Türk
     Gerard Caris

Pentagonism

I hereby like to present my work which has been a concentration on pentagon dodecahedra forms, the five pointed star shaped by the diagonals of the regular pentagon and the rhombohedra taken directly from the dodecahedron, over a period of forty years as new and authentic artistic art movement like a new ISM.

This consideration is based on the fact that the regular pentagon and the dodecahedron consisting of 12 pentagonal faces, one of the only five existing primary forms are nowhere to be found in the realm of art as continuous interconnected ordering motives determining the whole composition.

The fact that regular pentagons cannot tile the plane without leaving gaps (fivefold) symmetry is impossible in periodic structures, regular pentagons can shape just one polyhedron: the dodecahedron.

In surveying the past where the five regular polyhedra first appear as a set of Neolithic stone carvings (dug up inScotland about one millennium before Plato) and onwards until the present, no artifacts can be identified where there is a structural composition involving more than one pentagon dodecahedral shape involved.

Well known examples thereof are a drawing of a dodecahedron as art[1] by Leonado da Vinci,   titled Duodecadron of 1498; Dürers Melencholia  an engraving of 1514; an oil painting by Salvador Dali The Sacrament of the Last Supper  of 1955[2].

Pentagonism involving the discovery of local structuring with regular pentagon dodecahedra and global structuring with rhombohedra who have a strong connection with the dodecahedron can be seen as principal extension involving newly developed structures possessing local and periodic symmetries.

Examples thereof can be found in “SMA cahiers 23” and “ZKM Pentagonismus”.

Considering that this development could be a candidate for a new ism a number of requirements for such a prefix in part indicated by the British art critic Ben Lewis[3] can be described as follows:

1.      A new ISM is invented by an art critic

2.      A new ISM needs a landmark exhibition place

3.      A new ISM develops from an old ISM

4.      A new ISM is  a new way of thinking and understanding art

5.      A new era leads to a new ISM    

Since the principle motives of my work consists of compositions of geometric shapes like regular pentagon and dodecahedra, the term “Pentagonism” has already been coined by me for working, presentation (Among others for museum exhibitions and catalogues in Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum und Karlsruhe /ZKM(Centre for Art and Media technology)) and identification purposes.

At the same time an ongoing search continuous seeking evaluation by renowned art critics (1) for possible legitimating in order that this artistic development could formally enter the history of art as a new ISM called Pentagonism and exhibitions in Landmark exhibition places (2).

(3) A new ISM develops from an old ISM.

Certain similarities between concrete constructivist art and Pentagonism with which it is often compared[4], like  its serial character can be taken as diverging concept for a new ism development.

“Serial” which is no more than a style analysis tells nothing about the content of the works themselves which in the mentioned categories differ fundamentally by the shape of motive.

Where concrete constructivist art with its cubic synthesis remains almost exclusively within orthogonal composition, practice, Pentagonism with its five fold symmetry recently discovered structural interconnectedness of pentagon dodecahedra forms give rise to an entirely new form development in that it explores and shows creations never envisioned before in art, due to the scientific crystallographic restriction of twofold, threefold, fourfold and sixfold symmetry only

4 Thinking and understanding art as a learning process for certain knowledge, uncertain knowledge and creation of knowledge can be considered as a new viewing angle of thinking and understanding art[5]

5 Algorithmic and artistic elements, two complementary ways forming a new relation suggested with the term Pentagonism, shows correlations with interdisciplinary tendencies not only in the language of science and art but also in socio cultural, economic and political domains in which due to globalization interactive effects can be observed on a par with the listed requirements for a new ism.

Maastricht, March 3rd 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aspects of Formalism 

Neither matter nor form comes to be : that is to say, there is no such thing as ultimate matter or form emerging from naught, spontaneously. Everything that changes is something, and is changed by something, into something. That by which a thing is changed is the immediate mover, that which is changed, the matter, and that into which it is changed, the form. Plastically I direct my investigations with a significant form in search of ordering ground rules, or the bidden structures behind visible reality. I consider formalism, of which form is an integral part, as an aesthetic theory not only to describe my work, but as a guide to fathom art in general, formalism, suggest order, regularity, uniformity, symmetry and harmony. It strives for an arrangement of orderliness in which it renders and molds the chaotic into a well made and ordered structure. The form is the unifying and organizing principle of formalism. The form is not only found in all organic as well as in inorganic matter, but it is prerequisite for the organization in the nature of all things.

For instance, form emerges as constructing units in such diverse array as protoplasm, bioplasm, cell physiology, protein, albumen, germinal matter, germ cells; amoebae and protozoans.

