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About
- Elementary Questions
- Jama-Coaque Stamps
- Form and Content
- Third Consideration
- Abductive Methodology
- Metaphysical Realism
- Fortuitous Paths
- Papiers Parlants
- Multiple Universality
- Mental Fire
- Coincidence
Elementary Questions
"One must not take a nominalistic view of Thought as if it were something that a man had in his consciousness... It is we that are in it, rather than it in any of us."--C.S. Peirce to William James, November 25, 1902 (Hoopes 1991:11)
To form an accurate idea of the concerns prompting Lara to create the "Talking Papers", we may begin with some elementary questions:
- What is the key to liberty?
- How does the universe evolve?
- Where do the greatest treasures of existence lie?
- How much faith can be placed in doctrine and dogma?
- How do we communicate our thoughts and feelings to one another?
By posing such questions, the viewer puts on the artist's shoes, and is more able to appreciate the meaning and importance of the 44 original drawings and texts constituting the "Talking Papers". Viewing the treatment of such questions in the History of Ideas, allows the viewer to appreciate the stature of the artist within the historical context of Western Art. At the same time, it is useful to be aware of the local influences on the 'Talking Papers', arising from the Artist's experience within his own specific cultural milieu in Guayaquil, Ecuador, at the end of the 20th and on the threshold of the 21st centuries.
Jama-Coaque Stamps
Lara's specific local cultural influences include the Pre-Columbian Art produced by the cultures of Coastal Ecuador, and in particular the mysterious, largely undeciphered, and insufficiently studied Jama-Coaque stamps. These ingenious indigenous works of art were produced by the coastal peoples inhabiting Guayas and Manabi Provinces and date from the last two or three centuries before the Christian era up to the time of Conquest. Archaeologists have recovered thousands of these stamps in which the designs are incised on small tubular rollers or flat tablets. They exhibit a series of design motifs that antedate the much more widely known and studied Maya glyphs (cf. Cummins et al. 1996).
The Jama-Coaque materials present all but insurmountable interpretive problems insofar as the finer details of their semiotic content are concerned, owing to our ignorance of the cultural context within which they were manufactured. Nevertheless, the repetition of specific design elements and motifs lead to the conviction expressed by Olaf Holm that "...the motifs on the stamps are in reality a language, at least iconographic" (Cummins et al. 1996).
Lara's observation of the preparation for the online publication of the Jama-Coaque stamps in 1998, along with discussions about the difficulties involved in their interpretation, led directly to one of the major concerns of the "Talking Papers": What is the nature of language and writing, and how do such sign systems serve to express cultural messages?
This was not a new topic for Lara. In fact since at least the mid 1970's he has experimented with design elements that seem to represent imaginary glyphs and alphabetical characters from forgotten or unknown languages. Ultimately, Lara's interest in the semiotic intricacies of the contrast between written and pictorial systems goes back to his friendship with the now deceased Ecuadorian Painter, Humberto Moré.
Form and Content
Consideration of the Jama-Coaque stamp designs presented the Artist with difficulties of both form and content. This seemed to demand a unique methodology. In the first place, it was clear that at the level of form, the solution did not lay in the imitation or adaptation of the Jama-Coaque designs. While this approach might well provide striking visual imagery-given the superlative quality of the stamp motifs and designs-and though it would ostensibly pay homage to the Ecuadorian Pre-Columbian cultures, it abrogated the Artist's originality, and failed to address what Lara perceived as the fundamental achievement of the Jama-Coaque artists, i.e. the elaboration of a semiotic system of signs and symbols that allowed discourse concerning the cultural values of the Pre-Columbian society.
But there was yet another reason that prevented Lara from opting for imitation of the stamp designs: the other side of the equation, the meaning of the stamps, was a mystery, an unknown. Having formulated his intention to deal with the subject of the invention of writing (be it in Pre-Columbian Coastal Ecuador, or anywhere else for that matter), he came to the conclusion that he was also faced with the contextual and semantic.
The Jama-Coaque stamp designs are intriguing not only because of their superb aesthetic accomplishment, but also due to the inescapable conclusion that within the context of their time they were meaningful. This being the case, the artist found himself doubly obliged. In order to portray this situation, it occurred to him that he had to work out a body of thought or philosophy, as well as undertake the elaboration of the symbols, icons, and motifs to be used for its expression.
