Growth in Progress

-Between Oblivion and Memory: a way for the Future-

Dialogue between culture, Indian culture and psychoanalysis, starting from W.Bion

By Luca Caldironi

Salomon saith, There is no new thing
upon the earth. So that as Plato had an imagination,
that all knowledge was but remembrance; so Salomon
giveth his sentence, that all novelty is but oblivion.
Francis Bacon, Essays, LVIII (from J.L. Borges, The Aleph)

"I think it may be erroneous to assume that because there is a past that seems to bear a certain resemblance to the present, the present therefore bears a resemblance to the future, which can be described in terms of the past. I can perfectly well see that there may be a crisis of development in which the human being is absolutely terrified by the fact that the future is unknown, cannot be known by himself at the present time, and may only be known to certain people, described in terms of 'genius' or 'mystic', who have a peculiar relationship with reality."

(W.Bion, Cogitations, 1992)

Our intention, with this work, is to accept Bion's invitation, when he urges us to transform, a spur towards wisdom which is not, and cannot be, limited just to intelligence. Furthermore, we believe this commitment to be "urgent" and that it should arouse our own sense of accountability. As a matter of fact, there is a distance between the (easy) cognitive, fascinating technique-derived solutions and the difficult and painful ones of the inner growth. Thus, it becomes more important to be enigma-oriented, rather than solution-oriented, letting a state of suspension of judgment, of waiting prevail, with the ensuing development of a constantly open thought. The vision, like the issue we are trying to bring forward, proceeds from different points, trying to find a margin, by way of a strategic deviation. Fostering the emergence of the unthought-of, by way of a deviation, a retreat, to bring the different perspectives back into play.

We consider psychoanalysis as a cognitive practice that, born as the study of individuals' minds, has then always demonstrated to be a useful ariadne's thread="" in relation to the possibility of exploring ever new labyrinths of the mind, involving heterogeneous fields of knowledge, different places and cultures.

We will see how these ideas have become a common heritage, both of the different scientific and cultural areas, and the artistic languages and how psychoanalysis too can treat them and which language it can use. On this point, we know the extent to which cut crosswise through these different fields of knowledge.

Getting inspiration from the conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner (Biennale of Contemporary Art, Venice 2007): "Matter so shaken to its core to lead to a change in inherent form", let us consider the extent to which we too feel, during the analytic work "so shaken". Pushed to a transforming process involving our deepest parts, the "core", something not involving just the "form", but the "sub-stantia" itself.

To explore these contents, we used the communication resources offered by the "myth". As a matter of fact, from Bion (1963), we know that: "the myth may be regarded as a primitive form of pre-conception and a stage in publication, that is, in communication of the individual's private knowledge to his group". The myth, an actual "collective transitional object" is to be found at the intersection between individual reality and the collective and social one, hence the great importance that this has for the investigation and the experience of the psychic life.

On this point, what seemed particularly useful to us is the comparison between the mythical perspective, that is present in Indian culture, with the 'ontogenetic' one offered by psychoanalysis. So, assessing the extent to which this relationship fosters a multi-perspective stare, a multi-dimensional thought, that is what, at first, makes this world look apparently 'confusive' to us westerners, forcing us to face the faultiness of our categorizations.

In particular, we used a cosmogonic myth of the Rig- Veda[1], (a sort of emotional ideogram of the thought theory), to get closer to the questions: How to think about the thought? and How to think the thought? Proceeding in an asymptotic way, through the themes of the origin, the thought and its transformations within the relation existing between and .

1-Then was not non-existent nor existent: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it. What covered in, and where? And what gave shelter? Was water there, unfathomed depth of water? [2-3-4-5…]

6-Who verily knows and who can here declare it, whence it was born and whence comes this creation? The Gods are later than this world's production. Who knows then whence it first came into being? 7- He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it, Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not.

(Book X, Hymn CXXIX, Rig-Veda)

Referring to this as to the experience of the 'without shape', the 'without limit', the 'without order', the 'non-defined', of the transitory and as Corrao (1990) reminds us, relating it to the psychoanalytic experience [too]: "The free association, revealing a consistent theme, is already influenced by the anxiety and so the consistency of ideas can be considered as a defense organization. At times, the patient needs the analyst to notice the lack of meaning, typical of 'a peaceful mental state' without communicating it, that is, without the need to organize such lack of meaning. The organization of the non-meaning is an exception, just like the organized cosmos is a denial of chaos. (…) It is only here, in this unintegrated state of the personality, that what we call creative, cognitive, can appear. When the creative, the inventive, can be mirrored and only if it can be mirrored, it can become part of an identified, organized personality…".

