Experiences of absence are often disrupted by presences. Your friend didn’t come to the party, but your experience of her absence deteriorates the moment you spot an attractive face across the room. But presences may also emphasize absences: seeing new buildings in the old neighborhood can heighten the sense of absence of what they have replaced.
Rosemarie Trockel’s sculpture is about replacement. The table is missing a pair of legs, and there is a new set of legs added. Despite the obvious absence, the table does not seem incomplete. Addition of the “alien” legs, paradoxically, makes the table look stable and whole. As a result, the overall experience seems strange. How is that we can see that the table is missing something, yet at the same time, the table seems complete, not lacking in anything? Perhaps we do not actually see that the table misses something. The “alien” legs draw our attention, forestalling perception of absence. But we don’t have to go for this interpretation. For ordinary objects, something can be seen without commanding full attention. Absences might obey the same rule. In Trockel’s sculpture, the presence of the extraordinary may be more experientially striking than the absence of the ordinary. But perception of absence is still there. It is composed and precise, and perhaps this is its virtue.
Rosemarie Trockel. Table 2. 2006. Glazed ceramic, steel and wood
I see this one more as a transformation than an absence. I wonder if transformations always (often? sometimes?) involve an impression of absence? If not/so, how would you explain?
What do you mean by transformation?
I.e., it feels like the table legs have transformed into human-like legs. Imagine watching Gregor Samsa’s metamorphosis. Do we see the absence of his human form (assuming it happens quickly)? Or take a conjuring trick: a magician waves her wand, and there is a puff of smoke converting a bouquet of flowers into a rabbit. Do we see the absent flowers? Seems we might, but we also the that they have become something else–the rabbit. What is the relationship between seeing absences and seeing becomings?
I see. You can see transformation without seeing absence, when features with respect to which the object is transformed are compatible with your conception of persistence conditions of that object. An example would be seeing a tree drop leaves or change color. You see the difference in the tree without seeing the absence of the tree. In the case of the table, if you imagine that table legs can (magically) persist through this sort of change, then you can see them change shape without seeing their absence.
PS I think you can get the non-transformative, plain experience of absence of the sort that I had if you focus on specific locations. The legs are absent from the far left (symmetrically to where another pair is present). The new legs are in a different location, closer to the center. So the replacement is not precise.
That works. I can definitely see absence when I focus on the corners, while keeping the right side of the table in sight.
But now it barely works for me! I now can’t help but see it as a transformation. Cognitive penetrability!