Chanel
There are two sides to everything in life. Whether it’s the idea of good & bad, heaven & hell, or rich & poor; these concepts are not as concrete as we would all like to believe.
Dichotomy
Noun
a division or contrast between two things that are or are represented as being opposed or entirely different
botany: repeated branching into two equal parts
Origin: Greek
Dikho- in two parts
-temnein: to cut —> -tomia: cutting —> -tomy
In all aspects in life there is always a division of two opposing parts. Whether it’s the idea of good & evil, heaven & hell, love & hate, good & bad, etc. All of these concepts are completely subjective though. Nietzsche says, “What first comes to my mind is that, in this theory, the origin of the concept ‘Good’ was mistakenly identified, and thus sought in vain, for the judgment ‘Good’ did not originate among those to whom goodness was shown! Rather it has been ‘good men’ themselves, that is, the noble, the powerful, those of high degree, the high-minded, who have felt that they themselves were good, and that their actions were good….” What can been seen to one person may be seen as bad to another. These conflicts can be seen in life, media, and art.
What This Belies by Thebe Phetogo
Thebe Phetogo is a Botswana born artist living and working in Cape Town, South Africa. She’s a representational and figurative painter that explores her background as a Motswana through her personal sensibilities and experiences.
This image expresses the idea of dichotomy by using both sorrow & joy. The image of the man with a noose around his neck as a very clear representation of death, but the contrasting image of the balloons can represent so much: whether it’s symbolic of blood-clotting, joy, or the idea of misrepresentation - that I am not sure. The artist unfortunately does not say much about this piece, and lets it speak for itself.
Rubber Soul, Monument of Aspiration from The Toledo Museum of Art
In her work Mary Sibande investigates issues of race, class, and power in post-Apartheid South Africa. Rubber Soul is the last in a series depicting Sibande’s semi-autobiographical character Sophie, a South African maid. Sophie tends to appear as a matte black mannequin with her eyes closed, dressed seemingly both as a maid and a Victorian madam. This ambiguity of costume is a way for Sibande to question the overly simplistic dichotomies of servant versus mistress and black versus white, while asserting the power of fantasy and self-fashioned identity.
From the Skagens Museum
In Anna Ancher’s harvest pictures, the harvesters are present in a very concrete sense, and it is always the man who carries the scythe, which is not only to be seen as symbolising the Grim Reaper, but also as a quite traditional division of the harvest work. The women’s work was usually linked to specific tools, and thus also distributed in the same way. In several of her oil sketches and finished paintings, Anna Ancher has worked with the composition, which is stringently built up around a perspective following the surface of the painting. The paintings are divided into two almost equal halves, which are only interrupted by the movement of the harvesters either in or counter to the reading direction from left to right. The composition in the harvest pictures acquires an almost frieze-like quality, and the division into two almost equally large areas of corn and sky respectively is a special quality in Anna Ancher’s harvest pictures, while she has also worked intensely with the light and shade effects and the blue and yellow complementary contrasts. In one harvest painting she has portrayed harvesters seen with the light behind them, while the sun in the other falls in from the left foreground and thus strikes the cornfield and the figures.
Frank Ocean - Chanel ℗ Blonded Released March 10, 2017
The song Chanel by Frank Ocean challenges the duality and non-heteronormative binaries.
I took a dichotomy test recently, and it was pretty informative for me. If you are interested in learning more about your internal contrasts, then check out Dichotomy Tests.
O Death
Rest easy, Brianna. I’m not one for heartfelt eulogies, but this is what’s on my mind.
Death itself is a beautiful thing.
Death has always scared me though because it’s so uncertain. Even when people die and come back, they don’t have a concrete description of what it’s like on the other side - or no side for some.
I’m personally terrified of the uncertain. Which trickles down into other aspects of myself:
Religion
Relationships
Occupation
Fun
I’ve lived such a cautious & “safe” life, that I’ve missed out so many opportunities I’ve had to really live.
Death itself is a beautiful thing.
The concept of death is so fascinating to me because so many things can die, and in some pretty out-of-this-world ways.
Death of the body
Death of the mind
Death of the soul
Death of the ego
No matter what your beliefs, death is never something to be feared, but embraced.
Death is the control. Living is the controlled.
Recently, I found out that a previous coworker of mine tragically passed away, and I wasn’t as phased or affected as I thought I would be. It wasn’t that I didn’t like her; she was an incredibly funny, energetic, and overall enjoyable person to be around during our time together. What I’m grappling with is the feeling that in her untimely death, she has left behind a significant legacy. Yet, it still makes me ask some deep and introspective questions:
“What was it like?”, “What’s she thinking now?” ,“Is she still a she, or an it?”, etc. etc.
I appreciate death like the dark, it’s terrifying but so exciting.
“Dying is easy. Living is hard.”