H. Avni ÖZTOPÇU

 
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Speculative Space” exhibition of H. Avni Öztopçu, Osman Hamdi Hall,
Mimar Sinan University, Istanbul, 1989
 

 

 

SPECULATIVE SPACE
Kurgusal Mekan, 1989

 

 

PREFACE

This study is an attempt to articulate the relationship between my artistic approach and speculative space.

The books, writings, and oral explanations that have served as sources in articulating the formal aspect have contributed to this study. Yet what has given this work its form and endowed it with the character of a synthesis is the paintings I have made and the thoughts underlying their formation, preserved to the present day.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to all my teachers who have contributed to my education to this day, and to Prof. Dinçer Erimez, my advisor and teacher in the Proficiency in Art program.

H. Avni Öztopçu

12 April 1989, Çiftehavuzlar, Istanbul

 

INTRODUCTION

The statement, “I am concerned with the problem of objectifying—giving form to—the abstract world intellectually constructed through the human capacity to objectify everything,” (1) was an attempt to clarify the direction or field of interest of my artistic activity. This study will be an attempt to elaborate this statement and to articulate the formal character of my paintings.

“Every psychic (conscious) event contains something as its object, each in a different way. In representation something is represented; in judgment something is affirmed or denied; in love something is loved; in hatred something is hated; in desire something is desired.” (2) Acts of consciousness are always consciousness “of something.” I cannot see without seeing “something”; I cannot think without thinking “something.” Every consciousness is always directed toward a subject, an object. The important point is that the thing with which our consciousness establishes a connection does not have to exist. (3)

 

ABSTRACT WORLD

The thing with which the intellectual world I have conceived establishes a connection beyond our consciousness does not remain wholly given. This intellectual world, established through the act of constructing and realized within the boundaries of subjectivity, emerges in an abstract form.

W. Worringer states that, when abstract art is examined in terms of its psychological foundations, the psychic conditions of the impulse toward abstraction should be sought “in the cosmic feeling of the peoples among whom we find the abstract artistic style, in the spiritual attitude they assume toward the universe.” (4)

The psychic factor giving rise to abstract art is the feeling of “uneasiness” and “a great fear of spiritual space” that human beings may experience “in the face of the limitless, contextless, and complex events of the external world.” (5) W. Worringer finds the cause giving rise to abstract art in the human need for peace and security. Whether primitive or civilized, human beings have fundamental needs awaiting satisfaction. Among the most important of these are the needs for security and peace. Abstract art emerges in the process of satisfying the need for security and peace.

Human history is full of fluctuations, and it is marked by continual change. Alongside changes in ways of thinking and seeing that are independent of biological changes, the capacity for abstraction has accompanied human beings on their creative journey.

“The primordial artistic impulse seeks pure abstraction as the only possibility of peace amid the confusion and uncertainty presented by the universe, and, through an instinctive necessity, creates geometric abstraction within itself. This geometric abstraction is the complete and, for human beings, the only conceivable expression of liberation from all temporality and contingency presented by the picture of the world.” (6) Human beings continue their journey of abstraction by bringing the objects of the external world closer to absolute values.

The “fear of spiritual space” among Eastern civilized peoples, their instinctive awareness that all existing things are relative, does not precede knowledge, as it does among primitive peoples, but lies above knowledge.

Such civilized peoples experience uneasiness in the face of the complex context and varied appearance of events in the external world, and as a result a great need for peace fills their spirit. The possibility of happiness they seek in art is not to give themselves over to the objects of the external world and take pleasure in themselves through those objects; on the contrary, it is to free each object from its arbitrariness and apparent contingency, to make it immortal by bringing it closer to abstract forms, and thus to find a point of peace in which to take refuge within the world of appearances. Their strongest impulse was to remove the objects of the external world from their natural context, from the infinite variety of appearances of existence, to cleanse them of the arbitrary elements inherent in them, to make them necessary and immutable, and to bring them closer to absolute values. (7)

The abstract art created by human beings was once an impulse and is now a product of knowledge. “Having recognized that the visible world in which we live is a work of maya, (8) a created illusion, a discontinuous image resembling an appearance or a dream, without substance of its own, a veil surrounding human consciousness, something about which saying that it exists or does not exist is both true and false,” (9) human beings, like primitive people, once again find themselves lost and helpless before the picture of the world. (10) Now, while the abstract impulse that is the product of knowledge gives rise to modern abstract art, the artistic proposition at the beginning of this period is that “art is not nature; art is nature worked upon by the spirit that gives form.” (11) This nature is intellectual; it is “the meaning of nature,” the abstract world constructed intellectually, the speculative world.

