FORBIDDEN PLEASURES
Delight in death, pleasure in the replica. Doesn’t the onlooker always commit a sin? Scopophilia is a fundamental feature of visual culture, but also its moralistic blackspot. In the psychoanalytic tradition, especially when it comes to Freud, the pleasure of peeping – originally erotic – which, however, in visual culture extends to a more general desire to control the image by looking at it, is to become a witness, but to remain hidden.
And this is where psychoanalytic concepts intertwine with theological history. Religious traditions show distrust regarding the eye that looks on too eagerly. In early Christianity, the image was considered a potentially dangerous artifact – it tempted to false idolatry, took the place of the Word and imposed itself on the eye where purity of spirit supposedly had its reign. Exodus formulates it accordingly: ‘You shall not make an image of God in any likeness of anything… you shall not bow down to any such thing.’ The Byzantine and Protestant iconoclastic episodes are thus not just a swing of faith, but a symptom of a deeper tension between seeing and believing. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, has developed a more subtle strategy: the image is not forbidden – on the contrary. It serves as a tool, instead of leading to sin, it tempts toward faith.
Both perspectives, religious and psychoanalytic, are united by the suspicion that an image is never neutral. It carries within itself the power to seduce and therefore, to sin. And it is precisely this dynamic that is central to Jirásek’s work: his images are neither pure, nor redeemed. They are a pleasure, that has itself to blame. Blame is, after all, Jirásek’s modus operandi. There is always something at fault. He does not believe in purity of intention, or beauty, but he trusts visual pressure, horror vacui, hedonistic imagery that knows no measure – and does not even try to look for any.
This conscious relationship to guilt – as a driving force and aesthetic filter – also opens up Jirásek’s work towards a broader cultural context. Openly admitted pictorial hedonism resonates with the paradoxical experience of contemporary visual culture, where the excess of images leads to their emptiness. Some theorists therefore speak of modern iconoclasm: images are no longer destroyed, but diminished, comminuted.
In the context of postmodern thinking, Jirásek is perhaps one of the few who openly admits that kitsch, pathos, tragedy and gratitude can coexist on one visual surface – and that this is where our cultural heritage lies. He doesn’t believe in hierarchies, and maybe that’s why he can join together art and the visual language of pop culture with such ease. His series can be read like gramophone records. The tracklist consists of productions that sample Baroque, remix religious iconography and scratch pop culture kitsch. Each painting is at the same time an act of hedonism and self-flagellation – the pleasure of beauty that masquerades as guilt, and guilt that masquerades as aesthetic pleasure. These are not images for a restful eye. They are traps. Their visuality is not a decoration, but an instrument of unease. And so: who is actually doing the sinning here? The artist, who let his images loose into the world, like a visual virus? Maybe the whole dichotomy is just a well-laundered concept. Indeed, the optics of a culture that has transformed, but never shed its original sediment. Come to think, the transition from Catholic aesthetics to a pop-culture spectacle may not represent a leap, but just a smooth continuation. Instead of Christ, a labourer; instead of a martyr, a pop icon; instead of a relic, a memory card. All that remains is the frame, wherein you can hang anything – guilt, for a start.