This year’s Venice Biennale is curated by Okwui Enwezor a Nigerian who works out of a gallery in Germany and has an office in New York. He is an advocate of art as a global phenomenon and warns us
against using a white European western lens with which to evaluate art.
He has previously stated, "The only thing modernity teaches us is that modernity
is in itself a project with very deep social, cultural, economic, and political
entanglements. And there are no innocents. Artists function within transactions
– whether in the relationships between objects, or the relationships between
discourses". See http://032c.com/2008/okwui-enwezor/
Enwezor is very clear about his ‘audiences’, which I think
is an important issue when not only curating but making art. I thought his
phrase “there are no innocents” important too, as it engages with us as artists
to make sure we are informed and that we are actively making work which is
positioned as part of a global discourse. I am very aware that when I turn on
the news I am affected both emotionally and politically in the way I respond.
My art practice is therefore, because it is something I deeply want to engage
with and shape and hone my feeling through, also affected by what is happening
around me. However the ‘global village’ as McLuhan would put it, is also local
and my experiences are also shaped by my immediate environment. This complexity
is I think something to be embraced and as it is the reality of now, something
we ought to respond to if we are to make an art practice that is relevant to
our time and point of location on this Earth. Global warming, conflict and mass
emigration are part of our lives, just as much as consumerism, the rise of social
media and the selfie or the Yorkshire Dales, Leeds United and the streets of Chapeltown or one's age, gender and social class.
Of course there are wide varieties of approach to art
making within a context of global discourse and this blog is about drawing, so
I have made an attempt to filter my responses through a drawing lens. Even so I
cant escape the fact that at the centre of the whole Biennale there was a daily
reading of Marx’s ‘Capital’, a reminder that the curator Enwezor asks us to
frame our reception of the works through a Marxist reading. I shall try and
pick out my own readings of course but perhaps as readers of the blog post you
could add to my readings your own thoughts on the social, political and
economic positioning of each work.
"Abu-Bakarr Mansaray was born in Sierra Leone, a country in western Africa that suffered from civil war during the 1990s. After quitting school in his teens, Mansaray taught himself practical science and engineering, while also devoting himself to a widely adopted technique in central Africa: manufacturing decorative objects or toys with wire and iron. He also invents machines for his own use at home and sometimes for other people.” See
I found the work fascinating because when I was at school back in the 1950s most of my friends if they did draw, spent their time making drawings of war. We were a generation of children brought up by fathers who had been in the forces and who had seen action in WW2, our grandfathers had all fought in WW1 and therefore as boys we were expected to do the same in some future war. War inhabited our subconscious and we drew obsessive images of planes and tanks whenever we had a chance. Abu-Bakarr Mansaray has been able to visualise his awareness of the technology of war in a similar way, adding into it an obsession with details that have come from his engineering background. He also works on a large scale, some of his drawings being 4 to 5 feet across. The compaction of technical drawing and personal myth making, makes for a powerful mix of imagery. This together with a use of biro and felt-tip, all supported by dense annotation held my attention for quite some time, as the details force you to stand quite close to these images in order to read and see how detailing works.
Abu-Bakarr Mansaray
In contrast Qiu Zhijie works in a tradition that has a 2,000 year old history. Chinese scroll brush drawings have a deep tradition that is still referred to by many contemporary artists. Qiu Zhijie uses traditional brush drawing to develop complex landscapes that contain several narratives. He works detailed images into the enveloping landscapes which are as much of the mind as of any actual geographic territory. Like many artists working today he also works in other media.
Note the drawing of a roller machine near the bottom edge
Qiu Zhijie
Qiu Zhijie
Qiu Zhijie also works using video techniques, often embedding his monitors in objects which again refer to sections of drawings and his obsession with cliches of Chinese history.
Qiu Zhijie
Qiu Zhijie
Drawing is central to both these artist's practice, however one is direct and almost 'childlike' in its application and the other is very knowing and sophisticated in its execution. What both have in common is a love of detail and complex narrative, as well as a need to annotate their work.
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