Entries Tagged 'IN PERSPECTIVE' ↓

The remote island of Tanna at the southern end of the archipelago of Vanuatu is best known to visitors for its startlingly accessible volcano, Yasur, as well as for its various contemporary “cargo cult” societies. Best known among these is the John Frum religion and the Prince Philip Movement. Thus inspired, Iconophilia is moved to create the Not Alighiero Boetti Society, as a consequence of your scribes’ discovery of this remarkable mural.

In conventional histories of European avant-garde art the Italian arte povera artist Alighiero e Boetti (and here) has often been credited by cult followers with having triggered the contemporaneous production of Afghan carpets depicting the world map (see below), and even the war carpet genre of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Boetti’s work first came into prominence following the showing of one of his first two Mappa del Mondo (maps of the world) embroideries in the 1972 Kassel Documenta 5, which was curated by Harald Szeemann. Boetti’s work, exhibited in the section titled Individual Mythologies, was (so the story goes) produced in Afghanistan by a team of women from an “embroidery school” in Kabul.

Various recent published accounts (notably that by Luca Cerizza: Alighiero e Boetti: Mappa. Afterall Books, London, 2008) assume that the virtual industry established by Boetti, when the designs for his world maps and his later imagery were outsourced to as many as 500 women embroiderers, first in Kabul, and later in the Afghan refugee camps of Peshawar and surrounding districts, and is assumed to be the stimulus for other forms of innovation in carpet-making. In reality there is but a single point of coincidence. Just as Boetti’s first coloured-in cartoon of flags drawn in biro on a school wall atlas, (Planisfero politico, 1969) was the design for his first Mappa, so the myriad other printed precedents, both in school rooms in Afghanistan, and in libraries and on walls the world over, have in turn served as the model for images such as this extraordinary example we saw on Tanna last week.

This mural on the wall of a schoolhouse of the Loukatai Center School flashed into view from the back of a truck as we zipped along the main north-south road a couple of kilometers north of Tanna’s main town Lenakel. From the road its brilliant coloration attracts the eye, and in its detail signals a level of cosmopolitan sophistication otherwise rarely visible in the material fabric of Tanna society. 

Whoa! Stop! This proto-Boetti deserves closer examination!

As we approached this mural, all seemed to be in order. Even the little square panel of text (lower right, usually a graphic description of the details and specifications of the map) seemed to be in a conventional relationship to the whole. And so, imagine our surprise when we came close enough to read this text, which was itself joined by a piece of string to the country of Pakistan!

As an icon of the contemporary moment, this ensemble beautifully represents how modernity’s reach has made it to every corner of the globe. And how clearly does this demonstrate that the intelligentsia of LDCs (Less Developed Countries), the teachers, artists, etc. in countries such as this, are engaged in the world at large, despite being so remarkably remote from the cosmopolitan origins of such iconography. And that self-representation keeps pace with globalisation. So there’s no need to assume an external stimulus in a society such as this, (as is believed by the followers of Boetti), especially when the members of local “cargo cults” can now communicate with each other by mobile phone…

This remoteness, signaled here as the representation of mere graphic specks in the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, is itself picked out with precise detail.

The origins of the text, authored by Scott Wilson and Craig Whitlock, extracted from the Washington Post, is not yet clear. And yet the contemporary interconnectedness of every corner of this world is demonstrated here with iconographic clarity.

Addendum: 29 August, 2011.

Last night your iconophist (she who first spotted this mural) and I were searching world maps online when she discovered this image as a part of a brochure published by the Peace Corps Information Collection and Exchange R0088 July 1994. (R0088_worldmapproject). It’s a manual detailing how to make a world map mural, with strategies how it might be used. This project was first initiated by Barbara Jo White in the Dominican Republic in 1987, and you can find more examples here…

As a consequence my interpretation and reactions above (which for the sake of consistency I have left unedited) are now several degrees more complex and interesting. It appears I was wrong to assume “there’s no need to assume an external stimulus in a society such as this”. Clearly our fleeting visit (as tourists on the run) was a distorting perspective, which leaves a number of questions hanging. Who initiated the painting of this mural? Was this mural map the result of a Peace Corps program? When? Is it (plus the current affairs attachment) ongoing? To what extent have the Ni-Vanuatuan teachers embraced this methodology? Perhaps its existence on this school wall is as much a reflection of First World reach as it is an icon of self-identity.

