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AtrásToo Big to Fail?: Excess, Crisis, and the Contemporary Mega-Exhibition

 

44th AICA Congress, Asunción, Paraguay, 19.10.11

 

 

 

 

Biennials need to produce reality… [1]

[I]t is the insistence on the contemporary that prevents the exhibition format from growing old and wary. But the problem runs deeper. It is like injecting Botox into an aging face: you manage to keep its deterioration at bay in the beginning, but over time it is rendered incapable of expressing anything at all…To liberate the biennial from its cage of the contemporary, we need to produce a ‘late style’ in the history of biennials… [2]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marit Passche’s critical assessment of contemporary mega-exhibitions rightly positions biennial discourse at a crossroads of crisis—between imagination and documentation, between the constructed and the realistic, between global sprawl and local engagement, between truth and translation. Individually considered, these discursive tensions have variously served as the thematic strands informing several recent biennial traditions, but have also served as problematic foils to the contemporary biennial’s goal of representative and democratized display. For example, the 2009 Venice Biennale, entitled “Fare Mondi/Making Worlds,” embraced an almost-“post-post-colonial” view about the contemporary biennale as a microcosm of the world—that “the [biennial’s] translation act itself is a way of making our shared world richer” and that “the most well-known symbols, the national flags of the world, can be broken down into basic visual shapes that display unexpected painterly qualities.”1 One might assume that Birnbaum took his cue about this turn to homogenization and “global abstraction” from Rem Koolhaas’s European Flag Proposal (2001), which dealt with ever-expanding European Union membership by transforming the complexities and nuances of national flags into barcode-like, increasingly compressed bands of color. As membership swells, the legibility of such “basic visual shapes” disintegrates, the boundaries of nations dissolve, and chromatic generality holds sway over specificity and pattern.

Like the competing states of “reading” and “seeing” exposed even earlier in Jasper Johns’s frenzied 0-9 (1960), “reading” and understanding “Spanishness,” “Irishness,” or “Greekness” becomes an increasingly difficult endeavor that is ultimately stymied by the flag’s insistence on utopian collectivity and “Europeanness.” Koolhaas’s flag—itself an act of “translation” that Birnbaum believes is a force of enrichment in the postmodern world—reverts to universalizing abstraction as a means of concomitantly showcasing everything as nothing, nothing as everything. When such logic is subsequently applied to the structure of the contemporary mega-exhibition, two key crises remain: (1) the narrative, historical, and cultural acuities of the local become eclipsed by the biennial’s imperatives of “global legibility,” mega-exhibition aesthetics, and representational hierarchies, and (2) those local narratives ultimately suffer misreadings and (mis-)translations—errors perpetrated by a select few (curators and creative directors) which are subsequently compounded and perpetuated by enormous viewing audiences. Such loss of the local at the expense of a fantasized, universal, postmodern “condition” is at the heart of the 2011 Istanbul Biennial, in which Tamás Kaszás & Anikó Loránt’s PANGEA—Visual aid for historical consciousness exposes the dangers associated with fictive generalizations. Within an installation of make-believe flags and drawings that documents issues pertaining to land rights, political brinkmanship, women’s rights, and the proliferation of capitalism, Kaszás & Loránt’s work summarizes the shortcoming of biennial exhibitions that have grown too large for conceptual depth: “Unified ideology ignores the lived experiences of ordinary folks.”2

Enter the 2008-2011 global financial crisis and the utopian views of European solidarity quickly revert to pinpointings of weaker European economies (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain—otherwise known by their collective acronym, “PIGS”) in comparison to larger, more stable, more established ones, such as those of France and Germany. As European Union bailout funds are funneled to faltering economies, the ultimate consequence of the economic crisis in Europe rests in one of two diametrically opposed conditions—a stronger European Union in which individual crises may be overcome through an emphasis on mutuality and collective responsibility (Eurobonds, European Financial Stability Facility [EFSF]) or a dissolution of the Euro and/or the European Union that returns economic and cultural sovereignty back to individual nations.3 In the context of biennales and mega-exhibitions, the global economic crisis has not simply revealed the persistent disparities between privileged and under-represented regions of the world, but has also called into question the efficacy of the biennale format and its ability to chronicle those disparities in a manner that remains true to the local agendas and vernaculars of individual artists and their equally varied viewership. When the fiscal logic of “too-big-to-fail” is applied to the contemporary biennale, the resulting crises of relevance, size, and scope have less to do with biennales’ survival and more to do with the ongoing, almost-unquestioned trust imbued in them—trust that biennales accurately “represent” a range of artistic voices within a specific contemporary moment, trust that biennale traditions that have developed over decades or centuries remain respected sanctuaries for varied and authentic forms of cultural expression.

To return to the case of the 2009 Venice Biennale, Daniel Birnbaum’s embrace of abstraction—a return to the building blocks of all peoples’ manner and mode of representation—is a tactic employed to disentangle the complexities of cultural pluralism without actually engaging with them. As a means of clarifying his alignment of multifaceted identity and representation, Birnbaum quotes Amartya Sen’s observation that

[t]he same person can be, without any contradiction: an American citizen, of Caribbean origin, with African ancestry, a Christian, a liberal, a woman, a vegetarian, a long-distance runner, a historian, a schoolteacher, a novelist, a feminist, a heterosexual, a believer in gay and lesbian rights, a theater lover, an environmental activist, a tennis fan, a jazz musician, and someone who is deeply committed to the view that there are intelligent beings in outer space with whom it is extremely urgent to talk (preferably in English).4

What Birnbaum neglects is an extended conversation about how the situation of these layered identities, the (in)visibility of these identities, and the commingling of these identities can be meaningfully explored and narrated without assaulting their integrity or glossing over their in(congruity) with other narratives. For Birnbaum, the answer to this potential crisis lies in fabricating numerous new worlds out of the residues of worlds that have yet to be understood. This hope carries over into the 2011 Venice Biennale, curated by Bice Curiger, in which “parapavilions” designed by artists serve as the “venue-within-a-venue” for the display of another artist’s work. As South African photographer David Goldblatt documents aerial views of shantytowns and individual portraits of con artists, murderers, and felons who have—in utopian fashion—rethought the error of their ways, the readings of Apartheid, post-Apartheid, death, and abject poverty are read against sharply raked walls festooned with garish wallpaper. Enter the 2011 Istanbul Biennial, in which the entire venue is subdivided into visibly segregated “pods” or chambers containing individual works. As viewers are artificially goaded into circumambulating these chambers in order to “form their own biennial experience,”5 one immediately notices that the size of biennials has prompted a rethinking of “exhibition architecture,”6 even if such constructed worlds and experiences are not mediated by history and local reality.

The consequences of museological excess are varied in the contemporary art world, but almost invariably point to a sidelining or misinterpretation of local issues and contexts as they relate to the staging of the biennial. The 2008 São Paulo Bienal, suffering from financial mismanagement and curatorial instability, ran the risk of being cancelled, were it not for an artful camouflage of the exhibition’s woes. At first described in the Bienal’s first press release as a “void” and later rebranded in the exhibition catalogue as an “open plan,” the pavilion’s completely empty second floor served as a contentious catalyst for debate about modernist and postmodernist goals for exhibitions when financial resources are scarce. Ivo Mesquita and Ana Paula Cohen’s curatorial vision for the floor was a “supposedly void territory [in which] intuition and reason will find fertile soil to highlight powers of imagination and invention”7—a conceptual segway between the modernist rigidity of the pavilion’s now-exposed architecture and the postmodern unpredictability of what can and should happen in such an unoccupied environment.

Nevertheless, the freedom to imagine and to invent was quickly squelched when several pixação graffiti artists spray-painted the pristine, white cube-like void with verbal assaults, such as “This is what art is!” and “Under dictatorship!” The pixação artists leveled such charges, largely because a biennial facing financial hardship chose to exhibit nothing rather than the artworks of local paulistanos who had volunteered to contribute works, projects, and interventions to the proceedings. Such acts of “poetic terrorism”8 (as it was called by some locals) led to the creation of online “how-to” manuals, such as the “Manual for the Invasion of the Bienal 2008” which explained how to skirt the biennial’s security, covertly cover walls and fixtures with stickers and other graffiti, and leave the premises undetected.9 As a coda to the Bienal’s foreclosure of local frustrations and expressions related to how exclusive its repertoire of contributing artists had become, the 2010 iteration of the Bienal included works by several pixação artists in São Paulo—not as in situ inclusions of graffiti within the Bienal pavilion, but as carefully framed, high-art photographs and videos that documented, aestheticized, and institutionalized acts of artistic radicality. Tellingly, the truly political nature of pixação art emerged when several graffiti artists invaded an art installation by Nuno Ramos that had been commissioned for the 2010 Bienal and scribbled “Release the vulture” on one of the installation’s sculptural perches.10 Sequestered within the atrium environment of the Bienal pavilion, the vultures became a lightning rod of local public outcry, yet the Bienal provided little in terms of a forum for dialogue about the work’s engagement with issues of animal rights, social justice, and cruelty. For biennials of São Paulo’s size and pedigree, such disagreements are often eclipsed by what Robert Storr might call the biennial’s insistence on a “chorus monologue”11—in which multiple artistic voices that reflect divergent histories, agendas, or motivations end up speaking more about global or universal conditions.