 

SPACE—OBJECT

What is it that can give the idea of artistic space within the abstract world that has been constructed? Does the fact that the thing with which it establishes a connection does not actually exist outside itself prevent the idea of space?

“Science teaches that time and space are nothing other than the possibility of the arrangement, condition, and ordering of things, and that there can be no space or time existing outside things and independently of them.” (12) Kant states that the concepts of time and space come not from experience but from the mind: “They are the things that time and space contain. Apart from what they contain, we can perceive neither space nor duration, that is, time.” According to Kant, there is neither an object called time nor an object called space. (13)

The speculative space formed by the arrangement, condition, and ordering of elements such as line, color, and plane within this intellectual abstract world, constructed through the act of forming, is the reality created by the artist. This reality is not the reality of nature. It is a new synthesis; this synthesis cannot express itself as nature. It is the synthesis of art.

By virtue of their intentionality, psychic forces require objects toward which they are directed. Yet this object does not have to exist outside in reality. (14) Every psychic event contains something as its object; its intentional relation to this object is met by the human capacity to objectify everything. Human beings are the only living beings with the capacity to objectify everything. Max Scheler, who states that the conception of world-space belongs only to human beings, says of animals: “They cannot transform the ‘environment’ into a ‘world’ by gaining distance from it and naming it... They live within their own environment in a state of absorption.” (15) This is because animals cannot turn their own bodies and movements into objects. Human beings, possessing the capacity to objectify everything and thus possessing the idea of space, demonstrate an astonishing achievement: “not only can they enlarge the ‘environment’ and give it a depth of world, and make objects of whatever resists the vital impulse, but they can also turn their own particular physiological and psychological structure and every psychic event into an object.” (16)

 

EXPANSION OF CONTRAST

The space constructed by human beings who are “never at peace with the reality surrounding them; who are filled with the desire to break through and transcend the limits of the now-here-such-as-it-is of existence, the limits of their ‘environment’ and even of their own reality,” (17) is their world of expression, which may not necessarily be verbal; and the space to be created also requires objects. In object-dependent space, what gives the idea of space is the visibility and perceptibility of objects. It is the difference, otherness, or, as I will repeatedly call it, the contrast, between what the constructed space contains.

Contrast may be defined as the effect of opposition, quantitative or qualitative, between sensory stimuli occurring side by side within a given place or time. Contrast determines the existence of each in relation to the other; one exists simply because the other exists.

If there is no quantitative or qualitative distinction in the light reaching the eye in different regions of the visual field, and if this condition does not change over time, visual perception cannot be said to occur. While gradations between two poles determine visibility, our responses depend on the different qualities of contrast and on our experience and degree of habituation concerning contact. When contrasts are weakened, they evoke soft emotions through the indistinctness of a lifeless, misty atmosphere; or, when the complete movement between the two poles is established, a sense of distance is formed through all the intervals between the extreme limits. As these extremes are approached, contrasts produce in us effects such as clarity, definiteness, solidity, objectivity, and alertness.

The visibility of what is carried within space and the gradation of these visibilities constitute the artist’s expression. I do not want to construct my paintings through the sleepy-state visibilities that reduce contrast and evoke the soft emotions of a slightly misty atmosphere; rather, I want to construct them by approaching the extreme points of contrast, through movement and counter-movement between two poles. As activity reaches tranquillity by passing into counter-movement through its own complement, it is concentrated on the active, the particular against the general, and the few against the many, working as active dynamism.

