Gift or curse?

[imomus]

At this year's Venice Biennale, America was represented by Félix González-Torres. This was slightly odd, because González-Torres isn't exactly your average American contemporary artist. A gay man, born in Cuba, he died of AIDS eleven years ago. Homosexuality and Cuba are both thorny issues for America; the US continues to find it difficult to recognize gay unions or, for that matter, to recognize Cuba. "The fundamental goal of United States policy toward Cuba," says the US State Department website, "is to promote a peaceful transition to a stable, democratic form of government and respect for human rights". Which means, precisely, that Cuba's right to remain a communist state is not respected. Meanwhile, people continue to be detained at American camps on Cuba without recourse to lawyers or their families.



Considering these problematical issues, you can only applaud the boldness -- or hypocrisy -- of the choice of the late González-Torres to fill America's pavilion in the Giardini this year. The scaled-down replica of Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's Virginia slave ranch, greeted visitors with a notice inviting them to take a candy or a poster from the elegant, minimalist stacks in the galleries. The posters were blank sheets framed in black; tributes, perhaps, to González-Torres' dead lover. But in this context they became something else. Representing America, their meaning changed. They became presents, tokens of America's generosity, its material abundance. "I like to be in America, OK by me in America," as the West Side Story number goes (itself sung by Latino immigrants like González-Torres), "everything free in America (for a small fee in America)".



What exactly that "small fee" was quickly became apparent to anyone who rolled up a poster and tucked it under their arm. Hisae and I sucked the dark liquorice candy, but steered well clear of the posters. We'd already learned our lesson at a González-Torres show at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin. We'd picked up posters, been burdened with them all day, then got them home, tried them on the walls, found them deeply depressing, and thrown them away. In the Giardini there were signs all around that people who'd taken the posters quickly realised that those two American values, material abundance and convenience, might actually be at odds. I became fascinated by the situation and started shooting pictures. The metaphor was just too pointed, too perfect.



The first signs that America's gift to the world wasn't universally appreciated came at the German pavilion. A big sign had been posted saying "No posters, baby-carriages, umbrellas, please". In the pavilions that did allow posters, there were awkward squeeze-past moments everywhere. It was as if the viral posters instantly made everyone who'd greedily, excitedly picked one up effectively obese. For the rest of the day, they'd be maneuvering through too-narrow doors, trying not to get their posters crushed or dirty, trying not to inconvenience other people, using two seats in the cafeteria instead of one, getting cold hands. It became apparent to many people that these big, blank sheets of paper simply weren't quite the gift they'd at first seemed. People began ditching them -- sometimes right on the floor of other pavilions. Here's one in the Russian pavilion, for instance. I wonder how Russian artist Alexander Ponomarev felt to have a poster from the American pavilion lying right at the foot of his work, in his own pavilion? Cultural imperialism this provocative needs to be resisted.



The next stage was anger and rejection. In bins all over the Giardini site, crushed in corners, ripped on the ground, trashed American posters could be seen. Some had even turned them into artworks, drawing faces on them, folding them into sculptures. Poor González-Torres! His poor boyfriend! Yet for some, this is exactly what he intended. An old friend of mine, a gay communist I knew at university, Shane Enright, wrote: "The greatest achievement of Gonzalez-Torres's art is its capacity, through mimicry, ambiguity, and paradox, to instill in his viewers an awareness of the power of their own subjectivity. This is a freedom of interpretation and a generosity that comes, however, with a reciprocal responsibility: for the visitor to choose the ultimate destination of a sheet from the stack." Well, Shane, I can tell you that the ultimate destination chosen by many was the rubbish bin.



Many, but not all. The intrepid soldiered on, carrying their free posters out into the streets of Venice, clinging to them -- and perhaps to the belief that they'd one day be worth something. Re-rolled, strapped to rucksacks whose size they doubled, these posters -- successful parasites, victorious viruses -- continued to collide with the unburdened all over the city. I was delighted to find some even on our flight back to Berlin, crammed by their loyal dupes, their poster-hosts, into the overhead lockers, radically depleting the space left for the rest of us, and inflicting paper cuts to our chins as we queued to leave the plane.



There they were again at baggage reclaim, and on Berlin public transport, the poster people! The ones who received America's generosity with gratitude, and were willing to endure hardships -- or inflict them! -- and sacrifice convenience -- theirs and others'! -- in order to celebrate the spirit of material abundance which led to such generosity!