Of course, the existence of “chorus monologue” not only assumes a false sense of complementarity between artists and an exhibition’s message, but also implies a well-coordinated relationship between exhibition ideology and the cultural contexts that umbrella biennial events. The 1997 Johannesburg Biennial, only the second iteration of a young and growing biennial enterprise, demonstrated that exhibitions about global politics and aesthetics often reveal deep rifts between the theoretical buzzwords of mega-exhibitions—hybridities, power axes, phenomenology, hyper-consumerism, and cultural tourism—and the looming realities of racial tension, inequality, discrimination, and reconciliation. Works, such as Yinka Shonibare’s Victorian Philanthropist Parlour (with its abundant use of batik fabrics and their material trajectories from Indonesia to Europe and then to West Africa) and Fatimah Tuggar’s Turntable (with its juxtaposition of hi-fi electronics and fai fai [raffia disks]), attempted to illustrate the infiltration of “Africanness” into the sacred spaces and technologies of the West; one might assume that such works were viewed as hybrid artistic speculations about visual culture in the future, with Africa playing a more prominent role in determining the trajectories about contemporary art discourse. Instead, the exhibition became known for its elitist irrelevance—curated by a member of the privileged African diaspora, largely constituted by artists and conference contributors whose lives and artistic educations were influenced heavily by Western models, and complicated by the tendency of critics to aligns sentiments about Apartheid with the United States civil rights movements in the 1960s as essentially similar. Conference participant, Carol Becker, lamented the fallout from the Biennale’s failure, intimating that Enwezor’s privileging of the global above the local contributed to its demise:

International visitors came to South Africa hoping for an entirely new experience. For that to have occurred would have required an exhibition whose roots went deep into the local dialogue and spread out to touch international concerns and South Africa’s position in the international debate. The biennale would have had to project the sense that it could have happened nowhere but in South Africa. It might also have required a large parallel exhibition, perhaps at the Johannesburg Art Gallery, offering international viewers a chance to see the diverse, fabulous spectrum of South African art. But this focus on South Africa was never Enwezor’s goal. Still, without such a stated purpose we are forced to ask, Who was this biennale for?12

One might convincingly argue that large-scale exhibitions can be defended in an almost-anthropological way—exhibiting enough works by artists around the world that address core human values and conditions will provide insight into those experiences that are universal (and universally important). But, as the exhibition’s contributor Gerardo Mosquera observed, “Pluralism can be a prison without walls.”13 So, while Pepón Osorio’s Badge of Honour documents the impacts of incarceration on the relationships between a Latino son and his father, the biennale failed in terms of linking these local experiences of the elsewhere to the site-specific, post-Apartheid traumas of the biennale’s host country of Johannesburg. Was the Johannesburg Biennale trying to liken Apartheid-era prisons to the growth in punishable crimes in Latino cultures? For their seemingly abundant commitment to the postmodern ideals of relational thinking and contestable meaning, biennales run the risk of equating all human experiences, wherever they are experienced (and experienced differently) for the sake of internationalism—a generic term that excuses, even celebrates, the ignorance of specific histories in favor of ones that more closely comply with the demands of the contemporary art market and sides with the tendency to indulge in “global excess” as opposed to working through specific local issues with a focused series of artists and conversations.14

Of course, biennales can fantasize the extent and possibility of such local engagement and awareness, as seems to be the case with the 2012 iteration of Documenta. As the global financial crisis worsens and the art world should begin to think how more people might be folded into dialogues about contemporaneity that do not rely on biennial visitation, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev plans on releasing approximately 100 satellite catalogues, based on critical writings, artistic projects, and interviews. With each catalogue costing approximately €10, the suite of information pertinent to the exhibition—in addition to the main catalogue—will cost interested readers over €1000. Worse, how well does such dissemination of information align with or document the interests of the many populations who are unable to participate in a mega-exhibition in this manner? Such curatorial one-upsmanship, through publishing more cataloagues and becoming more visibly experimental than one’s predecessors is likely what led to Christov-Bakargiev’s alleged entry into Afghanistan as part of her research for Documenta 13. According to Professor Amareswar Galla, Christov-Bakargiev entered unannounced into a meeting of UNESCO delegates in Kabul to inquire about the possibility of staging part of Documenta 13 in Afghanistan. Galla recounted his amazement about how unaware she was of the risk to injury to herself—recalling that members of the Taliban were meeting in a room adjoining the UNESCO board’s conference room. The delegates then reminded her about the disconnects between the contemporary art world and museum patrons’ understandings of hardship and the stark realities of life in Afghanistan. Galla asked Christov-Bakargiev if she had anticipated the very real need for bulletproof vests for visitors should she go ahead with such a plan. He asked whether she had thought about the infrastructure of Afghanistan and its ability to sustain cultural tourism as the biennale has come to construct it. Galla also asked whether she had truly thought about the place of art and how it interfaces with abject poverty, homelessness, hunger, and war. To Galla, the biennial’s excessive budget (generous enough to fund Christov-Bakargiev’s special travel to a war-torn nation) conflicted spectacularly with the exhibition’s thin conceptual and cultural premises—in the end demonstrating an interest in Afghanistan more as a prop to professional accomplishment than a means to expanding the relevance of contemporary art discourse beyond the West.15

The solution to curatorial bravado, community disconnect, and over-expansive scope will likely not develop from biennial traditions that have established their reputations, relationships to the contemporary, and responsibilities to donors and institutions. On the contrary, new and emerging biennial trends, such as the Roaming Biennial of Tehran and inSITE (a biennial “happening” staged on the border between Tijuana and San Diego), promise to do much more at furthering awareness of how contemporary art is being influenced less by market trends and more by relationalisms, diasporic movements, emphemerality, and unpredictability. The Roaming Biennial of Tehran importantly critiques the site-specific biennial as an outmoded, colonialist apparatus ill-equipped to offer a voice to artists practicing in locales that inhibit forthright artistic expression or that remain largely inhospitable to the notion of cultural tourism. According to one of the Roaming Biennial’s founders, Serhat Koksal, globalization, and its insistence on a Kantian sensus communis, often camouflages experiential disagreements and dissonances in favor of what Thierry de Duve calls “a communality or communicability of sentiment, implying a definition of humankind as a community united by a universally shared ability for sharing feelings.”16 Described as “[a]n independent, low-budget, traveling exhibition which can be presented almost anywhere” put together by curators who are more like “nomads, carrying artwork, objects, texts, and whatever, in a package no bigger than a medium-sized suitcase, preferably weighing less than 20 kilograms, so it can be carried on any cheap flight,”17 the Roaming Biennial of Tehran relies on Iranian and other non-Western diasporas as the foundations for contextualizing current events and other art practices in Western locales. Staged so far in Istanbul and Berlin (both cities with identity crises rooted in East vs. West or European vs. Asian), the exhibition exposes the Western or capitalistically motivated slants of global discourses, with works such as Samin Tabatabaei’s Tower Jealousy (2008) subtly linking architectural one-upmanship to the minaret as a more ubiquitous spiritual structure in Iranian culture. Other artist collectives, such as Turkish graffiti artists, FlyPropaganda, use the minaret as a form of iconographic opposition to Western power and consumerism; such resistance is also viewed in their guerilla advertising tactics through appropriation of the fetishized PlayStation 2’s “Game Over” page, in which military gaming eerily mocks the realities of death, colonial occupation, and cultural humiliation that characterize the collective’s loathing of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The success of the Roaming Biennial of Tehran relies heavily on artists’ willingness to forego stipends, as well as their usual concerns about framing, handling, and insurance, in exchange for participation in a range of mini-biennials that establish unique resonances with their various locales. Curatorial and artistic collaborations lead to makeshift, exhibition-style counterpoints to the explosion of mega-exhibitions—not only because of a reduction in bureaucracy, but also due to a commitment to new “biennial technologies” proving to be more effective at linking art-producing and art-consuming communities than site-specific exhibitions can be given their limited duration. Facebook, Twitter, and Bebo (each at the forefront of younger generations’ communications about and mobilizations against the Iranian regime in recent years) have also sustained this biennial and rendered it less as a historical chronicle or catalogue and more as an agent of responsiveness and interactivity, if only because it has relatively few historical expectations weighing down its content and curatorial methodologies. Perhaps most importantly is the biennial’s awareness of its fringe status in relationship with larger and more established biennial traditions, as its 2008 theme, “Urban Jealousy,” is based on the French term, jalousie—a window through which one may observe, but never be observed.18 For this exhibition’s curators, visibility is a function of first exposing the commercial, geographic, cultural, and institutional obstacles to inclusion and attempting to invent new strategies of insurgence that can disrupt their primacy in the art world.

