tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/tate-modern-10037/articles
Tate Modern – The Conversation
2024-02-29T10:01:25Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/223939
2024-02-29T10:01:25Z
2024-02-29T10:01:25Z
Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind – Tate show explores the artist’s radical legacy
<p><a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/yoko-ono">Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind</a> at the Tate Modern delves into the legacy of the Japanese artist and activist. It covers seven decades of Ono’s art, from the 1950s to the present day, and unfolds in a loosely chronological fashion. The show follows in her footsteps from the experimental music and avant-garde art circles in the US, Japan and the UK in the 1960s.</p>
<p>The exhibition draws its title from Ono’s Music of the Mind series of concerts and events held in London and Liverpool in 1966 and 1967. This makes explicit the crucial role music has played in her development as an artist and activist, and at once attaches and detaches her from the rock ‘n’ roll music context (and shadow) of her late husband, John Lennon. </p>
<p>Ono was a musician in her own right, having studied music composition throughout her life (as well as philosophy and poetry), whereas Lennon had studied art. <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/yoko-ono/exhibition-guide">Ono said</a> on the meeting of their minds: “We crossed over into each other’s fields … from avant-garde leftfield to rock ’n’ roll leftfield. We tried to find a ground that was interesting to both of us. And we both got excited and stimulated by each other’s experiences.”</p>
<h2>Ono’s ‘instructions’</h2>
<p>In 1962, Ono hung 38 sheets of paper featuring a set of instructions, written in calligraphic Japanese script, on a wall of the Sogetsu Art Centre in Tokyo. No artist had exhibited concepts for artworks as artworks themselves before, so the show, Instructions for Paintings, was the first exhibition of conceptual art. Ono elevated art to an intensely intellectual activity, and the concept of art above its physical form.</p>
<p>Ono’s instructions also democratised art, as they triggered the imagination, thought and creativity of the audience who is left to “complete” the works by following the instructions in their real lives. This can be done by anyone, anywhere, at any time, either imaginatively or physically. One instruction entitled Painting To Be Constructed In Your Head reads: “Observe three paintings carefully. Mix them well in your head.” </p>
<p>Ono self-published her book, <a href="https://monoskop.org/images/archive/6/64/20190320203953%21Ono_Yoko_Grapefruit_A_Book_of_Instructions_and_Drawings_2000.pdf">Grapefruit</a>, a collection of over 200 instructions, in 1964. Many of them are scattered across the Tate galleries for visitors to follow.</p>
<p>The Tate show suggests that Ono’s work is a form of “participatory art”, a kind of art that engages audiences in the creative process. But this is reductive. Ono saw her instructions as encapsulations of ideas, and <a href="https://www.guggenheim-bilbao.eus/en/learn/schools/teachers-guides/the-idea-in-the-work-of-art-2">ideas as stones</a> “thrown into the water for ripples to be made”. </p>
<p>I interpret Ono’s instructions as seeds for the cultivation of the “social imaginary” – an imaginary system of ideas, values, orientations and practices that binds society together. Beyond “creation”, Ono’s instruction project is a catalyst for continuous social change, a process of “construction” that leads to an alternative world. </p>
<p>Her instructions lead to a social balance between the individual and the collective, through reflective everyday acts. These small disruptive acts draw awareness to the fact that society is socially constructed, and so it is down to the power of people’s radical imaginary to change it. </p>
<h2>Ono’s commitment to peace</h2>
<p>For over seven decades, Ono’s radical ideas have contributed to powerful social ideas such as peace, freedom, equality and democracy. Her persistent commitment to world peace is expressed through her conception of art as a radical imaginary act. </p>
<p>Ono’s instructions are <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/yokoonoofficial/2892207133">“meant for others to do”</a>. But precisely what kind of “doing” do they enable? Works such as Shadow Piece – “Put your shadows together until they become one” – and Film No. 4 (Bottoms) – “String bottoms together in place of signatures for petition of peace” – instruct people to play, but to play “with” rather than “against” each other. </p>
<p>Ono’s playful works undermine the systemic causes that drive society’s problems and trigger processes of social imagining.</p>
<p>How do you play an all-white chess set with an “opponent” (White Chess Set, 1966), get undressed under a bag (Bag Piece, 1964), or shake hands through a hole in a canvas (Painting to Shake Hands, 1961) with a “stranger”? This requires working in concert with the other and coming up with a new set of rules – initiating new social relations that lead to radically new modes of thought and action. </p>
<p>Engaging the social imagination can contribute to changing the drives and consciousness of individual people who could collectively change the world – by imagining it not as it is, but as it ought to be. In doing so, they can construct the world they dream of. <a href="https://twitter.com/yokoono/status/1295742125687087105?lang=en">As Ono puts it</a>: “A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.”</p>
<p>Ono’s distinct approach to the empowering social role of art galvanises people in many directions. To discover new constructive principles for creating spaces for critical thinking and artistic experimentation. For knowledge creation and political resistance. And to imagine an alternative world – because to “imagine” is to embark on a process of construction.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gabriella Daris received funding from the Getty Foundation, the Henry Moore Foundation, the Emily Harvey Foundation, the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, the British Society of Aesthetics, the British Association for Japanese Studies, the Association for Art History, the British Council, and Kingston University. </span></em></p>
For over seven decades, Ono’s radical ideas have contributed to powerful social ideas such as peace, freedom, equality and democracy.
Gabriella Daris, PhD candidate, Yoko Ono's conceptual art, Kingston University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/209570
2023-07-14T13:04:52Z
2023-07-14T13:04:52Z
A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography – Tate Modern show celebrates new generation of artists, but misses a trick
<p>The last large survey exhibition of African photography by a major western gallery was <a href="https://www.guggenheim.org/exhibition/insight-african-photographers-1940-to-the-present">In/Sight</a> at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1996. Twenty-seven years later, Tate Modern is introducing a British audience to the next generation of African photographers. </p>
<p>With such a long gap, there are high expectations for <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/contemporary-african-photography-a-world-in-common">A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography</a>. And the exhibition faces many curatorial challenges. </p>
<p>For most British visitors, this exhibition serves as an enlightening journey that challenges their perspective. It confronts and dismantles enduring colonial stereotypes associated with Africa. Simultaneously, it stands as a long-awaited affirmation of African photographers, validating their unique use of the medium.</p>
<p>The show’s curator, Osei Bonsu, developed three major themes – “identity and tradition”, “counter histories” and “imagined futures”. The 36 featured photographers tell stories of a new and confident Africa. It’s an Africa that celebrates its spirituality and is untangling itself from its colonial past. This is awe-inspiring work, by a new generation of artists who draw on the rich social and political history of the continent to tell their stories.</p>
<p>When entering the exhibition, I was immediately taken in by a series of large portraits: <a href="https://georgeosodi.photoshelter.com/portfolio/G0000X9MCoZDi.bE">Nigerian Monarchs by George Osodi</a>. The formality of the images speaks to the importance of these rulers as custodians of cultural heritage – even though their powers were eroded during British colonial rule. </p>
<p>The portrait of <a href="https://www.artsy.net/artwork/george-osodi-hrm-agbogidi-obi-james-ikechukwu-anyasi-ll-obi-of-idumuje-unor">Obi Anyasi II</a>, the longest reigning African king, is a clever comment on Nigeria’s past. His stern gaze competes with that of Queen Elizabeth II, whose portrait is printed on his gown. In the exhibition catalogue, Osodi explains that documenting and archiving culture is “key to understanding cultural origins, and thus developing a sense of identity”.</p>
<p>In the same room is Zimbabwean artist Kudzanai Chiurai’s series <a href="https://www.artsy.net/artwork/kudzanai-chiurai-we-live-in-silence-iv-1">We Live in Silence</a>. These works are a reminder that Christian missionaries contributed to the colonial occupation of the continent and were instrumental in dismantling pre-colonial societies, in which women had often been powerful and influential figures. </p>
<p>Inspired by Bible scenes, Chiurai’s work focuses on modern African women. He reclaims their space in the historic narrative of the continent. </p>
<p>At the same time, female artists are still struggling to claiming their space in the exhibition as only 12 women featured. Gender balance should have been a fundamental consideration in the curation of this exhibition, as it is crucial to foster equal representation of African women in the arts.</p>
<h2>Dialogue and consent</h2>
<p><a href="https://wuraogunji.com/home.html">Wura-Natasha Ogunji’s work</a> stood out as the only piece in the show that documented a response from Africans and engaged the African audience directly. </p>
<p>In her performance video, Will I Still Carry Water When I Am a Dead Woman? a group of masked women drag golden water canisters through the busy streets of Lagos, Nigeria. The reactions of the local people underscored art’s potential to challenge the undervaluing of female labour. It provokes dialogue where performance art is not widely understood or appreciated.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Will I Still Carry Water When I Am a Dead Woman? by Wura-Natasha Ogunji.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Ogunji, born in Nigeria, received her BA from Stanford University and an MFA from San Jose State University in the US. This highlights yet another issue with the roster of photographers in the exhibition. A considerable number have well-established ties with European and American art institutions. </p>
<p>Also, a significant portion have pursued their studies in Europe and the US, are represented by international galleries and maintain a dual presence between two continents. They are part of the global art scene that sees African art as a growing investment opportunity. There’s a risk that will result in the best examples of African art leaving the continent. As French gallery owner Cécile Fakhoury <a href="https://news.artnet.com/market/1-54-marrakesh-2020-1784178">has observed</a>: “If we keep going as we are, in ten or 20 years we will see all the major pieces in foreign countries.” </p>
<p>As this intensifies, it perpetuates a resource vacuum for local artists solely residing and working in Africa. It highlights the continuous underfunding of the cultural sector by most African governments and the lack of globally recognised art institutions on the continent. </p>
<p>Sadly, Tate Modern has missed a trick here. It could have more purposefully supported and celebrated the creation of local African art and included material that challenged its own position (as well as that of other western art institutions) in the global art market. As it is, I am provoked to think that A World in Common is a European exhibition with African content, rather than an exhibition that invites uncomfortable conversations about the function of institutions in the effort to decolonise our understanding of African art. </p>
<p>In the final two rooms, artists are imagining futures for Africa. Kiripi Katembo’s beautiful photographs of Kinshasa reflected in rainwater puddles capture urban life through a surreal mirror. Andrew Esiebo’s large images create a momentary stillness in the ever-changing architecture and landscape of Lagos. They comment on the “endless juxtapositions that exist in the city, between past and present, modernity and tradition”, as Esiebe observes in the catalogue.</p>
<p>What struck me most about the exhibition was the consent implicitly and explicitly expressed in all the works by collaborating with the sitters and avoiding works created through covert observations. </p>
<p>By working with masks, mirrors, self-portraiture or consenting sitters, the featured artists all circumnavigate the historic and often still-present exploitative relationship between the camera and the African continent. This is a decolonial approach to photography we can all learn from, but it also poses the question of how African photographers will make visible the richness of everyday life on the continent.</p>
<p>On the epilogue text panel, Senegalese writer and academic Felwine Sarr calls for “Africans to think and formulate their own future”. The 36 exhibiting artists definitely do that. But the curatorial challenges are manifold. My observations are an attempt to move the conversation beyond the thought-provoking work of the photographers and towards challenging the role of Tate Modern. </p>
<p><em>A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography is on at the Tate Modern until January 4 2024.</em></p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight,
on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209570/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kerstin Hacker receives funding from Educational Partnerships in Africa Grant (2009 - 2012)</span></em></p>
A World in Common is a European exhibition with African content, rather than a space that invites conversations and engagement that go beyond the images themselves.
