Ian Houston writes from London...
Colombian artist Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth, the latest installation at the Tate Modern’s cavernous turbine hall is a huge crack in the ground that runs the entire length and width of this forbidding space, branching out in filigrees of doom, an intriguing, darkly mystifying piece, – well it was darkly mystifying, until she opened her mouth, “It represents borders, the experience of immigrants, the experience of segregation, the experience of racial hatred.” Thanks. Great, now I know what to think. No need to see it anymore really.
There is little in the world of art more deflating (aside from the news of another $100,000 plus auction for a Tim Storrier work) than hearing an artist tell you what a work represents. This ascribing of absolute meanings to a work of art by its creator really puts the kibosh on any of the allusive, associative detective work that makes art fun, dare I say it, worthwhile even. Indeed, the idea that an artist sits in their studio and decides that they are going to create a work that “stands for” something is vaguely nauseating. The language games of the art and text people aside, shouldn’t art be doing its best work when it stands beyond the interface of meaning and identity beckoning us instead into the deeper water, where we can stand no more? Where we might drown? Choking our last on the pure waters of a “meaning” beyond attribution, distillation or comprehension? Otherwise we could all save ourselves some time and have the artist email us their wall texts,
Doris Salcedo would like you to know that a crack in the floor represents borders, the experience of immigrants and the experience of racial hatred. She would also like you to know that racism is bad and that Europeans are bad for being racist.
Sure the notion is worthy, and it received plenty of press. No doubt people will read it, nodding their heads and inwardly agree “hmmm poor refugees, nasty racism” and who am I to differ with that sentiment? I rush to assure you that I don’t. But what about the poor crack in the floor? The artist has gone to so much trouble to make it and now with a few short words to the press it has become one thing, a simple placard in a protest, rather than the myriad, elusive, wonderfully poignant things it might have been.
Before she opened her mouth and started to blab, it could have been a humorous commentary on contemporary architecture, or a representation of Marxist Dialecticism, or maybe Saussure’s division between the signified and the signifier, or language and parole, or the haves and have notes or the fracture line of a soul whose heart had been broken, or a discussion of plate tectonics, maybe even the crack in the liberty bell and all of the references to American attacks on freedom around the world that would conjure. Or else it was clearly Freudian, a dirty crack in the floor, “a crack” which is a joke, which is an absence. Absent of what? The Phallus, of course. You could have visited the work and walked its length examining the depths it plunged, as you thought about your own dark nights of the soul, following the jagged architecture of its path as you traced the manner in which your life had unraveled over the years. But no – not anymore. Now it’s about racism. Good thing to, since we all know racism is bad. Still, what a killjoy. That crack could have been so much fun.
[tomado del blog the art life]
The work, entitled Shibboleth 2007, runs the full 167 metres of the cavernous hall on London's South Bank.
It begins as a crack then widens and deepens as it snakes across the room.
Colombian artist Salcedo said the work - on display to the public until April next year - symbolised racial hatred and division in society.
"I always try to relate my work to tragedy," she said.
Salcedo added: "It represents borders, the experience of immigrants, the experience of segregation, the experience of racial hatred.
"It is the experience of a Third World person coming into the heart of Europe."
BBC news website 9 October 2007
Colombian artist Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth, the latest installation at the Tate Modern’s cavernous turbine hall is a huge crack in the ground that runs the entire length and width of this forbidding space, branching out in filigrees of doom, an intriguing, darkly mystifying piece, – well it was darkly mystifying, until she opened her mouth, “It represents borders, the experience of immigrants, the experience of segregation, the experience of racial hatred.” Thanks. Great, now I know what to think. No need to see it anymore really.
There is little in the world of art more deflating (aside from the news of another $100,000 plus auction for a Tim Storrier work) than hearing an artist tell you what a work represents. This ascribing of absolute meanings to a work of art by its creator really puts the kibosh on any of the allusive, associative detective work that makes art fun, dare I say it, worthwhile even. Indeed, the idea that an artist sits in their studio and decides that they are going to create a work that “stands for” something is vaguely nauseating. The language games of the art and text people aside, shouldn’t art be doing its best work when it stands beyond the interface of meaning and identity beckoning us instead into the deeper water, where we can stand no more? Where we might drown? Choking our last on the pure waters of a “meaning” beyond attribution, distillation or comprehension? Otherwise we could all save ourselves some time and have the artist email us their wall texts,
Doris Salcedo would like you to know that a crack in the floor represents borders, the experience of immigrants and the experience of racial hatred. She would also like you to know that racism is bad and that Europeans are bad for being racist.
Sure the notion is worthy, and it received plenty of press. No doubt people will read it, nodding their heads and inwardly agree “hmmm poor refugees, nasty racism” and who am I to differ with that sentiment? I rush to assure you that I don’t. But what about the poor crack in the floor? The artist has gone to so much trouble to make it and now with a few short words to the press it has become one thing, a simple placard in a protest, rather than the myriad, elusive, wonderfully poignant things it might have been.
