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The Late 1980's Galleries / The Living Meridian
note: The late eighties were very productive years for Gerard: in order to accommodate the numbers of works we have divided this aspect of the gallery into several sections, of which this gallery is just one section. To see all the works of eighties "please click here"
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| Q:
What is the soul?
A: The soul is a living being without a body, having reason and free will. Rene Descartes Q:
Why am I? A: I just am therefore I am! I think. Gerard Pas |
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| The
nature of Gerard's work since 1986, beginning with the "Red
- Blue Works", provided a critical analysis on various
idealistic historical trends within architecture, design and art. These
works served as a polemic to current trends in post modernism, which has
accepted many of these aesthetic theories, seemingly without question.
Those Red-Blue Works inspired him to carry this critical analysis further
and address the same basic tenets within the framework of physiology and
modern science.
These
two sculptural works, deal with medicine and science and its often alienating
effect on the very source which it seeks to effect: humankind and the
body. The basis of these new works is one in antithesis to the scientific
dominance of "The Critical Historical Method" of Rene Descartes,
a prominent seventeenth century French philosopher and mathematician.
Today his protagonists, such as Nobel laureate Francis Crick, argues in
his book 'The Astonishing Hypothesis': "You, your joys and your sorrows,
your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and
free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of
nerve cells and their associated molecules..."
While Descartes can be forgiven his intrinsic dualism between "body and spirit": he simply inherited this problem from an Aristotelian world-view developed by Plato and the Greeks. Modern science cannot be so easily absolved of it's myopia on this matter. Descartes at least recognized that humans had a 'soul' and spent much of his own time arguing it. To Descartes humans where not just biological (material) machines but much, much more - they possessed rational souls. Regrettably, like Crick, Descartes also failed when he tried to give credence to his dualism, by actually trying to locate the soul as a gland in the human body. With these works Gerard argues that sciences description of the body or the soul is not satisfactory. Not unlike Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Gerard felt that in order for science to understand the soul it first had to scrutinize it, even unto death - through dissection. Consider the frog on the lily pad. It spends it's days hoping around catching flies and doing the things frogs do. In order to completely understand this frog, or to further see if it has a soul, science instructs us to measure. In killing the frog to investigate its weight or locate it's soul, we have paradoxically killed the very thing which we had hoped to discover. A dead frog is no longer a frog just a clump of muscle and sinew and so then to it no longer has a soul and neither do we. Soul and Spirit are immeasurable. Neither can we measure Love but when you have it you know it's true. This above point becomes of critical importance to Gerard as it should to us all: as herein lays the basic philosophical presupposition which drives all human endeavours. If Crick and his contemporaries are right then so is Jean Paul Sartre in his presupposition that the Universe is truly Absurd. All art is then vanity, life or death have no true value, pain is meaningless, love and compassion reduced to nothing more than "...a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules..." as Crick so sadly describes it. To paraphrase Paul of Tarsus "Let us then eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we will die!" According to Gerard "If you want proof of the human soul: visit a museum and look at the art of the centuries, visit a theatre, read poetry - such a William Blake or look into the eyes of those you love! All of humankind's accomplishments, including science, are a testimony to the soul - just as the wind gives evidence to the air we breathe. I don't think therefore I am - I just am, therefore I am." Ironically, these sculptural works themselves become a sort of 'Cartesian' illustration to the centres of pain, similar to the classic Cartesian illustration of the 'Man of Sorrows'. They serve a dialectical role between the scientific presupposition known as "The critical Historical Method" and Gerard's own existential experience of spending years under the scrutiny of the microscope / scalpel and the doctors of modern medicine as a handicapped individual. By using the artistic vocabulary he established with his Red-Blue Works, an intrinsic dualism results: between empirical reality and the spiritual world which we cannot measure. These works are quite simply based on an understanding and visualization of various forms of medicine; i.e. contemporary surgical intervention, traditional oriental, holistic, tribal ritual, shamanistic healing, etc. The works are meant to be a positive interpretation of the 'healing arts', reflected through the sculptural presence of the human body and its very life force. The underlying strength in these works is his deconstruction and reconstruction of the human body. The Living Meridians 1 & 2 are a frontal and side view of the human figure, illustrating all of the acupuncture points and acupuncture meridians in the human body. These figures with their meridians reflect the classical form of both uni-cursal (spiral) and multi-cursal labyrinths, combining mystical concepts of the body within the maze of science. On a rudimentary level, the work could also be interpreted as de constructed 'body painting', modeled after primitive / aboriginal body decorations. "It was not my intention to isolate / detach and thus estrange various aspects of the human body in these three dimensional works. To the contrary, my aim was to look at body in its entirety and to petition science to look both at the material world with an understanding of the spiritual one." This has particular importance today when medical ethics in the use of cloning, eugenics, euthanasia, etc. are so much an unresolved concern in our modern world. "The purpose of this body of work was to present a simple polemical dialogue to our current perspective of looking at the human body, the healing aspects of modern science and spirituality." These two works would become the source of inspiration for Gerard's later work of the early and "mid-nineties". Other
points of interest relating to these works:
These
works are discussed in brief by Gerard in the following Catalogue and
can be read here at www.gerardpas.com
"Gerard Pas: The Modular Ambulant", by Dr. Graham Birtwistle Ph.D. Center Art Gallery, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Mich., U.S.A. 1991. The
image of the The Living Meridian 1 was used extensively as a poster
for AIDS awareness throughout the world.