Third Consideration
As Lara began to weigh these two sides one against the other, he realized that a third consideration was the double relationship between the sign and its meaning, on the one hand, and the sign and the mind that understood it, on the other. Nor was this third consideration an easy matter. In the case of the Jama-Coaque stamps--and any naturally evolving semiotic system for that matter--one conspicuous consequence of this relationship was that there exist a mutual influence between meaning, sign, and mind. Mulling over the possibilities for this relationship, he realized that the sign had to be an idea, that in its material support it might consist of pigment and paper, or something as insubstantial as a feeling, or the perception of a sensation, and it must stand for its object in a real, causal way in the mind of someone who identifies it as the sign of that object.
The most obvious examples are relatively straightforward since the relationship between the sign and its object is a matter of causal necessity. For instance, a portrait is a sign related to its object through the causal chain of the painter's sensibility and craft, and a weather cock is a sign of the direction of the wind because of a causal connection of natural forces. In these cases all that is required is a competent interpreter of the sign. Symbolic signs (e.g. spoken or written language) are somewhat less obvious. Owing to the non-causal and relatively arbitrary nature of the relationship between form and content. The symbol and its meaning are connected through force of habit and established by cultural convention. Thus, the Spanish speaker knows that zapato means what the English speaker refers to as "shoe". Clearly then, symbols depend upon a competent interpreter.
Consequently, there is no neat one-to-one bipolar dichotomy between sign and meaning. Ideas themselves are signs for other ideas and spontaneously give rise to yet other ideas in an endlessly rich proliferation. Therefore, signs are like living organisms. They may, successively, be unrecognized, known and understood, and forgotten and lost. In a nutshell, the life of signs and the origin of symbolic meaning is the subject of Lara's "Talking Papers". Of course this nutshell is of the nature of Blake's grain of sand, wherein the universe may be found.
Abductive Methodology
Naturally the artist did not lay out the problem beforehand as it is now possible to do after the fact. His situation was altogether different, analogous to the traveler who has come to an unknown land, ignorant of whether the beach on which he stands is the shore of an island, a single country, a continent, or a vast new world. For this reason, he began small and proceeded abductively. In this respect the example of the Jama-Coaque stamps--which consist of a limited number of design elements distributed in a small clearly delineated area--is clear. He reduced the size of his canvas, and, because of the universal association between writing and sacred traditions in early cultures, he adopted the reverent attitude of the hierophant, the astronomer, the alchemist.
His first tentative attempts were carried out in his studio in Las Peñas in secret. The work was not shown to casual visitors, and, because of a growing sense of the importance of the work, he was unwilling to leave the 'Papers' behind in the studio over night. Instead, he wrapped the papers produced during the day and carried them home, or to this writer's studio, where they were laid out and discussed. In these conversations, enthusiasm grew from session to session, until quite suddenly and unexpectedly, one evening the papers that had been laid out on the table fell almost evenly into two groups. As it turned out, one of these was expanded and eventually became the 'Talking Papers', while the other line was discontinued.
The conversations gave particular attention to the various design elements that appeared. It was felt that in some not altogether explicitly defined manner they constituted the expanding pictorial vocabulary of the work under construction and discovery. Again, this was faithful to the example set by the mind-teasing repetition of various elements in the Jama-Coaque stamps. For instance, the 'Papers' that presented recurrent elements, such as the spiral, were stacked together, the table cleared, and the pieces belonging to a given group laid out and observed together as a whole.
Metaphysical Realism
Two primordial aspects of this creative process are well worth noting.
One thing the viewer should keep in mind is that the Artist was discovering the meaning of the work in and through the very process of its elaboration. This is in keeping with the natural development of philosophy and science in a society, and in this respect Lara preserved metaphorical iconicity between the process of creating the work of art and its subject or meaning.
That is, 'The Talking Papers' can be viewed as an icon to the discovery of language and art because in its very execution it is a faithful and exact reflection of the sort of open-ended activity in which the members of a given community, both collectively and individually, are bound to engage in the development of civilization. In this respect, this art falls into what might be termed Metaphysical Realism by embracing a symbolic theory of truth that celebrates a plethora of different descriptions of the world.
