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Thesis Hum 2020 Ballen Amanda.Pdf On Rearing an Ugly Head: Joel-Peter Witkin and the Mysticism of the “Ugly Aesthetic” Amanda Ballen BLLAMA002 A dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirement for the award of the degree Master of Arts UniversityUniversity of Cape Cape Town Town Faculty of Humanities 2020 1 The copyright of this thesis vests in the author. No quotation from it or information derived from it is to be published without full acknowledgement of the source. The thesis is to be used for private study or non- commercial research purposes only. Published by the University of Cape Town (UCT) in terms of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author. University of Cape Town COMPULSORY DECLARATION This work has not been previously submitted in whole, or in part, for the award of any degree. It is my own work. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in, this dissertation from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed, and has been cited and referenced. Signature: Date: 5 March 2020 2 ABSTRACT The contemporary photographer, Joel-Peter Witkin, has described his remaking of some of the most iconic paintings in the history of art as a “divine revolt”. However, there are no attempts to unravel the meaning of this project nor to analyse the visual changes that Witkin has made. This thesis argues that Witkin’s re-creations serve to subvert the negation or diminishment of ugliness in art history’s depictions of the mystical, and to present the experience of ugliness as alternatively inherently Godly. Through engaging in the problems in philosophical aesthetics, it contrasts the notions “aesthetically ugly” (a quality that cannot be objectively identified and studied because it ascribes aesthetic non-worth) with the “ugly aesthetic”, which refers to the “perceptive-felt” experience of an object. By integrating descriptions of this experience of the ugly aesthetic with those of the early development stage of the “psychoanalytic pre-symbolic”, it provides heuristics with which to identify perceptual identifiers ugly objects, ugly worlds and the expression of ugly feelings in mystical invocations of paintings of three chosen art historical periods and Witkin’s re- creations. In his reconstructing of the heavenly realms given Renaissance paintings of Leda and the Swan (1510-1515) and The Birth of Venus (1485), Witkin makes a “pre-symbolic” space with ugly objects to present a contrary vision of an ugly dwelling place for God. In amending the Catholic Baroque’s Little Fur (1638) and the Protestant Baroque’s Still Life of Game, Fish, Fruit and Kitchen Utensils (1646), the artist replaces mystical feelings that imbue scenes of ugly objects with an expression of ugly feelings themselves, thereby guiding the viewer into a full immersion into these objects the real site of Godly experience instead. This theoretical formulation and its application to the works at hand, evidence that Witkin’s work points to the mystical power of the ugly aesthetic to unleash a personal and collective memory of Godly reality as ontologically formless and mysterious, and thereby makes a case for ugliness’ value. Keywords: Joel-Peter Witkin, ugliness, mysticism, aesthetic-art historical, psycho-analytic pre- symbolic, psychological aesthetics, the photographic grotesque 3 DEDICATION For my dad, who gave me the audacity to ask big questions and for my mom, who bequeathed the tenacity to work at them. 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis has been shaped and formed by the input of so many, to whom I wish to express my deep gratitude: Thank you to Professor Higgins for his willingness to house this project: for his open-minded attitude to independent, creative scholarship. I have benefitted so much from his ethos of writerly discipline and restraint—the “streamlining” and “straitjacketing”. Thank you for helping me to weave a genial, speakerly voice through that which may otherwise have been taut and technical. Words cannot express my gratitude to my family, who have generously provided me with this fruitful opportunity. I thank them for bountiful care and support, and for the formidable cultural and artistic heritage that they have imparted. I have been profoundly inspired by my father’s intrepid exploration of the darkness and discipline, and by my mother’s expansive knowledge and meticulousness. I also exceptionally lucky to have the affectionate and light-hearted life-companionship of my twin brother. I am overwhelmed by the immeasurable joy and unconditional love that I have received from my life- partner, Jaron. I have been captivated by his ability to traverse the large-scale and long-term. I am wondrously grateful for his winding park-walk chats, mapping the journey, his ceaseless faith in the project (through the tears and travails) and his clean and fit mind. Todah rabah to a cuddler, coach and clock- keeper. The spirits and lessons of countless friends, mentors and intellectual companions infuse this work. I have profound appreciation for the insights of luminous minds and for the compassion of big-hearted confidants. You are all magnanimous teachers who met me on this winding path, bearing beaming gifts. