A NON LINEAR PERSPECTIVE BY RAJATH ALEXANDER SURI
The conceptual artist Marc Schmitz posits within the sphere of contemporary art an unique dichotomy which oscillates between spatial vacuum, intrinsic spirituality and the dimensions of visual contexts in an experiential manner. The artist has conceived of numerous series which denote a subtle referential system attenuated to his philosophical orientation, perspective and manifestations of intimate engagements with materials which correlate his fascination with transcendental states and spiritual animism. His non-linear perspective is of key note, absence and emptiness are engaged with in the employment of materials and rather than acceptance and incorporation of sheer hazard, as may be supposed of his monochromatic oil paintings which indicate a tendency between abstract expressionism to sheer abstraction, the compositions are reasoned via a predominant intellectual latitude. The artist is concerned with dialectical subjectivity governing interpretations of “internationalism” and the caustic wake of mythologies: globalization and stereo-typological thought patterns which render analysis oblique and unintelligible are discarded as Marc attempts to diffused the predominant socio- political mores of society and defy conservative aesthetic enquiry. “To transform capitalism...” remains a missive of the artist whom, ignoring the facile dichotomy of dualistic logic and rationale imbues his creations with a spatial reasoning divested of calculation. Intuitive perception appears to be the manifest signature of this exceptional artistic Nomad.A pivotal point of departure from reason to non-reason is central to a successful and representative analysis of the artistic path of Marc Schmitz. Non- reason and intuitive rationale have been present for centuries, if not, millennia, in diverse non-Occidental cultures: the artists’ abandon of self towards a sincere embrace of this subtle truth in a plethora of simulacra is evident and sincere. We have forgotten what has been known. Marc Schmitz attempts without conviction, depicting an impass of historicity, the frailty of the arrogance of the mind and deliberation with materials. Non-sequential, in a manner of speaking, the artist fragments preconceptions of medium in an informed and conscientious fashion. When painting, he tends towards the sincerest execution of abstraction, spontaneity, and achieves sublime monochromatic works bearing slight alphabetical/numerical codes without recognizable intentions. The variation occurs at the moment of inception. The exists no “cast” or adherence to styles which art historians or academic pedagogues insist to engender “justification” of practice and the absurdity of soluable form or mannerism.
An extenuation is observed as his spatial creations which ascend to hover above whatever passive enquirer in fact restrict the potential of trans-sensorial interpretations. The “moment” is altered, rendered acute due to the schemata of three dimensional forms being not only spatial, yet further, spiritual. The conical devices dictate that the audience engages with a vista refined to a vertical perspective. The sky and passage of cloud, the sense of a vast, unfathomable horizon which all observe with less intensity daily is brought to an intimate instance with each individuals’ examinations of his creations. The materials and colour very, yet the intention of an analysis of unique perspective- undeniable in the visual context provided by the artist- remind of the loss of sensitivity of nature and intrinsic spiritual aspects of our existence. The movement and content of visual imagery made possible by the advent of technological inventions are curiously erased by the artist, while the monumental structures which elect them to our collective conscious and unconscious visual experience remain intact. Visual reflex is a crucial consideration as the artist deploys a diverse vocabulary of media towards his sur- automatic and highly conscientious creations which travesty the norms of visual vocabulary, license and pattern.
Marc Schmitz investigates intuitive hierarchies and trans-cultural latitudes by way of a supple effluvium of the mind, the mind as a whole rather than psychological reasoning of subconscious/ conscious and equally facile dichotomies owning to a psycho-analytical adherence which may be ascribed to intellectual cowardice of this past centuries age of scientific advent. Reminiscent of architectural, painterly and technological schools within the parameters of post-modernist interpretation, the actual course of the artist is emphatically ambiguous and amorphic, Schmitz is a chameleon rather than a hydra when it comes to formal applications and the subversion of visual interpretation demarcates and intuitive depth which has developed from intellectual sojourns which transcend self, boundaries of self, cultural identification and the entirely human frailty of our physical and societal mechanism
Rajath Alexander Suri, Beijing 2010