Spaces
of Exception
Чрезвычайные
и Полномочные
Curated
by Elena Sorokina & Jelle Bouwhuis
The
exhibition ‘Spaces of Exception’ takes as its starting point the
Book of decrees,
which was created by the legendary Russian conceptualist Dmitry
Prigov (1940-2007). The book consisted of only six pages, but each of
them proudly promulgated a decree signed by “D. Prigov, chairman".
These included the following: the decree of the animal, decree of the
air, decree of closeness, decree of unit, decree of black, and
ultimately, the decree of decree. Enunciated in 1977, Prigov's
decrees evoke an antiquated image of the artist as legislator, an
absurd revolutionary hero in times of stagnation, blending sincere
imitation, stylization and parody. The decree is the legal language
of the "state of exception", associated with revolutions
and wars, and, in Prigov's case, a conceptual work. Prigov often
acted as a "performative legislator" and mythical custodian
of the law. He enunciated laws, performed them, and famously embodied
both legislative and executive functions, playing militia men,
marshals and clerks. All that was delivered in his own indefinable
genre of oration, positioned somewhere between the solemn sermon of a
patriarch and enthusiastic declaration of a parliamentarian.
This
project takes up the myth of the ‘artist as legislator’ from
today's point of view, when artists assume multiple identities:
producer, researcher, worker, romantic entrepreneur, cognitive
proletarian, etc. In this context, the "legislator" evokes
Prigov's conflicted set of ideas, celebrating and questioning it at
the same time, and highlighting its performative and transformative
aspects. Our project does not replicate it but rather works around it
in a space of homage, investigation and analysis. The exhibition
defines itself as a space of imagination or counter-imagination of
the artists, hosting their legal utopias, proposals, analysis, and
reflections. In their projects they invent their own rules of
engagement for specific social, political or economic problems. They
stage legal texts or cases, create their own laws or legal systems, –
i.e., their own rules of the game – and apply the subversions of
aesthetics to them through image or anti-image, the performative and
the fictional. The resulting work ranges from self-defined spaces for
legal utopias, almost science-fictional in nature, up to moments of
documentary truth and poetic justice.
Today,
when laws and regulations failed to prevent the markets' free spin
into crisis, huge efforts are being made to finally instill some
"rule of law" in the unregulated global circulation of
money. A text published by the Russian collective Chto Delat in 2005
and originally reflecting on the world ruled by the Bush-doctrine,
resonates for us with a new relevance: "Not so long ago, "state
of emergency" still sounded like an abstract juridical notion,
and seemed reminiscent of the fascist regimes of the last century.
Yet today, as the result of recent catastrophic changes in the
situation, a "state of emergency" is in the process of
becoming a quotidian reality, a strange new "norm" that
affects all areas of life, a grey backdrop for the everyday. New
systems of surveillance are implemented; public space is privatized
and placed under strict control; censorship dams the flow of
information; passport controls and travel restrictions limit freedom
of movement; suspicious individuals are searched and detained;
elections
are falsified, all in the name of the battle for democracy and human
rights." Naomi
Klein has explained capitalism’s ability to profit from catastrophe
and crisis, or any other "state of exception", and
financial crisis is our current state of exception turning into the
rule, the permanent economic emergency.
One
of the collateral effects of the crisis is the new boost to populism
and a yet greater expansion of nationalisms in many countries,
including the Netherlands, previously known for its multiculturalism
and tolerance. Rising in an unprecedented fashion, it started with
the murders of the right-wing politician Pim Fortuyn, whose
comet-like trajectory across the political sky came as a big surprise
even to himself, and the controversial writer/film maker Theo van
Gogh, which were then succeeded by the infiltration of anti-immigrant
and anti-European sentiments into the political spectrum and media
alike, and which have been further fuelled by the general mood of an
economic downturn. Such an atmosphere naturally has also influenced
artistic output in the Netherlands. Over the last decade we have seen
many an artist trace back violent episodes from history, signalling
nasty cracks in the national varnish that until recently was commonly
referred to as the ‘Dutch tradition of tolerance’ or, even more
self-confidently, ‘Holland as the guide’ (Holland
gidsland). We
have to go back to the 19th century to trace this preoccupation with
the national in art, and we can fairly say that the straightforward
applause of the self-image of the nation back then has today yielded
to a far more introspective evaluation of what until recently seemed
a law of nature.
This
evaluation often concerns reflections on periods in national history
which come out of the shadows of the trauma of World War II,
especially the Dutch ventures into colonialism. In his work Gert Jan
Kocken goes back as far as into the time of the religious wars in the
16th century, inevitably associating the iconoclastic fury in
North-Western Europe with more recent ones such as those "performed"
by the Taliban in Afghanistan with the Bamiyan Buddha's. Kocken's
photographs record the destruction, or rather defacing
of icons, creating a forceful counter-image.
A
painful return of patriarchal rules and legally endorsed
discrimination against women, migrant groups and other minorities is
under way today, inconceivably so. Yevgeniy Fiks' work reflects on
the criminalization of homosexuality in the Soviet Union and the
current utilization of this issue as another heavy-handed attempt to
reinforce "national consolidation". Marina Naprushkina's
work is based on the legal anachronism of the Berufsverbot
for women in Belarus. Entitled 252+1,
the title refers to the number of professions forbidden to women
there. In her mural, Naprushkina reproduces this list, adding a
grammatical correction - a female ending to each profession, thus
transforming this interdiction into a feminist manifesto of sorts.
