Excess of Nothingness
{Abstract} The fictional exhibition « Excess of Nothingness » studies the paradox of the deeply presence of nothingness in art and depicts the contradiction between fullness and voidness. Nothingness denotes the absence of something, the state of nonexistence of anything. The void, the emptiness, is full of what isn’t there; therefore nothingness has more to it than anything else, and nothing is everything. How can nothing be considered a work of art? How do artists create something from nothingness? This paper explores the form that nothingness takes in art, its meaning and effects on people and society. The theme of nothingness, emptiness and voidness delivers deep philosophical ideas to the world.
Is an infinite dark empty void nothing? The idea of nothingness scares us as human beings, because it means the absence or cessation of life — therefore it reminds us of death. On the contrary, scientists explain that nothing is like the nothingness of space which contains the whole universe; all the stars, mountains, rivers, planets, particles, animals, men…they are all contained in the void — including us. Nothing would mean everything from a scientific point of view, but this exhibition does not question the scientific definition of nothingness. « Excess of Nothingness » explores the philosophical and artistic representation of nothingness, blankness and void. For centuries artists painted figurative masterpieces — the public was expecting these breathtaking technical exploits. Suddenly, in the early twentieth century, Expressionist artists like Kandinsky and Mondrian, broke codes and painted abstract artworks. Since then, Abstract art has become one of the most valuable category of Modernism and Post-Modernism art. How does the notion of Nothingness, such a primordial and existential idea, inspires artists? How do we, as human beings, relate to nothingness? How do we feel about it? Artists always represent nothingness through abstraction. Why did it all started a century ago? The contemporary artists whose works are exhibited in this show play the role of philosophers, of thinking leaders; they have strong and developed ideas about the concept. Instead of writing books about their ideas, they express themselves through visual means. We, as viewers, are completing their works when analyzing and receiving the images they created for us. The exhibition « Excess of Nothingness » explores these questions through the lens of artworks that has been developed by artists who have different opinions about void and nothingness and who express themselves with a variety of mediums and techniques in order to deliver different, if not opposite, ideas.
Since the beginning of the twentieth century, artists started to depict and represent nothingness in their works through abstraction. They realized that abstract art was actually liberating them and gave them freedom. On another hand, artists like John Cage agreed with the scientific definition of nothingness which states that nothingness is the addition of everything that is not there, meaning that nothingness is in fact fullness. Finally some artists like Malevich represented nothingness to imply the end of humanity. Artists are influenced by their every day life, by politics, wars, and major events; so what precisely influenced them to create abstract representation of nothingness?
Sartre, described as a « French intellectual » and influencer of Western culture (in the fifties and sixties), defined nothingness as an empty moment where man is liberated from his past and has to choose: it is the definition of freedom. He links the concept of nothingness and modern’s man fundamental existential experiences of loneliness and disappearance. Nothingness is an essential and invisible component of everyday life. According to Sartre, nothing exists within being, « together with it and at the same time »; nothingness is the foundation of human being. Nothingness is considered to be a positive category. Steven Parrino, an American artist known for his monochrome paintings completed this idea and said that « most are afraid of total freedom, of nothingness, of life. You try to control everything, but nature is uncontrollable. It doesn’t matter how you express yourself (words, image, electric guitar), what matters is that you have something to express. » Artists took advantage of this freedom and explored voidness, nothingness, emptiness and blankness.
