The following article has been published in hebrew
at the Bezalel Academy of Art and design on line journal: ‘Protocol’ under the title:
“ The New Cultural Logic of Post Modern Clothes or Fashion and the Spirit of the Time”
Michal Popowsky
here is the link: http://bezalel.secured.co.il/8/popovski16.htm
Haifa University – “Encounters” –May 22- Tuesday- 10:00
Dr. Michal Popowsky
In 1983, while writing my first paper on Yemenite born Israeli painters[i], I was quite surprised to note that, in their work, the painters I was enquiring about and interviewing showed no concern for the cultural background of their origins. It was as if their paintings had no cultural artistic basic common denominator. Except for Itamar Siani of whom I am going to speak here, all seemed to have accepted the fact that painting in Israel, meant painting according to the well accepted codes of the place, be they codes of aesthetics or/and codes of content. I am speaking here of: Avshalom Okshi, Dov Boussani, Matti Bassis, Yosef Halevi, Raphael Vakhash, Mikhael Khashbi, Avraham Atsmon, David Tamari, Benyamin Levy, Khaim Twili.
Most of these painters had become part of the field of Israeli art although none was considered a leading painter. However, in 1983, Itamar Siani who, by this time had started painting his “Yemen”, already appeared as no- consensual in as far as the Yemenite born Israeli painter’s cultural stand was concerned.
It is Itamar Siani’s case I want to introduce here. I want to show how his “bad encounter” with the field of art in Israel and the Israeli artistic community is linked to his decision to base his paintings on the signifier “Yemen”.
But first, let us ask what a “bad encounter” is.
“Bad encounter” or “unhappy encounter”, as it sometimes has been translated, is a lacanian concept. It appears in the Seminar 11 entitled “The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis” delivered in 1966 [?] and first published in 1973[ii]. In the 11th seminar, Lacan explains that “dustuschia” or the “bad encounter” is ruled by the “tuché”[iii] . The “tuché” is
“One of the modalities of the repetition- that the unconscious devotes itself to”, writes Maria Hortensia Cardenas in ‘From Contingency to the Sinthome’ – quote-
The “bad encounter” is therefore linked to the unconscious and comes in the form of a repetition. The “bad encounter” happens more than once in the life of one same subject.
But, moreover, the “bad encounter” has to do with the ‘sexual’[iv]. The sexual shows how the ‘bad encounter’ reflects the intrinsic impossibility of the sexual relation. It also shows how the ‘bad encounter’ discloses the subject’s demand for love. Thus, the bad encounter being linked to the sexual; it indicates the position of the subject both in the Symbolic order and in the Imaginary order[v]. It reveals how, what Alain Miller defines as “desire of the subject” can bring the subject towards a beneficial and fruitful meeting[vi] with the Symbolic order and within it[vii]. Or not.
Because, it is linked to the very intrinsic failure of the sexual relation[viii], the “bad encounter” reflects not only the intrinsic failure of the sexual relation but, within this failure, the non- existence of the relation within the sexual, which non- existence has the power to throw the subject into the Real[ix].
The Real is one of the three registers displayed by the lacanian theory, the other two being the Symbolic and the Imaginary. The Real shows how a bad encounter is linked to the Symbolic i.e. to the big Other and how the encounter of the subject with the big Other is experienced by the subject as a violent traumatic encounter loaded with a negative value. This bad encounter with the big Other leads the subject towards a mute, non-verbal position.[x]
In terms of subject’s experience, a “bad encounter” is thus, a traumatic encounter. It discloses a traumatic experience which places the subject out of the language and therefore out the Symbolic order. In fact, the “bad encounter” deprives the subject from its symbolic tools, be they language, culture, general common beliefs, knowledge and their corresponding symbolic practices. It thus prevents subject’s communication with others and damages subject’s relations with the others in the symbolic register. In fact, the “bad encounter” puts the subject- “out” and transforms it into a “none” i.e. a ‘nobody’, a ‘no one’[xi]. Hence, by shutting subject’s mouth up, the “bad encounter” drives the subject into the vast silence of a world where “méconnaissance” becomes a space which displays what is not known and not understood and thus, cannot be put into words, spoken up and said. The “bad encounter” places the subject in a very uncomfortable situation.
