Eduardo Villanes, "Urdimbreas de Luz," detail, 2007. Courtesy the artist.
As I am grieving the disappearance of the Minimalist from the pages of the New York Times, I am also pondering Mark Bittman’s statement from his farewell column, “the continuing attack on good, sound eating and traditional farming in the United States [and elsewhere in the world, I want to add] is a political issue.”
“Relational art” and especially the stardom of Rikrit Travanija, has made food one of the hot topics of contemporary art. Food has been re-discovered and celebrated as a means of bringing people together and creating experiences of genuine sharing and fair exchange. These optimistic notions and projects tend to overlook – to paraphrase Eric Schlosser – “the dark side of the contemporary meal,” which persists even despite the efforts of the Slow Food movement or First Lady Michelle Obama. Even more rare are artistic proposals that try to engage the dangers and inequalities lurking behind what and how we eat.
Peruvian purple corn.
One of the little-known exceptions is the recent work of Peruvian artist, Eduardo Villanes (born Moscow, 1967), whose projects ponder the loss of the incredible biodiversity of his native land, the ancestral home of more than 600 varieties of potatoes and endless amount of other plant and animal species. Especially fascinating about his case is not only the content of his current enterprise, which puts genetic modification and patenting of crops by transnational corporations at the cross-hairs of attention, but also the particular tension that exists between Villanes’s recent work and his earlier proposals developed in the 1990s. This peculiar conflict offers an opportunity to consider two important issues: first of all, how we get acquainted with art, what we see, when and why we see it; and secondly, how complex and ambiguous the process of historicization of a living, producing artist can be.
Between Barcelona’s Soft Shoulders and Its Hard Underbelly: A Conversation with Daniela Ortiz
Daniela Ortiz, "N-T," photograph and text, dimensions variable, 2009. Courtesy the artist.
Several months ago, even before I set my foot on Catalan ground, I was captivated by a seemingly modest photograph: a chocolate candy in a golden wrapper set on a tip of the kitchen knife, which displayed a fresh bite mark, still dripping with saliva. Its caption read matter-of-factly:
I work 40 hours a week in a Spanish high-class chocolate boutique. While working on October 12, I stole three sheets of 24-karat gold and a Guanaja chocolate bonbon. I covered the chocolate with gold and ate it to celebrate the National Day of Spain.
Instantaneously, the image and the statement conjured much more than Proust’s madeleine could ever have. A simple, indulgent gesture became the present’s revenge on the past and on its own self. There we were, set up to ponder the nationalistic pride of Columbus’s discovery of the Americas and the riches and delicacies with which he gifted the Old Continent (Spain celebrates its national holiday on the anniversary of Columbus’s first landing in the New World). However, a few swift anthropophagic nibbles were about to gnaw this self-esteem away. A young immigrant retail clerk claimed what should have always belonged to her. Her body enacted the rebellion through the most direct means available: consuming the forbidden (yet, justly hers) treat.
Daniela Ortiz de Zevallos. Courtesy the artist.
This ingenious piece was conceived by a young Peruvian artist living and working in Barcelona, Daniela Ortiz de Zevallos. Even though the Spanish colonial empire was dismantled long time ago, shared linguistic and cultural heritage continue to draw scores of artists from Latin America, who seek to enhance their education or advance their professional careers, to the country. Like many of her compatriots, Ortiz arrived here to continue her art studies at the University of Barcelona (UB). Since her graduation in 2009, she has undoubtedly marked the scene here with her audacious presence, participating in more than a dozen exhibitions in 2010 and sweeping pretty much all the major fellowships and grants available. Her project 97 Housemaids was published with the Art Jove grant and recently, she was awarded the prestigious Guasch Coranty Scholarship for her new project, Service Room.
As Ortiz is orchestrating another transcontinental move, this time to Mexico City (Ortiz will begin her postgraduate studies at SOMA in Mexico City, an experimental education platform co-founded by Teresa Margolles and Yoshúa Okón among others, in just a few weeks’ time), and preparing for three solo shows that are to take place here in Spain in June, we shared a conversation about the origins and influences on her precise, taxing practice and her ambiguous status in Spain that continues to be fodder for her projects.
Dissecting the Social Self: A [Wo]Man, an Animal, and an Ambiguous “I.”
Katarzyna Kozyra, "Olimpia," detail, 1996. Deposit of the National Museum in Cracow. Courtesy Zachęta National Gallery of Art.
At the turn of December and January, the myriad summaries and best-of lists of the past year I browse through coincide with a more personal check-up. There is no better way to evade lengthy and lethally sweet Polish family reunions than a quick run-through the Warsaw museum and gallery scene. This annual timing, regulated by the holiday season, allows both distance and regularity.
Katarzyna Kozyra, "Casting," 2010-11. Courtesy Zachęta National Gallery of Art.