In this Lara follows a decidedly Llullian line as presented in his Ars brevis, whereby any one pictorial element in the 'Papers' conveys multiple meanings and admits various associations, so as to allow the intellect to become "...more general in its reception of the things signified, as well as in acquiring knowledge" (Bonner 1993:298). Nor could it have been otherwise. After all, the semiotic system of the 'Papers' must itself remain open-ended to faithfully reflect the nature of language, science, and art, which evolve as never-ending, on-going explorations of infinite possibilities, notwithstanding their necessarily finite nature at any given historical stage of development.
Fortuitous Paths
A second consideration that follows from that mentioned above is the integration obtaining between the work of art and the Lara's immediate personal experience. This was noted respecting Lara's conversations with the park philosophers, and also should be seen as including his interaction with the international travelers who manage by various, and always fortuitous paths, to arrive unannounced at the door of his studio in Las Peñas. During the production of the 'Papers' these travelers included Tom and Ann Ebers from Minnesota, the psychologist, Galia Ankori from Israel and her friend from Germany, and the young physical anthropologist, Tannia Delabarde from France. Others, such as the philologist, Marshall Horwitz and his wife Ann, of New Jersey, ran across the Artist at the Museum one Saturday morning after missing their flight connection on their return from the Galapagos.
An important aspect of these chance meetings is the opportunity they provide to share in the sort of gratuitous hospitality that is a hallmark of Lara's generation of Guayaquileños, but which has become an increasingly rare commodity in the more industrialized commercialized urban centers and societies where harried citizens instinctively avoid engaging others in conversation about topics that lie beyond their own specialized domains of expertise. In these chance encounters, strangers from different countries, with a variety of educational backgrounds and more often than not speaking various languages, are made welcome by Lara and find themselves caught up in spontaneous, ad hoc discussions, debates, and conversations about art, aesthetics, poetry, literature, history, economics, science, popular culture, current events, political skullduggery, and what-have-you within the magic circle of the Artist's studio.
Papiers Parlants
For Lara, the reactions to his work by the visitors in these uncontrolled circumstances are of the utmost interest. They not only provide disinterested critical commentary, but also at times contribute important input. Thus, the title 'Talking Papers' was discovered during the course of a visit one evening by Tannia Delabarde, who had come into Guayaquil for a visit from the excavation she was working on at San Marcos on the Santa Elena Peninsula. The series, which had grown to 33 'Papers', was displayed around the studio, and had given rise to more than an hour of the most varied exegesis. Besides touching on a number of different subjects, we were able to reconcile mutually exclusive explanations for the meaning of the 'Papers'. This was very satisfying. Rather than dogmatically limit ideas, the 'Papers' seemed to multiply conceptualizations and imply an infinitely extended, unbounded universe. Feeling intense delight in the freedom and freshness of the conversation led Dr. Delabarde to suddenly remark, "sont papiers parlants".
Being a Latin American Artist, it is natural that Lara derive inspiration from Catholicism and the Bible when seeking theological and ethical tenents to serve as the conceptual basis referenced by the 'Talking Papers'. Nevertheless, the Jama-Coaque stamps, which served as the point of departure for the project, carried associations that required the inclusion of other lines of thought as well. The antiquity and magical nature of the stamps made it necessary to employ mythological conceptualization, and to draw on a venerable esoteric tradition. The non-European character of the Pre-Columbian designs further suggested a treatment that crossed specific cultural boundaries. In this respect, Lara instinctively turned to the deep well of mediaeval Spain, characterized by the confluence of diverse linguistic and cultural traditions that included Christian, Hebrew, and Moslem heritages that extend into Antiquity.
Multiple Universality
Trilingual himself (Spanish, English, French), it is not surprising that Lara be particularly drawn to authors such as Maimomedes and Llull, who both wrote important works in Arabic, as well as being proficient in their own and other languages as well.
Given influences of this sort, it is to be expected that a similar cross-disciplinary universality also be observed in the range of subjects treated in the philosophy, which comprehends ethics, theological principles, scientific, philosophical, and metaphysical speculation.
As a result, the 'Talking Papers' participate in the Western humanist tradition growing out of medieval and renaissance thought, with influences from modern semiotics, linguistics, and anthropology.
In order for Lara to represent the highly complex and abstract gamut of subjects and conceptualizations expressed in the 'Talking Papers', he developed a unique visual vocabulary suited specifically to his purpose, paralleled by a metaphorical lexicon employed in the corresponding axioms and maxims, as well as in the more prolix 'Celestial Science' texts.
By way of example, it is instructive to consider briefly the treatment afforded one of the key concepts included in the 'Talking Papers': the tripartite division of the intellectual realm, that is, mental, being.
