M-M-T

Kalûnga

Scientific Theory and Method rests on fallibility, the idea that humans make errors, and have limited perceptions. As a result, no observation is absolutely certain. The validity of a theory is tested until the tiniest of cracks appears on it’s surface. Newton’s laws, considered canon, as we approach the speed of light, fall apart (1.) Upon these uncertainties, only 5% of the universe is observable. The remaining 95%, what scientists term, dark matter and dark energy, remains unknown, and unreachable (2.) This great unknown and unknowable the Kongo comprehend as, kalûnga.

Kalûnga is the door, embodying and separating, the physical 5% from the unknown 95%. Kongo scholar, Dr. Fu-Kiau Bunseki, explains, “the world, [nza], is a physical reality floating in the endless waters of cosmic space; emerging for terrestrial life and submerging for submarine life and the spiritual world (3.)” The Kongo cosmogram indicates nza as a sphere moving along 4 vertices, with kalûnga being the horizontal it crosses as it revolves along these points. According to the Kôngo, just as nza, rises and sets, so does man. The extension of this belief is the argument essential to this essay, man as the cosmic doorway itself; Kalûnga.

Art is an opportunity to peek across the blinds, and into the unknown. A reminder of the mystery humans experience as, present. In the 20th century, artists truly begin to focus the lens, first outwards then in; taking the known and manifesting the unknown. Beginning in the early 20th century with the pioneer of abstraction, suprematist Kasimir Malevich, and his exploration of form; the physical. His total abstraction opens the expressive door to the New York School of Abstract Expressionists. Among these artists kalûnga manifests in Mark Rothko’s untitled series, experimenting with colour and the perceptual. Contemporary artist, James Turrell’s light installations, challenge the steps his predecessors took; wrestling with visual perception. Finally, the monoliths of the late Pinuccio Sciola bring the experience out the gallery, illuminating man as the doorway.

Breaking the Door

The first step away from representation is the first step towards kalûnga. Objective representation in art is a known lie, it will never be an authentic representation of an idea only it’s essence. Representation only transmits the idea of the subject and never the actual subject. Classical academic method highly values the ability to accurately represent and constitutes the “magic” of a person’s craft, be it Bernini or Vélasquez. The image and it’s perceived accuracy engage the viewer when in fact it is nothing but, paint. Truthful observation of a painting requires attention to the material and action; paint and painting. The development of the photograph in the 19th century draws this observation higher into consciousness. As a flurry of movements such as Impressionism and Fauvism exploring the painted surface emerge, but are unable to steer away from representation. Fortunately, Kasimir Malevich becomes one of the first artists to break away from this tradition.

If paint & painting are the underlying truth, form and it’s ability to transmit feeling, Malevich argues, is the primary expressive element. It is important to note that it is not, form, rather, what form suggests, that is the vehicle of his paintings.

Plato’s theory of Forms provides an excellent foil, in understanding the “feeling” of form as a concept of kalûnga. Plato’s theory posits that the material world that exists around us in it’s many individual parts each suggest essential forms outside our reach, but, within our understanding. That all things material are repetitions or, mere suggestions of a single truth (4.) Using the eyes to navigate the world, the human being within it’s subconscious accumulates it’s understanding of the material in it’s various forms. Above this accumulation of forms are the free floating associations the subconscious wraps around them. It is upon this understanding that Malevich succeeds in breaking from representation, by reaching to the core of representation itself. Suprematism, the avant-garde art movement Malevich founds in 1915, is a complete departure from representation towards pure abstraction (5.) Using forms he refers to as the basic Suprematist elements; the black square, the black circle and the black cross; Malevich teases out kalûnga. He remarks:

“Under Suprematism I understand the primacy of pure feeling in creative art. To the Suprematist, the visual phenomena of the objective world are, in themselves, meaningless; the significant thing is feeling, as such, quite apart from the environment in which it is called forth (6.)”
Black Square, from the first Suprematist exhibition in 1915, exemplifies his philosophy’s connection to kalûnga. The most elementary form, and colours; a black square hovering above a white ground becomes the door, to the unknown. Of the painting he himself remarks, “It is from zero, in zero, that the true movement of being begins (7.)” The use of such a basic form, summarises a portion of our practical experience, recognisable and associable by all. As a result it is impossible to develop a fixed perception and comprehension of the artwork; constantly in flux, it is a living paradox. It appears all at once, tragic, ecstatic, full, and, empty; out of absolutely nothing. The infinite amount of interpretations point zero, is able to procure is the success and truth behind the painting. He becomes the first painter to create transcendence, to make the viewer observe, honestly, the painted object.
With Black Square, Malevich provides a common ground off which a vision of the unreachable becomes communicable. Malevich’s insight was a step in the right direction, creating an avenue of immense expressive potential. He breaks the door for the next generation of painters to operate with paint as an object, rather than illusion. Mark Rothko emerges as the next painter to truly wrestle with the painted object pushing us nearer kalûnga.