Siani’s first bad encounter took place in 1949 when, emigrating from Yemen to Israel, he was first confronted with the Israeli society and its organizations. Siani’s second bad encounter – a repetition of the first bad encounter according to the ‘tuché’- took place in the late 1960 and the early 1970 when, he returned from Goldsmith College in London to Tel-Aviv with his first “Yemen” corpus of painted works. He then, found himself facing the Israeli artistic community- people and establishment.
Both 1949 and 1970 Siani’s bad encounters were linked to the sexual and to its impossible relation. For, what could and even should have been a rich, fruitful love affair between Siani and the signifier Israel, did not take place. Although encouraged by the Zionist dominant ideology, this potential possible love affair, was, at once, reduced to nothing i.e. a ‘no-thing’, meaning: to the negation of the Thing – Israel, the signifier, and its ideological-cultural-linguistic values.
Siani’s bad encounters seemed to be the result of the clash between the Israeli community and Itamar Siani himself. Soon referred to by Siani as a “refusal” meaning that’ Israel‘ and the artistic community refused him and rejected him, these traumatic encounters unveiled the collapsing relation of Siani with Israel and its Symbolic order.
Indeed, Siani’s relation “[fell] down suddenly because of pressure or having no strength or support”[xii]– which is the definition of ‘collapse’.
Thus, at the very moment of the collapses and after them, the values and the language of Israel symbolic order became altogether strange to Siani. They ceased to be understandable to him. Hence, out of the Hebrew language and out of the Israeli culture, Siani not only remained speechless and with no values but, left with a void, became a stranger in his country. He experienced what can be referred to as- Unheimlich.
All these bad encounters generated a violence which threw the artist into the Real, reduced him to silence, and made him literally speechless.
Paradoxically, within this situation of loss, void and strangeness, Siani involved himself deeper in his “Yemen” project. Almost immediately, without delay, he transformed the “Yemen” into a broader project thus showing how urgent it had become for him to respond to the void. Choosing painting as a word and a say, Siani went on looking for the Thing – the object a – which presence he found later on.
Siani’s act and action should be read in the light of Deleuze’s explanation. Deleuze writes – I quote-:
“Herein, perhaps, lies the secret —: to bring into existence and not to judge. If it is so disgusting to judge, it is not because everything is of equal value, but on the contrary because what has value can be made or distinguished only by defying judgment. What expert judgment, in art, could ever bear on the work to come?”[xiii]
Refusing what judged him, Siani choose creativity to answer it. His act and action should therefore also be read in the light of the Deleuzean understanding of creativity according to which ‘creativity’ presents – I quote-
“”[To affirm] reality, [which is] —as— a flux of change and difference…”[xiv]
and according to which: – I quote-
“…we must overturn established identities and so become all that we can become—though we cannot know what that is in advance.” [xv]
“The pinnacle of Deleuzean practice, [then], is creativity.”[xvi] It is in the frame of creativity that, in the case of Siani, painting took the place of the void caused by the bad encounters within which Siani had become the object of a negation. For, when Siani went on painting and highlighted his “Yemen” paintings, not only did he reject the negation but, ‘painting’ taking a place in the void and by that token, also taking the place of the void, Siani’s self, to some extent, regained some positive constructive affirmative stand.
However, solitude was one of the consequences of the bad encounters and Siani soon took refuge in his studio. The other consequence of the bad encounters involved the very essence of his identity. For once the bad encounters had occurred, Siani’s identity was endangered.
Looking for the causes of these bad encounters, one can say that they were an evidence of a cultural antagonism and that they were the proof of the incompatibility between Siani’s Yemenite cultural background and secular Zionist Israeli cultural prerequisites.
