education

Famous Examples of “Preliterate” Art

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Cuevas de la Manos (Cave of the Hands), dating back to 11,000- 7000 BC, near the town of Perito Moreno in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina. Photo by User “Mariano”, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikipedia.

The word “prehistoric” is very popular but when it comes to art made before the advent of settled life and writing systems, I try not to use it. Many believe that history officially begins with scripted records of human life and culture in the Ancient Near East around 6000-4000 years before the present. This somehow implies that the time prior to that period isn’t included in the grand narrative of the human race. But we have so much evidence available of human consciousness and creativity from the deep past…30,000 years ago, 10,000 years ago—not written accounts on tablets, certainly, but drawings and figurines, signs and symbols that speak volumes. All that cannot not be a part of history. That’s why I prefer the word “preliterate” over “prehistoric”.

Here I will examine five famous examples of preliterate art from different parts of the world and what they might tell us about our ancestors. Very little is known about the cultural context of these hunter-gatherer societies. The works may have had a ceremonial or merely decorative function. Despite the lack of clarity, we might deduce something precious about the human condition by exploring them.

The first artwork that comes to my mind is the “Cave of the Hands” from southern Argentina, about 13,000 years old. These stencilled paintings of dozens of hands (the pigments, it is believed, were sprayed through bone pipes) highlight our inherently social identity, how we must band together for safety and survival. They also indicate our desire to be remembered—as in “I was here”.

Another cave I think of is Lascaux in southwestern France, which has paintings of wild animals going back 17,000 years. Some observers have linked them to an idea known as “sympathetic magic”—the term was first used by Scottish social anthropologist and folklorist James George Frazer (1854-1941).

Depiction of horses, aurochs and deer in a painting at Lascaux caves in the village of Montignac in southwestern France, believed to be 17,000 years old. Photo by User “Prof saxx”, Public Domain, Wikipedia.

Sympathetic magic means a kind of procedure aimed at bringing good luck to the hunters. It could have been performed by shaman-like personalities in a state of trance believing that “ritual actions imitate the real ones you wish to bring about”, that by visualising and meditating on big game, a community will be able to encounter and capture them for real.

Venus of Willendorf as shown at the Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna, Austria. Photo by User “Bjørn Christian Tørrissen”, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikipedia.

Next, I think of 25,000-year-old “Venus of Willendorf” (Willendorf being a village in northeastern Austria)—a 4.4-inch-tall statuette that was discovered during excavations by Austro-Hungarian archaeologist Josef Szombathy (1853-1943) and others in 1908. This female figurine with plaited hair or headdress and large body could be a mother goddess—that is, a personification of creative forces, fertility, the plenitude of nature found in many cultures, primitive and advanced.

Fourth example is that of the paintings found at the Bhimbetka rock shelters, located in the Raisen district of the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. About 10,000 years old, these depict animals like horses, bison and deer, weapons like arrows, shields and swords, scenes of hunting and also, interestingly, dancing. They give us a glimpse into a slightly more developed community. Here we understand that even with a harsh existence devoid of the comforts and luxuries of civilisation, our ancestors could make room for entertainment and take time out for fun.

Paintings in Rock Shelter 8, Bhimbetka, Madhya Pradesh, India. Photo by User “Bernard Gagnon”, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikipedia.
Dancers at Bhimbetka. Photo by User “Nandanupadhyay”, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikipedia.
Ain Sakhri Lovers, British Museum. Photo by User “Geni”, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikipedia.

Lastly, I have chosen the Ain Sakhri Lovers, a 102 mm high figurine—now at the British Museum—from a cave near Bethlehem, discovered in 1933 by René Neuville, a French consul in Jerusalem. This is the oldest known representation of a copulating couple. It is also a phallic symbol. Like the Venus of Willendorf, it can be said to denote fertility but within a relational framework.

When observed from different perspectives, it looks like different sexual organs—breasts (top), penis (side), vagina (bottom), also testicles. The artwork is about 11,000 years old and belongs to the Natufian culture of the Levant that was known for its semi-sedentary lifestyle even before the dawn of agriculture. Archaeologist Ian Hodder of Stanford University has interesting thoughts on the entwined figures:

The Natufian culture is really before fully domesticated plants and animals, but you already have a sedentary society. This particular object, because of its focus on humans and human sexuality in such a clear way, is part of that general shift towards a greater concern with domesticating the mind, domesticating humans, domesticating human society, being more concerned with human relationships, rather than with the relationships between humans and wild animals, and the relationships between wild animals themselves.

British art historian Neil MacGregor writes that to him the tenderness of the embracing figures suggests not so much reproductive vigour but love. People were beginning to settle and form more stable families and “perhaps this is the first moment in history when a mate could become a husband or a wife”. From this point onwards you must make an effort to continue the species, not in a purely animal way as did those before you, but within the structure of a more definite, committed interpersonal dynamic.

These are only five. Every example of preliterate art can lead to a contemplative or enlightening experience if we engage with it deeply enough.

Written by Tulika Bahadur.

Surveillance and Citizen

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“The subject of surveillance is currently hot with the raging pandemic but it has been around for quite a while…” (Credit: Pixabay)

COVID-19 has generated an important debate around the role of surveillance technologies in our lives. Several articles have stood out to me: some noting its advantages, others cautioning us against its risks. On March 20, The Conversation published a piece titled “Coronavirus: South Korea’s success in controlling disease is due to its acceptance of surveillance” (https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-south-koreas-success-in-controlling-disease-is-due-to-its-acceptance-of-surveillance-134068) by Jung Won Sonn, Associate Professor in Urban Economic Development at University College London.