Personally, though, I much preferred France's generosity. The brilliant Sophie Calle show took place in the Giardini's only adequately-heated pavilion. On a freezing day in November, that was a truly warm-hearted gift.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

your poster story really illustrates just how pathetically in your middle class art world bubble you are

[imomus.livejournal.com]

This is really no different than taking a telling metaphor from an international sports event like the Olympic Games or the World Cup. It's not about class (I think you'll find as many working class people into art as middle class people into sport these days) but about what happens when you make a little world in microcosm at international sports or art events.

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

I am being very offtopic here, but since I said that you're about to be in Gothenburg in the near future people have messaged me over at Facebook asking for more info. When are you coming to Gothenburg? I want to give this group an answer.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I'm in Gothenburg tomorrow, giving my pecha kucha presentation (http://www.pecha-kucha.org/gothenburg/). Then I'm in Malmo on Friday doing a presentation called "Down With Fun!" at Krets Gallery (http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=228276590) on Friday evening. Then on Saturday I'm back in Gothenburg, performing a short concert at the Uppåt Framåt (www.uppatframat.se)'s Cheesy Not Cheesy club event. My stage time is 11pm, entrance 40 sek. Facebook group here (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=20505602432).

Full info and flyers for all these events will be on Click Opera tomorrow.

[microworlds.livejournal.com]

HAHA! So you *are* the guy from Click Opera on my Facebook group!

[god-jr.livejournal.com]

I love how you really follow the work.

I’m presently reading the autobiography of Renaldo Arenas, another Cuban homosexual who ended up in New York and, like Felix Gonzales Torres, died there of AIDS-related causes. Arenas also recognized the generosity of America as a burden; every gift in a capitalistic society comes with a price. He gives many examples, one of them being homosexuality itself. It’s true that homosexuality is a thorny issue in the States, but compared to Cuba, those thorns are made of rubber. Arenas saw that gay culture in New York was so accepted and in the open that it was erasing itself. In Cuba, he says, one seeks out an opposite. Homosexuality is an opposite (opposed to) heterosexuality, and the passive partner finds his fulfillment with a macho.

In America, Arenas complains, the men take turns sucking each other. They set up their lives to mirror heterosexual models. And, they leave sex half-done as soon as a better possibility (someone more handsome, perhaps more like themselves) strolls by. Abundance causes erasure.

Torres said that the paper stacks were his artwork. Sometimes he would feature on them the images made by friends. It delighted him that as soon as a person who had taken a poster hung it on a wall, the work of Torres was disappeared and transformed to being the work of his friend. With the blank pieces of paper, I imagine Torres saw the single sheets as the work of whoever had taken them: a piece of paper to draw on, fold, hang on a wall, or even abandon in a trash can.

He spent his career building stages. What transpires on that stage depends on the viewer turned actor. The performance recorded here (through your writing and pictures) is one of the most thoughtful I’ve ever seen in response to Torres work. Thank you.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Thanks, very interesting to learn about Arenas!

Arenas saw that gay culture in New York was so accepted and in the open that it was erasing itself.

This sounds like Queen Victoria. Told that there were lesbian governesses on her staff, and having lesbianism explained to her, she concluded that, since such things could not possibly exist in England, she would take no measures against them.

But the erasure-by-accommodation angle is a familiar one from indie rock. The moment indie gets embraced by the mainstream, it starts ceasing to exist in any meaningful way as an "other".

And we come again to the paradox that others are either "ignore-tolerated" because they're completely unknown (underground) or "erase-tolerated" by being accommodated out of existence (mainstreamed). I can see the gay marriage thing as "erase-toleration" in this sense.

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

I couldn't help but grin and scratch my head the entire time I read this entry.

Those posters were practically blank. just a black border on a sheet of paper. And yet people still took them in their droves? I think the only acceptable response to that is LOL ART.

I think it probably only hit these people how uninspired those posters were after they left the vicinity of the Biennale. Typical case of hive mind - "Oh look, FREE POSTERS! from an ARTIST! and people are TAKING THEM!". Then they realised it was pretty much a blank piece of paper so they threw them all in the bin.

The only way this could have been funnier is if it had said "SAVE THE TREES" in the middle of the poster.

