Transgression and transcendence

“What urges me to write, I think, is the fear of going mad” (Bataille).

When we look at both these concepts together, the names of writers like Genet and Bataille spring to mind. Bataille thought of transcendence as an act of leaving behind the virtues and calculations of self-preservation (Safranski). He explored the borderline of ethics, violence and physicality – pushing it as far as he could and, in doing so, assuming the excruciating confrontation with the blind spot left behind by an absent God (Bousset). Sartre depicted him as an inconsolable widower of God trying to make up for the loss through the cult of laughter. It is true: Bataille did write about an absent God, often in nostalgic overtones. That is why the question of whether he is to be regarded as a novelist or a philosopher relevant to literary critics even today. In my view, this question is, a priori, incompatible with Bataille's historical and intellectual environment, viz. the pluralism of the so-called post- modernists. It is precisely this dichotomy, this split, which is important, in that it can lay bare our incapacity to give an accurate and unambiguous account of anything, be it orally or in writing. According to Bataille, the urge to describe all and everything is what makes philosophy philosophy – as is the urge to cover everything with thought (a classic example is Hegel). It is an attitude that incorporates everything into a well-wrought system supposed eventually to offer an all-encompassing view.

However, at this point, philosophy hits its own limits, itself revealing the impossibility of its project.
Philosophy itself brings on an anti-philosophy, deconstructs itself, assuming its system had left nothing out while failing to account for that which is outside. The observer invariably looks from the outside to what can be encompassed and comprehended. Invariably, thinking is incomplete and uncompleted. And the same can be said of visual works, forever bound to the status of a promise. (It is the self- deconstruction of the generally established idea of transgression that I hope to put forward here.)
Any borderline offers two perspectives that are mutually exclusive in time. The illusion of omniscience sooner or later hits a new enigma, exposing the impotence of an unambiguous, delineated and demarcated system. The „other? (Levinas, Derrida) always plays a role and will always retain its unique otherness.
'Reality' is characterized by artificiality. It exists by the grace of what is left out, by the 'other', which does not correspond and cannot be reduced to the 'same' (cf. Levinas? idea of the tyranny of the same.)

“Transgression is an act concerning the limit; it crosses this thin dividing line in a flash, but perhaps this is, at once, its entire course and even its origin” (Michel Foucault, italics added).

Defined as 'going beyond a standard', transgression suggests its close relationship with acts of 'taboo'. Through their regulating nature, taboos delimit and hence confine identity, while identity – a doubtful term in its own right – can exist only by the grace of what is excluded.
The object of the taboo, however, is alluring and even linked to the idea of power. The power enshrined in violating tabooed objects is a recurrent theme in mythologies and urban legends. Indeed, violating a taboo can be regarded as an act that determines identity. The violation is associated with symbiotic feelings of fear and power. This is what makes transgression alluring, while the emptiness that follows in the wake of the transgressive move nourishes desire. In other words, through its identificatory move, transgression brings on a paradox in that it helps to create identity.

The paradox of transgression

Transgression is conceived of as the act of cracking dichotomies and dualisms. Once crossed, the line of division must necessarily cease to exist, vanishing as it is left behind. The object of taboo loses its sense of marginality and comes to form a part of the general consensus of the sens commun.

Eventually, this destruction might result in the self-destruction of transgression. Not only would transgression enter the reality of those that alreay consider it a proper subject of debate, it would also fit in snugly with the sens commun. It could well be that every transgressive move confirms the Law.

In our escape attempts, we always try to find an idiom different from the language we choose to deny. This necessarily results in a new demarcation and delimitation of our own discovery. According to Derrida, even Artaud fell victim to this. All languages center on conventions and are eventually included in the 'general order of things'.
(Bataille was not blind to this, and Derrida wrote about it as well.)
The question arises whether there are any limits left for transgression to retain its raison d'être and relevance. Could it be that, over time, transgression will bring about its own dissolution? Maybe we can take an alternative view of transgression by looking at it from the perspective of the philosophy of difference. In doing so, we bring on deconstruction.

