- ANTI-IMAGE
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- Anti-image is a logical result of the degeneration of image-based
system of art that was proclaimed at the Fifth-Sixth Universal
Congregation in the heart of the Orthodox world - Byzantine.
- The resolution of this Congregation declares: IMAGE IS A
SYMBOLIC REALISM, based on the dogma of the origin of Jesus Christ
as the son of god. Due to the provincial backwardness, Vatican
and the West did not accept the resolution which established
"ARTISTIC IMAGE". Western church encouraged the practice
of religious theme painting, whose aim was the creation of an
illusion of reality down to the rosy cheeks of the gods, which
gave the rise to phenomenon known in today's art as "kitsch".
Renaissance artists wanted gods to walk off the paintings as
if they were alive, vividly presenting themselves as criteria
of beauty and examples for imitation.
- The humanization of god by means of theatrical art, which
painterly art armed itself with, perverted the religious dogma
of THE ORIGIN OF MAN CREATED IN THE IMAGE AND LIKENESS OF GOD.
The triple-headed serpent - anatomy, - chiaroscuro, - perspective
- expelled mysticism from art and decreed the kingdom of physiology
- CREATION OF GOD IN THE IMAGE AND LIKENESS OF MAN.
- The Tempter Serpent of western formalism seduced the orthodox
icon painter Simon Ushakov, destroyed his immortal soul and turned
him into a russian Raphael. Then the newly born transmutant
Simon Rafael, worshiper of perverts and necrophiles, undertook
upon himself to spread the rot to the holy images. That is how
humans appeared in the images of god. Man taking god's place
in the image invariably aimed to take god's place in the genesis,
because MAN DESIRED TO BECOME GOD.
The humanization of the image-based system of art served the
purpose of transforming religion into the ideology. Man in the
image of god signified in himself the inception of ideological
cults, which were called upon to realize the mission of transforming
a man into a SUPERMAN. According to monotheistic tradition and
the law of degeneration, the CULT OF SUPER-HUMANNESS turns into
the PERSONALITY CULT OF THE MOST SUPERHUMAN OF MEN. Personality
cult in art was naturally offered as an "IMAGE OF THE POSITIVE
HERO". The image of positive hero, as an example to be imitated,
expressed in itself the final result of humanistic tradition
in art - TRANSFORMATION OF FAITH INTO ATHEISM. While preserving
its role as a mentor of men, the image-based system of art underwent
an inner transformation becoming a servant of the ANTICHRIST.
Degeneration of the image of positive hero is in accordance with
the natural law. The faith in him dies quicker than the faith
in god. Lack of faith in the image of positive hero is present
in every act of creation and in every stroke of the embodied
image. Kitsch, idiocy, mannerism - that is the result of degeneration
as well as the germ of rebirth. The most characteristic examples
of the image of positive heroes are the portraits of leaders
of the soviet people created by the folk artists of the republics
of Soviet Union. The classic example of the "Lenin's Mausoleum"
could be viewed as a textbook case of and a pattern for the "ANTI-IMAGE"
- Kaschey the Immortal (the Immortal Bogeyman) and the Sleeping
Beauty merged into one. "Mausoleum" epitomizes the
unification of ancient anti-psychological tradition of the East
and the avantgarde, wisdom and absurdity, meta-mind and stupidity.
Therefore it should be classified as the best example of the
epoch of "Neototemism", equally belonging to the Social
Realism and to the Postmodernism. It is difficult to draw the
line between ideological cults in art - what is it - ideology
in the absurd or the postmodernist irony? "Anti-image"
system naturally flows out of the degeneration of image-based
system of art and requires a structured and finalized formation.
MARASMUS IS THE FINAL STAGE OF THE EVOLUTION OF DEGENERATIVE
PROCESS.
Decaying, as the cleansing process, is capable of conceiving
a new phenomenon by joining together the elements of decay. The
paradox of reincarnation of the image-based system into the anti-image
system is manifested in the degeneration of the psychological
certainty, in its expulsion by the developing alogicallity,
and its replacement by the anti-psychological tradition of the
art of Ancient Egypt, which is reborn from the ashes like Phoenix.
The cleansing process and the formation of the anti-image structure
consists in the rejection of the leftover phenomenon of the attachment
of degenerated image to reality, in other words, generation of
the anti-image consists of further mythologizing of the "degenerative
image".
Anti-image matches the principle of depersonalization in the
art of ancient Egypt, which states: DEPERSONALIZATION OF PERSONA
= PERSONALIZATION OF NON-PERSONA, but differs from it by the
next stage of the spiral development of anti-psychological tradition
and corresponds with the formula of Conceptualism: - THIS IS
SOMETHING - THIS IS NOTHING.