On April 3, Amnesty published “COVID-19, surveillance and the threat to your rights” (https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/04/covid-19-surveillance-threat-to-your-rights/). The usual arguments highlight the hard choice between information exposure and movement restriction, the difficult balance between safety and liberty. Also, opinions are shared on how tracking measures could be useful for the emergencies of the moment but might pose serious threats to privacy if they were to become “normal” or are taken for granted in the long run.

The subject of surveillance is currently hot with the raging pandemic but it has been around for quite a while—roughly, I suppose, since Edward Snowden’s NSA whistleblowing incident in 2013. How have artists been responding to the issue? I would like to discuss two that I have ended up discovering: David Spriggs (UK, Canada) and Marcus Mårtenson (Sweden). The first examines the phenomenon as executed by the state while the second unpacks it as employed by non-state actors (eg, tech companies). Both bring to the fore the psychology behind the surveillance mechanisms and the emotions and dispositions they are designed to engender— fear and addiction, respectively—to accomplish their objectives.

Logic of Control by David Spriggs

In Logic of Control, Vancouver-based British-Canadian artist David Spriggs creates a representation of the “Panopticon” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon), an ultra-efficient prison designed by the English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). The artist uses transparent material as it is taken as an allusion to the values of openness and democracy in the field of state architecture. Within the Panopticon, a guard could keep an eye on every inmate from a central observation tower. The inmates could not see the guard or each other.

Spriggs explains on his website: “In many ways, this is the beginning of mass surveillance apparatuses and the idea that people will govern themselves strictly on the notion that their actions are being watched. Closed-circuit television (CCTV) and other contemporary surveillance cameras operate on the same principle as the Panopticon, the theory of imposed self-governance.”

The second artist chosen, Marcus Mårtenson, concentrates on surveillance by tech corporations and social media platforms—Facebook, Google, Twitter, Instagram, etc. He is inspired by the research conducted by Harvard professor Shoshana Zuboff, author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (2018).

Mårtenson’s painting Hot Trigger looks into the ways in which non-state giants with unimaginable magnitudes of power deliberately target our mental weaknesses (there are courses at Stanford, Mårtenson asserts, that teach this in strict detail), trap us into spending more and more time online so that we may input more and more data about ourselves (which could finally be sold to advertisers and presented back to us to manipulate our behaviour). The platforms numb us and make us slaves to likes and comments on the photos we post or the statuses we share. The refresh or replay button is purposefully rendered ever-accessible. One new thumbs-up or email, and the chemicals in our brains register it as a reward, and then, seek more rewards.

Hot Trigger exhibits other aspects of online initiatives—constant interruption and tracking, polarised opinions and simplistic views, the curated and only partially real self, too many options regarding potential mates—and Mårtenson arranges all of them as icons on a phone screen.

Hot Trigger by Marcus Mårtenson

Spriggs and Mårtenson invite us to ponder on various techniques of surveillance in practice today. They make clear the processes and philosophies and then, incite to us complete the narrative. In each case, we are made to ask: What are the consequences? What is the worst that could come out of this? What changes could be made to the mechanisms to make them more humane?

Both artists leave us with certain features to look out for, which can help us identify red flags, recognise the point where technology has been taken too far. For Spriggs it is “centralisation” and “transparency”. For Mårtenson, it is “design” and “behavioural modification”.

The questions that we might raise under each pointer (with respect to both state and non-state actors) are as follows:

  1. Centralisation: Who has decision-making power? To what extent it is distributed or concentrated? Are separate companies being bought off by one giant conglomerate? Are local administration units increasingly losing identity before some inaccessible national locus of scrutiny / are individual countries being subsumed into some elusive supranational entity?
  2. Transparency: How much information about ourselves can we hide – are allowed to hide? Is it necessary to share every single location we’re at or every single interest? If a certain search engine stores our data, what are the alternatives available?
  3. Design: Why are apps structured the way they are? If they exploit us, how can we outwit them and minimise their negative impact without abandoning them completely?
  4. Behavioural modification: What kind of effects are platforms like Facebook or Instagram having on our thoughts, feelings and actions? How much time do we end up spending on them on an average when we open them? And how many times do we open them and for what exactly?

Surveillance has its merits. As Spriggs points out, the Panopticon philosophy is used in CCTVs—and we can all agree, they can help reduce crime or identify criminals. Location tracking, as displayed by Mårtenson, can be used to ensure safety and security, rescuing someone who has been lost or abducted or in the middle of a calamity. But the steps mentioned above, executed regularly, may enable us to resist the dangers of surveillance, if someday some technology behemoth ends up in the wrong hands.

Written by Tulika Bahadur.

How Artists Could Explore Climate and Ecology

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Credit: Needpix.com

As we all know, important discussions around climate change and the ecological crisis have been around for the last two to three decades. In my memory, what sticks out are media like Michael Jackson’s Earth Song (1995) with its unforgettable visuals of burning deforested land and the movie The Day After Tomorrow (2004) with a frozen New York City. I also think of the 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth by former US presidential candidate Al Gore and Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical Laudato si’: On Care for our Common Home. Justin Trudeau’s deep disappointment over the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord in 2017 is one relevant event from the world of politics that I remember.

