Abstract
The paper focuses on the documentation of the performance Out of Water by the Polish performance artist Aurora Lubos. Out of Water is a straightforward and intense reflection of the artist’s experience of her volunteer work in refugee camps. Reading Lubos’s work through the prism of the Ettingerian matrixiality helps us see it as a brave and compassionate gesture of vulnerability in contemporary Poland with its rising xenophobia and nationalism.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
All translations from Polish are mine unless stated otherwise.
Some very brief political context is needed here. The right-wing populist Polish government started using anti-refugee propaganda around 2015 spreading moral panic centred around “Muslim immigrants” as threat to the country’s values, identity and safety. Although there were hardly any refugees coming to Poland at that time, such xenophobic discourse has been dominant in the government-controlled media and even perpetuated by radical Catholic media supporting the Polish government (in spite of the Church authorities officially calling for Christian charity towards refugees). The policy of fuelling the narrative of siege mentality was employed strategically by the ruling nationalist Law and Justice party to consolidate the electorate around an imagined common enemy, and – as a result – win the elections of 2015. The long-term result was a radical change in the attitude of the majority of Poles toward refugees from mildly open to openly hostile (see Beata Łaciak, Justyna Segeš Frelak, The Wages of Fear. Attitudes Towards Refugees and Migrants in Poland, Instytut Spraw Publicznych, British Council, Warszawa, 2018). It is against this social and political background that Aurora Lubos creates her performances, which are not only in opposition to the dominant narrative of the Polish government, but also at odds with the majority of her compatriots’ views. Although reviewers and audiences are usually moved, impressed and awed (see Wilk, 2020; Witkowska, 2016), the artist is still exposed to acts of hostility and even aggression.
Good examples might be the feminist interventions in the 1970s and 1980s of Natalia LL, Ewa Partum, Krystyna Piotrowska and Maria Pinińska-Bereś. These incorporated ingenious aesthetic concepts, but were detached from actual problems of real women living in communist Poland (see “Sztuka krytyczna – wybrane zagadnienia”, 2008).
The term “critical art” in Poland refers to the art of 1990s critically commenting on the socioeconomic circumstances of Polish political transformation and often using the artist’s body as means of creative and critical expression. The main representatives were Paweł Althamer, Anna Baumgart, Marta Deskur, Katarzyna Górna, Grzegorz Klaman, Katarzyna Kozyra, Zofia Kulik, Konrad Kuzyszyn, Zbigniew Libera, Dorota Nieznalska, Joanna Rajkowska, Robert Rumas, Jerzy Truszkowski, Alicja Żebrowska, and Artur Żmijewski.
The idea of seeing art as engagement and tool of social change is central to the political turn in Polish culture proposed by Artur Żmijewski in his 2007 manifesto.
Ettinger denies the identification of the matrix with the psychotic aspect of subjectivity only (Ettinger, 2006, p. 69). Some dimension of the feminine might be psychotic, she claims, if the only passage from the Real to the Imaginary and then the Symbolic is through phallic castration – then certain matrixial aspects are foreclosed.
The Ettingerian feminine is not an universalist term referring to the essentialist category of “woman”, but rather an attempt to bring the potential of certain bodily specificities that has been erased from Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis, and that can be referred to as a model of the initial encounter of the I and the non-I. Therefore, “feminine” is not an issue of the male/female binary opposition.
It is important to remember, however, that matrixial is not the same as maternal; matrixiality is metaphorically based on the space of the womb as a morphological model that can conceptually serve as a representation of a space of proximity and hospitality, but also a kind of boundary/connection between several actors that serves as borderspace – a boundary that is also a threshold. It does not mean, however, that what is maternal is also always matrixial, not does it imply that matrixiality is limited to motherhood or female bodily specificity.
While the facelessness of Lubos’s figures might be read as token of dehumanization (as the ethical calling to respond to the face of the other – in the Levinasian sense – is somehow suspended), in her carrying and stroking Aurora Lubos brings back their non-existent faces, just like Ettinger does. Not only is the face of the other an ethical obligation, but the face effaced, the lost face, calls on us to bring it back – open up to the gaze of the figuralities until they eventually gaze back. The headlessness or facelessness of the unknown others who were shamed, abandoned, dehumanized and deprived of their subjectivity is as much a call to respond humanely as the existent face of the other is. Ettinger brings back a memory of a young woman in her family who had her hair shaven in Auschwitz and could not single out her own mirror reflection among other women’s reflections – losing her face equalled losing her sense of self (Ettinger, 2009, p. 7). What is Ettinger’s artistic effort if not bringing back the faces and the gaze with the layers of paint that – while covering the canvas – in fact uncover the wound? If carriance is most of all the space of subjectivity, the w-ciąży passage-space of trust towards the future, and even a justification of subjectivity, then it will mobilize the humane in the spectators too, indicated by a non-phallic gaze. One reviewers writes about Z wody/Out of Water: “When the end comes, we are forced … to look in the face of the person sitting opposite, the person with a wet headless dummy on their lap” (Janiak, 2017).