"THE GAY COMMUNIST (on his birth certificate and everything) Shane Enright, wrote: "The greatest achievement of Gonzalez-Torres's art is its capacity, through mimicry, ambiguity, and paradox, to instill in his viewers an awareness of the power of their own subjectivity. This is a freedom of interpretation and a generosity that comes, however, with a reciprocal responsibility: for the visitor to choose the ultimate destination of a sheet from the stack."

I think I'm missing something here but hasnt Gonzalez-Torres been dead for over a decade? How exactly can he be "credited" as the mastermind behind all this? Or was it all work "in the spirit" of Gonzalez-torres' work? Y'know, like Britney Spears' latest album where pretty much everyone other than her actually did created it and she just fronted it so it'd have a marketable name associated with it.

How exactly can he be "credited"

[god-jr.livejournal.com]

True. This installation at Venice can only be seen as an historical work about, not by, Felix Gonzales-Torres. Torres was interested in the margins. He scheduled gallery exhibitions to fall in the week between two regular (month long) shows. When asked to be in a group show, he chose spaces outside the main arena (hallways, a museum cafeteria, etc.) and would install quiet works that blended into their environments. Since his death, retrospectives about him have done the opposite: they stick him directly in the spot light. Consequently each of these big shows—the NY Guggenheim, Berlin’s Hamburger Bahnhof, and now the Venice Biennial—has become odd circuses. Were Felix alive it’s certain his contribution would have been more subtle, as well as much more thoughtful of the time and place he was showing in. As he is not living, what we get instead are reproductions of older pieces thrown into a context they weren’t made for. Because all of these works are made to, in one way or another, disappear, they only become ironic when forced to take the presence for a creator who has disappeared.

I can has adbustrz?

[barnacle.livejournal.com]

I think the only acceptable response to that is LOL ART.

The posters could actually serve that very purpose: stick them on the billboard of your choice and write something adbusting inside the black border. "WTF R U BUYIN?" "INVISIBLE RANEFORIST!"

I really like the extended metaphor at work here, although I'm not sure how convinced I am by it (however convinced I am about consumerism per se). I would say that America's ability to introspect and through introspection understand itself and present itself with meaningfulness has suffered (much as it suffered in the 1980s). In that light then you might suggest that the posters are really just a slightly shamefaced gimmick, trying to divert from the lack of substance. Maybe that too is a good description of post-Cold War capitalism, incapable of propping itself up against the other and therefore at a loss for what to do next other than reach for another Kinder toy.

I don't know how you'd extend this to the relatively ungimmicky reaction of the French pavilion, though. If you like to think of the heating as a gift to people rather than just someone somewhere being boringly practical, then it does make Calle seem generous; but does it really say something about the old Europe / new America divide? I honestly don't know, as I don't have the perspective of the event that you do, picking up on the vibes by actually being there.

(I don't know about anyone else, but a few of my brain cells spent the whole of this article wondering why gay people in America needed to unionize. And what form their strikes would take.)

[xishimarux.livejournal.com]

Nice. A bit of America littering the streets and filling the trash cans. It's interesting that you chose the candy. There on the same level. Except your littering your body with sugary goodness... sort like we Americans do with our horrible fast food :) MMmmm I'm havin' a big mac attack!

Next time your in LA you should come visit Art Center.

[eclectiktronik.livejournal.com]

can't recall who said it - maybe even Momus or someone else on here!.... but in the face of rampant consumerism based on such greed as in the art example mentioned, and the disasterous environmental consequences of this behaviour (see http://www.chrisjordan.com/ especially 'intolerable beauty' ) what we need is 'freedom FROM, not freedom TO'.

when it comes to abundance, this 'choice' harms us more than it assists us. And a world where all our 'choices' (tv channels, newspapers, consumer goods or whatever) are in fact pre-determined for us by marketing departments, that is not 'freedom to choose' but instead a dangerous illusion of freedom.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think a gay dead Cuban artist is all that odd of a representation of America. Maybe it's rare for the UK or Europe, but it's pretty typical stuff here, whether celebrated in New York or achieving non-living status in Texas.

[(Anonymous)]

America has a hidden generosity, which is almost like a secret which I try to keep from myself, but which has provided me with such great happiness, which is that it gives me a foil--something I can condemn with self-righteousness. I feel better about myself by contrast. When I make art that condemns America, it's a double dose of goodness, as I condemn them in a way that shows off my cleverness!

