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| Jitish Kallat, the book. |
First, let me tell you the background story. A little over three years ago, a friend of mine, Jitish Kallat, perhaps one of the most important artists of my generation, asked me to contribute a piece to a book that was being prepared about his work. I love Jitish's work. He has an extraordinary sensibility for the metaphysical backdrop of life and world, an ability to capture it with a subtlety that eludes most of us. His work reflects life and world back to us in a way that unveils what he sees, but we don't. And so I enthusiastically agreed to contribute something.
Soon enough, however, I realized the magnitude of the challenge I had embarked on. To provide prose to accompany Jitish's work was a tall order. My usual Apollonian approach wouldn't do his art justice. I ruminated on the task for days, until one rainy morning, as my girlfriend still lay asleep, I sensed that I was in the right mental space... an elusive space I don't visit often, but which I value above almost any other. What you will read below is the result.
The production of Jitish's book is a gem of refinement, care, aesthetic sensibility and attention to detail. It would be a crime to reproduce my essay here outside the context of the book. So, with Jitish's kind permission, I made photos of the relevant pages, which I am reproducing below. To read the text you will need to click on each photo to enlarge it.
I hope you enjoy the ride! And if you weren't acquainted with Jitish's work before, here is your cue...
(For more on the themes explored in the essay above, see my book More Than Allegory, where these themes are elaborated on with much more depth and detail.)
A beautiful synergy of art and idealism. Thanks for this Bernardo. Jitish's work capturing the silent repose of animals is both tender and affecting.
ReplyDeleteQuite an expressive account of The Truth.
ReplyDeleteThe fact is that we made our reallity inside our brain , just to adapt it to the information that we receive trough our 'sensors'.
ReplyDeleteIt is an old battle 'I thought, so I am', pascal.
And we have a brain who has evolved to find patterns in all (This is the first hability of neural networks).
And not to find the true, but to survive.
Now, thanks to science, we know that the wonderfull image of nature, comes to us in small packets of electromagnetic energy.
Tha we do not 'touch' , in fact it is the pauling exclusion principle of electrons, who made us not going trough the floor.
And so, many many more knowwledge.
But still, over all this, we know it is not the final knowledge.
A wonderfull book ('the first 3 minutes of universe'", Steven Weinberg) has a moment of this kind.
"As I fly on a plane, and I know so much of particles, I can see the beauty trough the window of the plain" (Steven Weinberg).
It is hard to be human, we are predestined to an endless batle for knowledge, and in this batle, we know, that whatever battle we win, the war never end.
"From the quark to the Jaguar", face this hard true.
Quantum Mechanics, Bernardo, has give to us wonderfull knowledge.
And yes, it is only about probability of observations.
And 'observation', is the key to define the 'present'. To define time.
Lindo.
ReplyDelete