‘My purpose is to acknowledge the wonder of being part of Creation.
Though myself I don’t create anything, I make from what has been created’
Joel Peter Witkin
While the global pandemic seem to spread at a very high speed, when the international media does not stop bombarding us with the head-spinning information on the thousands of new cases of infected people every day
and countries, one after another deciding for the second lockdown many of us may feel overwhelmed and confused. Where is this going? When it is going to end?
As a result of these disturbing events many of us don’t know anymore how
to keep up the good spirit and stay away from the all-pervasive negativity.
What makes it all worse – in the near, forseeable future there seem to be no end of this growing, global drama.
But here is the is an important reminder. No matter how hard it all gets, we all have to keep going and not lose our hope for better days to come.
Anticipating long months spent in isolation, which for many of us means being basically alone at home, working in the space surrounded by the same artworks, the same walls it’s quite important we stick to certain routines but also keep an agenda open for the unexpected,exciting things life.
Looking into the outside world through the same windows, with no access to concerts, cinemas, events, art exhibitions – it seems quite important we all find a way to entertain ourselves and turn to something that could become our light in the dark and a ‘safe heaven’.
It is necessary we redesign once more the way we live, the way we balance our work time and leisure time, make room for the ‘culutral activities’ – while nurturing the most important relationships in our lives (including the one we have with ourselves).
As far I am concerned, I know that regardless of all the pandemic going on, regardless of any difficult and challneging political situation taking place in the outside world (such as for example the anti-abortion law being introduced in Poland right now), there is something very important and dear to me that has the power to lift me up and help me appraciate life and its everlasting victory over death.
As you may already know – that precious escape and distraction to me is and has always been Art.
Immersing myself in the artistic process or the artist life, finding new ‘jewels’ – reading articles on them, visiting online exhibition somehow keeps me busy in the right way, sparks my own creativity while keeping me distracted from the stresses of COVID-19.
One of my recent, most sensational artistic discoveries – that I’d like to share with you are connected to two artists – Joel Peter Witkin and Phillippe Bousquet.
Joel-Peter Witkin (1939) is an American artist whose constructed photographs depict macabre often grotesque scenes.
What makes this particular photographer stand out from the crowd is the masterful ability to carefully build scenes with all that’s unusual, surprising and intriguing. He chooses cadavers, hermaphrodites, and dwarfs as his models and muses which introduces all kind of literary,religious, and art historical allusions.
‘If there is pain in my photographs, it relates tot he pain of my own existence’
Joel Peter Witkin
For more than twenty years, Joel-Peter Witkin has pursued his interest in spirituality and how it impacts the physical world. This is how he speaks of his own artistry:
“I have with the hope of one day seeing it all.
Seeing in its total form, while wearing the mask, from the distance of death. And there, in the eternal destiny, to seek the face I had before the world was made.”
Witkin is a controvential artist – whose work is loved by many art admirers and collectors for his daring creations of surreal tableaux with which he
seeks to dismantle our preconceived notions about sexuality, about the cliches of what’s truly divine and what’s profane – and with his art he seems to ask a question – what’s beauty?
Can we easily say with no hesitation there is no beauty in the raw and in the obscure? And the ones in our society who were born different, deformed – shall we all pretend they don’t exist and they are God’s mistake? Witkins works seem to say – there is more to this world than we see in perfectly photoshoped glossy magazines, there is more to life than the perfect families we see in the adverisements of cereal or cleaning products.
Additionally, the artist work seem to raise a question – is there are a way we stop for a while and notice we are in fact all the same at the core of our being, or is it better just to look away?
While I was researching on this photographers, I was particularly interested to find out what does his artistic process look like.
And this is what I found.
“Witkin begins each image by sketching his ideas on paper and perfecting every detail before he picks up his camera.
Once the scene is photographed, he spends hours in the darkroom, scratching and piercing his negatives, transforming them into pictures that look made rather than taken. From their conception to their completion as ornate constructions, his references to traditional art historical iconography
serve as a backdrop to his subjects and as a foundation for his ideas.”
(source: International Phtography Magazine)
Today Witkins works can be found in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York,the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., the Victoria and Albert Museum in London,and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.The artist currently lives and works in Albuquerque, NM.
While Witkin succesfuly displays on his photography the common thread of the sacred within the profane and the profane within the sacred and approaches these complex issues by working with the people most often cast aside by society in an unapologetic presentation of deformity – his artistic ‘brother in arm/arts’, the French Artist Philippe Bousquet (1964) seems to add another perspective, another point of view to the Witkins legacy.
How does he acheive that? By creating astonishing, otherwordly sculptures and installations that bring to mind scenes known from the Medieval, Hieronym Bosch scenes while still being modern and contemporary.
Bousquet, A European with a South-African spirit seems to be fighting on the same, ‘artistic’ side as Witkin.