In the past few months/days, the debate around the issue has become more urgent and forceful—with massive fires in the Amazon and Australia, and Greta Thunberg’s passionate activism exploding over social media and reaching the Davos elite. February 2020 and Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, has finally pledged $10 billion to save the environment after countless appeals and demands.

How are artists to participate in this crucial discourse? How should they contribute? What new perspectives and practical tools can they offer? These are matters I have been interested in for a long time. I have found several noteworthy creatives, galleries and museums doing thought-provoking work—but a lot more needs to be done in this area.

The first thing, I believe, that could be considered is that we have had plenty of calls that have brought attention to the damage already done and its possible consequences. They come as news items that evoke “guilt” (example, a bird covered in oil from a British Petroleum spill in the Gulf of Mexico) or frightening, apocalyptic scenarios that serve as “warnings” (example, Stephen Hawking predicting rains of sulphuric acid and temperatures of 250C before his death). Earth Song and The Day After Tomorrow also fall within these categories. Such an approach in art—that focuses on the negative—as I have written in a previous article (https://artclassmelbourne.com/art-more-as-proposition-than-protestation/) can certainly be effective as it acts as a loudspeaker and highlights pertinent matters.

Apocalyptic visions of ice caps melting and freezing the earth or temperatures rising and setting the earth on fire have been common in books, film and music videos (Image: Icy Fiery Planet by user “behrang” / CC BY-ND 2.0)

Many artists till now have followed the guilt/warning route and come up with interesting exhibits. Spanish artist Isaac Cordal is known for sculptural installations in puddles that show half-submerged figures looking like politicians or corporate men. So engrossed are they perhaps in discussing trade deals and driving the engines of industry that they fail to realise the criticalness of global warming. Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson has hauled 100 tonnes of free-floating, glacial ice from the waters of the Nuup Kangerlua fjord in Greenland to public sites in London and Copenhagen. Concerned about rising sea levels, Washington, DC-based artist Noel Kassewitz makes buoys and floats for disaster preparedness.

Follow the Leaders, 2011, Berlin by Isaac Cordal (Fair Use)

But protest is incomplete without proposition, I want to repeat. Exposure (what has been done wrong) must be complemented with recommendations (what could be done right). It is the other side of the narrative that must be emphasised—new ways in which we could see the environment, useful measures we could adopt to ensure that the delicate cycles and chains of nature remain undisturbed and are, rather, reinforced. I want to mention four artists whose works we can consider in this regard with reasons as to why:

  • Courtney Mattison (US) – for moving the spotlight away from homo sapiens
  • Alma Heikkilä (Finland) – for revealing relationships among organisms big and small
  • Tomás Saraceno (Argentina) – for proposing sustainable ways of inhabiting the environment
  • Ernesto Neto (Brazil) – for creating sensory spaces that connect us back to the earth

Courtney Mattison, who has an academic background in marine ecology and ceramic sculpture, has been making large coral reefs. She marries scientific detail with artistic prowess and shows the underwater formations in all their varied and intricate beauty. Mattison is an ocean advocate who wants to inspire policymakers and the public to conserve our changing seas. So much of global visual culture is anthropocentric—concerned only with human needs and wants. Mattison’s work is special because it shifts our viewpoint and, with professional seriousness, gives centre-stage to an ecosystem that, even though is distant from us, remains susceptible to damage by our activity.

Alma Heikkilä gives audiences a symbiotic view of life, that is, she underscores the complex, interdependent dynamics between humans and other organisms, including miniscule microbes. In her paintings, she zooms in on bacteria that are everywhere, in and around us, and are absolutely essential for our survival. It is her belief that “in order to combat climate change we need to stop thinking of humankind as unique and individual from other life forms.”

Fusing art with the worlds of engineering, architecture and the natural sciences, Tomás Saraceno lays out innovative models of design and ways of living. His vision of Air-Port-City and “cloud citizenship” take us to floating metropolises made of cell-like structures with elastic boundaries powered by solar energy. His projects “In Orbit” and “Aerocene” have further explored the possibility of an airborne existence.

Works by Courtney Mattison (top left), Alma Heikkilä (top right), Tomás Saraceno (bottom right) and Ernesto Neto (bottom left) / Fair Use

Finally, Ernesto Neto produces work that engages all our senses and blurs the boundary between artificial and organic. His installations are often made up of nets and cocoons and may also contain substances like spices and sand. Plant-like and root-like, the works take us further into the soil, rather than away from it. They offer a corrective to the modern buildings of hard concrete, glass and steel that can make us feel alienated and cut off from the beauty of nature.

All four artists pick up on human fault but leave us with a positive message and feeling, enabling true reflection and/or reasonable action. They go beyond judgment and provide solutions.

Written by Tulika Bahadur.

Art More as Proposition than Protestation

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The question we need to consider is this: what should art be more like – a thermostat (should it set the temperature of the world) or a thermometer (should it merely reflect the temperature of the world)?

A few days ago I came across a 2017 article on Frieze website titled “How Important is Art as a Form of Protest?” (https://frieze.com/article/how-important-art-form-protest), presenting a survey of 50 respondents from over 30 countries sharing their views in the wake of the political and economic turmoil and instability that has gripped the world particularly since…roughly 2014?…the threat of terrorism, the fear that migrants will steal jobs from local populations, civil wars, aggressive nationalisms, totalitarian turns, racism, rising inequality, etc.

