Noah Davis’s Isis in Three Acts
Noah Davis’s Isis in Three Acts

Summary/Abstract: I return to artist Noah Davis after several months that lapsed from the last time I wrote about him, as I encounter his painting Isis projected on a screen upon entering an art writing class in Salzburg Fortress. The program I am taking part in would last for two weeks and each morning thirty minutes would be dedicated to writing about this painting. It is a training in observing, of entwining one’s own presence with that of a work of art, of finding silent dialogue between the two. In those moments of transformation, of embodying the positions of the one who observes, feels, and analyses, one can exercise some authority or restrain, or can meaningfully negotiate between these positions—to be incisive yet generous, not to be too overbearing or too timid. Rarely, at least in art history—the ‘proper’ science of art that emerged from the Western need to classify and order—can one allow oneself to be too emotional. Art writing provides many avenues to channel feelings, but rarely do they lead to personal reflections in art historical texts. Science and emotions—how to weigh in on something that feels personal and yet is removed from the immediacy of one’s presence in the world? How can an art historian travel these registers, and yet be objective and allow for this objectivity that science requires, established through the burdening of art with evaluative weight, with concepts, methods, and approaches, to dominate while preserving the positionality regarding one’s own circumstances? How to intertwine the two so that both offer what they may? And could this ‘what may be’ be reinscribed into something bigger, more permanent than transitory thoughts and feelings? How to write about art from a personal pain, and where this could lead?

• Details
• Contents