Gober 'Untitled' 1990

Gober Untitled 1990 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

The conceptual surprise in this piece comes from the co-presence in one place of two distinct objects: a bag and a torso. The fact that the bag is made of beeswax carries connotations of waxy skin. The hair (which is human) is being both hair and representing hair at the same time, while the painted nipples consist in paint being both itself and nipples at the same time. The creases appear as part of the torso and the bag, and one is also reminded of the idea of the 'body bag'.

All these overlapping and multiple associations co-exist in this fairly simple object. We are aware of them to varying degrees, some more than others, and each contributes to the richness of the overall experience.

In this work the process of conceptual organisation being done by the object recognition systems is somewhat perplexed and confounded. The object has many of the perceptual characteristics of a body, but it is not a body. Likewise, it has many of the perceptual characteristics of a bag, but it is not a bag. Gober is directly interfering with these perceptual processes in order to generate the psychic affect of the work.

Warhol 'National Velvet' 1963

Warhol National Velvet 1963 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

This Warhol poses a dilemma: in one respect, we have a series of dispassionately, almost cynically, presented frames positioned in a happenstance way across the surface, reproducing an image of a fleeting cinematic moment as though with little care. But in another respect the image betrays the artist's personal fascination with fame, celebrity and film glamour, obsessively grasping a present but lost moment through repetition. National Velvet is both detached replication and indulgent celebration.

Matisse 'Woman in a hat' 1905

Matisse Femme au Chapeau 1905, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

This is clearly a provocation. The hat is vague and incoherent and topples awkwardly on her head, almost burying it; the skin is ghoulish and transparent, barely distinct from the background. The body is skewed, her right arm gauche and her left arm a loosely placed stump. Colours jut up against each other, seemingly present for their own sakes rather than in service to what they represent (the slab of orange neck).

Yet the picture as a whole has a unity, like a many-coloured map that describes the regions of a single nation. And amidst it all is evidence of the presence of a living person transposed into paint by the action of the artist. It is an uncannily real face, sketched with a directness that belies a greater concern for the act of looking that the faithfulness of the recording.

But for all its attempts to provoke, and for all the upset and hilarity it caused, its underlying structure is that of a rather conventional fin-de-siècle portrait of an elegant, modish Mademoiselle.

Art and the conscious mind

Much of our experience of an artwork is unconscious or semi-conscious. We are aware of aspects of its form or meaning that are not necessarily the subject of our immediate attention; they may be vaguely felt or sensed 'in the background'. Yet they often contribute in some way to the overall impression we have of a work, feeding into the more present aspects of what we call the 'conscious' mind. This conscious mind is that within which our experience feels contained or centered, and holds all the components of thought to which we have immediate access.

A major component of this is the artwork itself, its visible presence (if a visual piece), its localised context, the knowledge we bring to it, and so on. All these in some way combine to create the global effect of viewing the artwork, and can be subject to varying degrees of attention depending on the unfolding of our thoughts.

During this process it is possible that impressions hitherto confined to the unconscious aspect of mind can come to the fore, and the significance of some hidden quality can be grasped. Then the sum total of thoughts available to the conscious mind is expanded, enriching the experience of the artwork and expanding the content of the mind in question.

This process of enrichment rarely occurs immediately, depending often on prolonged contemplation to reach its fullest state. During this process the interaction between the mind and the object can become generative; new connections between parts of the work are created, a process that can be extended longer the richer the work of art is.

Here the conscious mind becomes increasingly attuned to the form of the work, growing in capacity, sensitivity and complexity — engaging in what is normally termed the 'aesthetic experience.'

Lichtenstein 'Rouen Cathedral Set V [center]' 1969

Lichtenstein Rouen Cathedral Set V [center] 1969 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

The Ben Day dots simultaneously sustain and interfere with our perception of the cathedral. A close inspection is almost giddying, physically unsettling, as though one were looking through the punctured white screen masking a duochrome image behind, whereas in fact the duochrome image lies on top of the white ground. I am aware of several things at once: the cathedral, the dots, the Monet, the Lichtenstein, the High Modernist aesthetic of the museum — at no time do these settle into an an undifferentiated whole. I am looking at many layers of image, just as I am looking at many dots.

Giacometti 'Bust of Diego' 1957

Giacometti, 1957, Bust of Diego, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

There is no reality aside from that perceived — a perception that is in itself real. Certain artworks address this perceptual reality, rather than some conjectural external reality to which we could have no access. Works such as this Giacometti deal with perceptual reality — the level at which we experience the real — by showing the world is mutable, unstable, and dependent upon the position and the action of the viewer. There is nothing fixed or self contained to be observed. Vision, movement, memory, knowledge all go to make up the world. Reality lies in the act of perceiving and not in the object itself.

