Continuing on from the Montenegro post, researching an artist for Botswana has proved challenging for me. Botswana artists fly under the radar of Google searches and Instagram sleuthing. It seems that Botswana art is more of a local scene, instead engaging communities through events and exhibitions. One of these galleries is The Space Botwana. It not only hosts exhibitions but also workshops and residencies. It’s also in a shipping container! Visitors and thus able to view art outside of the confines of the white cube. Botswana Designers is another organisation that host exhibitions and art events. Artcase Gallery seeks to empower local artists in their practice.

I prefer to focus more on artists that represent an aspect of life in their country as a whole. My chosen artist focuses on the people of Botwana, particularly those of local tribes.

Images of Local Botswana People

Much of Oteng Keabetswe’s work is portraiture representing the people of Botswana. We get to see their traditional dress and their daily scenes through his work. He connects well with his subject, as he captures their personality in his images.

He is an artist that merges the real with the surreal. Though some of his work focuses on people, unlike many charcoal artists, he goes beyond realist renderings. From abstract shapes in his portraits to dream-like scenes, much of his work pushes the limits of reality.

Drawing With Charcoal

Keabetswe’s medium of choice is charcoal. He is very skilled at this medium, creating drawings that resemble photographs. His pencilwork is so delicate that not a single detail is missed. The charcoal allows him to create high contrast images which in turn produce a more striking effect. In his more surrealist works, the charcoal serves to present more dramatic images.

Adding Colour

He also sometimes uses acrylics in his work, which break up the black and white images with bright colours. These are my favourite pieces of his. The shape of his subjects remain, but elements of the image are distorted. His subject seemingly enters an alternative space. Resembling cubism, his compositions take on carefully considered shapes. Making up pieces of our identity, they reflect on the complexity of life.

Keabetswe’s work embeds itself heavily in the Botswana community. Depicting the lives of local people, it draws our attention what it means to be Botswana, and more than that, human. His artworks are impressively detailed, and as a result we gain a stronger connection to the subject. He draws on cubism when navigating identity and surrealism to create dream-like scenes. He is definitely an artist to follow as he further develops his style.

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The Marina Abramović retrospective, the RA’s latest show, is revolutionary in its nature as the first dedicated to a female artist. Yet, unlike her renowned 2010 piece The Artist is Present, where Abramović stares back into eyes of the visitors of New York’s MoMa, the artist is, very noticeably, absent. Understandable, considering the endurance her works require amid her recent health issues. In fact, the show raises some important ideas as to how performance art can be displayed within the exhibition space.

The show takes on multiple methodologies to highlight the scope of Abramović’s work. Historic works that were revolutionary, boundary pushing performance pieces, become immortalized in archival material. Text, photographs and video reveal the intense nature of the artist’s early works. They are large in scale, imposing on the visitor a human body often pushed to its edge.

It’s probably for the best that the horrors of Rhythm 0 are not repeated by a performance artist. The audience were invited to use a variety of objects including a hat, olive oil, and a knife on the motionless artist, pushing the boundaries of the connection between artist and audience. Yet, displayed as archival material, these kind of works take on a new meaning. The original goal of the artist to lessen the space between her and the audience is abandoned. We stare at the images from a comfortable distance, still often in horror, but in nowhere near as much as if the work were being performed right in front of us.

Regardless, it is still exciting to see these works immortalized. It was particularly exciting to see archival footage of The Lovers in which her and her ex-partner Ulay walked towards each other from opposite ends of the Great Wall of China. It really allows the audience to empathize with the scale of the project and what it meant for their relationship (ultimately, its demise!).

Worry not, however, there is some performance art in this show, re-enacted by performers of the Marina Abramović Institute. The performers are trained with the Abramović method, pushes the body to its limits in order to connect it to their higher self. The method is heavily influenced by the artist’s time spent with Australian indigenous peoples and in Tibet which she developed into her practice. This is an important element in Abramović’s work which the exhibition emphasizes: the meditative-like state required for endurance-based pieces.

