Tragedy has a way of playing ironic games that we only begin to understand once it’s too late.

About a year ago, I wrote about a project called Face2Face, by two artists who go by the pseudonyms JR and Marco. The simple idea was: bring people to see how similar they are, and how funny. Show the two sides their faces. A charming, courageous project that meant to show the urgency of seeing the other.

That was one year ago.

A few days ago, on December 25th, I visited Bethlehem, the capital of the Palestinian Autonomy.
When entering the city, I discovered street art I had written about.
And the site was sad.

It is true, the works survived on the walls for quite a while. But especially in the case of some of the portraits, the damage was more than just a random act of destruction.

It made me feel like that particular project failed.
Possibly, someone still got influenced by it. But the statement it was making now was much stronger, and seemed to correspond better to the tension. And to increase it.
Among the many question that arose, one came back often: isn’t this ridiculous, to think you can just put some funny faces on both sides of the wall, and people will feel closer to each other? You know, We Are The World… Here is what the artists were saying in 2007:

In a very sensitive context, we need to be clear.
We are in favor of a solution for which two countries, Israel and Palestine would live peacefully within safe and internationally recognized borders.

All the bilateral peace projects (Clinton/Taba, Ayalon/Nussibeh, Geneva Accords) are converging in the same direction. We can be optimistic.

We hope that this project will contribute to a better understanding between Israelis and Palestinians.

Today, “Face to face” is necessary.
Within a few years, we will come back for “Hand in hand”.

Hand in hand? Today it’s tempting to ask, so what does each hand hold?
What is left for the artist? This cute idea of the artist being a social engineer can look ridiculous in the face of the violent tragedy we’re witnessing. The Greek tragedy appears in all its seemingly unsolvable power.

But what made this particular artistic project end up like this?
1. It felt like it was a declaration: we don’t think you’re funny.
2. Maybe it said: your language is not ours. You have no clue about us (but implying: and we - about you).
3. But let us go back to the face. The French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas said that

the face says to me: you shall not kill.

Is that why the work was torn? In a way… I would be tempted to say that Levinas gives a reason a little further in that interview:

Accordingly, my duty to respond to the other [because of being confronted with his face] suspends my natural right to self-survival, le droit vitale.

Ergo, a work showing the faces of others can somehow take away my power to consider myself ahead of the other, leaving me at their mercy. They are facing me. In front of me. (Laughing at me?)(Mocking my way of life? My seriousness and attachment to my culture? My people’s suffering, maybe?) By looking at me, constantly, they demand recognition that goes beyond any recognition they can give me.

Yes, this seems like a dead-lock. And a sad time, also for art.

One desperate attempt at a positive note.
Not all ancient Greek tragedies ended badly. For instance, The Eumenides, the third part of Aeschilus’ trilogy Oresteia, ends well. It is Athena who comes and convinces the goddesses of vengeance - the Furies - to accept a judgement democratically made by a jury. Athena renames the Furies (Erinyes) the Kindly Ones - Eumenides. (And everyone lives happily ever after.)
Can we paint ourselves into being Athenas? We’ll keep on trying. But we could certainly use some of those sound democratic judgements to defend.

Selected fragments of Levinas on the face:
The face resists possession, resists my powers.
The face opens the primordial discourse whose first word is obligation.
The Other faces me and puts me in question and obliges me.
The face is exposed, menaced, as if inviting us to an act of violence. At the same time, the face is what forbids us to kill.
The manifestation of the face is already discourse.

One of my points of interest recently has been the social identity and its various levels (going from such a broad thing as being a citizen to being a “part of a relation”).
This is what the author, cirka, says about the work, on the Wooster Collective site where I discovered the work:

“I’ve been thinking a lot about public information vs. private information and why it’s so fascinating to read about the mundane details of someone else’s private life (like finding their grocery list that they dropped in the parking lot, for example). So, I decided to reverse this by choosing “declassify” some of my own personal documents: letters that, at a different time in my life, I would have been mortified for anyone else to see. All are letters that were written to me (except for one, which shows a short email correspondence). They span from a letter written by my pen pal when I was about 10 to a letter that I received last summer. I silk-screened all the letters in the original color that they were written in. The only things that I altered were the names of people mentioned in the letters, which I censored in black ink.”

I love when an artist plays with the idea of a genuine self, flirts with exhibitionism, and yet the work remains a presentation, a mise-en-scene.

I don’t remember how I found the video below. It popped up, and I watched, curious, then mesmerized, then disturbed, then - disgusted.
I decided not to post it on New Art. So as not to encourage something I find incorrect, or rather - wrong.
After a while I came back to see it, and watched the whole thing again. And I thought: who am I to judge this? After all, didn’t I watch it with curiosity, and watch the whole thing, twice? Why can’t I show what’s disturbing me, bringing it forward to this public forum, so everyone can make her own mind?
But first, let me warn you: in my opinion, animals were being hurt in the making of this work. If you want to be absolutely sure you don’t participate in any way in the popularity of this work, do not see the film below.

I would not resist if I were you. Maybe I would do it for the sake of something (it’s a scary skill, thinking up good reasons). But I would be there, peeking in. Maybe not until the end. But then, it doesn’t matter, does it? Does it?
The question of the onlooker, his power and his role in the process of creation, might often be used in contemporary art - but very seldom is it addressed in-depth. What is our responsibility? Can shutting our eyes be a good way of “appreciating” and yet disliking the work? Can I refuse something without knowing what it is? What do we know about the work we see above? About the conditions of its creation? Should I even be posting this without that knowledge?
See this strange video, also directed by Körner (Koerner) Union. (Be patient.)

