Under The Daisies
Written by guest writer Olga Majcen
If you are a regular or have just discovered Tarantula: Authors and Art, welcome. Our January inspiration is the Croatian multidisciplinary artist Silvio Vujičić. Emphasizing Vujičić's work Under The Daisies, our guest writer Olga Majcen analyzes how he pushes boundaries and employs symbolism.
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Ever since the emergence of theoretical psychoanalysis, contemporary philosophy has explained why someone is a man, woman, or child contrary to the conventional opinion, namely through the process of "becoming" a man, woman, or child rather than by predetermination. Deleuze, for example, does not consider being a man, woman, or child as naturally given – because women pass through the process of becoming women, and men can also become women. They can also become men, although that is the norm (a healthy adult male). However, if they become women, they act as a minority. In other words, gender is a social and political construct.
Silvio Vujičić’s artwork Under The Daisies offers a romantic, but at the same time provoking contribution to the issue of gender, sex, and sexual orientation. By creating an enticing world in itself – a small ecosystem – the artist has made an eco-machine that represents a world turned upside-down. By providing them with food and water from above and light from below, he has reclaimed the gallery's space by growing daisies, a very symbolic flower that even liberal and tolerant societies prefer to identify with "gay men." Inverted, incorrect, unnatural, and artificial, Silvio's universe has messed up in its attempt to become a world. The gay flower is a symbol, an ironic proof of 'perversion' in the minority it represents.
In the Anglo-Saxon world, "daisy" alludes metaphorically to a beautiful or fragile person, or a man of homosexual orientation, but this is not the only meaning. In terms of iconology, daisies appear frequently in Renaissance painting, where they are commonly associated with extremely young women and symbolize their virginity, which is why they have become a widespread symbol of virginity in Western cultures. The girls' coronets of daisies represent the end of their childhood, their romantic female nature, and, eventually, the melancholic transience of youth. (It is no wonder that herbalists and alchemists attributed therapeutic properties to daisies, which are specifically associated with female reproductive organs.)
The tender nature of the daisy, which accounts for its reputation as a childlike, feminine, and 'gay' flower, has additional metaphorical use in English. Instead of saying that someone is dead, the English will use a witty euphemism, saying that he is "under the daisies." And that is precisely the name of Silvio Vujičić’s installation, for he literally places visitors in a grave-like position beneath the daisies. According to Deleuze, living people are individuals who defy convention, have uncommon becomings (men who change into women or children, women who change into men or children), and are acutely conscious of their transience, vulnerability, and daisy-like exposure.The eco-machine with daisies has become a metaphor for the social machine. Depending on the relationship with the daisy and its metaphoric nature, the observer of Silvio’s work will read out his or her own context.