The brochure itself claims: “Since 1988, enthusiastic Volunteers have carried this highly acclaimed program to over 40 countries around the world. Returned Volunteers have spread the idea across the U.S. as well. Because of the wide appeal of the activity, this guide (a revision of an earlier manual) has been written for many different groups: U.S. teachers, Peace Corps Volunteers, Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, scout leaders, youth workers, and others. ” And: “Peace Corps Connection: Have your group pay particular attention to changes in the political geography of the Volunteer’s host country or region. Encourage your group to share its findings with the Volunteer. Have group members ask the Volunteer to provide more detail, if possible, or to explain even earlier instances of change in that nation’s political geography.”

And the purpose of the Not Alighiero Boetti Society? To celebrate those contemporary examples of world maps which have nothing to do with Boetti’s Mappa del Mondo, wherever they may be found… And so here’s a starter…

This Mappa del Mondo is an undated carpet from Afghanistan. Some suggest its material qualities (colour, materials, structure) actually predate the Boetti era. Translation of the details (here written in Dari) may reveal more to help us set some date parameters…

Addendum #2: 1st September

Text translation of this carpet reveals a number of things: The old Soviet Union is identified as both the “Socialist Soviet Unions of Russia” and the “Federative (sic) Republic of Russia”. Given that the old USSR became The Russian Federation in 1991, this would seem to provide a terminus ante quem – the date before which the atlas (and therefore the carpet) could not have been made. And this example also demonstrates, at least in this instance, that the atlas carpets of the 1990s derive from the kind of atlas found in schools – the translation of the text blocks reads: “The Political Map of the World” “The Map no. 14 (or 140)” and in the right hand box such words as: “Guide, Capital, International border, Centre of State, Border of State, Important City, and Main Path”. In the addition international time zones are indicated by the rows of clock faces above and below. Thanks to MR for the translation.

Addendum #3: 5th September

To further bracket the date of the original atlas (from which the carpet was copied) the country of Zaire (which existed from 1971 to 1997) is to be found in a disproportionately small patch of territory in central Africa titled “Zir” – to the east of “Congo” (which is the Republic of the Congo). And so we can deduce that the “cartoon atlas” from which this carpet was made dates from between 1992 to 1997 – the only period in which both countries coexist.

At last! Formalist sculpture has a use-value…

The futuristic Kandahar International Airport terminal was built between 1956 and 1962 by Pacific Architects and Engineers, Inc., for a cost of US$ 15 million under the USAID program. It never took off (as a tourist destination), alas. And here’s a contemporary postcard…

and in construction…

(and thanks to i.mcgrath for the perspective at the top of this post)

Hamad Bin Hamdan Al Ahyan, 63, has signed his name in sand on an island he owns with letters so big they can be seen from space.

The sheikh is president of the oil-rich United Arab Emirates and boasts a personal fortune second only to the Saudi king’s.

Soviet era war memorials are updatable in Bulgaria, apparently… And no, I’m not suggesting there are any contenders in Canberra… from Gawker.

From an conversation held on February 27 between Hans Ulrich Obrist and Julian Assange for e-flux journal, where a number of artists were invited to ask JA questions:

Ai Weiwei: As a perfect example of how individuals can act against collective power, such as the state, what do you think about the future of this trend? How can individuals use their power to question state power?

JA: There are many technical and practical responses to this question. But this is just not a matter of things that may be useful or practical to do. I think a certain philosophical attitude is needed. And it is this attitude that then pulls together the practical considerations that must be part of a realization of that attitude. So, we encourage the people and our supporters to understand that courage is contagious. It’s a practical reality that, for example, most revolutions start in public squares. Why is that? It’s not like there are more people in a public square. You still have the same number of people in the population, whether they are in their homes, in the street, or in the public square. But in a public square, if there are a few courageous people, everyone else in the public square can see the courage of those individuals and it starts to spread.

For this post Iconophilia is pleased to draw on the recent essay by Darren Jorgensen, “Bagging Aboriginal Art: The Intervention and the community art movement” first published in Arena #111 (March – April 2011) pp 38-42.

Jorgensen writes: “In the wake of a 2007 Senate Inquiry into the shoddy ‘carpetbagging’ practices that work to rip off remote Aboriginal artists, one would think that the ethical alternative of remote art centres would be looking good. Yet in the mainstream media at least the centres find themselves more embattled, and the journalist whose work sparked the enquiry, The Australian’s Nicolas Rothwell, has changed his mind about the centres’ place in the greater Aboriginal art industry. After supporting the work of art centre co-ordinators across the deserts and Top End of the country for many years, Rothwell’s writing now holds art centres responsible for a deterioration in the quality of Aboriginal art.

