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 Moniek
Voulon and 23 other artists from New York and Europe observe
in a global and recon-structive way the rebuilding of the
world according to the imaginative vision of Bush. They observe
the utopias and the spiritual and intellectual projects of
Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld.
They observe the idea of the regeneration of Arabia by America
and the confrontation of the Biblical Imagery with the abstract
visuals of the Muslim Koran.
And they observe how the ideas of Orientalism and Occidentalism,
the two most fundamental political positions of today, dominate
the scene at the American frontier in Iraq.
“News
from Home” is the second part of a political-artistic
trilogy curated by Moniek Voulon, which gives voice to our
anxiety about the American invasion and occupation of Iraq.
[The first installment was entitled "La Nuit
Américaine", the final one will be
"Le Mépris"]. At the same time it
is an exhibition of artists from Europe and America that cope
with contemporary life. It shares the rage about the American
politics of the Bush administration with Michel Moore's Fahrenheit
9/11, but, different from Moore's rhetorics, it is not a dogmatic
tale and it employs some elementary esthetical codes that
Moore never heard of.
"News from Home" is about
images and about a political aesthetics that was devloped
by different European and American artists and filmmakers.
It is partly based on the methods used by the French New Wave
film director Jean-Luc Godard, and tries to turn his film
language into a useful artistic attitude.
Political activism and ideological inspiration are part of
the game, but above all, the aim here is to reformu-late a
politically oriented cinematograhic attitude into a working
politically oriented artistic model.
l
"News from Home" starts as a salute to Chantal
Ackerman's film "News from Home", 1976, in which,
she observes herself as she observes the streets and houses
of Manhattan --- a thrilling prelude to the 9/11 events.
But it also refers to Edward W. Said’s "Orientalism",
1979, in which he observes the West observing the Arab world,
and "Occidentalism", 2004, a recent reflection
on fundamantalism, in which Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit
observe the Arabs observing the West. The exhibition is
not a direct product of these views, neither will one find
here a definitive Orientalist or Occidentalist point of
view.
Rather than being partisan in the worldwide struggle between
these dominant positions, this exhibition can be seen as
a protest against this ideological Catch 22.
As the world of today is trapped in the force field between
these two poles, we realize that the Cold War between communism
and capitalism has been followed by an actual War of Fundamentalisms.
Instead of the End of History as announced by Fukayama,
the Utopia's of Bush and Bin Laden, these extre-me representants
of the Orientalist and the Occidentalist ideologies, brought
us a new world wide war.
II
The story of Orientalism is the story of the imperialist
drive of the European, Christian nations towards the East.
Writers like Gustav Flaubert and T.E. Lawrence, and politicians
like Napoleon and Benjamin Disraeli, dreamt their one-sided
Western fantasies about the Orient --- a Europe-centered
and racist, exotic fairytale full of lust and love. Living
in the post-enlightenment period, they want "to manage
- and even produce - the Orient politically, sociologically,
militarily, ideologically, scientifically and imaginatively",
as Said puts it. Driven by an interpretation of the world
of the Islam as "one proto-type of closed traditional
societies", they try to find an excuse for invading
and exhausting Arab countries under cover of a liberating
ideology, as an excuse for rebuilding the world according
to their imperialistic imaginative vision.
As it was in the last centuries, and as it is today, with
the Utopia of Bush and the spiritual and intellectual projects
of Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld. An excuse for the regeneration
of Arabia by America in pushing the abstract visuals of
the Muslim Koran aside by the force of the the Biblical
Imagery.
"Occidentalism", on the other side, shows the
unexpected results of the ideology of Orientalism. All the
one-sided fantasies turn into a negative anti-image. The
image of the enlightened White Man now incorporates the
Doom, is the embodiment of Evil. The racist imperialism
of the West is now confronted with a pure, religious negativism.
It started with the slavophilia of Dostoyevski and we also
discern this tendency in the mentality of Japan’s
Kamikaze-fighters in World War II. But with the fantasies
of master-brain Mohammed Atta, Occidentalism became the
hot item of today.
His dream of a new Caliphat, a new pure Islam without frontiers
or state borders, became a nightmare for the West.
Occidentalism as political-religious Utopia, without any
distinction between politics and religion, with the failing
modernization in the Arab countries as an excuse for the
religious, traditional search for authenticity.
The flight and fight of Atta & friends against modernity
and, of course, against Gothic City, as the epitome of the
Western world, started the new war between Occidentalism
and Orientalism. The destruction of the Towers of Babel
as the supreme and sublime symbol of the Occidentalist’s
revenge against the Western city that he is jealous of.
[Anti-liberal occidentalists cherish a deep hatred of the
City].
Because of the terror of Occidentalism in Gothic City, the
West invaded Iraq, where it was immediately confronted with
its own shadow, with a self-generated monster.
News from the enemy became News from Home. The Utopian dream
of Wolfowitz, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld became the nightmare
of the Abu Ghraib prison in Bagdad.
III
So now the ideas of Orientalism and Occidentalism, the two
most extreme political positions of today, domi-nate the
scene at the American frontier in Iraq. The artists involved
here in "News from Home" realize how dangerous
the dogmatic views of both these parties are, and invite
the public to participate in a more nuanced debate. Though
the exhibition does not completely avoid political rhetorics
[being in a sense didactical and even self-referential],
it wants to help develop an instrument to avoid the ultimate,
terrifying choices proposed by the e/vangelist of the dogmatic
ideologies. "News from Home" is about observing,
not only about observing the enemy, but about observing
the observer, and so about observing yourself. It shows
you your image in the mirror, but what you see is not always
what you expect to see.
In building up a relevant metaphorical portrait, artistic
introspection can disturb our routine in always expecting
a mirrorlike image. As we all know, sometimes you have to
look for the devil in yourself, not in your supposed enemy.
Paul Groot, 2004 / Introduction in
Catalog
| Exhibition
at White Box’s The Annex / New York / USA 2004 |
| Curated by
Moniek Voulon / New York 2004 |
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| Catalogue
NEWS FROM HOME / 2004 |
| Interview by
Hans-Ulrich Obrist and Molly Nesbit with Leon Golub
and Nancy Spero |
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| Sponsored
by: |
Grant from The Netherland-America
Foundation New York USA
Loft New York Mondriaan Foundation Amsterdam
Materiaal Foundation Amsterdam |
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