In the analytic couple, all this is translated into the possibility to let oneself be surprised, to tolerate the frustration and the fear to be destroyed by an internal implosion, to be crushed or fall to pieces. Thus, it becomes more and more important to develop a containing and transforming area. A true transitional area to contain turbulences, fears and the "fears without a name". The latter, little by little, through the narrative process, can be symbolized and named; shifting from the state of anxiety existing in the relationship between "thing" and "nothing", to its evolutionary declension in the relationship between "thing" and "no-thing".

Actually, there is a difference between fostering the increase of defenses ("a help to be stronger", "coming off well!"), and the possibility to "let oneself go", despite the terror, to be able to "get in the situation" more and more and in the fact of listening to oneself and one's own fears.

These aspects will be exemplified by way of the clinical situation offered by P., a young patient who came to see us because of a deep discomfort, hindering him in his affective relationships.

We will see how, after a long initial period of the analysis, during which no dreams made their appearance, something broke and several dreams in a row came up. There is no intention of expatiating upon contents, which echoed old anxieties, but rather upon the fact that, as he himself observed, "the apnea had been shattered". The shouts and screams of his family of origin finally leave the field to the expression of his words, and the chains, which used to oppress him with the weight of things unseen and unsaid, take up new dimensions and characters. Little by little, he comes out of a sentence of circularity without a way out, to enter the experience of re-including his own story and unfolding it.

A. is the second clinical case: the trust in the surrender to the present and the emotional experience leads to the possibility of recovering the capacity to experience feelings and also to the physical experience. A. has started to "notice" and to realize how expressing her anger is translated into a stronger tonicity, into an energy that is useful to her.

She acknowledged, by way of the feelings she experienced, the extent to which a primary affective need affects her, internally, where the mother-father is still a united whole, where the of a presence, even painful, involves her world before the words. Together we can observe the way in which our work allowed her to feel both her "wailing", her "painful roots" and that sense of inevitable observation (a sort of biologic inheritance) of a structural, congenital unworthiness to be accepted.

In the third clinical case, N. appears to us like someone who has not experienced the body of the desire, the body of the fact of feeling thought as free and independent, free in his thoughts. He appears like someone who has experienced his body caged in someone else's thoughts. All along the analytic work, we will see how it is possible to both the risks of a 'break-up', as fragmentation of a unitary thought, and through those of 'break-down', as complete collapse.

In such a situation, the setting and its construction represented both the possibility of providing a and, together with the ongoing observation of the transference, of offering a support, a sort of , a frame, for the ever new tissues that were developing. Just like the spine is made up of small segments and caesurae, also our being together was experienced inside the fragmentation of time and space, in an analytic work that, from a has been able, gradually, to restore a sleep-dream-wake rhythm, without falling into pieces or in the anxiety of the void, a shift from an "exo-skeleton" to an "endo-skeleton". And so, by way of free associations and the analysis of the transference, subsequent caesurae follow one another and, in the analytic space-time, little by little outline better defined contours. He had always remained absorbed inside global relationships but now he can, through the transitive thought and transience as a structural aspect of the analytic condition, limit his falling into pieces and sinking into the "void", go through progressive organizations of the personality.

To conclude

Observing our field of clinical intervention, we can state that more and more often, as analysts, we work with patients for whom the analytic treatment is not "the" intervention method, but only "one" of those possible.

Starting from the presented clinical situations and our daily activity, we can state that there is nothing more "natural" than our emotional world and at the same time, there is nothing more than this that one defends against. Bringing closer together the world of emotions, thought and thinkability is the present challenge of the human being, to remain psychologically alive.

Also, and most of all, thanks to psychoanalysis we know the extent to which the idea itself of knowing soon leaves its natural component to shift and enter an exhausting work of continuous differences and choices that the subject of knowledge must actively operate.

