Art for the Visually Impaired by Jorge Restrepo ?

 

A JUNCTURE BETWEEN THE TANGIBLE AND THE INTANGIBLE

 

 

By: Donaldo Altamirano  , Nicaraguan writer,

MA in Philosophy, Literature and Visual Arts

 

Tegucigalpa, Sunday October 9,  2005

 

 

 

The sample of art for the visually impaired “Beyond the Tangible” by the Colombian artist Jorge Restrepo, projects a spectrum of meanings as varied as atypical. That is how he induces us to his approach from another perspective instead of a conventional analytical approach with respect to merely formal components, many of which we would have to assess for their absence, dislocation or drastic change of functions. 

 

I would like to center our reflections on some conceptual particularities of Restrepo’s work, which, upon culminating in this exposition, complete the sense of an interesting voyage of expansion, development and manifestation, which merits being addressed in detail. I would like to highlight these conceptual aspects, which also have the most dynamic and daring characteristics in addition to the cohesive key for articulating his internal syllogism, for assimilating the sense of all the experimental variants, all the formal dimensions of the varied forms and methods that Jorge Restrepo has explored, tried out and applied thus far in the deployment of a strategy that gives an integrated meaning to his work.

 

I would like to point to the two principal currents of meaning that spring from ‘Beyond the Tangible,’ in particular, which are directed ex professo toward accomplishing at least two differentiated types of effects, two essential levels of communication, operating on two specific sectors of the public, to which we should necessarily add a third ‘floor¿ of residual meanings, which is found between the two aforementioned levels. This is calculated for the most drawn- out perception of those who are capable of perceiving all the implications of the whole.

 

I

Let’s begin in order. On behalf of our brilliant, visually impaired Honduran public, this conceptual action of Jorge Restrepo has inaugurated a door that leads to infinite paths; that is, an unedited space for communication is left open, which should necessarily be expanded and intensified.

 

Let’s assume that we do not know who Jorge Restrepo is or anything about his work and career.  Let’s assume that we live in a segregated, indifferent, occasionally hostile world, where the information is meager, incomplete or inexact; in any case, insufficient. Let’s assume that the universe of the plastic arts, its history, its progress, its spiritual conquests and its energetic forgers was, for us, a remote and banned world to which we do not have access.  Let’s assume that we survive in a parallel, marginal, discriminatory world, separated by obdurate barriers, not only of comprehension but of simple perception.

 

I base my words on the firsthand impressions received by Armando Sánchez, visually impaired, Executive Director of the National Federation of Organisms for People with Disability, and Glenda Estrada, General Coordinator of the National Union for the Blind.

 

Armando Sánchez tells us:    

 

I was in the offices of Handicap International dealing with other topics, discussing other projects that were going to be financed, when unexpectedly they read, broadly speaking, the justification of the project of the exposition ‘Beyond the Tangible.’  When they told me what the activity was about, it seemed to be quite novel because an exposition for the blind had never been organized in Honduras. I thought that it was a unique experience; that it was really worthwhile for someone to do.  They asked us for help, and I immediately said ‘yes’ although it was a more appropriate task for the National Union for the Blind.

 

In my mind the paintings were sketched in some way without my actually knowing them. I had not read that it was abstract painting, but what I thought about was figurative painting...  For a blind person, it seemed to me that it would be an enriching experience, to learn the shape of some things that we have never seen, like snow, for example. I thought about an experience on the level of sensitizing or of assimilation by content. Afterwards they told us that the paintings would be labeled in Braille. I asked myself: Who will do that? Could it be that the painter himself writes in Braille? I discarded the idea of the painter’s being blind. I asked myself what could be his motive. Are there blind people in this painter’s family?

 

The novelty, the uncommon nature of this project, was what initially attracted the attention of those who more than spectators were the main actors. Because something similar occurred with Glenda Estrada, President of the National Union for the Blind, a federation that brings together the organizations of seven department heads:

 

I was one of the organizers of the exposition; I was a very important point of support. I helped the artist make the invitations and write the names of the paintings in Braille. I was also one of the guides for the sighted people because they were blindfolded so that they could touch the paintings while we explained the meaning to them.

 

I met Jorge Restrepo through Claudia Herrán, who was giving me classes at the university, where I will obtain a diploma in Human Resource Development. Claudia told me that she wanted to communicate something to me.  She spoke about a painting exposition for the visually impaired. How is that possible? I asked myself, if we blind people can’t see the paintings.

 

On other occasions I had received invitations for regular expositions for sighted people.  I had attended out of courtesy, but I needed to go with another person to describe for me what was captured in the paintings being exhibited. I always let my imagination fly. One uses sensorial references, one’s imagination to figure out what others say, but it can never be the same.

