BIO-TECH-ABSTRACT-ACTIONS: ¿POWERLESSNESS OR EMPOWERMENT?

By: Cynthia MacMullin

Desire, where does it lead us? Throughout human consciousness, the desire is for change, from something to something else. We need to speak about it and reflect upon it before we act.

-- Gustav Metzger, SITAC, 2004

The current exhibition, biotech abstractions, by the artist Tatiana Montoya (b.1961, Colombia; resident of Mexico since 1993) presents a selection of sensual and dramatic abstract paintings charged with an iconic power; a power often attributed to the mystical properties of gold and silver that carries a transcendent and metaphysical presence. Through the elements of the materials and their applied scientific technique, Montoya embraces the tradition of Abstract Expressionism which relies upon the use of brilliant and contrasting color, the topic of nature and landscape, and the language of metaphor and symbol; however, the construction of these elements also disturbs the viewer. The power of the image provokes the viewer's emotions and stimulates contemplative and controversial thought.

"In the world of art and humanities we are confronting the expanding phenomenon of the term, biotechnology; the subject of transforming nature through human action. Any artist using technology and science needs to oppose the transformation […] in order to bring ethics to the forefront of art, aesthetics and science." ¹ Initiator of the 1960 art movement of Autodestructive Art and member of the Fluxus movement, Gustav Metzger is recognized as the social critic in the European community championing a moratorium on the field of biotechnology. Metzger warns the world to contemplate, to confront and to resist this expanding phenomenon of transforming nature through human action; to be conscious of the permanent changes we will make to the "expansion and contraction of the natural order of the cosmos" ² as we "build power structures" ³ that impose our domination over nature with our advancing human capacities. Metzger states that physics dominated the 20th century manifesting revolutions in industrialization, communication, technology and globalization. The potential danger that faces the 21st century is biotechnology that will reveal aggressive exploration and implementation of genetic manipulation and the human clone. How do we address and confront this powerful issue that appears abstract and incomprehensible in the daily life of the common man? How do we confront the unknown?

"The visual arts in the past were based on the substantiality of nature," ⁴ says Metzger. Now as we alter nature, our art forms, which are often multifarious and unsubstantiated in meaning, appear arbitrarily juxtaposed, extreme, regurgitated, concealed, chaotic and without criteria as artists create new narratives, icons and images with both the traditional media of painting and drawing, and the technical media of photography, video and digital imaging. How would an artist today, with the mainstream emphasis on the technical mediums, utilize the mid-20th century canon of abstract painting to create images that pose meaning to relevant conflicts in contemporary social issues of ethics, the environment and 21st century biotechnology?

The Abstract Expressionism movement (late 1930s-1960s) promulgated the "conviction that meaning could be conveyed through the physical primacy of the medium" ⁵. With the freedom of the artist's hand over the materials, coupled with an intuitive, inner expression to emote emotion-also referred to as "action painting"-the image emerges through the act. Thus the art embodied the essence of transcendence or metaphysics in its power to break away from a literal narrative. Although Abstract Expressionism is rooted in the North American aesthetic of the individual and "psychic automatism," it has been embraced as a universal aesthetic within European, Asian and Latin American art, and in psychology and philosophy such as Freudian and Jungian psychology, existentialist philosophy and Eastern art and ideas. The legacy of the movement has allowed future painters to rely on the materials and their manipulation--pigment, carbon, paper, metal, liquid agents, metallic metal leaf, dust particles, dirt, etc.-to act as the pictorial device to mark the surface of the canvas that elevates "the confrontational, iconic quality" ⁶ to a transcendent, full-field image.

The abstract vocabulary in the art of Tatiana Montoya relies upon the physical primacy of the medium to infuse meaning. Created with a color palette that relies on the luminous, radiant properties of gold, silver, copper, etc., the richness is altered with the corrosion of a chemical alchemy. The technical approach is a process of applying a series of layers of metallic metal leaf--aluminum leaf, brass leaf, bronze leaf, copper leaf, and gold leaf-that are violated, eroded, destroyed and transformed by a chemical reaction to a patina of various types of chemical acids. Pattern and repetition, division and delineation in the images' composition allude to nature's molecular structure that can build, evolve or eliminate a biological organism. The metaphoric impact of the process seduces us, and calls our attention to the powerful sensuality of nature and its properties as evidenced in the diptych painting, "metamorphosis: a flor de piel" / metamorphosis: the sensitive skin, 2004, and "el equilibrio de lo orgánico / the organic balance, 2004.

At the same time, other paintings that reference nature are marked with the evidence of man-made urban forms of habitat, institutional practices of ritual, religion and war, environmental waste and maltreatment of the land, and the biotechnology of genetically manipulating plant, animal and life forms. The didactic language of the paintings' titles appropriate the range of hierarchy in the art and imbue the paintings with a pessimism and social criticism: "structures of the urban system", "urban reserve I, II ", "altered environment", "prismatic bio-tec", "transgenics", ".genetic break- up I, 2, 3…".

The paintings of Tatiana Montoya reflect the complexity of our age. As we contemplate the art, we are lead to question our human condition as our emotions swell with a duality of response; pessimism or hope, tragedy or opportunity, powerlessness or empowerment. We are witnesses to our time, and our art reflects the issues that confront us. As Gustav Metzger said, "In my pessimism, there is hope too. In our relation to the field of humanity we look, project and seek to understand our place in the cosmology of the universe […] as we face up to it, it can give us a unity […] a worthy pursuit."⁷

Cynthia Mac Mullin, Independent Curator, Art Historian, USA / México

1 Gustav Metzger, Ethics, Aesthetics and Biotechnology, SITAC, Third International Symposium on Contemporary Art Theory, Mexico D.F; January 22-24, 2004. up

2 Metzger. up

3 Metzger. up

4 Metzger. up

5 David Anfram, Abstract Expressionism (London: Thames & Hudson, 1990), p. 55 up

6 Cynthia Mac Mullin, Independent Curator, Art Historian, USA / México. up

7 Metzger up

Author:

Cynthia MacMullin