Xmas is
a time to go away from college and recuperate. This has been a long term and I
am exhausted, full of cold and at this moment in bed recovering from a chest
infection. Last weekend though I managed to get down to London to see a few
shows including the Kiefer at the Royal Academy and the Polke at Tate Modern.
For many of you this holiday is perhaps a chance to see some exhibitions and
they can, if you are lucky, be significant and life changing.
In 1989 Jean-Hubert Martin curated ‘Magicians of the Earth’ at the Pompidou in Paris, and for me it was as if
a rug had been pulled out from under my feet. I was bowled over and it
re-energised my whole practice. The exhibition contrasted ethnocentric practices with the contemporary art world and it featured 50% Western and 50%
non-Western working artists. The artists were presented as individuals rather
than by geographic region and the work was not separated out as between Western
or non-Western art. It was all just there to confront and it really did
confront you, or it did me. On the one hand it helped to give
new insights into work I had already seen, for instance Richard Long’s mud circles of hand prints could be thought of as being sites for rituals, or you could look at
Western art as if it was the product of some archaic ethnographic practice and
when you did, you began to realise how odd it really was. The biggest issue for
me at the time was that most non Western art was occupied with real stuff, life
and death or sex and ritual, it was utilitarian and practical as opposed to being art
about making art. After looking at that show, I became determined to find a way to make art about what I
was experiencing in the real world.
You can
download a reaction to the show here.
Editions
Xavier Barral have this year brought out a memorial catalogue in memory of this
highly significant show and its accompanying catalogue.
However
it seems to me that we have not learnt the lessons that ‘Magiciens de la terre' had to teach us. I find too many art exhibitions still highly euro-centric and
concentrated on art about art. It makes me feel sad that so much art is totally
ignored by the majority of people, ignored because its concerns are not about
life but about art. I read an art review by Will Self the other day and he had
actually had a cathartic moment when looking at some work by Ron Mueck.
Mueck’s
piece, ‘In Bed’ is a large illusionistic sculpture of an over life-sized woman
in bed. It seems to tackle a similar theme to his earlier work, ‘Dead Dad’.
Both become meditations on death, and for Will Self, a man not known for
sentimentality, his confrontation with ‘In Bed’ allowed him to be, in
Aristotle’s term, ‘purified’. I suppose I better explain.
Plato
did not like the fact that art imitated nature, he thought this dangerous, as
we might not eventually be able to trust our senses. Aristotle refuted this and
argued that on the contrary art was useful in that it modeled itself on the
world in order to allow us to see what was actually happening. The
‘purification’ of an audience occuring at the moment when the model allows the
audience to ‘see’ the reality. (In this case Aristotle was referring to stage
plays, and in particular tragedy). Art for Aristotle was based on life
experience but it simplified, or clarified that experience and opened it out
for contemplation. Therefore it was not a copy of the world but a model or
framework against which we could test out our real world experiences and come
to some sort of ‘realisation’ about them. Mueck’s sculpture distances itself
from life by being ‘too big’ or ‘too small’ its scale being vital to its
reception. In effect the scale change allows us to ‘see’ the work as art, if it
was the same size as the original it would fall into Plato’s trap, it would be too
easily indistinguishable from the real world and therefore confusing.
This is
a list of all the artists that were exhibited in ‘Magicians of the Earth’, it
is interesting to see how their career paths have differed.
Marina Abramovic, Dennis Adams, S.J. Akpan, Jean-Michel Alberola, Dossou
Amidou, Giovanni Anselmo, Rasheed Araeen, Nuche Kaji Bajracharya, John
Baldessari, José Bédia, Joe Ben Jr., Jean-Pierre Bertrand, Gabriel Bien-Aimé,
Alighiero e Boetti, Christian Boltanski, Lousie Bourgeois, Stanley Brouwn,
Fréderic Bruly Bouabré, Daniel Buren, James Lee Byars, Seni Camara, Mike
Chukwukelu, Francesco Clemente, Marc Couturier, Tony Cragg, Enzo
Cucchi, Cleitus Dambi / Nick Dumbrang / Ruedi Wem, Neil Dawson, Bowa
Devi, Maestre Didi, Braco Dimitrijevic, Efiaimbelo, John Fundi, Julio Galan,
Moshe Gershuni, Enrique Gomez, Dexing Gu, Hans Haacke, Rebecca Horn, Shirazeh
Houshiary, Yongping Huang, Alfredo Jaar, Nera Jambruk, Ilya Kabakov, Tatsuo
Kawaguchi, On Kawara, Anselm Kiefer, Bodys Isek Kingelez, Per Kirkeby, John
Knight, Agbagli Kossi, Barbara Kruger, Paulosee
Kuniliusee, Kane Kwei, Bojemaâ Lakhdar, Georges Liautaud, Felipe
Linares, Richard Long, Esther Mahlangu, Karel Malich, Jivya Soma Mashe, John
Mawandjul, Cildo Meireles, Mario Merz, Miralda, Tatsuo Miyajima, Norval
Morrisseau, Juan Muñoz, Herny Munyaradzi, Claes Oldenburg / Coosie Van Bruggen,
Nam June Paik, Wesner Philidor, Sigmar Polke, Temba Rabden, Ronaldo Pereira
Rego, Chéri Samba, Sarkis, Twins Seven Seven, Raja Babu Sharma, Jangarh Singh
Shyam, Nancy Spero, Daniel Spoerri, Hiroshi Teshigahara, Yousuf Thannoon, Lobsang
Thinle / Bhorda Sherpa / Lobsang Palden, Cyprien Tokudagba, Ulay, Ken Unsworth,
Chief Mark Unya / Nathan Emedem, Patrick Vilaire, Acharya Vyakul, Jeff Wall, Lawrence
Weiner, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Jimmy Wululu, Jack Wunuwun, Jie Chang Yang, Yuendumu, Zush.
Wesner Philidor drawing. He was an artist from Haiti
Jivya Soma Mashe shows some of his work.
Jivya Soma Mashe
Perhaps the point is to look for drawing everywhere. Art galleries only host a certain sort of work, and in particular after doing a tour of the private galleries in Cork Street, I’m not sure that contemporary galleries are looking for art that operates either in a ritualistic manner, as so much of the art in ‘Magicians of the Earth’ did or in an Aristotelian ‘cathartic’ manner. The art I saw was simply a commodity exchange based on a rarity and significance given value by a particular set of ‘art world’ agreements. A bit like our money now that it is no longer tied to the gold standard. Provenance and listings replacing emotional power and artistic insight.
Karva Chauth (Hindi: करवा चौथ) is a one-day festival celebrated by Hindu women in North India in which married women fast from sunrise to moonrise for the safety and longevity of their husbands. This festival continues to this day and many women still have themselves decorated as part of an accompanying ritual. These drawings are often beautiful and meaningful and still fulfil a vital function. Mehandi a technique using turmeric and henna paste is derived from the Sanskrit word Mendhika, and has a long history in Hindu ritual.
Karva Chauth drawings.
It is interesting to look at the current revival of the tattoo as an artform in Western Europe. The separation of high art and low art forms is something that reflects on society's idea of itself as a a type of strata or a hierarchy. This cutting off or dividing one section of society from another reflects a wider mindset that values certain cultures over others. We need to embrace the totality of experience and accept the interconnected entanglement of everything, if not we will continue to live with the idea that we can control the earth because we think we own it and do things to others as if they are not quite the same species as ourselves. Aesthetics like most disciplines is subject to a value making process based on power.
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