"The Conflict Between Primitive Feelings and the Demands of Civilization" I 2022

Mixed Media on Canvas - 60x80cms While I'm organizing my next exhibition, "Totem and Taboo in Contemporary Art", I was reading about Freud and his theories related. His book deals with the topic of emotional ambivalence and taboo practices. Freud explains taboo as something, which is prevented by society without reason. He argues that a taboo does not spontaneously exist. At one point, the taboo had meaning but the meaning has since been lost to time. A taboo is seen as something dangerous and having dire consequences, yet further investigation reveals no one knows why. It has been so for such a long time that its original significance is no longer traceable. Since incest and the killing of a totem animal are most prominent taboos, Freud argues at one time, they were the most heinous acts in that clan. In essence, Freud argues that the original lesser males may have killed the father and taken over his females. As a result, he argues this repressed guilt leads them to prohibit these two activities. In order to ensure no one breaks these rules, sever punishment, even death is handed out communally to anyone who violates the taboo.