Danilo and Breda,
I’m back. From France and in other ways. The light outside is fading so fast. I swear I sat down to write to you in better light, and that was how many hours ago? January really has two faces. (It’s named after Janus, isn’t it? Or did I imagine that?) Wait. It was. Or so it says out there, somewhere. On the internet. Another face. Anyway, it’s not important. I believe it, because I want to. “A rose is a rose is a rose.” I hate January. I have my customary January cold and have swapped day for night as a result, sleeping in the daytime and waking at odd hours in the night. I wasn’t aware of it until I checked my own timings and writings. Which I will now share. Aware, as I am that they probably have only an oblique relationship to the dialogue developing here in my absence. If only in the sense that this maybe an aerial shot in the dark “taken from an airplane with the camera directed horizontally or diagonally downward” –the definition of an oblique photograph— but I have to begin again somewhere.
I believe Gertrude Stein when she said that. And Juliet when she said “What’s in a name?” Juliet didn’t need a conceptual framework to feed her flame for Romeo but she had one anyway. The coordinates of her desire described the constellation of Romeo before they ever laid eyes on one another. Everyone knew this the moment the play opened, from the first line, in ACT I, SCENE I ‘Verona. A public place’. No one needed Shakespeare as the Prince as ‘Big Other’ to tell them that. I get it, Danilo, believe me I do. I get your analytical approach and I agree with you, art is politics, everything is politics. But where does that leave me or you or Breda or any audience too, or Romeo and Juliet for that matter? There is a reason Romeo’s face was perfect to Juliet, even before he unmasked it and it fell into place. And there is a reason Romeo could only navigate his fate through one after another act of bad timing while Juliet could steer hers and his beautifully throughout the play, from their first conversation at the masked ball when she convinces him to see her way her speeches are brilliant pieces of reasoning all the way to the very end when, through Romeo’s bad timing, she stabs herself. And there is a reason most of us can only remember Romeo and Juliet as the greatest love story ever told or “O Romeo, Romeo where for art thou Romeo?” Shakespeare was a great artist first and foremost. In my opinion this only makes what he had to say about the human condition and our capacity for love, for compassion, for hate and our relationship to authority and the law in Romeo and Juliet even more compelling. He even spelled it out at the very end of the play (again as the Prince as the ‘Big Other’) and so the greatest love story ever told is indisputably political and it’s remains so to the present day, to every public that sees it. But my point is that it’s not the Prince or his final word that we relate to, for all it’s virtue of truth and authority. I’m talking about Juliet’s dialogue in particular when I mention (irreducible) multiplicity and their ability to capture mutiple meanings artfully even though they are simultaneously the most politically minded, by your definition, of any character in the play and she successfully navigates all the ‘social relations involving authority of power’; her father, her mother, the priest, Paris and even Romeo. You misunderstand me, I’m not talking about closing down discussions when I talk about ‘multiplicities’. On the contrary, political differences like plays on words and ambiguous meanings in this particular instance are absolutely something I can relate to and engage with whenever possible. I try to do this like I tried to explain my position in relation to politics in my work by showing you how my work could be interpreted as political, but that I reserved the right for it to be ambiguously so. Or, in fact, the right for it not to be so if that is my (political) position. But as I’ve said previously, I’m not always successful . I think Shakespeare is. So all this to say that ambiguousness is not necessarily a bad thing in art or politics. It leaves room for the imagination and for negotiation and I can’t see how approaching the issue of politics in art in this way can be a bad thing. So I think you misunderstand me. Perhaps I’m misunderstanding you? When I mentioned socialism and capitalism in relation to last century and your interpretation of both your and my work, I did so because it seemed to me that you’d been pushing a Western - v- Other dichotomy throughout our dialogue up to that point in a similar (though I admit in a more contemporary context) way as the Capitalism - v- Socialism dichotomy to which I was only saying that this simplistic relation was not possible for the same reasons you then wrote about subsequently in your ART IS POLITICS. But since we’re here, what are the differences you perceive I’m annihilating and how am I doing that, precisely?