“The reason for this shift, however, appears to have less to do with Aboriginal art than its changing political context. In “The Intellectual Class should support the Intervention,” Rothwell complains about welfarism and the chattering leftist class (Australian, December 3 2007). It was also in 2007 that Rothwell shifted his longstanding support for art centres. His writing was always a touchstone of positive news in a newspaper otherwise dedicated to constructing the most troubling representations of Aboriginal people. And this style of reviewing has continued, contributing valuable accounts of artists’ work in remote Australia. However Rothwell has also begun to pen another kind of position, coincident with the government’s own. My argument here is that this position has spilled into his writings on the work of Aboriginal artists themselves, in a worrying conflation of the politics of the moment with opinion about the quality of art from remote communities.”

Iconophilia has also commented on Rothwell’s perverse usage of the figure of death in his writing from this period, (cited here, referencing back to April 1, 2006) and his later more pessimistic view of the contemporary developments in Aboriginal modern art – a concept first articulated by Ian McLean, from which Nicolas Rothwell would surely resile.

Jorgensen marks June 2007 as “the turning point in Rothwell’s writing, …the month that the Senate inquiry made its recommendations, and the ‘Little Children are Sacred’ report was released and served to justify the Intervention. When Rothwell released his first pessimistic essay about the future of art centres, “Colour fades into Shadow”, on June 22, the Howard government had just announced its intention to stage the Intervention on 20 June. He argues that few art centres “are profitable, and making large new funds available to them will not automatically change this picture,” and that “the policy map in place today is really a subsidised culture industry program.” The real crunch comes later in the essay, where Rothwell somehow aligns the death of a young artist with his argument about the Aboriginal art industry:

The attempt to fund, and fence, and define this creative current carries its subtle, inevitable costs. Deep in the Western Desert, at Kintore, the heart of the Pintupi painting movement, and the source of the Centre’s most collected art, a young man died of a heart attack in the smart new clinic building a week ago.

Continue reading →

According to the SMH, apparently Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has (predictably) dismissed Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s politely expressed concerns about the current purge of Ai Weiwei and others. And in another SMH article, Philip Dorling accesses Wikileaks to assert “China Laughs off human rights concerns.”

“I did express to Premier Wen my concern and Australia’s concern about the treatment of ethnic minorities, about the question of religious freedom and about recent reports in relation to human rights activists,” Ms Gillard said.

“I indicated to Premier Wen that Australia hopes this is not a backwards step being taken by China on progress on human rights.”

But despite widespread evidence that China had launched a brutal crackdown on dissidents in the wake of the popular uprisings in the Middle East, Premier Wen dismissed Ms Gillard’s concerns.

“He did indicate his view that China has not taken a backwards step on human rights,” Ms Gillard said.

Asked if she was comfortable with that response, Ms Gillard said: “I think the appropriate thing for me to do, as the Australian prime minister in discussions with Premier Wen in this country, is to raise Australia’s perspectives. I’ve done that.”

says Will Hutton, interviewed by Ali Moore on the ABC’s Lateline.

“…they will be understanding the visit of the Australian Prime Minister as, not quite in these terms, but nearly a form of tribute being played by a client state. I mean, that’s very much how they’ve always visualised their relationship with their neighbours. And so they’ll be thinking of it in those terms. They’ll be – they are anxious to secure their raw materials and that’s always been the ace card that Australia has to play, and I’m sure that’s what Julia Gillard will be talking about with her team.

I think she – well, I mean my advice from London, and she can ignore it, but my view is at least that actually she really has to put a marker down, that actually Australia’s watching this crackdown, it’s unhappy about it.”

Whatever is happening to art history? asks Holland Cotter in the NYT.

“The attempt to unite traditional and contemporary remains a source of tension, like an identity crisis unresolved. Some scholars continue to decry present-mindedness. They hear a clock ticking, and see only the preservative work not being done. Others take a more positive view: African and Asian cultures, they say, by their volatile and multifarious natures, are in states of perpetual transformation. This present is always, instantaneously, the new past. We document that instant.

As for museums, they haven’t figured out what to do. Blockbuster-consciousness has them thinking ancient, rare, monumental,  expensive,  never-seen-before. All of this is now harder and harder to come up with, but institutions won’t risk trying alternative models, though there are some out there. (Just look at exhibition catalogs published by the Museum for African Art in New York in the 1980s and ’90s.)

