Semantic Art

Saturday, April 18, 2009

By Bianca Gubalke

Semantic Art… or what is this really?

Cape Town, 18 April 2009 – by Bianca Gubalke

Following my series of “Spontaneous Sketches” that were initially triggered by the simple “Life is Lemon Pie” tool by Yorgo Nestoridis, I promised to present you with an intuitive sketch about the recent “Susan Boyle” phenomenon… meaning a fast 30 seconds max drawing of her first appearance on stage before a large public audience and its thundering success as a result. All this as seen with my inner eye or heart… just remembering the short video, simply feeling into it.

So here it is… and quite a different aura than yesterday’s quick reflection of my own moment of fear at the time…

Bianca Gubalke Spontaneous Sketches 3 - Susan Doyle

What is this really?

Meanwhile, these innocent sketches have initiated quite some discussions… and it appears that “sketches” doesn’t seem appropriate. Admittedly, a “sketch” is something to be followed by the ‘real’ thing, say a painting. In my case, however, the sketch IS the ‘real’ – in other words the complete ‘thing’.

Firstly, I was encouraged to clearly call it “Art” . . . and secondly to work on finding a name or expression closer to “intuitive”, something that flows directly from where we ’see-feel-sense’ through the pen – or in my case my mouse – onto the paper – in my case the virtual screen. No interference of the conscious mind. . . pure flow.
Bottomline: ’spontaneous’ and ‘intuitive’ are fine, ’sketches’ ain’t.

Voila – this got me back to researching what I was actually doing… and as “semantic matching” plays such an important role in my understanding of how something is being firstly received, then transformed and assimilated or passed on (transmitted)… here I was on my way to check out the expression “Semantic Art”… one never knows without checking and for this I just love the Internet!

And guess what I found?

Semantic Art

The terminology “Semantic Art” has been around for decades. I am fascinated by the official description that goes back to a renowned Italian artist (1925-1999) , the “…maestro dell’arte semantica, Luciano Lattanzi” :

Semantic Art by Luciano Lattanzi

“Form of painting associated primarily with the Italian artist Luciano Lattanzi and the German Werner Schreib.

The term was launched in 1957 in a manifesto written by Lattanzi for his exhibition at the New Vision Centre Gallery in London and was coined to draw a parallel between their art and the forms of language. The manifesto enumerated ‘eight propositions’ and claimed that semantic art marked the decline of individualism in art and abolished the distinction between animate and inanimate objects.

Prompted by ACTION PAINTING and indirectly by Surrealism, it was based on AUTOMATISM.
The artist was required to execute drawings or paintings without conscious intervention, so tapping the unconscious. The resulting work would then comprise largely ‘natural signs’, which could be contemplated and deciphered by the artist. As products of an intelligible, rational universe, these natural signs are comprehensible, although some might be so complex as to defy adequate interpretation.

Unlike action painting, which used spontaneous means to unleash the individual psyche, semantic art was designed to probe the universal structure common to all objects. As in a language, the works are composed of signs, the meanings of which depend on their context and arrangement. These plastic signs are, however, more ‘vital’ than their linguistic counterparts.

The typical style of semantic art in drawing and painting is a densely worked pattern of such abstract shapes as circles, lines, spirals and organic forms, for example Semantic Painting (1963; priv. col., see 1964 exh. cat., pl. 11) and Semantic Drawing (1963; priv. col., see 1964 exh. cat., pl. 4), both by Lattanzi. Schreib obeyed the same aesthetic but often impressed abstract designs on to thick paste using a stamp, producing such works as Arithmetic Organization (1963; priv. col., see 1969 exh. cat.).”

Well… as we see there are parallels – be it the aspect of “Action Painting” and the fact that my drawings too are executed “… without conscious intervention”, but they are distinctly ‘individual’ and ‘animate’.

So is this “Semantic Art” according to the above?
I don’t think so… Accordingly, the search is not over and comments or suggestions are welcome.

On the other hand, this process also showed how important it is to not only adopt a name we personally feel comfortable with, but to look at its semantic meaning and existing history – today more than ever before because of the large knowledge database we have at our fingertips, the Internet.

To round off this topic for today, I will leave you with 3 quick screenshots I took with the fantastic new “Easter Egg” all participants at the YORGOO Easter Webmaster Training received… all while drawing fast and furiously without letting go my mouse… and you will see how the scene developed before my inner eye:

Susan Boyle entering the stage without any glam or sex appeal that today’s audiences expect to be stimulated out of apathy and boredom… (1) … but boy! the moment she started singing… those people became alive instantly and one could feel an electrifying wave running through the audience (2)… an audience that exploded at her feet with thundering applause and genuine admiration when she ended… (3)