The link between mood and the way we move.
My actions chosen for my displacement are unconscious body movements as a result of anxiety or stress. These body disturbances are called Psychomotor agitations, anxious restlessness that causes a person to make continuous movements without meaning to do so. Psychomotor agitations are associated with mental health as they are the actual physical expression of mental stress, all movements involve a purposeless and involuntary pattern ranging from less serious to severe. As the Todays Medical News phrases it: “These movements and behaviors are made in response to feelings of restlessness caused by increased anxiety.” This essay will explore how different artworks collected from the MET Museum depicts my action metaphorically and how art created in distinct places in times can portray the unconscious movements caused by mood disorders.
Stationary Figure
1973
by Philip Guston
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Guston’s piece portrays elegant abstractions and multiple representational imageries such as Bare lightbulbs, trash cans, old shoes, and different disintegrating objects. The elements painted on a grand scale have an abstract cartoonish style which gives a sense of an apocalyptic world. As Guston puts it: “I got sick and tired of all that Purity! I wanted to tell stories.” This work evokes an elusive narrative of a country embroiled in a devastating war, pain, struggles as a solitary figure. “An anxious smoker, often interpreted as a self-portrait, lying awake while the clock ticks away the small hours.
This artwork relates to my action because of many reasons, the elements presented in the painting are purposely clear and cartoonish like, not emphasizing the details of it, yet each object carries a big symbol and purpose of why it is there. The painter chooses this certain objects for a reason, something that shouldn’t be ignored even if there’s not visual detail on them. I can connect this with psychomotor agitations as they usually present themselves on small repetitive hand or leg movements. This agitation can get even more secretive like chewing the inside of the mouths or pealing their skin of the fingers, these actions seem insignificant yet all of them come from solely mental stress or even deep-rooted traumas. In both cases, simple things such as the minimalistic objects and quick little movements can hold dark thoughts, severe circumstances, and dangerous conceptions within them.
Stationary Figure relates in different forms to the other works chosen.
With Read Coat, Stationary Figure shares similar cartoonish and simplistic design, even though stationary figure has more texture, both of them doesn’t loose their minimalistic design and strong vibrant use of colors. In both cases color play a big role in the composition, disconcerning the spectator and making it challenging to understand how the objects or person act or play a role in a place that is not even portrayed clearly.
With Fragilina, Stationary Figure also has this mystery factor which makes the spectator use their subconscious thinking and portrayal of imagery. In Fragilina, the subconsciousness of the spectator helps provide their ideal of beauty into the sculpture, while in the stationary figure, the spectator sees and feels subconsciously, and all-unconscious correlation with the theme or significance is related to their inner impressions, memories, and experiences. Without these, we wouldn’t see the point or wouldn’t be able to submerge some part of us onto Stationary figure.
With Scenario, Stationary Figure portrays in different ways the theme of pain. In Spinario the boy is focused on taking the thorn out, we know that is painful but little details such as the rough surface were he sits on adds to the feeling of uneasiness and starts to develop concern for him. On the other hand in Stationary Figure we are directly confronted with the sense of pain and desperation, it doesn’t show a smooth body but it shows chaos and disturbance both works creating uneasiness and preoccupation on the spectator.
Red Coat
1982
By Alex Katz
In this painting, we see the tension between the specific and abstract. Katz plays with a lot of contrast in this composition as the near and far blends with the intimate and remote. The tension between opposites animates his depictions of both people and space. Red Coat portrays Katz’s wife Ada, radically cropped and magnified making her the front of the picture plane. The painting portrays a design inspired by movies and advertising making Ada’s face expression minimalistic and difficult to decipher. The use of the bright red color and her blank stare gives a mystery tone to the painting, contrasting the accuracy of the brush strokes with the inaccessibility of the meaning of motive behind it.
Red coat relates to my action because of the composition and the contrast between the elements. The composition relates on a more literal way, Ada, the woman portrayed in the painting is facing directly to the spectator taking more than ½ of the canvas. Ada’s face has smooth edges and clean brushstrokes, this removes all texture from her face living the spectator in front of a blank stare. Her face is so close to the spectator yet, we are unable to see emotion or a feeling from her. I connect this with the unconscious body movements because it is something everyone can see happen, is something we all are used to see from certain people, but we are not able to see more from that movements. Even if two persons are moving at the same time, with the same tic, the reason for the movement would be different from each other. Regarding the contrast between the elements is similar to the previous connection. The background blends with the red coat vanishing the space with the person as if both are tied together somehow. This is the same thing that happens with the tics as if your past fears and traumas coming together through little uncontrollable movements.
