“The Reddening (Final Stage of Alchemy),” Oil paint, acrylic paint, gold mica powder, plant debris on found vintage canvas, with vintage frame. Approx. 31 x 24 inches, with frame. Samuel Abelow, 2020.
Artists seek resolution of inner and outer tensions, personally, in relationships and between cultural groups. This is a call to rise above a flagrant moral negligence on the part of the academy, curators and artists themselves, to recognize that what we do has consequences, on a personal, national and global stage. In order to grow together:
We drop Picasso’s, “Good artists borrow, great artists steal,”
To say: Good artists develop, great artists integrate.
BY SAMUEL ABELOW
EDITED BY JOHANNES BÖCKMANN
This is the fourth part of the “Mapping ORIGINS” series of essays. Part one was concerned with the introduction of the SHEMAH chart, a tool that helps decode the spectrum of forces that drive individuals in a society to create work and enact social movements. We made an assertion that personality is constructed on a series of dualisms — transcendence and corporeal realities being primary (Trickster-Sage and Seductress-Priestess).
With influential books, Otto Rank’s “Art & Artist” and Denise Murrell’s “Black Models”, as a source, Part Two looked at how, in the evolution of culture, the artist has played a specific role: semi-consciously pioneering into the lost, disregarded aspects of dominant culture and bringing them forth in art. The larger conflicts, the artists are responding to are generated by the failure of individuals and groups to unify. This series of consecutive failures, we saw in part three, is on the one hand the reason for culture to exist in the first place (as compensation for unresolved issues), but also builds up to become part of the human condition and cultural entanglement of a particular individual and — in this case — troubled artist. But, as with all cultural divides, the individual is divided as well. That is, divided between opposite forces within or without: by group identifications, by ambivalence, by a multitude of potential; divided between heaven and earth, exalted spirit and chthonian cruelty; obdurate dogmatism and vital playfulness. The multitude, the many, that is the perennial obstacle of intrapsychic, interpersonal and cultural healing.
Therefore we know that the integral factor is “the individual” who is at the same time both a character of heavenly and earthly elements. When in opposition to one, the individual is partisan to the other. At peace, there would be no divide. A potential of energy is therefore generated by polar opposition, going so far as to become critical — necessitating art.
Through the manifold movements and personalities therewithin, art examines different aspects of personality.
As the alchemists would say: In the final realization the feminine is exalted into Heaven; and the numinous is experienced in the incarnate, real existence (the masculine brought down into Earth). At this point, in a paradoxically integrated manner, the original dualisms flip to their polar opposites — each side, incorporating the other in a flash instant. An integration. A marriage of opposites.
For example, as we have seen in an earlier part of this series of essays, integration of the upper realm means a more subtle relationship to light as the primary factor of waking life. Thus, conceptual art, which emphasizes the upper realm, tends to reveal that subtle perception itself is beautiful.
Art that extends from an ultimately realized state of consciousness is spontaneous, both patriarchal and matriarchal (ideological and beautiful); as well as masculine and feminine (pushing forward, while receptive to the other); and finally, this art must be Divine, in that it is filled with mysterium — a mixture of what was once dualism, as a unified substance. Lapis philosophorum.
This unification is only ever achieved in singular moments in time and experienced, necessarily, through the individual. It is not, therefore, a matter of objective fact, but of subjective realization that is at stake here: The way that these opposites are brought together is contoured by an individual emphasis. The value of the artwork is produced solely by the unique factor of the personality — the moment of unresolved or resolved tension and exploration that is contained and transmittable. And so, even a black painting made by one hand is different than a black painting made by another — this is the factor of uniqueness that never goes away.
Thus, art becomes an activity towards integration that artists enact, and curators support. It means having to get outside the narcissistic tendency, of one’s own “interests” (which, we’ve demonstrated, are arbitrary and therefore selfish — see: Part II, Artistic Dynamism); and interacting with “the other” — artists, identities, cultures, ideas, even media. This integration of opposites comes in many forms: diligent study, determined work, the responsibility to the community.
Those in development will benefit from acknowledging their influences, and crediting each other, more like the tradition of scholars, which have a higher goal in mind (Truth); rather than the narcissism that is associated with dissociated pleasure and self-aggrandizement (Beauty in the Picasso tradition).
We drop Picasso’s narcissistic, “Good artists borrow, great artists steal,”
to say instead: Good artists develop and experiment, great artists invent and lead, codify and disseminate!
This “art of integration” is involved with practices that facilitate a conscience (upper) in relationship to the playfulness (lower); this leads to a dialogue, that produces the integration of opposites. It is a dialogue, in which other artists’ ideas, paths and ways are to be respected and included. Looking back, we can derive value from Gauguin's struggle to find an intrapsychic dialogue of various media, and seemingly impossible concepts and images that are artfully related to one another (new color ideas, images from other cultures that are introjected into an already running system).
“Illuminated Tree,” watercolor, charcoal and oil pastel on paper, 19 x 13 inches. Samuel Abelow, 2019.
We grow together: this is about crediting each other; communicating with one another; and most of all, taking responsibility for the intrapsychic complexes which rule over individuals who neglect the larger work in favor of mere aesthetics. This is a call to rise above flagrant moral negligence on the part of the academy, curators and artists themselves, to recognize that what we do has consequences, on a personal, national and global stage.
Now, the dialogue with the viewer — that is, the end result of any art — expresses the individual’s conscious relationship to these factors. Their experience is a matter of unique perception — defined subjectively by knowledge, experience and combination of traits.
A realization of this new moral position and the importance of inventive processes is hopeful — moving towards the realization of immanent (earthly) and transcendent (heavenly) potential which are both the roots of and blossoming heights of the illuminated tree.
In the next and final essay of this series we are going to have a deeper look at the interplay of Audiences in Turmoil.
My work is a multifaceted investigation of soul and meaning, completed in multimedia. With intuition and scholarly discipline, a multicultural system of art has been organized. Today, this inclusive map of the arts is applied to painting, ceramics, music, and performance. In the ongoing work, I weave together historical and cultural themes from all over the world, through the mystical-Jewish lens, enriching them with commentary. Additionally, I help to develop youth, emerging artists, and studied professionals alike — encouraging an understanding of the meaning behind color, and a potential unity beyond the multitude of cultural influences.