The Contemporary Art Blog from Canberra

A visitor photographs Tracey Emin’s “And I said I love you” at the Frieze Art Fair in Regents Park, central London October 12, 2011. REUTERS/Andrew Winning. By: Mike Collett-White. Via ArtDaily.

Photographed on 7 October 2001 (Reuters/Zahid Hussein). Read Sally Neighbour, in The Monthly Sept 2011…

How did this happen? Read the full story here on Rugs of War…

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.

Look! A person! Despite which, it seems the Dead Heart of Canberra is truly a lost cause. Every August 23rd for the last four years your iconophiliac has been pointing at these sick little public artefacts in the centre of Canberra, and asking: who takes responsibility for this run-down, derelict space between the Melbourne and Sydney Buildings? Follow the thread. You’ll be amazed at what you see.

It’s a public disgrace. No amount of dinky fairy lights can disguise the fact that this abandoned space gives a dreadful impression to every visitor to this (apparently) soulforsaken city. I’ve suggested pavilions, like the Serpentine, but nobody is listening. But now we have a new Chief Minister, a new Minister for the Arts, and a new Director of the Canberra Museum and Art Gallery (among other things). Memo to all: get advice. Do something really significant. Like the Serpentine does. And yes, they’re for sale…

So while Singapore has its Supertrees, Canberra has its petuniae. Each is memorable in its own special way…

Postscript: The power of the press! Three days after this was posted, the objects have vanished! Nonetheless the pervasive sense of ennui remains…

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)

The Canberra Museum and Gallery has a vitrine out front which enables a rolling series of invited installations. It has a history of generating really interesting displays. One of my favourite sites.

Until mid-September you’ll see Jan Hogan’s To shadow, an installation made of Japanese woodblock prints with Sumi ink and builders pigment on Kozo light with the plywood woodblocks on the floor.  It fills the whole space. Hogan says:

“To shadow traces the shimmering and shifting forms observed on Gundaroo Common in the small country town of Gundaroo, New South Wales. The shadows of clouds, trees and the artist’s body merge and are overlaid onto undulating ground, and these moments in time are rendered as woodblock prints on Japanese paper, using eucalyptus ink from the trees on the Common, Sumi ink and earth pigments. The works on paper float on the wall above the jigsaw cut-out woodblocks from which they are printed, forming an interconnected network. This work investigates the possibility of a meeting point between Indigenous and settler culture, through the ancient idea of ‘the common’, land shared and used for the benefit of all. The visual effects of this work suggest how various and fluid are our relationships to place, and how different views and memories of the same place can co-exist and expand individual perspectives.”

It’s an awkward space to photograph effectively (thanks here to Keven), so you’d better get over to see it for yourself…

Q: when is a motorbike a work of art? A: when it’s in the Museum of Modern Art.

Here’s the precursor: this 1949 Vincent HRD Rapide is currently on display in One’s Not Enough at the Canberra Museum and Gallery, the latest in a series of exhibitions of local private collections. This example is from the motorbike collection of Peter and Ann Toet. And here’s the 1949 Vincent Black Shadow, in pride of place in the MoMA galleries of architecture and design.

What, I hear you ask, are such things as a Cisitalia or a Black Shadow doing in an art gallery anyway? One of the distinctive characteristics of the MoMA collection is its integration of machine art/industrial design displayed in parallel to the evolution of modern art. And so it’s inevitable that this gorgeous example of early modern automobilia finds a place alongside everything from kitchenalia to a Bell helicopter. The 1946 Cisitalia 202 was designed by the famous Italian Battista “Pinin” Farina who in the immediate postwar era pioneered the idea of the application of aerodynamics to the automobile. One of only 170 produced, the Cisitalia epitomised the “pure, smooth, essential” lines that were to characterise the next age of automobile form. Slippery. Innovative. And very red.

