"If you can say it... Why paint it?" A review of the key concepts of Contemporary Art

What is this exactly? The actual artwork called Groundspeed (Red plazza) is 'what happened in the Australian jungle' (a very dangerous piece of jungle according to the 'enhancing' ArtReview article). I first came across the artwork while reading an article in the June 2006 edition of the ArtReview magazine in an article called "Art at the Extremes". If it is featured in anArtReview article, it might be important... The artist, Rosemary Laing chose to go in the carpet shop in Kiama (New South Wales - Australia) and to order several hundred square feet of their finest Axminster. The artist point is to reflect on how Europeans changed both physical and cultural landscape 200 years ago. She changed the wild Australia Forest into what looks like an ordinary living room here in the U.K.Therefore, what is presented to the viewer is a picture of the actual artwork, which makes it even more interesting. First because it is brought to the contemporary art world which would probably never go on place to see the artwork as it they would do with recognized accessible Land Art. But that is only to be mean that I say this. This artwork obliges you to rely on the picture you get in the Gallery.

Spiral jetty - Robert Smithson

The photographic medium is therefore relevant because it imposes a distance. The viewer becomes a powerless note keeper and has no possibility to interfere with the actual creation which may recall the feeling of what people may sense in front of the TV while watching Al Gore 'An Inconvenient Truth' or any alarmist BBC News coverage about climate change actual repercussion. I believe that this adds a terribly contemporary note to the artwork.

The artist uses cleverly both the photographic medium and the museum as the place in which the communication act is supposed to occur to create meaning. Groundspeed came to the public in 2001 and remains inspirational. Can you believe how fast time flies? This was a time, only 7 years ago, when people still did not care that much about environment and climate change. It usually takes time to change minds that deeply but in this special case communication might have helped a bit. Think about what comes to your mind when we are talking about pollution? A few pictures of the melting ice in the north pole and polar bears sinking because they find no land to stand on, films of flooded houses in the U.K. in the summer 2007. Think now about the war on terrorism? There comes to your mind the pictures of 9/11 disaster. The world always relied and will rely more and more on visual symbols.
This could be an answer to the question "What is Art for?"explored earlier in these blog lines.
It incites to action by putting into light concepts we may not be able to see anymore because we seek for social coherence; concept that are sometimes easier to occult than to have to reflect on. To quote the French producer Jean-Luc Godard : "La culture, c’est la norme, l’art c’est l’exception" (Culture is the norm, the art is the exception). This is done thanks to the clever use of a web of complex symbols, that aim to impact the viewer as deeply as possible.

Le radeau de la méduse (The Raft of the Medusa - Géricault)

Guernica - Picasso

Another recent example of artwork that works quite well in this sense was presented in 2004 by Tony Matelli and called Fuck'd:

Laughing in a Foreign Language, from 25 January – 13 April is the first exhibition curated by The Hayward’s new international Curator, Mami Kataoka. In a time of increasing globalisation, the exhibition questions if humour can only be appreciated by people with similar cultural, political or historical backgrounds and memories, or whether it can act as a catalyst for understanding the unfamiliar. Bringing together 80 works including videos, photographs and interactive installations, many of which have not been shown in the UK before, the show investigates the whole spectrum of humour, from jokes, gags and slapstick to irony, wit and satire, as well as questioning what it means to share a sense of humour and what it is that makes an individual laugh.

Ralph Rugoff, Director of The Hayward, said;
“Laughter is universal; it is something that people in every culture can relate to. Humour however, is socially specific. This exhibition offers an alternative and fresh perspective on different cultures by bringing together artists from 22 nations around the world, including Japan, Mexico, Iran, Germany and Cameroon, and exhibiting work that asks us to explore not only the differences in culture and humour but also what unites us.”

Cindy Sherman

Laughing in a Foreign Language explores the role of laughter and humour in contemporary art through the work of 30 international artists, including Jake and Dinos Chapman (UK); Ugo Rondinone (Switzerland); Makoto Aida (Japan); Doug Fishbone (US); John Bock (Germany); David Shrigley (UK); Jun Yang (China); Julian Rosefeldt (Germany); Olaf Breuning (Switzerland); Candice Breitz (South Africa), Matthew Griffin (Australia) and Marcus Coates (UK).

It is by universal misunderstanding that all agree. For if, by ill luck, people understood each other, they would never agree.

Charles Baudelaire (1821 - 1867)

Joke apart, the first experiment really exists and demonstrates the influence of busy environment on living creatures behaviour. Do not tell me that you've never felt claustrophobic or agoraphobic while walking in Manchester city center on a week end. What type of impact could have the crowd on the museum visit experience? The Arts Newspaper article stresses that most of the artworks were not created to fit into galleries as they were supposed to end on a wall in the peacefull well-protected house of a rich investor... Some quite place, where you (they) can have a face to face encounter with the artwork for hours without 100 tourists taking pictures (with a powerful flash), or standing between you and the canvas. Moreover, some artworks respond to each others, are complementary. The first example that comes to my mind is the Rothko's room in Tate modern, London.

