b i b l i o g r a p h y
Circular Logic, by Ivan Jurakic, brochure essay written on the occasion of show at Cambridge Galleries, Sept 2009.
CIRCULAR LOGIC
"…there are known knowns; there are things we know we know.
We also know there are known unknowns; that is to
say we know there are some things we do not know." - Donald
Rumsfeld
Books are odd things. Historically, they represent a pinnacle of human
achievement and knowledge from the Library of Alexandria, to the Gutenburg
press, to the advent of the modern circulating library, yet they have
become so ubiquitous that they are now commonly found abandoned in
boxes at the local Goodwill like so much unwanted landfill. Since
the advent of the Internet, pundits have predicted the death of the
book as a relevant form of communication, a cultural has-been. And
while the book doesn’t appear to be heading towards extinction,
perhaps it has outlived the critical role that it once played. With
the predominance of web portals such as Amazon.com, books have increasingly
come to be viewed as a division of the entertainment industry, rather
than an intellectual mainstay. Ironically, the contemporary book suffers
from its own peculiar brand of circular logic. With more books published
annually than at any point in human history, one might logically surmise
that more people are reading. How then does this explain the constant
warnings about our diminishing literacy rates?
Circular logic is by definition a closed system of inquiry that takes
for granted the evident truth of the very thing under discussion.
It is a way of thinking that often pits scientific reasoning against
magical thinking, and the paradox of circular reasoning is that it
is often used to stunt real inquiry. False logic was rampant during
the Bush administration ranging from folksy wisdom to obfuscating
rhetoric, such as Donald Rumsfeld’s infamous remarks regarding
the threat of Iraq to US strategic interests. 1 And yet circular reasoning
is often accepted at face value because it is self-serving and tends
to simplify complex issues. Knowledge and wisdom, truth and veracity,
tend to be complicated, nuanced, and difficult to unpack. Circular
logic allows us to circumvent complexity to arrive at answers that
fit snugly into a 30-second sound bite.
Partheniou’s interpretation of Circular Logic features a series
of twenty-seven intimate trompe l'oeil paintings that simultaneously
function as text works, found poetry and discrete art objects. Hand
painted in acrylic, each canvas reproduces a single period book cover
from the 1950s, 1960s or 1970s and forms part of a larger ongoing
project titled Handmade Readymade. Beginning with her own books and
subsequently adding to her collection with scores of second-hand purchases,
Partheniou’s selection of mostly non-fiction titles represents
a personal inventory of literature, philosophy, poetry, cosmology
and art. Each canvas is constructed to match the dimensions of the
book reproduced, and since 2005 the artist has reproduced close to
one hundred titles.
At first glance the illusion is competent enough to fool the eye,
but upon closer inspection the flat colour palette and the freehand
quality of the lettering offsets our expectations of hard-edge book
design. The artist’s choice of books elicits the essence of
20th century book design, in particular the book jacket designs of
Edward Young, whose original designs for the Penguin Classics line
in 1935 helped to define the look of the paperback for several generations.
Young’s design hit upon a definitive modern look, and made the
most of an effective yet eye-catching layout that acknowledged the
limitations of colour printing at the time. His designs were clear
and precise and gave the Penguin paperbacks a sense of contemporaneity
that offset the cheapness of their production. 2 As much as their
content, the design established their allegiance to the ideal of a
universalization of knowledge that by extension connected their readers
to the larger project of 20th century modernism. Partheniou’s
work mines this fortuitous meeting of high and low culture to make
her own observations about the connections between modern book design,
the distribution of knowledge, and the broader aesthetic explorations
and struggles of modernist painting.
Pairing idiosyncratic themes and author’s side-by-side, for
Circular Logic the artist elected to display her book paintings within
a system of modular glass cubes chosen in response to the new releases
display at the central branch of the Cambridge Libraries. Alternately
suggesting a futurist kiosk or Rubik’s cube, her display contains
a micro-library of twenty-seven titles, connected less by content
than by their covers and the ubiquitous use of arrows in each design.
The arrows delineate a circuitous path through the structure of the
cube, sometimes pointing towards or away from their literary counterparts.
A random selection of titles includes: The Use of Lateral Thinking,
Gestalt Therapy, Escape from Freedom, and Last Exit to Brooklyn. The
logic between these selections is anything but linear; in fact, Partheniou’s
choices tend to privilege lateral thinking and subconscious associations
over logic and reason. Taken individually, each of the selections
confers a level of authority within a specific field of knowledge
or expertise. Collectively however, the pairings suggest the possibility
for dialogue, debate, disagreement, and ideally collaboration.
Partheniou’s approach is clearly influenced by artmaking strategies
that were defined by the first generation of Conceptual artists in
the 1960’s and 70s. In retrospect, many of these artists were
responding to their own sense of disillusionment with the limits of
painting as a medium, and furthermore the limitations imposed by the
pristine white walls of galleries and museums. These concerns have
remained central to succeeding generations of artists but the lines
separating various media and disciplines have blurred. Partheniou’s
project slyly bridges the concerns of post-painterly abstraction (surface,
flatness, addressing the edge of the picture plain), with the rigours
of conceptualism (appropriation, repetition, the use of language).
Even the title of her ongoing project alludes to a marriage between
the fine art of painting (handmade) and the gamesmanship of conceptual
art (readymade).
Once the trick is perceived, the books reveal themselves as counterfeits
and as handmade artifacts in a culture predicated upon instantaneous
reproduction. Partheniou appropriates the quintessential look of the
modern paperback to make a point about our quest for reason and knowledge
and the finite intellectual resources available to preserve these
lofty goals.
Ivan Jurakic
Footnotes:
1. “Known Knowns, Known Unknowns And Unknown Unknowns: A Retrospective”,
Posted by Hilary Profita, CBS News.com: http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2006/11/09/publiceye/entry2165872.shtml
2. The encapsulating idea of “cheapness and contemporaneity”
can be found on the Penguin website: http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/packages/uk/aboutus/history_firstten.html