Transfer

by Andrej Medved

Painter Ana Sluga is exhibiting a series of small-sized canvases entitled Transfer, combining painted portraits with pictures of various pure-colour planes that thus – coupled with the portraits – assume additional value and significance. One might claim she has established a substantial association of colours and figures of eight-year-old girls/boys that conveys a certain interdependence and quality – the character of portrayed people, and a statement, or a barely noticeable significance of the representation. That the portrayed children are in the first age bracket, that they are (barely) eight years old, is of course an “excess” and sublimation of growing up and a certain transformation and transgression, a bridge, a change from being a creature of ludus and pure play, to phaidia, that is to say, to (seemingly) borderline conditions where human existence begins to take shape… Or, according to Ana Sluga:

I will exhibit 54 portraits of people I probably know better than anyone, only a few of whom are casual acquaintances but I nevertheless feel close to them for a certain reason. Why people I feel close to? Because I can ask them with an enthusiastic glow in my eyes to show me their family photo album, and by leafing through many of their photos and stories I find the one that I first mentally and then by means of a computer transpose into a raster that serves me as the basis for a painting. Why eight-year-olds? Because I consider it an age when the process of self-awareness starts in a child and because many original and poignant stories take shape within that period, because many people regard it a time when dreams are still unbroken, when children have not developed their complexes yet, their world has not been limited yet, they are fearless and at the same time on the verge of self-awareness and finding identity... Painting people as children I did not know is an alienating pursuit in terms of form and representation, which is why I have chosen the raster that, furthermore, bridges my view of them in the present and their past.

The show sheds light on my search for the answers why the people I feel close to are what they are, or, more precisely, explores the reasons why I like them precisely because of their special personal characteristics. The latter is not merely a personality analysis but also a substantiation of the artist’s own identity and character. At the same time the permanent dilemma arises about who we are and what we are like at this given moment and what kind of influence the past exerts on our essence, appearance, personality, character… in the present.

The number eight is otherwise, in Eastern philosophy, determined by the turn of Possibility and existential/cosmic Choice, with the notable hexagram that involves 8 x 8 basic units, links and connections (=64). And, in fact, the number of colour surfaces chosen for the exhibition by Ana Sluga at the Loža Gallery is round, or less than sixty. The relations between the coloured square of the canvas and the depicted portrait “exist” between the complementary principles of YIN and YANG, that is to say, in the interactions female-male, soft-hard, night and day, focus (focalisation) and amydron as opacity-stain… whereby the colour plane is YIN, and the child’s portrait YANG.

YIN/YANG are forces and substances, substantial existences; herein lies the basic dualism, the principle of cosmos and all relations: among beings, within objects and things. They represent the highest and supreme reality which, in its essence, is analogous to divine principle. They determine concrete conditions and actions and relations. YIN/YANG are cosmic symbols: YIN reflects frozenness, “cold” temporality as well as clouded and dusky firmament, the interior, the opacity and vagueness in contrast to YANG that represents incandescence and warmth, focusing and clarification, clarity. They both epitomize infinite Time, in whose Space(iousness) all earthly creatures are caught. And this is the basic issue of Ana Sluga’s art: the concrete position, realistic faces that form part of the continuity of Time. In I King, the couples – the pairs in YIN (number of colour planes) are considered as number eight <8>, and the linear formations – the lines in YANG as number seven. The painted, colourful, monochrome surfaces are thus – numerically – in relation to the painted portraits of the persons who have reached their splendid eighth birthday. YIN therefore points to the interior of the externalised pictures of children. By that means, there arises a correspondence between their characters and the lineaments of faces of delicate and glowing and clarified images and figures of “mature” and “adult” materialized children.

“In what is presented to me as space of light that which is gaze is always a play of light and opacity. It is always that gleam of light – it is always this which prevents me, at each point, from being a screen, from making the light appear as an iridescence that overflows it. … And if I am anything in the picture, it is always in the form of the screen, which I earlier called the stain, the spot. … I must, to begin with, insist on the following: in the scopic field, the gaze is outside, I am looked at, that is to say, I am a picture. This is the function that is found at the heart of the institution of the subject in the visible. What determines me, at the most profound level, in the visible, is the gaze that is outside. It is through the gaze that I enter light and it is from the gaze that I receive its effects. Hence it comes about that the gaze is the instrument through which light is embodied and through which – if you will allow me to use a word, as I often do, in a fragmented form – I am photo-graphed. … The function of the picture has a relation with the gaze. Beyond appearance there is nothing in itself, there is the gaze. Generally speaking, the relation between the gaze and what one wishes to see involves a lure. The subject is presented as other than he is, and what one shows him, is not what he wishes to see.” (The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis)

Sluga’s chromatic painting is Lacan’s “stain”, which is the object’s correlative of the Gaze, that is to say, YANG in relation to YIN as stain, which is (Lacan’s) “lamella”, libido = love.