References
Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity. Polity Press.
Brady, A. (2019, June 12). Bringing up baby: making motherhood work in the art world. The Art Newspaper.
Cixous, H. (1996). Sorties: Out and out: Attacks/ways out/forays. In H. Cixous & C. Clement (Eds.), The newly born woman (pp. 63–130). I. B. Tauris.
Dokąd zmierzasz, człowieku? Aurory Lubos solidarność z uchodźcami [Where are you going, man? Aurora Lubos’s solidarity with refugees]. (2015, October 15). Gazeta Świętojańska.
Doroszkiewicz, J. (2017, May 12). Festiwal Kalejdoskop 2017. Aurora Lubos „Witajcie/Welcome” (zdjęcia, wideo) [The Kalejdoskop Festival 2017: Aurora Lubos’s Witjacie/Welcome (photos, video)], Kurier Poranny Online. https://poranny.pl/festiwal-kalejdoskop-2017-aurora-lubos-witajciewelcome-zdjecia-wideo/ar/1207018
Eliade, M. (1958). Patterns in comparative religion. Sheed and Ward.
Ettinger, B. L. (2006). The matrixial borderspace (B. Massumi, Ed.). University of Minnesota Press.
Ettinger, B. L. (2009). Fragilization and resistance. Studies in the Maternal, 1(2), 1–31. https://doi.org/10.16995/sim.141
Ettinger, B. L. (2011). Uncanny awe, uncanny compassion and matrixial transjectivity beyond uncanny anxiety. French Literature Series, 38, 1–30.
Ettinger, B. L. (2015a). Carriance, copoiesis and the subreal. In B. L. Ettinger (Ed.), And my heart wound-space (pp. 343–351). Wild Pansy Press.
Ettinger, B. L. (2015b). And my heart, wound-space with-in me. The space of carriance. In B. L. Ettinger (Ed.), And my heart wound-space (pp. 353–366). Wild Pansy Press.
Freud, S. (2001). The uncanny. In B. V. Leitch (Ed.), The Norton anthology of theory and criticism (pp. 929–952). Norton. (Original work published 1919)
Fundacja Perfoma. (2020, September 23). Rozmowa z Aurorą Lubos, “Społeczne aspekty tańca” [Interview with Aurora Lubos, “Social aspects of dance”] [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XREl1yAYK5o
Grosz, E. (1994). Volatile bodies: Toward a corporeal feminism. Indiana University Press.
Guzek, Ł. (2013). Performatyka sztuki: Sztuka performance I czynnik akcji w polskiej krytyce sztuki [Art performativity. Performance art and the factor of action in Polish art critique]. Akademia Sztuk Pięknych w Gdańsku.
Janiak. D. (2017, June 15). Witajcie/welcome – spojrzenie w twarz [Witajcie/Welcome – a look in the face]. Kulturalne Media. https://kulturalnemedia.pl/teatr/witajcie-welcome-spojrzenie-w-twarz/
Judah, H. (2020, Dec 2). ‘Motherhood is taboo in the art world – it’s as if we’ve sold out’: female artists on the impact of having kids. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/dec/02/motherhood-taboo-art-world-sold-out-bourgeoisie
Kaiser, B. M., & Thiele, K. (2018). If you do well, carry! The difference of the humane: An interview with Bracha L. Ettinger. philoSOPHIA, 8(1), 101–125.
Kinsella, T. (2015). Sundering the spell of visibility: Bracha L. Ettinger – abstract-becoming-figural, thought-becoming-form. In B. L. Ettinger (Ed.), And my heart wound-space (pp. 275–290). Wild Pansy Press.
