Quote on Authority

“The presentational mode of political art, however, is suited to the organic expression of specific social groups-when there is an authentic political collectivity to be represented. Of course, this mode is also used in the polemics of the art world. But displaced, even groundless there, it is often treated fetishistically as if in longing for a lost power of the image, or ironically as if this mode of representation had become but generic figure of political naiveté or historical futility.

Thus made to parade its own holes reduction to gesture, convention, cliché, this political mode of art become parodistic, submissive.

Theoretical at least, this ironic use of presenting political art may be pushed to a deconstruction point where the truth-value or binding power of any given political representation, collided with others, is undone. ” ⁴⁶

Authority meets us everyday in our social interaction: it regulates human interaction, organizes behavior into groups, sets off hierarchies and directs and supports social action, but it can also prevent it. As a dynamic phenomenon, authorities are always tied to the support of people and can be brought down by their resistance. When authorities fall, then often with those who have supported them until the last moment.

The close bond with authority also holds the chance of social and economic profit as well as the danger of common decline.

FOSTER, Hal (1998) - Recodings Art, Spectacle, Cultural Politics, London, The New Press

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p.154

Authority is a concept of value derived from latin term “augere” (“to let grow, to multiply”), “auctoritas” is originally a legal term that describes the guarantee of a seller for the legal integrity of a sold object and thus defines the author as a guarantor. It is political, a property of the Roman Senate, and since “Augustus” also of the Roman emperor. Reputation, validity, and power are closely intertwined here through the ⁴⁷ concept of authority. Also artistic production knows auctoritas: in the rhetoric, it describes the potency of an argument that refers to informants such can call a witness in court or for a speech on a rhetorical role model. By imitation (imitatio) of role models, auctoritas becomes a principle of rhetorical education, and the author in turn vouches for the integrity of his/her text. Not only speakers and poets, but also visual artists know auctoritas, those of one‘s own person and those of a patron. The meaning facets of auctoritas pervade all epochs. The art of the Middle Ages also has authoritative vocations to other artists and visual formulations. Under the mastery of the Renaissance and the redefinition of its own cultural position in the face of antiquity, authority as a cultural concept becomes more explosive and so it becomes more exciting. ⁴⁸

My personal attitude, regarding the position of solidarity and respect in our society, came from experiences, memories and current events, such as the growing right-wing movements in Germany, as well as the issue of certain conventions within social boundaries. Talking about issues like someones development of his/her identity and the general social conditions, led to Erich Fromm and Erik Erikson, whose publications about the identity, the ego, and the super-ego, with a focus on ego-psychology, attend to Sigmund Freud's model of psychic structures. The concept of personal identity is about the:

“direct perception of one's own equality and continuity in time, and the associated perception that others also recognize this equality and continuity. ” ⁴⁹

ESCHENBURG, Theodor (1976) - About Authority, Frankfurt Am Main, Suhrkamp, p.11

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Idem, p.12

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ERIKSON, Erik (1960) - Identity and the Life Cycle, London, W.W Norton & Company, p. 18

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This quote makes it clear how highly Erikson weights the influence of the social environment on the psychological behavior of the individual. The social component of identity manifests itself in membership of a group and the associated identifications manifests themselves to the side of the individual. The social expectations emerge on that of the collective, as Eriskon calls it: “social or group identity”. The following quote underlines his statement:

“People who belong to the same ethnic group, live in the same historical period or earn their living in the same way, are also guided by common ideas of good and bad. ”⁵⁰

The elements of collective consciousness arise from the experience of solidarity that society members have to show if they want to survive in a world where labor is shared. In this way, people grow into social structures that are given to them.

Their upbringing takes place in the express observance and respect of social guidelines.

