Fashion Symbols with Aynura Maye

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Abnormal sexual desire, art and Louis Vuitton…

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 Her polka dots are not mere dots:
For her troubled mind dots are female genitals, tentacle-like structures phallus.

About six years ago some concept stores of Louis Vuitton got decorated with sublime and fascinating art works by one of the most renowned Japanese artists Yayoi Kusama. They were so beautiful and enticing that I’d be surprised if high fashion nerds forgot them.

Yayoi Kusama pumpkins with polka dots. Pumpkin by its form is similar to "vessel", the receiver - the female quality. Polka dots symbolize female genital. Photo: the Internet
Yayoi Kusama pumpkins with polka dots. Pumpkin by its shape resembles alchemic “vessel”, the recipient – the female quality, the womb. Polka dots symbolize female genital. Even more subtle here, dots on the pumpkins are arranged in snake-like shape. Besides being a classical symbols of the unconscious, the snake is also an unmistakable symbol of the androgynous nature of the human psyche.  Photo: the Internet
 

A year forward and I am busy with my studies on psychoanalysis, especially Freud’s theory on repression of sexuality in Buenos Aires. The place where I lived was very close to the largest modern gallery in the city called Malba. One day while passing by I see the trees in front of Malba dressed in red with white polka dots – that remarkable signature design I remember from a year ago. Malba was hosting an exhibition of Yayoi Kusama. The trees looked intriguing and beautiful. I resolved to go and see what it is about.

Shoes with phallus. the complimentary detail to red polka dots of Japanese artist who also designed for Louis Vuitton.
Yayoi Kusama shoes with phallus as demonstrated in Malba, Buenos Aires, 2013.  Photo: The Internet

In Museum: polka dots, but also phallus

Next day, I enter Malba and the first impression I have was – God, this is what classical Freudian wish fulfillment of excessive sexual desire and irrepressible conflicting impulses looks like. Interestingly, her polka dots became famous and made it all the way to the world of high fashion and beyond just the way they were. However, another important detail accompanying those dots was so beautifully disguised into unsuspecting snake-like shapes, or tentacles as critics called them, in Louis Vuitton installations and went almost unnoticed – her obsession with phallus. Maybe, for a reason, otherwise that would have been too perverse, who knows. Maybe not. 

 
Chairs covered with phallus, the complimentary detail to red polka dots of Japanese artist who also designed for Louis Vuitton.
Yayoi Kusama art – chairs covered with myriad of phallus exhibited in Malba, Buenos Aires, 2013.
Photo: The Internet

Tentacle-like art and polka dots: penetrator and recipient

Unlike her fashion installations, the view of tentacle-like elements covering every object was more prominent in the exhibition venue. These objects covered the things that we normally use to lay over, sit upon or wear such as sofas, couches, chairs, shirts even shoes. They basically covered everything one can imagine, even pasta, anything that we can touch. The photos with herself covered in dots laying over these thorny sofas decorated the walls.

By now, it is pretty much clear that polka dots all over her, analogous to the genital organs, represent vagina.  On the other hand, everything else that we can touch has grown innumerable phallus. It was a classical portrait of Freudian wish fulfillment of incompatible sexual desire. The vividness with which she depicted her troubled state of mind was chilling. These art works were explosive manifestation of deeply repressed conflicts. The curiosity took me to study her life. In some places she talks openly about her revulsion to sex. Maybe, it rooted in her troubled childhood experiences of the relationship between her parents too.

So her art, to me, was basically free ride of deeply conflicting urges. On one side, her revulsion of sex, on the other side, her strong desire for it. On top of all, she had to numb this internal storm against the backdrop of strict social frame. It feels like, it has been too much to stomach and at some point, she has let it go.

Obsession – Morbid dark impulses in psyche

It seems she had full divine experience in dots and phallus, she felt the creative power of universe in them. Here comes to mind Indian Gods Shiva and Shakti. However, her experience was reverse, regressive and destructive. Instead of leading them towards a fruitful and meaningful experience, she became overwhelmed by them. She lived it not in the form of celestial experience, but as morbid obsessive forces chasing her to insanity. She kind of talked about it openly through art and this is what she labels as “obsession” – let it be her phallus chair, mirror rooms or dotted pumpkins – automated instinctual impulses that tend to magnify, augment and overwhelm. 

Sexuality and Spirituality – why are the same thing in the depth of our mind? – Read this post to see why Kusama’s art made me think of God Shiva and Goddess Shakti

1. That wasn’t technically fire…what was it?…

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“The light was lit to illuminate the temple of soul”
“Prometheus stole fire from Gods and Zeus condemned him to a life of perpetual torture”.

The above examples do sound like total absurdity when we try to analyze them literally, don’t they? Talk about tricky and allegoric language of the unconscious!

This is the very first post and I am still not sure how to enter the topic. I’ve changed it million times already. Especially after second birth and months of breastfeeding, I think, some part of my brain has really shrunk. I think, before talking about unconscious, I should probably, talk about definitions ascribed to conscious. After all, that is the realm where we function in general. So, simplicity in mind, I’ll try my best.

