A PLEA FOR THE MANIFESTO OF A NEW “SURE-REALISM”

Mourad Elloumi –Tunis

 

“There isn’t any aesthetic revolution that would do without the support of a political revolution.” 

 JEAN RICHARD BLOCH*

 

Today, works of art and architecture must actually have the status of Humanities and Sciences thus allowing to their authors to take part in philosophical and socio-political debates of the country.

Anyway, for many centuries, thinkers have  defined painting as a “window on the universe,” the painter becomes a mediator and the art an instrument of knowledge; the work of art is no longer based on a simple aesthetic pleasure but also on the thought as a tool for criticism.

 

Politicians, thinkers, historians, journalists and others take back the history of Tunisia with a new and free vision in order to illuminate the areas that remained dark, to explain the events buried under the wrinkles of three thousand years of history for a better understanding of the present. Artists and men of culture share, in their turn, that solidary impulse so as to deal with the rich pages of our history with the scientific rigor that imposes itself and to project it towards a better future.

 

As it is urgent to retrace the sequence of the universal cultural movements that have marked our long history and made of Tunisia  a multicolored fabric, often contrasted and sometimes contradictory (Berber, Arab, African, Roman, Eastern, Western, Muslim) it is also important to reorganize and harmonize this beautiful mosaic battered more than ever after the revolution. It is in the context of The Arab Spring and the background of the constant insurrectional climate intensified by the unprecedented ideological and political instrumentalization that the risk of conflict between the multiple shades would have extended the country into the chaos. How to escape from this situation without return to the Elimination Policy? Which solutions to consider in order preserving the diversity without losing the uniformity?

 

Far from being homogeneous, the new image of the society has to be perceived as a rich diversity to value by a plastic research deep in the heritage. It is up to artists and cultural workers to dig into this diversity and exploit any opportunity of creation that will allow them to reach the supreme superstructure and meet the ideal of the human dream.The artist does not have to stop at the stage of a passive testimony acting as a standardized or sacred optical reflection and often marked by a personal background, the artist should act as an actor freed of all normalization.

 

However, we must admit that one of the great mysteries of this universe is manifested by the existence of opposites, contrasting and contradictory things whether human, physical or metaphysical. It is only through the achievement of the common values that we could be lead to the supreme reality of the sensitivity and the human dream. However, do we have, first of all, to look for the opportunities to bring everything together and join this experience to the idea of Warhol who said “The most exciting attractions are between two opposites that never meet”.

 

It is a matter of expanding our field of vision in time and space in order to understand the diversity better, gather the opposites in order to be able to assemble the incoherencies , this helps us express better the historical heritage and especially to harmonize the  diversity of the Cultural heritage. It is also and inparallel a matter of answering to the complexity of the human nature characterized by a cocktail of realism and surrealism, of expressionism and impressionism and sometimes even of abstract obsessions. New connexions remain to be established in order to recreate a new resulting, a synergy between different forms that reflect a new human “sure reality” social or cultural more expanded than the real of the moment, it’s the manifest of the new “sure-realism”.

However, it must be noted that this approach is totally different from the foundations of the creative inspiration proposed by the famous theorist of the surrealist group André Breton defined the surrealism as “a pure psychic automatism whereby one proposes to express the actual functioning of thought

either verbally or in writing, or in any other manner. Dictation of thought in the absence of any control of the mind, apart from every aesthetic or moral concern”***

 

Now ,it’s obligatory to rebuild a new writing that respects the requirements and objectives of the new “sure-realism” .It’s compulsory to look for a creative cooperation not only between the human and social characteristics by also between the various plastic components of the pictorial space. We must put in place a synergy able of creating a new global effect which will allow us to explain the choices between the new iconics , iconographics and iconologicals , and understand the link between denotation and connotation of the realised works.

 

Thus, the space is divided into several simple geometric shapes. Each shape is a unique space, which sometimes tells its own story through footprints of figures, symbolic unfinished objects or movements which become part of the depth. These unique spaces remain relative and not absolute spaces because they seek to find a place in the whole. In fact, every culture and every form of human expression acquires a real sense through its relationship with other forms and any human act is a detail which leaves traces unfinished in space and in time.

 

Light, values, shapes, volumes and perspectives obey no law. The mixture of contrasting, animated colors, escapes the real codes. A mixture of styles reflected through the presence of floating, fluctuating colors and ill-defined outlines from one side but also by the presence of pure intersecting lines forming geometric areas, all in a very abstract language. From the other side, the touch of superimposed fragmented colors, in search of an impressionist space evocative, able to penetrate reality and move gradually towards autonomy of colors liberated from the representation of reality. Finally, color passages are looking for a figurative representation.

 

The construction of all these elements is orchestrated by a ratio of values. The staging of various shapes and colors seeking a new organization and new reports that obey only one truth: balance and unity of opposites, cohabitation of inconsistencies, complementarities of contrasts and freedom to diversities. An alternative space was born with new codes and new scalable and differing standards. it is about blurring boundaries between fantasy and realty.  Thus, all exceed the real things to a new writing through which the space becomes mixed, from a physical and abstract side, from another side in search of a certain reality, an impression, an expression, a space that juxtaposes several sources and different styles like the Tunisian postmodernism.

 

This mixture of styles and sources should draw our attention to the need of valuing differences and therefore developing a search of a new attitude toward existence, give importance to the imagination and the dream beyond reason and logic in order to put rhythm in the reality and recreate it by giving it a new meaning, a new soul. This mixture should free us from all standard shapes because in reality, everything is ephemeral; everything is variable in time and in space.

 

Assemble, reorder, all this variety of forms that never meet, collect this rich diversity of styles and techniques and unite them, seems to be the pure imaginary, what was impossible yesterday is possible today, and will perhaps be possible tomorrow thanks to the valuing of all forms of creation, the openness to all that is different, the union of all opposing styles (around the same concept) and finally complete freedom of expression.  In fact it’s all about if the same pictorial space could be democratized and consequently freed of the totalitarianism of the unique style and escapes all types of visual discrimination in order to be able to respond to the aspirations of the most complex human and social reality.

EXPRESS THE PRESENT MOMENT IS ONLY A DUST OF REALITY,WE NEED TO BE PRESENT ACROSS DIFFERENT MOMENTS AND SPACES,EXPANDING OUR FIELD OF VIEW IN TIME AND SPACE TO ADMIT RACIAL,CULTURAL,RELIGIOUS,SOCIAL…DIVERSITY AND DEVELOP OTHERS POSSIBILITIES OF NEW SYNTHESIS. It’s a new approach to reality: The approach of the accumulation of trends, an approach that may develop our too narrow habits of perceptions that are limited in time and in space.

 

A topic for debate, common sense will prevail soon, I’m sure.

 

*Theme of the exhibition: Synergy ( for cultural ,religious ,social,  existential, emotional and psychological, aesthetic, racial differences.)

 

*Jean Richard Bloch: 1884-1947 . ” naissance d’une culture”.

 

**Andy Warhol: 1928-1987. “Citations”.

 

***André Breton: 1896 -1966. “Manifeste du surréalisme”.