Joe Walentini / Writing  

Beyond Narrative - The Uniquely Expressive Power of Abstract Art
From: Abstract Art Online, October 2004, Vol Vll, Issue 2

Within our lifetimes we are confronted with awesome destructive events and tragedies beyond our pedestrian capacities for expressing reactions to them. Such experiences transform us socially, culturally, nationally; even globally. Every historical period contains its own array but our recent Euro-American history has included World War II, the Holocaust, the atomic bombs in Japan, Viet Nam, numerous other tragedies and most recently the destruction of the World Trade Center.

In the face of such events we are often rendered speechless; words fail to wholly convey our feelings about them. Why? Because words are too literal to address the sublime depths such experiences evoke. The same holds true for narratives expressing these events in figurative imagery. Even photographs, though compelling enough in documenting tragedy and the resulting horrors, fail to profoundly express deep and universal emotions.

Consider World War II and one of its most popular memorials - the Iwo Jima sculpture at Arlington National Cemetery, which is based on a (allegedly staged) documentary photograph. As a larger-than-life, literal depiction, it garners impact from its massive size. The intent was to scale beyond the Pacific island battle referenced to make a huge comprehensive statement about the war. It is perhaps one of the last vestiges of a grand, 19th century, memorial esthetic regarding war.

Viet Nam redirected our collective consciousness about war to a consideration beyond heroics. A signifier of the sea change was Maya Lin’s Viet Nam War memorial in Washington D.C. Despite the initial controversy that accompanied the piece, it has become a socially engaging commemorative icon for honoring the war dead. Lin’s wedge of black granite cutting deep into the earth with the inscribed names of the dead is open to many interpretations. Among the latter it has been denounced by some as negative and disrespectful - as legitimate a reading as any other. But a more comprehensive elucidation is that, besides serving as a deeply solemn

testimonial, it also acknowledges the social tragedy of that war; indeed of all wars. The dissenters erected a more traditional statue depicting three soldiers nearby. But this sculpture is incapable of providing the experience the wall does because it is of the same outdated sensibility as the Iwo Jima sculpture.

It’s significant that the wall is a beautifully designed, well executed work of abstract art. And look at how people have interacted with it over the years: they touch those names on the wall to which they have a personal connection while their own reflections look back from the polished black granite. A unique conceptual perspective is further offered in which the dead (symbolized by the names) also look out from the wall at the viewer. The response to the memorial produced unexpected, impromptu and acutely personal interactions as evidenced by the numerous objects and writings that have been left at the wall.

Now we are faced with memorializing a contemporary tragedy - the World Trade Center attack. The impermanent Towers of Light display that recreated a virtual image of the buildings for several days was an elegant and moving beginning. As with the Viet Nam memorial, this abstract and highly conceptual work of art provided a clear, concise and transcendent statement about the tragedy. Anyone seeing it immediately grasped the capability of this piece to express beyond words what the tragedy meant collectively.

From commemorations of catastrophic events it is but a short leap to understand the importance of abstract art per se. For us, as individuals, abstract art is uniquely qualified to access a whole host of universal emotions, concepts and perceptions; intangibles that cannot be better expressed in other ways. This is true precisely because of its non-literal premise and freedom from the constraints of narrative. For these reasons, no matter the style, school or approach, abstract art will always remain vitally significant.