|
It is always a pleasure looking into Lars Mikke's universe
through his art. It is rare that one meets an artist who,
with such great sureness, energy and talent, studies and
challenges the possibilities and expressions of art. Mikke's
art is thoroughly marked with some of the great themes of
art history; thus he should be recognized as one of those
modern artists who try to maintain the role of art as a
medium for our questioning and our discussion of the
individual’s relationship to the surroundings.
Mikkes and I deal in many ways with the same questions. The
great, complex questions of how man understands himself as a
conscious entity in a world that presents itself as
confusing, boundless and chaotic, when one views it
unadorned, freed from concepts and conventions. My starting
point (in philosophy) is to attempt to "clothe the world”
with concepts and theories - to make the world recognizable
and transparent by giving the various things names and
setting them in relation to one another. The most important
examples of theoretical clothing are found in religion and
science. The starting point for Mikkes and for art is quite
different. He attempts to maintain the "nudity" of the world
while presenting us with an understanding of it. He wants us
to understand that the world is naked. The problem in the
theoretical adornment of the world is that we see only the
theory and not that which the theory is covering over. To
see the whole of reality through theory would require an
intellectual effort of a nearly inhuman nature.
We all know the moment when we feel in a glimpse, that we
understand a greater coherence. A coherence that is not
described and understood through concepts and theories, but
suddenly and without interpretation is present, only to be
gone a moment later. It is this moment that Mikkes tries to
create. We call this "the sublime moment". That moment when
we have an experience of coherence and understanding,
without this experience and understanding being mediated or
borne by theories and concepts. Precisely a spontaneous
experience.
Mikke's interest and strength lies in giving us this
experience. Showing the coherence in the world before it
becomes conceptual and thence understandable. He shows that
our conceptual relationship to the world is marked by
division, change and mirroring. He shows that the language
we use to describe the world removes us from the world at
the same time, because our concepts install a
differentiation in the world. Not just between the various
things in the world, but also between us and the world. He
demonstrates the impossibility of simultaneously relating to
the world conceptually and directly.
But Mikkes also shows that the world is apparently
compelling; that the only way to understand the world is
exactly by relating to it - distancing oneself, making a
distinction between the world and the person. It is this
distance that forms the basis for our discussion of the
world. A discussion marked with division, change and
mirroring. Lars Mikkes shows us that a world before concepts,
unadorned, undifferentiated and incomprehensible, can only
be experienced in the sublime moment, and all the rest is
the speech of distance.
Lars Markussen, Cand. Mag. in philosophy and design theory
|