I hate January. Still. However, being asleep during the day and awake at night as you can see, lead me to amongst other things, read Romeo and Juliet and see another face to our debate. And so, I’m thinking, this two faced thing might be important in some way? I shouldn’t be so one faced. So, instead of saying categorically art is not politics in this post I’m prepared to say, politics is one face of art and call it instead ‘January’. January with its looking forward and back at once, with its sleepwalking and awakedreaming. Janus and Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet and the two of you have started my upsidedown and downsideup thinking. A constellation has formed, complete with it’s own black hole, namely, my night land (prob)ability to see another side to an argument, another face to a debate. I was going to write night life but land seems to have aptly slipped in there. Freud has permanently altered my thinking, I swear. But as I said before, he’s a great writer so I forgive him his imprinting, on me. So, aware of how I’m slipping, it stays. ‘Night Land’, a black hole in the constellation of my January nights where anything is possible. Lacan also. For I’ve always already missed it, like the objet petit a, I’m scared and afraid I will lose it though it’s something I’ll never have. “What’s in a name?” My black hole. A symptom of my January cold.
I really appreciate what you wrote about politics and art from your point of view. Your points of reference, including being a young man, are obviously new to me. I’m a product of my Western education so you’ve opened up some interesting topics. Thank you for that. I hope to be able to do the same for you. With regard to Yugoslavia, former socialism and present capitalism are one obvious reality that each of the now independent Yugoslav states face. What did you mean when you said “Can you really imagine total crash of one system?” That it’s impossible or that it’s so immense it’s too difficult to imagine? Can you explain? And most of all, I do want to know about you personal experience of capitalism, the ‘primitive-capitalistic’ and transitional period of Serbia you mention? And, I do want you to individualise your experiences, as you say. Otherwise, how can I relate to what you’re really saying to me in any real way? Other than intellectually, of course. Which is easy enough on the face of it although it’s one of the reasons, at least it is for me, that you have to ask “ I thought you met me better after all this dialogues” and I have to answer. No.
About your last paragraph. Again, I’m not sure where the misunderstanding arose but I’d like to clear it up. I simply mentioned the complications that might arise out of Breda, in particular, but anyone in general documenting and so mediating my performance. I meant that obviously in relation to it being posted here. At no time did I declare that my performance is about it being mediated, especially not above and beyond it being a ‘live’ performance. The live performance is the actual site, the place where it exists, for me. Having said that, the mediation is a part of the work at this point, as it appears, posted and discussed here, and that has its artistic and political implications. Which we can discuss if you want to. What I meant by my relationship with the camera is more general, meaning any performance artist’s relationship with the camera and person behind camera documenting them and with documentation of performance art in general. But we can discuss my specific relationship to which I admit I alluded to if you want to. As for “he can be she if you want”, he cannot be she if I want, that is for sure. But that is a subject for another post from me, to follow.
Finally, you didn’t humiliate me. As for provoking me, at the time, it seemed to me you were trying to provoke me with what I perceive to be your arrogant and/or ignorant statements about my performance Since then, I’ve ruled out at least one of those. I shouldn’t pick fights with giants. Though I’m no David and you’re no Goliath. But I do it anyway. Pick fights. If I think I’m provoked. It’s not something I can control. Most of the time. As you saw. Besides, I like being stupefied from time to time, preferably in a contaposto pose and with a loaded sling or whatever our version of that would be here? Anyway, I’m prepared to say I was wrong to reply to you as if provoked if you can prove I wasn’t? Either way, as the pose suggests, I’m ready. So, following your Friendly hug! I’m not going to interpret your prior line “Dear Ana, there is only one world!” as a sarcastic provocation but as a genuine offer of continued friendship or whatever our version of that is here. Unless you can prove otherwise. Though I still hope you can see how even that, both your statement and mine, can be taken either way. Ambiguity. Surely, there is room for both our worldviews somewhere in there, that is all I’ve been trying to say.
Good morning more than good night.
Best,
Ana
