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What are some of the issues encoded in Neustein's folds, tears and cuts? They
are simple: two halves make a whole, or to halve a half is to make quarters
and so on. Folds, tears, and cuts embody absolute and impersonal sequences.
That the tear in Neustein is a function of an expressive action, paralleling
the painterly gesture of an earlier visual type, is of incidental concern although
it allows Neustein a double access of appreciation - the recognition both of
an intellectual structure and that of a vestigial expressionist bias. Of course,
this "expressionist bias" is itself an intellectual referent signifying
the species Painting. (The latter aspect has always seemed to me to be the most
potentially risky feature of Neustein's work. Still, it may be necessary if
only to have aided in the embodiment of its epistemic aspects. More recent evolutions
seem to indicate that this expressive character may yet serve to resolve the
growing dilemma surrounding the epistemic movement itself.)
Other aspects of Neustein's content would be, say, the designation of front
and back, of recto and verso and, by extension, of ventral and dorsal. To tear
a sheet, or to cut it in half and then reverse one of the halves from front
to back demonstrates that a whole sheet not only comprises two halves, but that
it also comprises a front and a back. All this is eminently obvious. Yet, it
often requires rehearsal, especially at this early stage of public support since
the public's anticipations are not geared toward the recognition of systems,
but toward the narcissistic encounter with sensibility experiences.
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