Paul Laffoley Cambridge, MA, 1935-2015
Dimensionality_ The Manifestation of Fate, 1992
Oil, acrylic, india ink, lettering on canvas
98 1/2 x 49 1/2 x 3
Subject_ The Natural Octave of Spatiality and Temporality. Symbol Evocation_ The Geometric Force of the Tension between Fate and Free Will. Comments_ From the mid-Nineteenth Century until now, dimensionality has...
Subject_ The Natural Octave of Spatiality and Temporality.
Symbol Evocation_ The Geometric Force of the Tension between Fate and Free Will.
Comments_
From the mid-Nineteenth Century until now, dimensionality has gradually replaced the traditional concept of Fate-- the three goddesses who determine the course of human life_ Cloth (the spinner- who spins the thread of life), Lachesis (the disposer of lots-who determines the length of life) and Atropos (the inflexible- who cuts off the thread of life).
Rationalized dimensionality above and below the third dimensional realm – the dimension that has been defined as “consensus reality” – is the work of the Geometer and Astronomer Carl Friedrich Gauss [1777-1855], who conceived of a higher-dimensional analytic geometry, and the mathematician-physicist Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann [1826-1866], who as a student was influenced by Gauss. From 300 B.C.E. to 1854, the third dimension of the ancient Greek geometer Euclid held sway over the spatial imaginations of most of the population of the western world. Even a mind as brilliant as that possessed by Sir Isaac Newton [1642-1727] was not immune. The sense of the misplaced absolutism concerning space and time was never challenged, with the exception of G.W. Leibniz [1646-1716], until the beginning of the nineteenth century. Then a number of mathematicians began to voice a new direction such as Nikolay Ivanvich Lobachevsky [1792-1856] and Janos Bolyai [1802–1860]. But it was ultimately Riemann who advanced the concept of dimensionality into an n-dimensional manifold with a metric so as to establish a quantitative rule for assigning lengths to paths. This now meant that one could consider force or energy to be consequence of geometry, making the laws of nature seem simpler when viewed from the context of a more comprehensive dimensional space. The apotheosis of his thinking resulted in the revolution in physics initiated in the early twentieth century by Albert Einstein [1879-1955] and continues to influence contemporary physics although modified into quantum geometry.
Symbol Evocation_ The Geometric Force of the Tension between Fate and Free Will.
Comments_
From the mid-Nineteenth Century until now, dimensionality has gradually replaced the traditional concept of Fate-- the three goddesses who determine the course of human life_ Cloth (the spinner- who spins the thread of life), Lachesis (the disposer of lots-who determines the length of life) and Atropos (the inflexible- who cuts off the thread of life).
Rationalized dimensionality above and below the third dimensional realm – the dimension that has been defined as “consensus reality” – is the work of the Geometer and Astronomer Carl Friedrich Gauss [1777-1855], who conceived of a higher-dimensional analytic geometry, and the mathematician-physicist Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann [1826-1866], who as a student was influenced by Gauss. From 300 B.C.E. to 1854, the third dimension of the ancient Greek geometer Euclid held sway over the spatial imaginations of most of the population of the western world. Even a mind as brilliant as that possessed by Sir Isaac Newton [1642-1727] was not immune. The sense of the misplaced absolutism concerning space and time was never challenged, with the exception of G.W. Leibniz [1646-1716], until the beginning of the nineteenth century. Then a number of mathematicians began to voice a new direction such as Nikolay Ivanvich Lobachevsky [1792-1856] and Janos Bolyai [1802–1860]. But it was ultimately Riemann who advanced the concept of dimensionality into an n-dimensional manifold with a metric so as to establish a quantitative rule for assigning lengths to paths. This now meant that one could consider force or energy to be consequence of geometry, making the laws of nature seem simpler when viewed from the context of a more comprehensive dimensional space. The apotheosis of his thinking resulted in the revolution in physics initiated in the early twentieth century by Albert Einstein [1879-1955] and continues to influence contemporary physics although modified into quantum geometry.
Exhibitions
Building the Bauharoque. Kent Gallery, New York, 1998.The End is Near. American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore, 1998
Architectonic Thought-Forms_ A Survey of the Art of Paul Laffoley. Austin Museum of Art, Austin, TX, 1999. Curated by Elizabeth Ferrer.
Chasing Napoleon. Palais de Tokyo, Paris 2009. Curated by Marc-Olivier Wahler.
Paul Laffoley_ Secret Universe. Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, 2011
Paul Laffoley_ A Survey. Curated by Luis Croquer. Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, 2013
The Boston Visionary Cell. New York_ Kent Fine Art, 2013 (publication)
Literature
Cartin, Mickey. “The Transcendent Epistomology of Paul Laffoley_ Art from the Boston Visionary Cell.” Raw Vision, no. 14, Spring 1996, 54, ill. (color).Manley, Roger (ed) The End is Near. Los Angeles_ Dilettante Press, 1998. p. 76, ill.
Paul Laffoley “The Phenomenology of Revelation” Interview with Richard Metzger. Disinformation_ The Interviews. New York_ Disinformaiton Company, 2002 p. 35
Alderwick, William. “beyond the Kitsch Barrier_ An Exploration of the Bauhauroque”. Under/Current. September 2008, p. 89
Croquer, Luis, and Paul Laffoley. Paul Laffoley_ Premonitions of the Bauharoque. Seattle_ Henry Art Gallery, 2013, pp. 26, 77, ill. p. 27 (color).
Laffoley, Paul, Jeanne Marie Wasilik, and James Mahoney. Architectonic Thought-Forms_ Gedankenexperiemenrte in Zombie Aesthetics, A Survey of the Visionary Art of Paul Laffoley Spanning Four Decades, 1967–1999, to the Brink of the Bauharoque. Austin, TX_ Austin Museum of Art, 1999, ill. Plate 16 (color).
Roulet, Sacha. “Selective Utopia.” idPure, no.11, 2007, 10, ill. (color).
Wahler, Marc-Olivier. Du Yodel a La Physique Quantique_ Volume 3. Paris_ Palais de Tokyo, 2009, ill. Plate 30 (color)
Howe, Rupert. “Master of the Universe” Wonderland Magazine. April/May 2009. pp 108 – 111
Kittelman, Udo and Claudia Dichter (eds) Paul Laffoley_ Secret Universe. Cologne_ Walter Konig. 2011 pp. 65, 126-28 ill.
Walla, Douglas and Paul Laffoley. The Boston Visionary Cell. New York, Kent Fine Art 2013.
Walla, Douglas, Linda Dalywimple Henderson, Steve Moscowitz, and Ariel Saiber.
The Essential Paul Laffoley. Chicago_ University of Chicago Press, 2015. illus in color plate 64