Kowalewska, B. (2019, November 13). Czy politycy tańczą? [Do politicinas dance?] Kultura u podstaw. https://kulturaupodstaw.pl/czy-politycy-tancza-barbara-kowalewska/
Kristeva, J. (1982). Powers of horror: An essay on abjection (L. S. Roudiez, Trans.). Columbia University Press. (Original work published 1980)
Kristeva, J. (1984). Revolution in poetic language (M. Waller, Trans.). Columbia University Press. (Original work published 1974)
Kristeva, J. (1989). Desire in language: A semiotic approach to literature and art (T. Gora, A. Jardine, & L. S. Roudiez, Trans.). Blackwell. (Original work published 1969)
Legierska, A. (2014). Aurora Lubos. Culture.pl. https://culture.pl/pl/tworca/aurora-lubos#
Lubos, A. (2015, October 15). Z wody / Out of Water [Video]. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/144592901
Lubos, A. (2017, June 22). Performance Aurory Lubos Witajcie/Welcome. Contemporary Art Centre, Torun. http://csw.torun.pl/csw/performance-aurory-lubos-witajcie-welcome-21441/
Massumi, B. (2006). Afterword. Painting: The voice of the grain. In B. L. Ettinger, The matrixial borderspace (pp. 201–214). University of Minnesota Press.
Pollock, G. (2006). Introduction. Femininity: Aporia or sexual difference. In B. L. Ettinger, The matrixial borderspace (pp. 1–41). University of Minnesota Press.
Pollock, G. (2009). Mother trouble: The maternal-feminine in phallic and feminist theory in relation to Bracha Ettinger’s elaboration of matrixial ethics/aesthetics. Studies in the Maternal, 1(1), 1–31.
Pollock, G. (2015). Between painting and the digital: Matrixial aesthetics creates matrixial thought-forms. In B. L. Ettinger (Ed.), And my heart wound-space (pp. 259–274). Wild Pansy Press.
Raszewska-Kursa, H. (2017, October 13). Dwadzieścia lat na scenie: wywiad z Aurorą Lubos [Twenty years on stage: interview with Aurora Lubos]. Teatralny. http://teatralny.pl/rozmowy/dwadziescia-lat-na-scenie,2101.html
Retrospektywy Festival. (2018). Witajcie/Welcome. http://2018.retroperspektywy.com/pl/wydarzenia/spektakle/witajcie-welcome/
Sprengnether, M. (1990) The spectral mother: Freud, feminism and psychoanalysis. Cornell University Press.
Sztuka krytyczna – wybrane zagadnienia [Critical art – selected issues]. (2008, June 26). Culture.pl. https://culture.pl/pl/artykul/sztuka-krytyczna-wybrane-zagadnienia
Truszkowski, J. (2014, May 12). Kim byli polscy radykalni performerzy [Who were Polish radical performers]. Obieg. https://archiwum-obieg.u-jazdowski.pl/prezentacje/32192
Ujma, M. (2009, April 19). Sztuka zaangażowana – kilka myśli, co nie nowe... . [Engaged art – a few thoughts that are not new]. Krytyk Sztuki na Skraju. http://magdalena-ujma.blogspot.com/2009/04/sztuka-zaangazowana-kilka-mysli-co-nie.html
Witkowska, A. (2016). A description of Aurora Lubos’s performance Witajcie/Welcome. Cargo Collective. https://cargocollective.com/auroralubos
Wilk, S. (2020, October 25). Kobiety o kobietach [Women on women]. Strona Tańca. https://www.stronatanca.pl/recenzje/kobiety-o-kobietach
Ziętek, A. (2014). Krytyczna, zaangażowana, otwarta [Critical, engages, open]. In T. Załuski (Ed.), Skuteczniośc Sztuki. Muzuem Sztuki, Łódź.
Zioło, K. (2018, July 2). 24. Festiwal a part – artystyczny niedosyt, galop myśli i chęć na jeszcze [Festival a part – lack of satisfaction, racing thoughts and a desire for more]. Reflektor. http://www.rozswietlamykulture.pl/reflektor/2018/07/02/24-festiwal-a-part-artystyczny-niedosyt-galop-mysli-i-chec-na-jeszcze/
Żmijewski, A. (2007, February 10). Stosowane sztuki społeczne [Applied social art]. Krytyka Polityczna. https://utw.uj.edu.pl/documents/6082181/a7f451e7-eb99-4ee9-8ddc-e1f2bf984438
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Author statement
On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Chromik, A. Touch, carriance and the sea in Aurora Lubos’s performance Out of Water. Psychoanal Cult Soc 27, 522–545 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41282-022-00328-7
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41282-022-00328-7