Kerstin Hacker, Senior Lecturer, Photography, Anglia Ruskin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/199224
2023-02-13T06:16:09Z
2023-02-13T06:16:09Z
The fight between Tate Modern and its wealthy neighbours reveals the gentrification of the skies
<p>In the UK, legal cases resolving alleged neighbour nuisances are ten-a-penny. Some – about <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-57598101">overhanging trees</a> or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/sep/07/leylandii-neighbours-dispute">leylandii hedges</a> that block out the sun – reach the local press. Few, however, have ever taken up the column inches devoted to <a href="https://www.supremecourt.uk/press-summary/uksc-2020-0056.html">Fearn v Tate</a>. </p>
<p>After a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/feb/01/tate-modern-viewing-platform-invades-privacy-of-flats-supreme-court-rules">six-year legal battle</a>, the UK supreme court has now <a href="https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/fearn-v-tate-judgment.pdf">ruled</a> in favour of the five neighbouring residents who sued London’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/sustainable-re-use-and-recycling-work-for-heritage-buildings-and-places-too-83975">Tate Modern</a>, for infringing on their privacy with its viewing gallery that looks directly into their homes. </p>
<p>The trustees of the Tate now face the possibility of closing or screening off the viewing gallery. This is despite the fact that, in the same ruling, the supreme court deems it to be a perfectly “reasonable use” of the land, and that allowing visitors 360-degree views of the capital is of “public benefit”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A view over London from the roof of a building." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508448/original/file-20230206-23-e6236v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508448/original/file-20230206-23-e6236v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508448/original/file-20230206-23-e6236v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508448/original/file-20230206-23-e6236v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508448/original/file-20230206-23-e6236v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508448/original/file-20230206-23-e6236v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508448/original/file-20230206-23-e6236v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Developers are increasingly capitalising on the value of a view.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/v5ouCZkAcwc">Matthew Waring | Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
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<h2>Breach of privacy claim</h2>
<p>In 2017, five residents of the neighbouring Neo-Bankside development sued the Tate for invasion of privacy. Marketed as a “world-class” development, Neo-Bankside features floor-to-ceiling windows, designed to maximise light and take advantage of the views towards the Thames. The gallery’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-new-tate-modern-tells-us-about-the-museum-of-the-future-61041">Blavatnik extension</a>, meanwhile, included an observatory deck. The residents said they were being subjected to close and oppressive scrutiny by museum goers armed with phones, cameras, and sometimes, binoculars. </p>
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<img alt="HIgh-rise buildings against a pale blue sky." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508444/original/file-20230206-15-iiz62r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508444/original/file-20230206-15-iiz62r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508444/original/file-20230206-15-iiz62r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508444/original/file-20230206-15-iiz62r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508444/original/file-20230206-15-iiz62r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508444/original/file-20230206-15-iiz62r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508444/original/file-20230206-15-iiz62r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Fearne v Tate case could lead to further privatisation of London’s skies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/F3GiR_IM9w8">Toa Heftiba | Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
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<p>Previous <a href="https://www.wilberforce.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/ARTICLE-A-room-with-a-view-BF-Feb-2010.pdf">cases</a> had established that you could sue for invasion of the airspace near to your property on the basis of trespass and nuisance law. Planning law similarly regards overlooking and loss of privacy as the basis for <a href="http://planningobjectionletters.co.uk/articles/private-matters">refusal of planning permission</a>.</p>
<p>In his 2019 ruling, however, High Court Justice Anthony Mann <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/draw-the-blinds-flat-owners-lose-privacy-case-against-tates-viewing-platform-11635442">pointed out</a> that the Tate had been given planning permission for the viewing platform before Neo-Bankside was completed. In other words, the residents would have been aware of it before they moved in. He recommended they <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/glass-tower-residents-lose-legal-fight-over-tate-balcony-kmk82qmvz">install net curtains</a>.</p>
<p>This ruling implied that wealthy residents <a href="https://www.elgaronline.com/display/edcoll/9781788977197/9781788977197.00031.xml">colonising urban skies</a> need to recognise that they are not just in the city, but of it. It did not necessarily set a precedent. But it did suggest that the property rights enjoyed by the owners of glass-fronted flats do not necessarily extend to “lower strata” air rights, or the right to exclude others from viewing in. </p>
<p>Mann has now been overruled, the law once again aligning with the rich and powerful. The supreme court’s judgment confirms that being overlooked by a spectator gallery in fact does constitute a form of visual intrusion. And it rejects Mann’s judgment that the owners of the flats bore some responsibility for mitigating the nuisance themselves.</p>
<p>In theory, this could lead to a series of private nuisance lawsuits. Those living in high-rise properties could now claim they need to be protected from the nuisance of people looking in, and use this as a means to screen off existing development. Equally, planning officers might be minded to put more weight on overlooking as a material consideration. </p>
<p>Currently, drone flights at a “reasonable height” enjoy a <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003028031-12/personal-injury-property-damage-trespass-nuisance-anthony-tarr-julie-anne-tarr">statutory defence</a> against claims of nuisance and trespass, under the terms of the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1982/16/contents">1982 Civil Aviation Act</a>. But if concerns about overlooking are extended to the disembodied gaze of the unmanned drone camera, we might easily imagine a future city characterised by <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10304312.2020.1842125?casa_token=yJMU2hz9sxAAAAAA%3A40-Uy1UKD-icc6DmKaHtrPr0Vit8hWGB3s9It0FJwfkUsHXe8JdJDd4VJRoxHeb7P9FUtiGkwn6D">no-fly zones</a> around the towers of the super-rich.</p>
<h2>Gentrification of the skies</h2>
<p>In the 1950s and 1960s, tower blocks were reserved for social housing tenants. Such <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/jul/20/streets-in-the-sky-the-sheffield-high-rises-that-were-home-sweet-home-love-among-ruins">“streets in the sky”</a> were subsequently vilified as <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429427046-2/council-estate-renewal-london-phil-hubbard-loretta-lees">sites of social malaise</a>. </p>
<p>By contrast, today’s high-rises are built for rich investors. Social housing, if at all present, is restricted to the lower levels, sometimes behind what has become known as a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jul/25/poor-doors-segregation-london-flats">“poor door”</a>.</p>
<p>Spectacular views are the big draw. Developers carefully price each flat according to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13604813.2018.1549832">height, size and aspect</a>. This “luxification” of the skies is, perversely, accompanying the emergence of <a href="https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/tpr.2020.46">shrinking homes</a> for the working poor, often literally <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02723638.2020.1850001">overshadowed</a> by these prestigious towers. </p>
<p>The Fearn v Tate judgment has confirmed that inner-city residents must expect to live cheek by jowl with their neighbours, while suggesting that there are different types of overlooking. Inviting people to look out, and photograph, from a property’s observation deck is qualitatively different than one property simply overlooking another. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A person on a balcony with a phone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508376/original/file-20230206-19-p6o6gc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508376/original/file-20230206-19-p6o6gc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508376/original/file-20230206-19-p6o6gc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508376/original/file-20230206-19-p6o6gc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508376/original/file-20230206-19-p6o6gc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508376/original/file-20230206-19-p6o6gc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508376/original/file-20230206-19-p6o6gc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The law now appears to recognise different types of overlooking.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/bankside-london-se1-9tg-united-kingdom-1479666761">Lara Ra</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The supreme court judgment references an obscure case from <a href="https://www.british-history.ac.uk/london-record-soc/vol10/pp85-98">1341</a> where a London fishmonger had to remove a tower on his property because neighbours felt it constituted a nuisance. It argues that the intensity of interference is now magnified by the fact that people have smartphones with cameras. </p>
<p>Some have concluded the ruling is not simply about being overlooked but the invasion of privacy associated with <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/b2c3f312-fec2-4005-b7fe-52988e489cba">photographs</a> being shared on social media. However, given any neighbour could take photos of others’ property, should the precautionary principle now reign? </p>
<p>This could lead to those who can afford to take private action invoking visual intrusion to prevent others from even having the possibility of taking photos. It could lead to further privatisation of air space, of particular concern in cities like London where the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/29/underfunded-rusting-fenced-off-britains-parks-public-spaces-government">urban commons</a> are increasingly privatised. </p>
<p>A city where “air people” are able to escape surveillance while “street people” have to live with the constant scrutiny enacted by drones, CCTV and facial recognition systems may sound dystopian. Given the rampant <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rise-of-corporate-landlords-how-they-are-swallowing-city-centres-like-manchester-one-block-of-flats-at-a-time-198804">financialisation and corporatisation</a> of our cities, though, who is to say what lengths property-owners will go to protect the value of their asset?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199224/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip Hubbard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The supreme court’s ruling that the Tate’s viewing gallery intrudes on nearby luxury flats suggests that the law is once again aligning with the rich and powerful.
