Artist as agent for the unseen. - synopsis of research for my dissertation

[This was the synopsis of my dissertation for my BA in Fine Art and Professional Practice] 

Throughout history the underlying role of the artist has been to depict the unseen: the artist lets the viewer into his or her world of ideas and images. In this essay I will be examining how artists have depicted the unseen in their work, particularly in the context of work where the unseen remains unseen and is, often, just implied.

In order to do this I will be referring to the work of Jacques Derrida and his ideas concerning deconstruction and hauntology. I intend to make this link because Derrida’s account of deconstruction attempts to draw our attention to what is missing or absent; deconstruction helps us think about those things which cannot, for whatever reason, be fully reinstated or ‘seen’ in the present.  As a consequence of his work on deconstruction, Derrida has examined the role of the spectre which he analysed under the term, hauntology. By taking up this theme I will analyse the work of artists who have dealt with ghosts (deliberately ‘fictional’ or ‘real’) and those artists whose work delves into supernatural.

Two recent exhibitions have proved inspirational to my research because they brought together the work of many artists who have focused on the role of the supernatural unseen: Dark Monarch – Magic and Modernity in modern art (shown at the Tate St Ives October 2009–January 2010) and Magic Show (a Hayward touring exhibition recently shown at the Grundy, Blackpool, February – April 2010).

 

The sources for this research therefore include books and articles written by, and about, Jacques Derrida. I have, however, extended my research beyond the merely theoretical to include a range of research papers and books relating to the artists who I have referred to in order to discuss their creative visual ideas, images, objects and films.