The most boundary-pushing by far is the re-enactment of Imponderabilia, which sees the audience forced to walk between two nude performers standing in a doorway. Though yes, the artist herself is not performing the works, I would still have loved to have seen more of this. It not only would allow the audience to experience multiple performances at the same time, but also emphasize the original reasoning behind the artist’s success- the shock of the presence of a body enduring.

A section of the exhibition that did feature audience involvement invited us to sit, lay or lean on large slabs of crystals, or what she calls ‘transitory objects’. These interactive works make the audience, instead of the performance artist, the protagonist of the work. Lying there, I personally fell into a bit of a meditative state, but, as I was perceived by others, I found it challenging to go deeper. Though it sought to place the audience in the performer’s shoes, the moment felt a bit gimmicky, and more of one for influencers to pose on. Though it could, of course, just be my anxiety talking. Regardless, a shift in focal point created more balance between the sections of the exhibition.

Though this exhibition is not as provocative as it could have been, it is still able to highlight both the diversity of Abramović’s career, and why she is such a pioneering artist. It included images of works, or re-enactments, that have had an everlasting impact on the art world. It also looks to a future beyond performance art for Abramović. The addition of performers from the Marina Abramović Institute ensure the continuation of her legacy. I predict that this is certainly not the last time that her works will be exhibited in this way in years to come. In fact, now that the artist is certainly no longer present, I expect that we will see more retrospective exhibitions from her in years to come.

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What are Parasocial Relationships?

Parasocial relationships are one-sided relationships that are the product of celebrity interactions with their fans. This is usually achieved through social media, which allows idols to interact directly with their fanbase. With the dominance of Instagram and Twitter, as well as streaming sites, celebrities are able to crease a sense of connection and relatability that makes us feel like their friends, or more, their partners., What they’re having for breakfast, what they use in the shower, where they’re partying etc become public news. They talk to us like they know us, with an air of comfortability and casualness that puts us at ease as if we’re with someone we know well.

However, though we can comment and like, we’re not directly interacting with them. They don’t know about our existence at all, in fact. In reality we are a distant number to them, even if they genuinely value our support.

Parasocial Relationships and the K-Pop Industry

The K-Pop industry thrives off parasocial relationships. The performance of the artists are just one side of the coin. Idols are also marketed for their personalities (and looks, of course) through social media, variety shows, V Lives, meet and greets (often based on how many albums you can afford to purchase) and so on.

Stars are taught, sometimes for years, on how to become performers. Many were scouted based on their looks alone. Though these looks afford them popularity, they often can’t enjoy the fruits of this due to dating bans. If they are caught, they lose public trust and their career is affected. Take Hyuna and Dawn for example, who were forced to leave their record labels when they went public about their relationship. In fact, fans prefer fantasies of same-sex couples within groups instead and labels monopolize on this in their concepts for music videos and live performances. If idols can’t date fans, they can only date each other.

When It Goes Too Far

I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with a cheeky celebrity obsession and I must confess I have had dreams about Jin from BTS being my boyfriend. Most parasocial relationships exist at a distance, with both sides partaking in some way, even though one side is often being knowingly used for money. Yet a line is crossed when fans start invading idol’s privacy. These sasaengs follow them to places they shouldn’t be- on flights, to their homes. They try to find jobs that place them closer to their idols. They gain access to idol’s personal details too. Lines are evidently crossed in which the idol cannot consent to fan involvement.

When the West Makes It Awkward

K-Pop stans must have seen videos online where idols get awkwardly asked about their dating life in America and the UK. Yet, celebrity culture in South Korea is not like that in the West, most of the time they do not openly date as companys view it to affect their music sales. This is an awkward question for them and it highlights how Western media places emphasis on celebrity gossip, often over aspects of their professional careers. It risks the delicate relationship with fans. Even if the creation of parasocial relationships for profit is not exactly ethical, fans willingly give money to support them. In fact, we could say that these interactions highlight the issues with parasocial relationships within this context.

