Dear Ana,
Of course we are different, but as I already told, we live in one world. I was thinking now about two of us, our differences and how they are caused by culture or personal experiences…
So, what you think, why we are different?
I was looking in our two photos. Yours which is like one still from some European film, artistic, narrative, shadows, colors, composition… And mine, which is like from some Las Vegas night club, pale faces of drugs or drink, make ups, shines, sexual…
Is it London, is it Belgrade..or..?
Xx
Danilo
Re: “Thinking about kindness too…”
I see—here’s where all the can of worms came out. It funny because you seemed to be going on individual speeches up to this point…
But I’m writing here as a general commentary on your dialogue, as a whole.
I’ve just been invited to offer my two pence on this dialogue, and just had a read-through from the beginning in my Saturday afternoon ‘ritual’ with a huge cup of Lapsang Souchong. Like an outsider, pervasively peering into someone else’s pub argument. But I’m not, though, because I’m Ana’s collaborator (mentioned in the ‘live press’ post, yes that one), and hence I’m already biased and know too much about one end but not the other.
For example, the Baku dress issue: I’m pretty sure I was there at the East End shop when she bought it, and the fact that it was the exact costume she wore when she initial developed the piece in The Apartment, an exhibition she—we—were involved in back in March. After much deliberation on a tight-fitting bodysuit, with glittery make-up, etc. Just so it wouldn’t bee too much of a ‘mask’, like make-up.
Ana, I think there is nothing elegant in how Boetti navigates politics: Take his Map pieces (were they called ‘Mappa’? I’m too much of a lazy consumer to google it): having Afghani weavers construct his work, which is to be inevitably sucked into a commercial powerhouse, the contemporary art gallery. These weavings include thank you messages from the people who wove it, I believe. But I wonder how much these people were ‘inclined’ to do it; were they asked to include such messages? Or, did they feel like the ‘had’ to, because of whatever sum they were given to do this? To me this is shameless cultural tourism, or vanity charity, like blasting “save the Haitians!” on facebook without actually donating anything.
This reminds me of the irony of publishing houses that claim to be “green”, and vulgarly states so at the end of every colophon, yet keeps the color printer running for hours, churning out proofs that are merely to be glanced at by the editor (trust me, I’ve worked in publishing).
There’s too much of an outrage, on your end, happening in response to the question of sexuality in your piece. I think it is an issue, though part of it is out of your control (you’re not ugly enough for it not to be an issue?). Whether to repress sexuality or not is a dilemma that women face when it comes to making art that uses her body. “Neutering” is a commentary in itself, like Rosemary Trockel’s utterly unsexy stockings she made in the `80s. It’s a hard one. Personally I think your dress is too “cute” to not want to face this problem, though I disagree on it being about the male ministers present.
Danilo, I actually like your Lily Project. And your over-the-top use of logic. There is something very controlling and perverse about it, kind of like Deleuze’s input on logic in Sado-Masochism. And your ‘masculinity’, so to speak, doesn’t bother me so much (maybe because I come from a male-chauvinist country).
But, I heard your photo above is actually a photoshopped one, which is something that really bugs me. I wish that you were actually photographed with “Serbia’s new social values”. You’ve spoken of the so-called fashion victims in some of your earlier posts—could you not brought in a good looking friend? Or somebody off the street? You see, “photoshopping it” keeps the ideas away from society, the very thing you want to comment. Theory doesn’t come into practice. To me, your photograph is a metaphor somehow.
Because otherwise it’s a farce, the “image” of you with a mere, post-production “image” of a woman. To continue on from the “are you wearing underwear” comment (which I think IS a relevant question), it’s like a man who used up all of his energy to get these new values into bed, and—I’m trying not to be too vulgar here—“lost it” at the last minute.
If these 200 men are somehow convinced that parading into Lilly is a good idea, and has done so on their own accord, enjoying the process of penetrating the mass production of “beauty”—and, somehow more importantly, if your photo above included REAL social values; by that I mean having a living, tanned, blonde, big-bosomed lady snuggling up against you, then you’ve got my vote. Bravo. Could it all come into the ‘real’, I wonder? I read your post about your wedding interventions in Germany, which I think is brilliant. ‘Pathos’ is the word in question; it’s something ‘one’ can believe in, both at a social and personal scale.
Reading your entries regarding to Socialism, I want to believe it. You do have a point in mentioning capitalism is another form of slavery. It is. Here I am, doing art and publishing projects with a part-time job in a foreign country with no form of “security” (e.g. insurance). Had this been in the States, if I get ill I will be left in the open to die. It’s the way the system works.
But I am also thinking of the idiosyncrasies of Socialism. Take China, for example. At Christmastime, a poet who voiced his contempt at the Socialist government online was arrested on grounds of ‘dangerous thought’ and was given a sentence of 11 years in prison. And Cuba? In a state so corrupt that you can’t even mail anything without getting it stolen? Do these places really embody the idealisms that you speak of?
