On double space B. Karel Teige.

I came across this artist while studying for the collage class I am teaching (Surrealism). I found an interesting parallel between my ideas and his, when it comes to the question of the boundary between the inside and the outside, body and space. His collages from the late 40s epitomize the union of internal and external, phantasy and reality.
Karel Teige was born on 13 December (another interesting parallel, I was born on the 14th!) 1900 in Prague. He represented the Chech avant-garde movement and was a photographer, typewriter and graphic artist. He was also a theorist of the arts and architecture.
After joining the surrealist movement in 1934 and until his death from a heart attack in 1951 he created about 400 collages. In these he puts together photographs of female bodies and photographs of landscapes, trees and interiors. This is done in such a way so that the bodily forms seem to emerge from the natural or domestic spaces.  The result is an eroticised space, populated by what seem to be enormous statues of female goddesses.
Like this picture below that I particularly like. I can imagine it as a 3-d sculpture.!

Looking at his pictures on the internet I came across an interesting site that presents his collages in the context of  a discussion about the milieu. 

(http://www.geocities.ws/ateliermp/milieu.html)

There I read that Isaac Newton defined the milieu as the fluid, and as the  intermediary between two bodies.  Pascal as the median situation, a  fluid of suspension, a life environment. 

The fluid in this case seems to be the boundary between the body and its space. The milieu is the world that is created in this transgression of boundaries. A world made possible in art. I like this possibility of art practice. 

 The body emerges from space, like a giant flower or tree. It is not separated from space but merges with it. Is born from it, with it. However, its enormous size prevents it from being contained by space. Its seems that they mutually contain each other. A second aspect of the accepted relationship between body and space is thus changed. 

 Fluidity is finally down to the very essence of the above form, which is a female torso as well as an inverted penis. 

Kollaz 353, 1948

Similarly in the collage above. The woman emerges from the tree, as the tree emerges from the earth, forming a new entity, a woman-tree. The two formerly separate entities are merged into one, preserving   their different characteristics while losing their separate identity. Merged in infinite Oneness. 

Which brings us to the concept of the subjectile, by Antonin Artaud (still reading the entry in the site above). The subjectile is neither object nor subject, neither inside nor outside, neither above nor below but rather both. The subjectile is between two places. An interval. A double.

Artaud describes how his body is in a state of fusion with objects. Thus objects, acquiring bodily qualities, are also capable of sensations.  Seeing the collage below in this context is particularly interested. 

323, 1946

This is a woman-house, a kind of building or rather wall since it contains a window. This window creates a space where inside and outside lose their meaning. Since there is no longer an inside, therefore nor an outside. 

In this  final one, the body is frozen. Like a building would be in cold weather. 

The body thus becomes a space to inhabit, to enter. 

Looking up 'subjectile' I came across an artist's (Tim Long)  Phd thesis on the notion which I am about to read. Thank you internet. http://create.canterbury.ac.uk/11594/1/1364563_T_Long_thesis_no_images_28_9_12.pdf

On the whole, Teige's work seems to me to create a space where one can think about the possibility of a union of phantasy and reality, body and space, nature and the city, Eros and Civilization. It is what Herbert Marcuse refers to when he speaks about 'the truth of the Great Refusal', which is preserved by fantasy. This Great Refusal is the refusal to accept as given the alienation of man from nature, the limitations on freedom and happiness which result from humanity's adherence to reason, and its raison d'etre, the performance principle. In Marcuse's words " In the realm of phantasy, the unreasonable images of freedom become rational, and the lower depth of the instinctual gratification assumes a new dignity."( in Eros and Civilization, p.160)

More from Marcuse soon.   

Picasso's Man with pipe 1915 and the representation of a representation.

While looking at the painting 'Man with Pipe', 1915, by Pablo Picasso, an alternative interpretation occurred to me. What Picasso has created is in fact a painting of an idea about a painting.
Of course, I am not totally familiar with writings on the subject and it is possible that somebody has already put forward such an argument. Nevertheless here it is.
Let's first look at the painting. We see some parts of a man's body. Half of his head and hat, his right arm and his left hand, holding a cigar. Other elements include parts of his jacket and vest, as well as abstract areas of plain colour and dots.  There are also elements depicting parts of a chair and elements that refer to parts of a room. The different painting styles co-exist, in classic Picasso style.
The composition forms a sort of irregular triangle, from top to bottom.
I see one dark blue rectangle cutting the head in two at the top ,  and a brown form in the shape of a greek π at the bottom-center. I see these two elements as the edges of an easle. The rest of the elements can be seen as parts of dismantled paintings, one of them being the painting of a man with a pipe, others perhaps being paintings of a chair, a painting of the  room, and abstract paintings. In my mind, these  fragments  of paintings are reassembled to form a three dimensional picture with irregular edges, supported by the easel that breaks out of the frame of a standard easel painting.  The picture is thus opened up to the space around it. It is opened up perhaps to the real (in the painting) man with pipe, the representation thus merging with the represented.
We can take this further.  If we take the form in the upper right corner to be a keyhole, what we are witnessing is a sneak view of a painter's mind.
Picasso has thus painted his idea of a painting. By confining it to two dimensions, making an easel picture out of it, he preserved the status of this as an idea.  It is not reality, but a construction of reality. Even, a construction of a construction of a constructed reality. (!) Picasso has painted an infinite space.
Perhaps the π  shape stands for man-with-a-pipe's legs, but to me, the easel explanation is much more interesting.