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By Martin Hellmold
We look at pictures with inquiring eyes. How do they return our gaze?
When artists create figurative works or portraits, this question is of central importance.
Those depicted are subject to receiving a multitude of gazes, which oblige the painter to formulate a pictorial response. Indeed, the allure of portraiture often lies in this very aspect: in its ability to return the beholder's gaze. It is in fact seldom that picmces are able to rerum the gaze in a way that leaves one feeling seen, and sometimes even caught or seen through. Cornelia Schleime is a master of paintings that look back. The intense encounters that she stages quickly cause one to forget that, in reality, it is merely a collection of watercolours on paper, acrylic paint, asphalt lacquer, or shellac on canvas that appears to stare back with such startling severity.
Portraiture is the genre that largely comprises Schleime's work, and her numerous portraits of women and children, which have appeared with consistency for a number of years, provide a key to better understanding her achievements. In contrast to traditional portraiture, most often created in the immediate presence of a live model, Schleime's representations depict figures that are either entirely fictional or comprised of visual information extracted from varying forms of media. The distinct character of her pictures is achieved through the presence of an unmistakeable ambivalence. Alongside great sensibility and sensuousness, the protagonists in her paintings invariably convey a sense of strength and dignity. Their gazes establish contact, while maintaining a respectful distance from the beholder. The balance between closeness and distance, between kinship and otherness, and between openness and retreat is an integral part of her work.
With previously unseen relentlessness, the artist has thoroughly examined this pictorial theme in her new series of pieces, Camouflage. In this surprising and, at first glance, disconcerting group of paintings and drawings, the artist has chosen once more to focus upon producing portraits: more precisely, zoomorphic portraits, in which human subjects and animals have been combined into fantastical chimeras. Schleime's engagement with zoomorphic depiction has less to do with animals, however, than it does with pictures. Her present group of works can rather be viewed as a kind of series of experiments that have been designed to test the possibilities and limits of portraiture itself. Nonetheless, a further understanding of the relationship between humans and animals, and of the gazes that are exchanged between them, will be helpful in comprehending these pieces.
In contemporary times, people often tend toward viewing animals as human beings. This notion is reflected in winter coats that are manufactured for lapdogs and mediabased reportage on animals, repeatedly projecting human emotions and behaviour onto the beasts of the Earth. Within the realm of fiction, there is simply no restraint. From comic books to animated films, commercials and stuffed animals, all the way to football mascots and fun parks: speaking and laughing animal creations that walk on two legs comprise an endless and unavoidable visual repertoire. This personification of animals - this anthropomorphism - belongs to an endeavour on the part of human beings to annihilate the foreignness of animals and a desire to vanquish the distance they represent. In this way, humans have attempted to create an object of projection which is believed to have the power of freeing them from their loneliness. Because this longing for a harmonization of the human-animal relationship has been engendered by humans, it must also, of course, be effectuated according to human dictates. Whenever a canary escapes from its cage, however, or a domesticated predator devours its tamer, the one-sided ness of this notion becomes evident.
As it is, the anthropomorphism so widely accepted within contemporary culture is absolutely foreign to Schleime's zoomorphic portraits. Her work treats animals as peers with an entirely different level of seriousness. Her pictures purposefully place a great deal of weight upon alienating the gaze; they in no way desire to nullify distances - in Contrast to the everyday tendency reward personification that clearly comprises the motivation underlying the existence of teddy bears, Bugs Bunny, and the Lion King.
Whereas anrhropomorphism is largely a modern phenomenon, the zoomorphic merger of human and animal figures is a tradition with roots reaching far back into the history of culture and art. Among the most famous of chimeric figures are the animal gods of the ancient Egyptians, such as the jackal-headed Anubis 01' the crocodile-headed Sobek. From India, gods with elephant heads or apelike appendages are more than well known, and the course of European cultural history is still influenced by the numerous human-animal metamorphoses once brought forth by ancient Greek mythology. Rather than addressing animals, zoomorphism tends to be aimed at humans. In most cases, the intent is either to reveal the human character, as it were, through the addition of animal traits, or to provide new and otherwise unreachable epiphanies to the human experience by traversing the gap posed by alien animal qualities, through coalescence.
At times in immediate reference to art-historical predecessors, and at times wholly unrestrained by these, a multitude of artists have addressed the figurative merger of human beings with animals across various genres. The spectrum of examples spans from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream to Grandville's caricatures and the work of Daumier, all the way up through Picasso's erotic Minotaur fantasies.
