“About the Friendship between Art and Philosophy”
The response to your question could be: Friendship! Together with my friend Marcus
Steinweg, Philosopher, I made the "Map of Friendship between Art and Philosophy".
With this Map we wanted to do a visual statement to this Friendship. Friendship between
Art and Philosophy does not mean that the artist needs the philosopher to do his
work, nor that the philosopher needs the artist to do his work, but it means that
Philosophy and Art really share the same movement, the same dynamic, the same interrogations,
the same problematic, the same anxiousness, in order to accomplish the constitutive
creative artistic act. This artistic act is assertion of a new truth. In Philosophy
this truth is a new concept and in Art this truth is a new form.
This statement can be - today - a response to your questions. I repeat them here
because they seems to me really touching the core in our concerns: "How does art
shed light on philosophy? And conversely how does philosophy shed light on an art
practice? Do the two disciplines speak in parallel and never touch, or are there
points of intersection where each can illuminate, provide models for, and critique
the other? How can both disciplines work together to generate a more conceptually
imaginative and ethically and socially engaged practice?". One thing I really understand
is that in philosophy terms and notions are important. Philosophers use words with
preciseness and exactitude. Philosophers are sculpting concepts following their logic
in the strongest way they can. The words they use are important tools to them in
order to create new terms in philosophy. I admire that enormously. I can learn this
from Philosophy, from Philosophers and I can try to use - me as well - my Terms -
in relation to Art, in relation to my Work and to me - as an Artist. The friendship
between Art and Philosophy means the total sharing of ten terms: Hope, Form, Assertion,
Headlessness, Courage, Love, War, Universality, Resistance, Autonomy. As I have materialized
this together with Marcus Steinweg in the map “Map of Friendship between Art and
Philosophy” I want with the following words give a respond from me - as the artist
- to your questions. In doing this I want to keep faithful to the ten Friendship-terms:
Love:
I love Philosopphy and I love Spinoza as others. I am passionate about Spinoza because
the lecture of “Ethics” had a real impact on me and I am passionate about Philosophy
in general because I enjoy not understanding everything. I like the fact that, in
Philosophy, things remain to be understood and that work still has to be done. “Ethics”
is one of the books which, for me, still remains to be understood. What I have made
out so far, is that “Ethics” is a powerful attempt to fight obscurantism and idealism.
“Ethics” – a book I often look into – is overwhelming in form, logic and clarity.
Today more than ever it is necessary to confront this. Reading Spinoza means: accepting
to insist on receptivity and sensuality without the idea of a certain type of infinity.
According to Deleuze, whoever is interested by philosophy, should start with Spinoza’s
“Ethics”. When you read Spinoza everything is transcendence. But if everything is
transcendence then there exists no transcendence. If not transcendence, then everything
is immanence. But if everything is immanence, there is no immanence. Spinoza presents
a concept devoid of transcendence and devoid of immanence. It is the concept – as
Deleuze shows – of Here and Now, the concept of Life – Life as a subject without
God. An active subject, a subject of pleasure and leisure. A responsible, gay, assertive
subject.
Form:
The essential question in Art is the question of Form. How can I give a Form which
creates a truth? How can I give a Form - today, in my historical field - which creates,
beyond historical facts and beyond the actuality of today, an universal truth? This
are the essential questions to me as an artist. I do not conceive my work as an
outcome of philosophers’ concepts or of theory. I really do not read a lot – my friends
know this – as I have enough to struggle with my work and think about my Form. I
have to give Form, this is the essential, this is my problem, this is for what I
am fighting for; to give Form, to give my Form! Furthermore I am not constructing
my work on Philosophy, theory or thoughts from others but – because I am an artist
today – per chance there are moments and spaces of similar dynamics. I am very, very
happy about this. I am ready and open for these rare and graceful moments of encounters
in concepts and forms which – together with Marcus Steinweg – we call - the already
mentionned - “Friendship between Art and Philosophy”. I want to point out that when
something is ‘not-functionning’ concerning my works of Art, it is crucial not to
forget that an artwork can be something which does not function. (I do not say that
Art has no Function but Art does not have to function!) Today the question of functioning
(“does it function? does it “work? Is it – then – a success or not?) arises automatically
and quickly as criteria for “good” or “bad” art. This is stupid and easy. I think
that the problem is not about doing art which “functions” or “works” but to do an
artwork which implicates, which creates an event and which can provoke an encounter
or allow encounters. But this is something which cannot be measured, there is no
“yes” or “no”, there is no success or failure. Art it is something which reaches
us beyond such criteria. To believe in this power of Art is to me what “working
politically” as an artist means, trying to resist in and with the work to the pressure
of functionality.
