JOAN COSTA AND ORIGINALITY
Guillermo Carnero

Not long ago, as I do each time I return to Rome, I spent an afternoon in the neighbourhood that opens up to Trastevere through the enigmatic Trinità dei Pellegrini and the Ponte Sisto. I also spent an hour exploring the Palazzo Spada. The grand collections, enriched with masterpieces, boldly display their widely celebrated classicism: even before beholding them, we know they were created for admiration, for delight and for eternity. In contrast, the small and modest collections present us with minor works, quietly framed in semi-deserted rooms, lacking the aura of prestige, the absence of which prompts inevitable reflections.

I am not alluding to the subject they depict or to the identity of the character they represent, but rather to a dimension that transcends what the plaques, tour guides and familiarity with Mythology, Sacred and Profane History or the lives of saints can unveil. I am speaking of the profound questions that, ultimately, imbue every work of art with meaning, even those seemingly destined for an ideal museum beyond the constraints of time: why they were created, for what purpose and for whom.

Beyond the mere details of locations, circumstances and specific names, art preceding modernity reveals itself as a product of an organic and coherent society in which the artist could anticipate an implicit audience with a highly predictable intellectual and ideological profile that understood a system of codes and values that ensured comprehension and alignment with that system. This is observable in works depicting religious subjects, invoking myths from the Greco-Latin pantheon, in portraits of monarchs and aristocrats surrounded by symbols of power and knowledge, in representations of prosperous merchants, stern money changers or women engaged in weaving, as well as in still-life compositions featuring hares and turbots and in vanitas paintings. Whether termed the spirit of the era, worldview, communication or complicity, this shared horizon bestowed purpose upon the artist and justified their creative endeavours. The loss of this delineation, and the shared realm it once embraced, marks both the remarkable achievement and the profound tragedy of modernity.

Modernity does not dawn with the shift, in the early 19th century, from the aristocracy of the Old Regime as the primary audience for art to the bourgeoisie, characterized by wealth. Neither does it emerge when art, in its inevitable progression and experimentation, begins to challenge the neutrality of mimesis. Despite appearing cataclysmic to 19th-century traditionalists, the act of Monet’s brush softening the façade of a cathedral still leaves us standing in front of that cathedral, and we know it. Similarly, the volumetric stylizations of Braque or Juan Gris still represent newspapers, seltzer bottles or pipes.

Modernity as such does not emerge simply because art demands that its audience discern the subject beneath the veil of an intrusive and distorting technique or urges them to adopt a new perspective focused not on that which is represented but on the act of representation itself. As long as the former remains easily accessible with minimal effort and a readiness for novelty, and as long as it continues to portray the familiar—landscapes, portraits, nudes, still lifes—there is no true inception of modernity. It does not even hinge upon the historical rupture that modernity embodies through transgressions against the canon of good taste and morality, whether in the stupor of a morphine addict portrayed by Santiago Rusiñol or the irreverence depicted by Caravaggio in earlier times.

True modernity is marked by the interrogation and suspension of fundamental presuppositions regarding artistic creation: the ongoing innovation deeply connected to tradition, the roles of the artist and the artwork and the expectations of the audience. Behold, we have encountered Dada.

Dada shares with Futurism, the immediate predecessor in the avant-garde movement, a radical rejection of Western cultural tradition. However, the distinctive aspect of Dada lies in the explicit demonstration of the culmination of that tradition with a radicalism that precludes any alternative, reorientation or reconstruction. Therefore, Dadaist practice is identified as “anti-art”. “Anti-art” does not imply the replacement of one form of art with another but rather the repudiation of the very concept of art. This repudiation is enacted by vehemently expressing the rejection of traditional literary or artistic works from the perspectives of their production, reception and nature.

During the old regime, art, in one way or another, found its purpose as a conveyer of values and ideology. Although Romanticism brought about fundamental changes by shifting the focus from content and function to the originality of the creator, allowing for the expression of dissent and even ideological autism, the traditional concept of art suggests that certain individuals—the authors or creators—possess exceptional intelligence and sensitivity, enabling them to craft a discourse with a meaning intelligible to a reader or spectator, providing insights into both reality and the self through ideas and emotions.

Conversely, the anti-artistic stance entails presenting the audience with a text or object that subverts their expectations by rejecting these three notions. Dadaist anti-art proposals challenge us to confront the denial of traditional concepts of the author-creator (whose role has been supplanted by designation, chance or blind mechanical action) and of meaning (if any exists, it is attributed to chance or phono-semantic elements, with an intuitive and illogical nature). This approach also involves ridiculing the expectations of the traditional audience.

The avant-garde concept of designation, as an alternative to the traditional idea of creation, is a pivotal aspect in the crisis of modernity, forming the underlying mindset of Joan Costa and this exhibition. However, what he terms appropriation is a specific form of utilisation following the designation introduced by the Avant-garde. We can employ and designate something without an owner, legally termed a vacant asset if it holds value. Not all designations follow this pattern; those invented by Dada focused precisely on highlighting the futility of art, concentrating on items devoid of value, as seen in Kurt Schwitters’ Merzbilder. Yet, Joan Costa’s iconology does not seek to accentuate the worthless; instead, it aims to manipulate the valuable.

The concept of appropriation involves sharing ownership, specifically that of something originally not one’s own, without thereby dispossessing its initial owner (a distinction from expropriation). In essence, it implies a rejection of the traditional notion of creation and a commitment to establishing a form of collective or joint ownership of artistic discourse. This means, in various contexts, an opening of a dialogue between the contemporary and the non-current or remote, between the popular and the cultured and erudite, and between art for a minority of connoisseurs and that for the masses. It extends to the realm of museums and cinema, a blend of the entire artistic tradition previously broken down and assimilated: ars gratia artis. It involves a reference, whether aiming for approximation or deformation, to tradition and the avant-garde practice of referencing the reference. Consequently, the artist’s once candid and direct gaze is lost. They grapple with uncertainties about their identity, the role assigned to them by history, their audience and the relevance of their conformity or transgression. This existential dilemma arises when originality and singularity are considered out of place, and neither consent nor dissent is actively sought, when society can commodify and fetishize disembodied forms of nonconformity that it prefers not to dismantle.

The contemporary artist understands that they exist in a world where the concepts of purity and originality lack meaning.