[peacelovgranola.livejournal.com]

very interesting metaphor and ideas here.

here are some other ideas i've considered:

1. people take their little piece of "freedom" (america) and are then free to do with it what they wish--make something worthwhile or creative or constructive out of it, and yes be "burdened" with it, in a sense--or piss it away, unappreciated (i.e. abandon/trash it); but it's entirely their choice. all along, other people scoff and snicker at their naivete/greed/inspiration.

2. something so free, reproducible and, yes, banal to the point of annoying many others, these posters do indeed represent america. and yet, because of their naive "popularity," others are compelled to claim one as their own, as well; or to turn their noses up at its banality/popularity/perhaps childish simplicity. (this fits well with yours and hisae's choice to "throw them away" after having found them "deeply depressing." that is, you tried the freedom and banality of "america," and found it deeply depressing; or you had a piece of that freedom and found it unsatisfying, in the end).

i'm also rather persuaded by something mentioned in another post: that it's merely an example of the impulse in people to want something "free from the artist!; oh, how "arty!"

which reminds me of something else: is it safe for me to assume that most of the people taking those posters were, in fact, not american citizens? just wanting a piece of banal freedom perhaps, burdening themselves with it, and indeed, inconveniencing others in the process?

[peacelovgranola.livejournal.com]

come to think of it: i really do think it's just an example of people liking "free" shit--and the world over, apparently. and most likely doesn't have much to do with america.

in the end, your post could be read as a fantastic example of having made a conclusion and then finding the evidence to support it. (cue tangential, but nevertheless enlightening, discussion about the philosophy of science and the scientific method...)

[electricwitch.livejournal.com]

"the US continues to find it difficult to recognize gay unions or, for that matter, to recognize Cuba."

Well then maybe they should stop wearing shades and false moustaches!

Thank you, I´ll be here all week.

[peacelovgranola.livejournal.com]

"the US continues to find it difficult to recognize gay unions or, for that matter, to recognize Cuba."


i wonder if this means "the U.S. Congress," president, majority of states, or what? also, gay unions? gay marriage, or what? some states (the civilized ones, at least) in fact do recognize civil unions, etc. just curious.

[(Anonymous)]

"The fundamental goal of United States policy toward Cuba," says the US State Department website, "is to promote a peaceful transition to a stable, democratic form of government and respect for human rights". Which means, precisely, that Cuba's right to remain a communist state is not respected.

Why should anyone respect a government that's so paranoid that it won't even let its citizens have the option of voting for more than one party? That model of government is doomed to fail because it can't really respond to change very well.

No obscenity

[(Anonymous)]

"..people continue to be detained at American camps on Cuba without recourse to lawyers or their families.."

At least both the Cuban and American regimes are maintaining a parallel consistency in their treatment of political opponents, both regimes showing 'admirable' disdain for any concept of universal human rights.
Thomas S.

[(Anonymous)]

OH YEAH THE SWEETS GUY

[(Anonymous)]

You're not supposed to take a poster, dummy. Just knowing that they're there to take is the point.

no free lunch

[(Anonymous)]

Rather like the idea of Gonzalez-Torres' free posters becoming a city-wide, posthumous installation work, addressing the demerit of the free gift concept.
Thomas S.

Re: no free lunch

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Ha, that's funny, I was going to draw the lesson "There's no such thing as a minimalist lunch!"

[trickseybird.livejournal.com]

I read 'gay unions' as 'gay unicorns'. I'd totally read a post on that momus

[intergalactim.livejournal.com]

fantastic post momus!
just saw this in the guardian:
------------------------------
Fine art versus free newspapers


Francesca Martin
Wednesday November 21, 2007
The Guardian

Fancy snaffling some free artwork on your way to work next week? For five days from Monday, 25,000 limited-edition posters by leading contemporary artists Mark Titchner, James Ireland, Katy Dover, Klega and Layla Curtis will be handed out at major central London tube stations, including King's Cross, Victoria, Waterloo, Paddington and Liverpool Street, during rush hour, to launch Transport for London's new Art on the Underground programme. According to Titchner, whose poster uses baroque-style typography to challenge commuters to reflect on their lives, "Art isn't always about rarified objects in a museum. We'll be competing with the free newspapers - we could have a competition and see who ends up with most thrown away in the bin."
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/news/story/0,,2214546,00.html

i saw you

[sara-sogna.livejournal.com]

in venice,during the biennale!
i just was returning from the arsenale and i saw you two.
i smile!
see you.