Page 59 - Studio International - May 1968

Ko(no)scienza disperata 1966
Facing page How to survive 1966
mixed media on aluminium,
mixed media on aluminium,
39+ x 39+ in. 39+ x 39+ in.

formula for his salvation? What are the observers
really doing? How is it that they appear in two
places at once? All of these are things that we do
not and cannot know, but since we do not know,
all of the possibilities remain open.
Having activated the narrative possibilities of
Baruchello's paintings is not to have understood
them. The narrative in these paintings is a false
narrative with neither a real beginning nor a real
end. To read what is written on these paintings is
still not to have understood them. To try to crack
what looks like a code is equally useless. No matter
what we do they remain unresolved—mysterious.
The mystery in Baruchello's paintings, however,
has no capital 'M'. He is not concerned with open-
ing the doors of the Absolute. One of his most
fundamental tools is sequence; and though the
sequences never come to an end, they do imply the
direction in which to search for the solutions to the
existential problems that he deals with. One must
follow these directions, though, in the realm of
thought, not into the realms of action, since
Baruchello is more interested in the lineaments of
the consiousness than in the preception of the
outside world. The outside world is important to
him only in so far as it has been absorbed by the con-
sciousness, modifying and being modified by it.
The very space of his canvases could be conceived
of as a representation of the consciousness, and the
events that take place in it almost represent his
thoughts. Baruchello exhibits a faith not in man's
capacity to change the world, but in man's
capacity to change the way in which he conceives
of the world.
In How to survive each of the four superimposed
squares in the right-hand half of the canvas is in
colour, a variation on the space of the total canvas.
Each square represents a variation in consciousness
with respect to the consciousness represented by the
total canvas. Each succeeding square becomes
smaller and tighter as the inclination of the square
and the consciousness it represents become more
radical. Baruchello stops at the fourth stage of the
process for no apparent reason, but the possibility
today's art is not to be found in Baruchello's. directed to a situation at the right of the painting of continuing the process is clear since each square
The character who must face up to the problem where four squares, each one smaller than the is associated with one of the six mythical observers.
of 'how to survive' is a schematic manikin, naked other are superimposed, each square also rotating `Six', since they are mythical and identical, could
and almost disjointed. He stands next to a garble of to the right with respect to the square which it just as easily be 'sixty'. The consciousnisess attempt-
instructions that is as big as he is if not bigger. partially covers. The squares are labelled from ing to solve the problem of how to survive, and it
There are four tiny mythical observers, bisexual, first to fourth; each one has its mythical observer, does so by modifying itself. At stage number four
with their penises attached to brains, who peer at the same mythical observers that watched or read of the shifts in consciousness (in fourth gear, as it
the instructions through eye-glasses. One of the the instructions. In a small collage element in the were), we have the collage element. Its purpose is
observers, the third, peers not at the instructions centre of the fourth square are mythical observers simply to show how things stand at that particular
but at the perceptual apparatus of his companion five and six, as well as the numbers from one to six, point. The problem is in suspension; it has been
number four. The instructions themselves make no each number except 'three' being attached to the solved neither positively nor negatively. What
sense. 'How to survive' is perhaps to formulate the appropriate observer. In the centre of the collage Baruchello suggests is the possibility of a solution at
instructions anyway, to correct one's vision, to element is the schematic man (perhaps a different the undepicted stage number five or six. In addition
observe the instructions both intellectually and one) in danger, it seems, of being killed by a pro- to a faith in the possibility of man's modifying and
viscerally, and then, both intellectually and vis- jectile that traces a trajectory from the corner of perfecting the way in which he conceives of the
cerally, to observe the process of intellectual and the first square to his head. As it approaches his world, Baruchello offers us a challenge to carry
visceral observation? The process does not stop head it disappears, reappears in the region of his this research even farther than he himself has done.
here. Mythical observers five and six are at the groin, and continues to trace its path out of the
top of the canvas observing yet other things. region of the fourth square and into the general
Number five observes the connexion that exists white space upon which the painting is built.
between the penis of number six and his eye- Does the bullet strike the manikin? Does he
glasses and brain; number six has his attention survive or not ? And what would be the precise