What, I ask myself, are they doing side by side? This celebration of purity, pure red and pure black, is a very MoMA conjunction. But the Black Shadow, built by Philip Vincent and Phil Irving from 1949, is a classic example of stylelessness – of form determined by function – with nothing about it determined by fashion or aesthetics. Which indeed has been one of the criteria espoused by MoMA’s approach to design since its adoption in 1934 of the rubric of Machine Art. So the Shadow is present in the art gallery as the embodiment of mechanical essentialism – if anything, a late futurist expression of power, speed, plus a kind of madness, all present in the same moment as an expression of technological sophistication. One could say it is expressive of the modern in a purely mechanical way, which is how the MoMA first argued its approach to design.  Hand-built in the slipstream of the technological advances of WW2, it is said the Rapide and the Black Shadow were made for the generation who survived the war. For those who were prepared to take risks… But is it art?

Writing in 1984, Arthur Drexler explains: such “an object is chosen for its quality because it is thought to achieve, or to have originated, those formal ideas of beauty that have become the major stylistic concepts of our time.” Thus once its “balance of proportions and fitness for purpose” have been established, an object enters The Modern to be located within its art historical concepts of style… Admittedly, a quarter century has passed since this dictum was published, and the world has moved far beyond “Mechanical Art” as the paradigm of the future. And yet, with its underlying interests in design for mass production, these two hand-made objects represent the end of an era, worlds away from the age of digital design. Nevertheless, with “Painting and Sculpture” still the main game, these two icons are closer in time and sensibility to the beginning of the modern than to the present. So, with all options covered, anything is possible at the MoMA. Stand by. Before long they’ll be hanging them on the wall.

Let’s ask Joseph Kosuth: is a chair still a chair if you hang it on the wall?

(image: Sybil Gordon Kantor, Alfred H. Barr Jr. and the Intellectual Origins of the Museum of Modern Art, MIT Press, 2002, p.315)

Imagine my surprise when, walking through the campus of the UWA, admiring the rich neo-classical architecture, this face on the Arts Faculty building called out for my attention. “Look at this! On my nose!” the building exclaimed.

Imagine my surprise when I thought I recognised a work by my favourite international street artist, Invader! A delicious doubly anthropomorphic effect…

And it’s true, apparently. Ten years ago (here’s a mini-interview) Invader visited Perth and left his calling cards everywhere. Many still exist. There’s a map, Invasion of Perth, online here. And his site, here.

The recently opened Art Gallery of New South Wales’ new Kaldor Galleries houses the gift of the Kaldor Family Collection. With the transformation of previous storage areas there are now three new large galleries plus some smaller spaces which form an extension to the existing contemporary art galleries. It’s full of the most comprehensive collection of 60s/70s painting, sculptures, and installations in the country. It favours minimalist art (Sol LeWitt, Don Judd, Carl Andre, plus a great early diptych by Frank Stella) but also includes significant collections by Nam June Paik, Rauschenberg, and of course, Christo.

In one instance, the Sol LeWitt room (titled Wall Drawing # 1091: arcs, circles, and bands, 2003) turns the convention of The Ubiquitous White Cube inside out. This work is a freestanding room structure (with quite specific and inexplicable architectural features – was it designed for somewhere else?) and you look in the windows at the blaze of hard-edge colour design on the inside. Here we see it looking past that other favourite white cubist of Kaldor’s, Don Judd, with a piece from 1975. As a forensic label-reader, I would love to know one more piece of information for all these works: when were they acquired?

When you reach the end of the exhibition, you’re even invited to make your own LeWitt! At this point you suffer an uncharacteristic art historical land-grab: “The artist – Sol LeWitt – developed a style of art called ‘conceptual art’ where the concept or idea for the art is as important as the final work.”

Another whole gallery is hung around a series of four more LeWitt sculptures, (Incomplete Open Cube 1974 – four versions) which draws the eye towards another Wall Drawing #337, of 1971. Luckily there’s enough good and interesting examples of minimalist and post-minimalist work to make the whole experience a really rewarding immersion into the aesthetics of 1970s New York.