecture but a meaningless ruin, exposed in a scenery where there is no actual communion, no participation, no commiseration. But what also is indicated seems to be that violence, destruction and the ruins do not have the final say. The scenery isn´t empty. The density of reality announces itself.  – Duncan Wylie, at that time, was interested in capturing the moment, via the expression of impact. His paintings seem to indicate that while the impact within the moment originates from the past, the future is already/virtually there as well. The past is closure, the future is openness. The moment is transition as well as totality. In order to understand the world you have to understand the past as well as the future as well as the moment. Embrace the moment and you embrace the universe. In Duncan Wylie´s paintings you see the the plethora of the moment. (And maybe, Duncan Wylie indicates, what you may sense in this approach to painting is that you must destroy your old identity and way of making an image/painting (which was the symbol of the house), while making a new one at the same time. Again, you have a kind of density of the moment, as containing and enabling transition.)

Duncan Wylie says: „My paintings are composed of many opposing forces, and must be understood from a very paradoxical viewpoint. The inherent contradictive nature, on all levels: real/abstract, local/global, individual/universal, emptiness/fullness, city/ nature, instantaneous/perpetual, order/chaos, mental/physical, create for me a fertile ground to explore the possibilities of paint. Thus I can say that these are not ruins or disasters, but constructions.“ And: „There’s always an interplay of contrast between the real and the abstract, and this involves overlaying as much as it does dovetailing.“ And yes, you can say you both seem to have the playfulness and the seriousness of the world, the ephemeral and the sublime in his paintings – indicating that both are different avatars of the same quality. Is it actually the Tao, respectively the immediate emanations of the Tao, respectively the fluctuating interchange of the material world and the Tao, that is presented to us in his paintings? In my humble opinion I am inclined to say yes. In this respect, Duncan Wylie´s world, both seemingly exploding as well as imploding, stabilises itself into and onto itself, via its own inherent competence.

Duncan Wylie´s paintings reveal the metaphysical design of objective reality, the glamour/clamour of being. The purpose of art is to reveal the metaphysical design of reality. – One can, however, say, that the highest point of art is when not the true metaphysical design of objective reality is displayed, but of subjective reality, i.e. the embeddedness of man in objective reality. Duncan Wylie´s paintings display, in their majority, an inanimated scenery (inanimated by man, though the scenery is full of vibrant life itself). If anything, humans are kind of semi-covered by and within the multiple layers of objective reality, they do not seem to be able to transgress material reality, rather they seem to be spilled by and submerged to it. Yet more recently as a prominent figure in Duncan Wylie´s paintings emerges a tightrope walker. The tightrope walker cautiously, yet with increasing competence, seems to walk the thin line between cosmos and chaos. The thin line between cosmos and chaos is where true art happens, and all constructive human endeavour. It is where the actual human condition is situated, and the creative process itself.

What will become of the cautious tightrope walker? Duncan Wylie´s art is an art of that kind that will come up with new solutions/revelations to those questions situated at the core of the human question also in the future (I guess). And maybe we can say that the ethics that derives from his art is the call for a flexible adaption to circumstances. And somehow within the physical and the metaphysical insecurity, the rootlessness, the Unbehaustheit of man the possibility of concealment seems to indicate itself and be guaranteed via the density and playful stability of the world, seen through the mind of Duncan Wylie. That may account for the religious aspects of Duncan Wylie´s art.

Duncan Wylie´s website

„Every intelligent painter carries the whole culture of modern painting in his head. It is his real subject, of which everything he paints is both an homage and a critique, and everything he says a gloss.“ – Robert Motherwell

„I´ll tell you what´s going to happen: The public will keep on buying more and more art, and husbands will start bringing home little paintings to their wives on the way home from work, and we´re all going to drwon in a sea of mediocrity. Maybe Tinguely and a few others sense this and they are trying to destroy art before it is too late.“ – Marcel Duchamp

„Painting has reached a point where youngsters can only add a footnote. It depresses me a little tot hink that what was once Indian territory is now pretty thoroughly mapped out.“ – Robert Motherwell

„I pursue no objectives, no system, no tendency; I have no program, no style, no direction. I have no time for specialized concerns, working themes, or variations that lead to mastery. I steer clear of definitions. I don´t know what I want. I am inconsistent, non-commital, passive; I like the indefinite, the boundless; I like continual uncertainty.“ – Gerhard Richter

„Cobra is a form of art which heads toward childhood, tries to recover folk art and child art for itself with the means available to adulds, non-naive means“ – Pierre Alechinsky

„The art audience is the worst audience in the world. It´s overly educated, it´s conservative, it´s out to criticize, not to understand, and it never has any fun. Why should I spend my time playing to that audience? … I´ll play with the street audience. That audience is much more human, and their opinion is from the heart. They don´t have any reason to play games.“ – David Hammons

(Quotes from: Jonathan Fineberg: Art since 1940 – Strategies of Being, London, 2000)

„Damit ein Kunstwerk wirklich unsterblich ist, muss es vollständig aus den Grenzen des Menschlichen heraustreten: Gesunder Menschenverstand und Logik werden ihm fehlen. – So rückt es in die Nähe des Traums und auch des kindlichen Gemüts.“