Philip Hubbard, Professor of Urban Studies, King's College London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/157859
2021-04-19T20:14:21Z
2021-04-19T20:14:21Z
If I could go anywhere: I’d revisit Maman, Louise Bourgeois’ 9-metre spider at London’s Tate Modern
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395611/original/file-20210419-19-tooupy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C0%2C2982%2C1868&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Louise Bourgeois' Maman (1999) outside the Tate Modern in London. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://photos-cdn.aap.com.au/Image/20071003000046396944?path=/aap_dev3/device/imagearc/2007/10-03/63/6e/3b/aapimage-5gtce6b563mv5t1t79p_layout.jpg">AP Photo/Nathan Strange</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/if-i-could-go-anywhere-102157">this series</a> we pay tribute to the art we wish could visit — and hope to see once travel restrictions are lifted.</em></p>
<p>She’s called <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/arts/gallery/2007/oct/03/spider">Maman</a>, and she emerged into the world in 1999, just in time to find her feet and grace the opening of the <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern">Tate Modern</a> in the heart of London. </p>
<p>Maman. The biggest spider you’ve ever seen at more than nine metres high. The extent to which you are entranced by her bears a direct correlation to whether, when you think “spider”, you think <a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/eb-white/charlottes-web-white/">Charlotte in her web</a> or Hobbit-bothering <a href="http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Shelob">Shelob</a>. </p>
<p>For her maker, that most fertile and perhaps febrile artist <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/louise-bourgeois-2351/art-louise-bourgeois">Louise Bourgeois</a> (1911–2010), spiders represent maternal beings in their care of the young, and in their skillful making and repairing of the family web (that is, they are Charlotte, not Shelob). </p>
<p>A more typical human response is a severe case of the “ick” factor at best, and panic at worst. Yet under Bourgeois’ hands, something marvellous happens — new ways of seeing spiders, and with them the more-than-human world. </p>
<p>Her spiders have populated the globe since 1999. They are to be found poised, crouching, menacing or magnificent (depending on your attitude to arachnids) in Ottawa, Shanghai, Bilboa, Provence, Geneva, Zurich, New York, San Francisco, Moscow and elsewhere. </p>
<p>If I could go anywhere, one option would be to trail around the world on a Bourgeois spider-hunt, though I have always been uncomfortable around spiders.</p>
<p>In recent years, chagrined by my species-ism and captivated by videos of <a href="https://theconversation.com/i-travelled-australia-looking-for-peacock-spiders-and-collected-7-new-species-and-named-one-after-the-starry-night-sky-135201">tiny dancing peacock spiders</a>, I have been making valiant attempts to recognise their beauty; with some success. Recently, with much of Australia under floodwaters and my news-feeds full of stories of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/22/horrific-swarms-of-spiders-flee-into-homes-and-up-legs-to-escape-nsw-floods">spiders desperately swarming</a> up fenceposts and trees and human legs to escape death, I would leave this country and fly straight to London, to see Maman again.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qy7xJhImnLw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘I transform hate into love.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/review-the-naked-nude-from-the-tate-68324">Review: The naked nude from the Tate</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Incidental art</h2>
<p>I would take the underground from whichever dingy affordable flat I could find to rent, arriving at Southwark Station. I stood there in 2006 for nearly half an hour, entranced by Bill Fontana’s <a href="https://resoundings.org/Pages/Harmonic_Bridge1.htm">Harmonic Bridge</a>. That work is the product of the Millennium Bridge vibrating under the feet of pedestrians crossing from St Paul’s to Bankside, and against the movement of the river below it and the wind that crosses it. </p>
<p>Like Bourgeois’ Maman, the sounds captured by Fontana and shaped into an audio sculpture have the capacity to shift one’s sense of lived experience and what it can mean.</p>
<p>Incidentally, in 2011 I visited Tate Modern to see Ai Weiwei’s <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ai-sunflower-seeds-t13408">1-125,000,000</a> (2010), a hill of handcrafted sunflower seeds made of porcelain, fired and painted, displayed in the <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern/turbine-hall">Turbine Hall</a>. Gazing at the seeds, I found myself listening to percussive sounds coming from further up the building, and hunted about for a plaque to say it was also the work of Bill Fontana. Eventually I asked a nearby guide who the sound artist was and, without a hint of condescension, she smiled and said, “They’re doing some plumbing work next door”.</p>
<p>In my fantasy art trip now, I choke down that humiliating memory and walk the ten minutes or so down toward the Thames, back to what was the Bankside Power Station, and is now the Tate Modern.</p>
<p>And in my imagination, I retrace my steps to the Turbine Hall, greet Maman, and then wander up through gallery after gallery, through permanent collection and special exhibitions, all the way to the bar on Level … is it 5? I forget. There I buy a glass of wine, alone or with friends and colleagues, and gaze across the Thames to the dome of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Christopher-Wren">Christopher Wren</a>’s <a href="http://scihi.org/christopher-wren-saint-pauls-cathedral/">St Paul’s cathedral</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/h51hVeQyooQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The chimney of the Tate is 99 metres high.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/if-i-could-go-anywhere-japanese-art-island-chichu-a-meditation-and-an-education-133439">If I could go anywhere: Japanese art island Chichu, a meditation and an education</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A special host</h2>
<p>St Paul’s is just around the corner from where my late aunt lived, in the brutalist <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/oct/10/barbican-housing-photography-design-architecture">Barbican</a> estate. </p>
<p>She generously provided me a bed on various of my trips, and showed me the art at the heart of her city. I saw Benjamin Britten’s haunting, heartbreaking War <a href="https://artswarandpeace.univ-paris-diderot.fr/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/1.1_2_coudercrevised1novbrittenwar.pdf">Requiem</a> in her private box at the <a href="http://www.avictorian.com/alberthall.html">Royal Albert Hall</a>, that remarkable Victorian structure that resembles, to a stranger seated within, the inside of someone else’s mouth. Later she took me to Bach’s <a href="https://www.bachvereniging.nl/en/bwv/bwv-244/">St Matthew Passion</a> performed at the Barbican, where we <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/friday_review/story/0,3605,472259,00.html">sang along with the choir</a>, lustily and not entirely in tune.</p>
<p>She took me, too, on her personalised tour of the city. I saw another Christopher Wren building, the church of St Stephen Walbrook, and its splendidly democratic <a href="https://ststephenwalbrook.net/history/henry-moore/">Henry Moore altar</a>. I saw remnants of that ancient Roman construction, the <a href="https://www.barbicanliving.co.uk/blocks/wallside/the-wall/">London Wall</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/if-i-could-go-anywhere-boughton-house-the-english-versailles-and-its-shimmering-treasures-157598">If I could go anywhere: Boughton House, ‘the English Versailles’ and its shimmering treasures</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Just beyond my aunt’s apartment is Michael Ayrton’s priapic <a href="https://www.bowmansculpture.com/michael-ayrton/544e655/minotaur-erect">Minotaur</a> sculpture, which, she told me, often boasts a shopping bag or scarf hooked by some passing wag across the phallus. We went to <a href="http://www.postmanspark.org.uk/about.html">Postman’s Park</a>, devised in the late 19th century by the artist <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/george-frederic-watts-586">George Frederick Watts</a> as a place to remember everyday heroes who lost their lives in saving others. </p>
<p>I want to go back to London, a city all awash with art, and with history tucked between the glass and steel monoliths that characterise its skyline. </p>
<p>I want — in my imagination — to visit my aunt and Maman: to revisit women’s care for family; to remember my aunt’s knowledge of and passion for the city and its art, and her generosity to a niece landing on her doorstep, fresh from the antipodes. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395617/original/file-20210419-19-oaarna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A pretty London park." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395617/original/file-20210419-19-oaarna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395617/original/file-20210419-19-oaarna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395617/original/file-20210419-19-oaarna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395617/original/file-20210419-19-oaarna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395617/original/file-20210419-19-oaarna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395617/original/file-20210419-19-oaarna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395617/original/file-20210419-19-oaarna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Postman’s Park off Aldersgate Street, London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://image.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-uk-august-15-2009-600w-1909271344.jpg">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157859/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jen Webb receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>
In this instalment of our fantasy art travel series, Jen Webb yearns to revisit London, a special aunt and a very big arachnid.
