kagablog

Resolving at one master stroke the problem of content without compromising the purity of the nonreferential object as such, Kaganof’s work, by reproducing the exact appearances of the other Aryan Kaganof’s entire oeuvre, nevertheless introduces new content and a new concept, in the total phenomenological sense, by actually representing the actions of someone none other than Aryan Kaganof. That is, in their real meaning, these objects are Kaganofs plus, Kaganofs and more, and the implications to be extracted from them will no doubt occupy a segment of the post-mortemist artistic and critical community for some time.

In their double orientation between past and present, they represent an advance in another respect; in no other form but the fake can the thing be so sharply distinguished from its self, the an sich, or essence, from the fur sich, or reality. For by reproducing existing art forms the artist both receives the sanction of his predecessor and at the same time negates the attempt to observe any new formal development, thus shifting the entire phenomenon to a superior, that is, critical, level.

In spite of the apparent similarity of the work there are some profound differences. The works faked by Kaganof were all executed by the other Aryan Kaganof over a ten-year period, whereas the works under review here were all completed within the year 2004. Looking at the works of Kaganof (whose first appearance in any exhibition this is), we see a lack of development in the artist’s refusal to succumb to either a unilateral linear statement or an expression of total circularity, but rather a synthesis of both in what might be called circulinear art, neither either or but both and.

Moreover, the above is made perceptually concrete to the observer through a process of heightened simultaneity. For on first viewing Kaganof’s oeuvre, we are reminded of Wittgenstein’s comment, “Seeing as…is not part of perception. And for that reason it is like seeing and again not like.” We are clearly in the presence of a dilemma. In answer to Wittgenstein’s question, what is the criterion of the visual experience?, his obvious answer, “The representation of what is seen,” simply will not do.

Self-clarification is obtained through the paintings themselves. To say this is by no means to slight Kaganof as such. But any comparison of Kaganof and the other Aryan Kaganof would have to concede that the former’s power and potentiality, his superior pictorial structure, his more exclusive visual mode, and lastly, his more fully depicted literal shape, based as they are on the reproduction of the latter’s work, vastly intensifies the conflict between them.

However, these are but stylistic differences, at best provisional. On second viewing, one begins to be more profoundly conscious of and receptive to a radically new and philosophical element in the work of Kaganof that is precluded in the work of the other Aryan Kaganof, ie. the denial of originality, both in its most blatant manifestation (the fake as such) and in its subtle, insouciant undertones of static objectivity. The identity we all share in the other Aryan Kaganof’s art as our art, the art of our time, is deepened, broadened and made, of all things, joyous, whereas Kaganof’s art on the contrary, is surface, narrow, and, most especially, tragic, for one is forcefully reminded at every line and turn that it represents the ontological predicament of our time, indeed of every living being: inauthentic experience. They are, in a word, fakes.