Red Coat relates in different forms to the other works chosen.
In regards to Fragilina, both plays with the idea of feminism portrayed directly into the spectator’s head. In the case of fragilina, we can see how the perception of the spectator could play with her whole body composition yet the eyes and face structure is the smooth’s most mysterious element of the piece. In both artworks, there’s a lot of accentuation and meaning made by both artists. In fragilina, the ideal of beauty is automatically created into the sculpture while in Red Coat we see so much detail and are put on face front to Ava’s face that we get to feel the same way as we would be looking at fragilina’s face. Both staring at the nothingness, both making the spectator have unanswerable questions.
As to, Spinario, both focus on the genuine human body, while the sculpture emphasizes the body of the young boy, Red Coat emphasizes the blank stare and monotonous face expression. Yet, both are completely smooth and we can’t seem to find any imperfection on their skin, this makes the spectator less distracted on the visual details and lets them feel more as if they had to use other senses to make meaning out of this piece.
Fragilina
1923
by Attilio Piccirilli
“Every person has his ideal of beauty stored away in his subconscious mind”. Frigilina is a simplified, almost abstract marble sculpture. The eyes appear to be veiled in stone and there is little articulation in detail. The minimalism, the smooth composition and the facial characteristics loosely delineated are purposely made to give the observer the opportunity of visualizing its ideal type. In other words, by seeing a type of blank canvas on Fragilinas face, we can imagine our ideal portrayal of beauty which is solely based on our subconscious thoughts. The mental difference creates by seeing this sculpture in non-intensional, we cant avoid doing so, it becomes a second hand, this is how fragilina plays on a subconscious level with the spectator’s sight.
Fragilina relates to my action by how the
face of the girl is simplified and how the reason for it is abstract. The meaning of the sculpture all depends on the interpretation of the subconsciousness of the spectator. Basically what one imagines when watching the smooth unclear face of the girl, depicting one’s ideal of beauty. In the case of my action, every single tic is unique, every moment has a trigger behind it and the only reason for this movement that takes control of our awareness that we are moving is because of our brain negating, remembering, or stressing itself. It’s something that we cannot control, likewise, our subconscious ideal of beauty, as well as the Psychomotor agitations, are concepts that we cant neither control of comprehending.
The marble sculpture, Fragilina, relates in different forms to the bronze sculpture of Scenario. Both share the same smooth surface, yet they differ on the facial expression, while fragilina’s eyes are veiled in stone, Spinario posses detailed designs on his eyes, showing how focused his look was at his foot. Furthermore, Spinario and fragilina share similar sizes which signify that the spectator sees the sculptures at the same height and similar angles. This has a lot to do with meaning and purpose of the piece, Spinario is supposed to make the unconsciousness they are invading his privacy while in Fragilina is good for the spectator to invade her privacy because that would mean they would be closer to imagine with more accuracy their perception of ideal beauty.
Spinario
Spinario, one of the most celebrated bronze sculptures in the city of Rome depicts a young boy about to pull a thorn from his foot as quickly and painlessly as he can. Although the sculpture does not have a known story, it embodies a beautiful representation of the human body in complex action. Overall, the sculpture has a childish like tone where immediately calls the spectator’s attention as we see how he is utterly absorbed by pulling the Thorne out of his foot in public. The fact that the smooth body is sitting on a rough surface is something noteworthy.
The sculpture Spinario relates to my action as it embodies a human body doing a simple but complex action. The spectator as it sees the sculpture, somehow, is violating the boy’s privacy, yet it is noticeable how utterly focused he is on his foot. This is something similar that happens when one sees someone with Psychomotor agitations. One can look at it and not think too much about it but just by questioning the why of the action you are violating the person’s privacy. To find out the root of this agitation you always have to look at the person’s history, their life, and their problems. All of this is disguised on one repetitive movement, just like the sculpture, it seems so simple at first but when you get closer you see how difficult it can be to figure out what went wrong for the person just like the boy trying to take the thorn out.
