ESSAY: Painting as Image Assemblage and Reterritorialization in the works of Jacob Roesch
02.28.07An essay about a painter friend of mine.
It would be easy to write about Jacob Roesch’s paintings in a traditional sense. One could talk about color, form, materials, imagery, structure etc. There is no denying that there is a modernist aspect to his work: it draws on rich traditions in art history and can be judged and compared as such to those histories. In this essay I do not wish to regurgitate the same tired language used to describe and critique such work but instead I am interested in approaching the work in a novel way. By creating my own twists and turns to synthesize an argument that shows the various external sources that combine and converge allowing these paintings and imagery to emerge and ‘become’. I will thus describe the conditions that gave rise to this work rather that try to undertake a study of the ‘work’ itself.
In relationship to Jacob Roesch, I am in a unique position to write about his work. I have been very close to Jacob in friendship for several years and have had the opportunity to know the intricate and intimate details association with his paintings evolution. Writing on his work is a task I undertook, not simply and a gesture of friendship, but with the preconception that artists should be writing about artists: artists they know personally, artists that they collaborate with, or artists that they respect.
Part of the idea in writing ‘essays by artists on artists’ is to 'bypass' the ‘expertise’ of the critic/historian. The idea is that an artist, to paraphrase Deleuze (1995), can take another artist from behind in essay form and produce a mutant child that could or could not resemble its parent’s original conception. ‘The essay’ becomes the writer as much as it is a product of the relationship between artists. The work under focus becomes a part of the jurisdiction of the artist/writers own work/theory therefore making the given artists work part of their own. With this precondition, artistic work does not exhibit negative OR positive qualities but instead exhibits qualities of its own accords in the historical, theoretical, political, sociological etc. frame in which the artist/essay-writer responds to it. The work is then not criticized in the sense that the historical tradition of 'critique' dictates, but instead becomes a product of is own processes that gave rise to that work AND the processes that gave rise to the essay that was written based on that work. I believe this to be a valid way (artists writing about artists) that artists can begin to balance art-world power by helping to facilitate the disintegration of established 20th century art world relationships (artist/critic/historian/academic) and the classification of those disciplines in favor of more heterogeny and fluidity.
To use this concept as a starting point I will begin with my own experience and observations that I see extremely apparent in Roesch’s painted works and make observations on how his painted works materialized based on recent philosophical discourses in assemblage theory. To briefly define, assemblage theory as outlined by Manual Delanda (2006) crosses the nature-cultural divide by treating wholes as entities derived from the convergences of historical processes once composed of heterogeneous parts. To quote, “Entities ranging from atoms and molecules to biological organisms, species and ecosystems may be usefully treated as assemblages” (Ibid p. 3) To begin to understand the painted works of Roesch as assemblages it is essential that one first understand the territory that they surround, a territory that “is made of decoded fragments of all kinds” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 504). In the painted works of Roesch I am interested in these fragments of information (social, material) that create the territory for the paintings to emerge as an assembly of his various social processes.
Roesch’s works resemble something less than any artistic ‘drive’ to paint or ‘express’ but rather are the result of a lingering memory that must emerge and materialize as a rehabilitation mechanism for a genuine desire to turn what is perceived as chaotic into a lasting sense of order. These ‘memories’ are both psychological (embedded in the neural-net of the brain) and technological, derived from direct observation resulting in the taking of a digital photograph. “Memories always have a reterritorialization function” (Deleuze & Guattari 1987 p. 294) and Roesch’s are no exception, territorializing and assembling to form a painted image. His painting process currently is a result of a combination/convergence of ‘memories’ of specific people and places and digital photographs in which a photo is responded to through the calling of a certain memory associated with it in order to assemble a paintings aesthetics; color, form, feel etc.
Memories have a way of creating their own assemblages. Bits of information often converge to form singular ideas. It is in the growth of the child and adolescent that has the lasting impact, an impact that must be articulated as a form of ‘rebirth’ in order to make some sense from the various complex sources of data-bits that have accumulated over time. Childhood can be a complex endeavor and as Guattari (1996) states “a wide spread anxiety accompanies every incident in [its] development” (p. 68). This anxiety is a source of memory because it has the impact of sustaining the memory and creating a vivid representation of itself: stored and locked internally. The child is always a center of others because s/he lacks the proper mechanisms to consciously extend by intensities her/his territory past her/his immediate vicinity becoming a ‘person’ only by “emerging from the assembly of subpersonal components (impressions, ideas, propositional attitudes, habits, skills)” (Delanda 2006 p. 52) that have been territorialized by the surrounding social networks, environments and architectures that surround. Under this condition “the entire society finds itself infantilized, puerilized, under the “panoptic” regime described by Michel Foucault” (Guattari 1996 P. 69). Territorialization is the process OR processes that “define or sharpen the special boundaries of actual territories” (Delanda 2006 p. 13) which can also mean that the homogeneity of a surrounding system (this being the parents, brothers, sisters, grandparents etc) has a direct effect on the internal homogeneity of the child.
Having a direct personal relation to Jacob I am well aware of the complex social histories that surrounded his upbringing. I would not be a friend if I were to divulge personal details that might prove embarrassing yet I can say for honesty that there is nothing ‘darker’ in his past than most tight, family oriented social assemblages contain. There are some unique qualities of his circumstances that I will also not take the liberty to disclose. What I can say is that there has always been a struggle for a personal autonomy that meets the expectations of both him and those surrounding him. This very crucial point is one of the main driving forces and influences in his image creations and assemblages: he draws from vital memories and impacting moments and feelings in order to rebuild a vague idea of what circumstances that might or might not have been beyond his control. This is the materialization of memory that was lost in the transition and struggle for individualism. As a child we are all under the eye of the social order we are subjected to.