Barcelona-based artist Daniel G. Andújar said: “Art must be a sign of resistance to a political model that is increasingly hierarchical, diffuse, global and standardized.” There is no shortage of artists today who are precisely executing their practice as a sign of resistance against established systems. The most prominent example is easily the Chinese artist-activist Ai Weiwei who has been bringing to light important issues like human rights violations, corruption and the refugee crisis. You can pick up any country at random, do a bit of research on the art being produced, and you are bound to find artists, some truly excellent ones, engaging with and critiquing social problems. In October, Banksy’s painting Devolved Parliament, in which he replaces British politicians debating in the House of Commons with chimpanzees, was sold for £9.9 million at a Sotheby’s auction in London in the middle of confusing and complex Brexit negotiations.

I like several artists who operate in this frame of mind, for example, the Mozambican Gonçalo Mabunda who transforms weaponry into colourful thrones, masks and totems to denounce the absurdity of war (he grew up during civil war in his country) and Tibetan Tenzing Rigdol, who adjusts traditional Buddhist iconography in a way that can reveal the conflicts in his region.

Devolved Parliament by Banksy (Credit: Christie’s)

Of course, art is highly effective in this capacity. It functions as a loudspeaker and immediately directs one’s attention to pertinent matters. Even so, I feel that an artist I know called IMPREINT (working mostly in London) has something interesting to say regarding another way of doing things. His website states:

IMPREINT has always been of the opinion that art should have a social impact, but that this should be achieved through proposition rather than protestation. With forcefulness often being met with resistance, a more suggestive approach yields greater opportunity for the opening up of conversation and thus the exchange of ideas.

Balloon by IMPREINT. His art uses simple materials and his projects frequently involve the participation of the public. He writes: “Very few things in life express a universal sentiment. Particularly ones of innocence and freedom. One day I found myself holding a balloon and felt captivated by the idea of something that unequivocally evokes happiness.”

IMPREINT’s idea of “proposition rather than protestation” appeals to me and appears as something fresh because today most people are very much living in the “responsive/reactive” mode. An explosion of social media has meant that we can now be bombarded with a huge amount of information 24×7. True, communication technology has been democratised, but in truth, most people continue to be passive consumers and not actual creators of content.

The material that ends up being widely disseminated is still that which is generated by a limited number of large news organisations, famous brands and influencers who possess the wealth to buy ads on every platform – your Instagram feed, beside your Facebook timeline, inside the YouTube videos you watch and on top of your Gmail inbox. As a result, the vast majority of us are always at the receiving end of existing products, services and, above all, stories (which can be regularly negative in nature). And then we are impelled to offer our comments, likes and dislikes—our reactions and responses. In such a digital ecosystem, it is understandable that art as a form of protest should emerge and proliferate. But by largely being in the responsive/reactive, artists sell themselves short and operate below their faculties. They get too involved in exposing what is wrong, when they could devote half their time to recommending what could be right.

What IMPREINT’s view does is turn the dynamic around. It encourages artists to be more proactive and imaginative, take another level of responsibility. For some reason, I cannot help but think of Dante here. In his Divine Comedy, he puts forward three visions, three ethical programmes. In the first, he depicts what is wrong about the human race. In the final, he shows what could be right with the human race. One approach, uncomplemented by the other, will always be deficient. While it is imperative that the artistic soul expose and condemn vice, it must also be courageous enough to exhibit and celebrate virtue.

A Devolved Parliament can certainly fetch millions. But what does a politician of good character look like, how does he/she behave, how does he/she talk? What is a peaceful and harmonious society? Portraying such subjects without seeming silly, hollow or unrealistically utopian…this is the big task that lies ahead for the socially-conscious artist.

Written by Tulika Bahadur.

Functionality and Ornamentation

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New York Review Books (https://www.nyrb.com/collections/classics) is one of my favourite publishers. NYRB editions cover the best in world literature and are known for their superlative translations, expert introductions and attractive covers. I have read quite a few books from this lot, both fiction and non-fiction. One that stands out is a novel titled Houses (1970) by Yugoslavian author Borislav Pekić.

Born in Montenegro in 1930, Pekić was educated in Belgrade and went to jail in his youth for involvement in political causes. The success of Houses enabled him to migrate to the UK, where he died of lung cancer in 1992. He did, however, keep visiting Serbia after the collapse of Communism, and helped form the Serbian Democratic Party.

Houses will appeal to anyone interested in architecture, fantasy and modernity with all its ideologies. It is the story of architect Arsénie Negovan, who at 77, is trying to write a will on what might be his last day on earth. He has spent the first half of his life building houses in Belgrade, giving them endearing female names—Simonida, Eugenie, Christina, Emilia, Serafina, Katarina, Agatha, Anastasia, Daphne, Xenia, Eudoxia. Post-World War II and the Nazi Occupation, he has imprisoned himself in one of his buildings, and looks at the rapidly modernising city through a pair of binoculars. He is utterly frustrated with the newer trends of aesthetics and real estate as they do not align with his beloved personal ideals and tastes.

Arsénie believes that modern buildings are like sad prisoners devoid of individuality. (Credit: Pixabay)

Arsénie loathes the fact that buildings have turned abstract, lost personality and vitality. They are now featureless, expressionless, homogeneous, purely functional cardboard boxes of concrete, glass and steel, like a sad and ugly group of prisoners devoid of individuality. Together they make up an unsightly omni-body. What’s more, the property owner is now a gambler rushing madly for easy profits, addicted to the stock exchange, decidedly a disciple of Mammon.

