Maine State Library Digital Maine Academic Research and Dissertations Maine State Library Special Collections 8-2016 Indefinite Openness: Thinking Love in Art Kathryn A. McFadden IDSVA Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalmaine.com/academic Recommended Citation McFadden, Kathryn A., "Indefinite Openness: Thinking Love in Art" (2016). Academic Research and Dissertations. 18. https://digitalmaine.com/academic/18 This Text is brought to you for free and open access by the Maine State Library Special Collections at Digital Maine. It has been accepted for inclusion in Academic Research and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Maine. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INDEFINITE OPENNESS: THINKING LOVE IN ART Kathryn A. McFadden Submitted to the faculty of The Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy August 2016 Accepted by the faculty of the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts in partial fulfillment of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Sigrid Hackenberg, Ph.D. Dissertation Director’s Name, Ph.D. Doctoral Committee Christopher Yates, Ph.D. Other member’s name, #1 Ph.D. Kathy Desmond, Ph.D. Other member’s name, #2, Ph.D. February 19, 2017 ii © 2016 Kathryn A. McFadden ALL RIGHTS RESERVED iii Love does not call for a certain kind of thinking, or for a thinking of love, but for thinking in essence and in its totality. And this is because thinking, most properly speaking, is love. Jean Luc Nancy For my daughter, Kate. iv ACKNOWLEGEMENTS First I must acknowledge my director, Dr. Sigrid Hackenberg. Words fail to express how much I appreciate your singular presence over the duration; for sharing your wisdom and intelligence—you took me to a limit. You are the embodiment of poiesis in a philosopher. I am also grateful to IDSVA’s teachers, staff and administration for their guidance over the past seven years. Dr. George Smith must take credit for the topic of this thesis. I remember the moment at Brown University when he said, “You should write about love.” I should? Well, I took his words to heart as I began the writing process. Certainly love is immanent in the concept and praxis of IDSVA, which cultivates many crossings. I thank all of the students and instructors for time and effort extended to me even in the most transient of moments. There are a few individuals who have gone above and beyond any expression of friendship I could imagine. In particular I want to single out these friends for their extremity of presence: Nell Stifel, Dr. Jen Hall, Dr. Rob Anderson, Dr. Conny Bogaard and Blyth Hazen. When I became deathly ill in the middle of writing this dissertation, you made me want to live; I felt cherished by you. Thank you. My further appreciation goes to Dr. Bob Carroll for being my cross-country study-buddy, and to my oldest friend Jesse Crawford for his bottomless well of tender concern. Many thanks also to my perceptive and generous copy editor, Lis Bralow as well as my former teacher and friend Sanda Iliescu, who has always made me feel like I have something to offer; hugs to Dr. Elin Danien for her cheerful support and wisdom since my undergraduate years. Also a warm shout out to the Beverly Philosophical Society: a dedicated group of philosophers and artists who are keen to formulate the questions. Thank you, all. Last but not least, I want to express my deepest gratitude to my daughter, Kate McFadden for putting up with many distractions on my end for the past few years and for my mother who gave me a moral compass. And—although gone from this world for over twenty years—I must acknowledge Billy James for his encouragement to follow a dream; his optimism for life’s possibilities lives on in my heart. v ABSTRACT Kathryn A. McFadden INDEFINITE OPENNESS: THINKING LOVE IN ART What happens when someone confronts a work of art—the inexplicable connection to something brought into the world by an artist? Might we call this moment love? If so, how does this love differ from other loves, like eros or philia? Love originating in the interconnectedness of viewer, artwork and artist resists conventional positions; art is in fact a philosophy of love in action. I argue the primary action for love in art is thinking. Thinking about art is a manifestation of love when the viewer is overcome by wonder when contemplating a work of art. This love arises from a movement—yet something beyond the semblance of logical movement—that occurs in the viewer and artist. This conveyance offers the potential of a rupture, a burst that takes place in the between, a theoretical zero space of love. As a space of pure potential, the between allows for the connection necessary for thinking love, a love that asks unanswerable questions. Love in art offers indefinite openness because it initiates endless possibilities for what a subject can feel or know. Love as I define it is not necessarily dependent on empathy, struggle, hierarchy or equivalence; it is not dogma, ideal or truth; it is neither rational nor irrational. It is not to be desperately sought and located; it is a matter of presence and duration. Love in art waivers between understanding and ignorance; it is embodied, immeasurable, generous, fleeting and vi erratic. It is a manner of thriving in the expansion of self. With this paper I stake a claim for the importance of love in contemporary aesthetic practice. