Mer Montée

... sombre, hostile, cold, severe, frigid, ashen, shadowy, emotional, tumultuous, terrifying ... 

In my previous post I remembered my first real contact with the void. It happened in a large room with the walls painted stark white at La Biennale di Venezia in 2013. There were other people in the room but there was no one at the same time. I noticed the paintings, their overpowering presence and all I wanted was to be left alone with them, to really feel them. Is there silence in this vast watery expanse? Or is it filled with water roaring, soaring, clashing, foaming ... Dark grey blue against grey overcast sky pressing down. The electric air smells of salt. Its cold feels sharp against my cheeks, the salt stings my lips. I seem to sway with it I feel my fingers clutching non-existent iron railing of a ship I'm not standing on. My bare hands stick to the freezing metal. The wind throws water at me, inviting me in, into its bluish greyness, soaking my clothes, reaching my skin.

... overcast, grey, blue, overpowering, vast, unimaginable ...

There's nothing there, just water rolling around. Behind the horizon there's more water, grey and frigid. There's no land, not because it would be horribly far, but because it doesn't exist at all. It simply isn't there. It's nowhere. There's still a full void like in Koninck's landscape and Klein's blue expanses, just in a different, far more frightening way. There's nothing frightening in Koninck's painting apart from the things we imagine. In de Cordier's seascape there is, because it was there before we imagined it.

... deep, empty, void ...

This seascape is the Void, full of things we cannot even imagine, we don't know what they actually are and if they are there in the first place. What if nothing is there ... but then again, what if everything is there liberated of the images and words that stand for them. Like intangible wisps of frigid air we can only feel.

... void ...

Then I notice writing on some of the paintings. Soft spidery white handwriting, words written in copperplate hand, so unbelievably human ...

Thierry De Cordier, Mer Montée, 2011, oil, enamel and Chinese ink on canvas / olje, emajl in tuš na platnu, 170 × 270 cm, via/vir

*

... resnobno, sovražno, hladno, ostro, ledeno, pepelnato, zasenčeno, pretresljivo, zastrašujoče ...

Zadnjič sem se spomnila mojega prvega resničnega stika s praznino. Zgodilo se je v veliki sobi z belo prepleskanimi stenami v razstavišču Beneškega bienala leta 2013. Tudi drugi ljudje so bili tam, vendar kot da jih hkrati ne bi bilo. Mojo pozornost so prevzele slike, velika platna, ki so obvladovala prostor. Želela sem si, da ne bi bilo nikogar, da bi bila v sobi sama z njimi, da bi jih lahko resnično začutila. Kaj je v tistih vodnih prostranstvi? Je tišina ali oglušujoč hrup vode, ki valuje, se vzpenja, peni, zaletava sama vase ... Temna modro siva na neskončnem sivem nizkem nebu, ki pritiska navzdol. Naelektren zrak diši po soli. Mraz ostro čutim na licih, sol mi razžira ustnice. Zdi se mi, da se majem v ritmu z vodo, pod prsti čutim ledeno neobstoječo kovinsko ograjo ladje na kateri ne stojim. Veter meče vodo vame, vabi me vanjo, v modrikasto sivino, ki mi moči oblačila do kože, do moje notranjosti.

... oblačno, sivo, modro, široko, nepredstavljivo ...

Nič ni tam, samo voda, ki se vali do obzorja. Za obzorjem je še več vode, sive in ledene. Ni kopna, pa ne zato, ker bi bilo nepredstavljivo daleč, ampak zato, ker sploh ne obstaja. Preprosto ga ni. Nikjer. Še vedno je polna praznina kot v Koninckovi krajini ali Kleinovih modrih površinah, le da je drugačna, veliko bolj zastrašujoča. V Koninckovi sliki ni nič zastrašujočega razen tistega, kar si sami predstavljamo. V de Cordierjevem morju je, saj je bilo tam še preden smo si kar koli predstavljali.

... globoko, prazno ...

To morje je velika praznina, polna stvari, ki si jih ne moremo niti predstavljati, saj ne vemo kaj dejansko so, niti ne vemo ali so sploh tam. Kaj če ničesar ni ... kaj pa, če je vse tam, osvobojeno podob in besed, ki jih zaznamujejo. Kot neoprijemljivi piš ledenega zraka, ki ga lahko čutimo samo z notranjostjo.

... praznina ...

Potem na nekaterih slikah opazim pisavo. Mehak pajčevinast rokopis, besede izpisane v copperplatu, tako nepredstavljivo človeške ...