Thus, Siani’s identity should be approached in two different terms. For, if on the one hand, Siani’s identity leads to his Yemenite cultural grounds and to ‘Yemen” and can be termed as a ‘cultural identity’; on the other hand, Siani’s identity is linked to Siani’s existence and has to be referred to as an ‘existential identity’.
These two identities fused into one identity after Siani had experienced his bad encounters. The existential identity joined the cultural identity which itself could no longer remain separated from the existential identity.
Siani’s ‘Yemen’ project leans on the fusional bond which conjoin his two sided identity. His ‘Yemen’ project is based on the fusion of the cultural and the existential.
Actually, the ‘Yemen’ project shows how the signifier ‘Yemen’ and its performance in painting helped Siani, the artist and the man, regain his wounded identity. The ‘Yemen’ project shows how Siani’s ‘Yemen’ pictorial representation and visualizations became the mirror of his cultural-existential identity, how they assured the revival of his cultural identity and thus, how they reassured his existential revival.
In fact, it is through and by his painting and its object – the object a – or the Thing- that Siani re-apprehended and re-appropriated his cultural-existential identity. Indeed, Siani reconstructed his cultural-existential identity in painting, by painting and in his paintings. Painting the ‘Yemen’ and creating its images became the basis for the reconstruction of his cultural-existential identity. His “Yemen” project, thus, acted both as the driving force for the recovery of his cultural identity and as the driving force for the expression of his existential identity. As a consequence, the ‘Yemen’ paintings themselves became the objects throughout which Siani took hold of his cultural-existential identity.
Actually, what could not be given to Siani by the Israeli artistic community and therefore remained ungiven to him by this very community, was now being delivered to him by his act and his actions, namely – painting, and moreover, was now offered to him by the outcomes of his painting namely – the paintings themselves.
For, with his ‘Yemen’ project, Siani was actually painting the object of his desire, namely –’Yemen’. The visualization of the signifier ‘Yemen’ transformed its images into transitional agents. Thus each performed image helped Siani mold and affirm his cultural-existential identity in the space of the Israeli secular artistic community.
Paradoxically, however, when Siani started his ‘Yemen’ project, he had no images in mind. He could refer to no image. His basic homeland Yemenite culture was visually empty. Although he was aware of the fact that he still had memories, none were visually loaded. They had no with visuality. Thus, while starting his ‘Yemen’ project, Siani found himself deprived of visual artifacts and in need of images. He had to find his way to the images. He had to construct them, find their lines, their structures, their motives, their colors and their narratives.
Between 1965 and 2012, he painted a corpus of works wherein he imagined, drew and built his ‘Yemen’.
Between 1965 and 1967, he created a set of monochromatic etchings he assembled into an album which he entitled “the Flying Carpet”. His first “Yemen” paintings had a denotative referential character. They were painted after the photographs taken in 1949, during what is referred to as “the Magic Carpet Operation” by photographer David Eldan. Although, up to the mid 80’s, these paintings still remained denotative and referential, when Siani started representing his father and quoted from the Bible, he went into a new path. Giving denotation and referentiality away, he went into abstraction, making abstraction the key of his ‘Yemen’ project.
Some three decades after he drew his first Yemen paintings, in the 90’s, Siani’s interest in the signifier ‘Yemen’ started decreasing. At that point, after he had performed most of his ‘Yemen’ project and given it, its visuality- the bond between the cultural and the existential identity was tied. The artist’s claim was sealed. But, he still had not convinced the Israeli artistic community. And, although in the portraits he painted of himself at that time, he showed himself painting and claimed his identity as painter, the Israeli artistic community continued to deny him his status as a painter of values and as a valuable painter. It continued to claim as it did earlier on, that Siani’s identity as a painter, as a Yemen born and as a painter of ‘Yemen’ could be given no relevance and was of no importance.
Let’s conclude.
Siani’s visual-pictorial work reveals the ongoing ideological, cultural, religious conflict between the Israeli secular art community and Siani’s Yemenite cultural religious stand. As such, this conflict can be interpreted in terms of rupture.
