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| ALICE OH 4 |
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"Thinking Through" from Thinking Through, The Work of Alice Oh
The work of art provides an occasion to think. This occasion arises through the work of art and the work of thinking. In trying to think through the work of Alice Oh, my own work of thinking will be a work of translation, an attempt to mime and mine this work in an effort to represent the richness of her work. In doing this, I wish to compliment her work, to both bear witness to the quality of the work, while supporting the work, contributing to the work by suggesting to the viewer some of the ways to think through the work that awaits. While rewarding, the work that awaits is accessible. This accessibility, however, does not mean that it is simple. No, her work presents a challenge, but it is a challenge that each of us can pass through, if we are willing to slow down and think through the work.
What do I mean by 'thinking through'? These are two familiar words. Indeed, they may be too familiar. In their everydayness, they bear several layers of possibility, echoing the layers of possibility that emerge through the work of Alice Oh. Instead of exhausting these possibilities, an impossible task, I merely want to suggest some of the ways we may read the phrase 'thinking through,' so that we may begin to think through the work that awaits each of us.
First, by 'thinking through,' I do not mean thinking about the work. What do I mean by 'thinking about' the work? To be reductive, I mean the practice of talking and writing about art that typically falls within the domain of art criticism and art history. This is not to deny the value of these practices. Indeed, all the disciplines and institutions surrounding art have value, but they also have values that can become obstacles to thinking through the work. After the fact and after the facts, thinking about the work returns us to familiar ground. Such a thinking loads the work with the past, inscribing and ascribing the work to an established body of knowledge that the work may be thinking through and that we may think about through the work. Indeed, this may be a body of knowledge that we have yet to think through. Nevertheless, if we are thinking about the categories and traditions into which we may subscribe the work, we will not be thinking through the work. No, while expertise allows one to think about the work of art, no expertise is needed to think through the work of art.
Perhaps an example will help clarify what I am trying to say. There are many ways to think about the work of Alice Oh. For instance, one could think about color theory. In doing so, one might begin thinking about the late nineteenth century, mentioning the names Seurat, Signac, Pissarro, van Gogh, Gauguin and so forth. One could even invoke an '-ism,' such as Neo-Impressionism, Divisionism, Orphism, or early Modernism, and head towards a discussion of Kandinsky, Delaunay, Derain, Kupka and so on, enumerating and enlisting a repertoire of names and movements that would allow one to talk about and around the work. This, however, would not be a thinking through the work. This would be a thinking through institutions and experts, through a complex and debatable discourse around the history of color theory.
Moreover, thinking about the work through color theory presents at least two other problems, problems related to context. First, where do we begin our discussion? While the early modern era is fertile ground, a consideration of color theory could extend beyond artists who engaged with the modern era, considering artists such as the Pre-Raphaelites, Philipp Otto Runge, the Nazarenes, and others whose work resisted the modern era by turning toward the early Renaissance. One could consider the history of color theory from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century, a history that provides many thought provoking debates, raising issues that one could relate to the work of Alice Oh. For instance, one could consider Goethe's color theory in relation to the theories of Newton, a debate between art and science about nature, perhaps even the nature of the human. One could even consider color theory before the Renaissance. For instance, the advances in technology in our own age have led to a reconsideration of color theory in Antiquity. This could lead to a discussion of technology and the ability to replicate, duplicate, and understand color.
Beyond the question of when to begin our consideration of color theory, the question of context presents a second problem. This is a problem of what context within which to consider color theory, of how color theory relates to the world both beyond and within art. For instance, color theory during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century often engaged with contemporary debates about science, technology, social theory, nature, and spirituality. Also, the other examples given above suggest additional contexts within which a discussion of color theory could be relevant. This is a problem surrounding what context we could place our discussion of color theory, a problem of an ever extendable context, whose extent would be a matter for experts in color theory to debate. Such a discussion involves thinking about the work through color theory, a discussion that all too easily becomes a matter of inclusion and exclusion through what one knows. This is a thinking about the familiar, not through the work. It is a thinking that is determined from the start, before thinking even begins, determined to situate the work within color theory.
