Jungian perspectives
With the recent publishing of Carl Jung's Red Book, it is an occasion to revisit his perspective on the arts. Jung never considered psychology to be qualified to determine whether a work of art was art as such; this he considered to be the domain of aesthetics. Psychology (and particularly Jungian psychotherapy), though, focuses on an essential aspect of art, namely that which involves specific psychic contents. Like art criticism, it finds its inspiration in knowledge of the viewer's inclinations and cultural heritage, the artist's history and personal growth, and the symbolic forms within the art object. In sum, Jung's psychotherapeutic approach, though a limited perspective, is all-encompassing within that perspective.
Jung, beloved for his broad interest in culture and its symbols, offers a broad body of thought: his unusual concept of the collective unconscious and its corresponding archetypes (the Shadow, the Anima/Animus, alchemical dream symbols), precise characterizations of psychological types and their inherent mode of creating, and more. The full range of Jung's thought is inexhaustible; the following is my application of a couple of aspects to two artist's works that have shown recently in this region.
The House as Self
The Taft Museum of Art recently hosted an exhibition from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts entitled, 'The Chemistry of Color: The Sorgenti Collection of Contemporary African-American Art.' Harold A. Sorgenti initiated the collection in 1979 while President of Arco Chemical company due to the complete lack of a presence of Afro-American artists in museums and galleries. Later, Sorgenti bought the collection from his personal funds and donated the complete works to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
In particular, I found Beverly Buchanan's S.C. House Near Bull Swamp School, 1989-1995 to be emblematic. The sculpture, at first unassuming, seems like a model ( not more than 2' high) for a shack. Perhaps it could be a mimetic reproduction of an actually existing one. But its construction is too rough and haphazard. Architectural models are often very neatly cut and assembled, the straight clean lines essential as a guide for more specific construction plans. The idea of it as a reproduction of an actually existing house is perhaps relevant. However, this brings into question why one would wish to reproduce such a structure. If it is a reproduction — and Buchanan has created whole series of works imitating the homes of Southern poor — it could be understood as her interiorization of her experience of these dwellings and their image as externalized aspects of her own psyche.
Jung wrote that the house is the symbol of the Self. He dreamt in 1909 of walking through a home, descending from the second story down to the deeper levels. He felt that the various house floors of his dream (the architectural aspects were medieval and classical) corresponded specifically to aspects of his psyche. However, there were also elements from a deeper strata of the unconscious. The deeper strata was far broader than that which could be encapsulated by his personal history. He believed that it arose from a 'collective unconscious.' The personal unconscious was the first layer, the collective unconscious — typically appearing in archetypal symbols — was extensive as per its namesake. It embodies the whole experience of humanity, a storehouse of symbols, impulses and forces.
Jung went so far as to construct an actual stone building in Lake Zurich in Bollingen, Switzerland, externalizing his vision. Like the Red Book, it is the kind of practice that differentiates Jung from his contemporaries. He explored his ideas creatively, the ideas then growing fruitfully in turn from such activity.
Buchanan's house is made of painted tin, wood and bamboo, and bound by highly visible nails, screws and glue. The recovered nature of the materials renders its appearance weathered and worn. One side has an entranceway, an apparent small hall (or 'mud room'). But that hall has no further access into the central interior of the house. The house also lacks windows; it is closed completely to the outside world.
This closedness makes the hut seem vulnerable. To add to this, the roof, though sloped, is punctuated by gaps, cracks and other such openings in the tin plates. It would result in misery for the occupants during any kind of precipitation. Its roofing, however inadequate, extends loosely on various sides. For example, what appears to me to be the back side of the hut (see photo) has a kind of 'awning' for those outside. Along with the front entranceway, they compose part of a surface that is pulsating and open as opposed to the interior. It is painted with the hue of copper-brown, the color representative of the African skin tone.
The enclosed space, more abstractly, also denotes the female gender. In dream symbolism, openings of any sort, such as doors and windows, represent female sexual relations. For example, if a woman dreams of a man bursting through the door to her room, it represents her fear of sexual assault. The closedness of this work with its lack of doors and windows may be interpreted to represent this sexual vulnerability.
