Art, the Contemporary,
Class, Politics and Neo-Liberalism
The Tilting Axis
Visual Arts Conference.
“I’m
of the firm understanding that my art over the years haven’t affected my
community”
(Makemba Kunle- National
Museum of Trinidad and Tobago, 2014-The Unfolding of an Artist’s Life,
Aesthetics and Revolution)
This statement is important in light of the recently held Tilting Axis, visual art conference hosted by Fresh Milk, http://freshmilkbarbados.com/about as well as
the upcoming participation of a contingent of Trinidad and Tobago musicians at the South by Southwest Music Festival, http://sxsw.com March 21 2015, Austin, Texas, MIX cover story, (Sunday Express, 8 March 2015, Nigel Telesford, http://www.trinidadexpress.com).
I’m thinking there are some interesting issues that emerge as we seek to explore the notion of sustainability and connectivity that art in this sub-region is making or not making.
“It
is not just about contemporary art. One of the tasks we have undertaken at the
Perez Art Museum Miami is the building of Caribbean art histories in the
consciousness of the American public, we see the Perez Art Museum as
strategically placed to undertake this”
(Tobias
Ostrander-Chief Curator of the Perez Art Museum, Miami.
Art has grown ever
more estranged from its local and ancestral political and location as we can
see in this year’s carnival presentations where there has been an
acknowledgement of certain confusion happening:
“National Carnival Commission (NCC) Chairwoman (my words) Lorraine
Pouchet in her comments described as “obscene” the amount of money spent on
Carnival “without the kind of returns we would like to see”.
“And
I think we need to look at a more equitable distribution of our taxpayers’
funds in creating the type of event and industry that we would like to see
coming out of the very souls or our people,” she said
She
said it had been traditionally forgotten that Carnival belongs to all people of
this country, not just interest groups. She said she was “extremely sad” that
the country has been losing its traditions of dance and the NCC wants to
develop programmes to take into the schools”
This confused state
of cultural alienation and anomie is being fuelled mainly by absence among all
classes of any historical connection to a philosophical, conceptual or
intellectual politics of Caribbean aesthetics. There is also no connection to
the historical struggle that went into the shaping of our cultural innovations
over the last two centuries. Our contemporary middle-class cultural politics, owes
it allegiance only to capital as reflected in the class differentiations now
characteristic of our cultural events - VIP, VVIP, VVIP... a neo-capitalism
that has sunk its teeth into our imagination.
the warm welcome of the Tilting Axis- Visual Art Conference-2015, means something, when we put into context all the other discussions and political action taking place at this time., Conversations around innovation, diversification, the EU investment into civil society (Trinidad and Tobago), the re-conceptualization of craft education programme, SKILL and Education, both primary and secondary; there is also an intellectual re-conceptualization discourse happening about the Caribbean and innovation, coming from the International Relations Department, UWI. All this could provide a context for the discourses of Tilting Axis within the frame of a larger developmental conversation and yes, this is a warm welcomed sign.
But this sign set in
motion other questions that need to be asked around class and the construction
of art in the Caribbean. Studio 66 is a metaphor of class aesthetics. There are
many reasons why people or organizations could not or would not be
present. The event already had a
significant number of people - 30, there could have been a lack of funds, conflicting
schedules etc. But this also brings up the glaring issue of where individual
artists or groups of artists sit within the evolving political realities of
modern contemporary art here in the Caribbean and who is shaping this reality.
The middle-class is caught
in this schizophrenic voice, of being of, and not being of; what they produce, our
voice has no value in the neo-liberal capitalist conversation of the Western art
gallery system, biennials, ART BASEL’s
etc.; their power sits within the geographical space whence it came, which is
void and confused of this particular contemporary voice. It is a simulacrum, a
theatrical set, a performance; as was done when we displayed our bodies for
consumption in the early era of the 50’s and 60’s. These performances are done
all at high stakes, for careers and reputations.
“For
middle-class agents to become effectively political involves then decisively
breaking with the biases associated with their own class, because in a society
where the relationship between capitalist and worker is the most important one,
the middle-class occupies a vacillating centre position.”
(Ben Davis-9.5 Theses
on Art and Class, pg23/Art and Class)
Caribbean art’s
powers sits in its obeah, its ancestral ties to an earlier time when art sat as
totems, forces laying claim to space, mind and body. This would set the stage for a different
intellectual and aesthetic paradigm of art, one that is more communal, social
and interactive. This means having
conversations on new ways of injecting art into our social space. It means finding
systems, maybe like a sou-sou or friendly societies, panchayats, gayaps
etc. These can become the templates for
our arts councils.
“6.9-On
the other hand, contemporary visual art also faces a dilemma if it does not
engage with other, more dominant creative industries; in that case, its
audience becomes narrowed to only the very rich and those who have the
privilege to have been educated in its traditions, which makes clear the narrow
horizon, and consequently, lack of freedom within which this supposedly free
form of expression manoeuvres.”
(Ben Davis-9.5 Theses
on Art and Class, pg33/Art and Class)In setting up a discussion on sustainability and connectivity, contemporary art negotiators must be cognisant of the entrapment of the pervasive neo-liberal, capitalist, global agenda for art and aesthetics. This is necessary when the imaginary of art has almost no political voice within our geographical borders; at least within my borders of Trinidad and Tobago. Since independence, The Trinidad and Tobago Art Society for example has developed projects that have set public art and design two steps backwards, while the Trinidad and Tobago Institute of Architects sits silent on the role of art and design within their work.
“9.2
Whatever these specific struggles are, it is an organized working class that is
best placed to challenge dominant ruling-class relations [4.6], which is the
precondition for challenging dominant ruling-class values of art and improving
the situation of art.”
Ben Davies - 9.5
Theses on Art and Class, pg36/Theses on Art
and Class
The idea of
reconstructing real power means the total deconstruction of self, the analysis
of power as self and the eventual repositioning of self within the community communal
aspirations of the political, social, economic, historical and the aesthetics,
in the one voice.