Jen Webb, Dean, Graduate Research, University of Canberra
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/133439
2021-04-11T19:49:38Z
2021-04-11T19:49:38Z
If I could go anywhere: Japanese art island Chichu, a meditation and an education
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392168/original/file-20210329-19-gglinl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C30%2C1459%2C1032&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Time/Timeless/No Time (2004) by Walter De Maria</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/telstar/204536034/in/photolist-j5irm-pXapti-XGN46Z-j5gZ7-6MhW49-j5gX4-h1XegA-4pXwQt-7WrNRn-mYFKFZ-h1XrTm-2gbtRti-7Wv3By-7WrNEV-7WrNHH-iHnURT-6G2LeR-as3XwV-iHp91V-7Wv3gE-7WrNVc-iHrVQQ-iBLjiH-amr7P-iHrTJA-iHpRc3-GoP2FE-iHp9A2-iHrVVj-iHp964-iHopMM-7bQcHn-iHpa3p-6FuBr1-iHpSS7-iBLrxH-iBLsbg-iHrUoS-7nAigX-6EYKgu-8WgEoC-qfqnV9-quG8Xj-xdA3d2-mYFKCH-4oxddR-9aU1NR-4JU6jb-Xj5J55-mYFKx2">Todd Lappin/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/if-i-could-go-anywhere-102157">this series</a> we pay tribute to the art we wish could visit — and hope to see once travel restrictions are lifted.</em></p>
<p><a href="https://benesse-artsite.jp/en/art/chichu.html">The Chichu Art Museum</a> is located on the tiny island of Naoshima, off the southern coast of Japan, in the Kagawa district, reachable only by ferry.</p>
<p>A cross between Buddhist simplicity and Modernist brutalism, from an aerial view Chichu looks like a series of weirdly-shaped concrete pits cut into a gently sloping, grassy hill. </p>
<p>The architect, Tadao Ando, is known for his masterful control of natural light, and to walk through Chichu is to embark on a journey of discovery in which that most ignored element — daylight — is both a mode of transformation and an object of wonder in its own right.</p>
<p>Even before social distancing, Chichu limited the number of tickets sold. Once inside, there are restrictions on how many people can be inside certain rooms and sometimes, how long you can spend there. No photographs are permitted, and quietness is encouraged. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zl7yUk8Zxfw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Almost as good as being there … almost. A virtual tour of Chichu.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/great-time-to-try-travel-writing-from-the-home-134664">Great time to try: travel writing from the home</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>An epic canvas</h2>
<p>There are three artists on display at Chichu, the best-known being Claude Monet and his epic canvas, Water Lilies. The acquisition of this “grand decoration” painted, incredibly, when Monet was in his 70s and suffering from cataracts, was the prime catalyst for establishing the museum. </p>
<p>I had seen paintings from this series years before, in Britain’s morgue-like National Gallery. But in the warm, rounded rooms of Chichu, daylight spilling in from high, oblong windows, the paintings are a miraculous blending of form, colour and reverence for nature. They come alive in ways no viewing technology, however sophisticated, can enhance or emulate. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392172/original/file-20210329-21-1p8up9f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Vibrant water lily artwork by Monet" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392172/original/file-20210329-21-1p8up9f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392172/original/file-20210329-21-1p8up9f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=197&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392172/original/file-20210329-21-1p8up9f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=197&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392172/original/file-20210329-21-1p8up9f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=197&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392172/original/file-20210329-21-1p8up9f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=247&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392172/original/file-20210329-21-1p8up9f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=247&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392172/original/file-20210329-21-1p8up9f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=247&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Claude Monet’s Water Lily Pond at Chichu Art Museum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Monet_Waterlilypond_1926.jpg">Wikimedia Commons/Chichu Art Museum</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ando’s building organically relates to the artworks in every way — the colour of the walls, the tiles on the floor, the dark corridors that link rooms where each visual experience is unique not because it is “world class” but because the relationship being cultivated with visitors is a personal one. The Chichu Handbook reads:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>To provide a better understanding of Monet’s large decorative work from a contemporary perspective, we selected artists Walter De Maria and James Turrell. Both have been referred to as ‘land artists’ for the work they created in vast desert regions and desolate natural settings … Whether outside, inside a room, or in the surrounding environment, all the works are specifically intended for these spaces … The spatial boundary between the real world and contemporary art is indistinct.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Galleries are gatherings of art organised according to the principles of the people who set them up. More than theatres or concert halls, where rapid changes in repertoire create a spirit of flux, they rarely lose a connection with their founders’ underlying philosophy. </p>
<p>All art is reflective of the moment in which it occurs. But galleries are compass points from which, as a society, we take our bearings. MOMA, GOMA, the Guggenheim, Bilbao, the Powerhouse, the Pompidou Centre, the Hermitage. The meaning of these collections is larger than their real estate. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392170/original/file-20210329-25-1840tqh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People from above in sparse concrete setting." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392170/original/file-20210329-25-1840tqh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392170/original/file-20210329-25-1840tqh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392170/original/file-20210329-25-1840tqh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392170/original/file-20210329-25-1840tqh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392170/original/file-20210329-25-1840tqh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392170/original/file-20210329-25-1840tqh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392170/original/file-20210329-25-1840tqh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Visitors at Chichu are almost as carefully placed as the art itself.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/chinnian/11626694444/in/photolist-9yiu3W-j5irm-pXapti-XGN46Z-j5gZ7-6MhW49-j5gX4-h1XegA-4pXwQt-7WrNRn-mYFKFZ-h1XrTm-2gbtRti-7Wv3By-7WrNEV-as3XwV-7WrNHH-iHnURT-6G2LeR-iHp91V-7Wv3gE-7WrNVc-iHrVQQ-iBLjiH-amr7P-iHrTJA-iHpRc3-GoP2FE-iHp9A2-iHrVVj-iHp964-iHopMM-7bQcHn-iHpa3p-6FuBr1-iHpSS7-iBLrxH-iBLsbg-iHrUoS-7nAigX-6EYKgu-8WgEoC-qfqnV9-quG8Xj-xdA3d2-mYFKCH-4oxddR-9aU1NR-4JU6jb-Xj5J55/">Chinnian/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hikikomori-artists-how-japans-extreme-recluses-find-creativity-and-self-discovery-in-isolation-155420">Hikikomori artists – how Japan's extreme recluses find creativity and self-discovery in isolation</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Art amid nature</h2>
<p>What has given rise to Chichu’s powerful vision of art? The answer is, of course, a powerful vision of life; of what our lives could be. Ando writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Chichu … opened as a museum in pursuit of ‘a site to rethink the relationship between nature and people’ in July 2004. The establishment of the museum was a personal way of answering and realising a question that I withheld myself for many years — ‘what does it mean to live well?’ </p>
<p>As suggested by its name, <em>chichu</em> (underground), this museum is built below a slightly elevated hill that was once developed as a saltpan facing the Seto Inland Sea. Without destroying the beautiful natural scenery of the Island and seeking to create a site for dialogues of the mind, the museum is an expression of my belief that ‘art must exist amid nature’. </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392171/original/file-20210329-21-38jqug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Couple sit on deck with Japan sea on horizon." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392171/original/file-20210329-21-38jqug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392171/original/file-20210329-21-38jqug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392171/original/file-20210329-21-38jqug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392171/original/file-20210329-21-38jqug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392171/original/file-20210329-21-38jqug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392171/original/file-20210329-21-38jqug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392171/original/file-20210329-21-38jqug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The view from Naoshima, Kagawa, Japan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1612343281188-d6954aa692fa?ixid=MXwxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHw%3D&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&auto=format&fit=crop&w=2534&q=80">Kaori/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A visit to Chichu is not a prescriptive experience. There is no overriding message, as there is with MONA or the Tate Modern, for which visitors must brace. Instead, there is light, space, and quiet. </p>
<p>There is scope to let the senses unfold, and an expansion of self that permits the mind to occupy a zone of potentially greater understanding. There is nothing clever about Chichu, and a tertiary degree in art history is not required to appreciate what it offers. To walk through the building is education enough. </p>
<p>Minus commentary and cameras, asked to buy a modestly priced ticket ahead of time, to wait, to be silent, the resulting “dialogue of the mind” is structured but open-ended. This is perhaps what artists mean when they talk about “<a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/culturalrights/pages/artisticfreedom.aspx">freedom within the form</a>”.</p>
<p>Truth, value and alternative ways of life are related concepts, reliant on each other. There is a truth to visiting the Chichu collection that is expressed also in its wooden furniture made from <a href="https://www.woodmagazine.com/materials-guide/lumber/wood-species-3/tamo">shioji, a variety of Japanese ash</a>, its strange triangular courtyards, and its breathtaking view of the Seto Inland Sea. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-philosophy-is-an-ideal-travel-companion-for-adventurous-minds-131266">Why philosophy is an ideal travel companion for adventurous minds</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>“To get the most enjoyment out of the works, the viewer should take a moment between each gallery to reflect on the lingering sensation before moving on to the next group of works”, says the handbook. </p>
<p>Zen Buddhist awareness of the transience of existence marries with a large scale public building in the Western democratic tradition to produce a purposeful, spiritual encounter not filled with dogmatic content. </p>
<p>If there was a preciousness to the Chichu Art Museum I didn’t feel it. It was a relaxed, well-appointed and functional place, rather like the Japanese Shinkansen train that brought me to the ferry terminal. Leaving, I felt lighter, as if something I did not need had been discretely removed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/133439/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julian Meyrick does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Chichu Art Museum, on the Japanese island of Naoshima, is a breathtaking place to rethink the relationship between nature and people.
Julian Meyrick, Professor of Creative Arts, Griffith University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/74404
2017-03-14T09:51:00Z
2017-03-14T09:51:00Z
Academics collaborate with artists to ask: who are we to fear refugees and migrants?
