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By: Mohammed El Qandil *
All great art begins with pastiche, Malraux once wrote. All great art eventually surpasses it, I am tempted to add.
At the beginning, there is mimesis, imitation, the resemblance aimed at in oneself, the search for a model to follow. The work compares itself to another, desires to be the other, devotes itself to the love of the other. Narcissus and the mirror.
And then, comes the time of surpassing, of defection, of the search for oneself as an independent entity, of the elevation of oneself as a unique model to be valued, to be named with a view to recognition. The time of transgression is imposed, of the violation of any coercive, liberticidal law, where the work goes to fertilize unknown, deserted, exotic lands. Prometheus and fire.
This is because the work of art hates vacancy, emptiness. It can only be born, conceived, erected as a work if it brings other works, other imaginary entities into play. Other ancient and present works.
The work is a questioning of his fellow human beings. It is a creative journey.
Any work of art which presents itself as ex nihilo, emerging from a region whose origin and gestation are unknown, is certainly false. She is full of pretension.
This is why every great artist, perhaps unknowingly, pays homage to his predecessors. To those who nourished his vision, gave shape to his imagination, lent the impetus to the leap into the magma of the demiurgic.
Every artist worthy of his name renews an ethic of recognition: Without Edgar Allan Poe it will be difficult to conceive of a Baudelaireaccording to some critics; without Dostoyevskymany European novelists; without Kafkaabsurd literature… Without Ritsous, Rilke, Salim Barakator even Peopleit is difficult to imagine the verve, the depth, the commitment… of Mahmoud Darwich.
And yet does the work of art communicate? Should she claim her share of sociability? His dialogue with a receiver?
If we believe Rilkethe work of art is infinitely solitary, nothing can reach or touch it, except love. It is pure incommunicability according to Blanchot. That which takes shape in the mystery of oneself, draws its authenticity from its fibers, dialogues with its present and future memory, can in no case speak to the other, be seized by the other, lend itself to the game of supposedly scholarly and systematic analysis. Without commercial or calculable value, the work, in the deep sense of the term, rejects noise, limelight, applause, admiring glances…
She is silence. Modest silence. Generosity of the shadow.
She is all in the auroral light of one who only signs when dying.
*Poet, researcher in literature and visual arts / Educational inspector
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