Page 71 - Ruth Morán

In these closely woven nodules created with meticulous and ardous effort, there is no room for agony or suffering, because Ruth Morán’s work is not born out of violence. Her work is not the result of a profound existential cri- sis as were the works of most American ab- stract expressionists. On the contrary, there is a beating desire for harmony and equilibrium. We may observe, for example, that all her compositions tend to observe the principle of mass compensation.
The full areas and empty areas may appear random, but if we analyze a whole series of paintings we will find that they are not random at all, but the result of technical decisions of great importance. The same happens with the light and shadowy areas, which actually follow highly marked rhythms.
This synthesis clearly works, and Ruth Morán has found in what we call “Gestured Geom- etry,” a stable and artistically productive psy- chological outlet, refreshingly different from most contemporary abstraction, which can be so affected and sterile.
Gestures, lines, and painting from the subconscious.
[An approximation to Ruth Morán’s pulsating imagery]
Fernando Castro Flórez
“I don’t know of any art form that requires more intelligence than drawing. Whether trying to extract a line from the complexity of what the eye perceives, summarizing a structure, not yielding to one’s hand, reading and pronounc- ing a form before getting it down on paper; or a situation in which what’s invented dominates over what’s momentary, so the idea is what mat- ters, becoming more precise and interesting as it is passed onto paper, for all to see; in any case, all spiritual gifts come into use when per- forming this task, in which a person’s person- ality traits are also revealed, if the person has any”1.Hegemonic literalism (the aesthetics of
1. Paul Valery: “Degas Danza Dibujo” in Piezas sobre arte, Ed. La Balsa de la Medusa, Madrid, 1999, p. 53.
banality supported by today´s mass media) has thrown some artistic practices into a shadowy area, which does not necessarily need to be the common currency. The “correctness” of pho- tographic devices (transformed into a place of shiny sedimentation and, in many cases, mere sensationalism) and the obsession with Instal- lation is deeply affecting the practice of paint- ing without judging whether there is such a thing as essential control. What is obvious is that the canonization of the principle of col- lage has favored the current fascination with objects, as well as a certain suspicion, or even dislike, towards the idea of a painting as a radi- cal flat surface. What’s lacking is the tension needed to combine certain fragments with the (utopian) total, and thus what remains is the art- ist’s creative imagery trapped by loose threads; that is, by witty ideas, by proverbs, by something so meager that it bears no relation with what we call “epic”. On the other hand, the act of contemplating is suffering such a ferocious at- tack by contemporary theoretical strategies, that this implies a dismantling of linguistic meaning. Textual analysis, or better yet, “interpretation” can produce blindness or reveal, almost with cynicism, that there is nothing to see. The cul- ture of “absent-minded perception” grudgingly accepts the need to pause which is implicit in all painting; that is, the need to confront something from a distance, with a haptic vision. I don´t agree in any way with those who proclaim “the death of painting”, who are incapable of ana- lyzing the conditions of “closure” which have to do with many, many things, such as decisive epistemological aspects. And yet, we cannot avoid being conscious of the end (seen also in metaphysics, or even in the redeeming concept of politics) of painting, as a fact which indicates that the time has come for subject matter to prevail in art, especially when curatorial codes establish the rules as well as what’s considered good. In contemporary times we have often turned what Timothy Clark called practices of negation into rhetorical pathos; that is, a “trav- esty” of the creative process, which leads to defending deliberate clumsiness and, of course, to celebrating the insignificant2. A “weakened
2. Clark openly defended painting which arises from incom- petence: “deliberate displays of clumsiness in painting or being skilled at what is not considered perfect enough; using trivial, deteriorated, or "non-artistic" materials; rejecting the
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