Opening Windows

If Malevich presents the door, Rothko shakes the handle. His untitled series reminds one of Sartre’s scene in the garden; sublime. The rush of emotion is a confrontation with the existence of an existence. To see a tree is one thing, to perceive what is beyond the name, tree, is another. The clearest indication of this are the names he assigns to the paintings of his mature period; none. The primary operative of Rothko’s expression is, colour, reflecting in the names viewers assign these paintings, Earth and Green, Blue on Gray, et al. Colour is the way humans read the world with associations one cannot divorce from, such as, the red of blood. Rothko’s manipulation of colour allows his works to operate as a paradox, presenting a “conjunction of presence and absence (8.)” The viewer is sent on a journey of reflection, deep into their inner infinities by conflicting suggestion. The painting of appellation, Horizontals, White over Darks, is one such excellent example. The painting consists of four bands of colour over an olive brown ground. Of these four bands, are three somber variations of brown, reaching from bottom to top, towards a light green, blue and black. Above the three, is a final band of white, hovering, brilliantly. The darkness is overwhelming, yet, the conjunction of a single strip of white, and it’s strategic placement, creates an equilibrium between totally conflicting moods. The viewer, can’t help but feel something, about, what is in reality a great big nothing. Scale too plays an enormous role, while Black Square stands at 80 cm by 80 cm, it presents itself as a concept. Horizontals, towers at 143 cm by 237 cm, presenting an entire world! Rothko’s states on the subject of his paintings, “Sometimes I open one door, one window or two doors and two windows. I do this only through shrewdness. There is more power in telling little than in telling all (9.)” In creating visions into the sublime, Rothko’s own suggestion when viewing his work is to stand a mere 18 inches away (10.) As Rothko challenges our perceptual knowledge of colour, the next step to kalûnga would be the means of perception itself. And what better challenge than the portion of the universe that makes it possible; light.

Building a Room

James Turrell’s primary operative is light and a major attribute of his work is to perceive it as an entity in and of itself. In his own words, “sensing the sensual (11.)” Fu-Kiau describes the world as floating in kalûnga, an endless water within cosmic space (12.) Light being the sea of visual navigation, Turrell’s work, offers the viewer a raft. First by taking an everyday phenomenon, light, and presenting it as a potentially objective experience, a physical “thing”, with the piece Cross Corner installation. Turrell then magnifies light and immerses the viewer in the Shallow Space Constructions, demonstrating light’s ability to completely alter human perception. He creates the uncertainty the viewer requires to acknowledge the fickle nature that experience floats upon.

Description brings a fixity and definable element to the observable, as a result, Turrell’s description of light as a “thing,” and it’s “thingness” isn’t lazy or a lack of better words. The vague and unspecific explanation, indicates the manner in which the viewer reconsiders light following immersion.

Beginning in 1966, Cross Corner, expands and combines the principle that drew Malevich near kalûnga; form. Form is the cornerstone to Turrell’s experimentation with light as an objective experience. Cross Corner, presents a white cube floating in the corner of a room. The cube glows and appears in all three of its dimensions. Walking towards it, across space and time, brings it into the fourth. The viewer getting too close now, causes the edges of the cube to dissolve, leaving a sheet of light spread across a corner. Turrell destroys entirely, what the viewer saw as familiar, by their own will. If what the viewer perceived so certainly as fact, dissolved right before them, how will they continue to believe as they perceive?

The Shallow Space Constructions, plunge the viewer into a deeper state of panic and confusion. Colour is introduced in this work, and, observation of it’s effects, are key to its success. The space, is fully immersive, reducing three dimensions to two, specifically the Floater 99 installation. The immersion in colour recalls and extends Rothko’s achievements, challenging totally the idea itself of colour and its origins. He looks at it’s nature and properties preceding what causes colour to arise, namely glow, brilliance, and, or flickering (13.)

