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Concrete Now!
Peter Suchin’s
“Museum of the Vexed Text (eight-card extract)” presents excerpts from a
twenty-year period of note-taking. Viewing these annotations might bring
to mind our own similar notes, desks of clutter, revised diaries, lists of
things to do, and suggest their presentation as a portrait of a particular
personality. We might consider that, as any production appears to bear the
stamp of its creator, so in any artwork traces of the artist’s
‘all-over-signature’ may be found. The cause of the vexed-ness of these
texts might be the angst felt by Suchin in his daily life and the
consequent difficulty of this inquiry into his personality.
In showing these in a gallery context the artist sets up a dilemma for the
audience, are these genuine or not? Firstly, is he (what we perceive as
the personality) genuine? Do we expect that if we were to meet Suchin that
he would in some way, on some level, resemble these notes, such that the
person and the product seem a ‘true’ match? Secondly, are the notes
genuine? The accompanying text states that the ‘fiches’ (the card of
choice) are chosen partly for their aesthetic appeal, suggesting that this
same appeal might very well also influence the notes themselves. Do the
materials modify his approach? Does the thought that the card may one day
be displayed? Perhaps the piece is exploring something analogous to the
Uncertainty Principle in physics; proposing that the setting-up of an
experiment is enough in itself to effect the results; better experiments
may be devised to minimise any influence, but there will always be some
residual effect. There is always some noise, |
(click for
larger image) |
some subjective
‘uncertainty’ in our attempts to picture reality. Maybe this is where the
vexation enters in: from the corner of our eye we see everyday scattered
bits and pieces effortlessly settle into ‘genuine’ formations, but
attempts to reproduce these invariably get entangled with our ego.
Rather than these possible interpretations the ‘vexed-ness’ here seems to
result from the notes’ accepting of their necessarily self-conscious and
aestheticised state, whilst they also attempt to address these various
concerns, assert a position, suggest a way to be. That is, if the notes,
in concrete terms, are a presentation of meaning, then rather than picture
reality they, in this display, present us with a reality, where each
incidental mark becomes an active exploration of possible values, possible
understandings. |
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