This rupture is still vivid. It has not been brought down. Although, through the act of painting and in his ‘Yemen’ paintings, Siani has explored his identity and found his voice; although by his work and in it, he has imagined, created, recreated and re-acquired both his cultural identity and his existential identity; his work still remains out of the Israeli symbolic order. For, if Siani himself remains rejected by the Israeli artistic establishment, so does his work. None of it is given recognition and consideration. None of it is considered meaningful or important. None of it has acquired a status in the symbolic register, for none of it has been given its place in the present-day Israeli symbolic order.
Thus, while the Israeli artistic community continues to show no interest in Siani’s painting, and goes on denying Siani’s drive, its Thing – the object a – and its performance in terms of a visual-pictorial work, it also maintains what has been defined as ‘a bad encounter’ namely- the disrupted love affair between Siani and Israel.
Having been disrupted, the love affair has not been weaved anew and therefore has not gained a place neither on Siani’s side nor on the Israeli artistic community’s side.
Nevertheless, today, some 50 years later, while he still remains out of the artistic ‘circles’ and still works in the silence which had followed his ‘bad encounters’, the violence which has accompanied Siani’s encounter with Israel, has faded away. This violence and the muteness involved have been replaced by what should be related to as: the inscription of Siani’s voice in his ‘Yemen’ project in the form of visual artistic traces.
The traces are not memories. They do not lead back to Yemen – the place of Sian’s childhood. Rather, these traces are proofs and evidences: they are the proof and the evidence of Siani’s Yemenite cultural-existential identity. They also are a testimony namely, the testimony of a Yemen born painter painting in what became for him already in 1949, his no man’s land, namely: Israel.
Bibliography
Freud, Sigmund.
. (1920g). Beyond the pleasure principle. SE,18:1-64.
. (1925h). Negation. SE, 19: 233-239.
Lacan, Jacques. (1966).Ecrits. Paris: Seuil.
http://www.psychoanalysis.ugent.be/pages/nl/artikels/artikels%20Paul%20Verhaeghe/Mind%20your%20body.pdf- retrieved:20-2-2012
Deleuze, Gilles
[i] Paper in:
[ii] (1978). The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book 11: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-analysis (Alan Sheridan, Trans.). New York: W. W. Norton. (Original work published 1973), Chapter 5
[iii] “One of the modalities of the repetition- that the unconscious devotes itself to”, Maria Hortensia Cardenas in ‘From Contingency to the Sinthome’, http://2010.congresoamp.com/en/template.php?file=textos/noche_01/cardenas_contingence.html- retrieved:20-2-2012
[iv] “From Seminar XI onwards, Lacan tried to distinguish the Real insofar as it is articulated with the bad encounter, which is situated at the level of the sexual”. Maria Hortensia Cardenas: From Contingency to the Sinthome, http://2010.congresoamp.com/en/template.php?file=textos/noche_01/cardenas_contingence.html- retrieved:20-2-2012
[v] “If, however, transference as the enactment of the reality of the unconscious is the closing of the unconscious, then we have to suppose – and this is what Lacan develops in this Seminar – that there is an antinomy between the unconscious and its sexual reality. This in any case is what I propose in order to read this Seminar XI: there is both an antinomy between the unconscious and its sexual reality and the necessity for a concept that mediates these two terms.