Gucci bag featuring Unicorn. The Unicorn is symbol of spirit, which is associated with reasoning and intellect (Soul is feminine, receptive). Now, reasoning has a penetrating nature that's why in the Unconscious it is linked with masculinity. To rephrase it, in the depth of our psyche reasoning and masculinity are linked due to their penetrating nature. Photo: Gucci.com
Gucci bag featuring Unicorn. The Unicorn is symbol of spirit, which is associated with reasoning and intellect (Soul is feminine, receptive). Now, reasoning has a penetrating nature that’s why in the Unconscious it is linked with masculinity. To rephrase it, in the depth of our psyche reasoning and masculinity are linked due to their penetrating nature. Photo: Gucci.com

 

Evolution….Not a Joke

We humans, obviously, are the product of long, tedious journey of evolution. Nature has been polishing functionality of our body to meet our physical needs and capacity (which itself kept evolving along the way). That means the same evolution process has taken place in our psyche as well. It is a part that we do not see, however it is the very part that has been honed and shaped the most by the evolution process. Just like how a huge tree grows from a single seed, the consciousness has grown into its current state over countless years… Does it make sense? If it does, we’ve started on the right foot!

Prometheus is representation of acquisition of consciousness. Since the moment He stole fire, he became different. He was aware of his difference. He couldn't be like the rest of living things any more. So he was condemned to eternal punishment of being consciously different. On the other side, compulsive impulses rising from depth of psyche are always after him trying to swallow him back. Photo: Wikimedia
Prometheus is representation of acquisition of the consciousness. Since the moment He stole fire, he became different. He was aware of his difference. He couldn’t be like the rest of living things any more. So he was condemned to eternal punishment of being consciously different. On the other side, compulsive impulses rising from depth of psyche are always after him trying to swallow him back. Photo: Wikimedia

Here Came that Light – Conscious

Let’s dig a bit deeper. Way back in times of our ancestors some big change took place. Extremely slowly, yet surely – our grannies acquired a new skill – The Consciousness! In language of the unconscious he learned “a well-concealed secret of revengeful Gods”.  Thus “The Light illuminated the darkness of abyss”. In other words, reasoning shed light over the bottomless unconscious… Prometheus thus stole fire. Jung calls this painful and slow process “the Battle for Deliverance”. Just like how difficult it is to totally separate oneself from mother, separating itself from Great Mother (the unconscious) was the “mission impossible” for consciousness. It separated itself through a painful process. To make it worse, it had to fight hard against violent and compulsive impulses of the unconscious not to relapse. Or not fall into possession of one of them. In other words, He had to fight against “revengeful Gods” to keep this fire.

Now, let’s see why consciousness is symbolized this way and who are those revengeful gods? Once differentiated, The Conscoius – the New Hero became aware of himself just like a baby recognizes herself in the mirror for the first time. He was different and he became aware of this.

With it came a different mode of seeing and understanding things. His mode of thinking wasn’t vague and could control the train of thoughts. Also, his judgement was causal. For him everything had a cause and effect in a way that he understood. Thus, his mode of thinking was deductive, mathematical and calculated. He reasoned for the first time. Unlike predecessors, he rose above the free rein of instincts and felt, still very dimly, the capacity to control them. This new realm of psyche had its own small center, which we call Ego today. He was the intellect illuminating the dark mass of unconscious, the Great Mother.

Revengeful Underground Gods?…Seriously?

Here comes another question, who are those revengeful gods that condemned Prometheus to a life of eternal torture? They are our own instincts, urges, impulses, all the impetuous animalistic tendencies. They are our desires and fears that inhabit in the depth of our psyche. In the unconscious landscape they get personified just like in fairly tales and myths. They are living realities that are out of conscious control. They are capable of full manipulation of our mind. In a sense, they are creative powers of cosmos such as sexual desire, hunger drive, survival instincts etc.  But if experienced in destructive form, they turn into obsessive impulses chasing one to insanity. These are the cases they are experienced as wrathful Gods and underground frightful creatures. This battle has been one of the major themes of fairy tales, myths, monuments (Rome is full of it), paintings etc.

Here the Hero is the consciousness fighting against primordial Semi-Gods in shape of half snake-half human monsters, flame-breathing, many-headed dragons, wrathful and scary creatures, ogres, treacherous trolls, deceitful sirens etc. These dark forces persecute this new Hero each trying to assume total control. It would take this New Hero a very long time to learn how to tame and subdue dark aspects of these forces of psyche. Once subdued, Hero experiences the illuminating, spiritual and celestial aspects of those same Gods. Interestingly, during our lifetime, our consciousness repeats – in a fast pace – the evolution of conscious development.  That explains why toddlers up until five to six years can not tell difference between imagination and reality. At those ages the level of conscious development is still incipient and fragile.

Proportion of The Conscious – To be or not to be…

But this differentiation doesn’t mean that the “job” of Ego is over. Like any other acquired skill, there is always a danger to lose it. Relapsing back into the unconscious or “being swallowed by devouring monsters” is looming danger for each of us. However, too much separation of the consciousness is not good either as it will strip off that irrational, intuitional, “feeling” foundation upon which the Conscious has built its small kingdom and on which still nourishes and keeps its balance. The more separation, the greater the danger to be “possessed by daemon”. Meaning, the more danger to be associated with certain psychic forces that are already out of conscious control. So this Ego it is a bittersweet affair of mankind, which is too sweet to give up and too costly to keep in right proportion.