<p><a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/workshop/tate-exchange/who-are-we">Who Are We</a>? This is the question that London’s Tate is asking at its free six day cross-platform event spanning the visual arts, film, photography, design, architecture, the spoken and written word and live art. The aim of the programme is to foster collaboration and exchange between artists and researchers, with a view to exploring what is becoming of the UK and Europe. How can “another we” be created, one less susceptible to the fear and suspicion currently dominating the continent? </p>
<p>The projects vary in scope and topic, from theatre to digital visualisation and from interventions such as redesigning the Union Jack to partaking in local acts of kindness. I myself am involved in a collaboration with the artist Bern O’Donoghue. Together, we have created an installation looking at the question of the “refugee crisis” and the question of migration.</p>
<p>Hostility to new arrivals and longer-standing immigrant communities is now rampant across Europe – not only in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/mood-around-immigration-has-made-britain-a-nastier-place-61234">UK</a>, but also in <a href="https://euobserver.com/tickers/137031">Germany</a>, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/refugee-crisis-hungary-border-police-guards-fence-beating-asylum-seekers-migrants-serbia-push-back-a7610411.html">Hungary</a> and elsewhere. Fear predominates. People on the move are often viewed with suspicion on the part of “host” communities. Despite a broad range of political and social responses to the so-called European refugee “crisis”, a security-orientated concern with “foreigners” <a href="https://theconversation.com/mood-around-immigration-has-made-britain-a-nastier-place-61234">dominates</a> public and political debate.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160545/original/image-20170313-9628-1t8vdfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160545/original/image-20170313-9628-1t8vdfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160545/original/image-20170313-9628-1t8vdfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160545/original/image-20170313-9628-1t8vdfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160545/original/image-20170313-9628-1t8vdfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160545/original/image-20170313-9628-1t8vdfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160545/original/image-20170313-9628-1t8vdfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lampedusa, ‘boat cemetery’, September 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Vicki Squire</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Meanwhile, efforts to construct different ways of talking about the issue appear to have failed to capture public imaginations. A humanitarian approach has been <a href="http://bordercriminologies.law.ox.ac.uk/humanitarian-policing-of-our-sea/">co-opted</a> by the security agenda, such as when humanitarian organisations rescue people at sea only to deliver them to a detention regime.</p>
<p>Indeed, humanitarianism has been reproached from various angles as either “<a href="https://theconversation.com/tolerance-and-humanitarianism-will-not-solve-europes-migration-crisis-67400">too soft</a>” and idealistic, or as <a href="http://www.refworld.org/pdfid/4ff159d32.pdf">victimising people</a> on the move in precarious conditions. Just consider Germany’s “open door” approach and you will see the difficulties of humanitarianism, particularly one that is so evidently <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/06/refugee-crisis-germany-response-heartwarming-will-pressures-show">pragmatic and self-interested</a>.</p>
<p>As Miriam Ticktin has <a href="http://www.newschool.edu/nssr/faculty/?id=4d54-6379-4e44-4d35">argued</a>, humanitarianism is not simply compassionate. It also “hurts” people who don’t qualify as innocent and who are left at the whims of a compassion that <a href="http://www.publicseminar.org/2015/09/the-problem-with-humanitarian-borders/#.WMZyzxh0dsN">can be fleeting</a>. Alternative responses and ways of thinking about migration that are grounded in respect for each person or the dignity of all lives, including those rendered precarious through movement, need to be forged.</p>
<h2>So who are we?</h2>
<p>Many have tried to address the question of how to create such alternative approaches to migration or mobility in a theoretical manner. For example, the appeal to people on the move simply as human, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/28/migrants-humans-drowning-suffocating-safety-statistics">as their European counterparts are</a>, is one that has frequented debates in the midst of hostility over recent months and years.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160542/original/image-20170313-9600-b9eb10.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160542/original/image-20170313-9600-b9eb10.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160542/original/image-20170313-9600-b9eb10.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160542/original/image-20170313-9600-b9eb10.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160542/original/image-20170313-9600-b9eb10.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160542/original/image-20170313-9600-b9eb10.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160542/original/image-20170313-9600-b9eb10.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Athens, Piraeus Port camp, May 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Vicki Squire, Crossing the Mediterranean Sea by Boat</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Such debates are important, but how they can capture public imaginations in the midst of times dominated by fear and hostility is unclear. So O’Donoghue and I have taken a different tack, working together in this installation to provide tools for people to explore “who we are” and our relation to a “crisis” that has left many dead after seeking to travel to Europe by boat across the dangerous Mediterranean Sea.</p>
<p>Our installation and <a href="https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/dead-reckoning-crossing-the-med-thinking-and-feeling-migration-differently-tickets-32255381715">symposium</a> is designed to provide opportunities to explore how different creative mediums and tools of interaction can enable a transformation in the ways that people respond to migration. Specifically, we want to explore the power of artistic creativity, dialogue, and story-sharing in opening up new ways for host communities to relate to people on the move in precarious situations.</p>
<p>Our projects – O’Donoghue’s art installation, <a href="http://www.bernodonoghue.com/dead-reckoning/">Dead Reckoning</a>, and my story map, <a href="http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/research/researchcentres/irs/crossingthemed/">Crossing the Med</a>, provide a new perspective on the journeys and experiences of people seeking to cross the Mediterranean sea by boat. While the projects are independent from one another, we have worked together to bring different tools by which people can reflect upon and have dialogue about a “migration crisis” that is characterised by many deaths at sea.</p>
<h2>Dead reckoning/crossing the Med</h2>
<p>I am also involved in a collaborative <a href="http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/research/researchcentres/irs/crossingthemed/">research project</a> involving scholars from <a href="http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/">University of Warwick</a>, <a href="http://www.um.edu.mt/">University of Malta</a>, and <a href="http://www.eliamep.gr/en/">ELIAMEP</a>, Greece. We carried out over 250 in-depth qualitative interviews with people who have attempted – or who have planned to attempt – the dangerous boat journey across the eastern and central Mediterranean sea routes.</p>
<p>The primary aim of this project is to assess policy effects on people on the move and to inform policy makers. But we are also concerned to inform wider public perceptions of migration, and to challenge the tendencies that are driven by fear and hostility.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160574/original/image-20170313-9606-k1uw34.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160574/original/image-20170313-9606-k1uw34.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160574/original/image-20170313-9606-k1uw34.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160574/original/image-20170313-9606-k1uw34.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160574/original/image-20170313-9606-k1uw34.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160574/original/image-20170313-9606-k1uw34.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160574/original/image-20170313-9606-k1uw34.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160574/original/image-20170313-9606-k1uw34.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Crossing the Med story map: Rome.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">University of Warwick 2017</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Acknowledging the importance of <a href="http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/83576/">sharing stories</a> with people on the move, the story map we created for the Tate event enables people to follow individual journeys in order to understand more about the complexity and challenges of migratory experiences.</p>
<p>This is where O’Donoghue’s work resonates strongly with my own. Her <a href="http://www.bernodonoghue.com/dead-reckoning/">installation</a> is composed of multicoloured paper boats, each of which represents a person who was recorded as drowned in the Mediterranean during 2016. She aims to depict the monthly loss of life by using 12 different colour combinations to marble the paper. This helps her to highlight the ways that changes in the weather, season or policies surrounding migration in Europe can affect the number of people who have died.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160541/original/image-20170313-9641-1hlikfq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160541/original/image-20170313-9641-1hlikfq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160541/original/image-20170313-9641-1hlikfq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160541/original/image-20170313-9641-1hlikfq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160541/original/image-20170313-9641-1hlikfq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160541/original/image-20170313-9641-1hlikfq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160541/original/image-20170313-9641-1hlikfq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dead Reckoning, October 2016, Attenborough Centre, University of Sussex.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Bern O’Donoghue</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>O’Donoghue draws on data on the deceased collected by the IOM <a href="https://missingmigrants.iom.int/">Missing Migrants Project</a>, yet importantly seeks to emphasise the people behind the statistics. “Every one of the 5,083 paper boats symbolises a loss of someone significant: a daughter, son, neighbour or friend,” she <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/vicki-squire-bern-o-donoghue/5083-boats-dead-reckoning">explains</a>. By handwriting titles such as “mother”, “friend”, “baby” on each boat, O’Donoghue seeks to humanise people on the move rather than rendering them inhuman as “numbers” associated with the fear of migration.</p>
<p>Academic Lilie Chouliaraki has <a href="http://www.lse.ac.uk/researchAndExpertise/Experts/profile.aspx?KeyValue=l.chouliaraki@lse.ac.uk">argued</a> that humanitarianism today has been reduced to a mere <a href="http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/44959/">spectatorship</a> of the victimhood of others. By contrast, our installation invites visitors to become more intimate with the details of people who make the risky journey across the Mediterreanean Sea. This involvement refuses the role of passive spectator in the face of the violence of contemporary bordering practices. And we hope it will encourage people to take home stories and ideas of what they can do to make a difference wherever – and whoever – they are.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74404/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vicki Squire receives funding from the UK Economic and Social Research Council as well as from The Leverhulme Trust.</span></em></p>
A more intimate connection with the details of migrants crossing the Mediterranean can happen through art.
Vicki Squire, Reader in International Security, University of Warwick
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/73726
2017-03-01T13:36:25Z
2017-03-01T13:36:25Z
Wolfgang Tillmans poignantly explores the role of photography today
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158932/original/image-20170301-5497-15zl26d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">La Palma, 2014 © Wolfgang Tillmans</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>I first came across the work of Wolfgang Tillmans in my late teens on the pages of the now defunct <a href="http://www.buttmagazine.com">BUTT</a>, the magazine I used to religiously purchase as a young queer man. It was no surprise, then, that a selection of printed copies of the magazine made it to <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/wolfgang-tillmans-2017">Wolfgang Tillmans: 2017</a>, the artist’s first ever exhibition at Tate Modern.</p>
<p>Born in Remscheid, Germany in 1968, Tillmans moved to the UK in 1990 to study at what is now the Arts University Bournemouth. In the years that have since passed, he has produced a diverse body of photographic work, not only for magazines such as BUTT and i-D, but also for activist publications, sexual health campaigns, and gallery spaces. This trajectory led him to become the first photographer and non-British artist to win the Turner Prize, in 2000.</p>
<p>This varied career is reflected in the Tate’s show. Upon entering, one is faced with a weird ecology of images: a wide variety of photographs taken since 2003 stuck directly to the walls with magic tape, or hung from them, mostly unframed, with the help of white paper clamps. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158926/original/image-20170301-5492-o1rptm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158926/original/image-20170301-5492-o1rptm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158926/original/image-20170301-5492-o1rptm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158926/original/image-20170301-5492-o1rptm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158926/original/image-20170301-5492-o1rptm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158926/original/image-20170301-5492-o1rptm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158926/original/image-20170301-5492-o1rptm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158926/original/image-20170301-5492-o1rptm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sendeschluss/End of Broadcast VI.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Wolfgang Tillmans</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The photographed scenes vary as much as the size of the prints, from <a href="http://www.artnet.com/artists/wolfgang-tillmans/sendeschluss-end-of-broadcast-v-a-2gHrc1lfjSyWmXqejs25uw2">Sendeschluss/End of Broadcast</a>, a very large digital photograph of analogue TV static, to <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/528a0b52e4b016c0d8346859/52ee626ee4b0288e8f27204b/52ee64a8e4b0223b0e66077c/1395746257845/Like+Prayin+(Faded+Fax).jpg">Like Praying</a>, a small faded fax copy of a photograph depicting a naked young man prostrated on the floor. The images appear to bear no relation to one another and their installation at varying heights seems rather random.</p>
