This topic has 6 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 7 years ago by 
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So uhhhh this one’s interesting.
“In chaos, there is fertility.”
Anyone recognize the art? Cause…. it’s an odd one.
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The piece is Consciousness of Shock by Victor Brauner.
Some additional info from the Guggenheim website:
A symbolic struggle is expressed between the human and bird halves of the hybrid form in Consciousness of Shock, in which Victor Brauner portrays a complex boat-shaped figure in the course of battling for control of itself. Drawn in the schematic profile style of Egyptian hieroglyphs, a large androgynous head unites with the raised prow of a boat elaborated with breasts. The body of the vessel, directed by rudderlike legs and feet, merges at the stern with the upright body of a bird. Two powerful hands, at the ends of crossed arms, suppress the internal battle by restraining the limbs of the bird, while a third hand doggedly forges progress along the river by paddling. Thus, in keeping with the nature of much psychic conflict, a difficult internal struggle is self-contained, while the vessel-self continues along a predetermined route.
Nicolas Calas has suggested that Brauner was inspired by two Egyptian themes, the “Sun Barge” and the “Heavenly Vault,” in the creation of this image.¹ While a generalized Egyptian style undoubtedly influenced Brauner’s imagery, it seems more likely that the artist derived this fantastic visual vocabulary from his own imagination, rather from specific art-historical sources. -
Here’s the whole photo:
The quote is from the Diary of Anais Nin Volume 1. Here are the sentences directly before and after: “The free improvisations of the surrealists break down the artificial order and symmetry of consciousness. In chaos there is fertility. How difficult it is to be “sincere” when each moment I must choose between five or six souls.”
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“In chaos, there is fertility,” seems to be a major touch point for most of the groups we’ve encountered. In sowing chaos, it allows them to do their work from behind the dust they’ve kicked up. While we scramble through it, they’re quietly working towards their own ends. As we become used to the chaos, they find new types to unleash. Each one lets them test something new, or learn more about how we react, or come up with more advanced methods. They’ve thrown so much at us that a probable glitch was enough to get us spinning. They’ve done so much work that the chaos is now self sustaining. In fact, as we tried to puzzle through those postings it was probably just giving them new ideas.
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@kevin: Totally! I feel like that’s the case for a whole lot of fanbases/collectives out there these days. With all the social media and means of research that people have access to, creators can build a relatively vague and mysterious foundation and almost just allow the ideas to come to them from their following. The stories that a collective of devoted fans will invent can sometimes be far more detailed and profound than whatever the initial intent of the creator is so, these days, it seems some find it easier to simply sit and wait with an open mind for their narrative to grow organically. (Not to say anything negative about this technique – I think it’s brilliant!)
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