This mediating concept, to put it in Freudian terms, is libido, which Lacan tries to locate at the meeting point of the unconscious and its sexual reality. Ultimately, there is a constant need for such a mediating concept in Lacan. He discovers it in Freud in terms of the libido and he rediscovers it in terms of desire. With the concept of desire he translates the Freudian concept of libido as being at the meeting point between the unconscious and sexual reality. On the one hand, he shows desire linked to the field of demand, linked to the signifier – all the syncopes of the unconscious can be presented therein – and on the other hand he shows desire united with sexual reality. This is where desire appears in this series of four concepts: not at the first level but at the second, as a mediating concept, one that enables the unconscious and sexual reality to be conjoined”. Jacques-Alain Miller, Transference, Repetition and The Sexual Real: Reading The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis,
http://www.lacan.com/thesymptom/?page_id=968- retrieved:22-2-2012
[vi] “The knowledge that follows from this mirror operation, i.e. knowledge, as traditional pre-) science understood it, is therefore always a sexualized knowledge and is accompanied by a deadlock. In other words, this form of knowledge is nothing but an attempt to come to terms with the non-existence of the sexual relationship. As an example, Lacan refers to the relationship between form and matter described by Plato and Aristotle. In their theories, they always assumed an impossible relationship between two terms that were nothing more than mere replacements for man and woman (p. 76). The working through of this relationship led to a predictable deadlock: for lack of a sexual relationship, they ended up with an asexual line of reasoning: “The Other presents itself to the subject only in an a-sexual form” (p. 115).Verhaeghe, P. (2001). Mind your Body & Lacan’s Answer to a Classical Deadlock. In: P. Verhaeghe, Beyond Gender. From Subject to Drive, New York: The Other Press, pp. 99-132, http://www.psychoanalysis.ugent.be/pages/nl/artikels/artikels%20Paul%20Verhaeghe/Mind%20your%20body.pdf- retrieved:20-2-2012
[vii] “…between symbolic function and imaginary stagnation, there is a common element, which is this relationship to the sexual real.” Jacques-Alain Miller, Transference, Repetition and The Sexual Real: Reading The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, http://www.lacan.com/thesymptom/?page_id=968- retrieved:22-2-2012
[viii] [–…..for lack of a sexual relationship, they ended up with an asexual line of reasoning]
[ix] In 1953, in a lecture called “Le Symbolique, l’Imaginaire et le Réel” (The symbolic, the imaginary, and the real: 1982), Lacan introduced the Real as connected with the Imaginary and the Symbolic. The real, insofar as it is situated in relation to the death drive and the repetition compulsion, has nothing to do with Freudian reality (Wirklichkeit) or with the Reality Principle. Lacan wrote, “One thing that is striking is that in analysis there is an entire element of the Real of the subject that escapes us. . . . There is something that brings the limits of analysis into play, and it involves the relation of the subject to the Real” (1982). Martine Lerude– http://www.enotes.com/real-lacan-reference/real-lacan-Retrieved: 20-2-2012
[x] “The real, a category established by Jacques Lacan, can only be understood in connection with the categories of the symbolic and the imaginary. Defined as what escapes the symbolic, the Real can be neither spoken nor written. Thus it is related to the impossible, defined as “that which never ceases to write itself.” And because it cannot be reduced to meaning, the real does not lend itself any more readily to univocal imaginary representation than it does to symbolization. The real situates the symbolic and the imaginary in their respective positions. Martine Lerude– http://www.enotes.com/real-lacan-reference/real-lacan-Retrieved: 20-2-2012
[xi] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nobody?show=0&t=1329982103- Retrieved:23-2-2012
[xiii] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_Deleuze: Essays Critical and Clinical, p. 135 [Critique et Clinique, 1993, Paris: Editions de Minuit, Trans: Essays Critical and Clinical, 1997, Daniel W. Smith and Michael A. Greco, forthcoming from the University of Minnesota Press http://www.webdeleuze.com/php/texte.php?cle=187&groupe=Bibliographie%20et%20mondes%20in%E9dits&langue=2- retrieved:23-2-2012
[xiv] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_Deleuze: Essays Critical and Clinical, p. 135 [Critique et Clinique, 1993, Paris: Editions de Minuit, Trans: Essays Critical and Clinical, 1997, Daniel W. Smith and Michael A. Greco, forthcoming from the University of Minnesota Press http://www.webdeleuze.com/php/texte.php?cle=187&groupe=Bibliographie%20et%20mondes%20in%E9dits&langue=2- retrieved:23-2-2012
[xv] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_Deleuze: Essays Critical and Clinical, p. 135 [Critique et Clinique, 1993, Paris: Editions de Minuit, Trans: Essays Critical and Clinical, 1997, Daniel W. Smith and Michael A. Greco, forthcoming from the University of Minnesota Press http://www.webdeleuze.com/php/texte.php?cle=187&groupe=Bibliographie%20et%20mondes%20in%E9dits&langue=2- retrieved:23-2-2012
Boaz tal in Allegro ma non troppo, 2001 tel aviv museum of art
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BOAZ TAL- Allegro ma non troppo- exhibition
מאמר: דר’ מיכל פופובסקי
כתב-עת: סטודיו
2001
‘אלגריה/אלגרו נון טרופו’ – התערוכה של בועז טל במוזיאון תל-אביב, מורכבת משתי תערוכות המוצגות בשני אולמות. באולם הראשון, צילומי שחור-לבן (1.50-1.50 בערך). באולם השני, צילומי צבע, אותם גדלים. לכאורה, שתי תערוכות ובניהן –פרוזדור. למעשה, לוגיקה אחד. אסביר.
