FIDEM COMMUNICATION 2004 , Portugal

JOSE TEIXEIRA: The medal, the craftswork and artistic expression –
The placement of orders, production, the public and the artist.

(PORTUGUESE VERSION OF THE TEXT)

One of the features that characterizes the medal is that it is simple to reproduce.

Unlike the sculpture which tends to be a unique work of art, medallistics sees in each work, simplicity in multiplying.

During the act of creating, the artist begins to perceive the signs of formal conditioning that lead to expression and will implicitly help decide which technological procedure to follow.

Although some procedures such as moulding, casting and stamping have been used as early as the most ancient civilizations, its effect began to spread out in its use as a form of art only after the industrial revolution and reached a peak through its democratization and in its increasing consumption as a good.

The development in mechanical techniques of reproduction brought consequences in both quantity and quality. In relation to quantity, the increasing facility in reproducing allowed to save time, money and increase production which also contributed to making it a popular consumer good. As far as quality is concerned, the increase in production along with mass consumption paradoxically contrasts with the wearing out of medal types. The consequences can be measured through the arbitrary act of producing and the result in alienation which occurs in the image of the medal especially in circuits in which its commercial value is over-rated in detriment to its aesthetic side. The size of this impact can be measured by, for example, the avalanche of orders directly placed with the stamping workshops. The consumers, who in general are not very demanding, hand the artistic work over to craftsmen, forgetting that although these  people are capable and technically competent, they do not possess an aesthetics and  artistic training nor the conceptual flair or sense of  critique.

The order is what normally leads to the creation of the medal because it anticipates the kind of shape the buyer wishes to see.

The buyers are frequently entities, organizations, private or public associations who will submit the design they wish the medal to have because of an event or commemoration. In most cases, the medal is subject to one of the events mentioned above or to a theme linked to advertising which usually comes with an inscription. In this case, it is a conventional accessory that is being made rather than an artistic project in the field of medallistics.

In principle, the latter which is held captive by the illustrative feature of the inscription contrasts with the unpredictable and “polyphonical” feature of creative imagination [1] .

Contrasting with the usefulness of the great commercial editions, what the author’s medal loses in value as a business product, it gains in terms of beauty as a non-useful product and / or is disinterested in the spiritual activity which is characteristic of the medal as a work of art.

Because the author’s editions result from a sequence of self–ordering procedures  made by the artists who normally also assume all the expenses themselves, there are a reduced number of copies.

The author’s medals, of varied themes and kinds in accordance with the artist’s personality traits, satisfy aspirations of a practical and symbolical nature. They are of a practical nature because they belong to a process of plastic research which is a field in which the artist gives way to his/her ability of representing according to the specific values of the language and thus contributes to a permanent re-invention and re-vitalization of the kind. On the other hand, they also carry out a symbolical function because it is in art, namely through catharsis, that the unique comes in contact with the universal. The work of art does not belong to the artist who created it, but to the community that admires it and sees in it its reflection; to sum up, it belongs to the public that finds and establishes some kind of relationship with it.

What brought me here today to speak about the medal in terms of its production, placement of orders and about its relationship with the public and the artist, inscribes itself under a much wider issue which is that of wanting to find out, on one hand, in what way the medal can be considered a handicraft and on the other hand, in what measure can it be considered an artistic form of expression.

This is not a new subject or the answer an easy one. As a matter of fact, this text is included in a much larger strategy of thought and follows two others. The first text is intituled “The Contemporary Medal, Shapes and Artistic Theory” [2] in which I tried to establish basic standards for the medal as a form of art. The second one is called “The Reproductability and Reality of Contemporary Medal – from the bees pendent to the Apis Mellifera” [3] in which I wished to reflect on the  technological procedures of medal reproduction as opposed to the strategies of creative imagination.

I would like to focus again on this last point with the images I have brought with me to show you and whose methodological order makes them subject to readings which I have named themes, series and sequences.

The reason for doing this lies in the need to offer systematic models whose structure allows, namely, the analysis of different creative thoughts.

THEMES:

The study of themes, affiliated to the iconographic method, has the advantage of establishing comparisons between samples and offers the possibility of working on the different ways of composing surrounding the same reference, in other words, it helps offer an idea on the different ways of looking at a subject which is usual to various formal solutions.

There are circumstantial themes which become common to many authors. I recall the example of the medals produced in the year 2000 to celebrate the new millennium.

Another example well-known to the majority of the Portuguese sculptors, who are present here, is the collection of medals dedicated to the poet, Natália Correia – a life, thirteen seasons – and whose complete collection has, to date, never had the possibility of being presented to the public.

Another even more recent example is the “collection “of erotic medals created in 2003 by the group Anverso – Reverso that I would like to present here.

This set represents a unity; be it in terms of themes or in terms of material and techniques used since all the medals have the same diameter and were made of bronze through stamping. [4]

SERIES:

 Series correspond to what I like to think as being the spirit of unsatisfaction and of investigation in every artist.

Series offer authors a good purpose to work on because as Almada would say,“  The artist spends his / her life working on the same piece of work” and as a matter of fact, Rodin was also right in saying that once a work was finished, it should be successively re-worked on; for example  as one would say: perfection is a path to follow and not a point of arrival.

To illustrate this case, allow me to self-promote my work by showing you some images taken from one of the various series that I have developed. [5]

In this case, the chosen serie’s leitmotiv is switches. [6]

In the late 1990’s, switches would end up being, for me, an incentive to a series of medals. When I question myself on the interest these objects stir up, through their appropriation and thematic recall, I notice that they greatly connect themselves with the activity of the hand, on the touching and thinking level. In principle, the hand represents the click which turns on/off according to the valve function, or should I say, the opening/closing or on/off and thus in the end also represents  the magical/ symbolical function of changing dialectics; I / the other, yes/no which in structural terms represents the binary logic of occidental thought. [7]

SEQUENCES:

What I have called sequence has to do with the possibility of formal splitting up deriving from the same theme unit. The trio of medals which I will next present to you represent a kind of narrative staged in several acts.

Here are, therefore, some examples.

This sequence resulted from the desire to create a representation of time fleeting and powerful when faced with every instant.

Thank you for being here with me.

May I also remind you that if the world is a place for all, the medal with its more intimate format is “a place for you”. [8]