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the smoke
art as therapy?
PETR PAVLENSKY STAGES HIS PROTEST IN MOSCOW’S RED SQUARE IN NOVEMBER At first glance, there appear to be few similarities between the cultural guru Alain de Botton, founder of the School of Life (a London-based centre offering courses on how to “live wisely and well”) and artist Petr Pavlensky, whose self-mutilatory act of nailing his scrotum to the cobbles of Moscow’s Red Square (above) recently attracted headlines. Reading any of de Botton’s books gives me an enormous sense of well-being. On the other hand, reading about Pavlensky’s protest – let alone watching the video – makes me wince. However, both de Botton and Pavlensky are attempting to illustrate art’s ability to successfully tackle social issues. The underlying message of de Botton’s latest book Art as Therapy is simple: art can make us better people. The book’s method is just as straightforward: it highlights the woes in society, illustrates how art can address them and proposes a new method for engaging with art to tackle the problems head-on. As a
result, the book reads like a manifesto, with de Botton developing the insightful observations of his previous books into more strategic advice and instructions. Do not be fooled into thinking this is flimsy self-help rubbish, though. In seven sections, the writer presents art’s key psychological functions: expressing “hope” and “sorrow,” and fostering “remembering,” “rebalancing,” “self-understanding,” “growth” and “appreciation.” In each section, De Botton offers concrete advice against everyday unease and unhappiness. Thus, the book as a whole is a pragmatic challenge to the existing relationship of art, individuals and society. For example, de Botton takes aim at the Tate’s current acquisitions policy suggesting that it should instead “aim always to educate the British soul” and “collect works that meet the psychological needs of the nation.” He suggests that the arts should engage with
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people throughout society, which in turn will hopefully lead people to appreciate the beauty of their surroundings and not have to rely on artists to memorialise them. From this argument comes the book’s final and boldest proposition, that the “true aspiration of art should be to reduce the need for it.” These are undoubtedly strong and somewhat fantastical ideas. Yet de Botton’s eloquence turns them into convincing, almost common-sense conclusions.
Pavlensy’s social criticism is not unparalleled in contemporary art. Ai Weiwei’s artwork “Sunflower Seeds” similarly challenges the passivity of the masses. Displayed on a truly gigantic scale at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, it addressed an equally international audience. With or without violence, many contemporary artists indeed choose art as the means to tackle their idea of societal imbalances, which is precisely what de Botton is suggesting art can do.
Pavlensky thought he had only one way to air his views on Russian society – to hammer a nail through his scrotum (his art has previously involved sewing his lips shut in support of Pussy Riot, and enmeshing himself in barbed wire outside a government building). He said that his latest act is a metaphor for “apathy, political indifference and fatalism in modern Russian society.” De Botton argues that art needs to address exactly these social problems; Pavlensky does this by grabbing worldwide media attention. Some may consider him as no more than an attention seeker, but others on an international level may see the truth behind Pavlensky’s concerns and feel compelled to act.
Art as Therapy left me feeling optimistic and I couldn’t quite explain why. I think it is because we are enormously fortunate to live in a society where we can raise our concerns, and not have to rely on Damien Hirst nailing his balls to the pavement outside Big Ben for the government to sit up and listen. Pavlensky’s actions were enormously courageous, but it is a sad indictment of his society that he felt this was his only choice. If de Botton’s theory about art being therapy is correct, then hopefully Pavlensky’s actions will help to bring about the change he deems so important. / HARRY LAUGHLAND / COURTAULD / CONTRIBUTOR
PAUL KLEE MAKING VISIBLE TATE MODERN UNTIL 9 MARCH 2014 £13.10 STUDENTS This showcase takes its title from Klee’s 1920 essay “Creative Confession”, where he states, “art does not reproduce the visible, it makes visible.” Klee was a hybrid cubist, symbolist, expressionist and surrealist. His work is, arguably, less imposing and more gentle and poetic than that of other greats of his generation such as Kandinsky and Franz Marc. The exhibition aims to bring Klee’s stature to the forefront. Klee’s intricate watercolours and paintings are, for the first time, exhibited in chronological order; evolution was something the artist always intended. Klee either planned a work with utmost care and precision, or just pointed a pencil whimsically at a piece of paper. Even though the quest for an aesthetic equilibrium between shape and colour lay always at the heart of his creations, the final result remained unknown until the very end. In his lecture notes, he described the process as thus: “A line comes into being. It goes out for a walk, so to speak, aimlessly and for the sake of the walk.”
Whilst teaching at the Bauhaus school in Weimar and Dessau throughout the 1920s as one of the early expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), Klee’s artistic concern was wrapped up in colours, so much so he that proclaimed: “Colour possesses me. I don’t have to pursue it. It will possess me always, I know it. That is the meaning of this happy hour: Colour and I are one.” But both Klee and his contemporaries were soon confronted with history when the Nazi regime labelled their work “degenerate”. From this point forward, his art became a mess of violent scribbles. Klee’s 1933 selfportrait “Struck from the List” betrays a fragile state of mind. After fleeing to Bern, Switzerland, Klee was diagnosed with scleroderma, a chronic autoimmune disease, and had little time left to live. Despite this physical hardship, he kept painting – with superhuman strength, Klee produced a flurry of pieces; “Insula Dulcamara” sees a helpless man vying with a demonic snake through spring powder colours juxtaposed with harsh, heavy black lines. At once spiritual and harrowing, Klee’s dialogue within his works on life and death is all-encompassing. “Angstausbruch
PAUL KLEE AGAINST “FIRE AT FULL MOON”, 1933. MUSEUM FOLKWANG, GERMANY III” (Outbreak of Fear III), located in the final room of the exhibition, sees bodies disarticulated and dismembered, in what seems a metaphor for the artist’s anxiety at nearing the end of his life. The journey throughout this exhibition is rather challenging. With 17 rooms taking us from 1912 to Klee’s death in 1940, it is a little hard to stay focused and to keep the
enthusiasm alive. It is at times more of a lecture than a show, aimed perhaps more towards the Klee enthusiast than the average gallery-goer. Despite this, Klee’s use of colour, his ingenuity and his determination in the face of political and personal struggle makes for an important – if a little exhausting – retrospective. / CARL LOCKEY / KCL / CONTRIBUTOR