 

Claudia explained what Jorge had thought about, but he did not know much about the perception of the world that the blind have, so I could be of great help to them, she said. They explained that the paintings would be done in high relief on white material. According to the shape that we perceived when we touched them, running our fingertips over the surfaces?that was the meaning of the works. When they explained everything, I was excited, and I began explaining the project to the other visually impaired.

 

This same effect of strangeness, this taste of extravagance and paradox were what captured the interest of the majority of the people coming from diverse social sectors, whose wills converged to make ‘Beyond the Tangible’ not only a fully realized experience, but a spiritual adventure, in an intense contact between two ignored universes, separated by obstinate barriers. And in this sense it surpassed all prior expectations.

 

This experience encodes an intense didactic intention that surpasses the habitual frameworks of formal education. For the blind it has been an enjoyable experience of learning and teaching, more than an ordinary social activity. From their appreciations a need should be inferred by the organizations for the incapacitated to plan a consistent training in this respect.  Moreover, the experience of Armando Sánchez’s personal reading shows that it is necessary to come up with a practical method that organizes the tactile reading of the works, not necessarily in the same order of reading a text written in Braille.

 

Restrepo brought me a painting and asked me to run my hands over it.  I was concerned about what he would ask me; I didn’t know if I was correct and I was afraid that the painting wouldn’t tell me anything and that that would be discouraging for the painter, for the idea that motivated him. I tried to discover some figure. Impossible?there was a moment that my fingers found something in the painting that made me think it could be a hand, like the hand of a child.

 

The people from Handicap International found the way in which I scanned the surface interesting, like someone who reads Braille, from left to right and from the top to the bottom. Although at times I combined this with other more spontaneous movements...

 

...in the lower right part is the signature, they warned me, something that I couldn’t decipher... But I liked the texture, sometimes rough, like someone had spilled sand or PVC glue. Some parts were smooth; they drew my attention like when one uses too much glue. At the same time I asked myself: How interesting could this be for other blind people? I had doubts about the cultural context. I was afraid that we could not understand. On the one hand, I felt it was important that the sighted people would have contact with the physical darkness. But on the other hand I was afraid that the blind could not say what they found in each painting, which in the end was more a case of not being able to communicate between sighted people and the visually impaired.

 

Now not in front of but within Restrepo’s overall work, just like what has happened in other conceptual actions of his (for example in ‘Pillaging,’ in the Museum of the Honduran Man), the main actors ended up not realizing clearly the fact that they themselves?public and artists, sighted people and the visually impaired?formed part of the work, that their emotions, their discoveries, the displacement of their daily perspectives, the solidarity summoned and manifested, their intentions of social communication, form an essential part of Jorge Restrepo’s conceptual actions.

 

II

 

To comprehend the other hemisphere of alluded meaning, it is necessary to place ourselves on the side of what the senses of those sighted people who participated in the exposition did no comprehend. Imagine an immense room, free of obstacles, with no decoration except for some colorless fabric, an environment absolutely devoid of any color that was not white. We should note that for these sighted people the sample proposed a gamut of alternative meanings: On the one hand the meanings of the summoned absence, the sense of the sight it was invited to decline, to throw out, not only by means of a deliberate staging of the space for the sample, by the absence of color in the room, by the scenography of a vast suprematism-type installation, there was a call for silence that germinates in the white on white. And on the other hand, straight away, immediately, consequently, the presence of the visually impaired, all dressed in black, was imposed: animated enthusiastic, joyful, musical, but also communicative, expressive, expansive, vital.

 

Then came the experience among the sighted people who blindfolded themselves and let their imagination and intuition guide them by certain randomness that helps us blind people. Of these, Armando Sánchez relates some very significant experiences: 

 

Being a guide was a challenge for me.  What do I have to tell others? If I don’t have a concept, if I am unaware of the painter’s intentions, how can I induce another person so that he comprehends what I don’t understand?  Do I tell him what I think? Do I ask him what he thinks or do I simply take his hand and let him scan it and discover what he can...?

 

I didn’t really want to be a guide, I was afraid of not being prepared. Besides I perceived that the public was composed of some people from a select social class?refined, cultured, because of their perfumes, their forms of conversation, their discrete, calm and restrained whispering, their tone of voice, the expressions they used. They presented me to someone: ‘This woman has a Bachelors in Arts; this is a man of letters,’ I thought, although sometimes one is wrong. Then, a more serious problem arose, being the guide of a lady.  In that case, do I hold her hand? Afterwards, I was the guide of a couple of women.  One of them spoke to me very closely, she listened to me describe my impressions while I ran my fingertips over the painting. Sometimes she identified with and approved my idea, but other times she contradicted me. No, no, that could rather be something else, she would propose.

 

The other woman was the Director of the Museum of Man.  I didn’t know it then. Fortunately, I only knew about it afterwards because if I had known then, I would have been too nervous. Innocent, tranquil, I was running my fingertips slowly over one of the paintings and expressing my impressions to her. At the end, I felt satisfied because this woman was kind and she approved of several of the interpretations that I proposed.

