C92 Columns
VISUAL ARTS/NORTH:
Green frothy roots
“So your art is not political then?” This was the rhetorical question I was asked recently by an American curator. I wondered if this meant that the curator was once again more interested in the marketing possibilities of political art from Belfast than in me as an individual artist. Happily, for once, this was not the case. It did make me consider how curators all too often pigeon-hole artists. They then use these various artists to curate their own shows based around certain themes: feminism, politics, the mundane, or whatever. Certain artists must share some of the blame for this pigeon-holing. I have seen political work in other countries by artists who would never dream of showing political work here. I am not knocking political work. In fact I have great respect for those artists who engage in the political arena, often bringing issues to a much wider audience than the rest of us. Locky Morris for instance was reviewed in An Phoblacht. The power of art! It’s a pity they got his name wrong, calling him Rockey Norris (good name for a rock-star artist though—perhaps you should keep it, Locky). My criticism is of artists who go abroad and use political art as a vehicle of expediency, reinforcing false perceptions of current art practice here.
It is not just work from here that gets misconstrued; American art has its own problems of misconception. There is that wonderfully arrogant European view of American art, based on envy; it states that it all started in 1950 and the only reason it ever existed was because of all the European artists who left their home countries during the Second World War to live in America.
This arrogance is not new. When Henry James returned to Boston in 1881 after travelling in Europe for six years, he wrote about the terrible burden artists in America experienced dealing with Europe while no European artist bothers dealing with America. He went on to say that in 100 years or even 50 years things would change. How right he was.
Many people feel the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction. This was probably necessary before a balance is reached. Can we now share with Americans their sense of space and scale, their optimism? Can Americans share our history? It amazes me how Americans, particularly those with European backgrounds, think that the fact that their grandparents took a boat ride isolates them from their history and culture. Corned beef (!) and cabbage, thousands of tunelessly played bodhráns and green froth on one’s pint does not represent a profound understanding of one’s Irish roots. A real shared awareness of the new and old worlds would be a benefit to all.
All artists have their roots and a sense of belonging. Robert Smithson worked on a scale that only America could allow while, at the same time, Richard Long was making similar marks on the landscape but his scale and approach was very British. Tatlin was Russian, Mondrian was Dutch, and Seurat, French. Anselm Kiefer could only grow out of a post-war Germany. Kiefer is an example of an artist who is rooted by a sense of place but not limited by it. In his art he has dealt with legends and fairytales from the Harz mountains—this is the same part of Germany that the Grimm brothers came from. It is also the home of the Kyffhauser Grotto where Barbarossa, the great medieval German emperor, sleeps along with his one thousand knights ready and waiting to rise and save an endangered Germany. The late James Lee Bryars was an American artist whose world travels brought him back to his European roots.
Artists need to acknowledge their roots, to be aware of a sense of place. These influences should be a part of them and their work. So should education, travel, friends, and just about everything else in life. True artists will not deny their roots nor will they blatantly use them for self-promotion. They will transcend the provincial and use history not to restrict creativity but as a way of finding a liberty of expression.