Miro 'Painting' 1926

Miro Peinture (Painting) [formerly Dark Brown and White Oval] 1926 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

The soft brown space is misty and suggestive — almost suffocating, like a smoke cloud — and segmented by diagrammatic dotted black lines, creating a transparent cubic depth. Into this are placed the objects that float freely both in depth and across the flat surface. The white oval is a jokey face, moon-like and childish, the other blob a yin-yang symbol or half-lit planet. One mass is tethered to a solid black weight, the other in unsupported orbit.

This simple composition generates multiple oppositions: The vague brown area, dimensionless and boundless, is trisected by the Euclidian space of the dotted lines along the traditional three fixed axes; the happy white face-balloon, which floats upward, is restrained by the sombre black mass which gravity pulls downward; dark and light meet with large and small, solid and vaporous, occupied left and almost empty right, white full moon and black crescent moon. The complexity of the painting, which is not immediately registered, emerges only through study.

The contradictions allied to the ambiguities give the painting a delicate weight.

Against being 'in' the world

It doesn't seem right to say we are beings 'in' the world, as if the world were a container within which we exist as a component or resident — as if we are in the world as we are in a house or room. The implication is that the world/room is something pregiven around us that we are not so much a part of than a part within, and that that world/room would continue in the same way if we were not there. It seems better to say we are beings 'as' the world, and that that world is a condition of our being there, as much 'in' us as we are in it.

Claims about truth

If a claim is made that the nature of truth consists in having attribute y, then that claim must itself have the same attribute y (if it is to be true) in which case it is potentially recursive.

If the attribute y must apply prior to the condition of truth in order to substantiate the claim then the attribute y requires a further prior condition of truthfulness — and so to infinite regress.

Claims about the nature of truth are vulnerable to recursion and regression, and therefore unsustainable by conventional logical standards.

(By analogy: If I need confirmation that a particular object is exactly one metre in length I can apply a ruler and measure it. The truthfulness of the claim about the length depends of the veracity of the metre length I compare it to, and the veracity of this claim depends on comparison to a prior metre length, and so on. And although numerous attempts have been made to eradicate the uncertainty over the exact length of one metre, from the eighteenth century to the present day, there remains a degree of uncertainty (now at the sub-atomic level).

That the length of one metre is established by convention is not in doubt. What remains doubtful is how long one metre is. Therefore, the truthfulness about the claim that a certain object is one metre long refers only to other claims about the length of a metre. There is no final fact to establish the truth.)

By example: If I make the claim that the nature of truth lies in there being a correspondence between a state of affairs in my mind and a state of affairs in the world, then that claim must itself be subject to the same conditions of truth, such that there must be a correspondence between the nature of truth (being a correspondence between mind and world) and something else. What would that something else be? If it is something in the mind or the world then we risk self reference and regression. If it is something not in the mind or world then where would it be?

Note: This is not to argue that no truthful claims can be made, but that claims about the nature of truth cannot be made (at least not without recursion or regress).

Other Dimensions: Paintings by Robert Pepperell

28 September - 9 October 2009

St John the Baptist Crypt, Nelson Street, Bristol, BS1 2EZ

Other Dimensions includes a selection of paintings by the artist and writer Robert Pepperell. The work investigates the idea that, despite what is widely believed, our everyday world is not made up the standard three dimensions of space and one of time. Between these lie other dimensions of indeterminate value, where objects are neither flat nor deep, or perhaps both flat and deep.

Other Dimensions: Various paintings

Various paintings (2009. Various media, various sizes)

A selection of smaller paintings that study the interplay between the image, its interpretation and its surface.

Other Dimensions: Fixing

Fixing (2009. Oil on canvas, 123 x 123 cm)

We sometimes talk about ‘fixing the eye’ on something in an effort to be more certain about what it is we are seeing. This painting offers a scene in which nothing can be fixed, except the objects within it that themselves are designed to fix.

Other Dimensions: Triangles in red, black and mauve

Triangles in red, black and mauve (2009, Triptych. Oil on constructed panels, 123 x 246 cm)

Viewing the painting from a distance of about three meters, and by concentrating on the middle point of the central panel, a shifting arrangement of shapes can be perceived. These shapes have a sense of depth, and cannot be regarded as entirely flat.

Other Dimensions: Still life with flowers and paintings

Still life with flowers and paintings (2009, Triptych. Oil on constructed panels, 130 x 173 cm)

The paintings depict everyday objects arranged in such a way that they are not immediately recognizable. The spaces occupied by the objects do not necessarily coincide with spaces in which they are represented.

Other Dimensions: The Deposition

The Deposition (2009, Triptych. Oil on constructed panels, 180 x 360 cm)

The design of this triptych is loosely based on a classical biblical scene, overlaid with more contemporary images. The point at which the surface of the image meets the eye is never really fixed.