ParagonToby Paterson has coined a new word. It has amassive plastic form, enunciated in solid concrete,though weightless and as yet utterly meaningless. Buthow long can he preserve it thus, guard it against ourfilling it up with meanings? And where did he get it? Aword is not just something you conjure up entirely outof your own whimsy after all. For the moment we!reoverwhelmed by his generosity, he sends us thisweightless, colourful, tender gift again and again withloving care, and we are disarmed —for themoment— of our lexical chains.

"I just couldn!t live with the pretence of objectivity!says Paterson. And for once, subjectively, silently,autistically, solipsistically, we can all be in perfectlytacit and meaningless agreement. For Paterson!seloquence brings us —in splendid isolation— thepure forms of the past glories of 20th century modernistarchitecture. "Form follows Function! may have beenthe rallying cry of that era and its modernist project,but no matter our own petty, individual and particularhistories and opinions, we must all admit now thatHistory has rendered the functions these constructionswere intended to perform as more or less defunct,exhausted, defeated, abandoned, unwanted, forgottenor marginalized. We are left, that is to say, with anexpression which has, as yet, no agreed new andnecessary content. It!s this very emptiness that allowsPaterson to exploit it as an ideal. It is unreplenished,bearing no empirical weight of objectivity. But is it thusalso without compare?

ParadigmPaterson!s precise and definite renderings of bothdetails (concrete emergency stairways are a favourite)and full buildings from the masters of the modernistera —like Corbusier, Lasdun, and Gillespie Kidd and

Coia— give us the image of the object perfectly as itwas conceived in it!s heyday, yet at the same time thatimage seems to float in an ironically ethereal set ofquotation marks.

"Painting directly onto the wall and onto perspex camefrom a dissatisfaction with conventional materials suchas canvas.! he says "I try to make images that sidestepthe medium in which they are rendered, to allow anuncluttered view of the subject and the ideas thatsurround it. I try to get rid of as much as possible, sothat only the image remains.!

For all its seeming concern with architectural "GrandsProjets!, history and the public realm, Paterson!sproject here is a very different, very much more lonelyand introverted one than that described as pertainingto those 19th century French "devils! in Diana Periton!sCoupe Anatomique (see p.42). Periton describesthose pictorial tableaux of Paris as "seductively banal!,where the "banal! is defined as having "mysteries …laid bare!. Paterson!s modernist tableaux couldequally be described as being banal, but in his lesshumanistic case, the definition would have tosubstitute the word "empty! for "bare!, thus removingthe latter word!s (Christian) connotations of sufferinghumanity. But neither could Paterson!s occasionaldepiction of an interior (like the stairway) be describedaccurately as a cross-section or even as a content ofthe outer form: these are rather objects liberated fromcontext (and so from objectivity), purified of any notionof instrumentality, isolated from the flows of people andthings which are exposed and processed so viciouslyin Coupe Anatomique.

Indeed if it is true at all to say that the history ofwestern thought and art has been one long round ofswings from obsession with the truth in the infinite tothe obsession with the truth in the finite, from the

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PATERLIMPSESTJohnny Rodger

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Top: Seminary in a woodland settingBottom: Church in a New TownBoth from "New Façades!, CCA, 2003

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metaphysical to the empirical, the ideal to theparticular, the abstract to the natural, and back again,then perhaps we should not be surprised to find amore congenial ground for comparison with Paterson!spure post modernist forms in that period of pre recenthistory when Paris first appeared as the Capitale duMonde. Naturally the 12th and 13th centuries have leftus a shorter and much less colourful record of theircultural activities than did the 19th, but what more dowe need when the great Gothic cathedrals,representing the summit of achievement in theology,art, architecture, sculpture, artisanry, engineering, —and according to some—philosophy, still stand? Thearchitect indeed, is accorded in the medieval (andspecifically Scholastic) period an exemplary statusamongst artists —or rather amongst creators. Likethe Christian God of the Scholastic philosophers, thearchitect was seen to create not merely as imitatiofrom nature perceived through the fallible senses as amodel, but from his own idea he creates an objectwhich did not have any previous material model. Hisdrawings represent nothing more than his idea, somepure form taken directly from his intellect.

