by John Gorman

Artwork Description

Deposition

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Deposition, 25x20cm, graphite on Khadi paper This work of art by John Gorman shows, as the title suggests, a Deposition. We know from the details provided by the artist that Christ, His mother, and Mary Magdalene are depicted here. We also know that the Christ was inspired by one of Michelangelo’s Christs. For me, the closest model to this drawing is the Rondanini Pietà (1564), although Mary Magdalene is absent from the latter work. Indeed, the position of Christ, as far as we can see, as well as the expression on His face, are very close to this work by the Master. The Virgin is also positioned so close to her son, with her head above his, that this hypothesis would be confirmed. Mary Magdalene adds another character to the scene, which becomes a pyramidal composition, culminating in the imperceptible face of the Virgin, the face of Christ being the only one discernible, as well as His body. It should be noted that the line of His legs follows an opposite direction to that of Michelangelo’s Christ, as far as we can tell. The face of the Son of God is both terrifying and extremely moving. It is the face of Death, its mask, and we can make out hollowed out eye sockets, a nose of which only the bridge remains, a half-open mouth (or, on the contrary, with thick, tight lips? ), His torso partly left empty of pigment (we can see His navel), or covered everywhere with a dense network of tangled oblique lines, unfathomable thicknesses of graphite, as if, instead of being taken down from His Cross, He was already covered with the shroud of death. It thus differs from Michelangelo’s entirely naked work, although the latter’s truncated arms and His torso covered with a network of chisel strokes, which are equally dense, bring it closer. As for the Virgin, apart from the position already mentioned, she is treated in a style characteristic of John Gorman, and his play on veiling and unveiling, themes addressed in philosophy in particular and eminently by Heidegger. We can also mention here Jacques Derrida and particularly his Memoirs of the Blind, to which I will return. In John Gorman’s drawing, the Virgin is wrapped around the body of her Son. She draws a loop, which arabesque lines allow us to guess, and we can mentally restore and see by looking very carefully at the shape of her buttocks, her contoured back because two small breasts can be discerned, her right shoulder, and therefore her head, while her right leg encroaches on those of her son, merging with them, her bent knee partially masking His body.She is plastically treated with a network of lines, more or less fine or thick, and whose network is more or less dense. At the level of Christ’s navel, which is linked to His mother, a nebulous spot appears, a supernatural element, which reinforces the bond that unites them, fusional but complex. It is as if God the Father intervened here to deny this fusion, which He would disapprove of.On the left, Mary Magdalene, whom John Gorman often approaches as Nikos Kazantzakis does in his novel The Last Temptation of Christ, shows only fragments of her flesh left white, the colour of paper, a small mocking puppet’s head perhaps appearing, as if detached from her body. It is located almost exactly at the level of Christ, just a little lower. Apart from these fragments, nothing can be seen of her except her nudity. Graphic elements appear everywhere in the composition: a semblance of a frame on the right, large shreds of material flowing from top to bottom, and thick traces of graphite at the feet of the Virgin and Christ. The body of the Virgin is as if whipped by large, dense ribbons of black pigment. Finally, in the upper left-hand corner, the beginnings of a deep black structure can be seen, which has yet to be interpreted. It is difficult to compare the graphic or pictorial treatment of this scene with a specific artistic movement or master other than Michelangelo. More terrible than Guernica and Goya’s black paintings, it escapes completely from the manner of these masters. For me, it is more an interpretation of medieval works, from the 12th or 13th centuries. But the dexterity of which it testifies of course also brings it closer to the movements of the second half of the 20th century, and to painters such as Beuys or even the young Pollock for example. But here again, it confronts the works of the latter and reveals an entirely new style, albeit one that is nourished by references. As is always the case in John Gorman’s work. Its beauty, its sublime character, brings it closer to Romanticism, but of course its style distances it from it because it is too new and, in the absence of a term for this new art, which we have already described as discursive and as a new form of writing, I will conclude quoting Jacques Derrida in his aforementioned work: ”What happens when one writes without seeing? A hand of the blind ventures forth alone or disconnected, in a poorly delimited space; it feels its way, it gropes, it caresses as much as it inscribes, trusting in the memory of signs and supplementing sight. It is as if a lidless eye had opened at the tip of the fingers, as if one eye too many had just grown right next to the nail, a single eye, the eye of a cyclops or one-eyed man. This eye guides the tracing or outline [trace}, it is a miner’s lamp at the point of writing, a curious and vigilant substitute, the prosthesis of a seer who is himself invisible. The image of the movement of these letters, of what this finger-eye inscribes, is thus sketched out within me. From the absolute withdrawal of an invisible center or command post, a secret power ensures from a distance a kind of synergy. It coordinates the possibilities of seeing, touching, and moving. And of hearing and understanding, for these are already words of the blind that I draw in this way. One must always remember that the word, the vocable, is heard and understood, the sonorous phenomenon remaining invisible as such. Taking up time rather than space in us, it is addressed not only from the blind to the blind, like a code for the nonseeing, but speaks to us, in truth, all the time of the blindness that constitutes it. Language is spoken, it speaks to itself, which is to say, from/of blindness. It always speaks to us from/of the blindness that constitutes it. But when, in addition, I write without seeing, during those exceptional experiences I just mentioned, in the night or with my eyes glued elsewhere, a schema already comes to life in my memory. At once virtual, potential, and dynamic, this graphic crosses all the borders separating the senses, its being-in-potential at once visual and auditory, motile and tactile. Later, its form will come to light like a developed photograph. But for now, at this very moment when I write, I see literally nothing of these letters. As rare and theatrical as these experiences may be I called them “accidental” they nonetheless impose themselves as an exemplary mise en scène. The extraordinary brings us back to the ordinary and the everyday, back to the experience of the day itself, to what always guides writing through the night, farther or no farther [plus loin] than the seeable or the foreseeable. “Plus loin” can here mean either excess or lack. (No) more knowledge [savoir], (no) more power [pouvoir} writing gives itself over rather to anticipation. To anticipate is to take the initiative, to be out in front, to take (capere) in advance (ante). Different than precipitation, which exposes the head (prae-caput), the head first and ahead of the rest, anticipation would have to do with the hand. The theme of the drawings of the blind is, before all else, the hand. For the hand ventures forth, it precipitates, rushes ahead, certainly, but this time in place of the head, as if to precede, prepare, and protect it. A safeguard, a guardrail. Anticipation guards against precipitation, it makes advances, puts the moves on space in order to be the first to take, in order to be forward in the movement of taking hold, making contact, or apprehending.’’ This seems to me to correspond in almost every aspect to the work of John Gorman. Delphine Costedoat

Artwork Details

Medium: Drawing Other

Genre: Figurative