In Art We Trust

In Art We Trust



I n Art We Trust

Artist

ArtWork

Year

Trust

Randa Mirza

Untitled #6 (from the series Parallel Universes) Cut It Out Shadows of Dust III No perdemos nada con nacer

2006-8

APT Dubai

2004 2007 2000

APT Dubai APT Dubai APT Mexico City

9 10 11

Maybe There is a Message Under Control In God We Trust - Everone Here Rocks Ahead American Family Elysian Park Like a garden in a haystack To have more clients to cure so I can maintain my family, Peru

2008 2008 2005-6 2006 2008 2005 2008 2002

APT Dubai APT London APT Los Angeles APT Dubai APT Los Angeles APT Los Angeles APT Mexico City APT New York

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Credits

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Ahmet Ögüt Fahrettin Orenli Regina José Galindo Basim Magdy Nedko Solakov Christie Frields Yochai Avrahami Fallen Fruit Fallen Fruit Betsabee Romero Martin Weber



Permalinks In Art We Trust APT

http://inartwetrust.aptglobal.org/ http://aptglobal.org/



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I n Art We Trust

In Art We Trust takes a closer look at the idea of trust and how artists address its political, economic, and social ramifications. By using visual metaphors in video, photography, sculpture, and painting, multimedia artists search for possibilities to undo the damage that has been done to trust. The two aspects of trust exist in a dynamic contradiction: on one hand we are willing to relinquish control and make ourselves vulnerable to others; on the other, we are anxious to predict what other people will do and what situations will occur. Trust is the foundation of every interpersonal relationship; we trust our parents, friends and lovers, and we have to confide in institutions for them to function. But a discredited news media, a soured global economy and failed promises from governments have brought the notions of certainty, credit, and reliance under close scrutiny within the arts and social sciences, exposing trust as a vulnerable part of our social structure. Our time has been called “the age of suspicion” and the diminishing trust among neighbors and citizens is evident in the popularity of the phrase ‘Don’t talk to strangers’, in approvals for government-sponsored public surveillance programs, and the complications of verifying credibility with virtual users of the Internet. Apparently, we know how easy trust is to betray. In Art We Trust presents twelve international artists from the collection of Artist Pension Trust (APT). Each artist deals with themes of political conflict and social emergency. The exhibition is

devised in two sections. The first group primarily deals with the erosion of trust: Randa Mirza investigates the credibility of the news media, while Ahmet Ögut and Fahrettin Örenli contest the legitimacy of the current American war in Iraq. Regina José Galindo explores the effects of treachery, and Nedko Salakhov and Basim Magdy both address the mistrust and phobias that ravage people’s consciences. These artists sharply present disquieting facts and reminders of political and social betrayal, invoking feelings of discontent and rejection in the viewer. The second group not only critiques the loss of confidence in our political and social systems, but also presents new ways of reactivating trust: Betsabee Romero brings hope into zones of environmental and political devastation while the collective Fallen Fruit proposes to re-establish society’s bonds by means of sharing fruit. Yochai Avrahami casts communication devices between opposing checkpoints and Christie Frields attempts to mediate the tensions of American history. Martin Weber articulates the hopes of marginalized communities in Latin America. These artists elicit optimism and reassurance within communities of people. Largely the controversy surrounding issues of trust inspires artists to approach it through an aesthetic outlet. Recognizing the capacity of trust as a uniting factor, the host of this exhibition, Artist Pension Trust (APT), works to build market credibility for a transnational group of emerging and mid-career artists



by assembling a collective asset of their artworks. APT provides an urgent alternative for artists in preparing for their financial future by offering long-term benefits, using art as a type of symbolic currency. Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman notes that “In a liquid, fast-flowing and unpredictable setting, we need firm and reliable ties of friendship and mutual trust more than ever before.” * In times of uncertainty, art is a catalyst for challenging present conditions, for experimentation, and for alternatives: In Art We Trust. The Lebanon-based artist Randa Mirza questions the politics of representation and helps to understand how the visual language works to produce and circulate meaning. In the series of photographs Untitled (Parallel Universes) (20062008), Mirza digitally collaged images of mainstream movies and tourist snapshots with the footage of Lebanese wars from 1975 and 2006, respectively. In the images, the scenes of destruction look oddly extant when sensationalized by the foray of news media images, leaving the viewer confused by the seamlessness of the miseen-scene. The work takes its title from the theory of “multiverse”, which accepts the existence of multiple realities. Mirza aims to reveal the tropes used by the media to sensationalize events. The image of the heroic American soldier is tested in the video Cut it Out (2004) by the Turkish artist Ahmet Ögut. A young man sits on the floor wearing a pair of pants patterned like the American

