For an introduction to this post see post no. 64
Another day, which was one of my timetabled gallery sessions, I noticed that I had not gone anywhere near the work or even so much as looked at it and had spent the whole afternoon with my back to it. I remember this quite clearly. I just didn’t want to think about it – about war, about death, about the awfulness of it all. It was a lovely sunny Brighton day outside and I wanted to be out there, with the throng, enjoying the sunshine – we had so little this summer, who can blame me? – so instead of engaging in any way with the work directly I realised that I was chatting happily to the Fabrica volunteers who were there. And then of course, having that feeling, that so many have talked about in relation to this work, that one’s cheerfulness is inappropriate in the vicinity of the work. But of course, even this was a form of engagement with the work. Even wanting not to see is a response. It is all valid. I have learnt to understand much more about one’s response to an artwork over time: that it shifts and changes depending on so many factors. I read recently about a new book by T.J.Clark about his viewing of two works by Poussin: “Clark's 'experiment' is essentially a diary that tells the story of his engagement with two masterpieces by Poussin, Landscape with a Man Killed by a Snake and Landscape with a Calm, that hang face-to-face in the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The resulting book is unusual in that it treats the act of looking as a process that occurs in time.” (London Review of Books)
I might have thought this change of response over time to be an obvious way of describing how one’s looking develops were it not for the use of the word ‘unusual’ in this blurb about Clark’s book.
For introduction to this post see previous post:
So there are these two parallel areas of activity for this residency: considering Hirschhorn’s Incommensurable Banner and reconsidering my own engagement with protest through, or via, visual imagery on a banner.
Between April of this year and September when Hirschhorn’s banner was finally unrolled and installed in Fabrica I knew the work only through photographs of it. Although the photographic documentation of it I was given included several close-up detailed shots of the individual images on the banner, when I first saw the piece for real I experienced a reaction that I have understood, from observing other people looking at the work, to be fairly typical of a first viewing of it. I felt physically shaken and sick in the stomach. However, I did want to look at the images. That fascination has been there from the start and it is something I continue to reflect upon.
I would say that since that first viewing I have been through a range of responses. Quite near the start of the residency proper I had a period of quite strong doubt about my involvement with the work at all. It was a kind of moral objection. I suppose I was anticipating, or trying to anticipate, the responses of visitors to the exhibition and trying to place myself in relation to the work – as if I had to have a very clear take on it. I remember seriously fantasising about withdrawing from the project, without any intention whatsoever of actually wanting to. As if to try out in my mind what kind of position it would signify if I were to declare that I were dissociating myself from the work. But I found the notion of this kind of withdrawal unsatisfactory because I hadn’t yet tested myself against the work in relation to other people. I have found myself agreeing with people who find the images degrading to the dead people on show. I think many of the images are degrading to them especially if you consider that some of them will have been taken by the perpetrators of the crimes represented. But whether the work is degrading? I don’t think so. I remember coming into the gallery space one day when it was quite empty and standing in front of the banner and I suddenly had a very strong sense of how the piece is a very true memorial to all those who are represented on it. They all appeared extremely dignified in their death and I felt the piece was honouring each and every single one of them.
I am in touch with someone from The Forum, which describes itself as "an innovative weblog featuring reviews, previews, opinion pieces and interviews from independent arts writers." She has sent me four questions which have actually been very timely in prompting me to write about aspects of my own responses to Hirschhorn's Incommensurable Banner. I have decided to post these (rather lengthy) entries in this and the following posts.
1. What kind of responses have you had to the work and how have your reactions changed during this time, if they have? If so, in what ways?
I have been thinking about ‘The Incommensurable Banner’ by Hirschhorn since April of this year. This was on the basis of my already existing strong interest in Hirschhorn’s practice, specifically how he works with other people, sometimes with communities of people, whilst still maintaining a strong sense of the identity of his own practice as an artist. When I was first offered the chance to be artist animateur at Fabrica, in residence alongside the banner, I was extremely pleased because I was invited to do so on the basis of what Liz and Matthew, the two directors of Fabrica, knew about my practice, without either of them knowing that I had this strong interest in Hirschhorn. So, it seemed to me, and this is still the case, that there it is a very good match for me to be engaging with Hirschhorn’s work in this way. The very first response to the work that I noted, upon being told what the work consisted of, was a sense of relief. I heard myself say inside my head: “At last we are going to be shown the images that demonstrate what war is actually about” and this reaction came about against a background of recognition that the wars we are involved in as aggressors are highly sanitised in their representation by the media. I was also excited by the idea of making some kind of comparison in intent and effect of Hirschhorn’s Incommensurable Banner with my own attempt to make an anti-war banner. In 2003 I made a peace banner to take with me to the demonstrations in London against the war on Iraq. At the time I remember being utterly lost when trying to picture what sort of imagery I might put on my banner. In the end I opted for what I considered, at the time, to be ‘positive’ imagery, though when I look back at this now I can see that the imagery, of verdant countryside, flowers and rainbows, is extremely clichéd and really rather ‘cheesy’. So, this residency has been a good opportunity to get this banner of mine out of storage, have another look at it and reconsider the relationship of art to politics at this stage, five years after the worldwide opposition on the streets to the war against Iraq.