Belarus is the extreme case in the former Soviet periphery, but
Naprushkina's work, deeply based in her home country's democratic
deficiencies, can be read as a reflection on the epic struggle in all
post-Soviet countries to become societies based on the rule of law.
One
chapter from the Soviet dissident movement is particularly
interesting in this context - the strategy of a completely
counter-intuitive approach of radical ‘civil obedience’ to the
law. Developed by Alexander Esenin-Volpin (born in 1924), this
technique was designed to confront an autocratic state
legally. Son of
the celebrated poet Sergei Esenin (1895-1925), Volpin defied any
classification — poet, mathematician, and lawyer, he was engaged in
the dissident movement since its very inception. Being one of rare
people in the Soviet Union who took "laws" seriously, he
initiated the famous action on Constitution Day in 1965. This first
unsanctioned organized civil protest in the Soviet Union, which, at
the peak of the Cold War, was inconceivable for anyone, can be
considered a "legal performance" of sorts. But instead of
openly challenging a regime that would immediately criminalize such
an attempt, Volpin insisted on ‘official’ constitutional rights.
Like every constitution, the Soviet constitution was full of good
intentions and grand declarations; it guaranteed, for example,
freedom of assembly or transparency of judicial proceedings. In
reality, of course, these were never followed, and never claimed.
Thus, Volpin called upon the Soviet regime to simply obey its own
laws and international obligations, taking ‘socialist legality’
not just seriously but literally. To some extent, some of the
projects in 'Spaces of Exception' can be related to this strategy,
which the artists adapt to different times, different social
conditions and different problematics.
This
strategy is of course used by Naprushkina in a number of her works.
But quite another take is that of Jonas Staal, who uses the
possibilities of "freedom of speech" to develop platforms
for political organizations and movements excluded from the
democratic process. His artistic and political organization New
World Summit
develops what he calls “alternative parliaments” for
organizations that face systemic exclusion from the political order,
for example by use of so called “designated lists of terrorist
organizations.” As such he hosted, among others, representatives of
the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), the Kurdish
Women Movement, the Basque Peace Process and the National Liberation
Movement of Azawad (MNLA). Staal creates a "space of exception"
as a space of experiment for new models of debate and new criteria of
inclusion and exclusion.
Staal
temporarily suspends the divisions between what is considered
‘national’ (as a rule) and ‘exceptional’. Such divisions are
the outcome of former colonial empires whose demise resulted in more
subtle manifestations of continuous inequality and discrimination,
right into the present. Various artists dig into the Dutch colonial
era and its aftermath. Willem de Rooij subtly embodies a Dutch
history of colonization, (slave) trade and migration between Africa,
Europe and Southeast Asia in his Blue
to Black textile
piece. Maryanto creates an epic counter-monument to the recent
history of Papua New Guinea almost unknown to the outside world, not
focussing on the Dutch colonization (as in the defaced portrait of
Queen Wilhelmina by Kocken), but rather on its re-colonization by
Indonesia. The work of Roy Villevoye is haunted by a long tradition
of ethnographic focus on the same region, and how this tradition as a
matter of fact distracts from the political and economic reality
there.
Finally,
the exhibition defines itself a public "space of exception"
through a specific agreement, designed by an artist. Carey Young's
work, included into the exhibition, concludes a "magic contract"
with the viewer. The work features a legal text written backwards and
reflected in a black mirror, a device traditionally used in
witchcraft and the occult in many cultures. The text drafted by the
artist proposes the exhibition space visible in the mirror as a new
area of publicly-owned land, in which certain activities considered
illegal in public space at different times are made permissible.
The
exhibition will in turn serve as a stage for the choreographer Anna
Abalikhina. She will appropriate the show and use it as an
exceptional space of rehearsal after its opening. Engaging with the
entire exhibition, she will reconsider the Soviet tradition of the
parade and its lavish mass ornaments as a carnival-cum-demonstration.
The results of this collaboration between the curators and the
choreographer will be performed on September 17th.
Elena
Sorokina is an independent curator
Jelle
Bouwhuis is head curator of Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam
Participating
artists: Yuri Albert, Ivan Brazkin, Chto Delat, Yevgeniy Fiks, Nikita
Kadan/Alexander Burlaka,
Gulnara Kasmalieva/Muratbek Djumaliev, Gert Jan Kocken, Irina
Korina, Jiri Kovanda, Maryanto, Taus Makhacheva, Renzo Martens,
Metahaven, Aernout Mik, Marina Naprushkina, Nikolay Oleynikov, Anna
Parkina, Dmitry Prigov, Tima Radya, Willem de Rooij, Haim Sokol,
Jonas Staal, Roy Villevoye, Carey Young, Katarina Zdjelar
Choreographer:
Anna Abalikhina
Exhibition
architect: Maria Kalinina
Artplay,
Moscow
11
- 26 September 2013
Open
every day from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.
“Spaces
of Exception” is organized by Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam
(SMBA), the Netherlands. It is a Special Project of the Moscow
Biennial 2013, held in the framework of The Netherlands/Russian
Federation Year 2013.
On
11 and 14 to 17 September the exhibition space also hosts "The
Dutch Art Assembly". This is a series of lectures and debates on
the changing role of the art curator, initiated by the Mondrian Fund
(The Netherlands) and programmed by Elena Sorokina. The full schedule
can be found on www.mondriaanfonds.nl