Just so, Paterson claims that with architecture as asubject, he can marry two apparently very disparateapproaches to his art. Namely a painterly visualaspect and the more intellectual or conceptualapproach normally associated these days with theinstallation artist. Or as that top gymnast, Thomas ofAquinas, noted for his high swinging antics through thevast nave of that Gothic Cathedral of Learning thatwas the Sorbonne, once wrote,"sicut domus praeexistet in mente aedificatoris, et haecpotest dici idea domus!

(thus the house pre-existed in the mind of thearchitect: and this can be designated as the idea of thehouse, Summa Theologia I, 15, 1)

PainterBut what is it about Paterson!s language that we findso vaguely threatening? Is it because we know thatthis isn!t architecture at all but just painting? Is itbecause, as often as not, the painting itself doesn!teven exist any more?

"I!ve never been happy with the limitations of stretchedcanvas! says Paterson "it!s the commodity aspect thatis worrying!

And how can we find it threatening if it is allegedly sobland? And how can it even be bland if so much of itdoesn!t even exist? —It!s all very well to talk aboutScholastic philosophy, but Aristotle himself justwouldn!t stand for any of this is it/isn!t it business.

Unlike, say Piranesi (an architect who became famousfor his artistic drawings, rather than an artist who isbecoming known for his architectural drawing style)Paterson admits —at least of his latest show at theBarbican in London, featuring buildings fromRotterdam, Berlin and Coventry— that his is a lessthan didactic approach to experiencing these cities.

He is ignorant, for example, of the names of thearchitects of many of the chosen buildings, and hepreferred to spend more time in the actual citieswandering around with a notebook in his hand, toresearching the environmental history.

It is thus not, however, the first time that the"otherness! of a whole epoch has been exposed byarchitectural draughtsmanship. If Piranesi trained withhis uncle as an engineer and architect, and had astonecutter father, then it was as an engraver that hewill forever be remembered as "virtually the inventor ofRome!s tragic beauty.! And if Piranesi!s maturetechnique owes so much to the genius of the greatBaroque Age —then like his contemporaries in theliterary and artistic world , Goethe, Goya and Hogarth,he exploits its adjustments of perspective and itsmassings of solid and void for chiaroscuro effect andso on to present a nightmarish, megalomaniac,phantasmagorical vision of the horrors inherent in thatgenius.

As Marguerite Yourcenar, in her fine article The DarkBrain of Piranesi, said, "We cannot help thinking of ourtheories, our systems, our magnificent and futileconstructions in whose corners some victim canalways be found crouching.!

Indeed, although again like his contemporaries namedabove, Piranesi has populated his oeuvre with tiny,grotesque, tortured individuals, we find as we study histechnique that the goal of the "mysteries … laid bare! isachieved —as with Paterson— by means of anemptying out, by the void, and sometimes also by asubsequent overlapping of other forms. The gibbets,ladders, wheels and other machines that Piranesiadded to the second edition of the Carcericompounded the tortured darkness in more than aliteral sense, and the crosshatchings in that editionalso became darker and deeper.

It is further worth drawing attention to the fact that justas the Carcere d!Invenzioni portrays buildings whichare precisely that –inventions—pure fancy, whichnever really existed, so of the actual monuments whichPiranesi engraved elsewhere, it is estimated that atleast one third of them have now disappeared. Foragain, striking parallels can be drawn with Paterson.Despite the fact that his period takes in the last 50years and represents its subjects in "pristine! form,many of the buildings which Paterson has paintedeither no longer exist —like for example, thecampanile of the St Bride!s Church in East Kilbride byIsi Metzstein, demolished in 1987 (see bottom imagep.12) —; or exist now in a much deteriorated state —Metzstein!s St Peter!s Seminary (see top imagep.12)Cardross is now a hollow dilapidated shell,overgrown and covered with graffiti (see p.51)— ; orcould even in their heyday never have been viewed aspresented by Paterson!s drawing —the St Peter!sSeminary as represented in perspective by Patersoncould in truth only be viewed thus by hovering some30-40m above a wooded gully to the NW of thebuilding.