Now, the astonishing part with the hen makes me question my own assumptions. Was my judgement too simplistic, also in the other case? Maybe this is just a short moment, or maybe it’s all a trick, maybe the birds are not bumping against the mirror, shocking against it violently, thinking there is space where a solid mirror remains? Maybe it was all digitally manipulated or they were trained, or something? Or maybe I’m being hypersensitive?

Relax, now.

Here are a few untortured animals, in a wonderful picture by Isabella Rozendaal.
No, this is no antidote to these moral dilemmas. But it’s an appeasement: the gentle distance. Rozendaal is someone who appreciates “ the remarkable and humorous things she encounters in real life”. And a way of approaching reality which plays with the idea of “amateur” photography, so we feel like this is almost too easy, and yet, remarkably appealing.

Yet, after all this, let’s make a circle, and go back to Korner Union, with a video that somehow makes one think of the pictures above, with simple stories that are just slightly off (and a great song by Don Cavalli)…

But my favorite thing by Korner Union is quite minimalistic I suppose and maybe it’s just this mood, tonight, with all the snow melted away, thawed and relaxed and, well, it’s a page I found on their soon-to-be-active site. It also takes part in the game of hide-and-seek between the onlookers and the people-who-show-as-things-we-like. And it’s simple.

Halima Bashir meeting with George Bush.
In some cases, getting to a more aesthetic experience means moving away from the knowledge, choosing to forget the information we might have. Here we have a picture that has a very good, rational explanation: an African political activist fears for her life, so in order to remain entirely anonymous, she drapes herself entirely. The cause, peace in Darfur, is very noble, Halima Bashir’s story (you have the link above) is shocking.
But this same picture can be seen differently. Here we have the president of the USA in conversation with the Unknown, the absolute Stranger. Here is a confrontation of the American/Western values, aesthetics, mode of functioning (notice the microphones!), attitude (the gesture! the gesture!) with the ghost of another world. It is a beautiful picture, and the most outstanding thing about it is - it’s a readymade.

Daito Manabe is a funny guy.

But he also knows his business. This is no accidental work, as Manabe is a serious artist and very serious programmer. While looking through his work, I came across a video fragment of a stunning performance where he was in charge of programming (more specifically, of “sound/oscillation/programming”), a work called true, directed by dumb type’s Takayuki Fujimoto. And, as expected from the co-creator of one of the most outstanding multimedia performance groups ever, this is… well, prepare to be amazed.

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Still from Under Discussion, a video by Allora & Calzadilla (great interview with them here)
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Excerpt from Tine Van Aerschot’s first production, I have no thoughts and this is one. The actress is Forced Entertainment’s Claire Marshall.
Another excerpt and a short bio here.

Diogenes Laertes, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Pythagoras, Bk. VIII, 8:

“When Leon the tyrant of Phlius asked Pythagoras who he was, he said, “a philosopher,” and that he compared life to the Great Games, where some went to compete for the prize and others went with wares to sell, but the best as spectators; for similarly, in life, some grow up with servile natures, greedy for fame and gain, but the philosopher seeks for truth.”

Video by comedian/musician Chris Cohen.
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Kamila Szejnoch’s work Swing is the winner of this year’s Szpilman Award (”awarded to works that exist only for a moment or a short period of time”). The Swing was suspended on one of Warsaw’s largest (and scariest) monuments, the monument to the Berling Army Soldier. (for posters in the same vein and for Szejnoch’s commentary, see here).

Two other works I particularly like from among the finalists are Sai Hua Kuan’s Space Drawing
and Kate Mitchell’s I am Not A Joke:

What I find fascinating in Kristine Moran’s paintings is the sense of discipline. The disasters that keep appearing, the huge messes of messes, the total wreck of a reality she introduces us into, seem like a carefuly planned catastrophy.
No wonder she arrived at theater interiors, with their settings ready for the show, with the wardrobe mirrors reflecting every possible aspect of the mask, with their ridiculously decorative shapes that are bound to disappear when it happens.
This stage is set for failure. A beautiful failure of something that seemed to be going right. Everything was set, every rule was applied and every hope was nurtured.
And yet, the closer to what matters, to the subject (the topic, the I, the eye), the bigger the tension.
Until it all just blows up in pieces.

But not entirely. And call me an optimist, but this structure which reappears even in the most amorphous circumstances sustains not just the painting, but also, whatever is left of me, the empathic viewer.

Moran’s pictures have evolved into an astonishing universe where 3D space that contains, well, how do I put it… paint. Color. Texture. Painting is the better word here. It is as if the painting, a 2D picture, moved into a 3D space. And the space accepted it, incorporating it in its realm. If you think this is a metaphor, see this:

Kristine Moran has been compared to Francis Bacon. Yes, sure, the inter-dependence of form and reality, their perverse games of hide-and-seek… But Moran’s work seemingly leaves the human body - though certainly not the human - much further behind. And maybe because of that, it appears as not so much a struggle of the artist, as a struggle between the forms themselves. As she watches them, cooly, from a distance.

The titles are, in order of appearance: You Used To Be Alright, What Happened ; The World Is Yours ; Collapse of Will ; Hunter - Gatherer.

I am proud to inform you that this site has been named one of the Top 8 Art Blogs of 2008 by the great Murmurart! It has also been listed as one of 100 Blogs That Will Make You Smarter at Online Universities.com!
This demands celebration…
After the hangover, expect new posts.
Also a selection of the posts will hopefuly soon be featured at the website of the classy Art World Magazine.