art culture

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.

Privilege in the Art World—and Two Ways to Circumvent it

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“The system is rigid and hostile to new entrants who may not have the privilege of personally knowing an established player in the market.” (Credit: pxfuel.com)

Art is an industry unlike any other. It operates in strange, funny ways. It is an unregulated market wherein there are no ultimate definite criteria as to the worth of works. The value of a painting and sculpture depends, at the end of the day, not so much on talent (which is a notoriously slippery subjective term) but on the PR machinery of the artist or dealer. Talent—to the extent it can be universally identified—certainly has its role, yes, but prices are determined more by which dealer randomly discovers which artist and which collector randomly discovers which dealer, and how much he/she is willing to pay for what. Whichever individual or platform somehow ends up attracting money can invest further and capture space in the media to reach aspiring collectors, and consequently, keep generating more sales.

Works such as these by superstar artists like Takashi Murakami (back) and Kaws (front) appeal to wealthy individuals just starting off their collecting journey sometimes simply because they have been bought by other wealthy people before. (Source: ToyQube)

The current situation is that, globally, the art world is run by a handful of megagalleries (Gagosian, Perrotin, Hauser & Wirth, Lehmann Maupin, Pace, a few more) and auction houses (mostly Sotheby’s, Christie’s, Phillips) that regularly find themselves witnessing record-breaking numbers. They decide what will be displayed in important museums. A few artists (dead and alive) hover at the top—e.g., Jeff Koons, Kaws, Andy Warhol, Basquiat—and we find their names repeated countless times to the point of tedium.

But the fact is where value—material (of money) and intangible (of status)—has been once accumulated, there it remains. I see new rich millennials on Instagram who are keen on collecting art. They too simply go for somebody like Kaws or Takashi Murakami, whatever is readily available and already famous in affluent circles—having no great awareness or knowledge of the variety of art that is being produced worldwide. They do not have the time or motivation to search for some pioneering First Nations Canadian painter or a thought-provoking Cambodian sculptor or an important Ethiopian photographer.

The system is rigid and hostile to new entrants who may not have the privilege of personally knowing an established player in the market. Those emerging artists who do gain quick access to big galleries are very often relatives or acquaintances of seasoned art collectors themselves and come from backgrounds that can allow them the financial means to overnight promote content on social media and acquire a hundred thousand followers. If the work is mediocre, it doesn’t matter; it may still end up selling. Social clout—gathered on the basis of birth—rapidly turns into commercial clout.

That is the story at the top of the pyramid. At the bottom are thousands upon thousands of galleries that produce too much art, may represent enormous amounts of talent and hard work, but are barely able to gain visibility and buyers and build value for their artists—for lack of resources that can fuel the required level of PR. Rich people who can buy art prefer to approach the big, well-known names for advice and direction. As a result, at the bottom, there’s too much supply but little demand. Lower- and mid-level galleries that cannot guarantee sales, find it difficult to survive and have small rosters of represented artists are themselves regularly flooded with pitches.

This can sound very depressing and frustrating to gifted, diligent artists who have no prior connections in the industry and inherited wealth (for advertising). How can they make their work stand out and catch attention? It is not easy to break into the system, even at the very bottom. And what if you do not even have a good BFA or MFA from a reputed college?

I think those who exist outside the domain of privilege may start by opening profiles on various online art selling platforms (e.g., Saatchi Art, Artmajeur) and, of course, post regular content on social media (even if you can’t pay for followers, you never know who might someday find you). But beyond these, two strategies could be helpful, to an extent, in circumventing the unyielding and non-inclusive structure of the art world.

1. Expand your Network (but without Hard-Selling)

It is very important that artists take networking seriously. The more the number of people who are aware of your existence, the greater the chance that you will be able to sell more art. But one must be careful with communication. As I wrote in my article on COVID-19, you can introduce yourself to people without asking them to “buy” your work (or to represent you). Power dynamics in human relationships are extremely sensitive. If you are the unsolicited one and want to approach an influential individual (a dealer, collector, curator, publisher or a well-off businessman who is also an art enthusiast), direct and loud language will normally not serve your purpose. Hard-selling can be a huge put-off in an overcrowded world. A better way to make yourself known is to pursue another course of action/thought first and slowly reveal your creative identity. Dealers who are too loaded with pitches will give you more respect and attention if, instead of directly messaging them, you somehow befriend somebody close to them (who then shows your work to them). If there’s a businessman or cultural influencer you want to approach, find an article or video of theirs—then email them saying you enjoyed it and why the subject interests you. Leave your website and social media profiles in the signature. Chances of receiving a reply go up with soft-selling.

