Intervention, performance, photography and painting (Malaktion): Chalk circles in the streets of Zurich. Collected chalk pigments added to an acrylic paint used to execute a paint attack on the Museum of Emptiness in St. Gallen, Switzerland, 2017.
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Form is Emptiness
Essay by Gen Atem, 2019
Emptiness manifests itself through what it fulfills. In the same way, urban space is formed exclusively by the limitations imposed by its objects and human beings. Whether a city is perceived as beautiful depends on the subjective judgment of those who anticipate this space. When we travel to a different place, we first perceive many things new and inspiring, but over time we lose sight of the unique because we believe we have already seen everything and know it. Emptiness is not a realization, but an invitation to ask questions: empty of what, since when and why? Our answers displace the emptiness and force it to retreat. After that, it lingers again in the secrecy of not knowing until it reappears in the form of another question. Emptiness is not knowing, a spiritual state of openness and impartiality. If we really want to face emptiness, we have to embark on a journey, on which we – step by step – throw overboard preconceived opinions and views. The more open and insane the questions we ask ourselves, the more surprising and inspiring the answers we receive. Or there will be no answers, but further pressing questions.
The word emptiness is a translation of the Sanskrit term Shunyata. Shun means zero and is displayed as a circle. The number zero floats between the positive and the negative, similar to the past and the future manifesting in the present. The shape of Shunyata or Null is the circle; it radically illustrates the dual principle of form and emptiness. What we call „form„ is a synonym for the totality of all appearing phenomena. By drawing the circle, we describe and define the presence, absence, or mysticism of a phenomenon. If the circle closes, it includes and excludes at the same time. Neither inside nor outside is nothing. Nothing means no-thing, and thus indicates the non-tangible leading the inquirer even further on his journey. Our search, or more precisely, our searching for emptiness in an urban environment is an exploration of possibilities. On this journey, we are tracing more and more circles, concentrating or expanding our focus to provoke answers and new questions.
Art in the sense of a freely improvising, interventionist process work should avoid accumulating knowledge and thereby fill the empty space of possibilities with alleged trophies of knowledge. In the end, they block everything, not unlike the dusty, nostalgic trash in a ramshackle, reeking of the past. There is nothing happening in this room, except for the grinding teeth of the bored owner and administrator, who is star ing ruefully, as nobody cares for this shit. And yet impressions and memories remain, and convictions solidify, which are condensed into a deflecting force. Just as the alchemy between neither-nor and as-well-as creates an effect, the process work generates creativity from the fluctuating relativity of form and emptiness. As an artist, we try to offer the resulting works subtly or even unperceived to the vis-à-vis. Sometimes, however, this will not work because we either believe that we can keep the magic to ourselves, or because we think the access to emptiness and its creative potential is denied us. In rage we then throw everything into a pot and let our final ideas and views explode in this cauldron: no form - no emptiness.
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