| dc.description.abstract | This study researches a
unique form of aesthetic expression in modern art reversibility. The
term ‘reversibility’ refers to the property of being able to return to a former state. 1 It is used
widely in relation to mathematical, chemical and physical processes and systems. The S wiss
developmental psychologist, Jean Piaget, suggests that even people’s cognitive development
entails a process of mental reversibility. The concept of reversibility, such as reversibility
between body consciousness, subject object, ego world and thought language, can also be
found extensively in Maurice Merleau Ponty’s philosophy. 2 Edmund Husserl names these
relationships ‘reversible mutuality’ to reflect that they both cause and influence each other. The
concept of reversibility breaks with Descartes' d ichotomy between spirit and flesh, presenting
intriguing characteristics, such as uncertainty, ambiguity and precariousness. These are precisely
the source of inspiration for art and literature. In fact, we can find the rendering of reversibility
in the wo rk of many modern artists and it offers different meanings in the context of different
artists’ practices. Josef Albers’s Structural Constellations , Lygia Clark’s Mobius Strip series,
Georg Baselitz’s inverted motifs and Marcel Duchamp’s Spinning Optical E xperiments , to name
but a few, all present a kind of reversibility. Why are so many artists fascinated with this
rendering? What are their respective strategies for achieving reversibility? What is the meaning
of and background to the practice of reversibi lity? What are the causes of extensive reversibility
and what is the significance of this to the development of modern art? In relation to these
problems, this study focuses on the Russian artist El Lissitzky and his Proun series, and the
Brazilian artist Lygia Clark and her Mobius Strip series, engaging with them as research objects
to carry out a detailed research and analysis of this topic. | en |
