Set in the very central Belmacz space, The Conformist is truly an unusual show, linking modern to contemporary artists, as well as art itself to fashion and jewellery design. Main theme of the exhibition is the question on conformity/deviance, and its declination through the passing of time. The twenty-one artists included share a reflection on the moral and aesthetic codes of Western society. Their works are the result of this creative thinking, and they can be of the most different register, from serious to playful, form ironic to melanchonic, from sharp to mellow. Here’s just a taste of what you will find if you go to visit it.
Helen Bullock, coming from textile design, has created a window installation characterised by strong colours, as well as a floor decoration for the lower ground. Her vivid contribution, featuring red brush strokes on the window, torn textile with a floreal (or phallic?) allusion, handmade bracelets and a long knotted cloth hanging from the ceiling is instrumental in driving the viewer inside the exhibition space.
The curator and artist Paul Kindersley has chosen two main sites of inspiration: the first is In Youth is Pleasure (1945), a novel by Denton Welch, a worn copy of which is available to flicker through, dealing with the sensual fantasies and erotic experiences of an obsessive teenager during a non-specified summertime. The second is the flamoboyant figure of Lady Emma Hamilton (1765-1815), well-known for her extravagance and a symbol of Romantic love because of her wretched love affair with Lord Nelson (1758-1805). Her presence is announced to be the red thread of the exhibition since entering the gallery: She enigmatically beams from an etching (copy of a painting by the portraitis George Romney), her head covered with a pure-white veil. Exactly in front of her, Helen Chadwick’s Ruin (1986) parallels an interest in the body as main agent of conformation or not to the mainstream of aesthetics. The late artist’s naked body, in contrast with Emma’s covered attire, twists in an unconfortable yet intriguing pose, while with her left hand she covers her face from direct eye-contact with the viewer, and rests the right hand on a skull, probably referencing Shakespeare. Behind her, a still-image of fruit decomposition completes the work, where the artist is both photographer and photographed, maker and object, in a game of attraction-repulsion with the viewer that challenges the Platonic conception of beauty as positive attribute.
Two video installations, one by Kindersley himself (Lady Hamilton’s Attitudes, 2014), one by Julie Verhoeven (Phlegm & Fluff, 2015), make use of the body too in addressing, in different ways, questions of genre, sex, perversity, grotesque. I found that watching each of them with the relevant soundtrack, while the other was in silent mode, would give a completely different atmosphere to the entire exhibition. Interesting how different music enables diverse emotional responses to the same space.
Works by David Parkinson.
The exhibition also features some charming pieces of jewelry, like the sophisticated gold string with charms by Julia Muggenburg recalling again Lady Emma in its ancient style. Roman coins, red coral, black pearls and citrine drops, as suggested by James Cahill in his introduction to the exhibition, recall different aspects of Lady Emma’s personality, while the string itself let us face an ambiguity – chastity belt or erotic ankle necklace?
I find The Conformist an interesting experiment of mixing fields. It is imaginative and witty. I won’t steal the pleasure of surprise by giving away too much of it! If you are looking for a fresh, nonconformist show, visit The Conformist at Belmacz show room, until 16th April 2016. Entry is free.
Useful links: http://www.belmacz.com/gallery/
All pictures credits: http://www.belmacz.com/gallery/current
Paul Housley, Head of an English Iconoclast, 2016, glazed painted clay, 8x14x20cm.
Hassan Musa, I have a drone (Obama’s portrait), 2014, textiles, 241 × 247.5 cm. Image credits: Galerie Maïa Muller, Paris.
Some nights ago I had the chance to meet Dr. Hassan Musa at SOAS, where he held a conference on the “Mis-connections in contemporary artworlds”. Here is an account of his speech plus the thoughts I flowered mixing this experience with my visit at the 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair, a couple of weeks ago.
Dr. Musa was born in Sudan in 1951 and now dwells in the South of France. He is an artist, or as he prefers to call himself, an image-maker drawing from a variety of traditions: His most famous works are textiles, linking him with the Sudanese practice of hanging cloths on walls for decorative purposes. He nevertheless uses images from the European painting tradition, and combines them with a witty political discourse conveyed through icons of contemporary times, such as Osama Bin Laden, Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin and so on. He also makes use of elements of Arabic calligraphy as well as Chinese watercolour. All these references are finally tied together by his original research within the technical dimension of the chosen medium.
