The two articles below are examples of my writing in the arts. Unlike everything else on my site, the images on this page correspond to the articles and are not my work. The copyright of the images on this page belong to the artists featured in the articles. If you have any comments feel free to contact me at point@neobright.net
The Mystical Art of Victor Brauner
This article originally appeared on an Indonesian Arts website and is currently posted on the Its Only Words literary site.
Victor Brauner was one of the most interesting people in the Surrealist art movement. Described by many as a “painter of premonitions” and a pioneer in several different art movements, it is a shame that his work is not more widely known.
Brauner was born in Romania in 1903. He inherited an intense interest in spiritualism from his father. As a teenager, he studied at an evangelical school in Brila, Romania, and developed an interest in both zoology and painting. Later, he studied for a short period of time at the School of Fine Arts in Bucharest. He established himself early on when he designed sets for Oscar Wilde’s “Salome” (1924), founded the Dadist magazine, “75 HP” with poet Ilarie Voronca (1924), and contributed to two Surrealist publications (“Unu”; 1928-1931 and “Alge”; 1930-1933).
In 1930 Brauner moved to Vienna, where Yves Tanguy introduced him to the Surrealists. During this period he produced a series of paintings that depicted strange animal hybrids, symbolic objects, and twilight landscapes.
In 1934 a collection of Brauner’s work was exhibited at The Galerie Pierre in Paris, with an introduction that was written by Andre Breton. Brauner immediately made a name for himself with a piece titled “Self-portrait With Enucleated Eye”. In this painting, he depicted himself with one eye crushed and with blood covering his cheek.
In the following years, Brauner continued his interest in mutilated and modified eyes. In 1937 he painted “The Last Journey”, in which a man sits mournfully on a giant eye, while another man runs off with an eye pinched between his fingers. In the hole where the mournful man’s eye had been is a rod with the letter “D” on it. A similar instrument with the letter “D” on the handle is depicted piercing Brauner’s eye in “Mediterranean Landscape” (1932) and “Magic of the Seashore” (1935).
When asked, Brauner said that he had no idea why he painted these scenes of mutilated eyes, many of which were self-portraits. His work was executed with an intuitive abandon, the scenes loaded with the kind of random symbolism that was common in Surrealist art. It appeared that Brauner simply allowed his subconscious to express itself, without censorship.
On August 27, 1938, Victor Brauner attended a studio party with his fellow Surrealists. A fight broke out between Oscar Dominguez and Esteban Frances. When Brauner stepped in to separate them, Dominguez accidentally struck him in the face with a bottle. The injury cost Brauner his left eye.
Not only did Brauner’s self-portraits predict that he would lose the eye, they even hinted at the person who was responsible, as the letter “D” that appeared in the paintings is the first letter in the name “Dominguez”.
Stunned by his accidental prophecy, Brauner described this incident as “the most important fact of my life.” He immediately began working on a “magic” series of objects and paintings that exuded hallucinatory, obsessive qualities. Having lost his depth perception, his paintings took on a flat, one-dimensional quality.
Other elements of Brauner’s work changed after he went through this spiritual transformation. He began painting totemic images that were influenced by the folk traditions of Tibet, Egypt, Mexico, and Native North American art. His work also began to reflect his interest in the occult, including magic, alchemy, Jungian psychology, and the tarot.
Inspired by the Jungian archetypes, Brauner incorporated child symbols in his work, often depicting his child-self wandering through an imaginary world, searching for maternal comforts. Similarly, animals often appeared in his work to represent man’s dual nature. As Brauner said, “I am reminding you that all these animals are in you” (1962). This duality was also expressed on many occasions with the use of symmetry and repetition.
“Agolo” (1949) embodies many of these elements at the same time. This totemic image is in severe profile, with the blind side (the side where Brauner lost his eye) turned to the viewer. According to an essay by M. Therese Southgate, MD, this may be an expression of Brauner’s “shadow” or inner self, as he “sees” with his blind side. Southgate further argues that the pregnant form reveals the artist’s creative and nurturing side, while a male fetus reveals his male side. Again, this expresses the duality, or “yin and yang” of human nature.
Brauner continued to use adversity to his advantage throughout his life. During WWII, he fled occupied France and took refuge in the Alpes-de-Haute-Province, where paint and other conventional art supplies were unavailable. During this period he produced a series of innovate pieces with a collection of makeshift materials, including wax, wood, and cardboard. He also began scratching images into paint and wax surfaces. These techniques lent themselves extremely well to his interest in so-called “primitive” art and “art brut”.