The must see item for the last chock-full of activity visit was the monographic exhibition of Katarzyna Kozyra at Zachęta National Gallery of Art, which summarizes both 20 years of the artist’s career and, simultaneously, is the implicit survey of the dramatic transformation of the Polish art scene. When Kozyra debuted in 1993 with her Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts‘ diploma work Pyramid of Animals, she stirred a public outcry and a debate that continued well into the 2000s. She became the synonym of “a critical artist” and her work became the flag post of the period called “the cold war between art and society,”a term coined by another contemporary maker under constant media scrutiny, Zbigniew Libera. If, at the end of the decade, Poland has finally entered a period of artistic normalization, as some critics recently celebrated, at a loss is the sense of urgency expressed over the implications of Kozyra’s work (notably, it would be hard to speak of its opponents and sympathizers today).
Visibility, Potency and Meaning: Making Sense of Art at the Crosshairs
Protest on the steps of the National Portrait Gallery, December 2010. Courtesy the Washington Post, photo: Bill O'Leary.
Since I made my first appearance on the Art21 blog about six weeks ago, commenting on the now-infamous censoring of David Wojnarowicz’s video A Fire in My Belly at the National Portrait Gallery’s Hide/Seek exhibition, the incident has continued to make waves. Among many blogs, Hyperallergic and ArtInfo have followed the story closely, providing careful updates throughout its development. A few decisive twists and turns deserve to be highlighted here, as not many cases have echoed so strongly in the recent years. This run-through will serve as a brief introduction to my main theme of interest: the difficult relationship between art’s visibility, potency, and meaning, as they unravel in the context of presentation and interpretation.
The manifestation of support for Wojnarowicz’s video has been overwhelming, with multiple institutions and organizations taking it up as soon as the Smithsonian Institution decided to pull it from the show. Transformer Gallery in Washington D.C., the New Museum in NYC, as well as a slew of institutions throughout the country put on display what was meant to be erased, on the scale that – arguably – has never been seen before. Even Stephen Colbert weighed in on the issue.
In condemnation of his action, Secretary of the Smithsonian, G. Wayne Clough, who single-handedly made the decision to take down Wojnarowicz’s video, has been repeatedly called to resign.
Artist AA Bronson asked for his own contribution to the exhibition to be returned and is currently in legal deadlock with the institution, which refused to return the piece before the loan agreement’s stipulated date. According to the Art Newspaper, another request for the “solidarity” removal came in an unprecedented gesture from the owner of Untitled, Self-Portrait by Jack Pierson, a hedge-fund specialist, and collector Jim Hedges, who demanded that his work be taken down, at least until Wojnarowicz’s video is brought back on view.
Following this outpouring of various attempts to counteract the conservatives’ demands to severely limit what constitutes art, Robin Cembalest, the executive editor of ARTnews, wrote incisive commentary on what institutions can and should do to prevent the escalation of the next Culture Wars.
“I am the invisible being”: The Smithsonian, Wojnarowicz, and the Othering of AIDS
David Wojnarowicz, "Untitled (Face in Dirt)," 1990. Silver print, 28.5 x 28.5 inches. Courtesy P.P.O.W.
The decision of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, G. Wayne Clough, to pull David Wojnarowicz’s video, The Fire in My Belly, from the Hide/Seek exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, has been decried on many valid grounds. In both print and online publications, the controversy has already signified, variably, a looming return of the Culture Wars, another attack on the LGBTQ community, and the antagonists’ – Bill Donahue of the Catholic League backed by a number of Republican congressmen including Reps. John Boehner (Ohio) and Eric Cantor (Virginia) – lack of interest in the piece itself, since their opinions were formed in less than the 11 seconds that the depiction of the “blasphemous” cross in the video lasts. No less ironic is the fact that the removal of the work took place on the eve of December 1, World AIDS Day, while the artist himself had fallen victim to AIDS-related disease in 1992.
In many outlets, the removal of the video has been described as censorship. However, I think the case actually points to an act of self-censorship. Even though the decision came “from above” (and this information didn’t emerge until the next day) — from Clough calling on the Portrait Gallery to remove Wojnarowicz’s piece, with poor director Martin Sullivan left to justify the decision — the truth is that a robust, highly visible institution succumbed to the pressure of a few loudmouths, thereby counteracting the rationale for featuring A Fire in My Belly in the first place. In order to protect its interests and its federal funding, the Smithsonian preemptively capitulated to the protesters’ demands. The very same mechanism led the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC to cancel the presentation of the retrospective of Robert Mapplethorpe 20 years ago — clearly demonstrating how little has really changed since then.
The situation sets up a(nother) dangerous precedent with repercussions reaching far beyond LGBTQ, religious, HIV/AIDS, or any other identifying community. It promises a compromised art-viewing experience for us, the public that actually bothers to go to the museums and is interested in determining the meaning of art for ourselves. Big institutions not willing to stand up to the bullies, as Robert Storr suggested on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Mapplethrope/NEA scandals, paint a very bleak picture indeed for exhibitions we might encounter in the near future. So much for the very nature of artistic production, particularly its affective and thought-provoking capabilities.
