The Return of the Abject – Julia Kristeva’s ‘Powers of the Horror‘/”Pouvoirs de l’horreur (1982)
The work is an extensive treatise on the subject of abjection, and draws on the theories of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan to examine horror, marginalization, castration, the phallic signifier, the “I/Not I” dichotomy, the Oedipal complex, exile, and other concepts appropriate to feminist criticism and queer theory.
According to Kristeva, the abject marks a “primal order” that escapes signification in the symbolic order; the term is used to refer to the human reaction (horror, vomit) to a threatened breakdown in meaning caused by the loss of the distinction between subject and object, or between the self and the other.
Koons, Rabbit (1986)
- Modernism: Body as ‘repressed’, not serious subject matter
- ‘Abject Art’
Kiki Smith, Virgin Mary (1992)/Blood Pool (1992)
(Materials: beeswax, microcrystalline wax, cheesecloth, and wood on steel base)
(painted Bronze)
Notes:
- Trauma and the Abject body (Mother and Chid)
- Childhood fantasies and fears
- The ‘Death Drive’ –
In classical Freudian psychoanalytic theory, the death drive is the drive towards death, self-destruction and the return to the inorganic chemistry: “the hypothesis of a death instinct, the task of which is to lead organic life back into the inanimate state”.
- Malformed female child in fetal position, and covered in blood
- Continuation of the AID’s crisis, debates over identity and crisis
- Abject – in between (space) subject and object
- Simultaneously ‘attract to’ but ‘repulsed by’ – double movement – characterises western notions to the human form (seen as a transcendent ideal that can ever be achieved )
- Abject does not respect borders
- ‘Impurity’: Abjection as polluting the social body
- Materialism outside the Western binary of materialism – another kind of quality. Formless in many ways causing a stain in the social and economic body
- Informe: defining as ‘formlessess’
- ‘The Myth of Infantile’: Freud famously suggested that infantile amnesia is an active suppression of early traumatic memories. However, a review of the modern cognitive literature suggests that at least in some ways, infantile amnesia may actually be a myth. Perhaps the most intuitive explanation of infantile amnesia is simply that the infant’s brain is not sufficiently developed to support episodic memory
Human being constantly haunted by the ‘abject’ as the two are mutually linked
Helen Chadwick, One Flesh (1985)
Andreas Serrano, Milk Blood (1984)/Piss Christ (1987)
- Abjection radicalizes theatricality – oedipal naughtiness or infantile perversion
Gober, Untitled (leg)/ Untitled (Body politics)/ Untitled (Art Sexx)
Pondick, Little Bathers
Gift Economy:
A gift economy, gift culture, or gift exchange is a mode of exchange where valuables are not traded or sold, but rather given without an explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards
- Bear the intensity of their labour
- The sexual aspect of toys that the manufacturing economy brings out
- Deal with the ‘abject’ through ritual as art takes over this mantle in contemporary society
(Art of the Uncanny) Mueck, Dead Dad (1966/7)
Australian sculptor. He spent 20 years in Australian and British television and advertising, where he was already making the mannequins that he later adapted to sculptural purposes. Mueck took part in the exhibition Sensation at the Royal Academy in 1997 with mixed media sculpture Dead Dad (1996–7; London, Saatchi Gal.), an unsettling illusionistic rendition of his own deceased father, half life-size. Made from memory, the sculpture became as much the focus for a strong emotional involvement as it was a mere object treated with Mueck’s rigorous eye for detail. As the artist explained, the miniaturised representation proved a more emotionally involving depiction of death by compelling the beholder to ‘cradle’ the corpse visually.
Mueck sculpts in clay, makes a plaster mould around it and finally replaces the clay with a mixture of fibreglass, silicone and resin; the technical skill involved has often been foregrounded by critics to the detriment of its content. Such psychological density was evident in Ghost (h. 2.02 m, 1998; London, Tate), a gigantic representation of an awkward teenage girl wearing a bathing suit and averting her gaze from the viewer. Such plays on scale are integral to the powerful effects of Mueck’s figures. A colossal figure commissioned for the Millenium Dome in London in 2000 reiterated a similar issue. Tackling traditional themes such as self-portraiture or the age-old question of verisimilitude in art, Mueck applies skills more usually associated with theatrical or cinematic special effects, to engender a personal understanding of the art object.
Sue Williams, Irresistable (1992)
“Sue Williams work has been driven by the desire to understand and interpret the psychological world of the human condition and the ever-increasing pressures that drive us to behave in certain ways. The inspiration has been founded on the notion of the ‘….tit bits…’ a play with reality and fantasy from a feminine perspective, often subverting the truth through image and text, in both a serious and playful manner. The main thrust in the work is drawing – drawing been used as an urgent and immediate tool for visualizing my responses.
Sue Williams is another artist that relies heavily on her past as an inspiration for her artwork today. She uses both words and drawing to convey her message. She has been in brutal relationships, one of which she was shot and left for dead. She often draws the phrases that she uses in her artwork from things that have been said to her. The autobiographical nature of her work acknowledges that other women go through this violence as well. (Smith, 1992) “I couldn’t imagine doing any of these things a little while ago. I think men don’t know the experience of being a woman, just like I don’t know the experience of being black. There’s just so much more that you don’t know until it’s put out there.” “It became an outside anger instead of just my life.”
‘I am a woman making self-reflective work, this naturally leads to its categorization as feminist art, though I have not tried to define my practice in that context.’ ‘My work partly focuses on my own vulnerability, and at this time it has to be said, ‘as a woman’.
Irresistible (1992). It’s a rubber sculpture of a woman, laying in the fetal position, beat up with words written all over her body. She has bruises all over her body as well as cuts and boot marks. Some of the statements are “The No. 1 cause of injury to women is battery…” “Look what you made me do.” “If you don’t care about yourself…” To see all of these statements you need to walk around the whole piece and read them. This isn’t something that you can glance at and then walk away, gaining nothing.
Just like Kahlo, I see Williams’ art as empowering. She frankly shows a beaten and broken woman, but you know that that woman can rise from her ashes. She exposes the violence against women and wants to make it known that it is horribly wrong. Her pieces are thought provoking, I think. She’s shedding light into what happens to women in the private world. She’s showing that feminist mantra that “the private is political” is quite true. She’s saying “domestic violence happens – and here’s what it looks like. Look at it. Recognize it.”