Tanzanian Reflections
David Ndambuki, "The Maasai," oil on canvas, 2006. Courtesy Real African Art Gallery
It was an odd feeling going on my first-ever safari during my recent trip to Tanzania. Odd because even though I had never been on one, I already had a fairly well-formed idea — a fantasy really — as to what that experience would be like. Mine was a vision shaped since I was young by countless popular cultural sources. Everything from Looney Toons cartoons, to movies, to nature shows on cable (as well as early black and white Tarzan shows on Saturday morning TV, I suspect) played a part in this imaginary construct. Going into my trip, it is safe to say that I had a certain fantasy conception of “African safari,” and I’m happy to report that the actual experience not only matched that vision, but far exceeded it.
It was an equally odd feeling finally going on this trip to Tanzania because of my intention of getting a sense of the local contemporary art scene — odd because my vision of what such contemporary art might look like was decidedly unformed going in. Mine was a journey that began in the lively town of Arusha, in the western part of Tanzania not far from Mount Kilimanjaro. One of the first and lasting lessons learned there was that the contemporary scene — and this would be the case elsewhere in Tanzania — can be somewhat difficult to identify, as the line between a glorified curio shop and a dedicated art space can become quite blurred, with works better suited in one too often found in the other.
One of the paintings that proved remarkable to me during my time in Arusha was a decidedly ordinary canvas. The composition consisted of several long, attenuated figures repeated horizontally across the surface and rendered in rich colors and lively brushwork. These slender forms, abstracted to little more than a handful of lines and a few splashes of color, were warriors of the Maasai tribe, which is found throughout Kenya and Tanzania. This canvas would have been entirely unremarkable were it not for the fact that a few hours later I happened into a different galley in another section of Arusha, where my eye was drawn to a canvas containing the same rhythmic repetition of attenuated Maasai figures as the one before, hand-rendered and with nearly identical sinuous lines and color. At the time I could not know that I would see this composition, with surprisingly little variation, nearly everywhere I went on my travels across Tanzania. I found it in a small art shop in a coastal town a few hours north of Dar es Salaam, on a side street in the sprawling city of Dar itself, and again in Stone Town, a port town on the island of Zanzibar.
Lives and Works in Berlin: Head Shop/Lost Horizon at Exile
During a recent visit to Exile Gallery, I spoke with guest curator Billy Miller about his concurrent shows Head Shop/Lost Horizon, which were a part of Exile’s annual Summer Camp Series. We chatted around a courtyard table, as a giant tarp made of discarded umbrellas loomed over us, engulfing the whole hof in cheap, translucent color and swaths of frayed paisley.
As Berlin’s erstwhile lover, the Sun, streamed through the fabric, the space flooded with light, a whimsical vision only slightly unhinged by party leftovers from one of the many events and screenings held in tandem with Head Shop/Lost Horizon.
Justin Yockel, "Untitled," 2010, courtesy of Billy Miller and Exile Gallery
While talking to Miller about consumerism and carelessness, he informed me that all the umbrellas had been gathered after a particularly rainy day in New York City by artist Justin Yockel, serving as spineless evidence of our slapdash culture. Like most of the work in Head Shop/Lost Horizon, Yockel deftly tongues around preachy or flippant tones in favor of more complicated language; a pretty impressive feat considering the topics of discussion include Facism, meth-making and Abu Ghraib.
According to Miller, Lost Horizon and Head Shop represent two different responses to a shrinking natural environment and an increasingly pervasive Beck-ish culture of fear. The difference in tenor between the rooms is immediately apparent. In Head-Shop, Miller sweetly eulogizes the head shops of the 60’s with a hyperactive installation of rambunctious political works, while Lost Horizon offers a quieter “frozen” view of loss.
Welcome Back
In case you’ve recently returned from summer vacation or have simply been away from the Art21 blog in July and August due to the fact that, like me, you promised to open books more often and the laptop a lot less, I put together a collection of posts from the past two months, in addition to the Teaching with Contemporary Art weekly column that may be of special interest to educators (and not just art educators). Read on! If it sounds juicy, click the link to go directly to the post…
In Seeing and Time: Video Art as Experience, Stephanie Vegh explores ways we see and experience time-based works of art. She also introduces us to artists who engage the viewer in very different ways, and suggests a few that many of us may find new and exciting.
Nicole Caruth’s Gastro Vision: Feeding Suburbia shares details about Fritz Haeg’s Edible Estates, where the artist transforms front lawns into spaces for natural food production, or “edible landscapes.”
