close

499 WORDS ABOUT RECEIVING

Standing in front of a work of art, contemplating it, we have to go further, to step in and give ourselves completely to it. To look and not stop at the doorway, on the threshold of understanding, a place from where, seeing that of which the artwork wants to persuade us, we can still retreat. To not carefully withhold ourselves, but rather to keep on looking until, in a transforming dialogue, in a real interaction beyond the dialogue, the artwork can affect us cataclysmically. The artwork not as a form, or as a clear message, and not as “beauty” in itself, or as the “perfection” for which we so long - since the events around World War II, it is difficult to talk about “beauty” in its classical sense, or of “perfection” as the object of longing, without inviting ridicule.

When a work of art invites us to come in, it is seeking its own ending, for in receiving us, it strives to be itself transformed (“ended”), while at the same time transforming us. It pushes us to do what we least want: to receive it, and thus be ourselves received. From this moment we have to contemplate ourselves in the act of receiving and being received, not as separate from the work. Such a moment is fundamentally connected to private epiphany. It is a red-hot feeling, red-hot or clay-cold, but if we are dealing with a real work of art, never lukewarm.

If we refuse to receive and be received by the work of art, and thus prevent its ending, then the artwork becomes an idol. An idol of perception, of understanding, of knowledge, of the luxury of living in a world without any required response. Just as the artwork which excludes the contemplative who hungers for the existential event of being received is also an idol. Something which does not wring from us a genuine, deep aesthetic experience is not art. Something which does not provoke in us a response is not art. The true work of art does not want to be an idol but invites us to step beyond its enticing immediacy and to act. It does not hurry us, yet it urges us in a way that is not easy to elude, as it transforms our way of looking at things by its immeasurable and, up until then, inexperienced power of simplicity.

“I came to bring fire to the earth.” “Do not think that I came to bring peace, but rather a sword.” A sword, yes. This shocking and transforming simple directness holds true for the work of art as well. The found form of art is fire indeed, sword indeed. This form, sweeping over me, through me, with me, with my total participation, transforms. An understanding not followed by action is a kind of aggressive cultural amnesia, a deadly forgetting. Art is an unfettered attempt to keep our memories fresh.

Step in, don’t hold back. Receive and be received. Then go and act.

András Visky
translated from Hungarian by Ailisha O’Sullivan