Transgression and deconstruction

The transgressive move is not very different from deconstruction if we assume that transgression inhabits the differentiating move and, just like the latter's inherent acts of suspending, displacing, separating etc., also reveals the impossibility of a univocal identity and a centered premise. However, if we were to intend to 'employ' transgression as some sort of means, accommodating it under a teleological heading, we would be facing the problem that any transgressive move is invariably followed by regression. Since such an approach starts from oppositional thinking, it must necessarily lead back to some kind of opposition. The transgressive act, as a figure of speech, aims to break through the line of opposition, so that it always starts from an opposition. In other words, not only does it bring about the destruction of the rule – as referred to above – and hence that of itself as well (as an opposition to the rule; it makes itself superfluous, as it were). It also takes a dualistic approach, existing, as a figure of speech, within a dualistic worldview.
It should have become clear by now that the transgressive move represents an instance of self-transgression – much like the deconstructive move is a kind of self-deconstruction – and that it should not be used or employed. Any 'use' would by definition involve a point of departure that is denied a priori by the transgression. The transgressive move and the transgression as a figure of speech are incommensurable. (The same problem emerges in theories on deconstruction.)

Deconstruction makes clear that it is impossible to use univocal terms and meanings. Transgression does more or less the same thing. Both of them act on this text. Nothing is saved. Not even this.

Transgression shows us the limit by showing it its origin. It is only through its rupturing move that transgression gives clear form to the limit. In this sense, the limit does not exist outside the instant it deletes everything as well as itself. The moment the limit is given form, coincides with the moment of its disappearance. As said, the same applies to transgression. Their 'relationship' is not merely dualistic; it is not a matter of inside and outside or black and white. Transgression – just like deconstruction – comes from within.

In his Kritik der Praktische Vernunft, Kant upholds that a moral law can only be a law if it can be violated. A moral duty presupposes freedom. This points to the relationship between limit and transgression: the limit is capable of being visualized through transgression while transgression finds its raison d'être through the invitation it is tendered by the limit.
Transgression cannot exist but in the presence of a limit. For a limit to exist, it must admit transgression.

PORTAL

Jørund Aase Falkenberg

Exhibition Period March 6th - March 14th 2010

Can the awareness of emptiness function as a catalyst for meaning?

UKS is glad to present Jørund Aase Falkenberg’s Portal. A Portal allows you to enter a space that is physically apart from where one was before entering. Or it can lead to a new mental space; new knowledge, changed outlook, altered awareness, a new ideological, political or ethical platform.

Portal questions the secular post-modern culture and its consensus about the all encompassing relativism. Where is the ground? Humanism seems to be a paradox, a ship about to sink. A solution implies a transcendence of all earlier cultural steps in the history of humans.

During the exhibition Jørund Aase Falkenberg will perform an intervention in the UKS kitchen and there will be fresh, fantastic and healthy vegan food cooked, meaning food containing no animal products.

About the artist:

Jørund Aase (born 1978) Lives and works in Stavanger (NO). He received his MA in 2008 from the Academy in Oslo and has participated in several groupshows; Reconfigure, The Drawing Room, Tannery Arts, London and Inngang 09, Rogaland Kunstsenter, Stavanger.

About Veganism:

Veganism is a lifestyle, which oppose all oppression of humans and non-human animals. It looks at the practice of using animals and depriving them of their freedom and life, as a result of an ethical inconsistency. The oppression of animals, being generally accepted in society, is due to a ”them and us”-thinking, a form of racism towards animals – speciesism.

Veganism represents a break with tradition, of a disparaging attitude towards animals. But it also represents a continuation and fulfilment of fundamental ethical values in our culture.

STRAIGHTEN UP

Curated by Linus Elmes

Exhibition period: January 22nd – February 14th 2010

This is an exhibition that stretches outside the room and far into time. Everything displayed in it in some way treats, reflects and touches UKS. Vi have emptied our cupboards, searched the archives, and opened many a dusty drawer. This is not a chronological account and we make no claims to objectivity. Rather, our subjectivity has led the way and what we choose to display is primarily of personal relevance. The goal has been to clean up, put in order, and move on. So what really happened? And, perhaps most importantly, what will happen now?

It began in 1921; the Russian Revolution and World War I had just taken place, the Red Army attacked Kronstadt in order to subdue an anarchist uprising. Cubism was already old hat on the continent and Dadaism celebrated its triumphs internationally. UKS was an embryo in need of constant care. Like every newborn being, UKS must in this tender condition have been plastic, malleable, and under the influence of its time and surroundings.

Ulrik Hendriksen, a Danish-born painter who later in life would receive the Order of St. Olav, and Charles W. Strøm, who had been a student of Christian Krogh, were part of the circle that founded UKS in 1921. Under the care of these founders the earliest emotional impressions were regulated, and an identity began to take shape.

Not much has been documented or written about these early childhood years. UKS has always been concise in regard to its agenda, there have never been any manifestos and in principle, its brief rules and regulations have remained the same for ninety years. The overall claim has been that UKS works to secure the rights of young artists, artistically as well as socially. This claim was initially put into practice through radical self-organization, in reaction to social and economical needs.