בועז טל אוהב את ‘איטליה’ – המסמן- הווה אומר: הרנסנס האיטלקי– ה-’תחייה’. התערוכה המוצגת הינה אם כן, מחווה ליוצרים תקופת הרנסנס הנעה בין המאה ה- 15 לבין המאה ה- 16, בין פירנצה לבין רומה.
בצילומים של טל, הרמזים ללאונרדו דה וינצ’י ולמיכאל-אנג’לו ברורים. שאלה: מה מוצא צלם ישראלי ב-’איטליה’ שאיננו מוצא במקומו היינו ב-’ישראל’? תשובה: ה-’דונה’ או ה-’מדונה’ היינו דמות הבתולה המתפרשת על ידי הצלם כ-’אישה-גברת-אם’ הנעה בין ה-’אימהות’ לבין החסד – הדאגה לזולת והטיפוליות. לכן, כאשר טל חוזר ל-’פיאטה’ [pieta] ול-’קריטאס’[caritas] הוא מעיד על כוונותיו: לצלם את ה-‘caring’ ואת ה-‘taking care’ , את תשומת הלב ל- ואת הקדשה ל- . במלים אחרות: לצלם את מה שלוינס- Levinas – כינה בשם ‘האחריות לאחר’.
האיש-גבר שטל מביים בהקשר זה, האיש המוצג תחת הכותרת ‘פורטרט עצמי’ -בלע”ז ולא ‘דיוקן עצמי’ בעברית- הוא איש הנתמך על ידי ה-‘מדונה’ מלאת החסד, אותה אשת-אם הדואגת לו. עליה הוא שוכב, על בירכיה הוא נח, בזרועותיה הוא מתנחם, לידה הוא יושב.
דימוי ה-‘פיאטה’ מקנה לטל בסיס ייצוגי. המבנה של ה-‘פיאטה’ מאפשר לצלם להראות את ה-‘אחריות לאחר’ – את הדאגה לו ואת הטיפול בו. בהקשר זה ה-‘פיאטה’ גם מאפשרת לו לעסוק בשני המסמנים – ‘איש’ ו-‘אישה’- ולפרש מחדש את היחסים ביניהם.
כאשר טל מביים את ה-‘פיאטה’ בביתו, הוא משנה את יחסי הכוחות בין ה-‘איש’ לבין ה-‘אישה’. בעוד הוא מראה את הבן/אב על בירכי האישה/אם, הוא מחזק את מרכזיותה של ה-‘אישה’ ומחליש את מרכזיותו של ה-‘איש’. כך יוצר טל איזון חדש.