There is also a need to respect different cultures when encountering them within the public sphere. It is a hard balance to make, but if interviewers are attempting to dismantle the ethics of the industry, their are better questions to ask, suggesting that they are being deliberately intrusive in order to feed into the need in Western culture for celebrity gossip. It appears that idols are simply being put on the spot for entertainment. Yet if given a public platform, there is a need for interviewers to research other culture before broadcast to avoid othering their guests. There is simply no need to squeeze K-Pop stars into our own cultural boxes.

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Steel as Medium

As argued by Montenegrin artist Jalena Tomasevic, the term ‘art’ also holds an obligation to fit within society’s definition of it. Her chosen material of steel breaks down these barriers. It poses questions of the longevity of artworks in the face of a material that ages with us as people. She paints over the material, creating imposing utopian structures that figures stolen from the pages of magazines experience. These figures are transferred from a familiar scene to a new space that exists in an alternative reality.

The Post-War Modernist City

Architects from the 1940s held a utopian vision of modernist cities born out of the rubble of their bombed remains during World War Two. This emphasized embracing the new alongside a whirlwind of upcoming post-war change. Those that experienced this turbulent time were uprooted by the devastation of war and entered a new modern space. The steel in Tomasevic’s works, therefore, comes to represent this cold, unfamiliar environment that people came to find themselves in.

Yet, despite the struggles of change, her scenes take on a dreamlike appearance. The blank space and modernist shapes of her paintings hold more characteristics of a memory, something that loses its detail over time. Her figures hold the poses of an alternative reality. They are reflected in the romantic positions made in the magazines they’ve travelled from.

Space as Imaginary

There is a sense of emptiness. This continues in the space that she exhibits her works in. She creates large boxes that encapsulate the audience in the imaginary spaces held in her paintings. They are immersed in the experience of those who saw change to their surroundings. They feel the disruption from place with meaning to that with none.

Space as Punishment

She goes so far as to describe them as ‘instruments of torture’ and sees violence within the abstract structures in her paintings. This is something that continues into her installations, particularly Object of Punishment. In this work a pool-like structure is literally punished by machinery to fit into the exhibition space. This is just as people were made to fit into a place in which they also they did not belong in. As a result, those witnessing the art also become punished as they are absorbed into the installation.

Art holds the power of allowing us to transcend language and experience the memories of others. Tomasevic chooses to do this through empty space that allows for her dominating steel structures to impose upon her subjects as well as her viewer. We feel the suppression that those felt who experienced the post-war changes to space. We are encapsulated by memories, becoming the part of the work ourselves.

Learn more about Jalena Tomasevic here.

Next up, Lebanon…

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There are a group of North Koreans that are no longer confined to the authoritarian rule of the government, defectors, those which have escaped the hardship of the regime with a hope to no longer suffer. Even amongst this group, locating contemporary artists is challenging, as after escape, many defectors, particularly female ones, fall into the hands of human traffickers, and, if they avoid this, meet poverty due to their economic and cultural subjugation in South Korean society. Entering the mainstream art world is still challenging, after all. Sun Mu emerged as an artist who trained in North Korea and continued to practice his socialist-realist style satirically through paintings exploring the politics of his homeland.

His artwork is provocative, and incredibly political. He defies the boundaries of the sacred rules associated with the images of the leaders of his old homeland. In his exhibitions, for example, visitors have been expected to walk over the names and images of the country’s dear leaders. His works reflect the savage repercussions of the government’s policy in his home country, and how he believes it can change. In one work for example, two children hold hands wearing clothing emblazoned with the flags of North and South Korea. In another, Kim Jong Il is depicted as unwell, a Coca-Cola IV drip allowing him to cling on to life.