Already prompting a great deal of critical engagement, the new conceptual premises for the viewing and contextualization of global art practices promise much for ensuring that underrepresented experiences and works continue to be seen—despite their potential incompatibility with the mammoth biennial traditions that often sideline, misrepresent, or altogether ignore them. Their strength is their uncamouflaged acknowledgement that Western biennials, such as the Venice Biennale, Documenta, and the São Paulo Bienal, or biennials in the non-West that have uncomfortably followed Western traditions (such as the Johannesburg Biennale) have perpetuated untenable tensions between the notoriety of works that are included there and the impossibility of seeing those that are always and already excluded due to the constraints of time, geography, financial resources, or curatorial inclination. Their response has been the formation of an ideological, quasi-anti-institutional mission to transcend the limitations of site-specific exhibition by drawing greater attention to artists, audiences, and changing ideas that no longer fit such a rigid, site-specific museological paradigm. For these emerging biennial traditions and the changing conditions they attempt to chronicle, the expansion of creative, postmodern art discourse cannot be accomplished by expanding the exhibition traditions that speak to a select few; rather, such tectonic changes are accomplished by increasing the sizes of audiences who interact with contemporary art and, with them, help to make art more relevant to local and global communities.

 

Notas

1. Hans Ulrich Obrist, as quoted in Marit Passche, “The Cage of the Contemporary: On ‘Late Style’ and Biennials,” in The Biennial Reader, eds. Elena Filipovic, Marieke van Hal, & Solveig Øvstebø (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2009), p. 20.

2. Passche, p. 21.

3. Daniel Birnbaum, “Introduction,” in Fare Mondi/Making Worlds: 53rd International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia (New York: Rizzoli/Marsilio, 2009), n.p.

4. Text included in Tamás Kaszás & Anikó Loránt’s PANGEA—Visual aid for historical consciousness (2011), a mixed-media installation included at the 2011 Istanbul Biennial. Kaszás & Loránt call for a “rehabilitation [of] exploited and abused symbols”—an intimation that flags (and our collective readings of them) do not need further semantic dissolution, but require deeper analysis and an understanding of how history has changed and manipulated visual culture and the ways in which it is read. See especially “Tamás Kaszás & Anikó Loránt,” in Untitled (12th Istanbul Biennial), 2011 (Istanbul: Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts/Yapi Credi Publications, 2011), pp. 208-209.

5. For more about the recent developments about the European economic crisis and its impact on the integrity of collective political and economic action, see “Europe and the euro: The bonds that tie—or untie,” The Economist, 20 August 2011. Online. Available: <http://www.economist.com/node/21526363>.

6. Birnbaum, p. 191.

7. Curatorial description accompanying architectural layout and building maquette of the 2011 Istanbul Biennial.

8. Untitled (12th Istanbul Biennial), 2011, p. 25.

9. “Introduction,” in 28a Bienal de São Paulo: Em Vivo Contato (São Paulo: Fundaçao Bienal de São Paulo, 2008), p. 20.

10. See extended discussion in Christina Roiter, «Pixacao at the Sao Paulo Bienal: Art or Crime?» in The Art Section. Online. Available: http://zoolander52.tripod.com/id1.html.

11. At the time of this writing, the «Manual» is still available online. See «Manual para a invasao da Bienal 2008,» http://www.manualparaa-invasaodabienal.blogspot.com/.

12. “Obra polêmica com urubus dentro da Bienal é alvo de pichação,” in G1: Pop & Arte. Online. Available: http://g1.globo.com/pop-arte/noticia/2010/09/obra-polemica-com-urubus-dentro-da-bienal-e-alvo-de-pichacao.html.

13. Robert Storr, “Biennales in Dialogue” keynote lecture. Museum of Contemporary Art. Sydney, Australia. 11 July 2008.

14. Carol Becker, “The Second Johannesburg Biennale,” in Art Journal 57:2 (Summer 1998): pp. 86-100.

15. Gerardo Mosquera, “Important and Exportant,” in Trade Routes: History and Geography – 2nd Johannesburg Biennale (Johannesburg: Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Council & Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development, 1997): p. 268.

16. For an excellent discussion of the Johannesburg Biennale’s somewhat careless use of terminologies and histories specific to South African art practice, as well as some speculations about the consequences of intermingling unresolved debates about identity and culture with global art and capitalism, see Shannen Hill & Elizabeth Rankin, “Important and Exportant,” African Arts 31:3 (Summer 1998): pp. 76-78.

17. Amareswar Galla, “Other Views: Art History in (South) Africa and the Global South – 2011 South African Visual Arts Historians and Comité International d’Histoire de l’Art Colloquium, keynote lecture. University of the Witwatersrand. Johannesburg, South Africa. 12 January 2011.

18. Thierry de Duve, “The Glocal and Singuniversal: Reflections on Art and Culture in the Global World,” in Open (The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon: Strategies in Neo-Political Times) 16 (2009): p. 50. Emphasis added.

19. Serhat Koksal & Amirali Ghasemi, project statement. Online. Available:http://www.biennialtehran.com/

about.html.

20. Ibid.

 

©  Royce W. Smith

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Web arte y la interactividad, las formas de relaciones inter-territoriales

 

44° Congreso AICA, Asunción, Paraguay, 19.10.11

 

 

 

 

Cibercultura es el sello distintivo del mundo contemporáneo, caracterizado por las relaciones socioculturales que se establezceran por La expansion de la microelectrónica basada en las tecnologías em desarollo a partir de los años 70. Este fenomeno está fuertemente influenciado por los recursos digitales que abundan en la actualidad, tales como las computadoras, los medios de comunicación móvil que interconectan las personas, en diferentes regiones del mundo. Una red de dispositivos que ha cambiado la vida cotidiana, los valores y las normas artísticas culturales.

El arte invade el espacio virtual de Internet, creando nuevas formas de producción simbólica, especialmente a través de una práctica específica que se llama web de arte Estas obras se caracterizan por ser diseñados específicamente con los recursos on-line y hacerse con la composición de páginas específicas de la World Wide Web, que reúne a los diferentes mídias, tales como sonidos, textos, gráficos, imágenes y movimientos, entre otros.  Algunos autores desarrollan un análisis exhaustivo de la utilización de las nomenclaturas – del net art, web art o arte en línea – pero, Independientemente de la nomenclatura utilizada, se reconoce la especificidad de esta producción y cómo la misma se ha expandido en la última década.

El enfoque de este fenómeno directamente en la producción de la web de arte es el centro de las reflexiones desarrolladas en este trabajo. La elección del arte en la web entre la gran cantidad de producciones artísticas que utilizan los medios digitales se debe a las particularidades de este medio, popular y democrático, que ha captado el interés de todos los días un gran número de personas, la mayoría jóvenes, muchos de ellos no tratar directamente con el arte fuera de este circuito. Su flexibilidad y su amplia gama de medidas posibles para eludir algunos controles, de última hora, dentro de ciertos límites, con el sistema del arte, un tema sobre el que he estado trabajando mucho tiempo. La interactividad de esta producción se desarrolla y establece nuevas relaciones con el público, que requiere más investigación. Además, su ubicuidad se abre un campo específico de cuestiones complejas dentro de las relaciones globalizadas territorial que han sido el foco de mi interés por la investigación en los últimos años.

