Pneumatology. Figures of breath and wind in visual arts

In pre-modern and modern art, the wind and the breath have been figuratively represented and designated strong emotions. Contemporary arts have employed the wind and the breath as intensive figural forces that question the visual quality of an image and transform it in a tactile space of sensations. This presentation maps out a few key moments of this artistic metamorphosis.

We move between Marcel Duchamp who welcomed the random effects of the wind to the wind as a formative force in the work of Giuseppe Penone. Finally we look at some great “speculators” of the 20^th century, Bruce Nauman’s interventions in the Wide White Space (Antwerp, 1974), the tactile presence of the wind in Ryan Gander’s work or the complete anaesthetisation of the visuality in the conceptual work of Terry Atkinson and Michael Baldwin.

The breath and the wind show that art history can be conceived as a virtual map where readable motifs are transformed in tangible fields of forces. The breath and the wind rob the image of its visuality so that the body is present in its singularity, irreducible to a “concept” or “icon”. The wind and the breath are no “motifs” but strategies that cultivate a conception of art as an experiment with irreconcilable forces.

This forthcoming essay is part of a research project initiated by prof. dr. Barbara Baert (KUL), the results of which will be published in a book entitled Pneuma and the Visual Medium in the Middle Ages and Early Modernity (Peeters, 2016). See also Barbara Baert, Kleine Iconologie van de Wind/ Wind. On the Origin of Emotion (Sint Joris Ghent, 2012)

Dr. Vlad Ionescu

Vlad Ionescu is post-doctoral researcher in architectural theory at the Faculty of Architecture and Arts, University of Hasselt. Having researched the notion of image in modern art history and philosophy, he currently works on the adaptive design of architectural heritage.