There then becomes a singular point where a critical threshold can be met, granted the conditions, where the child/social-actors extended territory become greater that the territory that others in the social networks place upon him/her. With this extended territory OR deterritorialization of the body into larger social assemblages comes “a powerful desire for autonomy in every area; emotional, sexual, financial, intellectual, etc.” (Guarttari 1996 p. 65) To quickly define: “any process which either destabilizes spatial boundaries or increases internal heterogeneity is considered deterritorialization” (Delanda 2006 p 13). Such deterritorializing can have a dramatic effect because of the added weight of social responsibility that accompanies the transition. This is “because entry into semiotic life mean[s] having a job, entering production, the production of models, the production of subjectivity. During the whole of adolescence, there is considerable anxiety concerning the coming of “normal adulthood.” (Ibid P. 67) The more complex the child’s place within the social assemblage, the more difficult it is to make sense of the processes of deterritorializing. Painting, for Roesch, has become a method for reterritorialization as a personal process to create an order from a complex childhood and transition to ‘adulthood’ under the watchful eye of the social assemblage that he emerged from.
Much of this is present as memory residue in his painted work. There are images of children, parents and grandparents: all seemingly trapped in nostalgic time. Sometimes the images of ‘persons’ are genderless where time-period and style (fashion) converge. At other points in his work there is the confusion of genetics where the parent could be confused for the child or the child could be confused as the parent creating a non-linear relationship between subject and desire. There often emerge relationships to environments and architecture (machines) that set the ‘place’ but also create a foreground that the images of the person/subject dissolve.
Painting has always been there for Jacob. It is a method of meditation where thoughts can material into imagery and seemingly random bits of collected information can be manipulated in a process of reflections on interpersonal networks. He has also been a product of institutional organization making a transition from social networks to larger institutional ones, which have also influenced the processes, and imagery that is assembled. In his paintings, there are these collections of nostalgic like memories that are juxtaposed together, converging with the formal education of an arts training that teaches traditions and materials. The transition to ‘artist’ is one of massive deterritory because the formalism of the institution must be bypassed at some point in order for new ideas and concepts to emerge.
Becoming an artist is never an easy decision. “Artists are stagemakers” (Deleuze & Guattari 1987 p. 316) that territorialize what has been fragmented. It is a decision of social organization that one must choose, as Paul Virilio stated, “To dwell as a poet or as an assassin?” (Ibid p. 345): to assemble or contribute to destruction. As a method it is how Roesch has dealt with “insertion into family, social, sexual, athletic, military, etc., situations” (Guarttari 1996 P. 67) that has become his art form, materializing into painted images. He has carefully chosen his memories, something that strikes him, something that has developed internally and through various expressive interactions. The pre-recording of a digital image sets the stage and in turn begins the painted image assembling processes that reverberate on the canvases. In one painting, a man (boy?) on a pink bicycle with his head cropped at the top of the canvas is either Jacob Roesch or his father OR both. Genetics have memories too and they assemble and converge at various stages in histories to form ‘individuals’. The image emerging from the digital photograph does not necessarily have to be derived only from that particular photograph but has a direct memory of its own from previous and past interactions in his histories.
To describe some of the works, several paintings are of sky shots: pieces of buildings, fences and power-lines. Pictures of daily activities of nomadic, nostalgic wanderings build the canvases. In these works, “painting recreates the silhouettes and postures of materiality” (Deleuze & Guarttari 1987 p. 301), memory images and the technology of the digital image converge and assemble: the assembly of accumulated visual information slowly pollinates the canvas. Such as bees assemble a ‘hive’ by bring together various bits of materials and memories - so do canvases emerge in a very similar way.
These works have contained the image of a personal social network and its associations. Family photos are more represented, often depicting the subjects slightly humorously in style, aesthetics, and presentation. Colors are somewhat muted and the edges between subjects and background is often blurred: the lines are not tight and crisp. Besides the evidence of an education in art and art history, Roesch’s paintings depict much more about his own internal and external relations: internalizations through territorialization and deterritorialization as well as processes of combining memory with technology.
There are noticeable wounds present where the drastic drama of transitioning between states of need and autonomy create some uncomfortable silences in the imagery as one looks retrospectively at his body of work. The push and pull is between a desired life and a life under the gaze of others whether it be the organization of the institution or prior to his institutional insertion. The properties of the paint, the properties of the brushes and canvases/stretches have all recently congregated in his Brooklyn studio with his memories and digital imagery intact waiting to be assembled into a singular instance or idea. His paintings are a presentation of informal and external stimulations. Painting is a therapeutic mechanism in the sense that it makes sense through visual creation the personal relationships to external and internal social mechanisms at play within the social networks that he is involved. By reterritorializing what has been so drastically deterritorialized he is able to retain that bit of autonomy that he has always so desired: through painting.
References
Delanda, M. (2006) A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity. London: Continuum.
Deleuze, G. (1995) Negotiations. New York: Columbia University Press
Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1987) A Thousand Plateaus. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Guattari, F. (1996) Soft Subversions. New York; Semiotext(e)
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