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| A THREE-STEP PROGRAMME: DIVINE INSPIRATION, A HIGHER REALITY, AND A BUCKET ON ONE’S HEAD OR PLATO, HEGEL, ĀBOLS, ZITMANIS AND OTHER TRUTH-SEEKERS Alise Tīfentāle Plato maintained that art only imitates forms, which, in their turn, are poor copies of a perfect idea. On the other hand, an artist, with the aid of divine (or demonic) inspiration, can create a better copy of the truth than that which we see in the world of things. And that makes the artist a kind of inspired prophet. In consequence, art is dangerous: poets and dramatists must be driven out of the ideal state, and music and painting must be censored in order to protect the citizens of the ideal society. Are Otto's paintings a better copy than tangible reality? At least, there's nothing like that in real life (and a good thing too!): the things going on in the artist's head are materialised in his painting, and, in subjective terms, this is more truthful than that what's going on outside. Should anyone be protected from Otto's painting? It all depends on the viewer's sense of humour. Who said truth had to be serious? | |
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Often compared with the ideas of Plato are Hegel's conclusions regarding aesthetics and art."This time, Hegel seems to contradict Plato, since artistic imitation, instead of being two degrees lower than the Idea, stands beside it and relegates external reality to the third rung. But the logic of Platonism is maintained: "Art liberates the true content of phenomena from the pure appearance of this bad, transitory world, and gives them a higher actuality, born of the spirit". Compared to the ordinary reality, art has "a higher reality and truer existence". In it, as in thought, we seek truth." (Basançon A. The Forbidden Image, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago press, 2000, p. 171). Seeking in Otto's paintings that which might be born of the spirit, we find that which comes from Walt Disney, Robert Rodriguez and "The Simpsons".
The Mickey Mouse or Tom-and-Jerry techniques that serve to amuse children are also very useful for addressing the adult taxpayer, as in "South Park", "The Simpsons" and "Sin City". The motifs in his paintings are for the most part erotic, and here we have a truth: they attract attention because people are so much more concerned with questions of physical existence than with thoughts on life after death or responsibility in the face of posterity. A doctoral student in German language who is familiar with Hegel's philosophy, a potential buyer of Otto's paintings, writes in a private e-mail of a confrontation between a higher reality and the utilitarian wishes of the ordinary viewer: "It turns out that Otto is quite a significant artist. Since we see a reproduction of one of his paintings used to illustrate an article in Izklaide magazine about an exhibition of young and talented painters. The painting is entitled "You look bad". Not only the title addressed me, so did the colour combination - red and blue. This'll be great in the blue room of my recently purchased apartment in the country (three walls are blue-grey, and one is dark blue). The subject of the work is a man with a bucket on his head. My hint, expressed in a sweet voice, "Otto, I want to buy this painting, no matter how much it costs" were to no avail, since apparently the painting was possibly even going to be bought by a bank. In compensation, I received JPEGs of various other works, and chose the ones I liked best, but even after repeated entreaties, no offer of a price was forthcoming. I should wait: there'd be more, and an exhibition in September. I concluded that Otto hopes all his works are going to be bought at the exhibition by some rich widow, someone who might adopt him, too. So, I'm really happy about the title of the exhibition. And I did get to see my dream painting once again: propped up against a wall in a bank. The staff in whose office the painting had been hung, had apparently asked for it to be removed. The further fate of the painting is unknown to me." Hegel and Plato have also been quoted by Ojārs Ābols in his theoretical papers. In contrast to Hegel's categorical assertion, Ābols wrote in 1979: "A work of art does not wish to declare an intellectually correct truth, and the viewers do not demand it. The truth of a work of art is in its openness" (Ābols O. Topi tas, kas tu esi // Uz mūsu nemierīgās planētas. Ojārs Ābols, Rīga: Neputns, 2006, p. 10). Or, in another passage: "The truthfulness of a work of art is a revelation of truthfulness that reaches us not as a statement of fact, but as a derivation of "the most fundamental meaning of the truth"." (Ābols O. Tēla dimensijas, ibid, p. 17). The truth of life and its most fundamental meaning may be formulated in abstract ideas, or manifested in quite commonplace, ordinary occurrences. The truth can be attained by an ascetic monk, or by a merchant or customs official, so long as it is sought. And it can be sought everywhere. In the paintings of Otto Zit-manis, the truth is sought in male-female relationships, in playful and self-ironic form, where the artistic approaches are comicality, exaggeration and an emphasis on narrative. Metaphorical and decorative distortion should not be compared with, for example, the existentially serious painting of Lucian Freud, who presents even a supermodel at the peak of her career as having the features of a cadaver. Otto uses distortion of reality as an allegory, in order to discover that which only he can see. "The dreadful women seen in his works leave us to guess at what's happening in the artist's head. It's hard to say, since Otto has chosen to adopt the approach of an anecdotal message and a caricaturistic style of representation", says artist and critic Vilnis Vējš. The paintings show not a particular woman and a particular situation, but a concept of womankind. Seen in his paintings is an archetypically dangerous, sexually aggressive woman: always half-naked, in underwear, or with the straps of her dress having slipped off her shoulders. Her potential power over man is reduced by emphasising her powerlessness and weakness, and to this end Otto makes use of emotional expression heightened to the level of hysteria (wide-open eyes and bared teeth), and adds various power-neutralising attributes, such as "Playboy" bunny ears, a ridiculous little whip or a knife for carving up a dead chicken (although it would be evident to students of the subconscious that he's really talking about something different altogether). So, what in the end is Otto talking about in his paintings? "Not always can we expect a declaration from a Latvian artist, and not always is a painting intended to show that which others will later perceive there. (..) The truth of art is not easily recognisable and identifiable. It's not a case of "two times two is four", which never changes. The truth of art is renewed every day, and we strive to uncover it for ourselves and light it up in the shine of the ever-changing world. We derive this truth within ourselves, and it follows from the great meaning of the truth of life," wrote Ojārs Ābols (ibid, p. 22). An anecdote, too, contains part of this "great meaning"! Otto Zitmanis (born 1980) has been exhibiting his paintings and photographs since 2000, and his first solo exhibition "A widow and seven sheep" was held in September-October 2006 at the Māksla XO Gallery. He has received the Artists' Union of Latvia Award for a professionally convincing accomplishment by a young artist at the "Autumn 2000" exhibition. In 2004, he graduated from the Department of Painting of the Latvian Academy of Art. | |
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