It is said that your network is your net worth—artists ought to take this seriously. (Credit: pixabay.com)

2. Merge your Art with a Functional Object or Experience

If wealthy potential art buyers and successful gallerists are not in your sphere, there are other avenues through which artistic careers could be built and advanced. These are certainly not easy, may require research, careful negotiation and some investment—but they can allow your skills to be presented before a good number of people.

If you find that people are unwilling to buy art because they do not want to put money in items they cannot use in a tangible manner—impress your art upon functional objects. Who doesn’t need mugs, suitcases, dresses, furniture? It may be a little difficult to find the right partners or platforms that allow this but I know artists who have build great businesses over time with such an approach. There are websites that turn art into fabric, either on-demand or with built-in marketplaces (e.g.digitalfabrics.com.au and shopvida.com, respectively). Finally, I feel that artistic knowledge could also be merged with “experiences”, not only objects. An experience that an artist may sell could be an evening for a group that includes a painting class and drinking of wine. Artists may also collaborate with professionals in tourism to act as cultural guides and with mental health professionals who administer art therapy.

There are many routes that one can adopt if one has an entrepreneurial spirit and is open enough to not be dictated by fixed notions of how an artist must use their talent and make money. If admission into the hallowed echelons of an art world run by a small elite is blocked for an artist, rather than being discouraged, they can consider themselves free to innovate. Far from taking one away from the desired goal of having artworks sold, these activities will increase its odds as they will bring exposure to the artist.

Written by Tulika Bahadur.

Art More as Proposition than Protestation

~ Melbourne Art Class Hub ~ 1 Comment
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.

Taking Responsibility as Content Creators

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The Louvre Museum and Kim Kardashian on Instagram

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity of interviewing Marine Tanguy, 30, a London-based entrepreneur who has started the world’s first artist agency—MTArt Agency. You will find talent agencies in fields like modelling, speaking and writing but the concept is new in the world of visual arts. Marine is committed to accelerating artistic careers in innovative ways; she encourages people to invest not in art but artists. She borrows the idea from the agencies she encountered in Los Angeles, where she worked in her early twenties. They had a more 360-degree view, she says, of managing talent, generating visibility and revenue than the traditional gallery model.

Her award-winning venture helps artists cover their studio costs and sell their works. It also implements a variety of public art projects, cultural and commercial partnerships (for instance, with the Mayor of London’s #LondonisOpen campaign). MTArt has big plans, and wants to eventually rival the major Hollywood talent agencies that look after actors and celebrities.

Marine is active as a speaker. One of her TEDx talks, given in Lausanne in 2018, is titled “How social media visuals affect our mind?” and highlights the big difference between the Instagram followings of the Louvre and Kim Kardashian. Currently, the museum has 3.2M and the socialite 146M. Marine likens the narcissistic, hyper-sexualised imagery of the latter to junk food. It is harmful and “makes people feel like crap”, she maintains. She scientifically backs up this claim with evidence collected through AI monitoring.

As a response, she does not suggest any kind of suppression or censorship but greater diversification of content on social media platforms so that we can be more visually nourished. She has no problem with Kim Kardashian per se and does not want to punch her type. What troubles her is that there is just this one kind of persona, representation of what a female should be that has such a massive, sweeping hold.

Given the identity of the individual on top, Instagram is suffocatingly crammed with bikini models—most of them passive objects of the male gaze. Marine herself got the greatest engagement on the day she decided to do a test and posted a picture of her bottom (instead of her usual posts on her eventful life as a pioneering businesswoman). That is what people want and mainly respond to. Who is to be held accountable for such behaviour?

Marine’s answer has two points. First, social media only shows what already exists beyond it, it reflects the entertainment and advertising industries as they have operated for decades. And second, more importantly, the academic world and the art industry have long refused to take part in actively sharing content. This is something that we always forget to mention. Universities and museums did a poor job of making meaningful conversations and creativity available via the television. And they are still quite slow with the internet. Institutions have remained shut off from the outside world, and continue to provide high culture to a small, elite crowd.

“Institutions have remained shut off from the outside world, and continue to provide high culture to a small, elite crowd.” (Credit: Pixabay)

They’ve believed that somehow engaging everyone is something bad, Marine adds. “If they did share any content, they would remove all directness and empathy and make the material too conceptual, not related to our lives.”

If the vast majority of people have an aesthetic sensibility that cannot quite go far beyond Kim Kardashian it is because they never really had a chance to be exposed to and get familiar with anything better. The content was not developed in the first place. It wasn’t offered to them.  

“So, as an industry we have to step in and start sharing valuable content regularly,” Marine says. “At MTArt, we are tackling this by taking art to museums but also through public projects and social media. We want to stay in the landscape. Say if you are a tech company or if you are in the city space, we want to provide you with visuals.”