Como punto de partida, se percibe una falta de referencias sobre el tema, más allá de los enfoques con cierta segmentación de las producciones artísticas que utilizan los medios digitales en general. Por un lado, hay varios textos centrados específicamente en las nuevas tecnologías, los estudios de su génesis y análisis conceptual, apoyados en los teóricos de la filosofía de la ciencia. Son en general lecturas separadas de la tradición reflexiva de la estética y la historia del arte. Se pone mucho énfasis en los medios digitales como modificadores de las estructuras de pensamiento y comportamiento, pero establecen muí poca relaciones entre estas producciones y las artes visuales contemporáneas que utilizan otros medios. Se crea un circuito segmentado.  A su vez, los enfoques críticos más tradicionales de arte contemporáneo aleja de sus intereses obras que desarojam innovaciones tecnológicas, y en especial las obras de arte web. Esta crítica parece ignorar que esta producción se ha establecido ya en el campo de las artes visuales y ganando terreno a pasos agigantados, como se puede apreciar por la presencia de fotos digitales, vídeos, instalaciones de vídeo, e incluso web arte en museos ferias, exposiciones y bienales internacionales.

Lo importante de la imagen en el mundo de hoy se pone evidente y amplia su papel en varias cagegorias. Como ha señalado Pierre Bourdieu (Bourdieu, 1989), la superación de los modelos clásicos de representación isso necesaria la construcción de una nueva mirada, y ese fue el gran cambio implementado por la modernidad en términos de las artes visuales. Del mismo modo, la imagen digital promueve cambios profundos en la visualidad atual, contribuyendo significativamente a la creación de un nuevo régimen escópico.  El enfoque propuesto en esta comunicación integra una cadena de pensamiento que trata de aproximar a lo que se está creando en el contexto de las práticas artísticas con tecnologías digitales on-line a las prácticas artísticas contemporáneas y los problemas conceptuales de este campo.

Em esta comunicación se da énfasis en el desarrollo de la interactividad como un medio de creación, y su articulación a las cuestiones específicas de la geoplítica del arte. En sus prácticas on-line, algunos artistas experimentan envolucrar la participación de los usuarios como un eslabón en el proceso creativo, explorando nuevas posibilidades de interacción con el público. En el análisis de estos proyectos se pueden identificar los diferentes niveles de interacción y formas diferentes de utilizarla para establecer relaciones con los territorios geográficos específicos. Puede verse cómo incorporar el desarrollo de la interactividad para la interconexión en un espacio rizomático, sin centro ni periferia, sin dirección definida qui se expande indefinidamente. Estos proyectos establecen una red de conexiones, donde se desafia cada usuario a seguir su propio camino, tomar sus decisiones, y añadir sus contribuciones. Se establece así una colaboración en co-creación, aunque de manera limitada por las posibilidades que ofrecen los artistas y las características del software utilizado.Se podría decir que la web ha llegado a establecer nuevas relaciones de arte, con el cambio de enfoque desde el objeto a los procesos de creación y a la interacción. Se trata utilizar los mismos medios que producen estética, ideológica y económica, y el arte para conviertelos en un ámbito de construcción de identidades individuales y colectivas.

Tapices urbano sugiere una conexión entre el arte, la ciudad y la red Internet. Este es un proyecto que involucra a más de 40 voluntarios que, a través de sus teléfonos móviles, registran sentimientos, pensamientos y opiniones sobre los lugares de su ciudad, utilizando el acceso al material que otros usuarios han de esa misma ciudad. Se trata de un proyecto de investigación experimental, gestionado por el Pprobóscide, un colectivo de arte británico que inició operaciones en 1994. Ellos tienen como objetivo explorar las redes y los medios de comunicación, uniendo lo virtual y lo físico para apoyar y crear comunidades de personas e intereses. Este grupo siempre está buscando la apertura y la creatividad artística, en el territorio de la ciudad y  con un punto de vista social.

Antoni Abad, España, 2003, realiza un trabajo con los teléfonos con cámara prestando los a grupos que sufren discriminación en alguna forma, para que documenten su cotidiano. El acercamiento se da de la siguiente manera: la localización de un grupo en una ciudad y entrar en contacto con ellos a través de seminarios y grupos de trabajo.

Su práctica artística tiene un estudio sociológico en el momento de la vida cotidiana de las minorías, la creación de redes y hacer visible la perspectiva de cada uno de estos grupos. El Internet, en este caso sirve como una plataforma para la difusión de esa información y cómo base de datos por parte de cada grupo. Hasta el momento son: personas sin hogar en Colombia, con discapacidad en Ginebra y Barcelona, los motoristas en Sao Paulo, los trabajadores inmigrantes en Nicaragua Costa Rica, los trabajadores del sexo en Madrid, los jóvenes campesinos y Lleida León, conductores de taxi en México. El proyecto se divide en canales creados para cada grupo.

En el caso de las trabajadoras del sexo en Madrid, hay un canal de llamada oculta y muestra las fotos tomadas por los miembros del grupo. Otra forma de organizar los datos en los sitios de las subdivisiones son: seres humanos, las actividades, espacios y objetos. Cada una de estas tiene palabras clave que direccionan los usuarios a las fotografías relacionadas con el tema. El espectador puede experimentar una inmersión en la vida cotidiana y conocer sus testimonios. Pero ademas, constituyen espacios de reinvidicaciones de derechos frealizados por cada individuo en el grupo, lo que los hace personajes importantes.

Lo que se ve claramente es que el arte interactivo em la web abre nuevas posibilidades para la participación del arte en el espacio urbano y la creación de una nueva concepción de la opinión pública. La dinámica interactiva, que comienza con este tipo de propuestas, optimiza y aumenta los efectos, em un diálogo mucho más amplio y más importante numéricamente.  Exedem en términos cuantitativos, las interferencias urbanas tradicionales, que casi siempre se limitan a la pequeña audiencia que asistió al evento en tiempo real y el espacio.

El arte interactivo en la web también permite establecer nuevas relaciones con la geografía física, destacando los aspectos comúnmente pasado por alto. Alex Jarrett, EE.UU, 1996, en el Proyecto Confluencia grado hace una propuesta de demarcación del punto exacto de confluencia entre los meridianos y los paralelos de la tierra. Con la ayuda de un GPS, cualquiera puede localizar un lugar específico en el planeta, donde las coordenadas son un número entero. A partir de ahí es sólo registrar el sitio con fotos digitales y enviarlas al personal del sitio. El projecto incluye hoy una gran base de datos de imágenes, los registros del mundo donde se cruzan las uniones. Fácil de manejar, el sitio contiene un mapa interactivo del mundo, en la forma de un mosaico de imágenes que se envían.

Un cuestionamiento de la objetividade y veracidade de los mapas y sistemas de localización lo hace el trabajo de Aran Bartholl Mapa. El artista busca errores de seguimiento que el sistema de mapa de Google produce y hace una declaración de poner una etiqueta igual a Google en el espacio real del error. Muestra que los sistemas de representación no siempre  son equivalente al espacio real. Los espectadores son invitados a participar mediante el envío de información acerca de los errores identificados. El proyecto questiona la relevancia de los mapas objetivos como forma de representar el mundo. El disuelve los mapas y las rutas para discutir la participación de la subjetividad. Así, el trabajo discute los mapas y nuestra relación con ellos. El uso de la cartografía en la web de última generación propone aciones que implican la ubicación espacial como la visualización de las regiones de la Tierra mediante satélites, disponible en línea, como Google Maps, sistemas de posicionamiento global (GPS) y todo tipo de medios locativos, con la que pueden interactuar en el nternet.

Relaciones mas afectivas com los espacios propone Karen O’Rourke, EE.UU., 2004, en un mapa más grande que el território; ,La artista se refiere al cuento de Jorge Luis Borges en que el habla de un mapa de área en igualdad con el espacio geografico. En una página que le ofrece una variedad de idiomas, se pide al usuario para revivir los recuerdos de su lugar y espacio en la ciudad trazando sus rutas a través de un programa en flash. El sitio incluye ademas una especie de rutas comerciales, donde el usuario puede ver, comprar, vender e intercambiar rutas diferentes, y permite la visualización de todas las rutas realizadas por el proyecto propuesto.

De modo semellante Rachelle Knowles Viader (EE.UU.) in Former Resident explora la ciudad desde la perspectiva de los residentes temporales, las personas que no viven mucho tiempo en un mismo lugar, están pasando por la ciudad o ya estuvieran allí.  En el sitio web, le pide a los que han estado en Nueva York, concretamente en Brooklyn, a presentar una declaración de su estancia en un lugar y la fecha. El proyecto es interactivo y se propone documentar un momento especial de la vida, un residente casual. Todas las historias recibidas se adjunta en el mapa virtual de la ciudad, así como se va a imprimir y pegar en el lugar físico en el que ocurrió. El informe, impreso en papel con membrete del proyecto lo indica, el espacio urbano, la presencia (con localizador electrónico) del sitio que aloja todas las pruebas, debidamente ubicados por sus direcciones. Permite a los usuarios de Internet, los residentes de la ciudad o no, puede acceder a una experiencia de vida de su espacio, por la mirada de transeúntes. Se crea un ambiente que involucra a los usuarios en una relación más integrada entre los espacios físicos y geográficos de la ciudad y el espacio virtual.