But the big question is, why does the direction taken by museums, or by art history as a discipline, have to be an either-or? Traditional or contemporary, old-style or new style, in-the-field or online. That’s the rhythm of fashion: something always has to be out so that something else can be in. But writing the history of art shouldn’t work that way. Good artists don’t work that way. Why not take lessons from them?”

Concerning the detention of the artist Ai Weiwei and numerous other Chinese citizens:

The Honourable Julia Gillard MP

Dear Prime Minister,

I understand that you will be making an official visit to the People’s Republic of China from the 25th to 28th April.

May I draw your attention to the recent reports in the press that 54 “dissidents” have been detained by the Chinese Government in the past two weeks.

Most notable among the many significant figures in this group is the internationally renowned artist Ai Weiwei, who appears to have been detained under a series of variously mysterious accusations. All the evidence suggests this an extra-judicial process, as Australians would understand it.

His detention has been condemned by the unprecedented number of highly placed international institutions, artists and public intellectuals I have listed below.

Notable among these has been a spokesman for the U.S. Head of State Hillary Clinton, and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Given Australia’s proud history of democratic rights and robust political debate, this recent rash of arrests and the consequential suppression of civil liberties and freedom of speech deserves your most serious attention. Just as the destiny and wellbeing of our two countries are closely tied together, so are our two systems of social justice. As an Australian citizen I urge you to raise these matters in your discussions at the highest level with the Chinese Government.

Yours sincerely

Nigel Lendon

19th April, 2011

The following international political figures have called for the release of Ai Weiwei:

The German Chancellor Angela Merkel:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-16/merkel-asked-for-china-for-artist-ai-s-release-spiegel-reports.html

The U.S. State Department Acting Deputy Spokesman Mark Toner:

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/asia/US-Calls-on-Beijing-to-Release-Chinese-Artist-Ai-Weiwei-119218364.html

Public Institutions who have petitioned for his release include:

Richard Armstrong, Director, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation
and Alexandra Munroe, Samsung Senior Curator, Asian Art
Juan Ignacio Vidarte, Director General, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao,
and Deputy Director and Chief Officer for Global Strategies, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
Glenn Lowry, Director, The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Sir Nicholas Serota, Director, Tate and Chris Dercon, Director, Tate Modern
Kaywin Feldman, President, Association of Art Museum Directors and Director
and President, Minneapolis Institute of Arts
Yongwoo Lee, President, The Gwangju Biennale Foundation
Michael Govan, Director, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Vishakha Desai, President and Melissa Chiu, Vice President of Global Arts, Asia Society
Jim Cuno, President and Director, Art Institute of Chicago
Julián Zugazagoitia, Director, Nelson Atkins Museum, Kansas City
Ann Philbin, Director, Hammer Museum, University of California, Los Angeles
Olga Viso, Director, Walker Art Center
Alfred Pacquement, Director, Musée national d’art moderne/Centre de création industrielle, Paris
Arnold Lehman, Director, Brooklyn Museum
Jill Medvedow, Director, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston
Julia Peyton-Jones, Director and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-director of Exhibitions and Programmes
and Director of International Projects, Serpentine Gallery, London
Poul Erik Tøjner, Director, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark
Nathalie Bondil, Director and Chief Curator, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
Neal Benezra, Director, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Tony Ellwood, Director, and Suhanya Raffel, Deputy Director, Queensland Art Gallery, Australia
Thomas W. Lentz, Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director, Harvard Art Museums

…who have sponsored this petition at change.org which has attracted more than 90,000 signatures

http://www.change.org/petitions/call-for-the-release-of-ai-weiwei#?opt_new=t&opt_fb=t&utm_source=hootsuite&utm_medium=sm&utm_campaign=twitter

Plus also see the signatories to this open letter:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/apr/08/our-fears-fate-ai-weiwei

The most recent reporting of the arrests of the 54 “dissidents” in the New York Times of April 16 is to be found here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/16/world/asia/16briefs-ART-china.html?_r=2

Further details of this international campaign may be found here:

http://www.iconophilia.net/ai-weiwei-arrested-again/

Image: with apologies to Shepard Fairey and with thanks to Ampersand Duck who wrangled the graphics. This image is not restricted by copyright and iconophilia encourages its FREE usage by others.