Why do these works make sense together in your curation?
All of the works collected make sense on a curation because all four works make the spectator think but on a really particular way, not only they have to be in touch with their emotion and senses but they require to have some context, purpose, or meaning for the artist to understand them at least some parts of them. The four artworks were made by being very thought well through, stationary figure holding symbolic elements trough out the canvas, Red coat playing with a person in space, how her looks and herself as a persona blends into the nothingness red never knowing why, Fragilina the sculpture that sculpts the spectator subconscious desires and Spinario, the representation of naked youth, acting upon a simple yet very complex movement. Evidently all four of them, even if they work minimalistic elements, designs, structures, and even colors, all the simple elements are the ones that show the deepest profound inquires from the artist themselves, we can get to know them somehow through this artworks, yet never fully understand them, the same patter that Psychomotor agitations follow.
Placement of curation?
I would show my curation in a waiting room, I think that showing my curation on places where there are long lines and people are obligated to wait, they’ll be forced to distract themselves by looking somewhere. As a result of boredom, I think people would start to question their thoughts while at the same time looking for an answer to the curation. Most of the time, waiting rooms and long lines are dreadful experiences, in someway I would be using their incommodity and anger to my advantage because when people are angry or uncomfortable they will either be looking for an answer or any distraction. The pieces chosen also requires the spectator to use primarily their senses to perceive what the artist want to transmit them, to show them their subconscious. And thus, by being on an emotional, tiring situation where one just wants to distract themselves, people will have a lot of time not only analyzing the piece but analyzing why they felt a certain way when they saw it. Finally, I would call my curation show: Unconcious capacity. The word Unconcious representing how much information we can gather from ourselves from just focusing on one thought or feeling, and capacity representing how many times can we our brain take control of our thoughts and impressions on the four artworks. Unconcious capacity sounds a little challenging for the spectator, the word capacity will probably trigger people, making them dare themselves our question their capability on interpreting the works, once again achieving this sense of constant questioning and sensorial awareness produces by the artworks and the name of the curation.
Conclusion & Reflection
Even though the artworks I choose range from completely different styles and times I found a similar pattern within the purpose of the artist. As I mentioned before all four pieces require somehow of a first impression experience. The impression you have on any of the four pieces is crucial as your true subconscious thoughts take place in your first impression. I connect all of four with these as the artist focused on the bigger picture and the effect on the spectator. For example, Fragilina could’ve been sculpted following the artist’s ideal of beauty, yet he left it as simple as possible to allow others to imagine their own ideal of beauty. In Stationary figure, the artist located all of these random cartoonish objects knowing that no matter what object is we would probably have bad connotations with all of them as we see the stains that look like blood. I found the Met to be one of the most well-planned spaces for specific artworks desing, every object or painting, every theme or style of art was no only shown on the piece but also what surrounded the piece and how multiple works together could make a bigger piece in space.
One thing I didn’t expect to happen to go to the MET was to feel in 5 different countries at once. Every time I entered a new space installation I found myself lost in space and time, it was truly surprising how quickly space affected my perception and created on me a strange gut feeling that was telling me I was somewhere else, anywhere but a museum. Especially the Japanese section which felt very real and I got to see their traditional roofing, bridges, and lighting. It was shocking how I felt so different depending on what was surrounding me. This was also one of the factors that influenced my attention spam as I knew that every room would probably contain some new culture or theme that I hadn’t expect. Thus, the suspense was the ultimate factor for me to remain excited and attentive through my research. Finally, something that was a bit challenging to accept was the fact that I had to focus more on the purpose and intention of the artist instead of looking for something that literally showed tics and unconscious movements. It was frustrating how I could find so many sculptures that touched the subject of unconsciousness and next to them would be sculptures that showed body movement, yet there was no sculpture that holds both concepts together. Nonetheless, I started to focus more on the pieces that had subconsciousness and inner personal thoughts as they are the ones that in the end, shape our actions. This new way of looking and searching for artwork made me think about the relationship between mood and the way we move, coming again to the basis of my action but by looking at it from a different perspective, actions caused by the unconscious mind.