If thinking through the work is not a thinking about the work, neither is it simply a thinking within the work. What do I mean by 'thinking within' the work? This would be a thinking that would limit itself to what is simply within the work, a type of thinking that is sometimes called formalism. While thinking about the work through context is inadequate to thinking through the work, thinking within the work through formalism also fails to think through the work of Alice Oh. A thinking within the work through forms would fail to see how the work thinks through formalism, questioning what is meant by formalism, questioning even what is meant by form. It too would be a thinking that is determined from the start, determined by the terms of formalism. If thinking about the work blocks entry into the work, a thinking within the work would block passage from the work. Such a thinking through formalism would not be a thinking through the work. It would be a thinking that would want to be through with the work, to be finished with it, taking residence within the work and not passing through the work. If thinking about the work would be a retreat into a past, a thinking within the work would be a retreat into the work. It would also be another retreat into expertise, a retreat that would exclude us non-experts. Again, this does not mean that such a thinking through formalism is unnecessary or uncalled for. It just prevents a thinking through the work to take place.
Yet what is meant by 'thinking through' the work? If we have not been able to advance very far in our thinking through the work, it is because we have had to be on the lookout for obstacles that prevent us from even starting to think through the work. It is all too easy for us to too hastily read the work, to think that one has thought through the work by thinking about or thinking within the work, by demonstrating how much one already knows. In determining the work from the start, we never begin thinking through the work. The work demands that we suspend for a moment thinking about and thinking within the work, to question what we already know through the suspension of thinking. The suspension of thinking is a support, but it requires the suspension provided by the work. The work calls for a suspension of what we already know, a questioning of what is familiar through the suspense of thinking through the work. Thinking about and within the work provides familiar ground, but we never think through the work, never cross the bridge provided by the work, a bridge that leads to the unfamiliar, the side of the other. This does not mean that we can not cross back to familiar ground. If, however, we never leave familiar ground, we never begin to think through the work. We never head towards the future, remaining always firmly grounded in the past. While we can never escape from what we already know, what we already know can prevent us from thinking through the work. How then do we think through the work?
Thinking through the work would be a passing through the work, a means of passage, if not a rite of passage. Thinking about the work and thinking within the work would not allow for such a passage. We need to recognize, however, that something happens when we pass through the work, something that demands to be thought through. The work passes through us. If we think through the work, the work changes how we think, even if it does so modestly. We approach the unfamiliar and the unfamiliar approaches us. The more we think through the work and the less we think about the work or within the work, the more the work thinks through us, changing how we think. In this exchange, between the work and the viewer, something happens. An experience takes place and in this taking place, something happens. If we simply pass by the work, we will not be able to think through the work, because the work will not have passed through us. The result is that no thinking through takes place, if ever thinking takes place, residing only through the work, for the process of thinking through may simply only ever be a passage through.
But a passage through what? Through an experience that happens when we stand before the work of art, a work that awaits the work of thinking through. The work provides the opportunity to think through it, but only if we stand before the work, indeed before we understand the work or, worse yet, over-stand the work. Before the work, we must allow ourselves to have an experience, an experience that is singular and particular, beyond representation, but that can only happen before a representation, that can only happen by standing or sitting, crouching or kneeling before the work and letting the work happen.
That is to say, we must each, in our own particular way think through the work, both spatially and temporally. This is a thinking through that is never through temporally, never finished, and a thinking through that has no singular path spatially. There is neither a timetable for the work, nor a topographical map that provides assurance. In other words, we each look at the work of art in our own way and are free to think through the work, but this does not mean or guarantee that we have an experience of thinking through the work. Indeed, to have any experience before the work of art, we must try not to think about the work or within the work, those modes of thinking that prevent us from thinking through the work, that determine how and where we look from the beginning. This is an impossible task, but it forms the very possibility of beginning to think through the work.
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