Not that the “western world” hasn’t got its problems. Ah, this dreamy notion of ‘freedom of speech’. Frank Zappa had the same problem in 1960s USA, and it is still a relevant issue today. I just had a thought—albeit a cynical one—if you want freedom of speech, go to Japan. You can voice any opinion, online for example, and get away with it. Because nobody will care, nobody will hear you; people are all too preoccupied with spoon-fed notions of ‘prosperity’. Back to consumerist slavery. That’s probably why there’s such a disgusting influx of pedophiliac manga-porn.
However, art is not politics. Art—or ‘the arts’, rather, encompassing literature, music, theatre, etc., is the first thing to be oppressed at the passing hands of governments (Third Reich, anyone?), but it is only a vehicle of communicating opinion, I believe. It is not the artists who actually go out and make the changes in society, the politicians do. Artists voice concerns, they cause a spark, perhaps an outrage.
More on politics; back to cultural tourism. I was talking to Ana earlier about the politics of this very project, how it is conducted in English, and hence the Western-emigrated would have an upper hand, just by linguistics alone. I’m getting a whiff of the so-called “multi-cultural” being the new international hegemony here. I’m not from “the west” myself, but then people tell me my English is too good for me to use that card—if you know what I mean.
Wow. An epic post. To be continued at some Belgrade drinking establishment, sometime, somehow, maybe on the Ada…
Dear Rene,
Thank you for this really large email and for following our dialogue for so long… Today is the last day of our dialogues so, I’ll try not to entering in larger discussion but to explain you shortly something that you pointed out in your comment.
1. About my projects/photo. I don’t know who told you that my photo is photoshopped? It’s not. Also, the title “new social value” is not the title of that photo and I didn’t put it. I just ironically said that photo reflects “the new social value system in Serbia”, and possible someone from the organization put that as a title.
2.About your claim that my point of view is male dominantly and that reflects male-chauvinist background. First of all, and thank you that you noticed that, many of my projects are ’penetration’, but ’penetration’ into some problem. I use that direct way to intervene in our reality and I find it’s the only one possible way to change it. And, yes, I don’t want to be outside of the phenomenon I’m dealing with, but I want to ’penetrate’ in it and to change it from inside.
About Ana’s project with climbing and my comment on sexual aspect of it. I see that that my comment makes very negative reactions in both of you. Let’s make the thing clear. At the beginning of my and Ana’s communication Ana show me that project of her. We started a discussion and I said then, and I still think that, that crucial thing she is doing with, in my opinion, is idea of ‘territory’ (not sexual aspect of it at all!) She is without the ground in that performance, without real existence in that space, without her weight, materiality etc… I just opened that question, and I said that I would like to know more about it, about how she contextualize and politicize her praxis toward that relation. For example with what kind of territory she is dealing with. Is it lost territory or art gallery space (proto-conceptual work), or lost territory of her nation of origin (national-identity related project)), is it connected with the town or country where she is performing that and so on, and so on. I just open that, but she said that she is not clear about it and that she want to left all these things open and not to define it precisely at the moment. And I respected that. Then, after some period she posted again the photos from the same performance in some other space (Baku, Azerbaijan). I understand it that she are expecting some comment on it (why she would otherwise post it in this dialogue blog?), and I commented it by ASKING about gender aspect of it. Why I asked about exactly that? It was just in that moment one more possible aspect of that project that was obvious to me. Firstly, I see on that photos a girl in short dress climbing upper and all other people from the audience down, looking at her. Also, the project is realized in Azerbaijan which is dominantly Muslim country, and we all know how these women are dressed and what kind of cultural codes are produced around that relation. Pointing that aspect I wanted to ask her about CONTEXT of the project and to see how Ana was thinking about it if she thought on that. And I didn’t want to make any pressure at her to determine precisely her position again, I was just asking about some other, maybe less dominant aspect of her project. Also, it seemed that she is much more familiar with these intimate and personal relations and I suppose that maybe that feminist aspect might be more interesting to her. And that’s all. Anyway, I found that talking about that or questioning these kind of questions are not enough to claim that my point of view is dominantly male one.
Hope I was clear.
Danilo Prnjat
Renee,
I knew I shouldn’t have even gone there! But I did, so here’s what I brought back with me. Sorry, it’s late, but your comment got me thinking.
Alighiero e Boetti. At the time I mentioned him I was specifically thinking about how he uses the grid to get around making direct artistic and political statements. I thought that was an elegant solution, deferring to the grid while dealing with issues of authorship and nationality and political mapping equally in the case of allowing Afghan and Pakistani weavers to select colour panels and patterns as allowing others to fill in his grids with ball point pen. I thought he at least attempted to preserve democratic and anit-elitist strategies in the making of his work, politically. And I thought the fact that he celebrated opposing factors in his work; order and disorder, mistakes and perfection, individual and collective was a poetic solution in many of his works including ‘Mappa’. But of course, there are problems as you pointed out. And there is no way of knowing for sure whether he was passionate about non-western cultures or whether he was a cultural tourist or worse a ‘capitalist’? Not that we’re going to find answer from the grid, it never did solve anything!
All I can think of is that class with Mark Godfrey!
Nice comment…
xxx
Ana