In the "container-content" dialogue, concerning both the different aspects of the personality and the turbulences between calcified or insuperable gaps, to which emotions that take on words such as birth, adolescence, latency, marriage, death are associated with, we find the thread of the topic, the language of possibility. A language bearing the burden of thinking, that through thought, penetrates the of the φρέν, mind-emotion-soma.

(Venice, 21.01.09)

Luca Caldironi

Interview

Art's Oracle Of Change: Pietro Franesi Interviewed by Jane Bloomberg

You came to New York City in 2005 via Russia, Venice, Bologna and London. Quite an Artistic journey. What did you learn along the way?

My journey has been fruitful, enlightening and purposeful. Teaching me along the way that art must change, the artist must change and so too the market must change, but one thing remains constant if beauty is in the eye of the beholder so is art. I don't want to remember where I was born because I want to cut all the roots. Roots prevent mobility and knowledge of the truths of other people. Life has taught me that you must have strong values, in my case the family. You must also be nomadic and flexible. Your brain, your body, and your imagination don't like passports, nationalities. You must be ready to fly to the land of creative chaos, where many smaller truths are part of the larger truth. You must be open to new knowledge, and share kindness and understanding with everyone you meet on your journey. You have to harness the vivacity for life that children have, with their infinite creativity, in which material and immaterial are not separate but accomplices in the creative process. New York is a magical city, where you can really feel the energy of change. It is the capital of the clandestine, the illegal, the people of a new world with no passport; they are citizens of the planet. These people are New York; their energy is the lifeblood of the town. Without these citizens, New York would sink into the sea and there would be no one left to regret it.

In one of your biographies you claim to not know your age but claim you were born in a double nine year which would either be 1999 or 1899 that would make you either 9 or 109; what age would best suit you and what is the advantage of either?

Age is material and insignificant it is for historians to keep track. Space and time are like the Pillars of Hercules, figments of our imagination. Space and the time don't exist, so age is insignificant. I don't define myself by age but by my accomplishments and impact on my surroundings and those I am around. There are those who are trapped by birth defects and forever 9 years old and then there are those that are 109 now have the brain of a 9 year old. In the end it is what one has learned and seen that defines age.

You've called New York City the center of the international art world, I think London, Berlin and Tokyo would argue differently. How would you respond?

New York is the melting pot; people come from all over to study art here and create, once an artist has made his or her mark in the New York market they are pretty much gold elsewhere and assured a good showing in other art communities.

I would say that art in London is like another district of New York. Tokyo does not favor contemporary art. China's culture was completely colonized by American fashions. Berlin has a thriving artist community, but they seldom look beyond their own reflection. The day they will decide to mingle with the world, New York will lose the title. The art movement in Russia is full of talented artists. Europe is full of great artists but they seem more to defend their cultural heritage. But New York is today the capital of contemporary art, an easy art to replicate, decorative and very reassuring. In New York art has become a financial product, with Wall Street around the corner. I have nothing against the market, it has indeed played a revolutionary role, without the merchants the major museums would never have entered the Impressionists, Picasso, Kandinsky, Rothko, Christo, Lucian Freud.

The museum environment is very conservative and hates innovations. The investors love the challenge. But today there are few merchants and many sellers.

All periods of economic recession have been good times for the art market. New York became one of the international capitals of art during the great crisis of 1929. The art capital moves to where the profit is good and contemporary art today is the best product on the market. Mei & Moses are the most popular art advisers today.

We must regulate the market in order to prevent other huge speculative bubbles that can destroy it. Though New York is considered the international capital of contemporary art, there still is not an event that marks its supremacy in the field of contemporary art. The NYBA is committed to fill this gap. It will biannually call back to New York the best of international art, the avant-garde and all those who try to overcome the boundaries of and between the arts, in particular the new artist generations.

The New York Biennale is a fascinating, exciting and far-reaching concept. How did the idea of the New York Biennale come into being?

On the 15 of September 2006 cancer entered my life and reared its ugly head. Cancer does not let you escape; it is a tremendous and powerful force. But I made a decision; I revisited my life, thought about my core values, mistakes and life lessons. What was this seemingly large hurdle trying to stop me from accomplishing? I realized I had something more to do with my life; the shear desire to live did the rest. Becoming a grandfather of a beautiful creature and wanting to see him grow was determination enough. While others see it as a death sentence I must say 'thank you to it'. My life is better now because of it, less tangible but a treasure trove of passions, love and wants to do. Now I can see over today, tomorrow and beyond, I understand that the art world needs another outlet of expression besides the mundane auctions of Sotheby's and Christies. This is how I'll hopefully leave my footprint in the art world.