Valuing curiosity as one of the most important factors in a viewer, Musa feels the technical dimension as a space of total freedom where he can experiment and get to always new ways of fascinating the audience. His use of transparent pieces of fabric, overlapped, glued and finally sewn together is truly skilful; it gives birth to amazing pieces where the delicacy of the medium contrasts with the strong message conveyed by the painstakingly created image.
Hassan Musa, I love you with my Iphone, 2011, assembled textiles, 290 x 255cm. Image credits: Galerie Pascal Polar, Brussels.
Interestingly, Hassan contends that nowadays an artist can be vitually anything: There is no proper definition to apply to this term, which has such a disparate application that it has become extremely vague. An artist could be a traditional painter, but also someone involved in a performance of any kind, from a quasi-teathrical installation to a man who let his friend shoot him in the arm, like Chris Burden in Shoot (1971). Therefore Hassan’s preference for the more specific “image-maker” tag. However, if we really want to be specific, even the latter contains a mis-connection: Seeing is certainly a political problem, as what I see may differ from what you see in the same object! An image-maker is thus entangled in a political discourse, in which (s)he will try to make us see what he sees – as in politics.
Not only a problem of terms, mis-connections travel also through the competition between different image-makers using the same image. The use Musa makes of the U.S. dollar, for example, is exquisitely ironic. Some others may nevertheless use that very dollar to create an opposite metaphor. For example:
Hassan is not the first to lament the double conception of history held by the Western culture: Europeans in particular tend to consider the rest of the world as if it didn’t have a history comparable to the one of their geographic region. This bias leads us to see other places as “barbarian”, immerse in a lack of history that is a permanent stagnation. It is easy to spot that this is particulary true in the case of the African continent. Following this view, the advent of European colonialism was a positive event, a fresh start, the redemption of backwards peoples now sharing modernity with and thanks to the magnanimous Europeans… Far from being true, this colonial discourse does not take into account that there is no modernity without freedom. In Musa’s elaboration of the theme, there are therefore two kinds of modernity: the European modernity, embued with colonialist bias; the local modernity, coloured by nationalistic discourses.
However, after the fall of the Berlin wall, Europeans started to question themselves about identity; in the globalized world, we realised that we all share the same destiny. I definitely agree with Musa when he says that the importance given to identity nowadays is the fulcrum of the absurd attempt to categorize artists by their regional origin. So does a fair like 1:54, especially dedicated to “African” art. But the question arises spontaneously and quite simply: What is African art? Or even better: Is there actually something that we can call “African art”? If a Sudanese artist lives and works in France for most of his life, do we still call the result of his artistic effort “African art”?
Youssef Ouchra, Ma Taaboudoun, 2015, painetd and cut metal, 88-58 cm. Galerie Venise Cadre Casablanca (GVCC), Casablanca.
I think 1:54 is an interesting example of this mis-connection originated by the identity issue. To some extent it also helps another one of the mis-connections Hassan pointed out during his conference: the trauma mis-connection, or the expectation for African artists to have experienced some kind of emotional shock on their arrival to Europe. This organises African art under an umbrella of psychological distress that is completely misleading, and unifies what is in fact a reality of scattered and variegated identities. I can concede that many image-makers nowadays are troubled with the urbanization issue, with all the links to themes like poverty, alienation, technology, pollution, etc. However, this is true not only of artists of African origin – it is a problem that concerns sensible people anywhere. The Contemporary African Art Fair held during the second week of October at Somerset House hosted many works dealing with this theme. But it also gave (rightly) space to other themes. In fact, it is the variety of themes, medias, galleries and artists that makes up the good side of 1:54. Musa strongly affirmed that artists are very individualistic, unless of course they are part of a political discourse – and in that case, most probably, their work is being used to serve someone else’s scope.