Son experiencias de desplazamiento y de flujo, de construcción de subjetividad y de diferencia. Las representaciones propuestas cuestiónan las dualidades tradicionales: unidad / pluralidad, nómadas / sedentarios, fijación / exilio.  Plantean debate sobre los conceptos de las raíces culturales, de la representación virtual del espacio, de las fronteras territoriales. Ponen la especificidad del arte como un territorios móbil, donde las subjetividades que se desplaçan para abordar las cuestiones planteadas por el mundo contemporaneo, en que las identidades y los lugares de todos y cada uno se convirtieron en factores inciertos.

Trabajando también a partir de las experiencias de la subjetividad,  Desertesejo, de Gilbertto Prado, Brasil, 2000 sesaroja  espacios imaginarios en la web. Es un proyecto que consiste en un entorno interactivo virtual en VRML, que puede contar con la participación simultánea de hasta 50 personas. El trabajo explora poéticamente la extensión geográfica, rupturas temporales, la soledad, la proliferación de lugares y la separación. Al entrar en el entorno virtual, los visitantes encontrarán una cueva cuyo techo cayó suavemente las rocas. Ellos trabajan con el elemento activo y hacer clic. Al hacer clic en una de las piedras, uno se transporta a un nuevo entorno. Se puede poner la piedra en uno de los lotes existentes como signo de los pasos de los viajeros y las huellas de los futuros usuarios.

Se podría decir que la web arte apunta importantes contribuiciones a la critica de arte contemporánea al establecer nuevas relaciones entre el artista y el publico, con el cambio de enfoque desde el objeto a los procesos de creación. La práctica artística en la web se está convirtiendo en un agente modificador de la subjetividad en una nueva era de la sociedad globalizada.

 

©  Amelia Bulhoes

 

Atrás

Lo sentimos, esta entrada solamente se encuentra disponible en Inglés. Próximamente estará disponible en Español.

 

AtrásCriticism and Curatorial Practice as realms of art discussion.

 

44° Congreso AICA, Asunción, Paraguay, 19.10.11

 

 

 

 

The discourse of Art Criticism in the field of visual arts has not stopped transforming itself throughout time. Besides the already established coordination between Criticism, Aesthetics and History of Art, still in a constant process of discussion by art scholars, we now see, as well, the need to think about criticism in connection with another reality – the curatorial practice in its task of organizing art exhibitions. This is, in our opinion, a fundamental place to think about the current practice of art criticism, its challenges, utility, specificity, as well as its relationship to the construction of knowledge in contemporary society.

In this communication we are specially going to discuss the sphere of criticism and curatorial practice in the art circuit; to approach this vector we will adopt the strategy of dealing first with the concepts that constitute the focus of our concern, that is, we are going to outline the ideas we currently have about criticism and curatorial practice.

Let’s start with the concept of Criticism. How do we define it?

Going over publications on this subject allows us to say the following:

Art criticism is a discourse or a thought developed around works of art, taking into account the singularity of the art work. It is not a discourse about art in general. It is a discourse focused on the work in itself. Criticism observes works produced in the contemporary reality of those who practice it. Criticism is about works of the present, about contemporary art production.

Criticism is about assessing the qualities, the meaning and success in accomplishing the purposes set by the artist. There is, in the practice of criticism, an intention to influence the development of art.

The critical work implies a process of four operations: description (the critic observes and realizes qualities of the work), evaluation (they judge or assess the quality of the work), interpretation (they analyze and present a content or meaning), and expression (the critic communicates, in their speech, their choices, their conceptions, tastes, and feelings). None of these operations happens in isolation, but always interactively. Each one of these procedures is implied in the others. But, in the end, it is through the evaluation that criticism marks its presence and takes place as communication. These dimensions, that we have just highlighted, have been examined since the nineteenth century. They appear in Venturi, in his classic book History of Art Criticism, written in 1936, as well as in more recent contributions such as Baxandall’s (Forms of Intention). Venturi had stated that criticism: “is the judgment produced about an artist or work of art which constitutes the center of the critical activity”. Baxandall observes that criticism is an interpretation projected on the speech about the intentions of an artist in a work or group of art works.

Criticism has been explained, since the nineteenth century, as an independent speech, even as a “literary genre” (a definition, for example, by Dredsner, in the Germany of the end of the nineteenth century, in the book Der Weg das Kunst). This author, by the way, already defines it as a discourse with the job of examining and evaluating its object, as well as aiming to influence contemporary art (the current art of each era).

In the practice of criticism there’s an intricate relationship with Aesthetics. From this subject, Aesthetics – as well as the practice of criticism, emerge criteria for art, which, by their turn, guide evaluation criteria, which can definitely be multiple, variable, and subject to revision according to the moment of art and according to the reader. The relationship between Criticism and Aesthetics is inseparable, dialogic and dynamic. Moreover, criticism, when in its full vitality, focuses on its own assessments, on the justifications of its observations, and reflects on the value of its judgment – criticism reflects on itself. There is a process of “criticism of criticism” in continuous development by those who think about its practice as critics.

Criticism illustrates the communicability and argumentative aspect of the aesthetic experience. It is a level of reception of art and, at the same time, mediation between the work and the spectator.

The critic provides clarification to the reading public and the artists; their role is an intermediation one. The condition for them to perform their job is that the object qualified as a work of art is present in the readers’ social and cultural consciousness. There must be a public prepared to receive and accept the work of art – a public that knows art.

A fact to consider, however, is that the artwork’s enigmatic potential is never exhausted, making this writing about art, this discourse produced by the effect of the artwork on a specialized observer who intermediates art to the public, a discourse that is always transitory, yet well-reasoned.

The transitory quality of criticism opens space for discussion, for debate. Criticism is nothing more than a commentary about art (Lyotard), with the intention of influencing its directions.

Criticism highlights a universe of significations, inserts itself in an epistemological field, creating knowledge. Although it is a commentary, an interpretation, the critic is a reader, but a reader in fabula, as put by Umberto Eco. In criticism we search for meaning in the work of art in a general environment of cultural values, aesthetic criteria and in relation to paradigms in the history of art.

Criticism, with its interpretation, activates the work of art and updates it, that is, sets the communication of the work into motion. Through criticism, the work of art is put in relation with ways of cultural construction that are meaningful for society.

Curatorial practice

The origin of the term curate (from the Latin curare) is linked to the idea of caring, treating.

In the context of the history of culture, and in the sense of “caring, treating, organizing”, the practice emerged a long time ago: it appeared with collectionism and the impulse of collectors – the connoisseurs — to organize their collections and show them, first in the field of antiques, and then in fine arts.

It is worth mentioning that even in the beginning of the museums of modern art (New York’s MoMA being the first), the curator still has the task of caring for and preserving the collection, systematizing it and promoting its exhibition. But, in this museological context focused on modern art, soon a new task is added to those: the one of building the exhibition schedule of art of the current moment, the moment of contemporaneity. Modern art deals with the new; its premise is the idea of rupture.

Likewise, it was up to the conservators of modern art museums to develop a schedule of exhibitions directed to the public and reflect on ways of presenting. This task of promoting shows about the current art production implied the need for criticism; with art shows they perform a job of interpretation and, in this sense, the writing of an exhibition becomes a critical way of art.

It was with the eye on the art of the moment that art museums have identified changes in the language of art that have taken place from 1960 on, and with the exhibitions organized they have legitimized contemporary art with its new semantic. All we have to do is observe the story of the exhibitions in these museums starting in the end of the 1960’s. At this point we will mention some notorious curators in this process, whose examples have helped us to understand the profile assumed by curatorial practice from then on. I give as examples Frenchman Pierre Restany and Swiss-German Harald Szeemann. The sole mention of their names already makes us think about the intimate relationship that, from this moment on, is created between curatorial practice and criticism.

Both curators are art critics, intellectuals that think about contemporary art, research the artist’s production in their time, in search of a new language, systematize movements, and wish to influence the path of art. In the case of Restany, we see him as a great articulator in the New Realism movement; these curators organize epoch-making exhibitions, direct cultural institutions – in the case of Szeemann (the When attitudes become form exhibition and his time as director of the Kunsthalle in Berne); organize great exhibitions like the Venice Biennial (an experience present in the trajectory of both critics) and the Documenta (in the case of Szeemann).

As other critics in other countries, including Brazil, they do curatorial work as criticism practice, once they observe and take action, by organizing exhibitions and writing about the art of their time and its new paths. We can say that the curatorial practice, in its interface with criticism, will be a fundamental factor in the process of the emergence of contemporary art.

