What Is A Trade Object Labels

What Is a Trade? Donald Fels and Signboard Painters of South India Object Labels When Vasco Found India, What Got Lost?, 2005 Oil enamel on aluminum Courtesy of the artists and Davidson Galleries, Seattle In many ways, the society in Malabar before the arrival of Vasco da Gama in 1498 was far advanced beyond anything Vasco would have known in Europe. Malabar’s spices were coveted throughout the world, and traders of several ethnicities, languages, and religions worked together peacefully and profitably to bring the goods to far-flung markets. Malabar thrived—a diverse and rich culture existed, supported by the wealth that the spice trade produced. Vasco’s arrival changed all that. The Portuguese arrival spelled the dilution of local wealth and the introduction of colonialism to Asia. It also meant the loss of intrareligious tolerance and peace. Vasco’s determination to punish the Muslim traders forced a schism in Indian society that has only worsened in the succeeding centuries. Global Trade, 2005 Oil enamel on aluminum Courtesy of the artists and Davidson Galleries, Seattle “My sketch for this painting of Vasco da Gama’s arrival showed a ship coming into Cochin waters with guns blazing. This is historically accurate and was a big deal— none of the ancient spice trade had ever before been conducted at gunpoint. In his first version of the painting, Surya exaggerated the size of the ship and embellished the natural setting. I liked it, but suggested the scene should be more dynamic and the waterway more pronounced. For the second version, Surya considerably increased the firepower on board the Portuguese vessel, which terribly overpowers the small greeting party. This was artistic license and I loved it—he had a point to make.” Donald Fels First Sight, 2005 Oil enamel on aluminum Courtesy of the artists and Davidson Galleries, Seattle This painting incorporates imagery from the paintings of India that Vasco da Gama commissioned for the walls of his villa in Evora, Portugal. Whether Vasco described these many-headed dragons and human/animal hybrids to the painters, or they imagined them, they seem to have represented a view of the place congruent with his vision of India.

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From all accounts of Vasco’s actions in India, he often seriously misunderstood what was actually happening there. The Malayalam script at the bottom of the painting, written by Jiju, more or less says what is written in English above: “When Vasco da Gama found us, he tried neither to change his wrong ideas nor to understand the truth.”

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Orta, 2005 Oil enamel on aluminum Courtesy of the artists and Davidson Galleries, Seattle The text and imagery for this painting comes from a combination of sources. The illustrations in the corners are from charts promoting personal hygiene among children—coming in hundreds of variations, the charts are for sale in street stalls throughout India. The bathing ladies in the middle are from a Portuguese depiction of Indian women created a decade after Vasco da Gama’s first voyage. The text refers to Dr. Garcia da Orta’s 1563 book Colloquies on the Simples and Drugs of India, the first European book on tropical medicine and generally considered the most important book published by the Portuguese during their time on the subcontinent. Garcia da Orta was born just before Vasco’s first voyage and in 1536 came to Kerala to doctor the Portuguese.

Curiosities, 2005 Oil enamel on aluminum Courtesy of the artists and Davidson Galleries, Seattle Ships followed Vasco da Gama to Asia from Europe, often with natural scientists aboard. They gathered whatever bounty might prove profitable to import, grow, breed, or transplant. As Europeans began collecting more and more from places like India, it became the vogue for wealthy individuals to display their collected exotica from abroad in “curiosity cabinets.” From these early collections, the modern museum was born. Essential to the new museum practice was the artful display of possessions however they might have been procured. Local Knowledge, 2005 Oil enamel on aluminum Courtesy of the artists and Davidson Galleries, Seattle This painting is based on the Hortus Malabaricus, a twelve-volume opus detailing the rich flora of Malabar. Compiled by Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede tot Draakenstein, the Dutch Commander of Malabar, the project took nine years and over one hundred collaborators to complete. First published in the Netherlands in 1678, it is still in print and consulted today. The tamarind, neem, and turmeric illustrations in the painting are taken directly from the Hortus Malabaricus. The United States Patent Office granted patents to American companies for these plants that are grown in Kerala (formerly Malabar). The Indian activists and scientists who brought suit to have the patents rescinded claimed that the granting of these patents was licensed thievery, and they coined the phrase “biopiracy” to describe the practice. They cited the illustrations and text of the Hortus Malabaricus, showing that, in fact, each plant had been used medicinally for centuries. After much debate, the patents were rescinded.

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Villani, 2005 Oil enamel on aluminum Courtesy of the artists and Davidson Galleries, Seattle “In Cochin, I created a collage using pieces from a photograph of a Villani spice canister that features a graphic narrative of spices arriving by elephant at the dock in India and then arriving at the dock in Italy by steamer. I also used other elements, such as a railroad compartment fan and drawings of the leaves of a pepper plant. I then worked with Surya to create this painting from my collage.” Donald Fels Prince Henry of Portugal commissioned Vasco da Gama to make the voyage to Malabar to circumvent the Venetian and Genovese stronghold on procuring Indian spices. For centuries the Venetians picked up spices in Alexandria after they had had been hauled overland by camel. Procured from Hindu tradesmen, the spices had crossed the Indian Ocean from Malabar and were warehoused in Egypt in the care of Muslim traders. The successful Portuguese effort to reorganize the way spice got to Europe is seen by many as the advent of today’s global trade and economy. Pineapple, 2005 Oil enamel on aluminum Courtesy of the artists and Davidson Galleries, Seattle The Portuguese transplanted the pineapple from their Brazilian colonies to India, where it is now widely grown and enjoyed. “From Indians to India” is a reminder that the native people of Brazil were called “Indians” by Columbus. Six years before Vasco da Gama’s voyage to India, Columbus tried to sail to India in search of pepper, missed his target, but nonetheless bequeathed the name “Indians” to the people he encountered. Cinemon, 2005 Oil enamel on aluminum Courtesy of the artists and Davidson Galleries, Seattle During Vasco da Gama’s lifetime, cinnamon came from the island of Ceylon (present day Sri Lanka), and was, per shipload, as valuable and sought after as the pepper for which Malabar was renowned. This painting of cinnamon bark and leaf is taken from a botanical etching, but the title comes from a spice shop in Cochin, near the warehouse where Fels and his collaborators worked. Fels noticed that the spices were labeled in Malayalam and English and that the label for cinnamon was spelled out phonetically and broken into two syllables as “cine mon.” The phonetic spelling reminded him of the French words that would loosely translate as “my film,” which in turn reminded him of efforts by an Indian friend to get a director interested in making a movie about an American artist chasing after Vasco da Gama in present-day Kerala.

