La apoteosis del placer de Terry Rodgers by Catherine Somzé (translated by me)
La apoteosis del placer
Y, mientras saciaba su sed, otra sed
Crecía; mientras bebía vio ante sus ojos
una forma, una cara, y la amo con el corazón
saltando
Era una esperanza irreal y pensó que la figura
era real.
Se vio a sí mismo embelesado, inmóvil
Permaneció como una estatua de mármol mirando
hacia abajo.
Ovidio ‘Narciso’ Metamorfosis III
Si las reuniones privadas de la clase
privilegiada alguna vez han sido parte de una de tus fantasías, las pinturas
del artista americano Terry Rodgers seguro retarán a tu imaginación. ¿Qué
significa ser exitoso hoy y cómo podemos entender el placer? Vistos desde una
cierta distancia, las representaciones de Terry de las clases superiores y su
tiempo de ocio parecen abrir las ventanas a esta especie de paradisiaco lugar
que Charles Baudelaire celebra en su famoso poema ‘Invitación al viaje’.
Ahí, nada es sino
gracia y medida
Riqueza, quietud y
placer.
Empacados en telas finamente bordadas, seres
promiscuos llevan pesadas joyas y alzan licores caros hacia sus labios; sus
bocas abiertas de forma imperceptible como si estuvieran a punto de hablar. Sin
embargo, el hechizo lentamente se desvanece cuando acortamos la distancia que
nos separa del lienzo –esos tres pasos seculares que nos acercan a su
superficie–. Los contornos se difuminan de forma irremediable y los materiales
preciosos se transforman en pinceladas y pintura añadida. El mundo de Terry
Rodgers es aquel de las apariencias, su riqueza consiste, sobre todo, en su
arte para pintar.
De esta forma, no es sorpresa escuchar que uno
de los primeros recuerdos de Terry está relacionado con un retrato de Diego de
Velázquez, y después él quedó fascinado por el aparente falto de esfuerzo de
las pinceladas de los pintores impresionistas y algunos de sus herederos. Aunque,
de igual forma que el maestro español del siglo diecisiete, estos pintores
también favorecían más los colores sobre el contorno. La obra de Terry nos muestra la primacía de
la pintura pura y la importancia de líneas para estructurar las composiciones
en vez de modelar los objetos y las figuras humanas. Como Velázquez y Edouard
Manet, la habilidad especial de Terry para manipular su brocha convierte el
lienzo en un sofisticado instrumento óptico. Dos niveles de percepción
coexisten sin siquiera coincidir. Como demuestra el famoso ejemplo de Ludwig
Wittgenstein, en medida que el espectador no pueda ver la imagen del pato y la
del conejo al mismo tiempo, él o ella no podrá ver de forma simultánea la forma
de ambos y la pintura que les da forma.
Sin embargo, este juego con ilusiones ópticas
no está confinado, en el caso de la obra de Terry, al uso y aplicación de
colores. También implica a las composiciones que, por un lado, nos invitan a
tomar parte de la escena mientras, por el otro, nos disuade de hacerlo y fija
las señas para un proceso dialéctico visual. A menudo, Terry emplaza la figura
de un repoussoir en la composición.
Del mismo modo, los fondos crean lo que aparenta ser un espacio geométrico. Sin
embargo, en el corazón mismo de la composición, los cuerpos llenan el espacio
de manera literal. Entrelazados componen estratos geológicos, más que
representar un mundo acorde con las leyes de la perspectiva óptica. El cuarto
al que estamos invitados a entrar no es una réplica del mundo real. En su
lugar, nos describe un mundo social y psicológico que revela de forma gráfica
la naturaleza limitada de algunas relaciones humanas y sugiere, a su vez, una experiencia
del tiempo alterada.
Este estrecho nexo humano ofrecido a nuestra
mirada inquisidora constituye uno de los aspectos más impactantes y atractivos
del trabajo de Terry. Sin embargo, ¿es posible hablar en este caso sobre
intimidad? ¿de que manera el trabajo de Terry con la desnudez y la sexualidad?