Currently, we can see the curator, with the profile of a critic, also acting in the organization of great exhibitions such as biennials. In those, we witness the emergence of a strong dimension of economic interest that calls for highlighting. The curator’s work converges to put new artists with market value into circulation in the system of art. Curators also work for art galleries – they promote exhibitions on demand for cultural centers and other places associated with companies.

The curatorial practice, in the end of the twentieth century and in this first decade of the twenty-first century, has been assuming more and more this profile. It has a relationship with the art market, inserts itself in the economic circuit of art, contributing to add financial value to works of art. In current art, more than Aesthetics or the History of Art, the curator’s motivation comes from the art market.

For Frenchman Dominique Berthet, the curatorial practice that emerged in Europe and in the United States in the 1980’s was marked by this vector of the market. According to this author’s opinion, the curator takes the position of a critic, but as such, will be a spokesperson – not an independent one, but an institutional one. He turns into an ally of art gallery directors and museum directors; he becomes an agent of the system. The author sees in this situation an impasse that, from the perspective of criticism, needs to be studied. Berthet’s conclusion, for me, seems valid for Brazil’s reality, especially starting in the 1990’s.

In the current Brazilian context there is yet one more fact to observe: the presence of the curatorial practice done by art critics, in the projects of cultural producers — a new agent in the art scene, who acts both in the promotion of events of other institutions as well as proposing events to be sold to those institutions, competing for public money allotted to culture support.

In this brief exercise to reflect on what characterizes the practice of art criticism and curatorial work in the circuit of art, the biggest challenge is to size the contribution of the critic and the curator to the field of thought, as specialists, by producing their “writings about art”.

Answers to this challenge – we need to find them!

 

© Lisbeth Rebollo Gonçalves

Atrás

Arte Urbano: la relación entre producción artística en los espacios públicos de las ciudades y los conceptos aplicados a las artes visuales

 

44° Congreso AICA, Asunción, Paraguay, 19.10.11

 

 

 

 

¿Cómo ocurren las intervenciones artísticas visuales en los espacios urbanos? ¿Cuál es el vínculo entre la ciudad como campo de interacción social y el espacio artístico como campo de interacción cultural? ¿Los nuevos modelos de representación visual en las calles de las metrópolis ofrecen nuevas propuestas con respecto a las teorías del arte? Estas son algunas de las cuestiones que se plantean para la construcción de un campo dinámico de reflexión con respecto a las teorías del arte. A partir de la reflexión acerca de expresiones artísticas hechas con diferentes materiales, medios, lenguajes y significados, en diferentes metrópolis mundiales, se razonará sobre las nuevas formas de expresión artística, cuyo aspecto procesal y participativo integre al ciudadano como elemento activo en la obra.

En los últimos diez años se ha podido percibir el enorme crecimiento de las intervenciones artísticas en las calles de las grandes ciudades del mundo. Específicamente, a mediados de los años 90, este arte alcanza gran fuerza. Empiezan a surgir nuevas publicaciones a este respecto, como revistas y libros, se organizan concursos y exhibiciones, y se crean nuevas leyes que legitiman el trabajo de los artistas callejeros. Sobre todo, aumenta el número de artistas que eligen el espacio público urbano para expresarse visualmente. Sus obras comparten espacio con carteles, vallas publicitarias, folletos, pantallas electrónicas y otros elementos del medio ambiente urbano, tales como edificios, calles, tráfico, parques, aparatos complejos para crear la imagen de la ciudad. Considerado actualmente como el espacio por excelencia de la cultura humana, la ciudad ya no es solamente un lugar en el sentido físico, se ha convertido en una experiencia social y la práctica. Según Canevacci (2004, p. 43): «La ciudad es el lugar del ojo. Por esta razón, la comunicación visual se convierte en el rasgo característico.»

Este problema ha adquirido mayor relevancia en el análisis de diferentes ciencias humanas, en un intento interdisciplinario de comprender el problema en las zonas urbanas de la contemporaneidad. De acuerdo con Silva (2011, p. XXVI), el psicoanálisis y la semiótica, por ejemplo, proponen una categorización de la ciudad, situándola como el verdadero sujeto: «La ciudad tiene motivos suficientes para que de ella se ocupen las ciencias del simbólico que aparecen por la necesidad de la organización del conocimiento, especialmente en la segunda mitad del siglo XX.».

Esta dimensión interdisciplinaria pone de manifiesto los procesos de inestabilidad que han alterado la naturaleza del espacio público y sus significados culturales. No obstante, el arte hecho en el espacio público de las ciudades lleva a varias reflexiones que no solo se refieren a los problemas del urbanismo. También es importante tener en cuenta su impacto sobre el territorio de la historiografía, de la teoría y de la crítica del arte. La llegada del arte urbano inspira fuertes vínculos entre el arte y la cultura. Si estos dos campos desde hace mucho tiempo tienen una relación duradera, aunque no siempre armoniosa, este vínculo se ha complicado en la contemporaneidad, con la presencia de los nuevos lenguajes, como las tecnologías visuales y, sin duda, el arte urbano.

Aunque haya muchas concepciones de la cultura, se discute aquí el punto de vista de los Estudios Culturales, campo que no es muy receptivo a las identidades puras y que presenta una visión desde el interior del complejo panorama de la metrópolis contemporánea, o sea, la ciudad post-industrial marcada por: la discontinuidad de los espacios y nuevas formas de relaciones sociales, la degradación de amplias zonas antes ocupadas, los espacios informales auto-organizados, los nuevos usos de la tierra, las diversas necesidades de circulación y de residencia y los procesos de inestabilidad que han alterado la naturaleza del espacio público y sus significados culturales.

Para los Estudios Culturales la ciudad no se puede entender a partir de una concepción estática y definitiva. Según su propuesta, la ciudad es el lugar de la creatividad, donde “poder y cultura se afectan mutuamente”, establece Biron (2009, p.14). De este modo, este campo de investigación, todavía polémico y difícil en su definición, presenta conceptos clave para que se entienda el aspecto cultural de la ciudad: las relaciones dialógicas entre alta y baja cultura, las redes de relaciones y de colaboración y su relación con el concepto de “autor único”, el reemplazo de la política ideológica por la imagen y la cultura mediáticas, la idea de la cultura popular como una forma de resistencia, etc. Como señala Silva (2011, p. XXVI): “[…] Cada ciudad tiene su propio estilo. Si aceptamos la relación entre lo físico de la ciudad y su vida social, su uso y representación, sus escrituras, que forman un conjunto de cambios constantes, entonces llegamos a la conclusión de que en una ciudad lo físico es un efecto de lo simbólico.”.

Entre los nuevos significados culturales de las mega-ciudades contemporáneas está el arte callejero y sus diversos aspectos. Una mirada a la historia muestra que el arte y la ciudad siempre han ido juntos en influencia mutua, especialmente a partir de la propuesta de las vanguardias históricas a respecto de las relaciones entre vida y arte. El arte pop precisamente terminó con el límite entre la vida cotidiana y el arte, límite este que el historiador de arte Meyer Schapiro consideraba infranqueable. Las manifestaciones de arte urbano, que se intensifican a partir del año 1980, dejaron muchas preguntas acerca de los conceptos que guían la historia y las teorías del arte, y especialmente acerca de las nociones que dividen lo culto, lo popular y lo masivo.

En la época contemporánea la expansión urbana es una de las causas que aumentan la hibridación cultural. Canclini (1997) toma de préstamo a las ciencias sociales un concepto más amplio para superar la noción dualista de alta cultura y cultura popular: la cultura urbana. Como remarca el autor (1997, p. 19): “Es necesario demoler la división en tres pisos (…) y determinar si la hibridación puede leerse con las herramientas de las disciplinas que los estudian por separado: la historia del arte y la literatura relacionadas con el ‘culto’; el folclore y la antropología dedicados al trabajo popular y; la comunicación, que se especializa en la cultura de masas. Necesitamos ciencias sociales nómadas, capaces de moverse por la escalera que conecta los pisos.”

