Al Held, Siena, 1990, acrylique sur toile. 121x213cm ©Courtesy André Emmerich Galley, NewYork
The loss of wholeness is a common modern complaint. From the Haussmannization of Paris
in the mid-nineteenth century to the dizzying proliferation of computer networks in the late
twentieth, the old unities and certainties seem to be in a state of continual unravelling. But
where there is a force there is generally a counterforce. There is of course the force of
political rhetoric: the desire to return to what is perceived of as the completeness and stability
of the past is a feature of both the conservatlve and the various Arcadian positions. Culture
too acts to replace unstable social rationales with ones that appear to be more enduring. An
example was the popular reaction to Freudian psychology. It was embraced (in varying
degrees) as the new explanation for the irrational behavior that seemed to animate so much
of modern life. In the common imagination there seemed to be a one-to-one mapping of the
conscious onto the unconscious. Discontent and dismay were redefined as illnesses and
illness could, in the mechanistic modern world-view, be cured. A psychoanalytic guide might
be needed, but with enough work one could find the right correspondences and be made
whole again. Instead of being lost and outmoded, irrelevant to the difficulties of today, the
past (and particularly childhood – that repository of remembered oneness) was lifted out of
nostalgia and given a causal, meaningful place in life. The past had, so to speak, a job.
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Richard Kalina - The Uncomfortable Armchair: Abstraction and Decoration (En)
Publications Tableau : Territoires Actuels Richard Kalina Publications Tableau : Territoires Actuels Richard Kalina