These
works were represented in the following book which is still available
through University of Toronto Press:
"Fluid Exchanges: Artists and Critics in the AIDS Crisis" Edited by James Miller, University of Toronto Press, Toronto / Buffalo / London. 1992. ISBN 0-8020-5892-2, 0-8020-6824-3pbk. (Contributors to this volume: Barry D. Adam, Univ. of Windsor; Bart Beaty, Carleton Univ.; Monique Brunet-Weinmann, Univ. de Montreal; Clarence Crossman, AIDS Committee of London; Monika Gagnon, writer and critic; John Gordon, activist; John Greyson, video/film artist; Jan Zita Grover, editor; Daniel Harris, writer; David Kinahan, Univ. of Western Ontario; Arthur Kroker, Concordia Univ, Montreal; James Miller, Univ. of Western Ontario; Jeff O'Malley, writer; Brian Patton, Univ. of Western Ontario; Dahlia Reich, reporter; Margaret A. Somerville, McGill Univ.; Simon Watney, National AIDS Manual; Thomas Waugh, Concordia Univ.; David White, Univ. of Western Ontario). In
addition, they were included in the following exhibition which was curated
by the editor of the above book Dr. James Miller PhD
"The Body and Society" at the Embassy Cultural House; London, Canada. 1988. The Exhibitions was organized for "AIDS and the Arts The Second Frontiers of Humanities Seminar", Faculty of Arts, The University of Western Ontario and the Conference "Representing AIDS: Crisis and Criticism", London, Canada. (Other artists involved with this exhibition where: Stephen Andrews, John Brown, Sheila Butler, Wendy Coad, Greg Curnoe, Susan Day, Andy Fabo, Leon Golub, Gerard Pas, Ed Pien, Mary Scott, Nancy Sperro.) Gerard
lectured and discussed these works at The University of New Brunswick,
Fredericton, NB, Canada. An article and discussion of this event and
Gerard's work has since been published in the following book:
“Sights of Resistance” by Dr. Robert James Belton PhD, The University of Calgary Press. 2001. ISBN 1552380114 hardcover with CD-ROM |
* Note: "I am not a proponent of acupuncture medicine per say: nor have I ever had acupuncture. I simply believe that the oriental perspective of looking at the whole human condition is a healthy one. I also believe that it belongs in our arsenal together with traditional western medicine towards finding good health. The above sculptures are as much an investigation of the complexities of the human body as they are a statement about acupuncture." Gerard Pas - Visit the American Academy of Medical Acupuncture
Each meridian corresponds
with the main organs of the
body. The meridian system
of healing is used in herbal
therapies, massage,
acupuncture, and Shiatsu.- Visit the British Medical Acupuncture Society - Read more about acupuncture at acupuncture.com - Read more about Meridian - Qi pathways at about.com - Read more about Meridian Theory - Learn more about Rene Descartes - Learn about Francis Crick at the Nobel Prize web site - Learn more about Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Learn more about Jean Paul Sartre - Learn about G.W.F. Hegel just because he's GP's fav. - See Gerard's other work relating to similar issues