¿de una forma incluso pornográfica como algunos han argumentado? Uno deber
recordar que l retrato al desnudo –y la misma pornografía nunca han tomado la
misma forma ni han servido el mismo propósito cultural. Por ejemplo, no fue
hasta el siglo diecinueve que el desnudo se convirtió un género en si mismo,
después de haber sido subordinado para la representación de escenas literarias.
El trabajo de Terry, similar al de Edouard Manet ‘Almuerzo en el césped’
(1863,) capitaliza esta representación moderna y de esta forma escandalizó a la
burguesía contemporánea tanto como fue un espejo de la evolución de sus gustos.
Dicho esto, lo que diferencia a primera vista el trabajo de Terry de las
producciones pornográficas de hoy, es la falta de referencias gráficas al acto
sexual. Hoy en día, son la total entrega, la perfección física y situaciones
bizarras las caracterizan no sólo a la pornografía, son permeables también en
los medios y en la publicidad. Como, por ejemplo, Jeff Koons, Marc Quinn y los
hermanos Chapman hacen, Terry se apropia y pone en escena distintos elementos
claves de la retórica visual de los medios para revelar de forma precisa la
obsolescencia del mito del bienestar capitalista que ellos apoyan. Las pinturas
de Terry funcionan como espejos de la risa, cuyos distorsionados reflejos aún
sirven para revelar algunos aspectos escondidos de la realidad.
The Apotheosis of Pleasure
And, while he slaked his
thirst, another thirst
Grew; as he drank he saw
before his eyes
A form, a face, and loved
with leaping heart
A hope unreal and thought
the shape was real.
Spellbound he saw himself,
and motionless
Lay like a marble statue
staring down.
--Ovid,
'Narcissus' in Metamorphoses,
III[i]
If the private get-togethers of today’s privileged have ever
constituted the object of one of your own
fantasies, the paintings by US artist Terry Rodgers will surely challenge your
imagination. For, what does it mean to be successful today and how do we
understand pleasure anyway? Contemplated from a certain distance, Terry’s
depictions of the upper-classes’ leisure life seem to open windows onto this
paradise-like place Charles Baudelaire celebrates in his famous poem the Invitation
to the Voyage:[ii]
There, nothing is but grace and measure
Richness, quietness and pleasure.
Slumped in
finely embroidered fabrics, promiscuous beings wear heavy jewels and lift
expensive liquors to their lips; their mouths imperceptibly open as though to
speak. Yet the spell slowly vanishes as we shorten the distance that separates
us from the canvas –those three secular steps
that bring us closer to its surface. The outlines irremediably dim and the
precious materials transform into aggregates of brushstrokes and paint. Terry
Rodgers’ world is that of appearances, the wealth of which is primarily that of
the art of painting.
It is therefore no surprise to hear
that one of Terry’s first memories relates to a portrait by Diego Velázquez,
and that later he became fascinated by the seemingly effortless brushwork of
the impressionist painters and some of their heirs. As with the seventeenth century
Spanish master, these latter also favored colors over outlines. Terry’s work equally displays that primacy of pure
painting and the importance of lines in structuring the compositions rather
than in shaping objects and human figures. As Velázquez and Edouard Manet,
Terry’s special dexterity in manipulating the brush turns the canvas into a
sophisticated optical instrument. Two levels of perceptions coexist without
ever coinciding. As Ludwig Wittgenstein’s famous example proves, just as the
viewer cannot see the image of the duck and that of the rabbit at the same
time, (s)he cannot simultaneously see both the form and the paint that shapes
it.[iii]
However this play of optical
illusion is not confined, in the case of Terry’s work, to the use and application
of colors. It also involves the compositions which, on the one hand, invite us
to take part in the scene while, on the other, dissuade us from doing so,
hereby setting the marks for a visual dialectical process. Often, Terry places
a repoussoir figure in the foreground
which leads our gaze straight to the dead center of the composition. Likewise,
the backgrounds create
what seems to
be a geometrical space. Yet at the very heart of the composition, bodies
literally fill in the space. Intertwined they form geological strata rather
than sketch a space according to the laws of optical perspective. The room we
are invited to enter is not a replica of the physical world. Instead, it
describes a social and a psychological one, graphically revealing the limited nature
of some human relationships and suggesting an altered time experience.