<h2>The voyeuristic camera</h2>
<p>But as one moves through the various rooms, a certain rationale or even preoccupation becomes increasingly clear. Tillmans emerges as an artist exploring the role and limits of photography as both documentation and agent of an increasingly visually-saturated world. This is a task that appears all the more relevant in the time of so-called “fake news”.</p>
<p>In Tillmans’s work, the voyeuristic nature of the photographic camera draws no boundaries between the private and the public, the personal and the collective. His camera moves restlessly, even obsessively between these spheres, documenting the lives and events that populate them with an eye for the political. In one room, for instance, photographs of the artist’s studio and working equipment are shown alongside <a href="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/10/14/arts/14TILLMANS/14TILLMANS-master675.jpg">17 Years’ Supply</a> (2014), a close-up of a cardboard box filled with bottles of HIV medication. In the following room, <a href="https://www.fondationbeyeler.ch/en/collection/work/detail/69-munuwata-sky/">Munuwata Sky</a>, a wide shot of a nighttime landscape in Papua New Guinea, is shown right next to <a href="http://www.influx.co.uk/blog/headlight-by-wolfgng-tillmans/">Headlight</a>, a cropped detail of a car headlight. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158929/original/image-20170301-5504-1l2nmop.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158929/original/image-20170301-5504-1l2nmop.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158929/original/image-20170301-5504-1l2nmop.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158929/original/image-20170301-5504-1l2nmop.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158929/original/image-20170301-5504-1l2nmop.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158929/original/image-20170301-5504-1l2nmop.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158929/original/image-20170301-5504-1l2nmop.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Munuwata Sky (left) and Headlight (a) (right).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Wolfgang Tillmans</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Moving from room to room, faced with this constant juxtaposition, one gets a very tangible sense of how the camera moves in Tillmans’s hands: jumping from intimately close, almost pornographic, details of objects and people to wider shots of the indoor and outdoor spaces of contemporary life. And as the prints displayed in the various rooms vary considerably in size and have been installed by the artist himself in various clusters and at different heights, viewers are also forced to move closer and further away in order to see them clearly. In doing so, they replicate the movements of the artist’s camera. </p>
<h2>Personal and political</h2>
<p>Tillmans’s interest in the relationship between the documentary nature of photography and reality becomes evident in the room housing his 2005 project <a href="https://selfselector.co.uk/2010/11/15/interview-with-wolfgang-tillmans/">Truth Study Center</a>. Comprised of items such as photographs, newspapers clippings, printouts from the web, and scientific papers arranged together in wooden display cases, the series draws the viewer’s attention to how truth is produced across different languages and media, often in conflicting, political ways. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158927/original/image-20170301-5507-1rn3lg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158927/original/image-20170301-5507-1rn3lg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158927/original/image-20170301-5507-1rn3lg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158927/original/image-20170301-5507-1rn3lg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158927/original/image-20170301-5507-1rn3lg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158927/original/image-20170301-5507-1rn3lg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158927/original/image-20170301-5507-1rn3lg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158927/original/image-20170301-5507-1rn3lg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Silver 115.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Wolfgang Tillmans</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Interestingly, alongside those displays, the artist decided to also install prints from his ongoing abstract <a href="http://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/2014/01/wolfgang-tillmans-at-daniel-buchholz/">Silver</a> series. These works are produced by exposing photographic paper to light and then passing it through a dirty photo-developing machine in order to collect traces of dirt and silver salts. These images present the photograph as a trace of reality in a different, more material way.</p>
<p>But the documentary juxtaposition of political and personal, private and public scenes is nowhere more poignant than in the room most obviously dedicated to queer intimacy and activism. There, <a href="https://se2015.royalacademy.org.uk/2015/selections/Bodies/67">Arms and Legs</a> (2014), an erotic close-up of a male hand underneath another man’s red sports shorts, is shown amongst documentation of queer street activism, pages of a magazine interview about LGBTQ+ rights in Russia, a photograph of two girls tenderly kissing, nightclub scenes, close-ups of bodies and genitalia, and more innocent though equally tender shots like <a href="http://myartguides.com/exhibitions/wolfgang-tillmans-2017/attachment/2012-184_juan_pablo_karl_chingaza-tillmans/">Juan Pablo & Karl, Chingaza 2012</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158889/original/image-20170301-5507-185rf7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158889/original/image-20170301-5507-185rf7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158889/original/image-20170301-5507-185rf7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158889/original/image-20170301-5507-185rf7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158889/original/image-20170301-5507-185rf7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158889/original/image-20170301-5507-185rf7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158889/original/image-20170301-5507-185rf7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wolfgang Tillmans, Juan Pablo & Karl, Chingaza 2012.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Wolfgang Tillmans</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As viewers become immersed in the political entanglements of desire, intimacy, care and activism, music by Colourbox can be heard from the adjacent Playback Room, where speakers play songs recorded by the English band who never performed live, only producing studio records. Featuring these recordings – which have no public live origin – further highlights the complexity of the relationship between the photograph and the life it supposedly records.</p>
<p>What initially may have appeared to be a random juxtaposition of photographic, textual, and audio records, turns out to be a poignant examination of the ways in which we try to record life in order to read meaning into it. And of the limits of those records: how they may touch upon but never really replace that for which they stand. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158931/original/image-20170301-5492-1jq7v6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158931/original/image-20170301-5492-1jq7v6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158931/original/image-20170301-5492-1jq7v6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158931/original/image-20170301-5492-1jq7v6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158931/original/image-20170301-5492-1jq7v6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158931/original/image-20170301-5492-1jq7v6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158931/original/image-20170301-5492-1jq7v6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nachtstilleben, 2011.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Wolfgang Tillmans</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As I left the show, I was pervaded by a sense of the fragile aching beauty of the everyday, the precarious nature and contingency of our lives and of the world around us. I thought about freedom, desire, intimacy, community and the value of our permeability to one another, which we must uphold. And I thought about how all of that seems increasingly at risk thanks to the borders, walls and checkpoints we insist on building around us.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73726/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>João Florêncio is a member of UCU and the Labour Party.</span></em></p>
Exploring the role and limits of photography is a task that appears all the more relevant in the era of fake news.
João Florêncio, Lecturer in History of Modern and Contemporary Art and Visual Culture, University of Exeter
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/70148
2016-12-08T13:40:46Z
2016-12-08T13:40:46Z
The Turner Prize may seem out of date, but it created the UK’s contemporary art scene
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149261/original/image-20161208-31391-1qeze7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Helen Marten © Tate</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The news that Helen Marten won the 2016 Turner Prize this week was met with great and well deserved acclaim. Established by a group called the Patrons of New Art in 1984 and now in its 32nd year, the Turner Prize is exactly one year older than the winning artist herself. </p>
<p>It was set up to encourage and promote a wider interest in contemporary art throughout the UK, which it certainly has achieved, but today commentary is frequently disparaging – it has been called “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2016/nov/15/turner-prize-age-limit-over-50">boring</a>”, “<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3561401/The-Turner-Prize-2008-who-cares-who-wins.html">irrelevant</a>” and “<a href="https://theconversation.com/turner-shortlisted-artist-the-prize-machine-stifles-art-48454">lumbering</a>” in recent years.</p>
<p>As such, it was refreshing this year not only to encounter the breadth and ingenuity of Marten’s work but to hear, in her acceptance speech, of her <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/nov/18/hepworth-sculpture-prize-winner-helen-marten-share-30000-award">distaste for “hierarchical” art prizes</a> and her pledge to share the prize money with her fellow nominees. She revealed a sense of something progressive and pioneering.</p>
<p>I’m a practising artist, who was nominated for the prize in collaboration with my twin sister Jane in 1999. And like Helen Marten, we also had our first solo museum show at The Serpentine Gallery around the same time. We were nominated alongside fellow artists Tracey Emin, Steve McQueen and Steven Pippin. That year, the much acclaimed Oscar-winning director and video artist Steve McQueen won. This was a period in which the Turner attracted much less negativity in the press. So it’s interesting to reflect, 17 years on, on what kind of impact the prize has had on the wider British contemporary art scene.</p>
<h2>Turner copycats</h2>
<p>What is certain is that the prize has been very successful in its mission statement of promoting and widening access to contemporary art. The Turner is still considered by many to be the benchmark of success for artists both nationally and internationally. Its format has been copied, adopted, modified and embraced internationally – from the Vincent Award in Amsterdam and the Hugo Boss Prize in New York to the Duchamp Prize in Paris and the Abraaj Capital Art Prize in the UAE. </p>
<p>The prize continues to thrive and without its impact we might well have been facing an even more serious threat to the vision for the arts in education, which is currently struggling enough – as evidenced in the Department of Education’s adoption of the <a href="http://www.artsprofessional.co.uk/news/arts-teachers-confirm-dire-impact-ebacc-classroom">EBacc system</a>, whereby all creative subjects including GCSE Art are no longer seen as essential to the secondary school curriculum. Without the Turner, I believe there would have been a real possibility of an incurable challenge to the diversity and potential for the creative industries in the UK. </p>
<p>But following the Turner’s example, art prizes have blossomed in the UK in recent years. There’s the <a href="http://www.artesmundi.org/">International Artes Mundi Prize</a> in Cardiff, the <a href="http://www.hepworthwakefield.org/news/the-hepworth-wakefield-announces-the-four-shortlisted-artists-and-judging-panel-for-the-uk-s-first-prize-for-sculpture/">Hepworth Prize for Sculpture</a> in Wakefield, <a href="http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/johnmoores/">John Moores Painting Prize</a> in Liverpool and – open to all UK undergraduates – the <a href="http://www.balticmill.com/about/baltic-news/woon-foundation-prize-2016-call-for-entries">Woon Foundation Prize</a> in Newcastle.</p>
<h2>New awards</h2>
<p>Art prizes are everywhere, it would seem, but there are some that are now starting to shift away from the familiar hierarchical format of the Turner Prize in pioneering and timely new ways. </p>
<p>In March this year, The Freelands Foundation <a href="https://www.a-n.co.uk/news/new-100000-award-launched-for-women-artists">announced a new award worth £100,000</a> for women artists, who are still dismally underrepresented within the art world. The award is the first of its kind to challenge this hierarchy by supporting a regional arts organisation to present an exhibition alongside realising a significant new work by a mid-career female artist living and working in the UK.</p>
<p>And last month, BALTIC Centre of Contemporary Art, Gateshead – the first venue outside of London to host the Turner Prize in 2012 – launched its own <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/baltic-new-emerging-artists-award-744944#.WCnvrc_3HwA.email">New Artists Award</a> to be given to four emerging artists. This will be the first UK award ever to be selected solely by artists. Each recipient will receive the same amount as the Turner Prize winner – £25,000 – to create a new work that will be exhibited at BALTIC for 13 weeks, along with a £5,000 fee.</p>
<p>The legacy of The Turner prize is to continually recalibrate, revise and transform conceptions of contemporary art. The UK art world has changed immeasurably since 1984 and it is now a global enterprise. Yet it is a powerful testament to the strength and resilience of the creative industries in the regions that we have as many contemporary art galleries, art museums, artist-led organisations and arts-based education and research projects in colleges and universities. </p>
<p>And this message is only getting stronger. At the opening of the new Tate Modern earlier this year, the introduction of the new <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern/tate-exchange?gclid=CJrslMS35NACFW217QodI00NDw">Tate Exchange</a> initiative was announced, placing art education and access for all at the heart of the UK’s foremost public contemporary art museum – and creator of the Turner Prize.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70148/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louise Wilson is currently BALTIC artist trustee.