Arsénie’s philosophy is one of Possession. He maintains that the relationship between house and landlord must be a mystic marriage, and the roles of the possessor and the possessed are reversible.

As I read this brilliant but complicated book further, there were two paragraphs that really made me pause and think. In Arsénie’s houses, he writes:

too much expensive space was used up for no purpose at all. If the furniture that encumbered them were removed, they would look like the empty caverns of the Pharaoh’s tombs. Their ceilings were excessively high, like domes above a church nave…and their disposition was irrational, vainly wasting expensive space on entrances, hallways, corridors, verandas, terraces, and balconies, turning the house into an impassable labyrinth dear only to the hearts of children.

And then, the building materials: the finest stone, the hardest wood, the best plaster, the most durable paint. Marble from Venčac–sometimes even from Carrara! Porcelain, mahogany lamps, plaster rosettes, ceramic floors, wallpaper made in Prague! Finally, all those decorative and expensive eaves, loggias, oval niches in which we placed impressive standing figures, and the charming alcoves, chains, balustrade, candelabra, bas-reliefs with mythological scenes, and ornaments–all that stone flora and fauna which at my insistence blossomed from the facades of my houses.

Arsénie does not mind using expensive space for no direct purpose. (Credit: Pixabay)

I could totally relate to the character’s dislike of strictly utilitarian constructions and his yearning for ornamentation. In our world, increasingly now, we see tasteless skyscraper after skyscraper being erected, wherein everything is neat and ordered but their atmospheres tend to be cold, almost brutal. So many new cities have public spaces that give off an air of sterility, even deadness. If we want to see and experience true and long-lasting beauty, it requires travel…to cities like Rome or Paris or London (at least its older, as yet unpolluted parts).

The modern mindset is very much about immediate gratification and it builds things that can be of instant use to it, after which, it easily discards or abandons or annihilates them. It finds it difficult to comprehend the logic behind objects or structures the value of whose being/purpose cannot be measured in instant, tangible terms…that’s why those charming niches, loggia and corridors seem silly and futile to it, dismissed as unnecessary extravagance or avoidable wastefulness.

But I have always felt that by suppressing our capacity for conceiving and enjoying these “extra” embellishments somehow we suppress our very humanity. Because pure and immediate functionality can even be attained by animals, there is nothing exceptional about it. Bees build hives, ants have hills and birds have nests. We can go further than mere survival and monotony; there is no reason why we should not. The aesthetic ability that humans have is an addition, a distinguishing feature that sets us apart, and it must be not taken for granted.

Also, the big question remains—how useful truly are those sterile skyscrapers? What great purpose are they serving if we keep getting lured back to the grandeur of ancient or medieval cities? Paradoxically, it is the structures with precisely those “useless” entrances and hallways and bas-reliefs and labyrinths that, when all’s said and done, turn out to be more “functional”. For they succeed in employing and engaging all our faculties, magnify our sense of well-being, over not decades but centuries.

Written by Tulika Bahadur.

Sarah Murray – Internship Experience

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Sarah Murray, pictured here with her artwork, 2019

Of the many things that I have learnt in doing an internship with the Melbourne art class, the most prominent was the importance of fostering community and art’s unique ability to reach people whoever they are. I am a Visual Arts student studying at the Australian National University in Canberra and have been completing a course requiring the students to pursue an internship in an arts-based organisation. I jumped at the idea of doing my internship in Melbourne, the lure of a new city with an amazing arts culture, a multitude of galleries to explore and artists to connect with. However, I was most interested in the prospect of working with Melbourne Art Class for the unique opportunity to do practical studio work with an artist and gain teaching experience in the art class setting.

In Melbourne Art Class children’s classes and adult studio classes I observed how Marco taught and I also provided assistance to the students and gave presentations. Melbourne Art Class puts a focus on the individual’s development and fosters each student’s learning in establishing technique and creativity through their own directed works. I learnt that teaching is more beneficial when it is through guidance rather than instruction, that the teacher must meet the student where they are and to leave your ego at the door and accept that you do not know all the answers. The classes that I attended had a great sense of community, each group had gotten to know each other and created a great learning environment where the students could learn from what each other were doing as well as from their teacher.

Unnamed, charcoal on paper, Sarah Murray 2019

In the studio work I had the opportunity to do some life drawing, some of my own work and the underpainting or first layer of Marco’s work. I was most excited for the time in the studio and not only learnt practical knowledge but had the opportunity to pick Marco’s brain about his experience as a working artist and fostering an art’s career. I learnt that process and consistency are essential to creating work. I really benefitted from working through a process of conceptualising and idea, sketching the composition, drawing details and then painting. This process allows for problem solving along the way to reach a successful work. The consistency came from setting a schedule to do studio work and staying faithful to the routine in order to get the work done.  It was so wonderful to see into how another artist works, starting from the initial idea and going through the process to achieve completed artwork.

Unnamed, charcoal on paper, Sarah Murray 2019

In this time, we also visited many amazing local galleries to gain inspiration and knowledge from other artists which can feed back into the studio practice and fosters the art community. One of my favourite galleries was the Australian Galleries stockroom in Collingwood. The stockroom had paintings covering all the walls and sculptures surrounding the floors, it was bursting with art from many different artists, it was incredible to see so much work and in a unique way to how it is normally displayed in an exhibition.

My time with the Melbourne art Class and with Marco Corsini has been incredibly formative and sparked a way to see that an arts career is not so unattainable when surrounded by community.

Written by Sarah Murray.