Por lo tanto, es necesario construir un concepto de “arte urbano” que tenga relación con la historia del arte. Aunque haya habido en las últimas décadas la pérdida de un concepto de arte conciliador, nada impide adoptar una posición razonada con relación al arte urbano. Belting (2006) demuestra que el modelo de la historia del arte con una lógica interna que se desarrolló a partir de los estilos y sus transformaciones ya no funciona. Para este autor, la historia del arte ha perdido la única fuerza de su polémica y se comenzaron a hacer varias historias paralelas del arte, con diversos métodos. Cuando propone el final de la historia del arte, Belting quiere decir que es el fin de una manera específica de hacer la historia del arte, que en los últimos siglos fue construida a partir de una visión formalista y evolucionista. Hoy el fin del modo tradicional de hacer historia del arte es una demostración de la apertura, la indeterminación, la incertidumbre no solamente de la historia como del arte mismo. Esta idea se extiende hacia la cultura contemporánea: «(…) La cultura de la vida cotidiana fue, en la primera generación de lo posguerra, una contra-imagen de la historia del arte, de la cual el arte quería librarse. Hoy en día diferentes líneas límite surgen y ya no hay la distinción evidente entre alta y baja cultura como antes, cuando esta polémica se había convertido en programa». (2006, p.115)

Belting explica que, desde los ready-made de Duchamp, el artista es evaluado según el grado de seguridad que va más allá de los límites entre alta y baja cultura, en ambas direcciones, sin estar a ambos lados de la frontera. Puede dejar sin filtrar los resultados de los usos cotidianos o interpretarlos y ponerlos en una nueva forma estética. «A través de esta estrategia de enfrentamiento con el arte y no arte, hay una diferencia que le garantiza el derecho de hacer el arte» (2006, p. 114).

Con esta estrategia, artistas renombrados como Os Gêmeos (Brasil – SP) y Banksy (Londres, UK), entre tantos otros artistas urbanos, ayudan a transformar los rumbos del arte en el siglo XXI, desestabilizando conceptos arraigados. Ciudades como París, Londres, Barcelona, Berlín y Toronto, son testimonio del trabajo de un conjunto heterogéneo de artistas que han desarrollado modos de expresión con el uso de técnicas y lenguajes diversos. En las principales ciudades de América Latina, como Sao Paulo y Ciudad de México, este movimiento cobra fuerza con artistas de renombre mundial, como Grupo Bijari (SP), Zezão (SP), Sego y Ovbal (México), y Neuzz (México). Silva (2011) muestra un lugar común a todos los artistas: la cancelación de las formas de grafito panfletario y la aparición de nuevas propuestas formales que introducen el afecto, la forma de arte, la figura, y no solo la palabra, para “(…) diseñar un nuevo proyecto de la estética contemporánea iconoclasta.”.

También hay artistas que plantean cuestiones de raíces ideológicas: la ruptura con el mercado de consumo, la desmaterialización del arte, el nomadismo, la relación entre el capital financiero y la propiedad del espacio público, la desmaterialización (como la noción de «no lugar» de los centros comerciales, aeropuertos, hoteles), los sistemas tecnológicos de comunicación y el discurso del poder. El artista Krzysztof Wodiczco, por ejemplo, crea intervenciones en los monumentos públicos en los Estados Unidos y Europa que son emblemas de un tema importante en la ciudad contemporánea: los marginados, incluidos los migrantes, los comerciantes sin hogar, los recolectores de basura.

Canclini (1997) explica que, detrás de todo análisis artístico y teórico está una de las principales utopías de la cultura occidental: la cuestión de la autonomía del arte. Por un lado, los teóricos ensalzaran la independencia que el proceso de secularización ha llevado al arte; por el otro, las fuerzas económicas, de mercado, y la comunicación de masas fomentan la dependencia del arte de otros sistemas que no solamente la estética. En el caso del arte urbano, sería necesario volver al compromiso del arte con el cambio social y su relación con los espacios legitimadores de la cultura por el Estado y las iniciativas privadas.

La calle y los espacios urbanos imponen un nuevo sistema, muy diferente de las relaciones estéticas en la galería y los museos. Un hecho que ilustra esto es lo que sucedió al final de 2010, cuando el MOCA (Museum Of Contemporary Art) invitó al artista italiano Blu, uno dos más reconocidos artistas urbanos del mundo, a pintar la fachada del museo en Los Ángeles, como adelanto de la exposición Art in the Streets. La imagen, un mural anti-bélico, consistía en diversos ataúdes forrados con billetes de 1 dólar. No obstante, luego después de listo, el trabajo fue blanqueado por los empleados del museo, a instancias del director Jeffrey Deitch. Para la dirección del museo el mural de Blu era ofensivo: no procedía pintar ataúdes cubiertos con billetes de dólar frente a un hospital de veteranos. Este hecho plantea preguntas tales como: ¿La legitimación del arte urbano ha afectado a su carácter de provocación? ¿Como los artistas están con relación a la dominación de los sistemas de arte, de marketing o institucional?

Para concluir, por la diversidad de temáticas y propuestas metodológicas, el tema del arte urbano necesita ser investigado a partir de la construcción de una base epistemológica sólida, incluso en un híbrido e inestable escenario. Es precisamente esta contradicción que puede ayudar a enriquecer el debate acerca de la construcción de conocimiento en dicho campo. Se trata entonces de proponer una revisión de los esquemas y planteos estéticos y sociales para promover el cuestionamiento de la función del arte.

 

Referencias:

ARANTES, Otília. A “virada cultural” do sistema das artes. In: editores (Org.) Margem Esquerda – Ensaios Marxistas, v.6, ps. 62-75. São Paulo: Boitempo, 2005.

BELTING, Hans. O Fim da História da Arte – uma revisão dez anos depois. São Paulo: Cosac Naify, 2006.

BOURRIAUD, Nicolas. Pós-Produção – Como a arte reprograma o mundo contemporâneo. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2009

CANEVACCI, Massimo. A Cidade Polifônica – Ensaio sobre a Antropologia da Comunicação Urbana. São Paulo: Studio Nobel, 2004.

CANCLINI, Néstor García. A Socialização da Arte – teoria e prática na América Latina. São Paulo: Cultrix, MCMLXXX.

_______ Imaginários culturais da cidade: conhecimento/espetáculo/desconhecimento. In A cultura pela cidade (org. Teixeira Coelho). ps. 15-30. São Paulo: Iluminuras, 2008.

_______ Culturas Híbridas – estratégias para entrar e sair da modernidade. São Paulo: EDUSP, 1997.

COELHO, Teixeira. Uma nova gestão cultural da cidade. In: COELHO, Teixeira (Org.) A cultura pela cidade (org. Teixeira Coelho). ps. 9-12. São Paulo: Iluminuras, 2008.

DANTO, Arthur C. After The End of the Art – Contemporary Art and the Pale of History. Princeton University Press Books, 1997.

LE GOFF, Jacques. Por Amor às Cidades – Conversações com Jean Lebrun. São Paulo: Unesp, 1998.

PEIXOTO, Nelson Brissac. Paisagens urbanas. São Paulo: Senac, 2004.

JAMESON, Fredric. Pós-Modernismo. A Lógica Cultural do Capitalismo Tardio. São Paulo: Ática, 1997.

BIRON, Rebecca E. (ed.). City/Art: The Urban Scene in Latin America. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2009.

RUIZ, Maximiliano (org.). Nuevo Mundo – Latin American Street Art. Bertlin: Gestalten, 2011.

MEYER, Schapiro. Theory and philosophy of art: style, artist, and society. New York: George Braziller, 1994.

SILVA, Armando (org.). Cidades Imaginadas Iberoamericanas. São Paulo: USP MAC/Universidade Externado de Colombia/ Sesc, 2010.

____________ Imaginários Urbanos. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 2011.

 

©  Alessandra Simões

 

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AtrásISLANDS. Or: the post-colonial artist and the absent institution.

 

44th AICA Congress, Asunción, Paraguay, 18.10.11

 

 

 

 

Granted Independence from Britain in 1966, Barbados can be seen as the quintessential postcolonial island-nation. This is a place where art, to the political establishment, has been linked with cultural nationalism and, more recently, the hope of increased revenues.

Visual art, here, exists without permanent or transparent support systems: the Barbadian government has never erected a building dedicated to any art form, its cultural agencies are under-funded, no public art collection is on permanent display. Private galleries have been episodic and corporate support for the arts is virtually non-existent. The daily press is averse to printing serious art criticism – and artists can look in vain towards academia for critical support: in their effort to part with the cultural models and hierarchies of the west, the local intelligentsia has generally favored the popular expression. Art forms, which conversely (even by default) carry associations of cultural elitism, have been regarded as unsuitable vehicles for the cultural nationalism of a post-colonial nation. Save the momentous, but now dated publication ‘Art in Barbados’ from 1998, in addition to the broader international surveys of Caribbean art and the occasional catalogue-essay, Barbadian artists therefore operate in a critical as well as an institutional vacuum. Bluntly put: visual art has been the ‘unloved child’ in Caribbean cultural studies as well as Barbadian cultural policy.

