Charlene
Spretnak on Joseph
Nechvatal
and The Spiritual Dynamic in Modern Art
From the book
The Spiritual Dynamic in Modern Art : Art History
Reconsidered, 1800 to the Present
by
Charlene
Spretnak
(text on
page135)
Figure 13
Joseph Nechvatal, Out
Of shadOw : disavOwel,
2009 triptych computer-robotic assisted acrylic on canvas 20 x 60Ó Courtesy of
Galerie Richard, New York & Paris
(Figure 13 is in b/w in the book)
ÒThe
painter and theorist Joseph Nechvatal (b. 1951) believes that the purely
abstract art of past decades is Òa played out tropeÓ but that Òa scientific
spirituality has never been sought after in art.Ói He regards
the spiritual dimension of existence as Òan embedded immanence of nature and
materialityÓ in the Òfull vibratory spectrum,Ó which far exceeds the human
limits of perception.ii Nechvatal, whose primary
influence is Duchamp, is hardly alone in seeing the open-ended possibilities of
art as an intriguing means of engaging with this situation, but he feels that
each historical period must bring its own experience to bear: for our time,
Nechvatal asserts, the exploration by art of the more-than-human reality must
combine the biological with the technological. (É)
Nechvatal
proposes that a virtual (or viractual, as he prefers) spiritual art may achieve Òan
ultimate phantasmal integration by dissolving recorded information into its
original vibrational and dynamic foundation.Óiii To
explore this possibility, he creates a complex process that includes drawing,
digital photography, painting, written language, and computer code; these
elements are mixed and undergo computational manipulations (which include
computer viruses) and are then painted with acrylic paint on canvas by means of
a robot (see Figure 13), The results are ethereal works of voluptuous patterns,
modulated coloration, and a sense
of depth derived from layers of near-transparency Ð a gestalt the art
critic Carlo McCormick has called Òa hyper-sensory sublime.Óiv
Paintings by Nechvatal, who lives in New York and Paris, have been collected by
major museums in Europe and the United States. He also co-created a music and
art performance piece, XS: The Opera Opus (1984-1986), and has written two books: Towards
an Immersive Intelligence (2009) on the emergent sensibility he calls viractualism, and Immersion Into
Noise
(2011) on his theory of immersive art-noise consciousness.Ó
i
Nechvatal, in Nechvatal, postings in the Beyond Kandinsky online symposium,
School of Visual Arts, 30 March 2011; retrieved from http://www.beyondkandinsky.net/BeyondKandinskyTranscript.pdf
on Feb. 21, 2014.
ii Nechvatal, in
Taney Roniger, ÒAn Interview with Joseph Nechvatal,Ó Concatenations Forum, Feb.
26, 2012; retrieved from http://www.concatenationsforum.org/2013/06/interview-with-joseph-nechvatal-by.html
on Feb. 21, 2014.
iii
Nechvatal, Beyond Kandinsky symposium.
iv McCormick, ÒOn
the Ecstatic Excess of Joseph Nechvatal,Ó a revised version of a review in Artforum, 1989; retrieved from http://www.eyewithwings.net/nechvatal/mccor.htm
on Feb. 20, 2014.
v Nechvatal,
ÒEmergence of the New Paradigm: Viractuality,Ó La Cube Revue, 1, Oct. 2011;
retrieved from http://www.cuberevue.com/en/emergence-of-the-new-paradigm-viractuality/128
on Feb. 20, 2014.