Wabi Sabi: An Antidote to our Obsession with the Spectacle

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Over March and April, prior to his solo exhibition in London, I had a long conversation with American artist Joshua Hagler, 40, (@haglerjosh) who is known for his haunting, visceral, psychologically-charged paintings hovering between the abstract and the figurative. Joshua explores a range of heavy subjects—memory, religion, politics, violence, rhetoric, mythology, American history, the overall complexity of life and things and ideas.

We instantly connected over common interests and concerns, from our fascination with the French thinker René Girard to our frustration with the Left/Right divide and how it has deteriorated public discourse. There was, in particular, a point Joshua made about contemporary visual culture that stayed with me: “In an era of über capitalism and Trumpism, in which no message can be sent or received outside the sphere of the spectacle, I feel a sense of loss—a loss of intimacy, of privacy, of a broader humanism.”

We feel the “spectacle of über capitalism” most outrageously on social media. Technology itself isn’t the problem here, it is the most dominant ideology of our time—behind the digital devices—that has vitiated our manner of communication. If people don’t have an immediate product or service to offer, they resort to selling their own lives. They feel compelled to advertise themselves. As a result, things are frequently projected as larger than their original size or value, the wins are magnified, the milestones celebrated, adventures duly recorded—a new job, car, a relationship, vacation in an exotic land. And along side all of this, the defeats, the struggles, failures, stresses and heartaches are carefully (and shamefully) edited out and hidden from the sight of others.

Staged posts such as these are widespread on Instagram, particularly with influencers, combining a sense of adventure and the promise of a loving relationship, giving the impression of an unperturbed, envy-inducing life.

But many of those who craft these spectacles of faultlessness are indeed aware that they are fooling both themselves and the world. Some are honest enough to admit it. I recently found a globetrotting model, who makes good money posing for magazines like Playboy and Maxim and endorsing a number of fashion brands, divulging painfully: “For the past year, I have been struggling with really strong anxiety attacks. It was caused by the trauma of something that I had to go through for over a year, being trapped in a very toxic relationship that I finally ended a year ago…It all looks so perfect and glamorous on social media but what we struggle with away from the screens of our iPads and phones is sometimes something so far away from the reality we try to create on social media where everything seems to be so candid and perfect.”

An antidote to this pressure to look impeccable all the time and the obsession with perpetual salesmanship could be found in the Japanese philosophy of “Wabi Sabi”. Wabi Sabi is a position that celebrates the imperfect, the incomplete and the impermanent. Rooted in Zen Buddhism, the aesthetic regards the quotidian—the small, everyday, transient happenings—with a loving, reverent eye. Rather than striving for magnitude or invincibility, it looks for elegance in little things—a tea-drinking ceremony or cracked pottery. An affection is developed towards objects that are old, worn-out, also towards fleeting natural phenomena, like the play of light and shadow on the moon. The fragility of and flux in stuff are acknowledged, and quietly celebrated.

A Japanese tea-drinking ceremony illustrated in a print by Yōshū Chikanobu (1838–1912), a prolific woodblock artist of the Meiji Period. (Credit: Wikipedia)

The words “wabi” and “sabi” are not easy to translate in English. They have evolved since the 14th century, as author Alain de Botton mentions in a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmHLYhxYVjA) for The School of Life. Wabi initially meant a kind of misery, the loneliness of living in nature, away from human consolation and contact. It now means the bittersweet, exquisite experience of being on one’s own. Sabi initially referred to that which was lean, chill and withered. It now evokes the grace that may emerge from age and use. It also incorporates an artful mending of damage and an appreciation of the cycles of life. The concept is close to “kintsugi”, the practice of repairing brokenness in objects with gold, to show that scars make a thing not less but more precious. Wounds and cuts need not be rendered invisible but ought to be displayed with pride.

Wabi Sabi, in general, embraces a perspective that is in sharp contrast to Western aesthetic ideals, which, since antiquity, have laid a lot of emphasis on the eternal and unchanging. The great cathedrals, houses of parliament, mansions, bridges, stadiums and theatres have been built upon principles of symmetry, wholeness, mathematical precision, proportion and harmony. Such an outlook has its place in art, culture, public life, even private life (as in, when applied to ethics or morality, it can send one on the path of personal development) but, fused with consumerism and the media, a preoccupation with perfection has created and extended a jarring, misleading, unrealistic film  over the actual world.

People today have a distorted idea of what is grand, remarkable, important and meaningful, and live in a continuous state of FOMO—Fear of Missing Out—news, items and experiences…the most engaging conversations, the latest smartphone, the best food, mind-blowing cruises, luxury bags or watches, the shiniest leather jackets, the smartest boots, anti-ageing formulas, the most outstanding partner and children, the list is endless. It is exactly here that Wabi Sabi can help, calm down our frantic spirits, give us a sobering yet still joyful view of existence. Its application can be easy and immediate. A session with friends under the moonlit sky on the terrace instead of a trip to the mall, stitches that may tighten or loosen an old shirt, the writing down of a brief, educational conversation with a stranger in a journal, a vase made out of a Coke bottle or simply a barefoot walk on the grass.

Written by Tulika Bahadur.