The transfer cannot be understood without knowing that it has taken place also as a consequence of this love, of this presently existing love, and while conducting analysis the psychoanalysts have to keep that in mind. This love presents itself in various ways, but it should be recalled at least when it’s here, when it’s noticeable. It is precisely while serving the function of this love, let us call it real love, that the main issue of transfer arises, the issue examined by the subject in connection with agalma, namely, the issue concerning his lack, for it is precisely through this lack that he loves.

How can a, an object of identification, also be a, an object of love? Let the lover [l’amant], to use the medieval and traditional expression, be metaphorically uprooted since he presents himself as such, as the loveable [l’amable] érôménos, so that érastès might be rendered out of him, a subject of lack which he constitutes himself with precisely through love. This is what gives him an instrument of love, if I might use this expression, at least if we love, once more returning to this eternal topic, if we lovingly tend to what we don’t have (sinthome).

TRANSFER
Andrej Medved

Slikarka Ana Sluga se predstavlja z nizom majhnih platen z naslovom Transfer, v katerih se prepletajo naslikani obrazi s podobami različnih čistih barvnih ploskev, ki imajo – v paru s portreti – dodatno vrednost in pomen. Lahko bi dejali, da gre za substancionalno povezavo barv in likov osemletnih deklic-dečkov, ki izraža neko soodvisnost in značaj – značaj portretirancev in neko sporočilnost, ali komajda opazen smisel upodobitve. Da so naslikani otroci v prvem zrelostnem obdobju, da imajo (komaj) osem let, pa je seveda neki »presežek« in sublimacija odraščanja in neka transformacija ter transgresija, most, prehajanje iz bitja ludusa in čiste igre v phaidio, se pravi v (na videz) mejno stanje, v katerem se začne oblikovati človeška eksistenca … Ali kot pravi Ana Sluga:

Razstavila bom 54 portretov ljudi, ki jih poznam verjetno najbolj od vseh, le nekaj je tistih, s katerimi smo zgolj znanci, vendar so mi tako ali drugače blizu. Zakaj ljudje, ki so mi blizu? Ker lahko le njih z žarom v očeh vprašam, ali si lahko ogledam njihov družinski album ter prek številnih fotografij in zgodb najdem tisto, ki jo že v mislih in pozneje na računalniku prenesem v raster, ki mi služi kot podlaga pri slikanju. Zakaj osemletniki? Ker se mi zdi to obdobje v življenju, ko se začne otrok zavedati samega sebe in ko velikokrat izhajajo iz teh let najbolj pristne in doživete zgodbe, ker je to za marsikoga obdobje, ko sanje ne poznajo meja, ker takrat otrok še ni obremenjen, omejen, prestrašen ter hkrati na robu samozavedanja in samospoznavanja ... Slikati ljudi, ki jih vidiš vsak dan v podobi otrok, ki jih nisem poznala, je v formalnem, oblikotvornem smislu odtujeno, zato sem izbrala raster, ki po drugi strani ustvarja most med mojim pogledom na njih v sedanjosti in njihovo preteklostjo.

Razstava orisuje moje iskanje odgovorov na vprašanja, zakaj so ljudje, ki so mi blizu, takšni, kot so, in še temeljiteje, kje so vzroki, da so mi všeč s točno določenimi lastnostmi. To ni zgolj analiza osebnosti, ampak tudi potrditev tega, kdo in kakšen si sam. Hkrati se odpira večna dilema o tem, kdo in kakšni smo v tem danem trenutku in kolikšen vpliv ima preteklost na našo bit, podobo, osebnost, značaj … v sedanjosti.

Je pa osmica drugače, v vzhodnjaški misli, pogojena z obratom Možnosti in eksistenčno-kozmične Izbire, z znamenitim heksagramom, ki šteje 8 x 8 temeljnih enot, vezi in povezav (=64). In v resnici je število barvnih ploskev na razstavi Ane Sluga v galeriji Loža okroglo ali manj kot šestdeset. Razmerja med obarvanim kvadratom platna in naslikanim portretom se »gibljejo« v povezavi jin-jang, se pravi v povezavi žensko-moško, mehko-trdo, noč in dan, ostrina (izostritev) in amydron kot motnost-madež … s tem, da je barvna ploskev jin, portret otroka pa je jang.