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It is evident then, that although on the face of it, hiswork may at first seem somewhat light andstraightforward, Paterson, like Piranesi with theBaroque, is not involved in a simple cataloguing orrecording of the architectural achievements, enduringor otherwise, of 20th century modernism. Paterson!sengagement with the unsaid or unspeakable ideas ofmodernism does whatsmore, take on an acutelypersonal aspect.

It appears with the above examples, that Paterson hashad some personal obsession with reproducing in hisown stylised way the architectural works of IsiMetzstein, the one time principal of the Glasgowmodernist architectural firm Gillespie, Kidd and Coia(GKC). But even this work does not exist in quite asstraightforward a way as one feels it ought to or coulddo. In the first place, it is known that Metzstein wasimpressed, nay flattered, by Paterson!s work, and thathe and his wife would have liked to have purchased apainting of St Peter!s Cardross. –Remarkable really,given the anomalous anarchitectural take, outlinedabove, that Paterson had on the building; but anyhow,sadly for Metzstein it proved impossible as Paterson,in his stated anxiousness to avoid the "commodityaspect!, had only painted these representations of StPeter!s directly onto the wall of the CCA gallery inGlasgow where the prize winning show took place.Thus the painting had been erased, or painted overafter the show, and no longer exists.

Metzstein subsequently purchased some other, smallerwork —so much for avoiding "commodification!— butthe paterlimpsest (if it can be allowed that thus wemay start to define this abysmal situation in a wordwhich cannot be pronounced at large) becomesinevitably more complicated when we find out thatPaterson now has Metzstein for his real world landlord.Paterson is currently occupying the former offices ofGKC architects (defunct) and making his domesticliving space in the building which was formerly thegreat modernist architects! place of work, and wherethe plans of these very buildings named above weredrawn up.

What, Paterson seems to say, can we do with such ascene, the making of a place, exceptkeep grafting other non-existentlayers on top, so "avoiding thepretence of objectivity!.

It was in just such a spirit surely,that Theophile Gautier —one ofPeriton!s 19th century Frenchdevils—said he would have liked tosee Hamlet performed in a settingbased on Piranesi!s Carceri. And ifwe were provoked to provideanalogies with Paterson!s work,what could be more appropriate tothe modestly gaping abysses aroundPaterson!s palimpsests than to see one of Pinter!sbanal tragedies performed on one of his non-existentmodernist flat roofs?

PinterIn the first place is it possible to coin a word that hasno meaning?

And in the last place is its use not always moreimportant than its ultimate meaning?

Readers will of course recognise this dilemma for theone elaborated in Deleuze!s Anti-Oedipus ascharacterising the tussle between the ethnologists andthe psychoanalysts.

We all know that the symbol ultimately means thephallus, but what are we using it for?

We must be careful, that is to say, with the erections ofOur Fathers.

And if in the house of Metzstein the young Paterson isjust going over the same old ground, living through itrather than working it out (albeit in much prettiercolours than the first time), are we to understand thepalimpsest as the literary/artistic modality of incest? Isit just a question of transgression?

There are at any rate no human figures amongstPaterson!s works. They are empty, not bare. Unlikethat locus classicus for the depiction of modern urbanangst —the paintings of Edward Hopper— TobyPaterson!s work places the viewers themselves ratherthan a painted protagonist in direct confrontation withthese urban forms. Like some post-modernOzymandias , "Look on these pure ideological formsand despair! this artist seems to say to us. Or is it"Look … and rejoice!!? For in no-one else!s hands isthe technique of single point perspective revealedquite so gaily as the grim tool of a now inscrutableabsolutism. To what scrutiny could we possibly subjectthese isolated, empty forms, how could we decodethem, if they are presented to us without context,without grounds or programmes, hors de famille?

Here we might find rewarding a closer study andcomparison with Hopper!s work, because not onlydoes Hopper in many of his paintings present us withsimilar modernist forms, but in his case they are

depicted in at least anappearance of totality,within a social,architectural or urbancontext. One painting inparticular —Office in aSmall City— throws upsome interesting parallels.From an open and light-filled interior of anostensibly "modernist!building an individualgazes out over a late19th/early 20th centurystone-built city laid out on

a grid. The city represented could just as easily bepost-war Glasgow as any North American city.