This tight human nexus offered to our inquiring gaze constitutes one
of the most striking and appealing aspects of Terry’s work. However, is it
possible here to speak about intimacy? In which way does Terry’s work
articulate nakedness and sexuality? In a pornographic manner as some have
argued? One must remember that the nude portrait –and pornography itself—hasn’t
always taken the same form nor served the same cultural purpose. For instance,
it was not until the nineteenth century that the nude became a genre on its own
having been subordinated to the representation of literary scenes. Terry’s
work, similar to that of Edouard Manet’s ‘Luncheon
on the Grass’ (1863), capitalizes on this very modern representation and
thus scandalizes the contemporary bourgeoisie as much as it mirrors the
evolution of its taste. That said, what at first sight primarily differentiates
Terry’s work from present-day pornographic productions is the lack of graphic
references to the sexual act. Today, surrender, physical perfection and
equivocal situations characterize not only pornography, but permeate the world
of media and advertising. As, for instance, Jeff Koons, Marc Quinn and the
Chapman brothers do, Terry appropriates and stages key elements of the media’s
visual rhetoric in order to more acutely reveal the obsolescence of the myth of
capitalist well-being that they support. Terry’s paintings function like
fun-house mirrors, whose distorted reflections still serve to reveal certain
hidden aspects of reality.
It is therefore set
against the backdrop of cultural theories that Terry’s paintings most fully
reveal their meaning. There is something pornographic about the experience of
human relationships governed by the laws of market economy and about
contemporary manners that turn sexuality and the private sphere out into the
public realm so as to better profit from them. According to the French
historian and philosopher Michel Foucault, the survival and control of modern
society depend on a politics of individualized pleasures and on the
valorization of an exhibitionist behavior. In the midst of a system that
incites individuals to stage and to enjoy the public exposure of each and every
bit of their everyday life, Terry’s nudes express less the idea of nakedness than that of their visibility. Likewise, the opulence and
material wealth become less the signs of a successful
lifestyle than obstacles to happiness.
Stimulated by an order of rewards and immediate gratifications, individuals
willingly engage in a system that seems to answer their wishes, when in fact
they are merely drawn further into a structure of compliance and extortion. They are disciplined to become both the object and
instrument of their own submission; they have become themselves a part
of the very power that controls them. This inevitably engenders a powerful
feeling of both alienation and fear.[iv]
In this world of
wealth, the survival of which depends on its subjects’ obedient consumption,
individuals are reduced to harboring superficial human relations. Fallen prey
to desires that neither bodies nor available luxury seem to satisfy, each of
the beings that crowd Terry’s paintings is self-centered –the body on display
and the gaze introverted. They all seem to have crafted their appearance so as
to render it as sleek, chic, and delectable as possible. From their being only
a marketable image remains, the one which will
give them their life credentials in what Guy Debord has named the Society of
the Spectacle.[v] This “lonely crowd,”[vi]
whose impoverished existence Debord theorizes, is depicted by Terry with as
much virtuosity as the rest of the objects congesting the scenes. In this way,
the painter draws a direct –material—parallel between objects, bodies, pieces
of furniture and, last but not least, the famous “family jewels,” which shapes
are more often insinuated than shown. Everything, according to this world
order, is exchangeable and, ultimately, everyone has stopped enjoying each other’s
and one’s own beauty. Even the promise of intimacy has lost its attractiveness
to the contemporary individual turned frigid and to whom the American social
critic Christopher Lasch refers as “the new narcissist.”[vii]
Exclusively talking with him or herself, each of these atomized
beings is devoted to a religion that does not soothe his or her distress. Terry
Rodgers gives us a taste of these ritual gatherings –festivals sans
festivity—where participants seem to have abandoned life as a meaningful experience,
and replaced it with a material enterprise.