 

COLOR CONTRAST

What can be the effect of color contrast within the constructed space?

When seen as a whole, a painting is divided into its objective parts through color contrasts; color accents are among the elements that make the composition comprehensible. By weakening contrasts of hue and saturation, the task of explaining and specifying material existence may be left to the value of color. What emerges is an emphasized monochromaticity.

In my graduate study report, when I wrote, “Strong light-dark contrast can be seen in my paintings,” I included a statement by Paul Klee, who approached color through temperature contrast: “If the dimension belonging to tone is assisted by a chromatic action, the painting becomes enriched by the dimension of temperature contrasts. The union of the two dimensions gives rise to two directions in the form of movement and counter-movement.” (18) I had said that the addition of this quality of color gives the artist the possibility of expressing emotions and thoughts powerfully in pictorial form.

If, instead of examining color through light-dark and warm-cool contrast, we examine it according to the Munsell color system, three forms of contrast emerge: hue contrast, value contrast, and chroma contrast. In this study, I will express color through these three types of contrast in the Munsell color system. In my paintings, these three aspects of color have changed in their roles together with problems that changed over time. While strong value contrast has continued, hue and chroma contrasts have joined it. At the same time, the role of activity within value contrast has changed. The active light value, which had been active through its state of being the few within a predominance of dark value, gave way to the active dark value within a predominance of light value. In my latest paintings, activity within the predominance of the middle tone is left to the ordering of dark and light.

Hue and chroma contrasts also began to respond to the movement of value contrasts through their own counter-movements. As movement and counter-movement through these three aspects of color approach tranquillity, a completely balanced state has nevertheless been deliberately avoided by allowing one of them to predominate.

Through this expansion of contrast in my paintings, I wanted to benefit from the response and excitement of color. The addition of hue and chroma to the value of color constituted new combinations alongside monochromatic emphasis and the excitement of a thermal dimension. The role of hue and chroma contrast, which began in 1986, changed while its weight increased. This is because I did not want to construct the work through forms that become indistinct in a slightly misty atmosphere, the most limited form of overall balance, an inert harmony represented by gray.

The artist can use contrast in color to give visual forms particular meanings.

 

DEFINITION—INDEFINITION

My search for clarity, definiteness, and solidity through the expansion of contrast toward its extreme points brought me closer to a linear structure. The concern with form nourished this linear structure.

My way of seeing form entered into the service of definition. This does not necessarily mean that every form must be distinct in and of itself; it simply means that every form has a strong tendency to assert itself. An attempt was made to make the elements visible with complete clarity and definiteness. The emphasis is on the boundaries of the object. Linear vision separates objects from one another. The aim is to grasp individual objects as permanent, tangible realities. Each form was compelled to appear in the way most characteristic of itself. Individual motifs, each existing in its own right, were developed as meaningful contrasts.

Although every part of my paintings is closely connected to the whole, each part always attempts to possess a certain degree of independence. This is not disorder; the individual elements are subject to the whole, but they have not ceased to exist in their own right. This forces the viewer to see by adding one element to another, to look by moving from one part to another; it is a search for unity through the composition of independent parts.

The viewer who finds definiteness too easily comprehensible seeks the solution to more complex problems and takes pleasure in doing so. In my paintings, definiteness remains in the visibility of forms. When viewed as a whole, however, there is indefiniteness of meaning. What is at issue here is not merely the further complication of a riddle that can eventually be solved; rather, the effort is to leave a permanently indefinite aspect. The task of this indefiniteness is assigned not to the visibility of individual forms but to the meaning of the composition as a whole.

There is no thing with which the meaning of the composition as a whole establishes a connection, nor does there need to be one. The definiteness of the forms is obtained through the expansion of contrast. Forms may exist purely intellectually, while nature, deprived of wholeness, may also enter in fragments. Elements abstracted from nature are now on their way to becoming intellectual abstract entities. The thing with which compositions in which both states can coexist establish a connection as a whole lies in thought.

