What happens
to inhibitions in today’s swell of globalization? Does
the old Polynesian term “taboo” still have meaning,
or have such notions disappeared in the “everything
goes” drive of global Capital? Is this overwhelming
drive actually the biggest taboo of our time? To what extent
do the power structures of our society differ from those
of the past, and is history still relevant?
These and many other questions were at the center of our
quest to find collaborators when we conceived the third edition
of the Tirana Biennale in Albania. As the
five consecutive exhibitions that composed the Biennale unfolded, we witnessed
how the poetry of art and contemporary artistic operation dealt with such issues
by focusing on practices of re-appropriation rather than their mere critique.
The selection made for this “Mini-Tirana Biennale” presented at apexart
includes the work of seven artists that participated in the exhibitions of the
last Tirana Biennale. However, when dealing with such socio-politically loaded
subjects, one has to be aware of the real potential of art and avoid coming up
with a tacky display of art works. We tried to identify elements of an ambiguous
nature that are found in the juxtaposition of “civilization” and “barbarisms” of
obscure and open character, that deal with legality and abuse, and that can
be emancipating and conservative. This consisted of a voyage to the edge of
theological
and ideological narratives, of delirious utopia and icy pragmatism, social
hypocrisy and moralism. The artists adopting a wide variety of techniques,
viewpoints,
and concepts tried to transmit different mentalities, ideas, perceptions and
challenges through their works, all motivated by the temptation to experience
the triumph and the fear, the freedom and the anxiety of freedom, indifference
and veneration and everything else related to the temptation of violating the
border of the taboo.
How can the simplest form of aesthetic expression – the drawing – be
politically loaded? When looking at Ivan Grubanov’s series of drawings
from Milosevic’s trial in the Hague one becomes lost trying to understand
what is it that one is supposed to grasp first – is it the ability of the
artist to quickly document reality, or his skillfulness and virtuosity in catching
the final moment of Milosevic’s reign? By appropriating documentation as
a strategy and directing our attention to the fragile structure of “power,” the
artist gets invested with power—the power to lead the viewer’s
gaze to the back side of the glamour of authority.
A continuously changing maze of animated drawings reveals,
and at the same time conceals from sight, symbols of different
religions of the world in
Adel Abdessemed’s
video installation God is Design. It is a metaphor for one of today’s sharpest
global issues – “the clash of civilizations.” It is as if the
artist personalized the Nietzschean approach of “God is Dead,” proposing
his own: “God is Design.” However this piece about one of the classic
taboos, God, is not merely an ironic or sarcastic approach; it is rather a way
of tackling fundamentalism. Yet, it is not merely the religious fundamentalism
the artist is tackling here. By demystifying the notion of God through a commonplace
practice, design, the artist is throwing us back into reflection on the issue – what
if religion was not the real cause of the infamous “clash of civilizations?” What
if there is a hidden drive that is creating conflicts, some kind of matrix that
leads us without our being aware of it, or being able to resist it? What if Design
has actually taken God’s place???
Many have reacted strongly when stopping for a while to
look at Joanna Rytel’s
film To think thoughts you don’t wan’t to think. The film is intense,
the language is deliberately strong and it deals with the very sensitive subject
of racism. It’s a journey inside a white Swedish woman’s head while
she gets to know, falls in love with, has sex with and splits with a black man.
It’s a wandering on the underworld of thoughts, the ones on the other side
of our political correctness. It’s not a journey in our obscure thoughts
though, neither in the dark sides of humanity – it’s a journey into
our collectively suppressed and sublimated selves, with “self” understood
as a complex socio-historical construction. The artist says, “To
think thoughts you don’t want to think is a project about unwanted racial thoughts.” The
storyline is told in a diary format and is about the ambiguity of a white woman’s
racial thoughts and desires for a black man. By voicing out a highly sensitive
problem, such as racism, the artist does not try to set us into a liberating
experience. She rather exposes our common fears and our constructed barriers
that hinder us from reaching towards each other. Gradually and boldly she reveals
to us that we all are at the same time abusers and victims of our social preconceptions.
