Word: totemism
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...street. The American artists wanted to locate their discourse beyond events, in a field not bound by historical time, that went back to preliterate, "primitive" tribal antiquity. The notion of ritual occupied the same place in their work that the idea of the "marvelous" did in French surrealism. Totem, cave, prison, sentinel, medium, personage, priest: such were the recurrent images...
Replacing it is "Figure" an example from Pollock's "myth and totem" period which preceded his "drip" style and coincided with his experiences in Jungian analysis. This work which incorporates primitivesque figures and symbols reminds us that Pollock did not spend his entire artistic career dripping paint on canvas on his way to fame, fortune and artistic fulfillment. But even if "Figure" provides a good academic lesson, any show of abstract expressionist work is incomplete, as this one proves, without a mature Pollock to epitomize the nature and aims of the period--an expression of the unconscious through the emotional...
...LUMET'S FILM does not limit itself to playing out fascinating mind games. As might be expected from a movie based on a play bursting with totem-like symbols, Equus is studded with the type of rich imagery that will easily come to mind with the mere mention of the film's title. Many viewers of Equus will fasten onto the scene of the nude Strang riding a madly galloping steed, a union of man and beast thrown into relief by backgrounds that alternate between the darkest of nights and a blinding brilliance of light. But the segment that qualifies...
With two to five of the 20 varsity positions going to freshmen, according to the wishes of Coach Ford, Malkin's spot was extremely precarious, or so he thought, estimating his rank on the totem pole as 19th or 20th among upperclassmen...
...piece de resistance at Anaheim is the scoreboard, which dominates the park from left-center field. Built in the shape of a giant "A", this electronic leviathan stands about 100 feet high and completely dwarfs everything else in the stadium--a totem constructed in that peculiar fascistic style designed to make human beings feel insignificant. Perhaps that explains the weird passivity of the crowd that night in Southern California. I have never seen such a well-behaved, quiet group of baseball fans. And just as the management had broken them with architectural grandeur, so did it seek to reconstruct them...