It is easy for people in the creative industries to complain about their work not being appreciated, about the general public having unsophisticated preferences. But the big question is what have they done or what are they doing to attract the attention of and connect with the average person? There are huge untapped audiences—professionals in fields like technology, finance, healthcare, law—who would love to be culturally educated, invited to the discussion, and even collect art—and they must be reached out to.

In this day and age, we are fortunate that anybody can become a content creator—from professors in the humanities to teenagers with a budding interest in sculpture or literature. And artists, writers, art dealers, art journalists, art curators have an even greater responsibility. We have communication tools at our disposal that enable us to instantly share material and start a dialogue. An attempt to straightaway equal Kim Kardashian’s 146M would be unrealistic but small, regular, energetic, passionate efforts—a couple of beautiful, thought-provoking paintings from emerging artists shared on Facebook every week, more and more Instagram accounts dedicated to art history, WhatsApp statuses with quotes from prominent art theorists—all of these could be the first steps that, over time, by way of organic growth, may expand and redefine the taste of the masses.   

Written by Tulika Bahadur.

Meaning and society

~ Lauren Ottaway ~ Leave a comment

Jean Genet 1954 or 1955 by Alberto Giacometti 1901-1966
Jean Genet, Alberto Giacometti, oil on canvas, 1954 

Alberto Giacometti’s painting of the writer Jean Genet, shows a figure isolated and deep within the framed space. If a portrait is about knowing the nature of the subject, then Giacometti appears to have consciously held back from bringing about any resolution. Or perhaps he knew not to try.

Painted with approximate dabs and lines that have been drained of colour, the figure of Genet in the painting is visually restrained and inaccessible. It is as if there is half-hearted struggle to represent Genet which stalemates into locating him instead. We as the viewers are here and he is there, but there is an impenetrable distance between.

This impenetrable distance typifies the ravaged twentieth century and a resultant struggle around identity and meaning. Whilst that century began with massive optimism about the technological achievements such as the electric light, the aeroplane and the motor car; within two decades those same technological achievements enabled slaughter on an industrial scale. Looking at this painting, I associate it with the experience of the debasement of humanity which began en masse a few decades before and has never really left us. In previous centuries, art displayed a certain confidence in being able to represent reality; whether it succeeded is beside the point. But most of the twentieth century was spent without an assurance about what reality was and how to find it. The location of ourselves in relation to others, the world and common values became, at best, approximate and speculative. It is from this speculation that I think Giacometti worked on his portrait. Genet’s outsider status, that of being homosexual and having formerly been a thief is also a consideration in reading this sense of distance; but distance, per se, is common to much of Giacometti’s work.

Giacometti’s figures are often alone, as they are in his work ‘Piazza’, where they appear to cross a town square, but no-one appears to connect or meet. Those isolated figures, emaciated but erect seem to indicate even more about the nature of the human experience. They are elongated, like some of El Greco’s figures which lift upwards, like the spire of a Gothic cathedral pointing to heaven. Giacametti’s figures seem to not belong entirely to the earth and if they do, they are not entirely earth-bound; in both senses of that last word. Whereas the cathedral houses and contains human figures, the twentieth century skyscraper by comparison isolates figures from each other in a drama which is beyond the human scale. Giacometti’s figures stand alone like the skyscraper, but also aspire to something grander and more meaningful, like the Cathedral. It’s an absurd contradiction that is present in the writing of Giacametti’s contemporary, Albert Camus who initiated the idea of the absurd. For Camus life is void of meaning, or an inability to know any meaning, if it were to exist. So the emaciated sculptural figures seem to indicate a hunger for, but an inability to have satisfaction in meaning.

Alberto Giacometti, Piazza
Alberto Giacometti, Piazza, bronze, 1947-48

For the remaining twentieth century there was much discussion about the operatives of power that led to war, colonisation, and genocide, especially power as it relates to language and culture. Those discussions have tended to deconstruct common narratives and meaning, and have enabled a new pluralism, which host multiple identities, narratives and meaning. So, meaning is now more individualised and tends to orientate around what the individual decides as one’s identity. So, in some ways our response to the absurdity described by Camus, has been to find meaning, and a cause, within our own tribe. However, the danger is that we do not connect, like the figures in the piazza. Finding meaning in one’s identity without considering how we must relate to others and difference, risks throwing us into a post-truth world. This is a world where there is no longer a reliable means to communicate across difference in a society; where how we govern is subject to the loudest voice or most popular cause of the moment rather than tested processes, and common values of discourse.

Written by Marco Corsini