The Marble Lady, Marble Woman, The Notorious Marble Lady, My Marble Lady, Lady Known as Marble, the So-Called Marble Lady, etc.Reviewed by Yustas Kotz-Gottlieb
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The official Paul Jaisini art site
I emailed my essay called "Marble Lady" on Paul Jaisini's oil painting with the same title in frequency of 500-1000 emails a day with a limited impact in consideration to the vast amount of Internet subscribers. What I have found was an unprecedented response from the recipients, the readers who were intrigued and even entrapped by this sort of a psychological game , trying to decipher the meaning of the message, it's content, how it relates to them personally, who is the messenger, why was it sent to them and why they were targeted to such atypical advertisement. I did not expect such amount of feedback, which kept me busy for months. It also was a degree of obligation to continue as the action had caught public's interest. This art mission grew into a sort of conceptual art when I am describing an oil painting authored by Jaisini without providing any visual information. It seems to me that this was one of the reasons for creation of fancy about the given art work that was named by readers in many special ways as The Marble Lady, Marble Woman, The Notorious Marble Lady, My marble lady, lady Known as Marble, the so-called marble lady, Marble Statue and so forth. It is some sort of phenomenon of the essay hitting unexpectedly PC users, as some preserved, sacred message, which is not revealed but represented as an idea and mysterious message from 'above'. I didn't intend to engage in conceptual art activity, but it happened without my insinuation. People had started the dialogue that can only be called interaction. I was asked for explanation. A work of art normally behaves as if it's a visual statement. This is a sculpture of Thinker by Rodin or this is a portrait of Mona Lisa. The viewer may ask, who was this Mona Lisa and why did she become so precious. But these questions follow on from an acceptance of the visual object. In my case, there was no visual object offered for review, but an essay as ipso facto. And the visualization was up to the reader. I offered the description as representation, which seems a tautology and the chain of description was further elaborated by each reader in his degree of potential and "Marble lady" was "Marble lady" was "marble lady" ed infinitum. The response could also be believed as nervous breakdown characteristic of contemporary people who have lost faith in any offered commodity, nor in art claimed to be, neither in social institution. The connection of image with effective action on viewers is disturbed. People seem to prefer a legend. The formalistic presentation can no longer explain life in our rapidly changing world. To the opposite of a true conceptual art which was a violent reaction against modernist notions of progress, this new action was populist and not against an art object status, but for creation of an aura of legend and good reception. This action thus is purely aesthetic without discrimination of the recipients. I have received responses ranging from teen-agers to retired journalists. The romantic, poetic message reached throughout the cyber space with little effort in professionalism of presentation, but with a strong power of personal correspondence. The reader can find in the essay the artistic representation with no political or apolitical aspiration. The conceptuality of this action is even more paradoxical as in respects of certain degree of privacy's intrusion. With emailing art essay I was trying to impose art on non-wanting receptors unlike the denial of Conceptual art and it's opposition towards art tradition. The reception of the message "Marble Lady" turned to be the best. It may be the method of this everyday nature that prefigured good reception of the one who got the mail in the box. If he would read some art essay in a snobby art magazine written with the same artsy words, it would not reach him. Instead of usual commercial offers the Internet user receives the poetic message that he'd love to think has come from some one he knows personally, or a secret admirer. The expectation here is exaggerated and he thinks more of the essay than it is realistically. He sees it through the rosy glasses of sensual willingness. This may be the highest point of a fusing the life of the home, office, classroom, (main places of the human life's course) with the hermetic life of the art studio, by the help of informative mediator. The essay sneaked onto the recipient without any commercial tyranny as personal letter. The reader chooses to open and read it. The reason of course is the title "Marble Lady".. Naming the essay with the painting's title "Marble Lady" I tried to put the painting at the service of the mind. Duchamp rejected no painting per se, but stupid painting. I found a chance for critical research in works of Paul Jaisini, which allow me to think in words and images. Jaisini's paintings are smart enough to teach, to reconstruct the mind and start up a new art concept. The written essay cannot substitute the visual image and by no definition can be called an independent work of art, but its art's aura . It didn't intend to create a debate, but ultimately the debate, the aura is important in the pleasurable straight reception of visual art work by people.
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Text Copyright © New York, 2001 by Yustas Kotz-Gottlieb
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