Paa Joe and Jacob Tetteh-Ashong, Coffin- Pepsi Bottle , 2015, wood, acrylic, and interior fabric, 112 × 51 × 51 cm. Art Twenty One Gallery, Lagos.
This leads us to the last two mis-connections Hassan dealt with at SOAS. First, the diaspora mis-connection, which allows critics to put together all black-skinned artists, no matter where they come from and what their experience is. Second, the curator mis-connection, as curators often are both agents and victims of the other mis-connections considered above. As a result, it is very common to see exhibitions displaying works by artists that come from the most different parts of Africa – grouped together only by the fact that the authors are Africans. As Hassan bitterly remarked, curators often serve their own interests, becoming the real artists behind an exhibition. Curiously enough, a curator is not only someone in charge of a collection, but also, by the law, “aguardianofaminor,lunatic,orotherincompetent,especially withregardtohisorherproperty” (see: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/curator).
Qubeka Bead Studio, Mpelaveai (End of the week), 2015, glass seed beads on board, 110 x 75 cm. Qubeka Bead Studio, Cape Town.
Art is individual, it is about the singularity of the person. “Africa” is not a good category, neither politically speaking, nor aesthetically, nor philosophically – it is simply a geographic area. The simplicity by which Hassan reminded us that there are no real borders, just political, superimposed, artificial ones, struck me. The question is not, therefore, “Is there an ‘African’ art?” but: What could be a better working term?
Sokari Douglas Camp CBE, Walworth Ladies, 2008, steel, 50 x 17 x 18 cm. October Gallery, London.
Hassan Musa is African as an individual. Nevertheless, he was raised in the European art tradition, because, as he puts it, there is no other History of Art as a discipline. Therefore, he is not an African artist. As Picasso used elements of African art and culture, Musa heavily relies on elements from traditional European paintings. His project as an art-maker clearly unfolds a political dimension. Remaining very realist, he acknowledges that art can’t change the world. But at least it can offer some consolation.
To take the chance and get some relief, you can visit Hassan’s latest solo exhibition in Paris, Yo Mama, at Galerie Maïa Muller, until Nov. 28th.
Hassan Musa, Le tableau qui fait dialoguer les Cultures, 2008, assembled textiles, 207 x 236cm. Image credits: Galerie Pascal Polar, Brussels.
As I entered the luminous space of the Saatchi Gallery with a friend, a week ago, I was suddenly rapt into a quiet, ethereal world, where the silence was not even interrupted by the thundering rain outside, and the artworks on display would simply but blodly disclose themselves in all their beauty, almost challenging you to fade away and leave the stage to the unfolding of their meanings.
The artists presented in the exhibition “Pangaea II: New Art from Africa and Latin America” come from these continents, and some of them had already shown their works in a previous collective exhibition, held at the Saatchi Gallery last year, across Spring, Summer and Autumn 2014. The earlier show was named “Pangaea”, so that the second was clearly linked to the first in the extent in which they both displayed contemporary artists coming from economically developing parts of the world that are miles and miles away from each other, but can reunite through art (as the probably geographically were millennia ago).
The show was divided into different rooms, onto two floors of the gallery, with no explanation whatsoever of the works, which most of the time were presented only by a plain collective label at the entrance of every room, stating the basic information (author, title, year, medium, size). This gave a chance for attentive and meditative looking at the pieces, without focusing on written text as we are so much used to. In this case, though, a bit of knowledge of the background of every artist would have been indispensable to get a better understanding of their works. I had done my homework research before reaching the gallery, so I felt enough comfortable in the sole presence of the artworks, but I am not sure the friend who was with me had the same kind of experience. At any rate, the way the objects were presented, the ubiquitous white light cascading from the ceiling and probably the silent gallery environment itself gave space for personal reflection and I soon lost sight of my mate, getting back to him only at the shop entrance. He told me he had really enoyed the show.
Many of the works contained a political or socio-economical reference to the countries the artist belongs to. Some addressed a blue reflection on burocracy and the way human beings are swallowed by technology and urbanization. Others would tackle the power-games in which an individual must mix him or herself up in in order to gain political authority and prestige. Others again would reflect on the situation of the poorest sections of society.
