Doubt is a very common feeling which everybody has experienced in their lifetimes. However,many of us feel uncomfortable when reflecting on it, because doubt challenges the certainty of our thoughts and emotions. Sometimes the need to define a statement or a feeling leads us to dismiss ambiguous thoughts which provoke doubt. By clinging to certainty, we often push aside the reflection that doubt can inspire.
Meanwhile, art history shows that being in doubt not only sparks creativity but innovation as well. However, we should not confuse it with uncertainty. Uncertainty lacks clear thoughts to question. So, it could be perceived as a negative state making it feel like a vague or unsettling state that provokes fear and anxiety. On the other hand, doubt presupposes that we interrogate a concrete thought which we have already reflected on. Most importantly, it helps us resist the authority of oneself. This authority could be our beliefs or biases that shape our rigid thinking. For example, if we think that there is only one way to define art, a character, a personality, a system and so on we will be caught in the loop of our own authority. In order to break free from the rigidity of our thoughts we could consider self-interrogating. As a result, it helps us understand the complexity of our thoughts.
An introspective doubt on emotions
So, which practices could lead to this understanding? One way of practising reflection effectively is art. For example, several women artists have embraced doubt as a practice which helps them reflect on the complexity of their thoughts that shape perception. For example, Louise Bourgeois introspects her experiences. This introspection led her to redefine her identity, her self-image and human relationships. So, the fear and uncertainties that arise when confronting her trauma leads to open interpretations on the underlying emotions and meanings. For example, her work Spider (1996) invokes both protection and menace, embodying Louise’s mixed feelings about motherhood. This emotional duality often characterizes both her sculptures and installations and at the same time mirrors the artist’s own doubt. As a result, Bourgeois invites us to introspect in order to interpret art.
Contradictory doubt as a virtue
Other artists like Holzer handle language to interpret dualities by presenting contradictory statements. These statements foster dualities which force viewers to question the intention of her text-based works. By creating spaces for doubt and reflection she invites viewers in her meaning-making process. For instance, her work Survival with all the holes( 1989) creates a narrative where the definition of alien and survival is broadened and personalized. In this way, she encourages critical engagement with societal norms and personal beliefs.
Critical doubt as a historical discourse
Critical engagement is encouraged as well by Kara Walker. She confronts history through silhouettes and installations to engage viewers to reflect on narratives that regard race and gender. As a result, her artwork uses color and shape to avoid representing and defining victims and perpetrators, heroes and villains, making us doubt conventional interpretations of history. Especially, her works My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love(1997) and Subtlety (2014) juxtapose perceived realities on colonialism, slavery, and exploitation. In the end, viewers question their complicity in supporting societal perspectives on racism and perception on historical narratives.
Doubt as exploration of memory
Perception as well is a central theme in Salcedo’s installations. By addressing the impossibility of understanding trauma, her art embodies the fragility of memory as a physical space. This physical space navigates the ambiguities of grief and loss as a reaction to an ambiguous memory. Her Shibboleth(2007) could make us think; How many ambiguous memories are buried within us? This universal questioning brings about reflections on self and the society which deepens the duality of division and unity within it. In such a way, the personal becomes political and collective as well. To sum up, her approach instills doubt in the stability of societal structures when we confront imposed societal and political structures.
Critical Doubt as discourse in cultural identity
Exploration on societal, political and religious structures are apparent in Neshat’s works. Through the contradictions inherent in gender, religion, and cultural identity, she presents dualities such as tradition versus modernity, so as to initiate doubt in monolithic views of Islamic and feminist narratives. In her work, Women of Allah (1993–1997), the juxtaposition of Persian calligraphy and veiled women with weapons creates tension, compelling viewers to question their assumptions about agency, oppression and norms.
Doubt as Threat
Agency plays a pivotal role in Hatoum’s work as well. While she transforms familiar objects into unsettling installations, she creates ambiguous environments of unsettling tension. By destabilizing the viewer’s perception of safety and normality through her interplay between materiality and comfortness, her work evokes doubt in the reliability of domestic and political structures. Her art, Homebound (2000) turns the familiar-dinner table into a source of threat and uncertainty, reflecting on the uncertainty of belonging and identity.
Doubt in Perception
At the same time Brown’s paintings reflect on the uncertainty of recognition. By blurring the boundaries between abstraction and figuration, she invites viewers to reflect on recognizing her ambiguous forms. This uncertainty doubts the monolithic view on human emotions and expression. Through looking at her work you may realize that emotional states such as sadness or joy could coexist in a conflicting thought. In that way, Brown’s layered brushstrokes and fragmented figures seem to leave the viewer searching for clarity, questioning their perception of emotions, spaces and objects.
Embracing Doubt as a Creative Force
To sum up, embracing doubt as a part of the creative process serves as a powerful tool for cultivating critical thinking through reflection. Doubt destabilizes comfort through challenging certainty and opens the door to grapple with the complexity of the human condition. Certain parts of the human condition provoke diverse emotional responses that may stun anyone at some moment in their life. This could involve co-existence of emotions, dualities of thoughts, multiple perspectives on norms,structures and the list goes on. Nonetheless, all this complexity is an encouragement to engage with our absolute definitions,recognitions and perceiving through multiple lenses the human condition. In that sense, doubt could as a tool cultivate better decision-making skills taking into consideration the diversity of human condition. We may as well, hope it fosters deeper human affairs.
Bibliography:
W.Durant (1961) The story of philosophy (pages 151,233, 272,286,296,100-101)
R.Lazarus (2018) Stress and Emotion,Springer (pages 13-15,16,17)
Louise Bourgeois (1998) Destruction of the father,reconstruction of the father, MIT Press in association with Violette Editions, London (page 18)
Hugo Huerta Marin (2021) Portrait of an Artist Conversations with Trailblazing Creative Women (page 368)
Kara Walker (2009) A Black Hole is Everything a Star Longs to Be, kunstmuseum basel (page 9)
Edward Bacal(2018) Bodies Withdrawn: The Ethics of Abstraction in Contemporary Post-Minimal Art (page 17-18)
Amna Malik, Surface Tension: Reconsidering Horizontality in the Work of Iranian 'Diaspora' (page 116-117)
Louisianna Museum (2019) Painting as Marriage between Brain and Body (pages 100-101)
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