Schleime cultivates her zoomorphic creatures without relying upon any immediate references or employing any direct allusions. Instead of seizing upon existing dialogues, she has approached the theme from an entirely autonomous standpoint. 1110ugh her transformation of women into deer may recall Ovid's metamorphoses, knowledge of the ancient poet's work is neither a prerequisite nor, in fact, of much use in understanding the artist's work. Indeed, viewing her work as illustration or artistic interpretation of like literary instances would be a great mistake.
In his essay 'Why Look at Animals", the pictural analyst John Berger has well addressed the special nature underlying the exchange of gazes between humans and animals. As established by Berger, humans always look upon animals 'across [an abyss of] ignorance and fear'1.' Though the gaze of the animal is related to that of the human, thus appearing in some ways familiar, 'the animal is distinct, and can never be confused with man.' Whereas people are able to lessen the inherent distance between one another through language, the silence of the beast 'guarantees its distance, its distinctness, its exclusion, from and of man.' In her zoomorphic portraits, Schleime consciously uses the alienation of the gaze that is exchanged between humans and animals, implementing it as a distancing effect. In doing so, her goal is to effectuate the disempowerment of the beholder.
Cornelia Schleime's newest series Camouflage employs techniques of concealment and disguise; the women in her Camouflage pictures are veiled by a metamorphosis into animal beings. What they are hiding from, however, remains unclear. Are they bent on evading the gaze of the beholder, a number of fading memories, an overly persistent admirer or even a violent stalker? Whatever the case may be, these women clearly take their concealment seriously. In no way are they simply playing a coquettish game with the true aim of being discovered, and the masquerade is no attempt at establishing a flirt with the beholder, even if the erotic pose of the 'Fuchsin' ['Foxine' (ill. pp. 30/3')] may seem to imply the opposite. Like the protagonists of other portraits in this series, the female figure is anxious to establish and defend her own position amidst the visual exchange initiated between the pictorial motif and the beholder. Refusing to remain the easily obtainable and seducible victim of an all-powerful onlooker, she has decided to take command of the pictorial situation. This resolve is reflected in her staging of the 'headstrong' visual surprise that is effectuated by the irritating fox-head. The beholder is thereby greatly hindered ? in fact, prevented altogether - from deciphering and controlling the image of the woman depicted. Through its fantastical nature, the zoomorphic female figure is rendered incomprehensible. The animal head connected to the female body confronts the viewer with a radical visual breach and generates a state of alienation that is beyond rehabilitation2. As though desiring to demonstrate this effect in a contrastive analysis, Schleime has also included the double pomait 'Wer aus mir trinkt, wird ein Reh' (ill. pp. 66167) in her new group of works. In alternating the gaze between the woman and the animal, the beholdet is not only able to witness the metamorphosis itself but the distance it generates as well. We approach the picture questioningly. It stares back at us like an animal- strange, silent and obstinate.
There is also a further difference between humans and animals that reverberates through Schleime's latest pictures. This particular distinction was poetically formulated by Friedtich Nietzsche in his philosophical treatise On the Use and Abuse of History for Life: 'Obsetve the herd that is grazing beside you. It does not know the difference between yesterday and today. It springs about, eats, rests, digests, jumps up again, and does so from morning to night and from day to day, with its likes and dislikes closely tied to the peg of the moment, thus becoming neither melancholy nor weary. Witnessing this is painful for man, who boasts that the human condition is better than that of the beast and yet gazes with envy at its happiness. Though he wishes to live like the beast, ignorant of weariness and sorrow, his wish is in vain because he does not desire it as the animal does. One day, the man demanded of the beast: Why do you simply stare at me, refusing to tell me of your happiness? The beast wanted to answer and say: It is because I always forget what I wanted to say. By that time, however, the beast had already forgotten its reply and was forced to remain silent, leaving the man wondering.'3 The beast outmanoeuvres the human through its fortunate ability to forger. This point of view borders on blasphemy. It inverts the customary hierarchy, according to which humans are superior to animals through their abilities to remember. This quality belongs to the attributes that comprise the human being as such. Whoever is able to remember is also able to provide themselves with a historical identity - is able to utter the pronoun'!' and imbue the symbol with meaning. Devoid of memory, consciousness is impossible. One of the elementary prerequisites for the subject character of the human being, for the perception of the self as a distinctive and unique individual, is founded entirely in the human ability to remember.