Before she opened her mouth and started to blab, it could have been a humorous commentary on contemporary architecture, or a representation of Marxist Dialecticism, or maybe Saussure’s division between the signified and the signifier, or language and parole, or the haves and have notes or the fracture line of a soul whose heart had been broken, or a discussion of plate tectonics, maybe even the crack in the liberty bell and all of the references to American attacks on freedom around the world that would conjure. Or else it was clearly Freudian, a dirty crack in the floor, “a crack” which is a joke, which is an absence. Absent of what? The Phallus, of course. You could have visited the work and walked its length examining the depths it plunged, as you thought about your own dark nights of the soul, following the jagged architecture of its path as you traced the manner in which your life had unraveled over the years. But no – not anymore. Now it’s about racism. Good thing to, since we all know racism is bad. Still, what a killjoy. That crack could have been so much fun.
[tomado del blog the art life]
![[flyer.jpg]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggQSFsZaz9ghVij3D7AVOmK71y69fCwXUtEGcxVWFy-GWw7M0JqWLdw35MekoJ2t8piivnEv2cIQPl-KnKtL22DV-kig4_yOMtNBbCBqHXYDAl17PTIvb7Xq-_hX2BzKSOBYqY3g/s400/89jpg.jpg)
![[flyer.jpg]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGMxQ0F0-CcosVaoDuKQ6XV-PgvikgvkBHOseKBniJZ2xk0Suv8PuyMlwtoIU2baF1daIktMLYM9cR8KqaVH8A66MOJscrgV-4vJfUWhI0I6UlNPop00SFfhgsIotHXR7wWmRw-A/s1600/flyer.jpg)
3 comentarios:
Por lo general siempre me parece saludable y divertido cuando se critica a algún/a artista conocido/a de manera clara y concisa (cosa tan poco común en Lima—digo, crítica clara y concisa, porque para barroquismos inaccesibles y/o falaces argumentaciones ad hominem, ejemplos sobran). Pero esta crítica, aunque tiene sus momentos graciosos, en general me parece pobre. Por ejemplo, la manera cómo polariza las cosas, convirtiendo el comentario de Salcedo en un “ascribing of absolute meanings” es descabellada. Y eso sin contar que, para sus tímidos guiños “post-estructuralistas” (sus críticas a la representación o su invocación a la ambigüedad, por ejemplo), irónicamente cae en una intentional fallacy tan evidente que ya es rochosa, aún así sea para hacer el chiste (que en todo caso critique a la prensa por ello, más que a la artista por decir lo que quiera). Y su visión de la experiencia del espectador es terriblemente romántica (¿no parece casi una descripción de lo sublime kantiano?), cosa que—en materia de marco teórico—edulcora toda la acidez de su crítica hasta el empalago. La verdad que no sé para qué colgar una crítica tan sosa.
manya, me pasó exactamente lo mismo cuando leí sobre esta obra.
Me llamó mucho la atención la idea de la grieta y luego me decepcionó que lo que había detrás fuera algo tan plano. No porque el tema del racismo en si sea plano, sino por las palabras que había usado la artista para describirlo. A diferencia de Houston no me dio bronca sino simplemente perdí por completo el interés.
no estoy de acuerdo en que los artistas deberían mantener la boca cerrada para así no simplificar la infinita posibilidad de asociaciones—aunque sí pienso en qué hubiera pasado con varias obras conceptuales si es que el artista las hubiera asociado con algo tan definitivo.
estoy de acuerdo en que si el artista decide abordarlo de manera tan pobre merece una crítica, pero no una a la Houston que termina traduciéndose en "cierra la boca" sino desde el terreno del tema elegido.
y creo que en este sentido Don Ian no la ve, porque el rollo no es solo que tenga un tinte politico recriminatorio basico que convierta la obra en una fabula de buenos y malos, sino que dentro del tema elegido carece de ese lado mas universal con el que uno se puede relacionar al no ofrecer mas niveles de interpretación.
lo cual me plantea a mi la pregunta: por qué perdí el interés? qué enfoque desde el tema que eligió hubiera llamado mi atención?
El interés se puede haber perdido, en parte, porque la aproximación dada supone partir de la idea de un significado o una narrativa tras la obra, lógica que contradice las pautas arte-históricas del minimalismo y del land art que evidentemente están en juego. Y la cosa es que desde dichas pautas se emplaza lo “experiencial” de un modo insustituible por la descripción (postura ante la cual la narrativa pierde vigencia). De hecho, ese es precisamente el lado que Houston deja de lado (y un comentarista de arte que no sabe de historia del arte deja más que desear que una artista simplona en sus descripciones), y tales asociaciones resultan de lo más interesantes, al margen de lo que Salcedo diga o deje de decir. A ese respecto, resulta interesante el nexo posible entre la pieza de Salcedo y la increíble obra You de Urs Fischer, que ha estado hasta hoy en exhibición en Gavin Brown.
Publicar un comentario