As an artist I am often surprised by effortless, inexact and empty terms or notions
used in order to “explain” an artwork. I am astonished by the repeated and thoughtless
use of terms in art critique. As the artist – I refuse to use them myself when I
think it is not the right word to describe what I want. I have to invent my own terms
and I want to insist with my own notions. I know – as artist – that to give Form
is the absolute necessity and that writing is not a necessity, but writing helps
me clarify, it helps me fix and be committed to things.
Writing is a help to understand, to touch, to speak about something. But it’s only
a help, my work does not depending on it. Therefore, when writing, I try – at least
as the artist – to use the terms I think appropriate in relation to my work. And
as a help, it is an ethical obligation towards my own work.
Courage:
There is a term very important to me - since years, it is the term of "Precarity".
My adherence to precarity comes from my life, from my experience, from what I love
– from the precarious forms I love – and from what I understand of it. My adherence
to this term does not come from books! I am really pleased to know that Philosophers
and Writers as Judith Butler, Emmanuel Levinas, Hal Foster and also Manuel Joseph
(a French poet and friend) have, among many others, developed thoughts about “Precariousness”
but I must tell you, I learnt this myself and I am not going to learn something more
about it. On the contrary, my tendency is – I admit – to avoid to go “deeper” – because
I need, yes I need, my own, my own strange, wrong, headless misunderstood, bad, stupid
– but – my fucking own relation to preserve and to develop. This is not an opposition
to theory or a refusal of theory, absolutely not. It has to do with being open to
what comes from my own, to what comes only from my own. It just makes me happy to
hear that I am not alone with the interest in “Precarity”. And I have the ambition
in doing my work to intervene – through the notion of “Precarity” – in the field
of Art.
Assertion:
I am not illustrating Philosophy with my work. I am not reading Philosophy to do
my Artwork and I am not reading Philosophy to justify my work. I need Philosophy
for my life, to try to find responses to the big questions such as “Love”, to name
one of the most important to me. For this, I need Philosophy – please believe it!
Of course if connections, dynamics, influences or coincidences exist in my work –
I am absolutely happy. I want to be touched by grace, without belief in any correlation
to genius or obscureness or that it has something to do with artistic ignorance.
If you are working today in the historical field of the moment you live in, confronting
all kinds of complexities, struggling with all kinds of paradoxes and contradictions,
if you are still working and continue listening only to yourself, it is only normal
that at some point your work is going to be a “flash”. Gilles Deleuze is truly an
important Philosopher to me, because he explain to me, why I should start, myself,
to read Spinoza. As Deleuze with Spinoza, I – as an artist – admire how great Philosophers
had interest and commitment in other thinkers and how these great Philosophers are
the most able to explain the concepts of other Philosophers with their own words.
Headlessness
I am not an ignorant artist – because it’s better not to be ignorant, as artist!
Of course – I love the beautiful book “The Ignorant Schoolmaster” of Jacques Rancière
and its fantastic enlightening title, but I am not a Schoolmaster – I am not even
teaching Art – I am an artist! I, myself, am and want to be a Headless artist. I
want to act – always – in headlessness, I want to make Art in headlessness. “Headlessness”
stands for: doing my work in and with precipitation, restlessness, acceleration,
generosity, expenditure, energy (energy = yes! quality = no!), stupidity, self-transgression,
blindness and excess. I never want to economize myself and I know – as the artist
– that I sometimes look stupid facing my work, but I have to stand out for this ridiculousness.
