Dear writers, with all the respect an artist like me should show
curators, critics, editors and everyone with that kind of power in the
Parisian art scene, please do accept my apologies but I’m seriously
confused.
I’m like trapped in a nightmare when I read this Journal. The effect is
similar to the one I get with advertising or when reading the Bible as a
young girl or the Koran more recently. But maybe it’s my own problem.
My personal story. My failure at fitting in. Don’t hold it against me:
I’m not a critical artist but someone at a loss with a certain language.
I’m quoting the English part of the Journal: “The
Belleville Biennale project is based on a principle of place mixing
(public and private) combined with a varied range of events.” or* “the principle of diversity in places -both public and private as well as of variety of practices.”
Why is it that from the very first words on, I don’t
believe it? This text is the presentation of an art event and there I
am, dragged into a belief system.
A principle of place mixing? Am I missing the point
here? Is this the key to this publication’s theoretical position? Is
this only a figure of speech? Why am I looking for meaning here? What’s
going on?
I read on this introduction. First the principle then the intention. Why not? “Its aim is to dovetail Belleville’s very dense social history with its special geographical location” or* "its geographical singularity."
The feeling of suspicion I got with the place mixing principle tends
to reinforce itself here. What exactly are we talking about? What is
the message? This mistrust is not a philosophical stance- since I don’t
get the meaning of the sentence- it’s a feeling. How can I avoid the
issue of faith when the complexity is not theoretical. Can this really
be the intention behind an art Biennale? To integrate social history? To
dovetail it? To see how it fits in? What is geographical singularity?
Where in Paris can you get a non-special place? What is so special in
Belleville’s location? How does this integration -as a Biennale’s aim-
function?
I leave the editorial and go on with the journal.
There’s a map in the middle with streets, parks, tubes, a few clubs and
the canal saint martin Libertel Hotel. Short texts about exhibitions and
events. I’m looking for information on the area, anecdotes, which the
term singularity made me hope for. I’m expecting stories, which cÒould
only happen in Belleville. And there I am again, fighting serious
doubts. About me, about my abilities to analyse writing and my blind
trust in hoping to find meaning in organised language.
And if I were wrong? If these texts were not meant to
claim a theoretical positio or give insights into a situation or present
a research… If they were about performing something else? Do you get
why I mentioned advertising, the Bible, the Koran?
I read on about “plural stories, quite edifying analogy with migrating populations, the outcome invariably being a substratum, a deposit, a balance; A limousines project summoning up two key factors at the heart of the Biennale: mobility and paradoxes..."
This is no laughing matter.
"Colours making reference to more southerly latitudes, interventions
questioning the specificity of the site with regard to the history of
the installation inviting us to experiment with a space or a situation.”
I read about “an artist teaching us that it is possible to
make the new with the old, and that many levels of reading are required
to decipher appearances.”
I swear I’m quoting. I’m not taking the piss. I’m
reproducing what I read –partially of course, but I do invite you to
check it out for yourself.
“Rather than transforming objects and materials, the work modifies
our experience of the world by jostling our established belief system
and lending the medium of performance and installation a use which
transgresses the traditional code.”
In French, the words disruption and rape in the original sentence gave it a more threatening quality…
There are also art works “forever trying to
“dodge” their own margins, thanks to the many associations and
references brought together in one and the same object whose aim is to
talk of dysfunctional contemporary landscapes.”
This is not a joke. And i'm not talking about the translation.
This cannot be addressed to me. It must be addressed to you, then. Or maybe not.
Are you OK?
There are also round tables on issues such as “ways for contemporary artists to emerge” or “the roles of curators”. And there comes the best -to my taste: “a incognito journey in the heart of Belleville to meet one of two inhabitants of Chinese origin.” Good old safari.
I’m ashamed. Yes, on top of being frightened, I’m ashamed. Thank you, God. I can see I am naked.
I told you it was a nightmare: All that is supposed to have
the dense social history of Belleville merge with its geographical
singularity. Contempt, yes but not from my part. Help me please.
I'm back to the editorial where I don’t even get the questions! I quote: “How can the wealth of Belleville’s underbelly be introduced without toppling over into self-satisfied self-portraiture?” or* “How can one represent the wealth of Belleville soil without creating too indulgent a self-portrait."
Well I don’t know really. Are you worried about showing off
with your africanity? With your Jewish/Tunisian accent? Are you a
Chinese cook with a PhD in Belleville’s underbelly(??) and you know too
much? Are you part of the bohemian-bourgeois(bo-bo) gentrification trend
and worried about the indulgence of your own wealth? Are your
Portuguese parents too fashionably cliché and you fear the fetishisation
of your own exoticism? No, I know: you’re wary about not falling into a
new form of Orientalism since your dad was the owner of the well know
bar, which used to hide the NLF meetings during the French/ Algerian
war. I get it. There is a real danger of self-indulgence here.
But what is the film of a street in the 18th arrondissement
with men kneeling down for their prayer -not a self-portrait and not in
Belleville- doing here? Is it because there are also lots of Muslims in Belleville?
Hum, I wonder... Singularities?
Maybe this is what is questioned a few lines below: “How can contemporary activities rhyme with the complex phenomena of urban populations” or*“How do contemporary practices relate to the complexity of urban populating phenomenon?"
I’ve got the same sensation
of oppression and alienation as when I read women’s magazines: “DNA
damage: Now you have more control over it than you think” or “ there are
no rules for seduction” … “ This summer all the stars wear jeans but
each one of them their own way. Put your dark glasses on and follow
their example to find your style” (1)
Yes doctor, the same sensation as when I read “Their
strolls are devised as “political” ways of questioning a territory and
reappropriating it. They also offer a chance to reveal its invisible
arrangements which determine our relation to it.”
Sorry. I don't understand it and I don’t believe it. It’s like in the Bible: “The generous man will be prosperous, and he who waters will himself be watered.”(2) I’ll get a better one: “On
that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me,
and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one
who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will
love him and show myself to him." (3)
It’s like in the Koran: “As for those who disbelieve, it
is the same for them; whether you warn them, or not warn them, they
cannot believe. God seals their minds and their hearing, and their eyes
are veiled. They have incurred severe retribution."(4)
What do I do with all this?
Should I not read it? Should I just pretend I’m reading it but not
bothered, or pretend I’m not reading it? The Biennale’s Journal, the
Bible, the Koran, Elle. Should I just shut the f..ck up?
I’m frightened because I do recognize a form of power that
is difficult to stand up against. The king is naked. This is happening.
-You’re crazy. Nobody is gonna be interested in your
religious nightmares. Nobody needs ideas like a art Biennale Journal
performing like the Koran. Don’t you want them to give you a show ?
-With a catalogue? (5)
* my translation...
(1) ads and article in Elle
(2) the Bible, Proverb 11v 25
(3) the Bible, John 14 v 20.21
(4) the Koran Sourat II 5.6
(5) to read like Peter Sellers said «Does that include television, Sir ?» in The Party
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