 

MOTIFS—ORNAMENTS

“In my paintings, geometric or freely formed shapes, clothed in colors that express an artificial appearance, sometimes acquire the appearance of coarse ornament through these colors, and they exist within a space that seems limitless and determined by nothing. This space is the space in which stars move, and they are so far removed from our ordinary experiences that they appear to us as imaginary spaces.” (19) This was the oral explanation in my graduate study report that related the motifs of my paintings at that time to the space in which they were situated.

As we approach the present, geometric ornaments give way to free forms toward the end of 1986. These free forms assume their role in the composition through many aspects of activity at the beginning of 1987. They are no longer in a dark space in which stars move; yet they are still within imaginary spaces. With their restless qualities, the new ornaments carry all three elements of color and assume the excitement of the painting. Their recognizability has been added to their emphasis. Although their degrees of recognizability vary, they remain plant abstractions insofar as they preserve their identities. Within the meaning of the whole, differences in recognizability constitute an attempt to give dimension. Yet recognizability has no role in explaining the meaning of the whole. These formations as motifs eventually give way to geometric motifs, and differences in recognizability are reduced through the effect of speculation.

 

DIRECTION

In my paintings, alongside the value of color, hue and chroma contrast become stronger when contrasts of direction emerge. This directional contrast is the contrast between vertical and horizontal. Although every direction has an opposite direction, these have not been balanced in my paintings. Often, one direction has been deliberately allowed to predominate. Horizontal and vertical do not exist merely as directions; they can also assume the leading role.

 

PLACEMENT

When contrasts in placement begin to cling to the edges, the painting gives the impression of having been made according to the measure imposed by the frame rather than in estrangement from it. Although the image may appear to have been cut off at one point, the effect of wholeness is not lost because what is important is sufficiently given to the viewer. The confrontation with the edges initiates an opening toward the air surrounding the surface. Although the accumulation toward the edges later begins to dissolve, the attachment to the edges continues and strengthens the opening toward the air surrounding the surface. With the dissolution, sections emerge within the field; although they remain connected to the whole, they maintain their independence in the places they have chosen. Even if they approach one another again later, this does not occur in the form of an accumulation.

The artist, who constructs artistic space through the arrangement, ordering, and condition of its elements, can, through this placement, bring his distinctive expression to the fore with considerable force.

 

WORKS THAT STAND OUT

After the effort to determine the field of interest and direction of my artistic activity, the works that stand out from among the paintings I have made will now be discussed individually, under their own titles, from a formal point of view.

 

Two Windows

Two Windows, at the beginning of this series, was the herald of the new journey. The gradual introduction of color contrast, the arrangement, condition, and ordering of things, states of activity, and the problems of speculative space had already appeared in my graduate program in Great Volume and subsequently. Yet in Two Windows, these problems received greater emphasis and major changes in their roles began. In Two Windows, the expansion of contrast becomes particularly important. Alongside the value of color, hue and chroma, definition-indefinition, recognizability-unrecognizability, and directional contrasts become more pronounced, and the expansion of contrast begins to widen. In the placement, the elements in parallel sections are drawn toward the edges rather than gathered at the center, and they carry their contrasts there together with the desire to rest against and cling to the edges.

 

Torch

Torch, which gathered together many of the ideas I wanted to realize, is not very different from Two Windows in terms of placement; it is its development. The linear ornaments in Torch are a brief repetition of much earlier ones, but their role has changed. Clarity has been assigned to the linear ornaments. As in Great Volume and its series, recognizability has been eliminated here. Only the suggestion provided by the title remains. The shaded areas within defined sections develop and continue in subsequent paintings. The value of color is predominant, and activity is located in the dark.

 

Leaves

The measure of color saturation is preserved in Leaves as well. The linear ornaments of Torch become freer here while retaining their limitation. The accumulation toward the edges is abandoned and expansion begins. This expansion increases further in Ivy, immediately following Leaves.

In Leaves, breathing space begins. This is the problem of opening toward the air surrounding the surface.