On another hand, the void is full of what isn’t there; therefore nothingness has more to it than anything else, and nothing is everything. When, in the early fifties, John Cage visited the anechoic chamber (a room in which all sounds are absorbed) at Harvard University he expected to hear silence; instead he distinguished two sounds, « one was [his] nervous system in operation […] one was [his] blood in circulation. » In a room that is supposed to absorb all sounds, Cage was able to hear the sounds that exist within himself. Pure silence allowed human beings to hear a sound that is inaudible nowhere else. A bit earlier, Robert Rauschenberg produced a series of white paintings (index 1). It was expected to see blank empty canvases, but the lights conditions in the room created shadows of people on the canvases that weren’t blank anymore. Blankness created figures, allowed shadows. These two artists have a particular relationship. In 1952, John Cage presented his event « Theater Piece №1 » at Black Mountain College where four of Rauschenberg’s monochromes were used as stage sets; it was the first time they collaborated in some ways in a project. Minimal art was profoundly influenced by Rauschenberg, who did his all-white and all-black paintings a decade before the movement was born. Later in 1952, Cage said he was inspired by Rauschenberg’s White Paintings and created his well known musical art piece, 4’33’’ — described as « four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence », of nothingness. This piece is a three-movement composition where the performer stand in front of his instrument without playing a note, and leave the stage. The composition consists on paying attention to the sounds of the environment rather than the music played by a performer. In turn, 4’33’’ inspired Rauschenberg’s Erased de Kooning Drawing;
Robert Rauschenberg asked Williem de Kooning to give him one of his drawings that he could erase. De Kooning accepted, and Rauschenberg worked on the project with Jasper Johns; Rauschenberg erased the drawing and Jasper John did the precise lettering for the title. As a musician doesn’t play his instrument but listen to silence (more precisely the ambient sound), a painter doesn’t paint on a canvas but erase a painting. They conveyed the idea of getting rid of what we are used to listen or contemplate, and they bring us back to the source: silence in the music field, and a blank canvas in the painting field.
After the First and Second World Wars, Europe laid in smoking ruins as if Western civilization had never existed, or if Europe had committed suicide. As everything else had failed, art seemed to have failed somehow as well. Color began to intensify and expand, covering the canvas more and more. The artworks of Newman (Onement I — index 2) and Pollock (Full Fathom Five — index 3) were considered as « end-of-the-world » paintings. Newman asked the following question: how far can we stretch a red? Related to this topic, Yves Klein said that the individual self could dissolve into color like a particular disappearing into the universal. The absence of figures implied the end of humanity. First World War was depicted by Malevich as Black Square9, as an erased world, annihilated; as nothingness. The black square is not a shape filled up with color, but in fact a color that was given a shape — the square echoes the frame, it means and represents nothing as the white borders act as a margin. When Rothko painted canvases for the Chapel, he showed the « infinity of death ». In his series of fourteen Rothko Chapel paintings (index 4) at St. Thomas University, Houston, it is hard to differentiate the forms, the background and even the paintings themselves; Bersani and Dutoit argue in their book Art of Impoverishment that the sameness of the paintings makes visibility unnecessary as there is nothing to see. World Wars had a direct impact on the practice of art, and on artists’ state of mind. They were influenced by death, crimes, and horror, and found a way to express their feeling of emptiness, a feeling close to death, through abstract representations. I have created a work called « Humanized » that has been displayed at Maison Des Arts de Créteil in France, in 2015. The work is a direct response to Malevich’s Black Square in a sense that the purpose of the artwork was to emphasize optimism and give importance to people, to humans. They contributed to the piece by the only act of standing in front of it. They allow the black fabric contained within the frame to be alive, or in other words they bring life to it.
As Nothingness is considered as an entity that gives freedom to people, painters liberated themselves from the typical elements of a painting — figure, line, space… Painters like Rothko even gave up shapes in their paintings to focus on color alone. From a philosophical lens, if there is no figure, no shape, no line, no space, nor depth in a painting, there is basically nothing — what if there is even no color? Then, we are talking about an immaterial artwork that talks to the souls.
Nothing is precisely the content of the artwork. Modernism, in terms of the theory of art, insists on the idea that only shapes and colors can be part of a work of art. Ideas, words, figurative representation were not allowed. Clement Greenberg, a visual art critic, gave his definition of Modernism in 1961, in an essay called « Modernist Painting ». According to Thomas McEvilley, shapes and colors would « directly and immediately » address the soul, « which had been slumbering, and reawaken it » — « being non-material, color was close to spirit . » Abstract art would refer to eternal truths and is considered real because it embodies timeless principles., When a painter reduces all of painterly means (figure, line, space, eventually even color), the painting results in almost monochromatic one on the verge of nothing. This idea shows the way in which we are used to think about nothing; as the negation and absence of things which corresponds to Sartre’s definition of nothingness. He states that nothingness is the origin of negation and not the result of it, but a nonbeing depends on being, an entity in order to negate it. Concerning Rothko’s case, more than being on the verge of being nothing, his paintings represent nothingness . One can ask why were shapes in the picture when artists weren’t supposed to represent anything?