טל איננו מחליף את היררכיה הפטריארכלית האנכית בהיררכיה מטריארכלית. הוא איננו מחליף את הרעיון של הכוח הסמלי, דמיוני, תרבותי, היסטורי, פוליטי של ‘הגבר’ ברעיון ‘הכוח של האישה’. הוא פשוט מוחק את לוגיקת הסטטוס והמעמד הפטריארכלי לטובת לוגיקה אחרת– הלוגיקה של הקרבה, ההצמדות, הערך השווה, דו-הכיווניות, ההדדיות והסימטריה. לוגיקה חלופית זו מאפשרת לו למחוק את הפירמידה המייצגת את היררכיה הפטריארכלית ולהציג את המעגל. היא גם מאפשרת לו למחוק את הקו האנכי לטובת הקו האופקי.
את השינוי הלוגי-צורני מראה טל בעזרת שני מסמנים: מסמן ‘המשפחה’ ומסמן ‘העירום’. ‘המשפחה’ מופיעה בסדרת צילומים שחור-לבן: טל מביים את משפחתו בביתו ומקפיד להציג את ‘ילדי-המשפחה’, את ‘נשות-המשפחה’ – אישה ואם – את ‘גברי-המשפחה’ – בעל ואב. כולם נוכחים במקום אחד ובאותו הזמן. כולם עסוקים ומעסיקים את עצמם. ישנם היושבים ומדברים. ישנם העומדים ויש מי שקופצים ומשחקים. ברם, כולם ניצבים מול המצלמה. אחדים מפנים אליה מבט ישיר. אחרים מסתכלים הצידה. אך, כולם נראים ורואים.
עבור טל ‘המשפחה’ היא קבוצה הומוגנית. קהילה. מעין קומונה. כל אחד ממרכיביה הוא שותף בעל ערך חיובי שווה. אין גבוה ואין נמוך. אין נדחה ואין נעלם. יש ילדים, נשים וגברים הפועלים במשותף במרחב משותף. לעתים ביחד ולעתים לחוד. תפקידיהם שונים אמנם, אך הם בעלי ערך אחד-שווה. על כן, במשפחה, כולם ‘שותפים’ וכולם מופיעים בצילום.
מכאן שכל בן המשפחה זוכה למקום. האב עומד מאחורי השולחן, במישור השני או השלישי. האם יושבת ליד הילדים באותו קו. הסבתא מוצגת על כורסה במישור הראשון. האישה עומדת ליד האיש והאיש ליד האישה, באותו מישור. כך יוצר טל את המעגל, הצורה המאפיינת את המשפחה, את השוויון ואת ההרמוניה.
בצילומו של טל אודות ‘המשפחה’ קיים מרכיב חשוב: העירום. אנשי המשפחה, למעט הסבא והסבתא, מופיעים עירומים וגם יחפים. בנרטיב הצילום של טל העירום הוא ‘naked’ ולא ‘nude’ . העירום מושתת על הנרטיב של אדם וחווה בעודם חיים בגן – גן העדן- , בין הצמחים לבין הפרחים, לפני הנגיסה בתפוח, בתקופה הבראשיתית בעלת החן, התמימות, החירות והחופש יוצאי הדופן, כאשר הטוב היה מותר והמותר היה טוב, טרם הופעת הרע והחטא והאסור.
העירום הנושא קונוטציה של ‘טרום היסטורי’ ו-‘טרום תרבותי’ בא להציג גוף ומיניות הקודמים לסדר הסמלי. בצילומי שחור-לבן או בצילומי צבע שמבצע טל, העירום והצביון המיני המלווה אותו, נטולי חטא. ובעוד הוא מוחק את רעיון החטא, מציג טל מיניות נטולת חטא. לכן, בעבודותיו ה-‘גוף’ איננו מסמן נרדף ל-‘סקס’. אין בו פתחים מדומים – רגליים שסועות, פה פתוח, עניים בוהות, והוא איננו מחורר. לקסיקון הצילום של טל פועל כנגד השיח הפרוידיאני המודרני וכנגד מפרשיו, כולל מפרשיו בשדה האומנות.