As a successful contemporary artist, Sun stays away from the spotlight, hiding his identity so as to protect family that are still in the North from facing repercussions. The film I Am Sun Mu (2015) shows how he prepares for an exhibition in China, working hard to remain anonymous, for the show to be shut down upon its opening by the police. The artist and his family flee the country of fear of imprisonment and his identity is never revealed. Although there is often a tendency in the contemporary art world for a cult of personality to be created for an artist to make the works more desirable, Sun, in some ways, becomes another more sinister version of Banksy, a defector running from a brutal regime which threatens his life. The only way to survive is anonymity.

Yet, this anonymity makes Sun’s works so endearing. The audience are on his side, willing his survival through an appreciation of his works. Though a pop-art version of the socialist realist style may not be everyone’s cup of tea, it proves challenging to argue that the images produce a record of what it means to live in a time in which human rights continue to lie in the hands of all-powerful, out-of-touch men.

To see more of Sun Mu’s works here.

Next up, Montenegro…….

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Exhibitions discussing the origins of contemporary art in Taiwan always pinpoint its origins to the Japanese colonial era. The arrival of the Japanese in Taiwan brought with it established cultural norms. Within the field of contemporary art this meant the influence of Western-style painting such as impressionism. Japanese art took on a new meaning, with Western influences coming to dominate aesthetics. Aspiring and wealthy artists would travel to the West, particularly Paris, to study Western-style painting there. The industrialization and modernization of Japan drew inspiration from the West, and saw the changing of cultural norms. The traditional yukata, for example, was replaced by Western clothing for daily fashion. These new trends were also transferred to Japan’s colonies, including Taiwan, which saw dramatic changes during Japanese rule, Taipei was reconstructed, everyone had to speak Japanese and change their names to Japanese ones.

The influential Taiwanese Cultural Association was established to pursue Taiwan’s enlightenment and freedom, pushing for a Taiwanese parliament under Japanese occupation. It also emphasized cultural progress, supporting the ‘first’ generation of artists in Taiwan who studied styles popular in Japan from the 1940s to 1920s. No art schools were established in Taiwan. The artworks produced by the artists who travelled abroad resemble popular western styles, yet, their subject matter often appears very local to Taiwan with traditional homes, temples and scenery. These events raise big questions, though. Does the arrival of Western styles to Taiwan mark the origins of contemporary art making in Taiwan? Worldward: The Transformative Force of Art in Taiwan’s New Cultural Movement at Taipei Fine Arts Museum places its narrative firmly in this history. Art in Taiwan arrived with the civilizing mission of the Japanese, establishing familiar styles that were known globally.

Firstly, its important to trace back Taiwan’s population. The very first ‘colonizers’ of Taiwan originated with seafaring people from Polynesia. Taiwan’s original population is indigenous, who brought with them traditional craft and art styles. Subjugation in the face of later colonization meant that these skills were seen as inferior to hegemonic styles of the Dutch (1622-), Spanish (1626-), Chinese(1633-) and Japanese (1895-1945), whose writings of the established history overlook these groups. Despite this, surely indigenous art counts as an important moment in the history of art. Does their work not truly represent Taiwan’s peak creative moment?

Do exhibitions like this imply that there was no art until the civilizing colonizer, with his art styles popular with the wealthiest in town? What happened to hundreds of years of rule by Qing China? Why is the Japanese way the one that is accepted by curators of Taiwan’s art history today? It all comes down to Japan’s decolonization. Soon after the war, Japan became a US protectorate, and the allies dealt with their previous colonies. Japan was far removed and could not confront their atrocities of the war. Meanwhile, Taiwan was returned to China, and following their loss of the Chinese civil war the KMT arrived in Taiwan. They brought suppression and fear with them. Following the modernization and industrialization of the Japanese era, this treatment seemed pretty off. Now, memory relating to the colonial era perceives Japanese colonization as a nostalgic time, in which Taiwan was able to further develop its identity.

