From April Studio
Notes
Sunday, April 22, 2007.
Lac Ouaureau, night.
The
1958
through
1965 collages were the "existential cry" of youth transforming
its sexuality from adolescence to manhood. These works now (2006-7) are
the cry of the transformation from manhood to old age. In each case—the
old works and the new works—medium, form, content, were/are shaped by
need.
The need: the sexual paths
are formed very early in life. The channels of desire and pleasure, the
neural pathways, the muscular responses, the emotions and mental
associations—the whole particular (and I think in every case specific to
each individual) pattern for discharge of the “drive of nature” in the
male, the need to ejaculate.
The path from adolescence
to maturity, from the need to ejaculate as structured by early adolescent
experience, to the act of building a family, these paths in me were imaged
in the 1958-66 works. Now 60 years or more later, the neural, kinesthetic
pathways of pleasure and ecstasy are still there, but the hormonal drive
is not... no "cum."
What then for a mind/body,
a soul with all the needs for ecstasy it ever had, and all the pathways
empty of the driving energy?
There are constant ads for
sexual tools from Viagra/Cialis to the towelette to induce instant
hard-ons, from testosterone shots to dietary supplements.
The original paths to
ecstasy are still there waiting and calling, but the sexuality that surged
through them is gone. What can take its place? Jacking off won't work.
Can painting (my old "religious act”… the materialization of the body and
blood of my life)—can painting fully take its place?
Painting--the
materialization of the body and blood of my life--for all the years, it
gave the "Only One Sign" in
#7 above. Well, now it looks
more like it's going to be things like #s
12,
13,
14,
15. The
products of the cliche "Time will tell" will have to tell me.
