Paula McLean | Both/And/Neither/Nor

2024 | PAULA MCLEAN
BOTH/AND/NEITHER/NOR
TORONTO
May 2 - June 29, 2024

  • ARTWORK

Drawing reference from Derrida’s essay, “The Parergon”, from his book, The Truth in Painting, Paula McLean engages in a photographic and sculptural exploration of the “supplementary.” With works whose references are as disparate as the garment worn by Margaret of Austria in a Renaissance-era Flemish painting, a Mike Kelley drawing, and architectural fragments laid to rest at Guildwood Park, Both/And/Neither/Nor examines photography not as a fixed medium, but one that can assume many roles, forms and disguises while occupying several milieus simultaneously. By implementing the parergon as a conceptual tool and framework, the works in this exhibition are linked not through medium specificity, but through a shared emphasis and preponderance for the ornamental, the peripheral and the overlooked.

In his essay, Derrida resuscitates the term parergon, a word originating from ancient Greece and later used by Kant in his Critique of Judgment. In the third Critique, Kant describes a series of elements within painting and sculpture that are deemed merely “supplements” to the work itself and therefore should be excluded from aesthetic judgment. Examples of these elements include the frames of paintings, the flowing drapery on figurative statues and the colonnades of buildings. He identifies these as parerga, things that rest beside and outside the ergon (the work itself), but are not wholly intrinsic to it. In “The Parergon”, Derrida approaches the term in a broader, expanded way, stating that the supplement is not only an addition, but is also something that “supplants”, carrying within itself the possibility of perversion. Functioning as a replacement, something that fills a void or lack, the parergon ultimately is a variable, ineffable quality that continuously defines and redefines the limits of the work of art.

The concept of the parergon serves as a conceptual framework to question where the work begins and ends, blurring the distinction between the artwork and its surroundings. Both/And/Neither/Nor also explores fleeting moments, like reflections or camera flashes, which disrupt sight and challenge conventional vision. Inspired by the ideas of art historian Georges Didi-Huberman, the work aims to liberate itself from the rigid analytical approaches of art history, creating enigmatic moments that resist easy interpretation.