The abject
I make art in order to understand the self. It is my way of bringing different life forces together, of combining the ordinary with the extraordinary, the normal with the abnormal, and the subject with its abject. I do this through schisms, contradictions, and at times confrontation. Other times I try to render grotesque, safe and familiar imageries. Through these combinations I am most interested in boundaries as they are the sites of awakenings, of transformations, of reaching higher selves.
So what is this powerful force called the abject really about? Historically,
Georges Bataille defines abjection as
”The inability to assume with sufficient strength the imperative act of
excluding abject things (and that act establishes the foundations of collective
existence).”1
His interest in heterogeneous elements constitutes a project to strip away ideological
screens or veils, to expose the hypocrisies, which try to conceal and make palatable
a basically meaningless and squalid existence. As a result, Bataille considers
“the vilest, most discouraging and corrupted things in the world.”
Bataille has a great deal of distaste for the hypocrisy of exclusion and for
banning from view, processes which are very much part of life. He gives the
example of temples, which in times past were places of prayer and slaughter.
Now the two functions have become separated to such an extent as to become antithesis
to each other. It is as if “acts of purification” are taking place
with the sole purpose of rejecting the abject and to relegate it to the unseen.
According to Julia Kristeva , abjection is a state of crisis, of self-disgust
and disgust towards others. It is not so much the physically repulsive but that
which "disturbs identity, system, order" . It is something, which
simultaneously fascinates and repels, distresses and relieves. It does not exist
outside the self and yet it threatens it. It is that which has emanated from
the person's sense of order be it biological, social or spiritual. Abjection
is not only the individual's relationship to the more acknowledged forms such
as vomit, shit, and the corpse, it is a whole set of systems that nurture that
relationship. In religion for example, it manifests itself as taboo or sin,
and in a social and legal framework it is not unlike corruption. Therefore to
be in a state of abjection is to merge the Other, that which is outside the
self, with the self. It is truly an intolerable state of being. It signifies
an apocalyptic spiralling of the unconscious while being conscious. It is seeing
unforetold death moments before dying. Kristeva describes the abject thus:
“We may call it border; abjection is above all ambiguity. Because while
releasing a hold, it does not radically cut off the subject from what threatens
it – on the contrary, abjection acknowledges it to be in perpetual danger.”
2
The all-encompassing world of abjection does fill me with a simultaneous sense of horror and peace. The knowledge that I can never contain the abject and that it is within me fuels my search for it. It is, as Elizabeth Grosz expresses it “the impossible desire to transcend corporeality” 3. In fact, it is this search, which I yearn for and which constitutes my artistic process. As Kristeva says:
“When one is in a state of abjection, the borders between the object and
the subject cannot be maintained” 2
©2001 Mireille Astore
1. Bataille, Georges. “L’Abjection et les formes misérables” in Essais de sociologie, Oeuvres complètes. Gallimard, Paris.1970, vol 2.
2. Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror. Columbia University Press, New York 1982.
3. Grosz, Elizabeth. Sexual Subversions. Allen & Unwin, Sydney. 1989.