Climax of a Firework
I was introduced to Jean Baudrillard and “the simulacra” in Patrik Andersson’s Art Now: Studies in Contemporary Art course when I decided to create a hyper-real painting of a firework. This was the first work where I was openly reflecting upon a theory. A photograph of the firework was taken by a friend of mine, which I used as a reference for the painting and it is thus a copy of a copy. I chose the firework because its essence is to give fleeting consumable pleasure. The nature of a firework is to rise to an instant climax, what the viewer craves, and ascends to death, leaving the viewer wanting more. I froze the firework in its climax because it gives the viewer what they want, but not truly, for it is a fixed sign. The work is stuck in an endgame, giving the viewer what they want, but failing because it is only a simulation. The viewer will never see the firework ascend or descend or witness the drama of its nature. This work is metaphoric for the pathetic impossibility of warding off death. Capturing a firework, frozen in time, with no ascent or descent creates a fictional situation, giving no narrative. I relate the meaning of the firework to Roland Barthes’ “Third Meaning”. Although his theory is based on film stills, I argue The Climax of the Firework is a ridiculous still of a firework. The obvious meaning I prescribe is purely pleasurable and the choice of this subject matter is meant to give viewing pleasure. The symbolic meaning is an attempt to represent prolonging the inevitable, trying to freeze time at a peak, which fails. Life continues on for me, but the painting stays static. It is a pathetic endgame because, in essence, how is a painting supposed to stop time? This is where I find Barthes notion of the “obtuse meaning” which extends beyond our knowledge and culture while denying any future by defeating the nature of a firework. To rise to climax and fade away, on to the next explosion which is a useless exertion (44 Barthes). It poses the ontological questions of capturing and representing through painting and subject matter. Somewhat like Radul’s ontological explorations in her film work And So Departed (Again)(2004) I explored paintings relationship with representation and reality. With the piece And So Departed (Again), Radul embraces films failure to represent death in performance because it naturally has an insufficiency of representation. Reality and the nature of film show its own inability to achieve these goals. The ontological difference between reality and representation in painting informs the viewer about both. Reality and time cannot be stopped, death is inevitable, and a painting is only a disparate and pathetic attempt to freeze time.