flag. The ramshackle room and the flickers of masked faces in the background suggest that he has been kidnapped. Repeatedly, he utters the phrase “It’s a lost cause, I want to go home,” and he curses the war, the people involved, and the pointlessness of the mission. There is nothing heroic in this monologue, and he continuously breaks into nervous laughter as if to reconcile his discomfort with the terrifying reality he faces. By disguising the physical and psychological impact of waging war with his protagonist’s bravado, Ögut disavows the image of the American soldier in Iraq. The viewer is left to pass judgment about who, in fact, is losing the war. The Iraq war is also the subject of the animation Shadows of Dust (Episode III) (2007) by another Turkish-born artist, Fahrettin Örenli. Two figures representing Indonesian shadow puppets pull apart a one hundred dollar US banknote, which slowly morphs into an outline of the Iraqi border. As this is happening, the subtitles and voice over make statements about American greed for oil and money, referencing conspiracy theories surrounding the political rivalry for control of Middle Eastern oil reserves. The torn map is a metaphor for the destruction of war and civilian casualties that have severed the country as it has fallen prey to political betrayal by the supposed foreign saviors. Deadly civil war is at the core of a video by Regina José Galindo, from Guatemala. The artist spent several hours lying naked in a clear garbage bag in a munici-



pal dump. The video documentation of her performance, titled No Perdemos Nada Con Nacer (We Don’t Lose Anything by Being) (2000), addresses the numerous examples of secret political murders and discarded evidence that occur throughout various parts of Latin America. By placing herself at risk, vulnerable and unprotected, Galindo internalizes her protest against violence and her own country’s political and social instability. The artist silently asks if an individual protest can impact “[the] daily nightmare of misery and political deceit that overcast Latin America.” In this poignant gesture of self-expression, the artist relies on the viewer’s ability for compassion, aiming to spur the urge to interfere in this unfair reality. If the artists mentioned above reveal circumstances where trust is under siege, the artists that follow employ different approaches in an attempt to restore trust where it has been lost. The video Maybe There is a Message (2008), by Egyptian-born artist Basim Magdy, begins with a lost-looking individual tied to a chair in a ghostly forest, and the character participates in a dialogue with another person who remains unseen. The conversation soon reveals itself as a monologue between his split personalities, illustrating the torment from a devil doppelganger. The video relays a cogent message from the artist; anguish from separation haunts all of us and ravages our well being, but we will be able to heal if we can only trust in each other.

Humor and metaphor can be powerful tools to offer a different understanding of a reality, reinforcing speculative hope in a way that only art is able to articulate. Nedko Solakov from Bulgaria uses un-expected metaphors when he talks about the emotions of fear that have contaminated our society. In the exquisitely rendered drawings of Under Control (2006), three male characters–a bald man with hornshaped ears, a falling man, and a wise man–are each caught up in futile attempts to control the uncertainties of their existence. The handwritten captions inscribed beneath each drawing are witty and biting, as the artist constructs a narrative about the desire for certainty in the wake of the apprehension and phobia that haunt the contemporary world. A noted storyteller, Solakov says that his way of dealing with insecurities and mistrust is to make art. The artist attempts to lighten the weight of our worries by entrusting them to the healing power of art, and the contagious power of his humor and sarcasm. A set of sculptures by Los Angelesbased artist Christie Frields may very well be found in the woodlands where we left the protagonist of Magdy’s video. The settee-sculpture In God we Trust – Everyone Here (2008), is a carved redwood bench adorned with juxtaposing American maxims; the first one used on United States currency to convey religious sentiment during war time, and the second a fragment from a Native American oral tradition, taken from the book Technicians



of the Sacred. The two phrases describe sets of opposing values: money, property and government in the first and the communal relationship between humans and nature in the second. By using a bench as a metaphor for convention and debate, the artist is advocating for a liaison between historical opponents. Frields proposes a resolution of historical contradiction by applying creativity and imagination. Yochai Avrahami, from Israel, constructs amorphous sculptural objects from the refuse and detritus of war, such as bullet casings and abandoned hardware that he has found in the conflict zone between the city of Jerusalem and the nearby checkpoint in Ramallah. The artist describes them as “instant fossils”, referring not to remnants of a past geologic age, but instead from our present time. In the video Rocks Ahead (2008), Avrahami has animated these congealed sculptures using nylon strings, as if they were kites or marionettes. His fossils bring to mind robotic-like creatures that move like spiders, capering between the check points. Avrahami’s imaginative and ephemeral devices offer a glimmer of hope within a conflict where people have ceased to trust in each other. The collective Fallen Fruit, from Los Angeles, uses fruit as their artistic medium, expressing concerns about frivolous consumption and the commercialization of modern life. “Fruit grows everywhere; it is socially mobile and is a symbol of hospitality,” say long-term collaborators