What do you want to accomplish?

Change is the ultimate goal, change over to the true appreciation of art and to put man at the center of our actions. Today's society has made the sell of art one of its main interests, callus hands, accidental paint in the eye or worn out souls that were poured into each stroke or caressed with soft finger tips. Today hiring replica teams to mass-produce has taken over. What do any of the skulls, blood, violence, baroque imperialism, sex lend itself?

Today man needs love, peace and more love to seek new and innovate paths.

Today art represents the worst of society, who face the great possibilities that offer the immaterial values which continue to masturbate in front of the mirror sniffing cocaine. It seems to relive the last days of the Roman Empire. Perhaps they are waiting for the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius? I prefer to save Pompeii and its inhabitants.

You have partnered up with Sarah Castelli, daughter of Leo Castelli, the New York City art legend in this venture, how did you two meet? What is her part in all of this?

I didn't ask for her resume, I prefer raw instinct; I just love her creative chaos.

The Biennale was supposed to be this year but you were in a car accident, what happened? How are you?

I feel good, thank you. I flew for twenty-five meters on Columbus Avenue. For five seconds I was the Spiderman brother. Now, I am still in New York. I have a mission to realize in my life. I am winning my battle against cancer I survived the car accident. I have a true purpose and that is to win the battle to change the contemporary art market.

The Biennale like I said is an expansive idea, the manifesto that it represents is quite expansive too, The Manifesto of Immaterialism, it speaks of a moment that is one of a crash between old values that include material development, business and blood and the new values of immaterial development, sustainability and love? Could you elaborate?

The Wall Street crisis is the beginning of a new era. It will be difficult to change because they only know old economic recipes. The doctor and the patient are the same person; he does not know where the disease originates, yet he takes an aspirin.

They are the guardians of material values (supremacy of the economy, quantity, globalization, one bill one vote). We must overcome this capitalism based on quantity. For two hundred years it was fantastic but it didn't solve the main problem. There exist today people on this planet that are living on less than a dollar a day. Hunger, disease, wars, drugs, prostitution, pedophilia are issues that plague everyday life for billions of people.

Also, socialism is obsolete. It was the obverse of the same coin, the coin of eternal production and consumption. In the absence of a solution a part of the world is turning back, defending their roots and identity. What is happening among religions is stupid and harmful. There are yet new genocides in the name of God. What is happening in politics and economics is disheartening. There is a new caste of politicians and billionaires. New oligarchs have gone beyond the philosophical, ethical, and political barriers to use economy, religion, information, politics, and power to build a new society, one that defends the privileges of this new international caste. Democracy for them is a temporary, not universal and lasting. Under absolute power democracy becomes a mere instrument. The world is being consumed in the hands of this club of criminals.

Obama represents a break of this process, we must support it, having understood that only a widening of personal and collective freedom, a mixing cultural, economic, social and political context, the prevalence of universal on the temporary, immaterial values on those materials, this is the only way to use the crisis opening to build a better world.

The immaterialism is intended to propose a new commitment to contemporary society to overcome the material values with those of the immaterial (supremacy of sustainability, quality, and globalization, defending the revolutionary value of one head one vote).

Do you think the recent economic downturn, the two wars that are being waged and the election of Obama are a sign of these times or the crash?

It is exactly what I think and I am supported by the outset. Many have accused me of dirty art with politics, but where do they live in a world of fairies? Art has always been close to power and politics. The problem is which power and which politics? Why they have magnified Andy Warhol and almost forgot the greatest artist of the twentieth century? Rothko certainly was not appropriate for developing the sales of the credit card and the philosophy of fast, easy, and cheap!

And could you talk more of the Principle of indifference and the full void versus the tingling void?

The only one who can avoid the consequences of the principle of indifference is the owner of a fixed asset, in our case the artists.

And you speak of annihilation and the creation of virtual realities?

The television has turned the concept virtual / real. TV now decides the reality, but behind the TV there are men, and behind men interests. They use the Internet for the same purpose of TV. For this reason there are billions of dollars circulating to control the web network. TV is the new Teacher and the Internet can be the new Bodyguard of the system.

