Relics of the Future

I have just published two pamphlets about the 2017 Joseph Beuys in Connemara Residency, which neatly coincides with a new exhibition of his work in London (at Thaddeus Ropac gallery). My interest in Beuys is however more about the tangential possibilities which can be excavated from his work.

I am, therefore, not hugely excited about the physicality of the works on display at the exhibition Utopia at the Stag Monument. For me, Beuys himself would have been the attraction, the restless fedora-sporting enthusiast for an endless myriad of political and social causes. I admit to most enjoying his lesser-known 1982 pop song Sonne statt Reagan yet remain insufficient of an enthusiast to have learnt all the lyrics.

The idea of Beuys is what intrigues me; the polarising impact he had in West Germany in the 1970s, where for some he was little better than a mystical charlatan, while for others he was a genuine force for good after the horrors of Nazi Germany. There is something encyclopedic about his range of concerns and the artworks he based on these, and these for me provide a convenient series of cultural markers for my own Beuys-project.

The thought of creating a residency in a small Irish cottage based around Beuys began when I considered a particularly tatty rug worn as a cloak would make me appear like the artist. The effect was more of a tribute rather than impersonation, for I lacked the fisherman’s waistcoat and hat. From this brief performance has flowed a variety of artistic activity. Much of this plays around with the idea of ‘artist-in-residence’ which somewhat makes the figure of the artist especial and even sacred. This is in contrast to Beuys’ own statement that everybody is an artist, which is a flattening of the concept of genius. But I follow my own logic, and pronounce that if I am an artist, anywhere I stay becomes a residency, even if do not intend to make art.

The above photo is a display from a small museum in Scotland, and it reminds me of an ongoing problem I have with the way art is exhibited. The Mona Lisa (like many artworks) has been reproduced to the point of destruction, and this means when I see it, it amuses me. The ‘art’ of the portrait here has vanished, we are just left with the wry smiles peering down on a mantelpiece full of objects.

There is no glass case, no labels, and I imagine the floral wallpaper is not currently the sort of thing used in the room where the Mona Lisa hangs in the Louvre. In fact, if we do see such wallpaper in an art gallery, I would immediately think there is some intended irony, a perhaps rather tired juxtaposition between the contemporary and the naff.

Recently I saw this display in Ferrara Cathedral, and it certainly is not representative of the lavish interiors (themselves an early version of installation art) of the Italian Renaissance and Baroque. There are plenty of other such ‘moments’ I saw, including a series of darkened  oil paintings at the back of the cathedral, of insufficient interest to merit their own 20 cent operated lighting system.

This cluttered approach is also evident in ecclesiastical museums, such as the one I briefly visited in Bologna. The walls were decorated in what was once very elaborate silk wallpaper, itself now faded and peeling away. This material suffocation was extended in a huge display case of priestly garb, the golden cassocks with endless brocades. Alongside these were a selection of reliquaries (which I imagined to be of second-rate quality, and not worthy of display with other examples in the church itself).

My problem is the binary choice between Catholic and Protestant, between ornamentation and minimalism, between Caravaggio and Saenredam. The latter, who painted the interiors of whitewashed Dutch churches in the 17th century, seems to point the way for Western abstract painting of the likes of Piet Mondrian and the emergence of the ‘white cube’ as a place to view modernist artworks.

I have for a long time disliked the ‘white cube’ aesthetic, as seen at Tate Modern, and the eponymous gallery itself. For me, the stripping away of any other detail which might distract the viewer, be it skirting board, furniture, colour, is repressive and clinical, and seeks to evoke a faux spirituality and a sense of authority. That said, lavish interiors can be just as repressive and unwelcoming.

I don’t have any conclusions to this jumble of concerns, other than a desire to generally reject the use of dichotomies as a means for considering art and its environments. (To be continued…)