 

Flowered Column

In Flowered Column, where clarity and definiteness increase, the sections increase their independence even while remaining connected to the whole. They cease to cover one another and, by choosing their places within the field, move toward and counter-move against one another from where they are situated. This continues within each of them as well. In their distribution within the field, while the confrontation with the edges continues, the activity of opening toward the air increases. Since verticals predominate, directional contrast is generally weakened. The horizontal remains in small parts. Value contrast in color takes the leading role, while hue and chroma are assumed by the flowers. Flowers brought closer to abstract forms first appear in this painting and continue for a while before giving way to more geometric elements. Although these flowers gain freedom, they remain within limited areas; their formation as motifs is restricted. Yet they can also open toward the air surrounding them. Although recognizability is assigned to the flowers because they have not lost their identities, the flowers have no role in explaining the meaning of the whole.

 

Red Section and Red Valley

The difference between Red Section and Red Valley and the paintings immediately preceding them is that the broad white field is replaced by red, while the flowered columns are replaced by columns formed from geometric colored elements. The increase in hue that had begun in Tobacco Flower continues here. With the hue of the color in the broad field, thermal excitement increases. Recognizability is further concealed and its role is withdrawn. The activity of the dark value in color, which had predominated for a long time, gives way to the activity of the light value. The new elements introduced in these two paintings become harbingers of those that will follow.

 

Between the Columns and Dotted Column

What is immediately apparent in Between the Columns and Dotted Column, which follow Red Section and Red Valley, is that the sections move closer to one another within the field and that the column formed from geometric colored elements is doubled. There is a desire to free the work from the dispersal of the paintings immediately preceding it. Hue and chroma contrast in color no longer remain only in the columns. The role of the verticals continues unchanged.

We know that the operation and role of what is done and produced cannot be determined in advance. What has been written up to this point was an attempt to articulate my present artistic approach. Together with this attempt at articulation, what is done and produced can only become the herald of new journeys.

 

NOTES AND EXPLANATIONS

SPECULATIVE: (Ottoman Turkish: fikrî, aklî, tasavvurî, zihnî; French: spéculatif; English: speculative) Relating to kurgu... It is the opposite of the term kılgın. The term kurgul is also used in the same sense.

ABSTRACT: (Ottoman Turkish: mücerret, küllî, menzû, müntazâ, mânevî, rûhî, mücerredât, ma'kulât, zihnî; French: abstrait; English: abstract) Used in contrast to the term concrete, which expresses knowledge of the whole, it expresses knowledge of the part and thus limited, incomplete, and non-integrated knowledge. Idealist philosophy reduced the abstract to thought alone and separated it from objective reality. Yet the abstract is a reflection in thought of a particular part of objective reality. In other words, the subject matter of the abstract is also objective reality.

ABSTRACT RELATION: (Ottoman Turkish: nisbet-i mücerrede; French: rapport abstrait) A proportion established through time and space.

ABSTRACTION: (Ottoman Turkish: tecrit, tecerrüd, intizâ, mânâyı mücerret, mânâyı mevhûm, nezi; English: abstraction) A mental operation that considers, in isolation, one of the properties of an object or one of the relations among its properties. It is separating in thought what is not actually separate. Concrete facts and events can give us only formal and external reality; it is abstraction that provides essential knowledge.

 

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NOTES

(1) H. Avni Öztopçu, exhibition brochure, Yonca Modern Art Gallery, Istanbul, 7–28 November 1988.

(2) Bedia Akarsu, Çağdaş Felsefe Akımları [Contemporary Philosophical Currents]. Istanbul, 1979, Ministry of National Education Publications, Thought Series: 3, p. 72.

(3) Ibid., p. 71.

(4) Wilhelm Worringer, Soyutlama ve Einfühlung [Abstraction and Empathy], trans. İsmail Tunalı, 2nd ed. Istanbul, 1971, Istanbul University Faculty of Letters Publications, no. 1027, p. 16.

(5) Ibid., pp. 16–17.

(6) Ibid., pp. 36–37.

(7) Ibid., p. 17.

(8) According to Buddhist philosophy, the world of appearances apprehended through our senses. Ibid., p. 17.