The in between of things

~ Melbourne Art Class Hub ~ Leave a comment
Veiled Beggar Woman (Mercy), 1919
Wood (oak) 38 x 30.4 x 33.7 cm
Signed and dated on left of plinth: E Barlach 1919
Source: http:// http://www.moellerfineart.com/moeller-fine-art/notable-sales/ernst-barlach?view=slider

The figure of Ernst Barlach’s “Veiled Beggar Woman (Mercy)”, is unidentifiable. We can see some garments and arms firmly outstretched, patient, dignified and expectant. The beggar is further dignified through the use of the oak wood that is carved economically in blocky forms. But a cloth covering the head hides the identity, seemingly, of a woman. Being an artwork rather than a real person, we are unlikely to feel the need to rummage through our pockets for a coin or respond by walking on resolutely, rather, if we spend enough time with the sculpture, we may move from reaction to reflection.

Although appearing still, the beggar’s posture demands something of us. There is a clear material need that the figure is expressing, but not as an inferior being. An absence of identity inhibits our ability to judge and therefore to distance ourselves on the basis of identity. The cloth over the head is not due to shame, rather the anonymity draws attention to the figure being just like us. This is an equal who remains dignified, on the basis of its inherent sameness to us, on the basis of its right to ask and receive a response, because in a way, it is us.

Ernst Barlach: The Refugee, 1920
Bronze (cast 1937) 35.4 x 38.4 x 14.1 cm
Ernst Barlach Haus Hamburg, acquired 1994
Source: https://www.barlach-haus.de/en/museum/collection/

“Refugee” also by Barlach, describes a figure thrusting forward in diagonal movement, cloaked heavily and protecting a loaf of bread. The face which is visible seems to push forward in hope with quiet determination, summing all available resources and human energy to move to a point where living is feasible. It is consumed by a lunge for life with all the life it has within it.

Neither the beggar nor the refugee use sentimentality. Neither try to draw pity from us. Key to both works is how the lines of the sculptures relate movement. For the beggar it is the motionlessness solidity seeking our response. The only movement is that of the extended arms, reaching out to us. The only thing this figure has, is us, the viewer and our response. The question then, is how do we respond? Any one of us could be beneath that cloth. A call is issued as we encounter ourselves in an other’s need, in what Emmanual Levinas called the ‘face to face’. We are really face to face with ourselves and we get to decide through our response, what is important and what we abandon. By comparison, the refugee is itself, all movement, caught mid step. Strong diagonal lines of the cloak show a driven figure as it escapes past us. There is no security or certainty in this moment and we watch as bystanders. The refugee unlike the beggar asks us not to break the movement, not to get in the way and interfere with its lunge to freedom. The call is upon us again, this time, not to needlessly hinder this lunge for life.

Words are approximate in their meaning. With language, some things fall through the gaps. However, this does not indicate that there is no reality beyond language, rather, our greatest values are established there. Powerful art gives access to that which lies beyond the limits of language, also beyond our political arguments and divisive maneuvering which are often based on language. Powerful art, even at its most figurative, never points to something. It points past it. That which is being represented is not, in almost all cases, meant to be taken on face value. Powerful art points to the in between of things, as with these works of a beggar and of a refugee where what is being described is the space between ourselves and self in the other. These works point us to where human vulnerability requires a response from us and our response establishes the value we place on human life.

Written by Marco Corsini.

The power of visualisation and drawing your desired future

~ Lauren Ottaway ~ Leave a comment

Credit PixabayMid-2018, I underwent a massive “shift in consciousness”. It was like my mind expanded exponentially between May and August. I began perceiving both myself and the universe in an entirely different way. I was powerfully impacted by the realisations that I have just this one life and that the world, for all its ills, is fundamentally and ultimately a wondrous place (these facts may seem obvious but most of us simply take them for granted). And so I decided I’d make good use of every minute, be more proactive in reaching out to people and also squeeze every drop out of my own potential. Quite naturally, I found myself gravitating towards content on personal development and self-help. I wanted practical tools and tactics that could help me lead a genuinely meaningful and useful life.

I soon noticed that successful entrepreneurs across different industries would recommend certain common practices for peak performance—for instance, meditation, journalling, affirmations, cold showers, not checking the phone the first hour of the day. Also, many would talk of “visualisation”—vivid, extremely meticulous imagining of how you want your life to be. The creative designing of your desired future in your mind. I have found this proposed by people like Chase Jarvis (CreativeLive), Vishen Lakhiani (MindValley) and Mel Robbins (The 5 Second Rule).

The word itself might seem a little delusional, some kind of dubious New Age trend similar to the “Law of Attraction” popularised by the 2006 book and documentary The Secret, but it turns out, the concept is indeed rooted in neuroscience and psychology. The people who recommend visualisation also frequently mention that “the brain is pliable” and that “the subconscious can be reprogrammed”.

Former attorney and now a highly sought-after motivational speaker, Mel Robbins, who completely turned her life around after being broke and directionless, says that “visualisation is her secret to success”. She explains that our brains have a filter, a network of neurons, called the “Reticular Activating System” (RAS) that allows certain information and blocks out other information. And it is programmed by us and the people from our past. If we constantly feel that we’re unlovable, our RAS, going through the day, will point out every single piece of evidence that confirms that negative belief. We can use visualisation to reprogram our RAS so that our brains can start to spot opportunities for growth. This is done through a two-step method. Robbins provides an example. We must:

  1. Close our eyes and, in our minds, have a specific picture of what our life looks like when our self-worth has improved (see yourself speaking up at work, leaving bad relationships, defining boundaries, going to the gym, etc.).
  2. Consciously think of the positive emotions that we are going to feel when that situation has materialised (happiness, gratitude, etc.).