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Billboardamatic, 2005 Oil enamel on aluminum Courtesy of the artists and Davidson Galleries, Seattle Until recently, all billboards in India were hand-painted. In a short period of time, however, imaging software and digital printing have radically changed billboards throughout India. Along with the 21st century came the use of vinyl-printed sheeting that put billboard artists out of business. Donald Fels notes: “Billboardamatic is the name I have given to the large inkjet printers that create billboards today. Surya and I decided that the new god in India is the computer. As with so many of the most vital Indian gods, s/he has more than two arms—all the better to squish the painter at work.” Surya Paints, 2005 Oil enamel on aluminum Courtesy of the artists and Davidson Galleries, Seattle The signboard painter with whom Fels worked most closely is Surya. Although a talented painter, Surya was born into a poor family and had little opportunity to become a fine artist. Instead, he has pursued commercial art, opening his own sign shop when he was still a teenager. In recent years, because of the impact of digital technology, he has struggled to make ends meet. As Fels notes, “The digital revolution arrived with big promises of creative independence in both the West and the East. For some in India, work in programming, even at call centers, has been a godsend, opening the door to a solid middle-class life. But for people like Surya it has been deeply troubling—pulling the small rug out from under him. This has been the way with new technology—there are always winners and losers. I am still hopeful that with his creative energy and prodigious talent, Surya will find a way out of the hole he feels himself in.” Ships Carry Ideas, 2005 Oil enamel on aluminum Courtesy of the artists and Davidson Galleries, Seattle “On the wall near the warehouse where the painters and I worked was a small drawing of a ‘break bulk’ boom ship, the type that preceded container ships. I photographed the drawing and gave it unaltered to Surya to render as a painting. With the photo, I gave him the text, long a personal mantra of mine. Ships carry things and ideas hitch a ride. The material things represent the embodiment of thoughts, concepts, processes, ideals, and cultural viewpoints, whether or not people are conscious of them. Ideas are automatically offloaded with merchandise and, even more easily than the stuff, get moved about, modified, and applied here and there. The recombination of ideas in port cities has always occurred everywhere.” Donald Fels

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The Face of Trade, 2005 Oil enamel on aluminum Courtesy of the artists and Davidson Galleries, Seattle This painting depicts three views of traders in front of their warehouses in the ancient spice-trading port of Cochin. The traders, from left to right, are trading dahl (lentils), garlic, red peppers, rice, and cloves. A common way of displaying samples is to lay them out in bowls on the desktop, with samples of the various grades available. The traders shown here represent an ancient way of doing business. When Vasco da Gama arrived in Malabar, black pepper grew there, and only there. In his wake, the colonial powers—the Portuguese, French, Dutch, and English— transplanted the pepper plants throughout the world. Kerala’s pepper production, while still outstanding in quality, is no longer a major force in the world of trade. Weddings on Hold, 2005 Oil enamel on aluminum Courtesy of the artists and Davidson Galleries, Seattle For several years there has been a worsening epidemic of farmer suicides in the hill country of Kerala, which is world renowned as the source of the best black pepper— and for millennia the only place where it grew. Today, farmers from this region are killing themselves because falling market prices force them to sell at a loss. Owing large bank loans for seed and fertilizer, they cannot provide wedding dowries for their daughters, and feel shamed for their failure to do so. The source photograph for this painting is taken from a 2005 newspaper article in The Hindu, the most popular newspaper in south India. Appetite, 2005 Oil enamel on aluminum Courtesy of the artists and Davidson Galleries, Seattle “Painted when Surya was the only sign painter working with me, this painting established our ability to work together early on. Having conceived of the work, I was pleased to find a shareware font with a distinct Hindi look on the Internet. I sketched out a mouth and put an India-centric map inside. As Surya began to paint the skin, I suggested a bit more green to make the apparition more ghoulish. Taking the cue, he gave the face animal-like fur, which captures perfectly a predatory sense.” Donald Fels What Is a Trade?, 2005 Oil enamel on aluminum Courtesy of the artists and Davidson Galleries, Seattle This painting asks a straightforward question, but the answer is not so simple. What, in fact, is a trade? 6

If it’s an exchange, on what basis does the swap take place? What can be expected by each party to the transaction? What differentiates a trade from a trade-off? Who determines the conditions of the trade? Is an exchange leveraged by force or unfair advantage a trade? And what about the other meaning of trade—a way of making a living, a skill-set put to use in the marketplace? The sign painters themselves had a time-honored trade that is now defunct. Is a trade that doesn’t offer the possibility of earning a living still a trade? Donald Fels challenges us to answer these questions and many others related to global trade.

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