„Was im Mittelalter die Künstler auf einen Irrweg führte, als sie die gotische Kunst erfanden, war die Naturbetrachtung; dasselbe Phänomen lässt sich bei allen modernen Künstlern beobachten: bei Dichtern, Malern und Musikern. Ein wirklich in die Tiefe gehendes Werk wird vom Künstler aus den entlegensten Tiefen seines Seins geschöpft; dort plätschert kein Bächlein, singt kein Vogel, raschelt kein Laub; Gotik und Romantik verschwinden; und an ihrem Platz erscheinen die Dimensionen, die Geraden, die Formen der Ewigkeit und des Unendlichen. Dieses Gefühl der Offenbarung lenkte die Baumeister Griechenlands; dasselbe Gefühl schuf die römische Architektur; deshalb glaube ich, dass die griechischen und die römischen Bauten und alle, die, wenn auch leicht abgewandelt, nach deren Prinzipien errichtet wurden, die größte Tiefe in der Kunst erreicht haben.“

„Vor allem ist ein großes Feingefühl nötig. Sich alles auf der Welt als Rätsel vorstellen, nicht nur die großen Fragen, die man sich immer wieder gestellt hat – warum die Welt erschaffen wurde, warum wir geboren werden, leben und sterben -, denn vielleicht liegt in all dem, wie ich schon gesagt habe, kein Sinn. Aber das Rätsel mancher Dinge verstehen, die im Allgemeinen als belanglos betrachtet werden. Das Geheimnis mancher Phänomene im Bereich der Gefühle, der Merkmale eines Volkes spüren, so weit kommen, dass man sich sogar die schöpferischen Genies als Dinge vorstellt, als äußerst merkwürdige Dinge, die wir nach allen Seiten drehen und wenden. Auf der Welt leben wie in einem unermesslichen Museum voller Seltsamkeiten, voller wunderlicher, bunt gescheckter Spielsachen, die immer wieder anders aussehen, die wir manchmal kaputt machen, um zu sehen, was drinnen ist, und enttäuscht merken, dass sie leer sind. – Die unsichtbaren Bande, die ein Volk mit seinen Schöpfungen vereinen. – Zum Beispiel, warum die Häuser in Frankreich auf ihre bestimmte Weise gebaut sind und nicht anders; man kann noch so viel Geschichte zitieren; die Gründe nennen, die zu dem oder zu jenem beigetragen haben, man beschreibt, doch erklärt man nichts, aus dem ewigen Grund, dass es nichts zu erklären gibt und das Rätsel doch immer bleibt.“

„In erster Linie ist es nötig, die Kunst von allem freizumachen, was sie bis jetzt an Bekanntem enthält, jedes Sujet, jede Idee, jeder Gedanke, jedes Symbol muss beiseitegeschoben werden … Den Mut haben, auf alles andere zu verzichten. So wird der Künstler der Zukunft sein; einer, der jeden Tag auf etwas verzichtet; dessen Persönlichkeit jeden Tag reiner und unschuldiger wird … So muss die Malerei der Zukunft sein. Dass mehrere Menschen auf dieser Welt so malen können, ist unmöglich … Doch hier muss ich etwas erklären. Ich habe gesagt, dass es nicht viele solcher Menschen geben wird. Aber ich glaube, dass es trotzdem mehr sein könnten, als sie es jetzt sind. Denn es gibt solche, ich habe schon einige kennengelernt, sie sind mit einer großen Sensibilität begabt, können unbekannte Dinge empfinden, ihnen macht der Anblick eines Menschen oder eines Dings nicht den Eindruck, den er im Allgemeinen macht … Eine solche Empfindung kann uns wohl manchmal gefallen, aber lässt uns nie den eisigen Schauder, die solitäre und tiefe Freude der Offenbarung, der als solche begriffenen seltsamen, sinnlosen Komposition spüren: eine Welt, die niemand kennt, und dessen einzige Bewohner vielleicht wir sind…“

„Daraus lässt sich der Schluss ziehen, dass jedes Ding zwei Aspekte hat: einen geläufigen, den wir fast immer sehen und den die Menschen im Allgemeinen sehen, und einen anderen, den geisterhaften oder metaphysischen, den nur seltene Individuen in Momenten der Hellsichtigkeit und der metaphysischen Abstraktion sehen können, so wie gewisse Körper, die, von einer undurchdringlichen Materie zugedeckt, im Sonnenlicht nicht sichtbar sind und nur mithilfe künstlicher Lichtstrahlen wie etwa der Röntgenstrahlen erscheinen.“