After breaking with the Surrealists in 1948, Brauner continued to borrow heavily from the occult and “primitive” art until his death in 1966. His use of symbolism and their connection to psychology are unmatched in the history of art. Throughout his life, this strange and brilliant man produced images that were both personal and universal at the same time. As Brauner explained in 1962, “My life is exemplary because it is universal.”
The Sound Art of Robert Rauschenberg
This article originally appeared in EMI.
Robert Rauschenberg is one of the best-known artists in American history. Known by some as the “Father of Pop Art,” his experiments in print technology (using silk screening, lithography, solvent transfers, photography, and a huge assortment of other techniques) are well documented in museums around the world. He is legendary for his dense, politically charged sculptural works. One aspect of his creative output that is not as well known is his sound-producing and sound-activated work.
In 1953 Rauschenberg was at a fairly early stage in his career. He had been spending a lot of time with influential artists like John Cage, Jasper Johns, and Merce Cunningham, each of them developing the ideas that would change their respective mediums forever. In between his experiments with minimalistic painting techniques, Rauschenberg constructed “Music Box.” This piece was a wooden box that had several antique nails driven into it. Three stones were placed inside. When the box was shaken, the stones would tumble around on the nails, producing a series of sounds. Upon shaking “Music Box,” artist Marcel Duchamp told Rauschenberg “I think I’ve heard that song before.”
In 1956 Rauschenberg created “Broadcast,” a painting that included three working radios. He was interested in developing this idea further by making a series of paintings that could produce sounds that viewers could control.
Rauschenberg began collaborating with sound technician, Johan Kluver, in 1962 in order to explore the technical possibilities of interactive art. He asked Kluver to help develop a “painting as orchestra” in which the viewers would be the conductors of the resulting events. The work of these two men eventually developed into a 1965 sculptural installation entitled “Oracle.” “Oracle” consisted of a bathtub into which a continuous spray of water streamed, a car door that was attached to a typing stand, a window sash, and a curved air vent. A series of random radios produced a real-world cacophony as motors randomly rotated the tuning dials, effectively creating a random sampling of radio broadcasts. Viewers were able to interact with “Oracle” by manipulating the volume and rate at which the radios scanned across the dial.
Later that year, wanting to further his collaborative efforts and to expand on the possible benefits of combining technology with art, Rauschenberg created “Dynamic Labyrinth.” This project was a combination of five sculptures that were constructed out of industrial materials. Five artists, including Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint-Phalle lent their technological talents to the project. Sound elements included an electric pump that forced air into a tank of water and clocks that ran at different speeds.
In 1966 Rauschenberg composed a multi-media theater piece entitled “Open Score” with the cooperation of a team of technicians from Bell Labs. The sound-oriented portion of the piece featured a multi-media tennis match. Each time the ball was struck, a loud “pong” sounded and one overhead light was extinguished. The piece ended when the final light was extinguished and the performance area lapsed into complete darkness.
Rauschenberg and his technicians utilized the latest technology in this piece. FM transmitters built into the tennis balls transmitted the sound of the racket/ball contact onto the arena’s loudspeakers and activated switches that extinguished the lights. An infrared, closed-circuit television was also used to show projections of onstage activities.
Drive by the desire to create art that “would be responsive to the people viewing it” and in which no two people would have the same experience, Rauschenberg and a team of technicians from Bell Labs developed “Soundings” (1968).
“Soundings” was made up of a series of nine smoked plexi-glass panels. Viewed in silence, the piece appeared to be nothing more than a large, smoked mirror. As the audience moved around the room and made noise, however, various portions of the piece were illuminated, revealing a series of silk screened images or straight-backed chairs. This piece responded differently depending on the timbre and tone of the individual’s voice. As a result, Rauschenberg explained, “Everybody sees his own work or art by speaking to it.”
In 1971 Rauschenberg worked with the Teledyne Corporation to develop “Mud Muse.” Taking a break from the flashier works he had been doing, Rauschenberg wanted to engage his audience on a “basic, physical level.” “Mud Muse” was a large vat of industrial drilling mud that bubbled and spurted in response to auditory signals. An assortment of pre-recorded sounds (including bird songs, musical notes, and machine noises) as well as sounds made by the audience triggered events in the installation.
Taking the interactive spirit a little farther than intended, the audience at the gallery opening scooped up the mud and smeared it on the gallery walls, causing the curators to shot down the show (much to Rahschenberg’s chagrin).
As the above-mentioned projects indicate, Robert Rauschenberg spent his entire career experimenting with a number of approaches to creative expression, often utilizing and developing new technologies in the process. In the course of his work, Rauschenberg encouraged others to explore the possibilities of combining art and technology.
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