In the early years, UKS was an exchange central where members of the organization could trade their works for goods and services. Among those who took the most advantage of this arrangement were, according to the anecdotes, Olso’s dentists. Additionally, there was originally a bank with the purpose of providing advantageous loans to members, primarily to cover their production costs but also to assist more generally in difficult financial circumstances. (The bank eventually collapsed with an empty purse, but in the 1960s a dutiful steering committee took charge of business and began to collect old debts. Once again, art was accepted as payment.)

Despite the relative lack of clear statements, UKS was thus from the get-go characterized by a pragmatic radicalism. Although they were taciturn in nature compared to the European political avant-garde, these ventures were – even in an international perspective – tremendously progressive. A crucial standpoint was the definition of the goods exchange central as an exhibition space. Considered from a developmental perspective, this phenomenon consists of representations of generalized interactions. Thus, although initially there was no struggle for the recognition of new artistic expression, the struggle for recognition of new means of institutional organization was indeed present.

Taken together, these aspects make UKS a willful, enterprising maverick, which, while geographically cut-off and to a certain extent isolated, has earned respect and recognition. However, this is more for its late accomplishments in regard to the recognition of contemporary artistic expressions, than for its truly land-breaking achievements in the 1920s in areas such as artistic self-organization and alternative economies. The social unity that was created there and then remains as a strong identity with traces of a latent anarchism, expressed through the energy channeled in political actions, such as Kjartan Slettermark’s project in Rådhusplassen in 1965, or in the circle surrounding “Kunstnersaksjon-74”. Actions like refusing membership to members of racist organizations, or the proposal to boycott the state of Israel, provide evidence of the same political consciousness.

A child with self-preservation and survival instincts, frequently positioning itself in opposition to the social status quo and fighting for its rights, UKS has often needed space to breathe. Many older artists have emphasized how important UKS has been for them personally and for Norwegian art more generally. At the same time, these accounts tend to focus more on the partying, drinking, fucking and drugs, than on what was actually exhibited. The weight of social life shouldn’t be underestimated, and sometimes alcohol provides the most warmth.

Today, the landscape has changed, and UKS has an entirely unique position. We are one of the most important platforms for Norwegian artists today, and simultaneously one of the largest professional organizations for this same group. Every person involved in UKS today plays an important role in the Norwegian art scene. We produce and procure art, we teach, lecture, and write about art. UKS has grown strong and attained influence and freedom of action, as well as power. Shaped and marked by its complex history, the contours of a fully-grown individual become discernible.

As an adult, with adult responsibilities, UKS has the prerequisites to act independently and without resistance. This new platform demands neither oppositional behaviour nor action in relation to something else. UKS no longer needs to refer to or reflect the world; we can lead a movement and create our own world with our own conditions. UKS shall look inward, to its own independence and individual needs, and shall realize its own dreams. UKS has an amazing brain that can think amazing thoughts. We can breathe and handle our stress hormones, we don’t need to hyper-react in opposition, nor enter into polemics.

To continue along the metaphors of developmental psychology, we would like to share a few decisive examples of how UKS’s actions today arise out of unconditional love, and build sustainable relations:

We have established and shall administer a trial period with full state support for an artist-run gallery. This is a globally unique experiment, which, if it turns out well, will expand and continue to grow in the long term. At the same time, we continue to assist with exhibition production and to look for new models for collaboration. We push and negotiate the limits and possibilities of arts production, within and outside the institution. We pay proper exhibition fees to the artists with whom we work, with the goal of establishing a norm.

Furthermore, we have initiated a pragmatic direction in terms of space, and we are handling our current situation through some important structural changes. Together with designers and architects we have thought into the future and have satisfied some concrete needs for our continued development. We are creating a user friendly and social environment that will function as an interface to the world. We won’t settle for opening night crowds, but want to meet our audience with greater continuity. We have built a library in which reference literature as well as monographs, catalogues and periodicals are made available. We also have a new reception, seating areas, and a kitchen facing the library, with proper capacity.

Starting from the function that the goods exchange central used to fill, we have initiated a regenerated version, where artists have access to the kitchen for cooking. Apart from food, the new exchange consists of knowledge and experience generated through informal meetings between practitioners and their audience. This is how we want things to work, unconditionally and dynamically, with space for experiments and new thoughts.

The answer to the question of what will happen now lies open before us; all the ingredients are here, our knives are sharpened, and our burners are hot and ready.

Linus Elmes