(9) Ibid.; quotation from Schopenhauer, Kritik der Kantischen Philosophie, p. 18.

(10) Ibid., p. 18.

(11) Quoted from Werner Haftmann in İsmail Tunalı, Felsefenin Işığında Modern Resim [Modern Painting in the Light of Philosophy], 1st ed. Istanbul, 1981, Remzi Bookstore Publications, p. 137.

(12) Max Scheler, İnsanın Kosmostaki Yeri [The Human Being's Place in the Cosmos], trans. Tomris Mengüşoğlu. Istanbul, 1968, p. 50.

(13) Immanuel Kant's explanation under the heading “Critique of Sensibility,” in Saffet Suner, Düşüncenin Tarihteki Evrimi [The Evolution of Thought in History]. Istanbul, 1967, pp. 224–245.

(14) The proposition “Ahmet is taller than Mehmet” remains true even if Mehmet does not actually exist but exists only in representation.

Bedia Akarsu, same book, p. 75.

(15) Max Scheler, same book, p. 43.

(16) Ibid., pp. 44–45.

(17) Ibid., p. 60.

(18) Paul Klee, Çağdaş Sanat Kuramı [Theory of Modern Art], trans. Mehmet Dündar. Ankara, n.d., Dost Bookstore Publications, 28/37, p. 53.

(19) H. Avni Öztopçu, Işık-Mekân-Obje [Light-Space-Object], Mimar Sinan University, Institute of Social Sciences, Department of Painting, Graduate Study Report, p. 8.

 

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REFERENCES

Akarsu, Bedia. Çağdaş Felsefe Akımları. Istanbul, 1979. Ministry of National Education Publications, Thought Series: 3.

Akarsu, Bedia. Max Scheler'de Kişilik Problemi. Istanbul, 1962. Istanbul University Faculty of Letters Publications, no. 976.

Hançerlioğlu, Orhan. Felsefe Ansiklopedisi: Kavramlar ve Akımlar. 1st ed. Istanbul, 1977. Remzi Bookstore Publications.

Klee, Paul. Çağdaş Sanat Kuramı. Translated by Mehmet Dündar. Ankara. Dost Bookstore Publications, 28/3.

Lowry, Bates. Sanatı Görmek. Translated by N. Yurtsever and Z. Güvemli. 1st ed. Istanbul, 1972. Türkiye İş Bankası A.Ş. Cultural Publications, no. 119.

Öztopçu, H. Avni. Işık-Mekân-Obje. Istanbul, 1986. Mimar Sinan University, Institute of Social Sciences, Department of Painting, Graduate Study Report.

Öztopçu, H. Avni. Renk Karşıtlığı. Istanbul, 1987. Mimar Sinan University, Institute of Social Sciences, Department of Painting, Research Report for the Proficiency in Art program.

Scheler, Max. İnsanın Kosmostaki Yeri. Translated by Tomris Mengüşoğlu. Istanbul, 1968.

Sirel, Şazi. Kuramsal Renk Bilgisi. Istanbul, 1974. Istanbul State Academy of Engineering and Architecture Publications, no. 124.

Suner, Saffet. Düşüncenin Tarihteki Evrimi. Istanbul, 1967.

Tunalı, İsmail. Estetik Beğeni. 1st ed. Istanbul, 1983. Say Kitap Pazarlama.

Tunalı, İsmail. Felsefenin Işığında Modern Resim. 1st ed. Istanbul, 1981. Remzi Bookstore Publications.

Velioğlu, Süleyman. “Türkiye'de Resim Sanatı Alanında Görülen Düşünsel Etkinlikler Üstüne.” Sanat Çevresi, no. 120, October 1988, pp. 18–21.

Worringer, Wilhelm. Soyutlama ve Einfühlung. Translated by İsmail Tunalı. 2nd ed. Istanbul, 1971. Istanbul University Faculty of Letters Publications, no. 1027.

Wölfflin, Heinrich. Sanat Tarihinin Temel Kavramları. Translated by Hayrullah Örs. Istanbul, 1973. Istanbul University Faculty of Letters Publications, no. 1784.

 

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