When we do this, we are training our brain to have a totally different filter. Our brains do not know the difference between something that actually happens to us (like the F in a 10th grade test) and the things we envisage happening to us (like an abundant and joyful social life), that is, between “real” and “imagined” memories. So when we imagine getting a raise or becoming physically fit or entering into a faithful relationship, the brain encodes these scenarios as real memories. Your RAS filter will change, your network of neurons will modify and, according to research, you may very well end up developing/improving the confidence and the skills needed to manifest those scenarios. So the next time you are in a meeting, instead of looking for all the reasons why you should not speak up, you might immediately spot an opportunity through your new filter and just present your opinions and findings with little hesitation—for you have already rehearsed the situation multiple times.

Colorado-based Patti Dobrowolski, a critically acclaimed comic performer, business consultant, illustrator and author, spends her time focussed on new neuroscience discoveries that leverage the power of imagination and visuals to actualise a vision of the future. She goes further than Mel Robbins, passionately inciting people (even outright non-artists) to “draw” their Current State and their Desired New Reality in all their messy and glorious detail, respectively. The bridge between the two being three bold steps: (1). See it, (2). Believe it, (3). Act on it. Dobrowolski explains the process in this TEDx Talk:

Of course, this technique isn’t magic. When we will make a strategic effort to alter our circumstances, we will face tremendous resistance from within ourselves. Our wild and inventive right brain will be thwarted by our critical and cautious left brain. In another TEDx Talk, Dobrowolski points out that when you start to make change, the amygdalae (almond-shaped clusters of nuclei located deep within the temporal lobes) get all freaked out and will do everything to slow or stop you. For this reason, she suggests participants take out some time daily to daydream, allowing our brainwaves to enter the “alpha” state. Here the soil is soft. It becomes easier for us to weed out thoughts that might inhibit action and plant those that might advance us towards our goal.

Dobrowolski ends with an energetic note. After you have drawn your future and cleared your mind by assuming the alpha state, learn everything about who you want to be, where you want to go, how you want to live, do everything. You now have to act loudly for that key to turn the lock – and chances are you will be positioned to do so just excellently!

 

 

 

The Universal of De Stijl

~ Melbourne Art Class Hub ~ Leave a comment
The De Stijl Pattern by Piet Mondrian (Credit: User “Husky”, CC BY 2.5, Wikimedia Commons)

Many of us have seen the design—blocks of primary colours red, blue and yellow randomly placed within a strict geometry of black verticals and horizontals before a white background. This pattern, which has been repeated the world over and impressed upon a variety of media (from canvasses to clothes to furniture to fashion), comes from the movement “De Stijl” (literally: The Style).

De Stijl Clocks on zazzle.co.uk

Initiated in Amsterdam in 1917 by Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) and Theo van Doesburg (1883-1931)—two pioneers of abstract art—“De Stijl” was originally a publication. It was also, in large part, a reaction to the devastation of World War I.

Artists associated with the movement aimed to develop a universal language of art that could transcend different geographic and temporal boundaries and make sense to a broad, cross-cultural international audience. A sense of peace and harmony was reached only through minimal essentials of line and shade. In Western thought, geometry has often been associated with spirituality but such an elevated appropriation of colour had not been seen before.

The publication De Stijl, when it started, stated that its goal was the organic combination of architecture, sculpture and painting in a lucid, elemental, unsentimental construction. A manifesto of 9 points was formulated in 1918:

  1. There is an old and a new consciousness of time. The old is connected with the individual. The new is connected with the universal. The struggle of the individual against the universal is revealing itself in the world-war as well as in the art of the present day.
  2. The war is destroying the old world with its contents: individual domination in every state.
  3. The new art has brought forward what the new consciousness of time contains: a balance between the universal and the individual.
  4. The new consciousness is prepared to realise the internal life as well as the external life.
  5. Traditions, dogmas and the domination of the individual are opposed to this realisation.
  6. The founders of the new plastic art therefore, call upon all, who believe in the reformation of art and culture, to annihilate these obstacles of development, as they have annihilated in the new plastic art (by abolishing natural form) that, which prevents the clear expression of art, the utmost consequence of all art notion.
  7. The artists of today have been driven the whole world over by the same consciousness, and therefore have taken part from an intellectual point of view in this war against the domination of individual despotism. They therefore sympathise with all, who work for the formation of an international unity in Life, Art, Culture, either intellectually or materially.
  8. The monthly editions of “The Style”, founded for that purpose, try to attain the new wisdom of life in an exact manner.
  9. Co-operation is possible by: I. Sending, with entire approval, name, address and profession to the editor of “The Style”. II. Sending critical, philosophical, architectural, scientific, literary, musical articles or reproductions. III. Translating articles in different languages or distributing thoughts published in “The Style”.

In a video for Tate, Professor Michael White of the University of York demonstrates a Liverpool-based reconstruction of Mondrian’s French studio, which he occupied from 1921 to 1936 and which became one of the most celebrated places in inter-war Paris. White says that Mondrian was posing an interesting question: “Can you use colour as itself and not to stand for anything else? If you made yellow into a circle immediately people would start making associations with the sun or something like that. So he decides the only way forward is to paint in areas of perpendicular relationships.”

Many of us tend to look at art and immediately want to find deeper, hidden meanings. But by stripping away all symbolism and myth, the artists of De Stijl were able to, paradoxically, make their work not less but more meaningful. Naked and innocent, the lines and shades became accessible enough to be adopted by anyone and applied to anything.

Written by Tulika Bahadur.