Another example, In Tate Modern again, walking on level 3 you may see a giant queue waiting to enter an open-egg-like form...

What so special about it? The object is called Ishan's light and its creator Anish Kapoor (see above). Without entering into too much details about the artist intentions here, I was curious enough to enter the 10 minutes queue to have the privilege to be face-to-face with the sculpture for about 40-50 seconds, having that feeling that the people in the queue were staring at my poor, amazed and dizzy body with a 'now it's my turn!' look. While entering into the sculpture shape, you basically loose your sense of time and space due to an optical effect created by the highly reflective dark interior surface. You need to put your hands in front of you to really understand what happens to you. You wish to stay here for hours but you know that it is already too late, you have to leave... next person, next artwork...

Edward T. Hall, a well recognized anthropologist and a big name in cultural studies introduced in the 'Hidden dimension' the concept of proxemics which in simple terms is the 'cultural' notion of space. Hall notes that different cultures maintain different standards of personal space. In Latin cultures, for instance, those relative distances are smaller, and people tend to be more comfortable standing close to each other; in Nordic cultures the opposite is true. Realizing and recognizing these cultural differences improves cross-cultural understanding, and helps eliminate discomfort people may feel if the interpersonal distance is too large ("stand-offish") or too small (intrusive). Comfortable personal distances also depend on the culture, social situation, gender, and individual preference.

• If a pretty latina comes to seat right next to you the German little on the bench in front of this Rothko's masterpiece; it is more likely that she wants to admire the canvas rather than getting your number.
• Galleries may not become a place for hot dates
• Do not, in any case, hold such stupid stereotypes (specially the two mentioned above).

Green Tilework in Live Flesh 2000

Imagine the great difficulty to find who did that! I vaguely remembered that it was an exhibition about South American artists a while ago Tate Liverpool... That's a good start I must admit. Ok Ok looking for keywords to google now: Wall, Flesh, Blood... hummm Little squares?

After a couple of hours, I finally found it: Adriana Varejão!

Once again, I regret that there were not many information displayed next to the artwork. If it is the first time you come to a gallery and you do not know anything about these things that surround you; there will be no way for you to get the message! Where is the context here?

Brazilian 1964–Folds 2 2003oil on canvas over aluminium, mounted to wood with oil-painted polyurethane240.7 x 230.2 x 40 cm Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

Once upon a time, in 15OO to be exact, Europeans discover Brazil which will become a Portuguese colony until the 19th century. Racism, Slavery, assimilation, submission, massacres left many different scares in contemporary history and part of the contemporary Brazil economic success is due to this dark aspect of colonialism. Sugarcane massive industry was made profitable by the forced labour of African slaves.

But these are not things that people like to hear, specially if in some ways they feel directly or indirectly responsible.

Adriana Varejão art is made after 1970 but responds to the colonial history of Brazil. The typical ceramic mosaïcs exported to Brazil in provenance of the "old continent" (old as 'wiser'?) are a symbol of the assimilation and aculturation process.

Azulejaria 'De Tapete em Carne Viva'1999

They represent the 'viewable' surface of the Brazilian culture as if there were an official version of the history approved through a hegemonic force. Here is the vision of the colonialist power: a shiny, clean surface, that often recalls industrial aseptic tile walls, easily washable that participe to the fabric of Brazilian's society but hide an ugly truth.

Ruina de Charque - Nova Capela, 2003 Oil on wood and polyurethane

The artist may therefore propose the viewer to cut through the falsehood of history. She may also say that scares may be the only thing left if the industrial world was about to decline. I will leave that to you and encourage you to bring your personal views in a wise comment below.

Because we are not necessarily professional of contemporary art and because we do not know the artist personally in most of the cases, I suggest to all gallery owners to provide to your visitors a set of deep but accessible information! Thanks a lot...

For all of you who did not play with Legos when they were young or those who think that it is for kids only. There was an exhibition in Liverpool called Art Craziest Nation in january, that recreated a vision af the glamourous artworld, using the famous brick game.

Artist Mark Wallinger can be seen in the centre of the image above wearing a white shirt and black sunglasses. He is looking at Koons' Balls; in the background part of Kleins' Sponges can be seen.

Here are some examples that I chose because I had the occasion to mention these people or artworks earlier in the blog:

Featured artworks
Hirst's Shark Tank Whiteread's Room Chapmans' Dead Guys Emin's Bed Warhol's Money Klein's Sponges

Featured artists
Damien Hirst Dinos and Jake Chapman Tracey Emin Rachael Whiteread Matthew Barney Mark Wallinger
Artworld luminaries and special guests
Larry Gagosian

The group is called 'Little Artists' to explore "what it means to be an artist in the current super-branded cultural climate" in their own words. More information is still available on the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool @:

http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/exhibitions/littleartists/