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments……………………………………………………………………………v Abstract……….……………………………………………………………………………..vi Introduction: The Progress of Love……….………………………………………………….1 Chapter One: Origins of possibility……….………………………………………………….35 Chapter Two: Intermedius ………………………………………………..............................74 Chapter Three: Wonder full………………………………………………………………...105 Chapter Four: Indefinite openness…………………………………………………….........142 Chapter Five: Pure knowing………………………………………………………………..175 Coda………………………………………………………………………………………...239 Notes………………………………………………………………………………………..247 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………..289 viii Figure 0.1. Valérie Oka (left) at In her presence performance in 2011 at Lagos Centre for Contemporary Arts Photo: Valerie Oka Flickr page. Introduction The Progress of Love Let us consider the subject of love, specifically in the context of works of art. What happens when someone experiences an inexplicable connection to something brought into the world by an artist? Might we call this moment love? If so, how does this love differ from other loves like eros or philia? If it is not comparable, is it possible that love in art stands outside the Western canon of conventional notions of love? How does art explain, connect, and participate in love? What is art’s role in the act of thinking? To begin to take on these questions and by way of example, I commence with a particular contemporary artwork that is both performative and collaborative in nature. This work was included in an expanded exhibition titled The Progress of Love. 1 In late 2012 through early 2013 three art exhibitions with the shared title The Progress of Love were concurrently mounted in three cities across two continents: The Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, the Centre for Contemporary Art, in Lagos, Nigeria, and the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, in St. Louis, Missouri. The exhibitions included artists from Africa, Europe and North America. The title The Progress of Love indicates a curatorial intent within a cross-cultural context to examine reforming aspects of love expressed in contemporary art. Kristina Van Dyke along with co-curator Bisi Silva displayed the representation of love in art in terms of time and space, a notion affected by history.1 Each exhibit locale had a different thematic emphasis. The Houston show was the most dogmatic in that it examined how a digital episteme of globalization informs notions of love. The St. Louis location contemplated the loss of love, while at Lagos the exhibit focused on how love is performed between subjects. By offering a dialogue between the exhibits and the viewers, Van Dyke aspired to “a possibility of self-identification”2 that would robustly engage onlookers who attended the venues. Enacted at the Lagos venue (and subsequently performed in sites beyond The Progress of Love) was Valérie Oka’s3 performance In Her Presence. [Figure 0.1] The performance comprises a dinner table set for twelve guests including Oka; all participants partake of a three-course meal while sharing in conversation. This conversation specifically concerns “Love, Fear and the point between the two where each of us has the illusion to be.”4 At the conclusion, each participant is invited to use what is left on the table to create an image, write a sentence or act out something representative of a lived emotion. Their 2 “artworks” remain on the table in the gallery for seventy-two hours so that subsequent visitors to the Centre see the remains of the performance. [Figure 0.2] Figure 0.2 Samples of artworks by participants in Valérie Oka’s performance In Her Presence (2011). Image: Oka’s Flickr pages. Oka’s creative prompt for the dinner guests to make representations of experiences provides a measure of intimacy within the group. It also prods the participant to specifically articulate or illustrate thought, and to share the role of artist. In Her Presence5 is a relational and interactive work that—like the noun/verb love—is contingent on the subject, the other, and the agency of connection. In the particular vehicle of Oka’s art performance, links between people are formed via conversations that reflect upon love and other feelings in the subject’s emotional-experiential landscape. Love, as subjects experience it, is shaped to varying degrees by cultural, social, economic, political, historical and religious contexts, all of which are in constant flux.