Publication: El oro: sustancia y significado. Usos del material aúrico en las prácticas artísticas contemporáneas (1953-2013)
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2017-05-05
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Universidad Complutense de Madrid
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Abstract
Esta tesis doctoral se enmarca en una línea metodológica que sitúa la materialidad en primer plano, partícipe de los Nuevos Materialismos que recogen el amplio debate surgido a partir de la emancipación de la materia en los últimos años. Nuestra investigación surgió a partir de la experiencia directa con el material áurico; atraídos por sus cualidades frágiles, observamos su cada vez más extendida presencia en las creaciones contemporáneas. Pero frente a los codificados significados del pasado, los usos de los oros más recientes sugerían nuevas metáforas. Así, revisando críticamente la literatura, identificamos las principales corrientes en la semántica del oro: el determinismo material entendido como ontología material defendido por Gómez Pintado y primeros escritos de Schloen, la corriente anti-significado liderada por Zaunschirm, y una tercera vía que asume la polisemia e indaga en los nuevos significados de Charboneaux, Zilch y segundos escritos de Schloen. Ante esta problemática, nosotros nos situamos en la tercera vía, aquella que acepta los nuevos sigificados, y proponemos una antropología del material, más atenta a las relaciones entre materia, creador y entorno que a las ontologías materiales. Interrogando tanto a la materia como a los creadores con una mirada abierta y plural, nos planteamos varias preguntas: ¿Cuál es el papel que juegan los materiales —nuevos y clásicos— en la construcción de significados y en las relaciones que se establecen entre el creador y el público?¿en qué se diferencia el uso del oro ahora frente aquel del pasado? ¿qué nuevos significados están aportando los artistas desde los años sesenta del siglo pasado hasta las primeras décadas del siglo XXI? La primera pregunta ofrece la oportunidad para poner en práctica el modelo de estudio de la antropología del material. Ese fue nuestro primer objetivo: resituar el material oro en un plano de igualdad frente a la forma, y dentro de esa recolocación, indagar en las relaciones fluidas entre materia y artista. Así, estudiando dos fuentes primarias —las obras y los artistas— nuestra investigación se abre al método transdisciplinar para integrar teorías emergentes en el ámbito de la antropología, la creación artística, la sociología, e incluso la historia económica. Centrándonos en las prácticas artísticas occidentales, seleccionamos obras primando el material oro por encima del concepto oro, y, dentro de esa categoría, el oro auténtico evitando sucedáneos como la purpurina y el oropel. El énfasis está en los flujos de los materiales, pues es por medio de los procesos como van creciendo conjuntamente creadores y materiales; en ese crecimiento se establecen conexiones, un meshwork de crecimiento y movimiento. Así, el oro, sus propiedades y cualidades, pasan a ser sus acciones, sus recorridos y sus historias...
This doctoral thesis falls within a methodological framework that privileges materiality and is aligned with the New Materialisms that have embraced contemporary theoretical debates which have emerged in recent years with the emancipation of materials. My scholarship stems from direct experience with gold as a material. Attracted by its fragility, I began to take note of its increasing presence in contemporary art, and how its current uses suggest new metaphors that depart from the coded meanings of the past. A critical survey of the literature helped discern three major approaches to the semantics of gold: the material determinism of Gómez Pintado and Schloen’s early writings, the anti-meaning approach championed by Zaunschirm, and a third approach that concedes gold’s polysemy and new meanings as argued by Charboneaux and Zilch and in Schloen’s later writings. The present thesis positions itself within the latter of these approaches and proposes an anthropology of the material that brings into focus the nature of the relationship between material, maker and environment, rather than its ontology. By questioning both the material and the makers, a number of questions can be formulated: what roles do materials, be they new or traditional, play in the creation of meaning and in the relationships that are established between maker and audience? How does the current use of gold differ from its uses in the past? And what new meanings have artists proposed since the 1960s and up to the present day? The answer to the first question lies in the anthropology of the material. By bringing forth gold’s materiality and placing it on equal terms with form, we can resituate the physical matter of gold to delve further into the fluid relationship between material and artist. Hence, revising gold’s well-established concepts –mostly historical and cultural meanings- and focusing on two primary sources – artworks and artists – this research takes a trans-disciplinary approach in order to incorporate emerging theories in such fields as anthropology, artistic creation, sociology, aesthetics and even the history of economics. Concentrating on artistic practices in the western world, I selected artworks that value gold’s materiality over its concept – in other words real gold, and not substitutes such as glitter and tinsel, over the representation of gold. The emphasis is placed on the flux of materials, as it is by means of the processes that makers and materials grow together, and as they grow, connections or meshworks are formed...
This doctoral thesis falls within a methodological framework that privileges materiality and is aligned with the New Materialisms that have embraced contemporary theoretical debates which have emerged in recent years with the emancipation of materials. My scholarship stems from direct experience with gold as a material. Attracted by its fragility, I began to take note of its increasing presence in contemporary art, and how its current uses suggest new metaphors that depart from the coded meanings of the past. A critical survey of the literature helped discern three major approaches to the semantics of gold: the material determinism of Gómez Pintado and Schloen’s early writings, the anti-meaning approach championed by Zaunschirm, and a third approach that concedes gold’s polysemy and new meanings as argued by Charboneaux and Zilch and in Schloen’s later writings. The present thesis positions itself within the latter of these approaches and proposes an anthropology of the material that brings into focus the nature of the relationship between material, maker and environment, rather than its ontology. By questioning both the material and the makers, a number of questions can be formulated: what roles do materials, be they new or traditional, play in the creation of meaning and in the relationships that are established between maker and audience? How does the current use of gold differ from its uses in the past? And what new meanings have artists proposed since the 1960s and up to the present day? The answer to the first question lies in the anthropology of the material. By bringing forth gold’s materiality and placing it on equal terms with form, we can resituate the physical matter of gold to delve further into the fluid relationship between material and artist. Hence, revising gold’s well-established concepts –mostly historical and cultural meanings- and focusing on two primary sources – artworks and artists – this research takes a trans-disciplinary approach in order to incorporate emerging theories in such fields as anthropology, artistic creation, sociology, aesthetics and even the history of economics. Concentrating on artistic practices in the western world, I selected artworks that value gold’s materiality over its concept – in other words real gold, and not substitutes such as glitter and tinsel, over the representation of gold. The emphasis is placed on the flux of materials, as it is by means of the processes that makers and materials grow together, and as they grow, connections or meshworks are formed...
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Tesis inédita de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Geografía e Historia, leída el 09/12/2015