„Das Wort „metaphysisch“ führt zu einem Haufen von Missverständnissen, besonders in jenen Köpfen, die an Verstopfung leiden und die, denen die gesunde Anstrengung des Schaffens fremd ist, von Plagiaten und Allgemeinplätzen leben und ihre chronische Galle jedes Mal ausspucken, wenn ihnen was unterkommt, das den Kreis ihrer intellektuellen Fähigkeiten sprengt … Doch sehe ich selbst in dem Wort „metaphysisch“ gar nichts Düsteres; es ist die Ruhe und die sinnlose Schönheit der Materie, die mir „metaphysisch“ erscheint, und umso metaphysischer erscheinen mir die Gegenstände, die durch die Klarheit ihrer Farben und die Genauigkeit ihrer Maße jeder Wirrnis und Verworrenheit genau entgegengesetzt sind … Die geisterhafte Evokation der Gegenstände, die von der universalen Blödheit als belangloses Zeug abgetan wird.“

„Der dumme, das heißt der unmetaphysische Mensch fühlt sich instinktiv von der Masse, der Höhe, von einer Art wagnerianischer Architektur angezogen. Ein Zeichen von Naivität, es handelt sich um Leute, die keine Ahnung davon haben, wie schrecklich Linien und Winkel sein können; sie werden vom Unendlichen angezogen, und genau darin kommt ihre beschränkte Psyche zum Vorschein, die in demselben engen Kreis eingeschlossen ist wie die weibliche und die kindliche. Wir aber, die wir die Zeichen des metaphysischen Alphabets kennen, wissen, wie viele Freuden und wie viele Schmerzen in einer Arkadenreihe, einer Straßenecke oder auch in einem Zimmer, in einer Tischplatte, zwischen den Seitenwänden einer Schachtel stecken.“

„Gewöhnlich suchen die Leute, wenn sie mit Kindern ins Theater gehen, Vorstellungen ohne intellektuellen Anspruch aus, die den Bedürfnissen der Kinder entgegenkommen; diese Bedürfnisse sind, was das Theater betrifft, natürlich und spontan und werden nicht durch Moden oder Snobismus suggeriert. Die Kinder lassen sich von diesen zwei Faktoren nicht hinters Licht führen, die leider eine gewisse Kategorie von Erwachsenen beeinflussen… (Die Angst, nicht über die neuesten Suchten des Snobismus auf dem Laufenden zu sein, die Angst, nicht intelligent genug zu sein oder sogar dumm dazustehen, diese entsetzliche Angst bringt heute den Geschmack und die Bedürfnisse vieler Menschen zum Schweigen, sodass sie gefügig alle Blödheiten akzeptieren, die ihnen der Snobismus aufdrängen will.)“

„Auf der Bühne sah man alte Propheten, die eine Reihe von Sprüngen machten, und ihre Anstrengungen wurden von Tangomusik begleitet. Wir geben zu, die Wirkung war zumindest komisch. Was mich aber an dem Abend am meisten beeindruckte, war das Publikum, das gleichgültig dieser Beleidigung des gesunden Menschenverstandes beiwohnte. „Wenn wir so weitermachen“, dachte ich, „werden wir auch noch das bisschen Logik verlieren, das wir uns durch jahrtausendelange Mühen haben aneignen können, das befürchte ich. Wir werden unseren gesunden Menschenverstand und unsere Logik verlieren, und diesmal gibt es im Ernst kein Zurück.“ Dann dachte ich traurig darüber nach, dass wir wieder von vorne würden anfangen müssen.“

„Trotzdem ist es vergeblich, nach der Art einiger Phantasten und gewisser Utopisten zu glauben, sie könne die Menschheit erlösen oder regenerieren; sie könne der Menschheit einen neuen „Sinn“ für ihr Leben, eine neue „Religion“ geben. Die Menschheit ist und bleibt das, was sie immer gewesen ist. Sie nimmt diese Kunst an und wieder sie immer mehr annehmen; der Tag wird kommen, an dem sie sich diese Kunst im Museum ansehen und studieren wird; eines Tages wird sie unbefangen und natürlich über diese Kunst sprechen … Was das Verständnis betrifft, das beunruhigt und heute, aber morgen nicht mehr. Verstanden oder nicht verstanden zu werden ist ein heutiges Problem. Eines Tages wird für die Menschen auch von unseren Werken der Aspekt des Wahnsinns weichen, das heißt jenes Wahnsinns, den sie sehen; der große Wahnsinn nämlich, der nicht allen erscheint, wird aber immer bleiben und weiterhin hinter dem unerbittlichen Wandschirm der Materie seine Gesten machen und seine Zeichen geben.“

„Trotzdem ist es etwas Schönes und auch Erholsames, in der weiten Domäne der materiellen Vervollkommnungen immer zu suchen, ohne Unterlass zu suchen. Die Suche ist körperlich anstrengend, aber die Art Anstrengung bringt unserem Geist die Entspannung, die der Künstler so notwendig braucht wie Nahrung und Schlaf. Ohne diese Entspannungen können wir gleich unsere Pinsel zerbrechen und uns der reinen Meditation, der kosmischen Träumerei hingeben, was der erlesenste Rausch ist, aber auch der gefährlichste.“

„Das Genie kann nur von einem Genie erklärt werden – eine Wahrheit, die auf Baudelaire, den Opiumsüchtigen, zurückgeht.“

(Giorgio de Chirico: Das Geheimnis der Arkade. Erinnerungen und Reflexionen. Bonn, 2011)