On closer inspection we see that the white platonic

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Both images here from "After the Rain!, Barbican, 2005

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forms of the "modernist! building are not at all detailed;they are in fact even more pure, or ideal, than anythingin Paterson!s representations, and they contrast withthe "everyday reality! of the carved stonework facadesof the buildings opposite, which form its urban context.The painting can thus only represent a dream or avision of the modernist hygiene. Not only that, butwhen we look down in the right hand corner of thepainting we see that a "traditional! ornamental façadehas, somewhat surreptitiously, been fixed to the streetside elevation of the building. ( a façade of sufficientlyarticulate profundity to erase a pre-existent depth voidof signifying content! —what is this, paterlimpsest àl!envers? —you better watch your ass, Daddy-oh!)

So even in its ostensibly clean and happy visionaryaspect, with Hopper in 1953 we see the modernistproject cannot show its face openly in public. It is,evidently, the desire which cannot speak its name. Butas with Paterson!s decontextualised images, wewonder with this platonic, idealised image, if the"modernist project! as such, as we know it or think werecognise it, is really the subject here, and notsomething else, something missing, something whichis prohibited, which cannot yet be said, or understoodif it is said, because it has not been properly codified,given a language for our understanding?

As O!Doherty says in his book American Masters,

"Hopper!s scenes not only invite literalcomments on the observer and the observed,they play a game of hide and seek in whichthe artist!s pursuit of his identity is pursued bythe audience. The elements of such a gameare part of the picture!s content —disappearance, silence, stealth, suspense,bafflement, glimpses— but no denouement.!

A Deleuzian analysis might not so much help us tounderstand these images or why they are prohibited orevidently transgressive, but to see why we cannotunderstand them and why in their very emptiness forus we find them threatening and disturbing. Why, inthe case of one artist must these pure forms be hiddenbehind an ornamental façade, and why with the otherdo the naked projections into the void leave us feelingso uneasy? In Oedipal formations Deleuze sees thelanguage of capitalist society as setting limits andregulations to inhibit pure flows of desire. Just as thepure forms in Hopper!s work are prohibited, have to behidden behind a façade, recoded that is, in order toparticipate with the society of buildings, with the familyof buildings around the city square, so Deleuze wouldtell us that the Oedipal formations organise andstructure our language so that desire production as anatural flow from within to without is repressed andrecodified such that desire can only be spoken of,understood and expressed as a lack —a need, hemight say, for the Oedipal façade of mummy-daddyism.

In a description of the "catastrophic! repressive effectson desire of Freudian Oedipalism, Deleuze makes acriticism that could almost be used as a direct

description of Office in Small City,

"psychoanalysis was shutting up sexuality in abizarre sort of box painted with bourgeoismotifs, in a kind of rather repugnant artificialtriangle thereby shifting the whole of sexualityas production of desire so as to recast it alongentirely different lines, making of it a "dirty littlesecret!, the dirty little family secret, a privatetheatre rather than the fantastic factory ofNature and Production.!

These pure forms –stripped of all conventional facadesof stone facings and now also of their defunctsociological and economic meanings andfunctionalisms, surge out of Paterson!s works towardsus and are simply uncodifiable. Strip the façade fromthe Office in a Small City and what do the peopleacross the way see?

As Deleuze says,

"What is repressed is desiring production. It isthe part of this production that does not enterinto social production or reproduction. It iswhat would introduce disorder and revolutioninto the socius, the non-coded flows of desire.!

Is Paterson then, asking us for revolution —or at leastapostasy— in allowing him to say openly this wordagain and again when he knows we cannotcomprehend it and pin it down? If as Deleuze says,"Interpretation is our modern way of believing andbeing pious.! then yes, by refusing to let it beunderstood, by refusing to keep it in the family, byexposing to us precisely and definitively what is goingon or not in his father!s house of Metzstein, he issaying no to a big open secret in which none of us inour own most secret moments will always not know weare all complicit.

But if this is all too hard on us perhaps we couldequally evoke Pinter!s play being performed atopPaterson!s non-existent modernist flat roof to makethings if not exactly objective then a bit more plain, abit more banal. His work, as the playwright himselfonce declared, is really concerned with "the weaselunder the cocktail cabinet.!

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