</span></em></p>
Helen Marten, this year’s winner, has revealed a sense of something progressive and pioneering.
Louise Wilson, Senior Lecturer in Fine Art, Northumbria University, Newcastle
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/65011
2016-09-07T19:20:07Z
2016-09-07T19:20:07Z
Under the influence of … Dumile Feni’s ‘African Guernica’
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136886/original/image-20160907-16611-16gemxm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dumile Feni's 'African Guernica' - charcoal on paper.</span> </figcaption></figure><p><em>In our regular series, “Under the influence”, we ask experts to share what they believe are the most influential works of art in their field. Here, artist/academic Sharlene Khan explains why she finds South African artist Dumile Feni’s “African Guernica” (ca 1967) hugely influential.</em></p>
<h2>My relationship with the work</h2>
<p>Standing in front of South African visual artist <a href="http://www.revisions.co.za/biographies/dumile-feni/#.V8_3Qfl97IU">Dumile Feni</a>’s “<a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/dumile-feni-biography-sophia-reuss">African Guernica</a>” when I was 19 years old at the University of Fort Hare Gallery in 1996 felt like something between hero-worship and a pilgrimage. At high school, Feni was one of my “favourite” artists, in the way one speaks of favourites in one’s youth. </p>
<p>I loved seemingly tortured “expressionistic” artists like <a href="http://www.artble.com/artists/honore_daumier">Honoré Daumier</a>, <a href="http://www.artble.com/artists/vincent_van_gogh">Vincent Van Gogh</a>, <a href="http://www.franciscogoya.com/">Francisco Goya</a>, <a href="http://honolulumuseum.org/art/exhibitions/15899-k_kollwitz/">Käthe Kollwitz</a>, <a href="http://www.revisions.co.za/biographies/cyprian-shilakoe/#.V8_7sPl97IU">Cyprien Shilakoe</a> and Feni. They seemed to understand the depth of human suffering. Their commentary undercut politics to question the very soul of human beings. </p>
<p>“African Guernica” – often spoken in relation to Spaniard Pablo Picasso’s equally haunting work <a href="http://www.pablopicasso.org/guernica.jsp">commentary</a> on the plight of war in his country – surpassed this for me.</p>
<h2>Why it is/was influential</h2>
<p>In recent years, the <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern">Tate Modern Gallery</a> in London has a room with the two massive pieces of Leon Golub’s <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/golub-vietnam-ii-t13702">“Vietnam II”</a> (1973) and Dia al-Azzawi’s <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/al-azzawi-sabra-and-shatila-massacre-t14116">“Sabra and Shatila Massacre”</a> (1983). Both pieces, like Picasso’s “Guernica” (1937), deal with the trauma and devastation of conflict and war in very different contexts. Golub’s concerns the American invasion of Vietnam and Azzawi’s the murder of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians in Lebanon. </p>
<p>Looking at these works, I often thought about how Feni’s work was part of the dialogue of political unrest and human suffering on display. But while Golub, Azzawi and Picasso’s works all communicate feelings of chaos, conflict and trauma, Feni’s work has always stood out for the feeling of insanity that he visualises metaphorically.</p>
<p>In Feni’s painting we see a scene dominated by various animal and pseudo-human figures. A double-headed cow turns its back on us while it suckles a child at its teats. A grotesque naked squealing human figure, head a-kilter, seems to be splitting from itself with a third leg. Two groping figures seem to see each other and are alarmed. Another strange-armed figure is seated at a table as if awaiting a meal, while he seems to be begging at the same time. Yet another of these figures seems to be the harbinger of doom – perhaps one of the four biblical horsemen except his steed seems to be more of a comical cow. </p>
<p>Other animals (cows, ducks, cat, fowl) roam the landscape. These figures are stark white against a darkened background which contains repetitions of this maddened scene (as well as wandering figures). It is a visualisation perhaps of the seven deadly biblical sins, except there is no god to judge or save. Can this abyss be likened to our unconscious, the residual in which we seem to be a chaotic folk, a scene in which rational actions are furthered into the insane? </p>
<p>Human beings make art. We reason. We have evolved beyond the basic needs of survival. But in Feni’s “African Guernica” we see exactly the tensions of an artist commenting on the insanity of reason which results in the oppression of one human being by another. </p>
<p>It was done in 1967 when the world was contesting race, gender, sexuality and neo-colonialisms. One assumes that Feni is commenting on colonial racism that by this time has become institutionalised as <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/apartheid-and-reactions-it">apartheid</a> in South Africa. European colonial-modernist racist propaganda functioned on the rationalisation that certain groups of human beings were lower down the evolutionary chain. It operated on the “fact” of these groups’ proximity to animals, that could therefore be regarded as animals, as devoid of human thinking and feeling. </p>
<h2>Almost-but-not-right</h2>
<p>Primitives were almost-but-not quite, almost-but-not-white, almost-but-not-right. Postcolonial theorist <a href="https://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/bhabha/mimicry.html">Homi K Bhabha</a> reminds us that the slippage of this “almost-but-not-quiteness” was not merely justification that allowed the denigration and economic exploitation of certain bodies. But that it was a desire, an imagination that allowed a distinction between a higher order and the lower order, gave a group of people’s its idea of itself through a “not-quiteness” of the Other. </p>
<p>This was a cultural supremacy that could enslave men and women and treat them as animals. It could create complex systems of colonial order across the globe in order to claim and access natural resources, including bodies. This supremacy could systematically control, segregate and annihilate millions of people. </p>
<p>It is not just the heinousness of the act of war and the resultant trauma that is atrocious for Feni living in a legislated system of human degradation. It is also the very mindsets and societal values that lead to a warped society where we no longer can separate human from animals. A society where animals may seem more humane than the folks they are meant to serve.</p>
<p>The stark whitened figures which are visually disjunctive with their background should read as “positive” images – white against black. And yet one wonders if they are rather voids, an outline of a thing that has become distorted in its “thing-ness”? </p>
<p>And what to say of the darkened figures in the abyss? Are they the colonised man that repeats at a distance actions which are not his own as psychoanalyst Frantz Fanon eulogises in “<a href="http://abahlali.org/files/__Black_Skin__White_Masks__Pluto_Classics_.pdf">Black Skin, White Masks</a>”?</p>
<h2>Why it is still relevant</h2>
<p>In a darkened Rhodes University Theatre in July 2016 a <a href="https://www.nationalartsfestival.co.za/events/animal-farm/">new staging</a> of “<a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100011h.html">Animal Farm</a>” directed by Neil Coppen, features a cast of six young black South African women (Mpume Mthombeni, Tshego Khutoane, MoMo Matsunyane, Mandisa Nduana, Khutjo Bakunzi-Green and Zesuliwe Hadebe). <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/orwell_george.shtml">George Orwell</a>’s 1945 story has become a classic, prophetic of the manner in which communist ideals devolve into capitalistic nightmares. The cast is utterly brilliant in their multiple roles – in the manner in which their bodies enact the animal characters and slide into present day critiques of democratic capitalistic governing models, in particular but certainly not limited to South Africa. </p>
<p>Several times during the play Feni’s “African Guernica” comes to mind as exploitation and human abasement, first as tragedy, then, in its repetition, turns to farce. Great for comedy, for theatre, for visual art metaphors, much less funny in reality.</p>
<p>The power of Feni’s “African Guernica” is not simply that he blatantly recognised the insanity of white colonial racist rule. Nor is it that he recognised how everyone in a warped system loses their “humanity”. It is also not only that he visualised local conditions of human oppression, nor that, even like Orwell’s text, it seems prophetic of days to come.</p>
<p>But rather, it is like the Goyas, Daumiers, Orwells and many other insightful creative intellectuals throughout time and in various societies, sensing the power and chaos that lurks in all of us to rationalise our ways as the next oppressors, the next supremacists, harbingers of truths, civilisation and order, even when madness unfolds before our very eyes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65011/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sharlene Khan receives funding from National Research Foundation, National Arts Council. </span></em></p>
‘African Guernica’ is an incredibly powerful work of art in many ways, importantly filling that space between the visible and the visible.