In Nettrice Gaskins’s The Paradoxical Art of “Inception”, the author explores how riddles, mysteries and puzzles inspire unique works of art, and Christopher Nolan’s “Inception” takes center stage.
Museum Nerd’s take on art appreciation is a lot of fun and offers suggestions for approaching work through our head, heart and gut. The Nerd even ends the post with some unique perspectives on artists that have appealed to each of the “metrics” used.
Meg Floryan’s recent interview with Nina Simon, author of The Participatory Museum, is a wonderful conversation about seeing and experiencing art in spaces that aren’t confined to white walls and temperature control.
Three particularly intriguing video exclusives this summer featured Mike Kelley, Mary Heilmann, and Doris Salcedo.
And finally, Ben Street’s latest Letter from London is a beauty (but aren’t they all?) as he rips into public art and simultaneously leaves the door open for what can be, at the very least, entertaining works of art for the Fourth Plinth commissions in Trafalgar Square.
As you can see, I tried to be good and do all my homework before we really got into the swing of the school year. Please check out some (or all) of the above posts and feel free to offer suggestions for using them in and out of the classroom.
Welcome back.
Do artists need PhDs?
I suspect most people today would agree that making art involves more than technical skill. By the seventeenth century, the intellectual and philosophical side of artistic expression had already been institutionalized in “academies,” which broke from the guild system of instruction. Even the word “academy” asserted that art was a serious mental pursuit that deserved schools like those of any other humanistic discipline.
Unlike other disciplines in the humanities, however, visual art has carried on without doctoral degrees, at least until recently. When George Smith founded the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts (IDSVA) in 2007, the program had few peers. While the number of PhD programs in art has grown significantly since then, IDSVA remains unique for its emphasis on theory and philosophy. Notably, the program does not include any studio work. Instead, reading, writing, and on-site discussions in the world of art form the basis of the low-residency school, which convenes for intensive sessions in Europe and the United States. I recently met with Smith at his home in Portland, Maine to talk about IDSVA and the basic question of whether artists need PhDs.
George Smith at his home in Portland, ME. Background photograph by Jocelyn Lee.
Oliver Wunsch: I understand that IDSVA offers no studio instruction, but theory plays a major role in the program. As a way of beginning, could you talk about the reasoning behind this format?
George Smith: If the way an artist sees the world changes, if her range of perception broadens and deepens, then her artistic ability, her ability to represent history, human consciousness, the history of aesthetic discourse, this will change for the better because she will have changed for the better. In other words, the studio practice gets taken to the next level because the artist who goes into the studio has developed intellectually, spiritually, and as a citizen of the world. In my experience as a teacher of artists, the rigorous study of theory and philosophy can make that happen. But IDSVA is not just about making better studio artists; we’re trying to produce artist-philosophers.
OW: Does that experience need to be called a PhD? Why not just invite qualified people who want to do this sort of thinking, reading, and writing, without the doctoral degree?
GS: The PhD requires a measure of rigor that cannot be imposed upon people who are just stopping by for a conversation. For one thing, you have to write a dissertation and that dissertation has to be submitted to professional review. Writing to an audience of that kind is a tremendously important aspect of the experience. But more to the point, we want IDSVA graduates to go into universities and colleges and teach. We want them to lead the discussion that is shaping the future of American intellectual discourse, not just in visual arts, but in the humanities and in other disciplines as well. And to do that, they have to be credentialed.
Fall Previews: Trailer, Teasers, and Slideshows
William Kentridge in his studio, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2008. William Kentridge: Anything Is Possible, production still, 2010. © Art21, Inc. 2010.
Fall preview season is upon us, so it’s time for us to throw our cards into the mix. The first trailer for William Kentridge: Anything Is Possible is now available for your viewing pleasure on the special film site (and after the break below), as well as at any of your (and our) favorite video-sharing or video-watching platforms.
On the subject of media, new image slideshows are coming later this week, each featuring thematic narratives by way of pairing artworks, photos, and exclusive production stills with selected quotes from the artist. In the meantime, catch up with the first two slideshows: In the Studio is a glimpse of the artist at work in his Johannesburg studio; and On Perception shows the range of optical trickery and techniques adapted by the artist through various projects.
Finally, we released two more teaser videos since mid-August; all four teasers can be viewed in the Media section of the film site. Catch the trailer past the break, and be sure to browse through the Media section of the film site for additional videos and images.