The exhibition in TFAM features works that were exemplary of their era reminiscing an idyllic Taiwan though a Western lens. The curatorial technique thematically divides the artwork based on subject matter, from competitions to women to modernity. There is less of a local sense to these categories, despite the content of the work digressing from its Western-Style in the local nature of its subject matter. Local scenery, traditions and women are depicted in the paintings. This exhibition is certainly representative of significant moments in Taiwanese contemporary art, representing iconic Taiwanese imagery. But should it be placed as THE defining moment in Taiwanese art history? What is missing in this narrative?

The post How Do We Know When a Country Begins Its Era of Contemporary Art? Notes on ‘Worldward: The Transformative Force of Art in Taiwan’s New Cultural Movement’ at Taipei Fine Arts Museum appeared first on Artographic.

In today’s crazy society it is hard to keep a check of our emotions, to go inside of ourselves. For Mays, a great fear of judgement leads to a lack of engagement with how we feel. This could be read as being particularly relevant in Oman, wherein a cultural stigma regarding mental health issues means that a great amount of sufferers do not seek or have access to treatment. Furthermore, there are more available resources in built up areas. A belief in a harmonious group and mindset has less regard for individual experience unlike western societies that place greater value on selfhood. Mays is calling this into question suggesting that freedom of expression can alleviate our burdens.

The colours of the figures also evoke an emotional response in the audience. A blue woman gazing into a mirror feels like she has a differing self-conception to one that is pink. The range of colours of Mays’ different works represent the spectrum of the emotions of the woman. Decorative tiles in the background evoke the domestic space of the household, raising further questions about her status in society and her association with this space.

Her representations of women also reflect her understanding of them. Mirrors feature heavily in Mays’ work, raising questions of the self, identity and womanhood. How are they able to express themselves? In placing lone, nude figures in the image, the artist creates a space where reflection can be enacted. Regulations in Oman regarding women’s rights are varied, and still need time to align with feminist goals of equality. On one hand, Omani law discriminates against them, for example remarriage in Oman results in a loss of custody of children and a men can apply for divorce without reason. Things are changing though, women hold positions in government and many more girls have entered education. Mays draws on this contentious position, whilst raising questions about the woman within the domestic setting too.

More about Mays Al Moosawi

The next country will be….North Korea

Photo credits to Emergeast

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One of Makonnen’s most recent works, Senait & Nahom, consists of mirrored light towers laser cut with Ethiopian Coptic Crosses into acrylic panel, each named after a black women who has died at the hands of police brutality or crossing the Mediterranean Sea seeking refuge. The crosses selected are the most common Ethiopian Christian crosses, representing protection and healing as well as rebirth. The mirrors invite the audience to reflect on the experiences of these women, to see themselves in them, to embody their experience. The aim of the artwork is to show respect to the women who lost their lives prematurely, whilst also demanding the justice that they deserve. The title refers to two Eritreans who passed away in a European detention center.

You Give Light, Makonnen’s following artwork, is another light monument, and was accompanied by a performance of women wearing scarves printed with Amharic words of protection, with the textiles wrapped around the performers shielding them from the dangers that those memorialized in the artwork faced. The artwork comes to embody the need for protection that these women require, and provides a visibility to them which has gone unnoticed. It also serves as a memorial to play tribute to the women represented in her work.

Find out more

The next country will be…. Oman!

Photo credits: Addis Fine Art and Joey Kennedy

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Hanusha Somasunderan’s work humanizes the subject of of the tea maker. Suddenly, they are not just a cog in the machine, a statistic. Whilst being a major part of the country’s tea culture, they become members of family networks, immersed in the mundane rituals of everyday life. Yet it is not one without hardship. Tough living conditions, the challenge of bringing up children in poverty and educating them remind us that even a thriving economy is a double edged sword. Somasunderan takes images strongly associated with tea, including the strainer, bag, and cup and merges them with visualizations of everyday life on the farms. As a teabag makes its stain, the worker’s lives become stained by their struggles.