Autonomy:
Another word for Autonomy is Beauty or the Absolute. To make it clear, I am not interested
in 'Autonomy' as self-sufficency or self-enclosure. I am for the Autonomy as a self-erection
or self-expenditure. There is a difference between self-expenditure, being cruel
vis-à-vis my own work, not-economizing myself and what you call “self-cancellation”
and “auto-destruction”. I want to undermine myself – my person – in doing my work
– I do not want to undermine my work! I don’t want to take myself seriously in doing
my work but I want to do and take my work seriously! I want to give everything I
can in order to do my work but I do not want to give my work away! The gift is not
the work itself – the gift is to do it and to do it in such a way! What I love in
the notion of “gift” is the offensive, demanding and even aggressive part in it,
it’s the part that provokes the Other to give more! It’s the part which implies a
response to the gift, a real and active response. The gift or the work must be a
challenge, that is why I am not using “auto-destruction”. “Self-cancellation” to
me is related to narcissism, to tearfulness and I want to resist to the fashionable
tendency to self-criticism. Those terms are not related to my understanding of Art
as an assertion, an absolute assertion of form, as an engagement, as a commitment
to pay for, as a mission, as a never-ending conflict, as a strength and as a position.
Universality:
Universality is constitutive to Art. It’s something very important to me. One can
say that Art is universal because its Art. If it is not universal it is not an Artwork,
it’s something else. I do oppose the term “Universality” to Culture, Tradition, Identity,
Community, Religion, Obscurantism, Globalization, Internationalism, Nationalism or
Regionalism. I experienced with my Artwork – and not only with the works in public
space – that Universality is truly essential. There are other words for Universality:
The Real, The One World, the Other, Justice, Politics, Aesthetics, Truth, the “Non-exclusive
Audience” and Equality. I believe – yes, belief in Equality. And I believe that Art
has the Power of transformation. The power to transform each human being, each one
and equally without any distinction. I agree that equality is the foundation and
the condition of Art.
War:
As an artist I need to be a warrior. Somebody who has a mission, somebody who wants,
who has the plaisir, the fun and who has the power and the energy to accomplish a
mission. A perhaps impossible mission - never mind, the importance is the mission.
Each Artwork is impossible. It is impossible because it’s just not necessary to do
a possible Artwork! An Artwork is an impossible form and an impossible assertion
and it’s impossible to defend it. Doing an Artwork – I think – is not “impossible
but necessary” but it is: “impossible and necessary”. An Artwork must possess both:
“impossibility and necessity. Don’t both together make sense? Don’t both together
create density, charge and energy? Don’t “impossibility and necessity” – together
– give beauty?
Hope:
I hope, I dream, I want to act and I want things change. That is why I am reading
Philosophy. I am not interested in reading writers, philosophers, thinkers as an
artist. I am interested in them as human beings. I don’t use their work for my work.
I read it to try to stay alert, to keep my thought active. I think that to read their
writings keeps my brain working, that’s why I do it. I don’t understand a third
of what I read, and this is true for Bataille as well as for the other philosophers
I dod read. But there are certain essays like «La notion de la dépense » in which
I find beautiful things. For Bataille the expense opens a field of strength. Loss
is not a destruction but loss is a form to impose an economical balance based on
human activity and not on capitalism. Bataille said there must be structure, there
must be excess. « Energy yes, quality no », because, I can judge what has energy
in my work or in work of others. That is the only thing I am interested in. I cannot
judge whether there is quality in my work or in work of others. And it doesn’t interest
me.
Resistance:
Art is resistance, Art is resistance as such. Art - because its Art - resists Facts,
Art resists aesthetical, culturel, political habits. Art - in its Resistance - is
movement, intensity, belief, Positiveness. I share with Marcus Steinweg: philosophy
is art! Pure philosophy, true, cruel, pitiless philosophy, philosophy that affirms,
acts, creates. The philosophy of Spinoza, of Nietzsche, of Deleuze, of Foucault.
I don’t know Foucault’s philosophy very good, but I see his work of art - I see it
and I can touch its resistance! It permits me to approach it, to not understand it
but to seize it, to see it, to be active with it. I don’t have to be a historian,
a connoisseur, a specialist to confront myself with works of art. I can seize their
energy, their urgency, their necessity, their density. Michel Foucault’s work - as
the work of other pilosophers - is charged. It’s a battery. I can seize this charged
battery. It is pure energy, the energy of a singular commitment. There is the commitment
to make a work of art. There is the affirmation that the work of art is philosophy,
and that philosophy is a work of art. I want to make a work, a work of art! I want
to become what I am. I want to become an artist! I want to appropriate what I am.
I want to resist. This is my work as an artist.