What appears a pink rectangle embraced by a blue edge, hovers in the viewer’s field of vision. However this rectangle on the surface of their eyes is in fact a room in all three dimensions, whose end is many metres away. The viewer, fully aware that what is before him is a construction, cannot rid the fact, that, despite their knowledge, the two dimensional plane they experience, is more certain than the space they are actually in. Reducing the entire field of vision to a single pink rectangle floating along an abyss of blue, begs the question, what and where is perception?

Turrell piles uncertainty on uncertainty, in an overwhelming of manner. He challenges the viewers perception using the phenomenon of light, revealing the world at large to be a fragile construction. Turrell’s demonstration of perception’s malleability brings kalûnga from a concept to a proven possibility by means of an artistic and scientific demonstration.

Yet Turrell’s demonstrations as profound and truthful as they are remain problematic; they are imposed on the viewer. They present the kalûnga as an experience to witness only within a construction. Crossing kalûnga requires entanglement with our everyday reality an the late Italian sculptor, Pinuccio Sciola, succeeds in doing so under the Sardinian sky.

The Doorway

Pinuccio Sciola’s sound sculpture invites the participant versus the observant of kalûnga; and here lies the distinction. As Turrell places us within reach, Sciola places us in kalûnga’s midst. The first points of attraction with Sciola’s work are the eyes. Under the Sardinian sky, stand grand monoliths of granite. They remain in their natural, predispositions aside from rectilinear patterns that criss-cross their surfaces. As they lay out in the open, with no barriers whatsoever, approach is inevitable. The desire to caress the surfaces, and the invitation to do so, is irresistible. Upon embracing the surface, the person is entranced by the texture, the decision to do so rewards, as from within, vibrations are heard and intensify until finally a song emerges from the depths of the stone (14.) As the human engages physically, a call and response between man and matter ensues, a conversation begins between two portions of the universe that forget they are one. Sciola presents the rock as a reflection of man; below the surface, infinite in depth and mystery. The doorway itself of, kalûnga.

Kalûnga in western art reveals the common philosophical leaps man makes in search for absolute knowledge. In the early 20th century, ancient Kongo knowledge emerges within modern western thought. The desire to present this immensity by, Malevich, Rothko, Turrell, and Sciola, creates the transcendence of their works. Revolving the lens of inquiry outwards, in. Reminding man, that it is the manifestation of kalûnga; the cosmic mystery itself.

1 Hawking, Stephen, and Leonard Mlodinow. The Grand Design. New York: Bantam Books Trade Paperbacks, 2012.

2 "Dark Energy, Dark Matter." NASA. Accessed March 05, 2017. https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy.

3 Fu-Kiau, Kimbwandènde Kia Bunseki. African cosmology of the Bantu-Kongo: principles of life & living. Place of publication not identified: African Tree Press, 2001.

4 From, By Detaching Ourselves. "Plato's Theory of Forms." Saint Anselm College. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Oct. 2016.

5 Drutt, Matthew, and Kazimir Severinovich Malevich. Kazimir Malevich: suprematism. New York: Guggenheim Museum, 2004.

6 Malevich, Kasimir Severinovich. The Non-objective World: The Manifesto of Suprematism. 
 Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2003. Print

7 Drutt, Matthew, and Kazimir Severinovich Malevich. Kazimir Malevich: suprematism. New York: Guggenheim Museum, 2004.

8 Chave, Anna C., and Mark Rothko. Mark Rothko: subjects in abstraction. New Haven: Yale 
 University Press, 1989.

9 Rothko, Mark, and Miguel López-Remiro. Writings on Art. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

10 Rothko, Mark, and Museo d'arte moderna Ca' Pesaro. 1970. Mark rothko: 21 giugno-15 ott., 
 1970. New York: Marlborough Gallery.

11 Turrell, James, and Turske & Turske (Zurich, Switzerland). 1990. James turrell, long green. 
 Zürich: Turske & Turske.

12 Fu-Kiau, Kimbwandènde Kia Bunseki. African cosmology of the Bantu-Kongo: principles of 
 life & living. Place of publication not identified: African Tree Press, 2001.

13 Turrell, James, Ursula Sinnreich, and Zentrum für Internationale Lichtkunst Unna. 2009. James turrell: Geometrie des lichts = geometry of light. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz.

14 Dasgupta, Gautam. 1995. Pinuccio sciola: Sculptor in the time of stone. Performing Arts Journal(17): 35.

By Maxime Mballa-Tagny.