In these circumstances, it is hardly surprising, that many Barbadian artists have surrendered their talents to the pursuit of the tourist-market, while others have left, hoping for better opportunities overseas. Yet, a number of serious artists remain. Three of these – Winston Kellman, Nick Whittle and Ras Ishi Butcher – have occasioned the following reflections:

Coming into maturity in the early decades after Independence, these artists were inspired by the region’s prominent intellectuals – Fanon, Cesaire, Walcott, Brathwaite – to invest themselves deeply in the idea of cultural autonomy. Yet, as the postcolonial state took shape, it gradually became clear, that contrary to the visions of these intellectuals, culture (except in Jamaica) was not going to play a major role in the building of small island-nations. The initial romance between artists and state began to cool off.

Meanwhile, when the international art-world momentarily set eyes on the Caribbean during the 1990s, it inspired the hope among some artists, that the external world had come to the rescue and that the nation would finally discover its hidden resource, through external intervention. Yet, when the dust had settled, nothing had changed, except that cultural policy-makers started to talk about grooming artists for the international market by forging links with Caribbean artists of the metropolitan diaspora.

I now wish to argue that this trajectory has changed the inscription of certain Barbadian oeuvres, and that these oeuvres now, in a sense, speak back to a deficient institution and an absent audience.

Winston Kellman is, at first sight, a conventional plein-air landscape-painter. He lives in a plantation-cottage, and the surrounding countryside is his only motif.

Winston Kellman: Warleigh Plantation, from the Sugar-cane series 1987, oil on canvas.

Yet, his activity is more than nature-romanticism – it is a project deeply inscribed by the post-colonial experience. Kellman paints the Barbadian landscape like someone obsessed. For three decades, he has sketched and painted every angle, color, shade, texture and transformation of this landscape – an activity, which can best be described as ‘forensic’. It is, of course, the trauma embedded in the land he has sought to excavate; not only the brutality of the colonial era and the sugar-industry, but the impact of this legacy on the present: the region’s continuing social hierarchies, its paranoia and lack of cultural confidence. Kellman’s dogged repetition has been a quest for wholeness and closure, and his adaptation of the European landscape-tradition, the language of the historical oppressor, has metaphorically invoked a psychological stumbling-block: the inability, on the part of the artist as well as of his nation, to move on until an underlying trauma has been addressed.

Winston Kellman: From the Sugar-cane series (1995), watercolor

Since Kellman started his project, conditions for the visual arts have largely remained unchanged and he himself has never really been acknowledged as an artist of unquestionable significance. Remarkably, however, Kellman’s response to this has been a redoubling of effort – an acceleration of output, larger drawings, more of them. But the inflection of this activity has become one of personal as well as cultural resistance, and its primary significance is perhaps the protracted and demonstrative futility of its material accumulation.

IMAGES:

Winston Kellman: untitled landscape from the ‘Seasons-series’, 2001, oil on canvas

Winston Kellman: untitled drawing from the Mud and Flowers-series, 2007, charcoal

Though Nick Whittle was born in Birmingham, his artistic career has unfolded in Barbados. Since his arrival in 1979, he has campaigned for the development of visual arts support systems. Yet, as an artist – and an immigrant, whose work has been both controversial and difficult for the average viewer to access – he has always found himself on the margins of what has been considered nationally representative. Naturally, the simultaneous experience of alienation and connection with his adopted nation has profoundly influenced Whittle’s oeuvre, as exemplified in “Full Fathoms Five”.

Nick Whittle: Full Fathoms Five (1996), mixed media

We see here the hopeful artist arriving in the island with his arms raised in the expectation of embrace. Instead he finds himself amputated and ridiculed until his identity gradually becomes androgynous: both colonizer (male/white) and colonized (female/dark). Whittle’s work has thus, among other things, drawn attention to the ‘white predicament’ in the post-colonial era and to the ticklish question ‘to whom does the new nation belong?’ Most viewers, however, have not seen past the phallic shape, which has been Whittle’s symbol for the colonial project, and despite the incontrovertible pertinence of his subject-matter, his work has largely been met with embarrassed silence.

In an effort to subvert the power-dynamic between himself and an absent or reluctant audience, Whittle’s more recent work has taken the shape of transitory constructions, which are dismantled after their exhibition.

IMAGES:

Nick Whittle: Big Fish (2009), mixed media

Nick Whittle: X (2009), photography and mixed media

These constructions are characterized by biographical content and symbolic form, alluding to the fate of the visual arts and the artist. Some constructions are never exhibited at all, but photographed in various locations and then dismantled: before anyone can fail to notice the work, it is now the artist himself, who denies the work an afterlife, now offering only a reduced and indirect version of the original.

IMAGE:

Nick Whittle: Open-Ended (2010), mixed media

Unlike the former two, Ras Ishi Butcher has arguably been as successful as it is possible for a Barbadian artist to be. Butcher’s oeuvre has revolved around the diasporic experience, expressed through a characteristic ‘primitivist’ style, as for example in the diptych ‘400 Years’, where the continents of the world are pulled together by the plantation-overseer’s whip.

IMAGE:

Ras Ishi Butcher: 400 Years World Order (diptych, LEFT PANEL), 1994, oil on canvas

Along with fellow artist and Rastafarian Ras Akyem Ramsay, Butcher introduced the idea of art as social critique to Barbados and, for many years, the two were more or less permanently embroiled in controversy. However, as the Rastafarian movement has lost its revolutionary aura, Butcher (and Ramsay) has become a nostalgic emblem of pan-African grassroots activism, frequently representing Barbados in Caribbean survey-exhibitions and publications. It is compelling, however, that this celebrated artist, more loudly than anyone has objected to the lack of recognition and support for visual art in Barbados and that Butchers focus now has shifted entirely from the fate of the African diaspora to the fate of the artist.

This became clear, when Butcher, in 2009, unveiled the largest coherent body of work ever produced by a Barbadian artist (while its scale may fail to impress by international standards, it must be appreciated, that this work is produced in a small domestic space).

IMAGE:

Ras Ishi Butcher: 400 Years New World Order (diptych, RIGHT PANEL), 1994, oil on canvas

This body of work is made up of several series of paintings, consisting of many panels, each carrying innumerable little images, signs, pictograms and objects and everything adhering to complex, alternating symmetries. The physical effort, on the part of the artist, of reconciling detail and whole in these works cannot be overstated: it is a tour-de-force of orchestration, and it presents itself to the spectator as a kind of architecture, demanding the s/he too continually repositions herself to appreciate its totality. It was therefore a savage irony, that no exhibition-space in Barbados could hold all of these works together, and that the two largest pieces had to be installed at a separate venue: the statement was literally denied institutional completion.

IMAGES:

	Ras Ishi Butcher: Battlefield (2006-08), mixed media (polyptych)
	Ras Ishi Butcher’s work installed at the Old Pharmacy Gallery, Speightstown, 2010

Ras Ishi Butcher’s ‘Battlefield’ installed at Lancaster House, Barbados, 2010

While this body of work is riddled with both secret and overt meaning, two things are clear: the second most important message was about the fate of the visual arts in Barbados, as a close scrutiny of the largest piece ‘Battlefield’ would reveal. But the most important message was scale itself. More than the artist wanted the viewer to think about his work, he wanted him to feel its overwhelming physical presence.

What I have suggested, is that these artists, who initially set out to resist the cultural dominance of the West and to develop aesthetic strategies suitable for the Caribbean, have turned to acts of individual defiance. But what does it mean, that these acts of defiance draw attention to the most unique feature of the visual arts – its very materiality?

At one level, Kellmans compelling accumulation, Whittle’s conditional presence and Butcher’s exponential enlargement remonstrate against the absence of mechanisms, which would offer critique, context and validation, mechanisms, which would redeem the latent monumentality of these statements, if also make them redundant. But perhaps more importantly, these measures deploy the one aspect of artistic practice, which is not constructed through critical discourse. As a last resort, these artists return to the primacy of ‘materia’ – to that which, at the best of times, confronts the critic with his limitations.

Moreover, the dynamic outlined here is, needless to say, exceedingly subtle and entrenched in local conditions. So what are the prospects, I wonder, of the depth or significance of such gestures ever registering as such anywhere else? When Barbadian policy-makers seek to usher Barbadian art into the international arena, I believe it compounds the challenges for an art, which orients itself – but never has been redeemed – nationally; for an art, which has attained more autonomy than it ever bartered for; and indeed for artists who, in the process, have become islands themselves.

(This paper is an abbreviated version of a long essay titled ‘Subtle Monuments’).

 

© Therese Hadchity

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