But Obama used the Internet to develop the participation and the control of the people on the information. He won. We can win.

We are working on a project that uses virtual to improve the real and in due time we believe we'll be able to make quite a leap in the art world. At the NYBA we will showcase some works in progress.

Another interesting element is the question of if art can live without predicators? What are the predicators?

It is the time to do. It is the son of a millennial culture. The preachers are suns of communication, propaganda, fashions, they influence the market and there are pockets of monopoly. Is a very powerful lobby but have no future. Change will sweep them away.

You mentioned Mark Rothko several times; he seems to be an artist of interest for you? Although born in Russia, he grew up in the Pacific Northwest, which has always been of interest to me. What makes him so important?

I never look at the nationality. Rothko could be African, but for me he was the best artist of the last century. He continued the tradition of the Renaissance, of Venetians, of Rembrandt, of Turner, of Impressionists, The red line linking the Immaterialism. He painted what is beyond all current and pictorial style, the matter that does not surround us. He was able to walk above the clouds to reveal the colors of feelings and emotions. Imagine that period in NY, while everyone else married pop art he had the strength to propose a dressy and unpopular art. " In past society political and religious authorities made the rules and artists had to accept it. Today, following the passing of temporal and spiritual patron, the history of art is the story of men who preferred hunger than submissiveness, believing that the choice was valid punishment ". His research was completely original and unique. For this reason he is the artist we hired as a symbol of the NYBA, and to him will be devoted the main exhibition.

And you seem not to hold Warhol in such regard. What is your thinking about him?

He was a beautiful communicator and decorator; he invented art marketing, but is in another dimension. The function of art is to express and encourage; decoration is to beautify. They are two different dimensions.

You describe the perfection as 112358437189 + 887641562819. I get 1000000000010? What does it all mean?

Anything could lead to perfection if there is such a thing. The perfection is a cultural process, math is philosophy, science is philosophy, art is philosophy, but we can use some keys that can help us understand perfection. Perfection is a creative process generated by a creative chaos. This is the teaching of Fibonacci and major genes of human history, including the greatest artists. Leonardo and Rothko were both philosophers and artists.

Someone can be chosen or can accidentally discover the keys to perfection that rests its foundations on the immateriality, or better still on the matter that you do not see, cannot touch neither feel. But this matters not, it fills and surrounds our lives.

What did you look for from the artists that will participate in the Biennale?

I selected this group of artists in the last 3 years and they will be the avant-gardes of a new age.

Other projects you are involved include the NY Infoart and the Save Our Mother Project and a gallery? Can you tell us more about those?

I am living an incredible time of my life. I am a volcano. It is impossible to stop my creativity; I am looking for people who understand these concepts and who are ready to build this new process. Save Our Mother is a project that will be sponsored by Unesco. Twelve projects on the planetarium emergencies with twelve great artists will be the new agora for artists, scientists and big collectors. I cannot reveal all the latest news of the Biennale, just yet.

In the Save Our Mother Project, Damien Hirst is doing a project in Greenland what is it?

The idea is to involve great artists to raise awareness on major global social and environmental emergencies. The names of the artists can change what is important is the concept.

On the website of NY Biennale there is a quip: "Curators Want To Be Artists" You being a curator, I've always thought of curators being the harbinger of installment artists, what is your take?

Today we have too many artists, too many curators and too many distributors. Enough is enough. We need to redesign the lay out of the process of artistic creation.

A - the creative process is the result of a professional team effort where everyone participates in the building of the idea and its realization. The art product will be the creative process not only the work.

B - the range between production costs and sale price is too high, many times it is a 1 to 10 ratio and this is unacceptable to the collectors. Artists must go directly to the market; finished is the age of parasitic annuities.

C - the authenticity and the uniqueness of the art works must be absolute. We must develop a safe and credible internet market. The market is full of fakes and copies, so sales via the Internet do not take off. We have registered a patent that will make possible the development of sales via Internet.

You seem like a man with endless energy: who are your inspirations, what do you see in your future?

Endless energy, yes, I thrive off striving for change. The future is today and today we must change the art market. We cannot wait. We can do. We must do. I will do it for Kiki.

Finally, I'm guessing Kiki is your grandson?

Sometimes he is my grandson and sometimes my grandfather, it depends on the circumstances.

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