South African Anarchist Admitted To Dutch Institution

Clive Kellner, "Crapshooter" April 1996

 

Critical gestures towards art institutions have a history, a history which in part belongs to the artist. Maker of trouble, agent provocateur or bad boy. This essay asks the question, whether the radical gesture is still possible in the art institution today?

He was born in May 1968 at the time of the Paris student riots, as if that is not enough. he proclaims a line to the Situationists International. Other sources say he was born in Germiston, a small, parochial no-mans land bordering Johannesburg city limits. What artists want to proclaim that they were born in a shitty backwater of working class apathy? Kendell Geers changed his birth date as an artwork, an act of appropriation involving one of the epochs in recent European history, Guy Debord, the critical avant-garde.

So the myth making goes, a compilation of lies, hearsay and mis-informed Journalism. Partly contrived, but mostly true, where does it all begin? Piero Manzoni canned his shit and sold it in numbered editions. Pure artist's shit. Yves Klein exhibited an empty room, Manzoni turned his public into authentic artworks after signing them with his name. Perhaps that was it, the signature. The starting point for a line of deviant behaviour. Manzoni signed Klein,. Klein signed Duchamp and Duchamp signed Klein's death. Following which Klein signed the sky, thereby appropriating God, the universe and everything imaginable into his vocabulary. Funny, Chris Burden shot at an aeroplane flying overhead. Then he shot himself shot in the arm as a performance.

This kind of behaviour has been around since the 60s and probably has its roots in the Paris student riots of ‘68, when the Situationists were plotting and planning to overthrow the existing order of things and Debord was a precursor having published "The Society of the Spectacle" a year before.

When he was nine years old, Kendell got into a fight at school with another boy. The headmaster caught him. Because Kendell had the least evidence of a beating, the headmaster gave Kendell a caning. When KendeII got home his father also gave him a hiding for being naughty. As if that wasn't enough, his father wrote to the headmaster to congratulate him. Following which the headmaster replied by letter to thank the father. Kendell has this letter, a testimony to his misguided youth. Defining a link between behaviour and the antics of artists' actions proves to be complicated because the real motives of the artist are not always established.

Similarities can be found in the actions of Maurizio Cattelan, such disorder as getting Frence gallerist Emmanuel Perrotin to dress in a big, pink, penis/rabbit costume. Or a piece which isn't widely known as the curator wouldn't permit it: a poster calling for a neo nazi's meeting which fell under an exhibition in a small Dutch town on the border with Germany. Cattelan's resourcefulness resurfaced at the Venice Biennale of 1993.Whilstofficially on the agenda, Maurizio received no Biennale assistance from the authorities., so to avoid this handicap he rented out his space to a pharmaceutical company. They in turn displayed an advertisement for a perfume. Now, what kind of cognital process does it take to give away your official spot on the world's most important Biennale? Similarly, as one of the participating artists on the ‘93 Venice Biennale, Kendell Geers was invited to attend a formal dinner at the South African Ambassador Glen Babb's reception. Unfortunately the doorman thought Kendell was a hooligan, some arsehole trying to gain entrance. Was it the para-military uniform or the Anarchy T-shirt, or perhaps the Doc Martins? No, it must have been his shaved head which made the doorman question this strange youth. After a period of lengthy negotiation, Kendell was admitted entrance. In 1968 the Venice Biennale was the target of riots and protests due to South Africa's participation (due to a boycott South Africa's last official participation was in 1968, South Africa was readmitted to participate in 1993). Small wonder that Kendell dressed accordingly. Similar antics didn't end there however, as Kendell was escorted from the Palazzo Grassi by security. As it turned out Kendell had urinated into Duchamp's 'urinal', just a little. Overwhelmed by the autonomous art object Kendell participated. So much for interactivity.

As Stuart Morgan says in his article ("Opting Out") when talking about the Situationists: "But it is small groups like them who mark a point in Modernism when the modern as a principle starts to be interrogated and therefore potentially redefined.Yet this may not work. One reason is institutionalisation." Two things here, the one is the critical gesture or institutional critique as it is cal led in the system. And the other is the interrogation of Modernism, or in this case the distinction between reality and simulation. When the act of transgression, which is orchestrated by the artist, become mere vandalism and when does it cross that dubious line into the real world? Baudrillard wrote that ‘Transgression and violence are less serious, for they only contest the distribution of the real. Simulation is infinitely more dangerous, however, since it always suggests over and above its objects that the law and order themselves might be nothing more than a simulation." In other words, the act of violence only affects the rights of property and the laws which pertain to society in general. Simulation however, questions the very principle of reality which defines those laws. The western world, in terms of experience, is becoming more of a simulated experience, one that is mediated. Artists make references to references about reality. Whereas the situation in a country like South Africa is quite the opposite. The emergencies of daily life which entail riots, murders and hijackings are far from a mediated experience. What is considered a radical action in artistic terms in Europe, pales by comparison to the harsh realities of everyday existence in South Africa. Perhaps that is why the early works of artists such as Marina Abramovic and Ulay have a powerful presence. Kendell Geers expressed it adequately in an article entitled "The Perversity of My Birth: The Birth of my Perversity," in which he describes the role of the avant-garde artist in Africa as having been that of the terrorist.

But for this essay we are addressing issues which pertain to a western discourse and in particular this exhibition and it's context. The system that this group of artists is addressing is that of the 'white cube', the hallowed hallmark of high art. In his book "Inside the White Cube," Brian O'Doherty traces the history of the gallery from its earliest meditational foundings, based on religious devotion to the happenings performances and actions of the 60's and the 70's - artists like Alan Kaprow, George Segal, Lucas Samaras and so on. Underpinning this is the fundamental notion of ‘context.' The context being the institution which is perceived as being both the excluder and the includer. So, with mixed emotions artists are both compelled by the institution and have a history of defiant gestures toward the institution. The institution provides the frame, or context, for these gestures, as radical as they may be. It is the institution which appears to grant permission to the gesture. Partly this is hugely problematic, as there is nothing worse than being given ‘permission' to break or destroy some fascinating object. Somehow it just makes the action so impotent, literally limp. It is neither in the act of vandalism. nor in the perception of the institution by the public, that true transgression occurs, but rather in the attitude of the art.

This attitude is evident in the group of artists who are performing in CRAPSHOOT. I do not use the word ‘performing' lightly, as so much of today's art presentation involves aspects of the spectacular. The spectacular as Debord suggested, but there is also something else evident: ‘risk.' As the title suggest, you get yourself into something which you may not be able to pull off. Perhaps even more than what was bargained for. So, here we are at the heart of it. Five kick-butt artists, five curators and an institution. The perfect recipe for an anarchists ball.