This advantage can also take the form of a curse, however. A consciousness founded upon memories will never be able to forget with such innateness and purity as the animal is able to do. Nietzsche's conception of human envy toward the beasts of the field for their abilities to forget naturally implies a deeper point of resentment: that of their innocence. Without remembrance, there is no moral, and without moral, there is no guilt. According to Nietzsche, both animals and children have 'no past to deny', and are thus able to play 'between the boundaries of the past and the future in enraptured bliss and blindness'.4 'The blessing of forgetfulness that animals have been granted is equivalent to a welcome loss of consciousness. The herd animal that Nietzsche described is not capable of uttering 'I'. Saying 'I', however, is exactly what is expected of humans, once they have reached a certain age. Part of saying 'I' is being able to assert oneself before others, to withstand the gazes of others. That is not always a pleasurable experience. Viewed from this perspective, the inability of the animal to remember appears desirable, as it means freedom from compulsory self-assertion. Devoid of memory (and language), animals are not self-conscious subjects but merely individuals among many, among equals. Who among us has not experienced a situation in which one would do anything to be somebody else, to flee from self-assertion, to escape into a general role, to merge with the crowd instead of having to remain one and only one? It is the yearning never to say '1' again, but rather to simply say 'moo'.
The retreat into the animal form is also an escape from the subjective singleness with which we identify each other as humans, and into the plurality of homogeneously viewed animal individuals.
In her paintings from the Camouflage series, Cornelia Schleime has focused upon zoomorphic masking. The water-coloured drawings included in the series originated during the same period and expand upon the theme described with a new variation. Alongside the already familiar attributes, such as horns and sheep heads, some of the figures of girls and women now merge with amphibian creatures or with water itself.
Through their depiction of full-body figures, the drawings distinguish themselves formally from the half-body portraits that comprise the paintings. This very consciously employed compositional difference is also bound to the divergent pictorial content of the pieces. The paintings place great weight upon the playful confrontation with the beholder and implement a zoomorphic alienation effect with maximal directness. However, as the distance placed between the figure and beholder becomes greater in the drawings, and as more is revealed of the figure, the immediate emotional impact of the unsettling dialogue is decreased.
The figures are depicted against a neutral white background or in a pictorial space that is merely suggested through the presence of very few formal elements. The female figures crouch at the edges of a body of water, dip their feet in, wade knee-deep, find the courage with tentative groping gestures to begin swimming or have already immersed themselves with complete serenity into the new element. Their faces betray no sense of resentment or distress but also refuse to reveal any smiles. With serious but tranquil gazes, at times enraptured and lost in reverie, some of their eyes are beginning to close or have already done so. Their poses and gestures are concentrated and still. With the exception of a few retreating lines of text, silence pervades the scenes. Though a number of other faces appear in shadowy broken contours here and there, the women still keep to themselves. Wherever they have acquiesced to the tides, having entered the water entirely, their swimming is augmented into a weightless dance, in which majestically drifting turtles are the only partners. Most of the women are draped in lightly flowing dresses, which had already begun to Bow and swell around their bodies before they ever entered the water. The few nudes depicted express self-confidence and equanimity.
The women presented here are free from the gesture of expressed dissociation that prevails in the half-body portraits. They are content to be themselves and become harmoniously absorbed by their environment. The external world does not oppress them; in fact, it does not even interest them. Whenever their gaze meets ours, it does so with calm and sovereignty - at times somewhat melancholic, but never inquiring, provocative or even inviting. The desired distance has been achieved. Having now arrived in their own element, they have succeeded in wresting themselves from the power of our gazes and emancipating themselves from any obligation toward self-assertion.
1) John Berger, ‘Warum sehen wir Tiere an [Why look at Animals?], Das Leben der Blider oder die Kunst des Sehens (Berlin 1981), p.9.
2) Cf. Silvia Eiblmayr, Die Frau als Bild. Der weibliche Korper in der Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts (Berlin 1993), pp. 151ff
3) Quotation taken from: Friedrich Nietzsche, “On the Use and Abuse of History for Life.”, In: Great Literature Online, 1997-2010, Http://www.mostweb.cc/Classics/Nietzsche/abuse/ (14 April, 2010).
4) Ibid
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