Wittgenstein’s Paradox

WITTGENSTEIN’S PARADOX

Liz Deschenes, Helmut Federle, Callum Innes, Ann Verónica Janssens, Florian Pumhösl & Ian Wallace

“5.6 The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.
5.61 Logic fills the world: the limits of the world are also its limits.”
_ Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 5.6-5.61, 1921

In 1936, the now well-known, studied and refuted Ludwig Wittgenstein (Vienna, Austria, 1889 – 1951 Cambridge, UK) was about to visit Spain together with David Pinsent, thinker, collaborator and supposed lover of the Viennese philosopher. Trying to escape from the world, perhaps seeking one of its possible limits, they decided to go to Norway and there in Skjolden, some time later, the philosopher would design and build that famous cabin where he spent countless days writing in solitude.

When Wittgenstein states his famous proposition in point 5.6 of the Tractatus, perhaps without intending it, he established an absolute limit to reality. Following this logic, every language would be nothing but a compilation of rules that we accept and adopt as our own, that is, a conjunction of limits. Our minds are finite, but the rules tend to be applied to an infinite number of cases. This is perhaps why the idea of ​​limits is not strange to us but also moves something within us, drives us to transgress and overcome those limits.

The paradox hidden in his famous proposition only becomes visible through his idea of ​​aesthetics and, more specifically, by analyzing how the Austrian philosopher conceived art. Wittgenstein maintains that we can only approach art from the perspective of eternity, that is to say, from outside those limits of language (the world). That is why aesthetics apparently have no place in his philosophical thinking and, precisely for this reason, it ends up becoming one of the fundamental pillars of his thinking given its condition as an absolute and untheorizable dimension. It is not by chance that another of his best-known propositions, with which he somehow closes the Tractatus, maintains: “Whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent.”

From these coordinates, Wittgenstein’s Paradox intends to reflect on the idea of limit, paying special attention to the extradiegetic value of art. The selection of works that are part of the exhibition suggest, from different prisms, how art has the capacity to transgress, or at least allude to, those limits.

In linguistic grounds, we see this in the approaches of Helmut Federle and Florian Pumhösl, who look into signifiers and signifieds by emancipating alphabets from their traditional connotations. They thus open the door to new associations, emphasizing in their path the eternal arbitrary nature of the sign. Helmut Federle achieves this through the Latin alphabet -traditionally with a focus on the letter H, although here expanding to other forms such as A-; and Florian Pumhösl through the Georgian alphabet, both exploring from a formal point of view through their respective mediums. 

On the other hand, from a geographical sense, we notice this expansion mainly in the works of Ian Wallace. The fragmentation from his photographic and pictorial montages leads us inevitably to the places they refer to. Thus, museums, studios or the street compete with colorful acrylics for a limited space in the extension of the canvas, while expanding our gaze to those spaces-others where they were captured by the camera.

Finally, we find approaches (and overflows) that are presented in the works from a material basis. In order to carry out his paintings -where he first applies layers of superimposed oil paint and then removes some of them with turpentine- Callum Innes’ brushstrokes inevitably exceed the limits of the canvas. Far from hiding these processes, the artist lets us glimpse some of these traces in the finished pieces, especially when we see them up close: under the black we can see the colors that did not reach the surface of the canvas, leaving an intentional emptiness; likewise, the edges of his frames can be both neat or covered with splashes, as a result of these excesses. Ann Veronica Janssens’ works go beyond their tangible limits, iridescing the light around them and making it, paradoxically, the main protagonist of her pieces. Finally, in the case of Liz Deschenes, we see the expansion of her FPS works in the active and fundamental role we play as viewers. Not only do many of her photograms present a surface that reflects us and involves us in the work from an explicit plane; but in the FPSs -acronym for frames per second-, another important reason is at at work: the assembly in vertical strips, placed at constant intervals, is a nod to the first cinematograph apparatuses. There, it was the filmstrip that moved; but here, the movement is provided by the one who moves around the piece, which also presents iridescent changes depending on the perspective and the incidence of light.