Jin/jang so sile in substance, substancionalne eksistence, v tem je osnovni dualizem, načelo kozmosa in vseh razmerij: med bitji, v predmetih in stvareh. Predstavljajo najvišjo in vrhovno stvarnost, ki je po svojem bistvu analogna božanskemu načelu. Določajo konkretna stanja ter dejanja in razmerja. Jin/jang sta kozmična simbola: jin kaže na zamrznjenost, »mrzlo« časovnost ter na oblačno in temačno nebo, notranjost, na motnost in nejasnost v nasprotju z jang, ki predstavlja razžarjenost in toploto, ostrino in jasnjenje, jasnost. Oba predstavljata neskončen Čas, ki smo kot bitja ujeti v njegovo Prostor(ninskost). In prav to je pri Ani Sluga temeljni problem: konkretna oblikovanost, realistični obrazi, ki so del trajanja v Času. Pari – dvojice v jinu (številu barvnih ploskev) veljajo v I Kingu za osmico <8>, črtovje – linije v jangu pa sedmico. Obarvane, barvite, enobarvne ploskve so torej – številčno – v razmerju s slikami portretov bitij, ki so dopolnili osem prelestnih let. V tem jin pokaže na notranjost pozunanjenih otroških podob. S tem se začenja soodvisnost njihovih značajev z linijami obrazov nežnih ter žarečih in razjasnjenih podob in likov »zrelih« in »odraslih« materializiranih otrok.

»V tem, kar se mi kaže kot prostor svetlobe, je pogled vselej neka igra svetlobe in neprosojnosti. Prav to zrcaljenje … me vselej na vsaki točki zadrži, ker je zaslon, ker prikazuje svetlobo kakor blesketanje, ki ga preplavlja … In če sem sam sploh kaj na sliki, sem prav tako v tisti obliki zaslona, ki sem ji malo prej rekel madež … Na začetku moram poudariti tole: v skopičnem polju je pogled zunaj, mene gledajo, se pravi, jaz sem slika. To je funkcija, ki jo je najti v jedru institucije subjekta v vidnem. V vidnem me pomembno opredeljuje prav pogled, ki je zunaj. S pogledom stopim v svetlobo in od pogleda prejmem njene učinke. Iz tega izhaja, da je pogled instrument, skozi katerega se svetloba uteleša in skozi katerega – če dovolite, da tudi tokrat uporabim besedo tako, da jo razstavim, sem foto-grafiran … Funkcija slike je torej v razmerju do pogleda. Onstran videza ni stvar na sebi, pač pa pogled. Na splošno je odnos pogleda do tistega, kar hočemo videti, odnos slepila. Subjekt se kaže kot nekaj drugega, kar je, in kar mu daje videti, ni tisto, kar hoče videti (Štirje temeljni koncepti psihoanalize).«

Slugina kromatska slika je Lacanov »madež«, ki je objektni korelat Pogleda, se pravi jang v razmerju do jin madeža, ki je (Lacanova) »lamela«, libido = ljubezen.

Pri transferju ne moremo razumeti ničesar, če ne vemo, da je tudi posledica te ljubezni, te občutene ljubezni, in psihoanalitiki morajo med analizo misliti tudi na to. Ta ljubezen je tukaj na različne načine, toda naj se je spomnijo vsaj, ko je tu, ko je opazna. Prav v funkciji te, recimo ji resnične ljubezni, nastane to, kar je osrednje vprašanje transferja, tisto, ki si ga zastavlja subjekt v zvezi z agalmo, in sicer kaj mu manjka, kajti prav s tem primanjkljajem ljubi.

Kako je a, objekt identifikacije, lahko tudi a, objekt ljubezni? Naj le metaforično izruje ljubimca [l’amant], če uporabimo srednjeveški in tradicionalni izraz, saj se predstavlja pod takim statusom, statusom ljubezniv rednega [l’amable], érôméos, da bi iz njega napravil érastès, subjekt primanjkljaja, tega, s čimer se konstituira ravno v ljubezni. To je tisto, kar mu daje, če lahko rečem instrument ljubezni, vsaj če, pa se spet vračamo na to, ljubimo, če smo ljubeči, s tem, česar nimamo (Sinthome).