IN / CORPO / RATED • Wien 2011

Human Essence

a painted parable by Étienne Yver

Since ancient times, numerous thinkers have been dealing with the dual nature of man as a being embodying both, body and mind, and the antagonistic or synergistic interactions of matter and intellect.
The most famous ancient quote on the subject is probably the ever-cut, and thereby twisted, phrase of Juvenal “Mens sana in corpore sano” (“A healthy mind in a sound body”), whose abusive interpretation, elevated to an ideology on the account of some regimes, was used to justify humiliation, torture and mutilation… . The call of Juvenal “Orandum est, ut sit mens sana in corpore sano .... “ (“It is to be prayed that the mind be sound in a sound body”) was addressing his contemporaries and thereby militating against the sport idols of his time, whose mental abilities often lagged far behind their physical ones. It was of particular importance because mayhem and mutilation of opponents were generally accepted to succeed in competition since “fairness” was a foreign concept to ancient athletes.

It would go beyond the scope of this paper to illuminate the range of different approaches to the frequent inconsistency of physical and intellectual impetus up to the present. It might be revealing for some works by Étienne Yver acquainting oneself with the development of the “mind-body problem” on the analysis of memory by Henri Bergson in his work Matière et mémoire. Essai sur la relation du corps à l’esprit (Matter and Memory. Essay on the relation of body and spirit).

Quite many works by Étienne Yver point up - when we engage the complex imagery of the artist - moments in which the spirit is our You and our body is our I - as well as vice versa - in which they are in conflict with each other. Together they form the archetypical I. At the same time this is the very next You, or as Paul Valéry puts it: “Moi ... c’est-à-dire le toi le plus constant, le plus obéissant, le premier et le dernier éveillé couché” (“I ... That is the most stable and obedient You, the first one awake, and the last one that lies down to rest “).

The central theme in the universe of Étienne Yver is always man in its complexity and the relationships between the I and You (broadly defined) in all their facets. The sensuality of spirit and body is the key to this universe. It is the amalgam of human existence. Without it there would be no striving after the You and therefore no meaning. Works by Étienne Yver on this sense of  sensuality, it is for him to speak, the physical and psychological correlate of the human condition.
He leads the viewer, often associatively, to ancient figures such as the Three Graces, Orestes and Pylades, or Ariadne, Theseus and the Minotaur to illustrate the idea . He likes to light up the ambiguity of varieties, he confronts us with appearance and reality and encourages us to unmask it. And much that we lose sight of will be detected by our “inner” eye: Immeasurable, imponderable, impalpable becomes palpable, tangible ...

The artist allows us to subsequently look at the relativity of the seemingly absolute and, as fevers and chills are felt simultaneously, we ultimately realize that lust and pain, fear and pleasure, ecstasy and despair, love and hate is felt with the same nerve, however, at its opposite poles of sensation.

Étienne Yver is not only a masterly player, playing with words. He explores - as it can be seen in his pictorial visions - different connotations of verbal harmony. Our era is defined by the flow of  communication and the speechlessness, that takes place simultaneously. Étienne Yver, however, creates new puns and new chains of association. It may be compared to a “new grammar of thought” - (this includes Title of exhibitions such as Chair Amie, Suis-je Bête or this time or in-corpo-rated), while his visual language suggests the revision of beliefs we use to honour.

The work of Étienne Yver is revealing concerning the importance of life stages. He excludes none of these periods in his images.
The grammatical sequence of times and its auxiliaries (HAVE - BEING - BECOMING) has been ordered following its importance and been passed down that way. The works of Étienne Yver, however, say, that the “grammar of life” follows another “chrono-logy”, namely BECOMING - HAVE - BEING. 
In younger days we seek to BECOME what we want to be. (According to Gottfried Herder all of us carry “... the ideal of what we want to be - and aren´t -; all of us know what we have to be and we know the slags we should get rid of”). 
In our primaries - not least due to social factors - what we HAVE dominates our costumes.
At an advanced age we lay our focus on our BEING and its maintenance knowing about the caducity of matter. As a character created by Arthur Schnitzler used to point out, that “...life becomes more and more delicious (read precious), the less of it remains.”

It is quite fortunate that there are artists who make us realize that there is not only
“In corpo-(re)-ratio” - the reason in us - but also the imagination as an element of intellectual freedom, which makes any kind of progress possible. Horace already noted it in his “Ars poetica” 2000 years ago. (“Pictoribus atque poetis quidlibet audendi semper fuit aequa potestas“/” Painters and poets have equal license in regard to everything“).

Étienne Yver is certainly one of these artists - he is struggling to tame the wealth of inspiration and to banish the condensate on the canvas. He is one of those, who sometimes descends as Orpheus into the Hades of human existence to lead faded hopes and into the unconscious banished desires  -  into the light and, who reaches for the stars just as easily.

But why don´t you convince yourself?

Heinz P. Adamek
Former University Director of  the
University of Applied Arts Vienna