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Sunday, February 24, 2008

Living now in the UK for three years, coming from France, I had the opportunity to experience the famous English humour. What is it exactly about?!? To be honest I still have no idea... I had the chance to manage for one year with a group of International people, a society of 450 members coming from more than 35 different countries. We all laughed a lot altogether about many things, sometimes out of nothing. And when we did not find the words we used hands eye contact or noises. Everything is fine to pass a message when you do not find the appropriate words... Especially in a foreign language.

I remember sitting at a dinner table, about 3 years ago in the Czech countryside with a family that did not speak any of my words. The father spoke a few words in French (about 47 different words), trying vaguely to explain that he came a few times in France, visiting a friend. encouraged by these impressive communication skills, I took the map and described, repeated myself many times, reformulating, using basic words. I only found out that he did not understand how beautiful the city I came from was, when he answered "YES!" to the question "Have you ever travelled to this side of the France?"...
Despite this small communication accident, we laughed a lot and it was all based on simple gestures. I loved it!
But coming back to English humour, I really could not tell what makes it different. It is the same for Spanish, Chinese, Mexican [...] humour. It's a whole thing.
There is an exhibition, currently running in London that explores the "Laughing in a foreign language" problematic.
Clown (2005) Julian Rosefeldt. Copyright and courtesy the artist.

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).

I emitted a few posts ago the theory that to be successful on the market (in the large sense of the term market), an artwork needs to address the network of social relationships that composes the art world. Then, must exists a kind of "contemporary art visual language" with its codes and conventions and therefore a specific type of humour.
If you fancy contemporary art you will probably be more willing to laugh at these "jokes" presented within this exhibition (?!).
Actually if you could go there and tell me...?
Aristotle said that only humans are able to laugh. Modern science demonstrated that rats and chimpanzee can do it too...

1 comments:

Yewtree said...

It's only Americans that don't understand British humour ;) Everyone else has no difficulty :)

That said, I don't understand French humour a lot of the time...

Also, clowns are not funny in any language - they're either sinister or tragic.