Finally, the shack-like quality of the house, and its impermanent, fragile materials, makes the home seem temporary. There are no indications of foundations, as would be the case of permanent homes; this kind of hut may well be built with the idea of abandoning it in a foreseeable future. The residents of such structures may have begun them with the idea of a brief sojourn. They may find themselves living within them (due to poverty) for a far more extensive period of time than initially expected. The sense of such homes is one of being uprooted, not 'at home' where they exist. Their residents are in a permanent state of vagabondage.
The sum of these characteristics of the house-sculpture makes it serve as the symbol of Afro-American selfhood. A history of struggle, uprootedness, the difficult work of creating a sense of selfhood from available resources; impoverishment, mobility, the external world fundamentally hostile and even invasive. The gendered aspect also allows for a specific interpretation of the traumas of Afro-American women. In her creative state, Buchanan has tapped into an archetypal form from the collective unconscious (the house) and imparted a mixture of her personal selfhood as well as that of a peoples.
Yet this is not just a dream symbol; it is a work of art. Buchanan's art is an exploration of the unconscious realm, of making it visible and then placing it into the 'high' realm of Fine Art. The culmination of its appearance in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts symbolizes the elevation of her psyche's experience. The elevation is its assertion into a pillar of high Western Culture. The entire process results in an act of healing. The Self that has been rejected by community now returns in its highest realm.
Buchanan and Thomas: Two Psychological Modes of Creating
Buchanan's mode of creating represents a particular approach to art. Jung describes two general modes, each (naturally) in relationship to the unconscious. One mode, which he called introverted, is characterized by the artist being fully conscious of the artistic process; consciousness lucidly directs its activities. The other mode, the extroverted, is characterized by the artist experiencing the imagery as thrust upon them. In his 1925 essay On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry, he writes that in this mode, the works “positively force themselves upon the author; his hand is seized, his pen writes things that his mind contemplates with amazement.” I believe that Buchanan's work represents the latter. Her art is born from within a process. Many of the aspects of it (such as that which I have delineated here) are probably an ulterior experience for her.
An Afro-American artist who works instead in a conscious, deliberate style of artmaking is Hank Willis Thomas, the current photographer in residence at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. His work serves as a counterpoint for my discussion of Buchanan. Its partakes in a contemporary idiom, so my use of it also is to note how relevant Jung's thought is to conceptual art productions.
While I was listening to a lecture Thomas gave at the Cincinnati Art Museum, I was stimulated by his observations about universal symbols. In summary, he argued that the logos created by major brand names (such as Nike, or the tree that represents the symbol for Timberland) are a new international language. Through ad campaigns we are inundated with this imagery and this unconsciously (even collectively) influences the way we perceive our selves and others. Note that ad campaigns work on the subconscious, the more immediate layer of the unconscious ('just below the surface'), as opposed to the unconscious. Hence these symbols are not a new element of the collective unconscious. But their presence globally and their influence on our collective subconscious makes the analogy relevant. Perhaps the difference is that Jung wrote of archetypal symbols arising from our deepest history, whereas Thomas works with marketing motifs geared to our subconscious minds. Yet these motifs are efficacious undoubtedly because their familiar form allows signifies that they tap into the deeper strata.
As an Afro-American artist, his work concentrates upon the ways that Afro-Americans have been cast in advertisement. For example, he begins with the Air Jordan motif of the leaping basketball figure (see image) as a silhouette. It is still recognizable as the black athlete, since we know this motif. This silhouette is then lynched from the Timberland motif of a tree. There is here a direct historical reference to the lynching of Afro-Americans. Note that Jung argued that the dream symbol of the lynched man represents spiritual crises. Hence on the level of symbol, the viewer is faced with three motifs: the two newer ones from marketing versus the older one of the lynching/hanged man. In this sense, Thomas' work may strike us more profoundly in that it casts the motifs into a new whole, the deeper hanged man symbol. The unconscious feeling of crises would further undermine the sense of security and recognition one is supposed to feel when encountering brand logos.
