Accidents, Evocative Objects and Art: Meanderings of the Mind in the Work of Christopher Bollas and Gabriel Orozco

Abstract

IntroductionThis study offers an introduction to Christopher Bollas's theoretical approach to thinking and the creative process, both within and outside of the psychoanalytic encounter. It also looks at selected works by the artist and sculptor Gabriel Orozco which help to illuminate Bollas's thinking and underscore concepts related to self which are of interest not just to psychoanalysis and art, but to a much wider audience.In the chapter on creativity and psychoanalysis in his book The Mystery of Things (1999, pp.167-180), Bollas asks whether "what takes place in analysis shadows some of the more radical representational expressions in the worlds of poetry, painting and music" (p.170). In this study I will offer a positive response by juxtaposing Bollas's elaboration of the 'true self', his theory of reception and his view of the aleatory object with Orozco's descriptions of the making process, of working in a state of unknowing, finding "accidents" and being open to surprises that are found in everyday events and objects. In these respects, Orozco's art and Bollas's psychoanalytic theories are inter-animating and mutually reinforcing: the former offers a visual and the latter a discursive presentation of the creative process.Bollas explores the connection between psychic life and art, and gives us examples of how the process of thinking thoughts and expressing feelings is reflected in the process of creating art. In his description of "cracking-up" -or deconstructing -his own everyday thoughts and feelings he experiences, he takes us on a journey outside of the consulting room and into the world of his own everyday reality, complete with memories, dreams and desires. In a similar fashion, Orozco describes the process of disavowing the studio and the 1 Alberto Giacometti, letter to Pierre Matisse, 1947, quoted in G. Brett (2002 2 conventional materials of art-making and turning instead to a process of finding evocative objects in his everyday world: on the beach, in the streets, at home.Bollas and Orozco embrace a similar attitude towards understanding the self and one's place in the world; both use the mundane, the everyday, in their quest for authenticity.Orozco's objects of choice may be a simple breath remaining momentarily on a piano's shiny surface, or a rubber tyre remoulded; he is as interested in the object's intrinsic nature as he is in the ways he can re-make its form. Bollas uses the reverberations of objects encountered (or sought) in the everyday, which he sees as the containers of dream material and desire. Both seek to capture something that is real in the sense of being true but notyet-articulated.The artist and the psychoanalyst highlight the fact that we communicate through our choice of objects. That is, objects in the sense of inanimate things that fill our work and leisure spaces, as well as in the psychoanalytical sense of events, places, ideas and concepts, and the 'other' not-me selves -colleagues, family, friends -who inhabit our world. All these evoke feelings which are emotionall...