"Reflection does not concern itself with
objects themselves with a view to deriving concepts from them directly, but it is the
state of mind in which we first set ourselves to discover the subjective conditions under
which we are able to arrive at concepts."
Kant.
"In every relationship there are a minimum of
six people ... you; the person talking to you; the person you think you are; the person
you think they are; the person they think they are and the person they think you
are."
Voltaire.
Painter with Anna/The Double.
Oil on Canvas. 72 inches x 60 inches. 1993.
Lenkiewicz agreed to show three introductory sketch shows between 1990-1992 at two
consecutive galleries managed by Francis Mallet on The Barbican. The fuller and
articulated collection was presented at the lntemational Convention Centre in Birmingham
in 1994. The project received a great deal of attention, little of it intelligent. The
three smaller exhibitions introduced some ideas paralleling the theme of the 'mirror' with
that of the 'companion'. Lenkiewicz notes:
"Philosophers have been fascinated by (the formula of the
reflection) for centuries. After Descartes we move away from straightforward
considerations of objects towards the 'experience' in which objects are given.
Self-reflection marks the human beings rise to the rank of a subject... Narcissus is the
first artist/man transfixed by a reflection. This project suggested that the 'other' is
always oneself. Narcissus simply did not know that the watery reflection was his own; he
wasted away in a reverie imagining that the object of his desire was outside himself.
"
The Exhibition took as its starting point the metaphor of 'The Folly of Wise Men'. The
first of the three formulas, the story of Aristotle and Phyllis, has nothing to do with
the historical Aristotle. It originated as a piece of Medieval libel, a misogynistic
formula for Passion riding Reason. The second of the formulas used the theme of 'The
Temptation of St.Antony'. The life history of St.Antony, the Abbot of the Desert so often
waylaid by devils and diabolical visions, frequently warns against the 'power of women'.
He is an example of incorruptibility, resisting the 'great dust cloud of argument'that the
enemy raises in his mind. These images deal with wisdom and folly. Lenkiewicz uses the
formulas as metaphors for the absurdity of regarding relationships beyond their aesthetic
value. He writes:
"These formulae are so loaded and cross-referential that the visitor
also must resist temptation. The work can be misunderstood. 'Patterns' of obsessive
behaviour are what interest me - the form not the content. "
Lenkiewicz' contention is that our attraction to people, objects, ideas, and belief
systems are rooted in a common physiological impulse stemming from an entirely aesthetic
matrix.
"The assumption that we are empathic/concemed about the welfare of
another person independently of our own needs, is like St.Antony's visions, hallucinatory.
The concept of the 'Double' is helpful here. Mirrors are abysses. As Lenkiewicz has
written in one of his note-books:
"To paint oneself is to paint the portrait of a man who is going to
die. Relationships are mirrors. The painter looks into the mirror to paint himself, the
lover looks into his lover to love himself. She sits on my lap, a reflection of my
aesthetic addictions; a reflection in a reflection. The painter reflects upon the
reflection. The woman reflects upon the painter reflected. I am thinking of your partner,
Priest, or your spouse, Art Historian, and you, the one holding this catalogue with good
humour or with irritation. I am thinking of 'that'person, you know the one. They could all
be on my lap in these paintings. I am no longer young, lessfit than I was and I still mean
what I say. It is not me that annoys or threatens. It is the knowledge in the heads of my
companions (my companions in arms), my doubles. And if your smile of recognition, your
smile of humane resignation is the smile I hope it is; then you are my double too. "
Robert Lenkiewicz