Alphonso Lingis. Art Beginning Again

Alphonso Lingis (1933–2025) was a prominent American philosopher of Lithuanian descent, as well as a social anthropologist, photographer, and traveler. From 1960 onward, he taught at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and later became a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He authored numerous philosophical articles and eighteen books. He visited Lithuania many times, taking part in academic conferences and seminars.

 

Lingis’s thought uniquely combined philosophical reflection with anthropology, authentic lived experience, and artistic insight. Brian Schroeder, professor of philosophy at the Rochester Institute of Technology and a close friend of Lingis, notes that he was not only a thinker but also a performance artist, often presenting his work at the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy and other forums, using music, dance, costumes, lighting, cultural artefacts, and projections to express what words alone could not convey.

 

Throughout his life, Lingis collected not only journeys and experiences but also built a true cabinet de curiosités drawn from six continents—artworks, artefacts, and photographs from more than one hundred countries. In accordance with the author’s wishes, the collection was donated to the Lithuanian National Museum of Art (LNMA), and in a sense, this book is also a gesture of gratitude and respect. But Art Beginning Again is more than a compilation of texts; it is an invitation to embark on a journey with Lingis, to immerse yourself in the complexity of art and aesthetics, and to experience with him the profound and unsettling encounters that works of art can open.

 

The texts were edited and the illustrations selected by Lingis himself. It is likely the last book he worked on. As the Director General of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, Dr. Arūnas Gelūnas, writes in his foreword, “At a time when the world often feels fragmented and hurried, and experience is increasingly mediated by sophisticated technologies, Lingis’s writings remind us of the profound connectivity that art fosters.” Lingis writes about cave paintings and mollusks, Dadaists and Surrealists, unknown outsider artists and some of the most celebrated figures in contemporary art. His thought ranges from the depths of the ocean to the artist’s studio, encompassing psychoanalysis and the philosophical conditions of artistic creation, Freud and Lacan, madness and genius, Duchamp, Rothko, and Bacon—just a few of the names and themes that hint at the breadth of his gaze. But for Lingis, works of art from different epochs, biographical details of artists, and philosophical concepts all serve a single purpose: to reveal the connections between seemingly disparate phenomena, to illuminate what links an unknown artist, a mollusk dwelling on the ocean floor, and a universally revered genius.

 

In all of these texts, the philosopher invites us to experience the artwork anew—not as a static object meant to be looked at, but as a phenomenon that awakens sensation, emotion, and imagination. Lingis offers a personal and singular perspective on artistic creation and works of art—authentic, vibrant, and pulsing with life. His transformative way of seeing compels us to open our eyes wider, to look at the surrounding world with renewed attention, and to desire to experience it once again.

 

 

Author of the essay „The Cabinet de Curiosités of Alphonso Lingis“ Dr. Arūnas Gelūnas

Coordinator Erika Lastovskytė

Copy Editors: Erika Lastovskytė, Michelle Abramowitz

Copy Editor (Introduction) Emma Stirling

Copies 300

112 p.

 

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