Exploring Transitional Objects through Jeremy Plint’s “Monolith”

Superstar Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek posits that ideology extends beyond mere ideas; it encompasses a material dimension, including organizational structures, and manifests in social interactions, where it becomes ingrained and naturalised as ‘reality’. According to Zizek, ideology constitutes our reality, making it challenging to break free from its influence.

In 1953, Donald Winnicott introduced the concept of the ‘transitional object’ to describe the blankets, soft toys, and bits of cloth that young children often cling to for comfort and security. These objects serve as bridges between the child’s inner world and external reality, facilitating early stages of ego development by symbolizing continuity and emotional reassurance. Winnicott’s theory has since expanded, highlighting the role of transitional objects in memory formation, creativity, and empathy. Building upon Winnicott’s framework, psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas introduced the concept of the ‘aesthetic moment’. Bollas argued that encounters with art and aesthetic experiences mirror the infant’s interaction with transitional objects. These moments allow individuals to delve into subjective realms, evoking nostalgia and personal memories (Bollas, 1987). Artworks, like transitional objects, become conduits for exploring internal realities and forging connections with the external world.

In the realm of art, materiality refers to the fundamental substance used in creating a work, whether it be a painting, sculpture, or other visual form. This materiality significantly shapes the artwork’s meaning and impact on the viewer. The concept suggests that altering the material used changes not only the artwork’s form but also its intended message and expressive qualities. This approach underscores the unique role that materiality plays in shaping how art communicates and resonates with its audience.

Jeremy Plint’s “Monolith” exemplifies the extension of transitional object theory beyond childhood. Plint’s sculptures, crafted from recycled fabrics and household objects, resemble childhood toys imbued with personal narratives and histories. This approach queers the traditional psychoanalytic concept of transitional objects, inviting viewers to engage with the artist’s personal journey and reflections (Plint, 2023). Plint describes the process as an affirmation of Queer methodology, challenging binary norms and promoting creative self-expression (Plint, 2023). “Monolith” stands as a testament to vulnerability and the enduring legacy of formative years, where enmeshed transitional objects symbolize both comfort and disorientation. Each sculpture, with its layers of hand-stitched limbs and adorned teddy bears, evokes a sense of uncertain placement yet steadfast support—an echo of early developmental transitions (Plint, 2023).

Monolithic architecture, characterized by structures crafted from a single block of material like rock, represents a unique approach to architectural design, often aiming to challenge boundaries. It envisions an outcome that integrates and reconfigures the physical site, its inherent limitations, sight lines, etc and invites audiences to inhabit, traverse through, and gaze upon its spatial location in combination with the architectural form itself. Crucial to this experience is the creation of relational spaces where collective experiences can unfold. However, in “Monolith” by Jeremy Plint, a towering architectural wall dominates a darkened environment, adorned with his handmade transitional objects. The artwork evokes a tense balance between harmony and dissonance, featuring bold reconfigured surfaces that transform benign forms into a swelling mass along the wall.

This overwhelming presence extends and gathers along the architectural framework, obscuring our view and enticing exploration around each corner. Yet, as the artwork is examined further, the rear view reveals the raw simplicity of the architectural framework construction, exposing the basic nature of its required engineered construction. This revelation diminishes the initial allure of the sculptural surfaces, highlighting their attachment upon a preexisting architectural framework, built and placed into position before Plint’s transitional objects are attached. This juxtaposition underscores a deeper conceptual exploration: just as we are shaped by underlying frameworks and ideologies in our lives, our external surfaces and our physical and mental materials evolve from infancy through to adulthood via varied and diverse transitional objects, states and experiences. Monolith employs these concepts and forms into a unified and coherent artwork in which transitional objects emerge as simultaneously seductive and fundamentally evolved safety nets within an overarching monolithic architectural ideological framework,. “Monolith” not only reinterprets transitional object theory through a Queer lens but also invites viewers to reflect on their own connections to childhood memories, emotional security and underlying prevalent ideologies.

By melding art with psychological and philosophical theory, Plint exemplifies how contemporary art continues to expand and enrich our understanding of human development and emotional well-being. Monolith is a smoking gun of transitional object theory and it has never looked so good, so seductive, nor felt so raw.

Daniel Clifford