Continue reading »
3 Museums, 2 Days (part II of II)
Video still from Lauren Kelley's "Big Gurl." Courtesy Artadia
II. After my visit to the New Museum, I headed uptown to the Studio Museum in Harlem. What stood out to me at the Studio Museum were a series of sculptural, photographic, and video works by Lauren Kelley, one of the museum’s 2009-2010 artists-in-residence. The photographic/sculptural works reminded me of works by Mike Kelley and (after Kelley) Catherine Sullivan and Matthew Barney. They did so for their sculpting (assembling? moulding?) of abstract plastic materials to form an abject, even alien-seeming, series of objects. A certain abject aesthetic also could be found in (Lauren) Kelley’s videos, which accompanied the sculptures and photographs of sculptural works.
In a series of three videos, all of which are animated, the artist gives us a glimpse into her middle-class African American background. In the first video, one sees a pool party circa late 70s/early 80s. The party-goers are represented by animated action figures covered in various ways by clay, somewhat like the animated figures of Nathalie Djurberg’s work. What is most refreshing about all three of the videos is how Kelley uses her materials, and how the mimetic (what resembles) is constantly foregrounding the thing-itself (the object being used to resemble). So when the figures splash in the pool, Kelley uses cellophane and bubble wrap to visualize the splashing. And when, in the second video, an airline stewardess sobs, one can see the smushed-together pieces of clay revealing a running mascara.
In Kelley’s videos, there is also a very effective use of traditional animation materials, such as clay, with props, such as a television set and a toy airplane. How, I was thinking during my viewing of Kelley’s videos, can one tell stories differently through animation? How, likewise, can animation be a way to encounter racism and classism, such as in the second video, which features a conflict between a black and a white airline stewardess, or an apocalyptic content, such as the third video, which features topiary animals becoming drenched in green slime, a la 80s Nickelodeon programs. Despite the fairly straightforward narratives of all three videos, the green slime was key to me, as it foregrounded an abjection I felt was present throughout Kelley’s residency works at the Studio Museum. And this abjection—stray pieces of brownish clay, or the distorted face of a crying airline stewardess—as in the work of a Djurberg (or a Fat Albert cartoon for that matter) sustained my interest and attention.
Weekly Roundup
Lari Pittman, "Untitled #1," 2010 © Regen Projects.
In this week’s roundup, Lari Pittman takes over L.A., Trenton Doyle Hancock issues a call to color, Tim Hawkinson explores sustainability, Cao Fei exhibits in Poland, and more!
- Centre Pompidou (Paris) presents the work of Gabriel Orozco. “The artist moves freely between disciplines, making art in the fields of sculpture, installation, drawing and painting. Orozco is known for his interest in the everyday object as art and his works often lie in the space between reality and artistic creation.” The work will be on display in Paris from September 15 – January 3 and it will conclude its circuit at the Tate Modern London from January 19 – April 25.
- Lari Pittman takes over both Regen Projects and Regen Projects II in Los Angeles this month for two shows that will showcase 100 of his works on paper that highlight “a cacophony of color, the blending of figuration and abstraction, an intricate and multi-faceted surface, and an expansive and oscillating image field.” The exhibitions are on view September 11 – October 23, 2010.
- Cao Fei is one of several artists whose work is being presented as part of Fokus Lodz Biennale 2010 (Poland). The main exhibition is entitled From Liberty Square to the Independence Square and additional exhibits will take place in a public square, in several locations along a major throughway from September 9 – October 10.
- Trenton Doyle Hancock issues a call to color by encouraging visitors to bring their own morsels of color – in the form of plastic bottle caps – and drop them into his new site specific, immersive installation, A Better Promise at the Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle. “Nine large-scale earthbound vitrines have been placed on the floor in front of the hand sculpture. On the face of each of these nine containers, there is a teardrop cut-out where plastic bottle caps can be deposited by color. Visitors are encouraged to bring plastic bottle caps ranging in all shapes and sizes from detergent bottles, to clear water bottles to the black and white caps from drink bottles.”
3 Museums, 2 Days (part I of II)
Printed matter juxtaposed in Bidoun's Library at the New Museum. Courtesy of Bidoun.
I. This past weekend I visited three museums in New York City — New Museum on the Bowery, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and P.S.1 MoMA in Queens — if only to get back in the habit of looking at art after a summer of not attending many art events. At the New Museum, I saw the oddly appropriate threesome of Brion Gysin, Rivane Neuenschwander, and Bidoun magazine’s “library” of printed (and some electronic) matter crossing between Middle-Eastern and Western contexts.