Mental Fire
To reference the non-Cartesian, Peirce-like intuition that cognition is an activity that arises as a continuous process consisting of an infinite series of thought-signs grounded in feeling and associated one to the other such that each successive thought is the sign of the preceding to its successor, Lara applied analogical reasoning to achieve a pictorial and poetic transmutation. In the texts, he refers to Thought by using the metaphor "mental fire", and to represent this concept visually, he inserts a circle surrounded by a spike-edged ring (often of contrasting color) into the designs to designate them as representations of active centers of intelligent behavior.
In the texts, these radiating solar bodies are given different names that suggest a division into at least three modes: the "Conscious Beings of this sphere", the "Lords of the Stars", and the "Great Solar Father". In the designs, these blazing elements are related in a variety of ways to other symbols such as the ellipse, the spiral, the umbilical cord, variously colored (red, green, black, etc.) circles, orange and black bar magnets, spermatozoa, and a three-bannered flag. In the texts he makes reference to the "spiritual mental fibers" that run through an infinite millenary wisdom corresponding to the "Cosmic Link" which unites this Solar Trinity.
Through this triple division of intellect, Lara references a fundamental conception belonging to the Humanist tradition that underlies the 'Talking Papers', and it is therefore to be expected that through participation in this tradition the idea be echoed in other sources. For instance it coincides with what Maimomedes refers to as "the well-known principle of the philosophers that God is the intellectus, the ens intelligens, and the ens intelligible" (Maimonides 1956:100). Likewise, it suggests an accord with the tripartite conception of the modes of Being as elements of cooperation toward the summum bonum mentioned by Peirce (Hoopes 1991:237-238).
It also echoes the three-fold speciation of each of the three relationships (qualitative, logical and quantitative) conceivable between the 9 principles to which all existent beings are reduced in figures one and two of Llull's Ars Brevis (Bonner 1993:300-304). And by the use of the metaphorical style in the texts to designate the elements and principles of nature, Lara recalls both the alchemical folios attributed to Llull and studied so assiduously by Newton, as well as the caution recommended by Maimonides in dealing with metaphysical matters (Maimonides 1956:43-49).
Coincidence
When looked at in this fashion, the 'Talking Papers' give rise to a series of surprising coincidences, providing further corroboration of this idea.
In exemplifying the third species of equality between accident and accident, Llull suggests that Understanding and Loving are equal in their object (Bonner 1993:304); compare Lara: "Knowledge is closest to love, its quest a never-ending peregrination".
In his "A Guess at the Riddle", Peirce concludes, "we never can be immediately conscious of finiteness, or of anything but a divine freedom that in its own original firstness knows no bounds (Hoopes 1991:190)". For his part, Lara writes succinctly, "The spirit intuits no limit whatsoever".
And Lara's dictum, "Matter is, at bottom, a state of consciousness", would seem to be drawn from the same source that led Peirce in "Man's Glassy Essence" to speculate that matter has no existence except as a specialization of mind (Hoopes 1991:229).
It is interesting to note in this connection that the recent detection (March, 2000) of the short-lived (less than a few microseconds) Quark-Gluon plasma at the CERN laboratories in Geneva has been interpreted by modern physicists as evidence for a new state of matter, which in the view of contemporary science, seems to be proving itself to be, if not quite a state of consciousness, certainly as fleeting as thought.
Contemporary Latin American art is often placed on a par and in some respects in advance of developments in the U.S. and Europe. No doubt this is ultimately a matter of taste and perspective. Be this as it may, Lara's 'Talking Papers' provides evidence that extraordinary creativity, originality, and thought-provoking art continue to emerge from South America. In the final analysis, a regional interpretation is probably misleading.
Certainly themes related to Metaphysical Realism and philosophical arcana are evident in Latin American literature (cf. Jorge Luis Borges' cautionary tale, "Tlön Uqbar Orbis Tertius", in which the author explores the consequences of a world governed by the principles of Berkeleian idealism), but the popularity of Humberto Eco's semiotic-driven fiction in English translations suggests that these concerns are by no means exclusive to Latin America. In closing, it is fair to note, that to this writer's knowledge, the 'Talking Papers' must be counted as a pioneering attempt to deal with these matters from the perspective of the plastic arts.
-Robert Mix, Los Gatos, California, July 20, 2000