Hello There.

For nearly a decade I have been lecturing in Psychoanalysis & Art at Trinity College Dublin. It is an intense class, one that brings up feelings and thoughts for the students that participate in it fully. With COVID and the onslaught of Zoom, the recording of class has become commonplace for students and staff alike. If technology works then this is fine; if it doesn’t then it’s not — momentum and synthesis is lost. So today it was necessary for me to recap on what had been covered (and lost) so far on the course (the lost object in psychoanalysis is a given as “desire is defined in lack”. This includes: An Introduction; Against Interpretation; Dream-work; The Uncanny; The Missing Part; Aestheticism; The Gaze; The Transitional Object. The artworks I discuss range from Duchamp to Ed Gein to Gregor Schneider to Douglas Gordon’s 24hr Psycho & Zidane (with Philippe Parreno) to Don Delillo’s Ratner's Star & Point Omega to Diane Arbus, among many other psychoanalysts & philosophers who, by embracing or resisting psychoanalytic thought somehow enriched it. What comes to the fore is ideas and feelings about what it is to think through an artwork, where form and content, intellect and the sensible find each other in the same place. Also, the deeper we delve into language the more paradoxes arise, paradoxes that we can either painfully try to unpack, or enjoy for what they are: evidence as to the limitation of language in the face of being an artist, an artwork, or whatever. Oh, and the artist as pervert.

I have included the link to recording of recap in the bio. Although only a recap, hopefully it might get some of you to explore art through a psychoanalytic lens alongside philosophy, literary theory and the infinite ways in which we cope with being human (and being an artist) in the world through language.

Any questions or observations please ask in the comment box.

Thanks

James