The overlapping curation of New Museum’s exhibits was especially apparent in regards to Bidoun which, since 2003, has been a beacon for symbolic exchange and cross-cultural dialogue about Middle Eastern art, and Gysin, whose work finds purchase in Middle Eastern and North African cultural traditions and aesthetics. Among the Bidoun library, one could find materials ranging from North America and European novels depicting Middle Eastern espionage, to magazines from the region tracing events of geopolitical significance. Some of the materials were totally ridiculous, such as the series of romance novels featuring a swarthy “sheik” and his scantily dressed lovers; others represented some of the most earnest, if not loving, attempts by Western writers to encounter the “other,” such as Gilles Deleuze’s and Felix Guattari’s Nomadology, Kathy Acker’s Algeria, and Jean Genet’s Prisoner of Love. Something I found particularly compelling about Bidoun’s library was its ability to focus the viewer’s attention in specific ways, and to activate critical thinking through an assemblage of materials. By spending time with the cover designs of much of the printed matter, I was offered a window into the ways that the Middle East has been imagined (and imaged) by a Western imaginary, and vice versa. I also liked that Bidoun did not attempt to explain the materials, and left explanation — and thus interpretation — in the hands of its viewer/reader.
New guest blogger: Thom Donovan
Thanks to Meg Floryan for her series of posts on the unmistakable relationship between nature and art.
Up next is Thom Donovan. Thom lives in New York City, where he edits Wild Horses Of Fire weblog and co-edits ON Contemporary Practice. He is a participant in the Nonsite Collective and a curator for the SEGUE reading series. His criticism and poetry have been published widely in BOMB, PAJ: art + performance, Modern Painters, The Brooklyn Rail, Performa07, Museo, Fanzine, EXIT, and at the Poetry Foundation’s Harriet weblog. Currently he is working on a collection of critical writings, Sovereignty and Us: Critical Objects 2005-2010, and on the Project for an Archive of the Future Anterior (with Sreshta Rit Premnath). His book The Hole is forthcoming with Displaced Press this fall. He teaches at Bard College, Baruch College, and School of Visual Arts and holds a Ph.D. in English literature from SUNY-Buffalo.
Letter from London: Public Enemy
Brian Griffiths, "Battenberg," maquette, 2010
Public art is rubbish. Starting from that premise is the best possible pre-emptive strike against disappointment. Don’t expect public art to be any good and you’ll be surprised when it actually is. Which it never is. Which it sometimes is. Public art needs its own completely separate language of appreciation from that conventionally used for contemporary art. In a sense, public art is the closest thing we have, in experiential terms, to western religious art of the Christian era: objects and images that form part of the fabric of nearly everyone’s daily experience, noticed or not. Public art might, at best, be a ladder to thought or a rethinking of urban space (although I’m not sure why urban space needs to be rethought; it’s just that you’re always told it should be). For the most part, though, it isn’t. It doesn’t do anything. It’s just there. At best, it may provide a momentary pause between dermatology appointments or a useful meeting spot for a blind date, but it’s rarely much more than that, simply (I’d suggest) because it’s just too embarrassing to be standing stroking your chin contemplatively in a public place. Public art knows this, and tries not to make too many demands on your brain, while making an immediate visual zing that’s useful when you’re giving directions. (Now that there’s SatNav, maybe we don’t need any more public art).
The most exemplary recent example in London was an invasion of squatting brightly coloured elephant sculptures that appeared across parks and plazas, made and sold for an elephant charity. While the charity no doubt does sterling and admirable work, as public art it was sadly symptomatic. Scant of imagination and artistic interest, it just looked a bit sad and wacky, the sort of thing Jerry Garcia might have in his downstairs toilet.
The central pitfall of public art is the word public. Public art depends upon a small proportion of people (funding bodies, government, galleries, museums, and artists themselves) making decisions on behalf of a much larger proportion of people (everyone else). If the decision-making tips more to the benefit of the former, you have Stalinist public sculpture, glowering down at the populace; to the latter, and you have a mealy-mouthed approach that loves to be loved. Both approaches talk down to their audience, in different and equally excruciating ways. But it does work, sometimes, against all the odds. My favorite public works of art from recent times, Tom Otterness’s Life Underground sculptures at the 14th Street and 8th Avenue subway station in New York, are the best possible case for the defense of public art. They can be experienced briefly, enjoyed repeatedly and contemplated leisurely. Nothing about them depends upon the theoretical safety net of the cloistered world of the contemporary art gallery, and they employ a visual language familiar to anyone who’s aware of the Doozers from Fraggle Rock. Their satirical import is pretty self-evident – i.e. creepy cash-bag-headed lobster attempts to separate parents from their child – but the breadth and burlesque of their satire is made necessary by the site itself.
