Of Politics and Art

What is the universal? Can we have universal values? Any society that aims at maintiaining justice is based on values it believes to be the best. What happens when cultures meet? How do we deal with the otherness of others? Is it possible to be simply "tolerant", and consider this "tolerance" to be the one universal value?
Among a number of artists addressing these questions in the last years, Jota Castro is a special case. This is maybe not as much because of what he is doing or saying, as it is because of where he comes from. Jota Castro is a Peruvian-born artist living in Belgium. But above all, Jota Castro comes straight from the world of international politics:

In the late 1990s Jota Castro brought his career as a diplomat at the United Nations and the European Union to a close and decided to devote himself totally to the field of art. Through his different professional activities, Castro gained in-depth knowledge of the world of politics; moreover, he considers his studies in law and political science as his real training in art. Conjuring up trivial humor, politically incorrect sarcasm, and a wide range of references, Castro's sculptures, installations, and performances point up certain mechanisms at work in society, whose imbalances and weaknesses are skillfully highlighted by the artist.

Castro is indecent and politically incorrect, but always in the right way. He knows how to provoke and how to create simple, strong messages. (Sometimes too simple?)

BBB, oil shame (2004)

For the opening of "Exposition Universelle 1" at the Palais de Tokyo, Castro gave

a performance called "Discrimination Day" that is meant to present the recurrent excesses of what the French call the délit de faciès, literally "facial crime," i.e., being stopped by the police because of the color of one's skin.

Becoming an artist for Castro means using the political skills to their fullest extent. That's why he sometimes chooses to curate other artists' work, as in the case of the Emergency Biennale about Chechnya he co-organized in 2005 (here is a blog that accompanies it). Jota Castro once more doesn't choose an easy subject, and decides to explore it (by inviting other artists, such as Francis Alys, to work on it) in a straight-forward, cut-the-slack kind of way (see pics some of some examples). Does it make a difference? Hard to tell. I haven't found any testimonies yet that would say how life-changing witnessing Castro's events/works was. Maybe that's not what it's supposed to be about. Or maybe we still haven't achieved a sufficient level of artistic communication. Or maybe we're just cold people with no empathy. No, let's say we're not. For the argument's sake.

My role as an artist became clear to me when I understood that the artist is a man as any other, that he decides he has things to say and things to do, and that he doesn't have time to lose. He feels that his times need interprets and he recognizes himself [se reconnait] in the world that surrounds him.

- Jota Castro


Jota Castro, Autoportrait (2003)

Hacking to be a museum guide

A new, creative way of using podcasting. The Art Mobs "movement" (actually an ongoing student project at Marymount Manhattan College) developed a way of remixing/integrating high, low, marginal and off-the-record art. Here is how hacking goes MOMA:

Students make their own MOMA audio-guides
Students at Marymount Manhattan College's Department of Communication Arts are recording their own audio commentary on the Museum of Modern Art's exhibits. They're also inviting others to make their own homemade audio guides to MOMA, which they'll collect and post online.

This is an attempt at decentralization which I am particularly fond of. There is something quite intimate, delicate and powerful missing in the way contemporary art is being communicated. Things are starting to change, though very slowly. Funny, how technology can give a helping hand. Another proof that art is lazy? I mean, couldn't anyone make cassette audio-guides before? Of course, the distrubution was worse, the quality not so good, but still, it was available. Does that mean we had to have it all right in front of us, on a dish, to start actually using technology? Or am I too young (and ignorant) to remember that there were such initiatives, only they faded away? What would be the lessons to learn here?


(via boing boing and art.blogging.la)

Transparent billboards

Transparent billboards in Bordeaux

(via)

HuMan Ray

Man Ray, (1943)


Man Ray Statement

"I am an old man now
In sixty years you can do a lot of work.
I did a lot of things in sixty years,
my paintings, my photography, my objects.
I change all the time.
I have periods were I do one thing
then for a few years
I do something else.
I am a free man.
I do not work for a padrone, or a boss.
I am indifferent to things
that do not interest me.
But never would I attack them.
Especially in the creative arts.
Because I say anybody who does creative art
is a sacred person.
I do not care what he does.
Whether he paints academic pictures
or he is modern
or different
from anything else.
He cannot do any harm.
Whereas a bad politician
or a bad doctor
or a bad cook
can kill you!"

(Thank you, Man Ray.)


(pic via)

Preparing a performance

I have been working on a ("site-specific") durational performance.

It's about intimacy in times of distance, political, social, personal distance. It's about the possibility (?) of revealing and getting closer. The images you see are the "prototype" of the main structure.


Two things have surfaced during the preparation:
1) For a while we flirted with the idea of using fragments of (Sophocles' or Anouilh's) Antigone. It all seemed to fit: the tension between the private and the public, the drama of wanting to respect your private world/values, the overwhelming role of (social/state) structures in personal life, and even the isolation of a "cave" where the intimacy is "consumed" (burns out). But then, it didn't fit at all. The tragedies bring an incredible burden: they have a story to tell, which is an ancient story, not quite corresponding to the things happening around us. Of course, we can say, as is usually said (also about e.g. Shakespeare) that the whole world is there already. But this is exactly the problem! I don't want the whole world, not that world. I would have to choose and either a) destroy the tragedy by "manipulating" it to my needs, taking away everything that makes it the tragedy I admire, or b) listen to the tragedy and lose my play. I tried for some time to find the right balance. Then I let go - and feel relieved. "This tail does not belong to this cat", my Dad used to say. How does it ever?
2) I'm discovering to my surprize I have been developing more and more work in "non-traditional" theatre spaces. Now, this wouldn't be worrying, if it were the road I had opted to take. The problem is, I have never really liked this sort of work as a spectator. I never gave it much credit. And here, suddenly, I find myself digging in the same site-specific dirt I found so unthrilling.