 

It was interesting to observe the reactions of the blindfolded sighted people, perceiving how they blindly scanned a painting, hearing how they searched a place, how they managed to express their imagination in words, compare how they received the impressions, playing the role of being circumstantially blind.

 

I also scanned and analyzed some paintings, together with a couple of painters?somewhat thick at the waist, I was able to note because they got quite close to me. They did not blindfold themselves, they were looking at the painting with open eyes, and they focused more on correcting my appreciations or afterwards they made side comments.

 

One of them explained to me about the trees that covered one side of the composition. In the center, which was the most vacant area to the touch, the artist revealed: ‘This is a great silence.’  Afterwards they bade me to run my hands over other zones of the painting where I had not been, either from distraction or hurry. ‘These are the clouds,’ the other artist told me.  I got the impression that they were painters, artists or at least that they knew a lot about painting, by the sureness with which they spoke.

 

The novel experiences were varied and intense. This exposition, in short, represented an opportunity to express profound human solidarity, an adventure of the imagination and intuition, a brushing of ineffable perceptions that were communicated by means of the spoken word?the medium in common?creating a zone of exceptions between the tangible and the intangible.

 

We should, as well, reflect separately on the functions that the verbal language fulfills under such special circumstances?a slippery bridge, sometimes equivocal, extended between sighted people and the visually impaired, between touch and imagination. The coherence between what was suggested by the titles and the information that the fingertips scanned was crucial on this occasion.

 

For Glenda Estrada, President of the National Union for the Blind:

 

I liked some paintings more than others, sometimes for the name, for example one called ‘Hurry,’ which had some swift lines traced across the canvas, at first they were wide, long and slow; but as we ran along them, they began to get thinner, breaking up into reliefs until they vanished.

 

The title is a reference that helps a lot. If the title calls my attention, that helps capture the meaning. If it were not that way, it would be quite difficult. Think about it?it was the first time that a group of visually impaired enjoyed paintings like this. First the title suggested something to us; then when we touched it, as we were scanning and touching, we began to imagine trees, objects, houses. We imagined that we were sitting before what the artist alluded to, we identified with the idea that he proposed to us.

 

Inevitable conclusion: Both the painting and the title?always, but especially in this situation?cannot be isolated outcomes.  They should both be products of an organized process. As parts of that process, necessary prior stages of methodical and gradual learning should be integrated.  For example: Besides organizing art courses, active and passive, theoretical and practical, for the blind, we should train our current and future artists to produce works of art for the disabled, which should be one of the regular specialties offered as an option for the students in our art schools and academies.

 

III

 

Part of the extensive meaningful aura of Jorge Restrepo’s overall work derives from his capacity to expand habitual notions and concepts. The work of our Colombian breaks with the prevailing conventions in certain key points, eludes the conceptual frameworks of traditional criticism; moreover, it is not moved by the prevailing rules or norms, but for the pleasure itself of creating things and birthing the ideas in the whole, collectively, starting from persistent motivations of human solidarity.

 

What is important in this particular sequence of colorless works prepared ex professo by Jorge Restrepo are, in a broad sense, their social consequences, the various ways in which they impact on the collective unconsciousness, both esthetic and moral. On the other hand, their conceptual implications, their incidence on the rhythm with which the esthetic movements, techniques or concepts evolve or stagnate in our milieu.

 

Of course, Restrepo has confronted a significant tour de force on this occasion. The elements of his language are drastically affected by the change of conditions. An asceticism that has already known other prior expressions, leads him this time to renounce color, the appearance of visual proportions, the visual rhythm that links the things of nature. He experiments concentrating on the motor properties, tactile plasticity, the ductility of his materials, supported in contrasts, sequences or alterations of textural rhythm.

 

In terms of the artist’s personal development, there is apparently a drastic rupture, an irregular landmark, with reference to the relationship to his earlier discourse. One of those brusque leaps that a merely analytical mentality would delay a lot in assimilating and integrating within a unitary movement of the concept. Because in this case what guarantees the stylistic unity is not the homogeneity of the materials and the procedures, but the resulting coherence in the concrete manifestations that the concept adopts and adapts in its display, demonstration and development.

 

In Jorge Restrepo we recognize not only a creative personal talent for carrying out meaningful progressive and enveloping works, but we can also see signs of a symphonic orchestra conductor who generates social will, who by vocation and for pleasure drives, promotes and organizes a large number of those who surround him so that they alter, extend, renovate the notions, concepts and categories, opening up new channels for stagnant definitions, renovating critically, not only the procedures and the materials, but also the attitudes, the social values, involving each time new will, including in each conceptual action to new, unheard of sectors as main actors active in the artistic phenomena.

 

Translated by Gertrude Brekelbaum, PhD

                    

          

 

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