If in Egyptian art it is the persona of pharaoh that underwent
depersonalization, then in the "anti-image" it is the
"image of pharaoh" that undergoes depersonalization.
If depersonalizing of pharaoh equates him with personalized non-persona
and makes him "god's governor on earth", then depersonalization
of the "image of pharaoh" equates him with the embodiment
of the "anti-image of pharaoh" and makes him the "spectral
mask" which, as a work of art, represents incomprehensible
reality.
The face of pharaoh is emotionless and appears dead because it
is devoid of psychologizing, it is static because its form is
stated like a mask. Spectral mask of the anti-image is neither
dead nor alive because it reflects within itself everything dead
or living. I based the anti-image on the "degenerated image
of the positive hero" that has to be corrected with the
aim of embodying its representation and transforming it into
a "THING IN ITSELF", i.e. the "representation
of the representation". Anti-image is not an anti-representation,
but a representation of the representation, whose form is stated
and logically rooted in itself without having the beginning or
the end like a Mobius strip.
The method of the "representation of the representation"
is based on the principle that everything is permitted, known
in literature as "paper endures everything". This method
is subject to an uncompromising selectivity aimed at purging
the image of its content, which serves as a condition of enclosing
the form in itself with objective of giving birth to the structure
of the "anti-image". The structure of anti-image contains
in its foundation the principle of similarity between two different
representations and has the result of visual representation of
stereoscopic stirring spectral mask, which is similar to a ghost.
Such a ghostly spectral mask is akin to a transmutant, who constantly
changes his appearance visually as well as somatosensorially,
and could be interpreted as an incomprehensible phenomenon. While
remaining inanimate on the surface, the representation of anti-image
conceals within itself a presence of otherworldly nature, which
should be considered to be the anti-world, and the anti-image
representation itself as a form should be considered as a meta-mirror
or the point of equivalence between the worlds, an equal sign
between them, that corresponds to the notion of Malevitch's "0
FORM", but given not as its own definition or illustration
but as its own self discovery.
ANTI-IMAGE IS A WINDOW INTO THE ANTI-WORLD.
Having created a black square, Malevitch admonishes artists of
the future to follow inside the "0 FORM" and those
who won't be fated to find their way in this task, shall unavoidably
fall into the duplicate culture. Malevitch did not think himself
to be a secondary recurrence of totemism and that his "black
square" since ancient times is well known among the african
tribes and is so popular that it decorates national costumes.
Perhaps intuitively Malevitch felt his own time to be the crossroad
of cultural transformation and the rebirth of seemingly disappeared
traditions. In this case the passage from suprematism to social
realism appears to be natural and regular, evolutionary and not
a re-and contra-volutionary. Social realism and the art of Third
Reich (that were based on the discoveries of the epoch of Renaissance,
which in their time had literally a degenerative character) in
their new development turned into avantgarde and postmodernism,
because the "dehumanization of art", being main trait
of avantgarde, received a qualitative leap in development and
became INHUMANITY, which was expressed in the forms of nature
that had an inherent transmutative quality with a tendency of
transforming into an anti-image. Malevitch's mistake was in
that it is possible to get inside the "0 FORM" not
despite, but owing to the duplicate culture, because perverting
the duplicate, by turning it inside out, in fact means entering
inside the "0 FORM". The ancient traditions gradually
advanced and already carried within themselves the signs opposing
their original appearance similarly to the reflection of the
mirror in the mirror. Such phenomenon proves that similarity,
or in other words the duplication of form does not correspond
to the duplication of content. It means that the same spirit
could be present in different forms and that the same forms could
have different spirit.
That being the case, the same occurrences take place at the same
time beyond the widow to the anti-world as in the world, therefore
the window to the anti-world is identical to the mirror in that
it reflects at the same time both the world and the anti-world.
If the window is transparent - the worlds see each other, meaning
that they are reflected in each other as two mirrors placed opposite
each other. Anti-image is a representation similar to the mirror
which reflects the opposite mirror - the subject of reflective
viewing. A person looking at an anti-image recognizes in it something
familiar (ENERGY "GENOKINESIS") - it means that he
sees himself in the anti-mirror. Anti-image as a stereoscopic
and mirrorlike illusion (ENERGY "KINOGENESIS") signifies
multi-dimensionality and transparency of the subject of reflective
viewing. The development of anti-image within time is a process
of manifestation of the fine energies and of reciprocation of
the metamorphosis of antinomies "GENOKINESIS" - "KINOGENESIS".
The development of the representation of anti-image within time
is a process of defining the self-reflective structure of time
corresponding to the structure of mutually mirrored reflections,
and itself represents a cycle, which is a phenomenon and an explanation
of the meaning of magical number 7. See "Scheme of Time" in my catalog.
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- Alexander Shnurov
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