In Scarred Chest, 2003 he also engages in this kind of layering. Here, the viewer is confronted with a muscular black male torso. It recalls classical antiquity, or rather the busts remaining from their ruin. Such busts are representative now of bygone beauty, the endurance through time of a visible remnant of classical ideals. In Scarred Chest that Greek bust is a literal one. It is a photo of a real existing body (presumably an Afro-American athlete). By photographing only the bust, not the rest of the human model, the image negates the particularity of the person posing (by now common in advertising). The body then becomes both literal (as a model) and an image of Greek perfection. Thomas then rendered the Nike symbol across the chest, repeatedly. We are reminded of the kind of branding used in slavery. The Nike symbol, as per Thomas' view, is an international symbol for a product; the torso image is transformed into this as well (Nike, the company, took its name from the Goddess of Victory, another reference from antiquity). The torso is hence product also. Hence we are confronting in this image various layers of consciousness. The torso arises from a collective sense of antiquity, the Nike brand from the subconscious, and their fusion in the same image a result of a deliberate act of the artist to make us conscious of these unconscious contents.
The use of such a torso in marketing creates a false image of Afro-American males. The male here is seen as a figure of sexual power. This further negates the humanity of men of color. Their personal, intellectual and emotional needs from their affective relationships are replaced with a distorted perception. Strangely, the Greek sculpture was formulated as the representation of the highest of human qualities. This was visible in the proportions of the brow, mouth, and more. Yet the Greeks loved their sensuality and their bodies. This is visible in the rest of the figure — from the neck downwards. It is only that aspect that the ad focuses on; the figure is headless.
Finally, as in the case of Buchanan, this is art. It is more than a sum of psychological motifs or media imagery. By fashioning it as the high form of Western culture — the work of art — he claims a greater cultural value in his work than the objects that he manipulates/critiques. As art it too enters into the public stage and hence the greater community.
The Transcendent Function
The process in which the analyst develops a relationship with his or her patient, and through which a transference occurs which allows the patient to have insight into their unconscious processes, is called the 'transcendent function.' The analyst is necessary as a guide and an object for transference. By projecting a relationship onto the analyst, the patient is able to experience the trust necessary in order to have the courage to explore his or her afflictions. The term 'transcendent' probably arose not so much in a metaphysical sense but simply in reference to a process which encapsulated those involved.
What is the role of art and, for that matter, the critic, in terms of the transcendent function? If an artist is producing work involving imagery from their individual unconscious or, more significantly, the collective unconscious — hence becoming a representative of a peoples' psyche (such as Buchanan's work) — is not their work serving a therapeutic, as well as artistic, purpose? Is this not the unique place of art in society? Note that Jung encouraged his patients to paint pictures for each visit to his office. By having them make visible in this way their dream imagery, he was able to understand their psyche. This was the beginning of art therapy.
In the same way that the analyst serves as a trustworthy object of transference, the art object assumes this role. We can freely approach a work of art, or walk away from it. There is no involvement with the ego of an analyst. Whereas the actual analytical thought can be offered by the psychological critic. The critic has the opportunity to interpret meaningfully and constructively the symbols that appear in the work in question. It allows for the possibly murkier aspects of the artwork to be brought to light and into engagement with the community.
Essential to this conclusion is to distinguish between the two modes of artistic creation delineated above. In the case of the extroverted or naive mode, the artist makes work that brings to light the unconscious processes. However, since it springs forth without the conscious intent of the artist, it requires mediation by a third source, the critic. The second mode of creation, such as the highly directed, conscious work of someone like Thomas, perhaps requires less the critic (in terms of this particular aspect); the work itself is wholly clear in its intent and product. The critical is innate in the work in question (working within the psychotherapeutic perspective; as art critic the role is different). It is left to a critic to judge whether the ego of such artists is a luminous and healthy creator or instead driven by unconscious, repressed forms. In other words, do we have the artist-as-neurotic, his or her activity arising from the permeable relationship between their fragile ego and the unconscious, or is their work driven negatively by unconscious forces — the work of a psychotic?
