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From: Mary Elkins <<a href="/cgi-bin/wa?LOGON=A3%3Dind0709D%26L%3DPSYART%26E%3D7bit%26P%3D57650%26B%3D------%253D_Part_55245_243960.1190652511833%26T%3Dtext%252Fplain%3B%2520charset%3DISO-8859-1" >[log in to unmask]</a>>
Date: Sep 24, 2007 10:55 AM
Subject: Re: Fwd: Book on psychology/literature of hell
To: Discussion Group for Psychology and the Arts <<a href="/cgi-bin/wa?LOGON=A3%3Dind0709D%26L%3DPSYART%26E%3D7bit%26P%3D57650%26B%3D------%253D_Part_55245_243960.1190652511833%26T%3Dtext%252Fplain%3B%2520charset%3DISO-8859-1" >[log in to unmask]</a>>

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Malena,

I forgot to mention that there is a chapter, Pollock
and Metaphor, in Michael Leja's book, Reframing
Abstract Expressionism (Yale University Press, 1993).

I'd like to ask PSYARTERS what they think of the
following statement in Leja's chapter on Jackson
Pollock and the Unconscious.  I've not read Lacan,
only summaries of the theory. Perhaps someone on the
list can offer additional context for the statement.
Leja gives no citations, but does provide a note of
clarification for what is meant by painting "out of"
the unconscious. If anyone needs it, please let me
know.

"From an historical and anthropological point of view
- the unconscious - has come to be understood as a
consructed category, its particular form always
contingent upon social and historical conditions. The
unconscious is not a fixed, transhistorical,
preexistent entity whose structure and contents can be
discovered by scientific investigation. It is rather,
as the sociologist Peter Berger has emphasized, a
conceptual construction socially determined,
originating in social processes of identity production
and confirmation. The individual experiences the
unconscious, and all of psychological reality, in a
form defined and shaped by a culture and its models of
self, subject, and identity."

I'm primarily interested in any comments on the first
part of the quote, however, to provide context, the
rest of the paragraph is:

"Therefore, even if it were true that Pollock was
painting (out of) his unconscious -- and indeed he
was, insofar as one's psychological reality is
dtermined by prevailing psychological models -- we
would still need to know -which- unconscious he was
painting, that is, the unconscious as constructed in
what manner, involving what historical and social
determinants."

All comments will be appreciated.
Mary Ellen


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