הגוף איננו חדיר וחדור. אין הוא חושף החדרה או חדירה. אין הוא מגדיר -‘אישה’ כ- ‘חור’ ו-‘איש’ כ-‘פין/פלוס’. הגוף העירום שטל מגלה הוא גוף אחר. מודגשים בו התנועה – ישיבה, שכיבה, קפיצה -, המגע והנגיעה : זה ליד זו וההפך, יושבים ונוגעים זה בזה . הדחף המיני קיים. המיניות קיימת. המגע המיני נוכח. ברם, האלימות נעלמה ואתה הברוטאליות של המפגש בינו לבינה. לא עוד ‘הגבר החודר’ ו-‘האישה הניחדרת’, לא עוד ‘האיש השולט’ ו-‘האישה הנשלטת’, לא עוד האדון והעבד, לא עוד הבעל והאישה.
בחיפושו אחר הצורה שתעיד על תפישתו ועל מנת ליצור תמונת-צילום נכונה, בוחר טל לפעול על פי שיטת ה- ‘juxtaposition ‘ – העמדה ליד ובצמוד ל- וניצמד לרנסנס האיטלקי. כך, למעשה, עומד הצלם בצמוד לשדה הציור שברנסנס האיטלקי. היצמדותו הינה עבור טל מעשה המעיד על עמדתו האסתטית-אידאולוגית. טכניקות הציור הרנסנס, פרי פעולתם של ציירי התקופה ופועל יוצא של המצאות כימיות וערבובים חדשים של צבע ושמן, מקסימום את טל. לא ניתן לומר כי טל מיישם את טכניקות אלה בעבודתו. אך, ניתן לומר כי הוא מאמץ את האווירה שהן יוצרות. לכן, טכניקות האור, הצל והבימוי המאפיינות את צילומיו אינם שיחזר או שעתוק של טכניקות הרנסנס. הן גם לא העתקה. הן כלי יצירה בפני עצמם.
אז, מדוע שואל טל מהרנסנס את אמצעיה ואת תוצאיה?
התשובה: משום שאלו מאפשרים לו לבסס את מבטו ולעבדו, הפעם באמצעות כלי הצילום. במישור זה, הביצועים של טל הם חסרי תקדים. לא פסטיש- pastiche – לא פלגיאט, לא אנכרוניסטיים היינו כאלה ש-‘אינם שייכים לזמנם’, הצילומים של טל, בשדה האמנות, הנצמדים לאסתטיקה או/ו לאידיאולוגיה האסתטית של תקופת הרנסנס, חושפים ניסיון עכשווי מוצלח לנסח מחדש את פירוש ‘המשפחה’ ואתו את פירוש היחסים המינים, היחסים בין המינים, בין האיש לבין האישה.
עבורי, ניסיונו והצעתו של טל מאפשרים לשנות את ה-‘קו’. ביחסו למסמני ‘איש’, ‘אישה’ ו-‘גוף’ טל מחבר בין זרמי שיח פוליטיים ביקורתיים פמיניסטיים עכשוויים לבין גישה אסתטית חדשה. אומר אם כן כי, כאשר טל מנפיק צילום חדש, הוא מבצע אקט סמיוטי רב משמעי. בתהליך ה-‘imaging’ שמהווה בסיס להפקת אובייקט חזותי תוך הפקת החזות של האובייקט, יוצר טל ‘אימג’ –image- אסתטי-אידאולוגי-פוליטי המעיד על עמדותיו [1]. בעמדה זו, הפירושים החדשים מתאכלסים ביופי רב.
[1]במישור הפמיניסטי, עמדותיו מתקשרות לניסוחים של לוס איריגאראי וקטי מאיירס אודות ייצוג גוף-אישה. במישור החברתי, עמדותיו מזכירות בדרך הניגוד והביקורת את הצילום/קולג’ של ריצארד המילטון :Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?
30-11-01
A conversation with Israeli industrial designer: Yoav Tichochinsky
Itamar Siani's studio, Michal Popowsky©
This gallery contains 23 photos.
Dr. Michal Popowsky Blog 