The formal denotes a common recognizable form, which further suggests adaptability to rules. From the frantic and spastic movements of the single cell that is about to divide itself, to the formation of crystals, as well as the emergence of artistic ideas, we find a persistent form emerging which is agreeable and of a well regulated and orderly, uniform consistency. Formalism suggests and involves precision of forms which in their severity and persistency in unity can be seen as the building blocks of all things. Form itself is the cause or the principle element involved in a1l creation.

Formalism as an aesthetic theory may not be entirely satisfactorily in that it doesn't tell the whole story of my work.

However it captures quite adequately those aspects of my work I am sure about.

It is the form, specifically the pentagonal form that has aroused my interest, due to the fact that since its inauguration by Plato 2.300 years ago the pentagonal dodecahedron was almost nowhere to be found as a construction motif in art.

Regular pentagons and pentagonal dodecahedrons became the principal motifs for the construction of my universe in art space.

This body of work hereby presented as pentagonism can be considered as a candidate to occupy a not yet occupied position in Art History. 

Gerard Caris Maastricht
March 7, 2001

               

                                            André Evard  1876-1972
                
               Congeniality of mind

 

         André Evard is an example of an artist who is an artist and a scientist at
         the same time with a rare insight into the ordering principles of the 
         universe.

         From the onset of his career he must intuitively have felt that a long
         productive life lay ahead of him in which he could afford himself to
         reinvestigate and repeat certain images that were important to him,
         many times revealing the rich variety in which there lies solid
         geometry, not only behind the flux of living things but throughout the
         universe.

         he has rendered and documentend these, his findings in a convincingly 
         eye pleasing painterly fashion

 

Gerard Caris

Riegel

August 9, 2009

 

 

           Geistesverwandtschaft

 

        André Evard ist das Beispiel  eines Künstlers, der Künstler und Wissenschaftler

        zugleich ist, mit einem seltenen Verständnis für die Ordnungsprinzipien des

        Universums. Er muss schon am Anfang seiner Karriere intuitiv gespürt haben, dass

        ein langes produktives Leben vor ihm lag, in dem er es sich leisten konnte,

        Bestimmte Bilder, die ihm wichtig waren, viele malen, zo untersuchen und zu

        wiederholen, um die reiche Vielfalt der Raumlehre zu zeigen, die nicht nur hinter dem 

        Fluss alles Lebendigen, sondern im ganzen Universum liegt. Er hat diese seine 

        Erkenntnisse in einer überzeugend ansprechenden malerischen Weise umgesetzt

        und dokumentiert

 

  

Gerard Caris

Riegel

August 9, 2009

   

Überzetsung,  U. Schöler

Gerard Caris:
Pentagonism and the Solid Geometry behind Things
Driven by curiosity, I worked myself through a variety of highly specialized jobs as a mechanical engineer, petroleum engineer, draftsman, designer of opto-metrical instruments, and as site engineer for the construction and erection of the Telstar Horn Antenna, through which I became involved in the discoveries of the space race in the United States in 1961. Through these explorations within and through these jobs, a twofold view of reality became apparent: one through a direct view with the naked eye and one through the microscope and calculation. The first view, which only reveals the outward appearance of these installations, does not tell much about the intrinsic nature thereof. The second view, in which the underlying form becomes visible not only to the innocent eye but also – and foremost – to the inner calculating mind’s eye, with which the hidden aspects of the deep fabric of reality becomes comprehensible, is of the greatest importance. Through this, we also developed an aesthetic awestruck appreciation, with which the beautiful intricate organization of the nature of things involving the organic as well as the inorganic nature can be deduced: namely that behind all these things lays a solid geometry. The grid and its three dimensional version, known as a lattice, is considered as the principle structuring element of reality as well as a leading principle in my personal exploration of art in which an entirely new form of development, self-coined as »Pentagonism,« has come into existence. This reveals creations never envisioned before in art, in which an interlinking of art and mathematics becomes self-evident for me and everyone else to see, as well as bringing about an aesthetical appreciation dependent on the prior package of conditioned aspects of the individual.
Akademie Schloss Solitude, 2015

Statement
Geometric as well as non-algorithmic elements involved in the creation of these new works evoke a sense of Unity in the viewing process in which aesthetics and mathematical logic merge together as one. The regular pentagon and the dodecahedron being the principal building blocks of this oeuvre reveal already by themselves this duality as one which is further enhanced in structural configurations which taken together I consider a new art movement self-coined as Pentagonism.

Maastricht, 29-09-2018