Sharlene Khan, Senior Lecturer of Art History and Visual Culture, Rhodes University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/44600
2015-07-14T05:22:16Z
2015-07-14T05:22:16Z
Museums are using virtual reality to preserve the past – before it’s too late
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/88231/original/image-20150713-11825-16melst.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Virtual history.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Ayyubid_wall_cyark_2.jpg">Cyark/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Cultural institutions are steeped in history and tradition, but they are also uniquely placed to take advantage of some of the latest technology. Drones, 3D printing and <a href="http://www.tomsguide.com/us/pictures-story/657-best-augmented-reality-apps.html">augmented reality apps</a> are just some of the tools being used to construct “virtual museum” experiences for real and digital visitors. While these technologies open up new and exciting possibilities for curators, they also provoke resistance around the issues of authenticity, ownership and value. </p>
<p>There are currently a number of projects under way that explore how historically or culturally significant sites and objects can be presented using digital means. For instance, <a href="http://www.collectionstrust.org.uk/digital/are-we-ready-for-3d-printing">museums around the world</a> are investigating the possibilities offered by 3D printers to extend and further examine their collections in a form where detail can be magnified and destruction is far less consequential. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the EU’s <a href="http://digiart-project.eu">Digiart</a> project will be using drones to “capture” inaccessible cultural artefacts, before creating advanced 3D representations of them. And <a href="http://www.cyark.org/">Cyark</a> is creating a free online 3D library of the world’s cultural heritage sites, using a combination of lasers and computer modelling. </p>
<h2>Internet of historical things?</h2>
<p>According to Digiart, one result of this might be an “Internet of Historical Things”: one where immersive 3D story worlds become a genuine possibility for historical encounters. </p>
<p>The Smithsonian offer an online <a href="http://www.mnh.si.edu/panoramas/">Panoramic Virtual Tour</a>, as do the <a href="http://www.louvre.fr/en/visites-en-ligne">Louvre</a> and the <a href="http://www.revolvingpicture.com/virtual-tours/moc/">V&A Museum of Childhood</a>. Augmented reality applications are a feature of many <a href="http://www.dead-mens-eyes.org">sites of archaeological significance</a> </p>
<p>It is not uncommon to find museums rendered in Minecraft, lovingly built brick-by-brick by an invisible crowd of tech-savvy fans, as in the British Museum’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO62QED28jg">Museumcraft</a>, or the shortlisted IK prize entry <a href="http://thecommonpeople.tv/ik-prize-shortlisted-tatecraft/">Tatecraft</a>. Digital media are also impacting the analogue museum experience profoundly, perhaps most playfully evidenced in the world’s first selfie museum, <a href="http://hyperallergic.com/191194/an-art-museum-designed-for-taking-selfies/">Life in Island</a>, where, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/museums/11448654/Where-can-I-use-my-selfie-stick.html">unlike some cultural venues</a>, selfie sticks are welcome.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aXC8JUmb12U?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Tatecraft creator Adam Clarke explains his idea.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One question to consider is whether the extension of this activity into the realm of play and the imagination alienates us further from the authentic “aura” of the original, undermining it, devaluing it, or perhaps even exposing its limitations. The rhetoric of authenticity has traditionally been key to the way heritage experiences are packaged and sold to us. Yet “authenticity” is not an objective value – it is always ascribed to (say) an object or a work of art, by some authority. </p>
<p>Museums often recognise this – and have engaged in active exploration of the limits of the authentic. <a href="http://www.faelschermuseum.com/Seite1_englisch.htm">The Museum of Art Fakes</a> in Germany is a prime example, as is the recent <a href="http://www.themuseumoflies.com/">Museum of Lies</a> initiative from Incidental and Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales. Museums have begun to embrace the possibilities of “remix culture”, offering high-resolution artworks (for example) for re-use and circulation. The Rijksmuseum’s <a href="https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/rijksstudio">Rijksstudio</a> is a beautifully crafted example of how this can work in practice. In <a href="http://www.ashgate.%20com/isbn/9781409442998">my own research</a>, I tend to find the public demonstrate more conservative attitudes than the conservators to such developments.</p>
<h2>Cultural emergency</h2>
<p>But these are not really new developments. People have been talking about virtual museums for many years
as ways of allowing visitors access to sites and experiences that would not otherwise be available to them. What is remarkable is how far we have come from the clunky interactivity offered in those early attempts, and the number of ways that online and on-site experiences have begun to blur. </p>
<p>Exploring the line between fact and fiction has an appeal for institutions that have historically been caught up in <a href="http://www.ashgate.com.isbn/9781409435631">discussions</a> about origins, preservation and – more recently – restitution. Being able to test new forms of reality raises fascinating and far-reaching issues – which museums and galleries are not shying away from. </p>
<p>For instance, there are a host of ethical concerns around recreation and representation. These developments open up new avenues for debate about the restitution of cultural artefacts: if I can 3D print the Elgin Marbles or build them in Minecraft, does that complicate the discussion about their ownership, or make it more straightforward?</p>
<p>Throughout 2015, the wars in Ukraine, Syria and Iraq have continued to <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/17/middleeast/syria-civil-war-by-the-numbers/">claim lives and displace millions</a>. Alongside the shocking human toll of these conflicts, there is a growing concern about the cultural losses <a href="http://rt.com/politics/245253-russia-ukraine-monuments-probe/">being inflicted on</a> these ancient civilisations. Footage shot by drones in Syria has given us unprecedented access to, and evidence of, the destruction of cultural heritage in those parts. UNESCO have launched an <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/safeguarding-syrian-cultural-heritage/international-initiatives/emergency-safeguarding-of-syria-heritage/">emergency initiative</a> to safeguard Syrian cultural heritage. </p>
<p>Michael Danti of the Syrian Heritage Initiative at the American Schools of Oriental Research <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/545458d4-fae9-11e4-9aed-00144feab7de.html#axzz3fPHDCTOo">has said</a> that these developments are “the worst cultural heritage emergency since World War II”. Tourism cannot take the same form again in countries that have seen that level of devastation. Here we see how technologies can be used not only to document the making – and unmaking – of heritage, but also to rebuild it; both materially and in the imagination.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44600/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jenny Kidd receives funding from the ESRC and AHRC.</span></em></p>
Here’s how some of the world’s oldest cultural institutions are using drones and 3D printing to bring their collections to life.
Jenny Kidd, Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/25721
2014-04-22T13:08:26Z
2014-04-22T13:08:26Z
Blockbuster pricing: why is the Matisse exhibition so expensive?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46829/original/3ftdkhn5-1398168055.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">This much space? We should be so lucky. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/su-lin/495067576/">su-lin</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s billed as a five-star, must-see, once-in-a-lifetime experience. And tickets for the exhibition of <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/henri-matisse-cut-outs">Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs</a> at Tate Modern are already selling fast. Advance booking is recommended, and the Tate website warns anyone rash enough to turn up without a ticket that they can expect a lengthy queue for entry. For those who can’t make the journey to London, there is the compensation of the <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/film/cinema-event-matisse-live-tate-modern">film</a> of the exhibition “coming to a cinema near you” on 3 June, now part of the standard marketing of a blockbuster exhibition.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/matisse-cut-outs-stun-with-colour-scale-and-ambition-25459">Critics’ response</a> to the exhibition has been almost unanimously positive. The display been described as sensitive and serious: no small achievement in curating art that is superficially so decorative and apparently so familiar. </p>
<p>However well we thought we knew Matisse’s joyous graphic images from reproductions in print and online, it turns out there is no substitute for seeing the delicate layers and precise colours of the gouaches <em>découpés</em>. That is, if you don’t mind edging your way in front of each artwork and then craning your neck to see from behind the row of heads that inevitably form a barrier between you and the object of the exhibition. </p>
<p>Matisse’s wonderful cut-outs are the latest manifestation of the contemporary exhibition truism: the higher the cost of admission, the poorer the quality of the viewing experience. The top-price tickets for Matisse are £18 for full-price adult admission, including a gift aid donation to Tate, which is the same as the current crowd-puller at the British Museum, <a href="http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/vikings/about.aspx">Vikings: Life and Legend</a>. There is no shortage of visitors for either show, but are they worth it?</p>
<p>Even when admission numbers to an exhibition are deliberately restricted (as in the <a href="http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/leonardo-da-vinci-painter-at-the-court-of-milan">2012 Leonardo exhibition</a> at the National Gallery), visitors are obliged to shuffle between artworks and wait their turn before getting close to any of the pieces. Tate Modern is notorious for not limiting numbers to its big shows: the term “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/jan/16/gauguin-tate-modern-crowds">gallery rage</a>” first gained currency during its unbearably busy <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/gauguin">Gauguin exhibition</a> in 2010. </p>
<p><a href="http://grumpyarthistorian.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/exhibitions-in-london.html">One blogger</a> has already commented that, unless you are on the guest list for one of the growing number of exhibition previews, the Matisse show has, in effect, already ended, because seeing the works will be practically impossible during “ordinary” opening hours.</p>
<p>So, what exactly are we paying £18 for? The (remote) possibility of seeing the artworks up close and personal is only part of the picture, of course. For the past 200 years, exhibition visiting has been as much a social as a cultural experience: spectatorship is about seeing, but also about being seen and being able to talk about it afterwards. Museums like Tate understand this well. Exhibitions turn art into an event.</p>
<p>These are not only opportunities for art historical research, comparison and interpretation, they are media-primed, commercial productions. This is crucial to boosting visitor figures and maintaining the museum’s brand profile. The economics are complex: exhibitions are costly (transport, insurance, design, promotion etc.), but they can also be lucrative (sponsorship, admissions, merchandise). The ticket price is as much a cipher of the marketability and prestige of an exhibition as it is a calculation of box office income needed to defray the costs of production. </p>
<p>Would an £18 exhibition ticket seem as pricey in, say, New York, where adult admission to the Museum of Modern Art and the “recommended” admission for the Metropolitan Museum of Art is already $25? Perhaps not, and there’s the rub for national museums in the UK. </p>
<p>The introduction of free admission to national museums in 2001 reinforced the principle that these great public collections somehow belong to each of us, morally if not legally. Both the public funding and the authority of an institution such as Tate are predicated on this idea. And if we believe in free access to art, we may well baulk at forking out £18 for an exhibition, despite knowing very well that this is cheap compared with the cost of a theatre or sports ticket, or even a round of drinks. Not to mention the fact that, when we are on holiday, we are willing to stump up the entry charges to local museums. </p>
<p>And there is that little matter of the “gift aid donation” included in the £18 ticket. The full-price adult ticket is really £16.30, and there is the opportunity to pay this, but it is well down the list of prices. The additional £1.70 is pitched as a charitable donation which, under UK gift aid legislation, enables the Tate to reclaim the tax already paid on the value of the £18 ticket. </p>
<p>It’s a neat fundraising idea, but it may be a surprise to learn that Tate can benefit from the top-up on your exhibition ticket because it is a charity, as well as a state-sponsored, non-departmental public body. It may be less surprising to discover that visiting the Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs feels like shopping on the first day of the January sales. Paying £18 to contemplate Matisse’s cut-outs without the crowds would be the bargain of the year, but that isn’t what’s on offer this spring at Tate Modern. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25721/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helen Rees Leahy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
It’s billed as a five-star, must-see, once-in-a-lifetime experience. And tickets for the exhibition of Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs at Tate Modern are already selling fast. Advance booking is recommended…
Helen Rees Leahy, Director of the Centre for Museology, University of Manchester
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.