Along similar lines, but with a very different approach
and viewpoint, comes to us If, the work by IngridMwangiRobertHutter.
Built upon the
re-appropriation of an historical photograph of Hitler surrounded by
white-blonde German
women,
the artists replace the original characters with manipulated images
of themselves. As Mwangi says about her work: If visualises
a fictitious
moment, which positions
itself in the middle of the “German tragedy,” as a photographic image
that shatters the historical context. The work removes itself from carefulness,
borrowing from past-become-problematic imagery, to provoke reflections that are
relevant to present day life. The persons within the scenery have been reproduced
to create mimicry on the one hand or have been camouflaged to be less Self on
the other. The borders of belonging are confusing or, if we allow, the concept
of identification with a nation has become unacceptable.”
The burning flames of a huge star on the hilltops of the
city of Tirana stand as witness to a once-upon-a-time symbol
of the efforts for a
better society – turned
to be a cruel history of suppression and persecution. By setting fire to a large
five-pointed star in Living in Memory, it is as if Armando Lulaj is trying to
purify the symbol from its own history. The glitter of fire in the night sky
and its short, preconditioned lifetime is yet another symbol of another system
adopting the notion of the STAR – the “wanna be STAR” as the
model of our over infused media based reality. The piece is, however, not some
kind of homage to either manifestation. What strikes in the video is when the
whole structure falls and the fire continues to consume every bit of it, leaving
behind only the ashes – physical ashes of fire, symbolical ashes of history,
and living ashes of memory of past and present power structures.
Global authority, power and our understanding of them as
the only forms of democracy and free society are the focus
of Sejla Kameric’s Daydreaming video. Setting
up a heavenly surrounding for herself, she is featured in the video resembling
a goddess while at the same time appearing imprisoned in her radiating cell.
Eyes closed, she slowly moves to the relaxing sounds of piano while the content
of the speech of the relaxed voice you hear on the background becomes more and
more demanding and conditioning. It is hard to distinguish by now if the figure
in front of you is the goddess or the imprisoned being, if she’s the one
uttering orders or reacting to the conditional “love” pouring out
from the Voice, if she’s a dreamer or if she simply wants to wake up and
open her eyes…
Eyes are, however, wide open and looking at you in the
series Avenue of the Stars by Suela Qoshja. In all 5 photographs
/ postcards
her eyes are
open
and staring
at you. It’s this kind of quality of a still image that follows you in
every corner of the room or every direction you go. But there’s something
specific with her look, she’s looking at you as if she’s trying to
predict your next move and the way it will affect her. Dedicated to one of Albania’s
worst social plagues of the last 10 years – the trafficking of women – and
shot a few days after the artist’s neighbor was trafficked in Germany,
the series is a re-appropriation and a mixture of classical standards of “beauty” and
a continuous condition of discrimination of women as a social class. Between
the elegant leaves of flowers she’s holding and the heavy make-up of her
face, a subtle sense of “innocence” permeates the whole series.
The works in this exhibition offer a testimony to engaged
artistic practice that provides us with examples of what
could be considered
some of our
contemporary taboos, and how they relate to both our history
and to our present condition.
They equip us with a repertory of tactics to artistically deal
with taboos, and
demonstrate how art can be a tool with which to respond to
our rapidly changing global socio-political landscape.
Edi Muka
©2006
Edi Muka is is a freelance curator based
in Tirana and Stockholm. He is co-founder/co-director of
the Tirana Biennale,
and teaches
at the Academy of Fine Arts, Tirana.
apexart’s exhibitions
and public programs are supported in part by Altria Group,
Inc., The Lily Auchincloss Foundation,
Inc., The Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and with public
funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs
and the New York State Council on the Arts. This exhibition
received support from the Trust for Mutual Understanding
and Moderna Museet. |