Petrified by the power of their own stare, they have become the lifeless
idols of an era driven by consumption.
The genealogy of the representation of individual distress and
private devotion primarily points at martyrdom and ecstasies in the realm of
religious writings and, in every other kind of literature, at expressions of
love and fear related to the encounter with death. In the visual arts, each
epoch has favored a specific rhetoric of facial expressions and bodily gestures
that conveyed these extreme experiences as exemplification of that era’s norms
and values. Terry Rodgers observes and stages an array of postures and
attitudes that characterize the principles that order our contemporary lives.
As seventeenth century saints were looking up towards God and at a promised
afterlife, contemporary (fe)male narcissuses look down towards the murky pool
of their own earthly purgatory –the purgatory that is one’s own egoism. For
both Terry and the great masters before him the body is a medium through which
to show what happens beneath the skin. Hence, this visual archaeology leads us
much beyond the nineteenth century French salon painting of which Terry’s grandes machines remind us immediately. They span different genres, time periods
and media. Terry’s anxious bodies have as much in common with Gianlorenzo
Bernini’s sculptural group Santa Theresa in Ecstasy (1647-1652), Chaïm
Soutine’s work and the Narcissus (1598-1599) by Caravaggio as with The Romans of the Decadence (1847) by
Thomas Couture. Likewise, his invented private gatherings would have perfectly
fit in the best-seller, American Psycho,
the story of a serial killer who treats his peers like lambs to slaughter.[viii]
Terry’s raptures are private ecstasies deprived of their promised redemptory
pleasures.
In a system that turns bodies into
merchandise, and merchandise into fetishes, the exaltation of pleasures and
open sexuality can only function as trompes-l’oeil.
Terry’s work takes its roots in this very reality. Thanks to a brilliant
technique and the help of elaborate compositions, his work tempts us into
believing in the appearance of things in order to better unveil their
artificiality. For in fact, the bodies disciplined in the name of Beauty and
Wealth that crowd his paintings look like an army –a war machine—that never
rests. Weapon and target of their own oppression, we can almost hear the
ticking of their anxious hearts about to burst. Because, when the search for
pleasure becomes a life principle, and satisfaction, an ethical requirement, it
is paradoxically happiness and individual freedom that are taken away from us.
The price we pay to deify pleasure – isn’t it the exile of our own body put in
the service of a transcendent cause that keeps it enslaved? The Apotheosis of Pleasure above all
refers to our astonished and wondering gaze under which forms take shapes or
decompose according to the distance, the attention and the perspective. Thanks
to his display of bodies, what Terry Rodgers highlights is the flesh of the
painting that, in its turn, offers the image of what remains out of sight: the
tensions that underlie contemporary life.
Catherine Somzé, Amsterdam 2006
Catherine Somzé is an art history and media theory professor at the
Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam. She is the chief art critic for Time Out Amsterdam and a regular
contributor to magazines on photography, art and culture. She is based in
Amsterdam.
[ii] Charles
Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal (1868), (Paris : GF-Flamarion, 1991)
pp. 99-100.
(My translation)
[iii] Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical
Investigations, tr. G. E. M. Anscombe (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1953), p.
194 (II.ii).
[iv] Michel Foucault, Discipline
and punish: the birth of the prison (1971), tr. A. Sheridan (London:
Penguin Books, 1991); The history of sexuality (1976-1984), tr. R.
Hurley (London : Penguin Books, 1990).
[v] Guy Debord, Society of the
Spectacle (1967), tr. Black & Red (1977) online at
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/debord/society.htm
[vi] Idem
[vii] Christopher Lasch, The
culture of narcissism, (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1978).
[viii] Bret Easton Ellis, American
psycho : a novel, (New York : Vintage Books, 1991).
Comentarios