"The new freedom is bound to create a deep feeling of insecurity, powerlessness, doubt, aloneness, and anxiety. ”⁵¹

Erikson describes this process of education as "group identity education" and

"the way a group communicates its basic forms of organizing experience" to the individual. Based on specific social conditions, society shapes the forms of interaction ⁵² of its members and defines social roles. The totality of these structural principles comprises the group identity of the collective. The upbringing that contributes to socializing the individual in the sense of this group identity is based on the values defined by the collective. According to Erikson's theory, the development to this positive state of identity (Erikson also describes it as the hallmark of a “healthy personality”) is characterized by gradual maturation and the associated gradual ⁵³ overcoming of the previously relevant identifications from the childhood. The resulting

Idem, p. 11

Maturation is a process of becoming mature in terms of growing and developing personal

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characteristics

increase of responsibility is accompanied by critical developments which fade until the next stage of personal development is reached. Older identification and problem-solving patterns become apparently useless, new modes of behavior and border crossing experiences become conductive. This process is called “ego growth through crisis management”. Erikson writes:

“Human growth is to be presented here from the point of view of the internal and external conflicts which the healthy personality has to endure, and from which it repeatedly emerges with a strengthened feeling of inner unity, an increase in judgment and ability emerges to 'do their thing well' according to the standards of the environment that is important to that person. ” ⁵⁴

In western educated societies, the identification and the final self-discovery of young people requires years of learning and schooling before a final social role is determined. During this time, young people can experiment with different roles so that their social development proceeds as optimally as possible. Social expectations, which could have a restrictive effect, take a back seat. To connect those statements and and the visual work, an example of one of the paintings from 2018 is mandatory. The canvas Snotnoses (Rotznasen) was painted in the very beginning of the stay in Lisbon and now, after two more years, this painting can be observed in a different way.

Idem, p. 56

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Tom Solty (1992 - ), Snotnoses (Rotznasen), 2018, Oil on canvas, 210 x 125 cm, Artist collection, Lisbon

Right after moving from Berlin to Lisbon, I recognized the changing of my comfort zone and my circle of friends. My connection to certain subcultures in Berlin, whom contained Graffiti writers or people from the clubbing scene, as well as underground tattoo movements, inspired and definitely shaped me in certain ways of my sensibility. Drug abuse or violence are for example some key points which strengthen transgressive motifs within my works and personal coherences. Theatrical behavior and almost insincere demeanor guiding both, assertions of Erikson and Fromm, and those spectacles in the paintings.

“The individual young people need a more or less recognized waiting period between childhood and adult life.(…) This period can be described as a psychosocial moratorium , during which people, ⁵⁵ through free role experimentation, look for their place in our society.

(…) This gives the young adult the secure feeling of inner and social continuity that forms the bridge between what he was as a child and what he is now about to become; a bridge that at the same time connects the image in which he perceives himself with the image under which he is recognized by his group. ” ⁵⁶

This is the basis for the ego identity. If this experimentation ends with the young person being able to find a place that suits them in their social environment, he/

she experiences a positive “sense of identity“. Another important and interesting point Erikson writes about, connects the dots between the point of personal insecurity and a lack of trust and motivation in our generation. People who grew up in our generation or the ones who grow up with the Internet share especially those emotions and lack of trust. Those justifications, in this term of Erikson and Fromm, should not cover or explain all patterns of social behavior, but they interpret western educated societies and outcomes of the capitalism.

Moratorium describes a phase of life in the human life cycle, more precisely: the transition

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phase between childhood and adult identity.

ERIKSON (1960), op.cit. p. 137

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Picturing personal paintings here is meant to indicate certain characteristics from above, but still leaving space for imagination and narration. Exclusion, isolation or loneliness are deeply connected to the figures in those paintings and therefore also to outcomes of our western education. The following painting Election Day was painted during November of 2020 and it was inspired by the U.S.A election and the belonging sensation.

“Extreme work disability is the logical consequence of a strong feeling of inferiority; in cases of regression to the point of primal distrust, it extends to everything that one has noticed. Of course, this feeling of inferiority almost never corresponds to a real lack of talent, but rather to the unrealistic demands of an ego ideal that can only be satisfied by omnipotence or omniscience. It may have arisen from the fact that the individual has no place in his immediate social environment for his true gifts. ” ⁵⁷

Idem, p. 184

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Tom Solty (1992 - ), Election Day, 2020, Oil on canvas, 195 x 100 cm, Artist collection, Lisbon