The shapes kept the spirit (colors) in prison, were only tolerated if they served as « necessary vehicles for color. » Rothko eliminated space and depth as well as abrogated shapes absolutely for color alone — and colors look like they are floating on the surface of the canvas.
Post-Modern artist, Yves Klein, abandoned colors as well. What was left then? Nothing. Literally. He translated nothingness as a theory of sensibility, an immaterial artwork capable of being able to move bodies and souls. In “My Position in the Battle between Line and Color”, Yves Klein wrote in 1958: « My recent work with color has led me progressively and unwillingly to search for the realization of matter with some assistance (of the observer, of the translator), and I have decided to end the battle. My paintings are now invisible and these I would like to show in my next Parisian exhibit at Iris Clert’s. » With his exhibition « The Void » in Paris (1958), Yves Klein removed everything from the Iris Clert Gallery and painted it all white; he opened the door to a conversation that makes people uncomfortable until today, « is this art? »
Now that we’ve established what nothingness means in art, what are the techniques and reasons behind this concept? It is important to dig deeper and understand the ideas concerning the sous-genre of nothingness which is emptiness, voidness. How do artists feel about this notion? How do they deal with it?
According to Reinhardt, emptiness and nothingness are indeed fullness, and darkness is light. When he made his series of black paintings (index 5), they were full of layers and depth thoughts and colors, but most importantly they appeared to be light because black captures light. “Void,” he wrote, “diluted by matter, disturbed by light split-up sucks time, space, identity into absolute of nothingness.” Following this schema, the contemporary artist Anish Kapoor is deeply concerned about darkness and voids. Born in Bombay, India, he often uses Sanskrit names for his works; and the Sanskrit word śūnyatā means emptiness or void, but can also mean fullness. Kapoor recognizes the void in many presences and he juxtaposes void and darkness with fear. The fear is associated with the sensation of falling, vertigo. There is a common point between fear and darkness; « the eye is uncertain, the hand feels in hope of contact with walls. You look to see if you can find the bottom of the black hole ». On May 3rd, Anish Kapoor did a talk at The New School, and reminded to the audience he had « nothing to say. » He doesn’t « believe in the idea of delivering a meaning. A thing comes into meaning rather than deliver some meaning. » An artwork then wouldn’t exists if it wasn’t completed by the viewers.
The design for this exhibition aims to bring a conversation about nothingness through the architecture itself. It is a two-floor pop-up building in the form of a square completely white outside and inside. It is a pure and precise shape, that has no meaning to it, no value nor symbol. Inside, the first floor is filled up with a white cylindrical solid — there is barely no space for the visitor to walk in. The visitor feels stuck, invaded, and surrounded by solids. On the second floor, the visitor is supposed to experience an opposite feeling, the fear of void. He understands that the solid he saw downstairs was actually a void, nothing. The solid is just a facade, and contains nothing. The space of the exhibition itself questions the idea of nothingness and asks if nothingness can be seen as fullness.
Why is an artwork considered as a piece art if it represents nothing? if it is about nothing? and if it says nothing? This exhibition enlightens the fact that artists are creative thinkers and they give people the keys to think further, to question their feelings. « Excess of Nothingness » doesn’t aim to give a response, nor claim what’s right or wrong. It gives you the keys to think for yourself, to question yourself. Figuratively speaking, trying to fill up a void is a normal reaction, it is like getting some knowledge to feed up our brains. They were empty when we were born, and it is scary to leave them empty. Scary. Getting some knowledge gives us freedom, which brings us back to Sartre’s definition of nothingness: « an empty moment where man is liberated from his past and has to choose. » This exhibition reminds us, that we have the chance to choose and therefore that we are free.
Index
Bibliography
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