What I have found trhough my long conversations with the artist – in his atelier there are hundreds of ‘homeless, God-forsaken objects’ that he treasures and collects almost as if they already had the status of a priceless piece of art.
The artis stores the damaged, one-eyed dollies, the shabby-looking angels, the torn apart pieces of furniture,the incomplete watches, the damaged statues or sculptures, broken devices. On thing is sure – the artist must have got something very interesting planned for them. A totally new destiny.
What I find most incredible about Bousquet way of seeing – it that he finds a living spirit within ‘the long dead or physically disabled items’.
The same way Witkin puts spotlight to the outcasts, the deformed, disabled and ‘unwanted’ – Bousquet mends what’s broken and brings together what the time and changing fashion ‘doomed to fail’. This is how both artists allow us, the viewers, to notice the perfection within the inperfection.
Philippe transitioned to the world of art and design in 1997, after years of being a professional architect.
Based in France, he began his career working with precious metals and materials, but after moving to South Africa in 2004, he became increasingly aware of the negative effects of mining on people, communities and the environment.
Out of a desire to create beautiful objects without causing harm, he built his first object out of scrap metal in 2008 and since then has expanded to use other waste materials and found objects. Affiliated to the Southern Guild, one of the major South African art galleries,Philippe has exhibited widely with them. (source: NDI Gallery)
For Bousquet, whose artistic preferences undoubtedly move towards assembly and conceptual and abstract art and recently also
towards photography- there is eternity living within the old and used objects and there is parallel life that these object have, that life connects the invisable with the visable.
When Bousquet gets down to work in his speacious atelier in the sunny and warm South-African Pretoria, he seems to be interested in just one thing – and that is to give the the objects he creates’another chance in life’.
Through his skillful craftmanship and artistic eye he is
breathing new energy into the objects which no longer belong the bygone times only.
What’s thrown away is being rediscovered, noticed and acknowledged for what is’t been before and loved for what it could be in the future, receiving from the g heart of the artist another chance to live, this time as as a piece of art.
When I was doing my online resarch on the two fascinating artists, ther was this one dream, one vision that appeared in my mind.
After all this global pandemic hell is over – I wish that Witkin and Bousquet would meet one day, have chance to shake hands and speak of an exhibition where their works would be presented together, sharing the same exhibition space. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
From what I noticed by now Witkin and Bousquet have two fundamental things in common – they both realize so well that “cration didn’t stop on the sixth day‘ and could both easily live “in the world populated by the bizarre, disjunctive things’.
I hope that after reading this article you will share my awe and admiration for an art that while created sepraratly from one another – from distant locations use the same, deeply moving artistic language .
Big Art Theory Blog 
1 November 2020 at 16:24
Hi Anna. It is such a pleasure to see you writing so thoughtfully while we face such challenging times in Poland, here in America and around the world. I truly encourage the women of Poland to rise up, however forcefully is needed, to oppose government oppression of female rights in Poland. I always enjoy learning more about artists around the world, many of whom are your friends and I am reminded by the work of these two fine artists that we cannot let our mind be oppressed by the conventions of others if we are to truly distinguish ourselves as artists and offer a gift to the world. I am proud and feel fortunate to know you and to be a friend. Thank you for witnessing and encouraging my own artistic journey
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1 November 2020 at 17:53
Thank you so much Doug for your thoughtful comment. It is mu pleasure and honour to be your friend, knowing that you are one of the rare visual artist who persistantly follow their artistic path regardless of difficulties and obstacles along the way (who said becoming a full-time artists was ever easy, there are few exceptions of course but all in all – it is usually a struggle and living on high hopes with fingers crossed that the gallery will be succesfull in selling to the wealthy clients). What I liked about your comment most was the following: “we cannot let our mind be oppressed by the conventions of others ” – you are so right and it takes great strenght not to adjust, not to create art only to please others and make sure they like and buy your creations. It is always a matter of staying true to your own beliefs, your own artistic taste. Thanks once more Doug for stepping by and I hope you’ll enjoy new posts that I have planned for this month of me, my four walls and laptop waiting for new stream of inspiration. Wishing you and your Family all the best!
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1 November 2020 at 23:02
Thank you Anna for this wonderful and inspirational article that delves so deeply into the creation of art itself ,what drives these two gifted artist to create and why the creation of art is so important in every society in the world. Your ability to write,describe, and explain adds a whole new dimension and understanding to their incredible works thereby making it even more compelling while viewing it. In my opinion your writing about the art and the artist is just as important to society as the art itself because it helps so many more people understand and then appreciate the art. Thank you Anna for all you do for Art.
I hope you don’t have a lock down and if you do it is a really short one although I must say I do look forward to more of your really incredible writing which I find so inspirational.
I also do hope that these fine artist do have the opportunity to meet and do an exhibition together one day.Please stat safe and well. Love your work Anna.
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