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 6 CHAPTER 1 - The Ugly Mystical: Some Philosophical Challenges ........................................... 17 CHAPTER 2 - Ugly Objects and Ugly Place, Ugly Feelings: Criteria for the Identification Of Three Types Of Ugliness In Witkin’s Ugly Mystical Conversation ............................................. 28 CHAPTER 3 - Ugly Mysticism in Witkin’s Remakes of The Renaissance Paintings of Leda and the Swan (1515-1520) and The Birth Of Venus (1485) ................................................................. 71 CHAPTER 4 - Ugly Feelings in Witkin’s Remakes of the Baroque Paintings of Het Pelsken (Little Fur) (1938) and Still Life of Game, Fish, Fruit and Kitchen Utensils (1646) ................... 97 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................... 126 REFERENCE LIST .................................................................................................................... 139 APPENDIX: FIGURES .............................................................................................................. 158 6 INTRODUCTION In his photographic monologue, Gods of Earth and Heaven, the contemporary American photographer, Joel-Peter Witkin, described his posting of an advertisement calling for models for his photographs: Pinheads, dwarfs, giants, hunchbacks, pre-op transsexuals, bearded women, people with tails, horns, wigs, reversed hands or feet, anyone born without arms, legs, eyes, breasts, genitals, ears, nose, lips. All people with unusually large genitals. All manners of extreme perversion. Hermaphrodite and teratoids (alive and dead). Beings from other planets. Anyone bearing the wounds of Christ. Anyone claiming to be God. God (Witkin, 1989, Afterword). What is striking here is the juxtaposition of the usually taboo with the spiritual and sanctified. This artist is well-known for remaking some of Western art’s iconic paintings in transgressive photographs that include corpses, dismembered body parts, decaying matter, socially marginalised people (including those with various types of deformity or transgender and intersexual identities or sexual perversities), alongside religious references. In his artistic reflections in Aperture, the artist refers to his work as a “divine revolt” (Witkin, 1985, p. 34). However, as shall be demonstrated below, the meaning of this spiritual rebellion is neither explained by him nor explored in commentaries on his work. Against what Godly ideas, presented in these artworks, is Witkin rebelling? What alternative view does he wish to express through his visual changes? This thesis aims to present the argument that this photographer’s style serves to query and overturn the diminished role given to ugliness in aesthetics in general, and more particularly its place in the mystical, in the art-historical styles of the paintings he references. Alternatively, it presents ugliness as the intrinsic entry point for contact with the Godly. As of yet, no aesthetic-spiritual art-historical analyses of Witkin’s oeuvre has been pursued. There exist no in-depth visual interpretations of this artist’s work as framed through the specific concepts of “ugliness” or “mysticism”, nor are the details of his amendments identified or studied. Consequently, a crucial aesthetic-art historical conversation that is opened by his work has been overlooked. This thesis suggests that the dearth of such interpretations is a result of the absence of a framework with which to read the ugly-mystical relation in artworks. Both phenomena seem ineffable and unidentifiable. How can ugliness be identified in art, when it is a subjective judgment upon which there cannot be universal agreement? Furthermore, how might experiences of the infinite, transcendent 7 Absolute Being be brought into the limited realm of the “visible and sensible” (Osbourne, 1986, p. 554)? As the contemporary philosopher, Scruton (2004a) puts it, Iconoclasm, the “graven image” and anthropomorphism, which “… began with Moses, still rages today” (p. 124). Therefore, a process for uncovering divine depiction in the artwork is called for, if we are to decipher Witkin’s message about ugliness’ mysticism. There is evidence that, without
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