David Burns, Matias Viegener, and Austin Young, who also stage fruit-based events that fuse humor and critique. In their giclee print Elysian Park (2005), the artists have re-appropriated the famous WWII image “Flag Raising on Iwo Jima”, depicting five United States Marines planting an American flag on a hill overlooking Iwo island in Japan. Cohesively arranged as a single mound, the artists imitate the original Marines, but substitute the branch of an apple tree for the American flag. Apples also stand for hope in another Fallen Fruit photograph, American Family (2008). Inspired by Giorgio de Chirico’s rapidly vanishing architectural perspectives, the artists place an average American family on top of a dining table, representing the traditional place of familiar bonding. The mother and father wave white flags of surrender, while the daughter and son hand over apples to unseen antagonists. The artists are addressing the problem of deteriorating family ties in the wake of encroaching modernity. Mexican artist Betsabee Romero attempts to disseminate hope by giving away potted plants to inhabitants of the slums living in landfills outside of Mexico City. This series of photographs, Like a garden in a haystack (2008), documents her journey in a minibus covered in green bushy plants as she travels to these communities, bringing green sprouts where there are no other traces of vegetation. The artist is condemning the delay of improvements to these areas and attempts to prolong the



faith of the inhabitants by small, individual actions. The generosity of her gesture will harvest faith in art that never ceases to initiate change in peoples’ lives. The Chilean-born photographer Martin Weber also hopes to bring change into the people’s lives as he asks his subjects to talk about their dreams. A Map of Latin American Dreams is a series of blackand-white photographs Weber started in 1992, depicting poor and displaced Latin Americans. Each subject holds a small chalkboard on which he or she has written a dream of theirs. “To have more clients to cure, so I can maintain my family,” reads a note by a Peruvian shaman. An acrobat in La Niña, Argentina, contorts for the camera and holds up her sign that reads, “I want to be a lawyer.”, and a mother of four in Brazil writes, “I dream of having silicones.” “Dreams are the only things these people have” says the artist, and his artwork communicates this positive message about untested possibilities. He seems to say, our lives can only be changed if we trust in our ability to transcend present conditions and overcome our histories. In Art We Trust brings attention to the complex issue of trust as it is articulated through a variety of formal and conceptual approaches. While several works chronicle the duplicity of politics and the machination of the corporate news media, they also release the expressive potential of art as an alternative, more positive representation of reality. By exposing the political agenda of images and the manipulative tools

of the media, these art works resist the mainstream take on today’s events. These examples help to raise confidence in our endurance as a society and the continued reliance in people that are close to us. In Art We Trust. —Yulia Tikhonova Notes

* Zygmunt Bauman Liquid Life, (Malden: Polity Press, 2005) 108.



Ran da M i r z a

Untitled #6 (from the series Parallel Universes) (2006-2008) C-Print; 84x120 APT DUBAI



Ahm et Ögüt

Cut It Out (2004) Single-channel video; 02:00 APT Dubai



Fah ret ti n O ren li

Shadows of Dust III (2007) Single-channel video; 03:58 APT Dubai

10

Regi na J osé Gali n do

No Perdemos Nada Con Nacer (We Don’t Lose Anything by Being) (2000) Single-channel video; 01:58 APT Mexico City

11

Basim M agdy

Maybe There is a Message (2008) Single-channel video; 06:55 APT DUBAI

12

N edko So l akov

Under Control (2008) Sepia, black and white ink, and wash on paper; 19 x 28 cm APT London

13

Ch risti e Fri elds

In God We Trust - Everyone Here (2005-2006) Redwood; 18.75 x 69.75 x 11 in APT Los Angeles

14

Yochai Avr ahami

Rocks Ahead (2006) Single-channel video; 08:27 APT Dubai

15

Fallen Fru it

American Family (2008) Giclee print; 40 x 60 in APT Mexico City

16

Fallen Fru it

Elysian Park (2005) Giclee print; 40 x 60 in APT Los Angeles

17

Betsabee Rom ero

Like a garden in a haystack (2008) Photograph; 120 x 55 cm APT Mexico City

18

M arti n Weber

To have more clients to cure so I can maintain my family, Peru (2002) Silver gelatin print; 24 x 20 in APT New York

19

Cred its

This online exhibition has been curated by Yulia Tikhonova with support from the Artist Pension Trust (APT). © 2009. All images displayed are property of their respective owners.

http://inartwetrust.aptglobal.org/ http://aptglobal.org/

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