First published: 27 November 2021
Current update: 30 November 2021
Summary: The author argues that abstract, c.q. non-objective art, cannot exist as 1. The abstract work of art itself is an object that is part of the signifying process, and 2. The imagery, and that what the imagery is made of, inevitably is associated with events and objects of the material world.
The earliest incident in modern western art of what in current idiom would be designated as extreme is the emergence of Abstract Art as of the early 1900’s. There is an argument as to who the pioneering artists were, yes the positions of Kandinsky and Malevich are not contestable, but should the Finnish Hilma af Klint be in there or not, and if so, she’d be earlier than her much better known male Russian abstractionists. Recently the support for Hilma has gained ground, perhaps in part to assert the role of female artists in modern art; overriding the older argument that even though a number of Klint’s early works lacked objective figuration, it was not genuinely abstract. Klint’s art is about spiritual/mystical experience and insight and hence always is about something real to her, no matter how elusive the 'object' is for the non-initiated.
Abstract or non-objective art, in simple language, is art that does not depict objects of real live. It therefore in principle should not have figuration that is associated with the materiality of the world. From the very beginning there is an element of other-worldliness in abstract art – abstract art by its pioneers from the word go was esoteric.
Let us do some post-modern unpacking. In abstract imagery there are two things to consider: 1. Is there figuration in it that leads us to a real object, in some sort of signifier-signified relation? 2. Both Malevich and Kandinsky say the absence of 1 (we can call this conventional representation) is the essence of abstract art and a precondition for its Higher Mission: the creation of unfettered, pure feeling and sensation, without any side-tracking by recognizable imagery. Abstract art is pure feeling.
Our question now is whether this ideological/conceptual stance makes any sense and the answer is if it makes sense only in a very limited manner and more generally it does not: Abstract art is a Misconception as it cannot exist.
When we say, or someone does this for you, an art critic probably, that the image presented in an abstract work cannot be simply related to a real life event or object – well there is no issue. If we look at Willem de Kooning’s The North Atlantic Light (1977) we don’t take the imagery to be a realistic painting of the light above the Atlantic Ocean. But interpretation of a work of art is not that simple. There is a lot more to it and if there is a lot more to it than there is a lot more to signification as well.
Look at what is the most iconic (mind your language) of all early abstract works : Black Square by Kazimir Malevich, dated 1913 (or thereabouts).
Current update: 30 November 2021
Summary: The author argues that abstract, c.q. non-objective art, cannot exist as 1. The abstract work of art itself is an object that is part of the signifying process, and 2. The imagery, and that what the imagery is made of, inevitably is associated with events and objects of the material world.
The earliest incident in modern western art of what in current idiom would be designated as extreme is the emergence of Abstract Art as of the early 1900’s. There is an argument as to who the pioneering artists were, yes the positions of Kandinsky and Malevich are not contestable, but should the Finnish Hilma af Klint be in there or not, and if so, she’d be earlier than her much better known male Russian abstractionists. Recently the support for Hilma has gained ground, perhaps in part to assert the role of female artists in modern art; overriding the older argument that even though a number of Klint’s early works lacked objective figuration, it was not genuinely abstract. Klint’s art is about spiritual/mystical experience and insight and hence always is about something real to her, no matter how elusive the 'object' is for the non-initiated.
Abstract or non-objective art, in simple language, is art that does not depict objects of real live. It therefore in principle should not have figuration that is associated with the materiality of the world. From the very beginning there is an element of other-worldliness in abstract art – abstract art by its pioneers from the word go was esoteric.
Let us do some post-modern unpacking. In abstract imagery there are two things to consider: 1. Is there figuration in it that leads us to a real object, in some sort of signifier-signified relation? 2. Both Malevich and Kandinsky say the absence of 1 (we can call this conventional representation) is the essence of abstract art and a precondition for its Higher Mission: the creation of unfettered, pure feeling and sensation, without any side-tracking by recognizable imagery. Abstract art is pure feeling.
Our question now is whether this ideological/conceptual stance makes any sense and the answer is if it makes sense only in a very limited manner and more generally it does not: Abstract art is a Misconception as it cannot exist.
When we say, or someone does this for you, an art critic probably, that the image presented in an abstract work cannot be simply related to a real life event or object – well there is no issue. If we look at Willem de Kooning’s The North Atlantic Light (1977) we don’t take the imagery to be a realistic painting of the light above the Atlantic Ocean. But interpretation of a work of art is not that simple. There is a lot more to it and if there is a lot more to it than there is a lot more to signification as well.
Look at what is the most iconic (mind your language) of all early abstract works : Black Square by Kazimir Malevich, dated 1913 (or thereabouts).
Let us first confirm that Malevich considered this painting non-objective – meaning at its most trivial that Malevich in painting Black Square did not have a model of a black square which he now was rendering on the canvas at hand, let us say in the manner of a still life. (He, I guess, probably had a visual intuition which he put on canvas – and it elated him in his belief that he had reached the limit of visual art). However, at this elementary level is a sign relationship, with the signifier being the visual image and ‘black square’ its signified. Or vice versa: the title can be the signifier and the image its signified. Either way: this by itself takes us beyond the non-objective. There happen to be squares, there happen to be black objects, there happen to be associations both with black and blackness and the same goes for squares and squareness. This may work differently for different people or situations but in all instances the observer is bound to make sense of what may be presented as senseless or ‘non-objective’ : Black Square, like all art, presents us with the dual aspects of sensation and signification and each of these two tie in with interpretation.
And that is art’s golden triangle: Presence, Representation and Interpretation. Art without representation/signification does not and cannot exist. Not for Malevich, Kandinsky or Klint.
Note: The author is a cultural anthropologist (RUL, majors non-Western art and anthropology of sub-Sahara Africa) and currently active as artist and internet writer.
And that is art’s golden triangle: Presence, Representation and Interpretation. Art without representation/signification does not and cannot exist. Not for Malevich, Kandinsky or Klint.
Note: The author is a cultural anthropologist (RUL, majors non-Western art and anthropology of sub-Sahara Africa) and currently active as artist and internet writer.
