Death magic

Taussig, Michael. “The Language of Flowers”, Walter Benjamin's Grave, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2006, pp.189- 289.

It was interesting how Taussing talked about the magic that surrounds death, especially that of the state execution. 

This is something that has given images of Saints in some religions such power for some people. Icon paintings in the Byzantium style of martyred saints show the power of these people’s myths that they leave behind after a state execution.  The person can become something more after death as if the state execution gives them a magic.

Thomas Laqueur designates the hanged body as “the magic body.” He cites James Boswell in 1776 describing the “superstition” he witnessed at a London hanging whereby “no less than four diseased persons had themselves rubbed with the sweaty hands of malefactors in the agonies of death, and believed this would cure them.”  (cited in Tuassig 124)

On the flip side there is paintings like Marcus Harvey’s Myra Hindley whom is related to killing. It shows the amount of energy that can be exerted when the image becomes a symbol unjustified killing. The image became the symbol for the whole story of the murders via the media fuelled aggression and image over exposure. Marcus Harvey states that “The whole point of the painting is the photograph. That photograph. The iconic power that has come to it as a result of years of obsessive media reproduction.” (Marcus Harvey, White Cube).

Perhaps it the death without eye for eye repercussion that like the knot of the hangman’s noose or the neck of a recently hung man that hasn’t allowed the public to heal.

Harvey, M. White Cube [accessed 18/5/11]  <www.whitecube.com/artists/harvey/>

Taussig, Michael. “The Language of Flowers”, Walter Benjamin's Grave, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2006, pp.189- 289.

Artist's artist

Isabelle Graw, High Price: Art between the market and Celebrity Culture, Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2009, pp. 81-94 & 112-116.

Isabelle Graw is an Art critic and a professor for Art history and Art theory. In this text she discusses the artist’s artist verse the market’s artist, in which one is creating for oneself in contrast to the other, whom is creating for pure profit.

The idea that an artist’s artist could really exist is somewhat wishful thinking. Artist’s artist implies that the artist is only making art for the acknowledgement from their peers or to further the art. This ideal is very attractive but to afford their basic human needs must receive some income be it from the museum or from sales of art.

One of the problems with income from the museum or art institution is that in funding the work it is already being seen as art and by that extent is already being turned into commodity.

Whilst the market artist’s success is measured in a money value the artist’s artist has their success is measured in the popularity they have amongst their peers, which can also eventuate into investors capitalising on something they see as potential investment art.

The only safe place is in art schools which try to prevent the market infiltrating the artists’ work to give students space enabling them to grow their concepts beyond the idea of just producing commodity.

An abstract taken from well-established German artist Dirk Skreber whom is very flexible in his approaches to his works (using  realistic painting, abstract painting and sculpture installation) states just as he takes a shift in painting styles

            Over a decade ago I came across a centuries-old Chinese story about artists who, once they began to achieve fame and success, cut all ties with their names and took on new ones. Their desire to work under a new identity instead of basking in their fame and wealth impresses me immensely, and I have great respect for those who committed to this decision and its aftermath. The philosophical depth of this act is immeasurable. While I am in awe, however, I could never do it myself. The permanent consequences of such an undertaking, while certainly daunting, are not alone what would deter me.” (“Exhibition no.2”)

Skrebers admiration for these artist shows but it also provides an excellent example that the artist’s artist however mobile in their practice is surely a myth and that the artist’s artist is trapped by the market just as much as is everyone else.

Isabelle Graw, High Price: Art between the market and Celebrity Culture, Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2009, pp. 81-94 & 112-116.

Skreber, D “Exhibition no.2” Friedrich Petzel Gallery.  [accessed 17/5/11] <www.petzel.com/exhibitions/2010-04-03_dirk-skreber/>

Displaced nostalgia

Arjun Appadurai, “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy”. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalisation, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996, pp.27-47.

Arjun Appadurai is a social–cultural anthropologist focusing on modernity and globalization. The text “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy” discusses the impact of globalised mass media and the transplant of one society’s social scenarios into another’s.

Now days things like 50’s American kitchenware, Retro and Bauhaus design and come back tours by retired musicians create a sense of reliving times gone by. The sense of nostalgia has been manifested from a common social imagination constructed from the spread of mass image media. Owen Hatherley (writer and architect critic) describes these forms of appropriations as legislated nostalgia, which has the power to convince a body of people into having a memory that is not theirs.

There is a fine line between nostalgia and retrospective retake.  The continual appropriation of fashions and styles that characterise particular decades have forced people into having a certain feeling or a ‘legislated nostalgia’ when picturing the past. Film (a major culprit) has led us to believe we have extended our experiences into what it was like in the past (such as classics like Grease). With this ‘knowledge of the past we are able to have a quasi-emotive response (Fearing Fictions, 5) due to the narratives and characters portrayed in our favourite historically positioned movies. “The past is now not a land to return to in a simple politics of memory. It has become a synchronic warehouse of cultural scenarios, a kind of temporal central casting, to which recourse can be taken as appropriate…” (Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy, 30)

There is further Disjuncture when these caricatures of histories travel outside of their original culture, such as in western styled bars and restaurants in foreign countries. The appropriation of a wild western bar usually based more on the Hollywood styled western film sets distorted exaggeration. This is not a real nostalgia where the person actually longs for the better time in their past memories but one that has been mediated through film and pop cultures. The remakes exceed the original and become caricatures.

The globalised mass media is creating nostalgia without memory. In the future will we be looking back retrospectively or actually longing for better times gone by? Perhaps we will create a Social imagination, in which our knowledge of history is clouded by a globally homogenised imagery where histories may become myths.

Appadurai, Arjun “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy”. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalisation, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996, pp.27-47.

Fox, Dan et al. Nostalgia: Frieze Art Fair. 2009. What’s the Role of the Past in Fashioning the Future? Podcast [online]. [Accessed 3/5/2011] http://www.friezeartfair.com/podcasts/details/nostalgia_whats_the_role_of_the_past_in_fashioning_the_future/

Walton, Kendal “Fearing Fictions”, Journal of Philosophy, 75, 1978, pp 4-27