With the land lacking productivity, the farmers are required to purchase a different strain in order to continue the efficiency of their land. However this strain comes at a high cost, meaning many are forced to turn over the soil with the same crop as before. Productivity levels are low, replanting rates are low and production costs are high. People have become less and less willing to work in the industry. This causes us to question the living conditions of the worker. Does the Sri Lankan tea industry provide them with the tools needed to survive?

Somasunderan draws our attention to these struggles. Through the simplicity of her work, we come to empathize with the tea worker, seeing us in their family, working hard in the fields day in, day out. The objects of the tea ritual have lost their allure, instead becoming symbols of an unfair industry. Now we must use our strainers with guilt, remembering the worker and the journey of the tea to our cups.

However, this is not a story without hope. In 2017 STaRR project emerged to bring Sri Lanka’s tea industry back to life. GPS technology has decreased the time of replanting, giving hope to a rising competitiveness of the market. They also provide aid to those struggling in off-season through intercropping initiatives. Hopefully STaRR will continue to make progress and improve on the struggles that Somasunderan explicitly displays in her work.

Up next, Ethiopia

Image credits to World Art and Memory Museum

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The Western telling of the history of relations between humans and nature highlights our gradual taming of it. Overcoming its inconveniences and instead benefitting from it has been central to our modernizing journey. We have continually surpassed the line of harmony to unimaginable, dystopian concepts that are getting more and more real. We can choose the eye colour of our babies now. We can even shoot lasers at them later to give us 20/20 vision. We can casually donate a kidney. We can change our biological gender. If someone from the 1960s stopped by the party, they would probably be dumbfounded.

And thus comes BioArt to the stage. A contemporary art movement that questions the boundaries of science through dystopia. BioArt is on the rise in Taiwan, with recent shows often exploring the boundaries of science technology. Provocative Futures : Speculation, Medical Science and the Human Body at The National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art does just that, with artists Paul Gong and Kuang Yi Ku attempting to redefine scientific technology through the discipline of art.

Medical technologies are extremely relevant in today’s age of the pandemic. They have the potential to transform the human body and our social environment- something which has continually shaped our social history, particularly in terms of gender, race and disability. Paul Gong focuses on the functionality of the body and its potential impact on society. In The Appendix he seeks alternative uses for non functional organs. With these changes, can the transplanted body remain ‘human’? Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein comes to mind here. The production of a bodily hybrid sparks fear in society and, with the rise of biotech, the idea of a physically altered being appears more and more close to a potential reality.

Yet, the changed body has always been a topic of controversy. Think plastic surgery and its connotations of fakeness. Physical alteration is commonly associated with negative character traits- vanity, narcissism, fakeness, etc., despite the fact that it is a product of society’s physical ideals. Does the idea of BioArt fit in this box too? The altering of bodies to align with scientific ideals of the hybrid appears so.

Alternatively, Kuang Yi Ku, founder of Taiwan’s BioArt, unites the body and science through an exploration of adult development. His work Delayed Use, depicts a work in which medical technology delays the development of young people’s sexual organs. The intersection of politics and the body come into play here. The use and misuse of our sexual organs has historically been a topic of debate within ‘civilized’ societies, particularly in regards to the sexuality of womanhood. Our primary purpose as humans has continually been defined by our ability to reproduce, placing a great burden on the body of the woman. She’s been married off young. She’s been raped. In the past (and in some cultures today) she’d been mentally abused into producing a male baby. Maybe this artwork offers a solution to ongoing sexual abuse towards the adult body.

The intersection of science and art through the medium of BioArt allows us to perceive a future that we have not yet seen. Medical technology has transcended necessity into something that can be manipulated for the benefit of current politics just to satisfy our whims. BioArt gives space for a perception which has the possibility of becoming a reality.

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