I particularly felt an association with the series of paintings by Dawit Abebe (1978, Ethiopia), giving a portrait of ailing figures always turning their back to the viewer and to the worldly reality, from which nevertheless they are surrounded in the form of official papers, tickets, ties, …The melancholy they aroused was the same one feels when you ask yourself if this is really the only way things could be.
Dawit Abebe, No.2 Background 1, 2014, mixed media painting, 150×130 cmDawit Abebe, No.2 Background 5, 2014, mixed media painting, 150×130 cmDawit Abebe, No.2 Background 3, 2014, mixed media painting, 150×130 cm
Ephrem Solomon’s (1983, Ethiopia) Political Game 3 reminded me of a fish in a sea full of sharks:
Ephrem Solomon, Political Game 3, 2012, woodcut and mixed media, 85×86 cm
Armand Boua’s (1978) humble carboards well fitted his reflection on the hinumanity he experiences in everyday-life in Abidjan (Ivory Coast):
Armand Boua, various works, 2013, tar and acrylic on cardboard, 82×95 cm
Other works had a humorous vein than made me openly smile, like Alexandre da Cunha’s (1969, Brazil) nude series, in which the author uses found objects and different media to obtain a painting which is also a sculpture, conveying an ironic message on the way we see and appropriate material objects. I particularly enjoyed this piece:
Alexandre da Cunha, Nude VI, 2012, hats, canvas, thread, 220x300x17.5 cm
A couple of artists, namely Alida Cervantes (1972, California, U.S.A.), Virginia Chihota (1983, Zimbabwe), but also Eddy Ilunga Kamuanga (1991, Democratic Republic of the Congo) dealt with feminine figures in different ways. I felt a strong connection with Virginia’s reflection on marriage and the developing of personal relationships that she conveys through her work Raising Your Own (Kurera Wako). Unfortunately I was not able to take a picture of it, but her delicate, almost phantom-like bride, her white skin almost melting away with the unnatural white background, gave me a sense of strength and impotence at the same time. She stands beside her husband-to-be, both wrapped in an unusual black veil, which shadows them from the viewer and make them close and fearfully intimate. Their feet are bare, and the woman covers her womb with her black hands as a blood stain widens on her white wedding dress.
Eddy’s women are the heroines of the new cultural diversity which is emerging in his hometown, Kinshasa. He is strongly influenced both by traditions and pop culture and the resulting works seems to me vibrant and positive. I really appreciated the use he made of written word in his paintings, a device that conveys particular meanings (if you can read the language!) and helps the old mixing with the new.
Eddy Ilunga Kamuanga, Voile, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 120×100 cm
However, my favourite pieces were the ones welcoming the visitor in the first room of the exhibition. I left them for last because of their power, their marvellous quality as art objects and the activism that they inspire. I am talking about the selection of works by Diego Mendoza Imbachi (1982, Colombia), who links gardening and art-making in a process that juxtaposes the natural elements of the forest with the harmful industrialisation that more and more affects the landscape in South America. Diego truly is a poet, even in the choice of titles. His medium, mainly graphite, reflects his intention of giving space, in some ways, to a reconciliation between human destructivness and natural life. His works, of very large dimensions, make you feel like you really are in some magical forest made up of beautifully crafted, tall, silent trees whose branches resemble in some ways electrical wires. The element of sacred is surely present, it makes you reflect on the beauty and delicacy of nature and on the stubborn dullness of multi-national corporations. After staring at these works, my Greenpeace soul aroused, and even talking about it now, some days after the exhibition has already closed its doors, I still feel a sense of courage, of urgence for doing everything I can to respect the planet. Now I can really start my day in a positive, proactive way.
Diego Mendoza Imbachi, The Poetics of Reflection, 2014, graphite and binder on canvas, 300×600 cm
Pangaea II: New Art form Africa and Latin America, Saatchi Gallery, 11 March – 17 September 2015.
Useful links:
The exhibition’s webpage has links to the bios and abstracts of the partecipant artists, and it’s a mine for more information: http://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/pangaea_II/
Diotima in the Gallery 