Art Safari 2005

Art Safari reminded me of Gregor Schnider, who was featured on Art Safari the year before and was a huge hit worldwide. Schnieder made installations (a genre I think I hated even more than conceptual art) but his installations were so creepy, so psycho and twisted that they genuinely stayed in the memory. From the 1980s Schnieder had made alterations to his house in Rheydt, installing false walls, crawl spaces, extra windows, soundproof panels, the whole effect was creepy in the extreme. The kind of thing some murder or abductor might do. The power of his work came from realism; he did not bother with the ludicrous 'arty' interventions of lesser instillation artists.

              

The following day I went to see The March of the Penguins with Carol in the Irish Film Institute. What a beautiful documentary! It filled me with awe, dread, love and hope. The lives of these emperor penguins made my own life seem mundane and trivial. It confirmed my long held suspicion that animals were far more interesting and far more impressive than most humans were. It’s funny how we talk about civilization and being elevated above the brutish animals. What has our selfish elevation achieved? The practical destruction of the planet, and every living thing in it. The social camaraderie and love for their babies of those penguins filled me with shame. However, putting the politics and intellectualizations aside, I have to say it was one of the most romantic films I have ever been to with a girl. The story of these Penguins really was a love story! And it put a smile on my face all night - and that's not very easy to do!

In mid December, I saw Art Safari on the artist Serra Santiago. Santiago admitted that art was a luxury product for an elite audience, the self-same people who profit from globalization and the exploitation of the poor. He admitted that the art market was elitist and he admitted that he had very little power to effect real social change. However, he placed his art practice in a guerrilla role. By lying to curators about the real meaning of his work and his motives and politics, he managed to persuade them to commission art pieces that critiqued their institutions, corporate sponsors or political backers. Lying to curators seemed key to him achieving his aims. I could not lie, but I respected his strategy. Most curators deal in lies and promotional art-historical bullshit anyway, so it served them right as far as I was concerned.  Santiago also admitted that his art depended upon the exploitation of poor people. Nevertheless, his exploitation of poor people for art made one think again about the exploitation of poor people by the western corporations.