Graphite 2 (2011)

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GRAPHITE

INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL OF THE ARTS

GRAPHITEERS Christine Haroutounian Leela Subramaniam Editors-in-Chief

Ruth Chun Assistant Editor

Caitlin E. Johnson Head Editor, Critical Essays

Tiffany Smith Editor, Critical Essays

Evan Moffitt Editor, Critical Essays

Mara Fisher Head Editor, Artwork

Lauren Graycar Editor, Artwork

Iris Yirei Hu Head Editor, Reviews and Blog

Carmel Ni Editor, Reviews and Blog

Siobhan Hebron Acquisitions and Distribution

Gustavo Cordova Design

Issue 2 Š 2011, Los Angeles, CA, OnDemand Printing Center GRAPHITE Interdisciplinary Journal of the Arts Created through the Hammer Museum and the Hammer Student Association of UCLA. graphitejournal@gmail.com www.graphitejournal.com All rights reserved. May not be reproduced.

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EDITORS' NOTES

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THE END?

What is it that keeps us eternally fascinated with

endings? This is the question that launched the direction of the second edition of GRAPHITE, but rather than arriving to any concrete, if not dismal answers, what we found is that the concept of an end can more often highlight the prospect of challenge and change. A diatribe against sexual morality can inspire newfangled perspectives on society, gender, and religion. A dramaturgic study of finales can force one to re-examine the previous scenes of a play. Elusive artists who treat their work without definitive calculation can inspire unbound childlike curiosity. A frank account on the governmental regulation of a contemporary art scene points to the complexities of freedom of expression in a country in constant flux.

As GRAPHITE reaches the completion of the 2010-11 academic year, "The End?" still retains its mystery because it calls itself to the porosity of borders among disciplines, allowing both scholars and artists alike to evolve, remain creative, and be challenged by new and long-established fields of study. It is with this in mind that we hope to open a discourse on the so-called limitations presented in life, whether in art, critical theory, or the realities of an increasingly globalized world. ­—Christine Haroutounian

GRAPHITE Interdisciplinary Journal of the Arts

began last year as a way of starting a concrete dialogue between the arts of the UCLA campus, but has expanded to encompass something beyond that. At GRAPHITE we believe that visual art works can function musically—that politics and foreign events have everything to do with the way we look and analyze art —that philosophy can inform film, open it up to new interpretations, as can film for philosophy. These kinds of intermingling of analyses are the test surface for GRAPHITE.

We began conceptually last year with this

belief in mind, but this year we have incorporated a strong thematic element. "The End?" is quite ironically our theme, seemingly opposite to the reality of our journal's contextual placement: in its beginnings and in its second issue. But this is perhaps what makes the concept so interesting.

For endings are directly related to beginnings. The great filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard once said, "A story should have a beginning, middle, and end . . . But not necessarily in that order." We may just be beginning as a journal, but in a way, we are sharing with our audiences dialogues that are continuing and flourishing, and problems which still need to be grappled with. The art works and essays within this journal address interpretations of finality, issues related to the decay or renewal of time, intellectual revolutions and the breaking down of language, in addition to interviews with artists which explore the ambiguity of interpretation or a lack of "ending."

We hope that by the end of the journal you

will continue your dialogue with GRAPHITE and make it the beginning of a new enriching intellectual relationship.

Publishing annually with the incredible support of the Hammer Museum, GRAPHITE is still constantly changing and adapting itself. "The End?" is only our beginning.

—Leela Subramaniam

TABLE OF CONTENTS WRITING + ART

Against Sexual Morality 20C Italo Tavolato, Trans. by Emma Van Ness

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Filtering Hitchcock’s Psycho through Nietzsche’s Pre-Moral World of Debt and Guilt

22

W Christine Haroutounian

Karawane: A Fractured Self-Portrait Ruth Chun

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In Dialogue with Melanie Ouyang Lum: Contemporary Art in China

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Iris Yirei Hu

Visualizing Orientalism on Screen: The World of Suzie Wong and Lost In Translation Iris Yirei Hu

54

The Ghost in the Machine Daniel Bowman

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(And I Feel Fine) Boo Chapple

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Beating a Dead Horse with Eric Wesley Mara Fisher

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Grasping at the Ephemeral: Endings and Their Function as Part of a Dramatic Event Meropi Peponides

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Another Extension: An Interview with Mark Flores Tiffany Smith

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5

A

NATASHA SUBRAMANIAM AND ALISA LAPIDUS

28 40 52 62 68 90 100 108

SARAH AWAD

JENNY YURSHANSKY JAMIN YIE

JONATHAN APGAR KARI REARDON LUKE BUTLER

MICHAEL RUSSELL PATRICK BLOCHER

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AGA IN ST SEX UAL MORALITY

6

20 C

CONTRO LA MORALE SESSUALE 20C

ITALO TAVOLATO

TRANS. BY EMMA VAN NESS

This expanded version of the text was published in a monograph by Ferrante Gonnelli in 1913, following the article “Contro la morale sessuale” published in Lacerba that same year.

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I

talo Tavolato, a homosexual writer from Trieste living

intellectual backlash against Futurist artists and caused

in Florence, was associated with the Florentine Futurist

many of their revolutionary works to be ignored or written off

movement along with other figures of note such as Giovanni

by art historians as simply proto-Fascist.2 The difficulties in

Papini, Ardegno Soffici, and Aldo Palazzeschi. These writers,

discussing this sort of text has been complicated by many Italian

active from roughly 1913 through World War I, were a subset of

intellectuals who write about or were involved themselves in the

a larger Futurist movement based in Milan and centered around

Futurist movement and who refuse to speak openly about his

the larger-than-life personality of F. T. Marinetti, the so-called

homosexuality, using instead words such as “identity issues” and

caffeine of Europe, who began his drastic artistic program of

even going so far as to write into existence a literary “beard” (a

modernization with his “First Manifesto of Futurism,” written in

girlfriend), in order to mask the personal impetus he may have

1908 and published in the Parisian newspaper Le Figaro.

felt in creating his journalistic diatribes against marriage and the

sexual status quo.3

Futurism predates other twentieth century avant-

garde movements, a fact often ignored by art historians. The

attempts by Futurists to shake off the weight of the past in

historical distance, considering the artist’s personal history in the

writing, painting, and sculpture also allowed for a sort of sexual

most realistic way possible, viewed with both ruthlessness and

revolution through the reevaluation of antiquated systems of

sympathy. The rush to judgment is precipitous in Tavolato’s case

morality and gender binaries, as it did for the female writers

as we lose a remarkably courageous provocation, an innovative

and artists Valentine de Saint-Point, Mina Loy, and Tamara

literary work that despite the questionable political history of

de Lempicka, who all challenged the sexual norms of the early

its author should nonetheless be recognized for its tortured

novecento in their works. Tavolato in particular focused on

modernity. One can note the marked influence of both Nietzsche

sexual morality, a subject that caused him to be prosecuted

and Weininger in the manifesto; Tavolato also anticipates by

for gross indecency in 1913–1914 after he wrote a scandalizing

several decades the discussion of the “repressive hypothesis”4

article entitled “In Praise of Prostitution” (translation

in the works of Michel Foucault as well as queer theoretical

forthcoming).

concepts of reproductive futurism and heteronormativity.5

Despite the judicial, literary, and sexual/social trials of its author,

Today, Tavolato still serves as an intellectual

This translation intends to read the text for itself, at a

lightning rod. There are those who condemn him since he later

the work itself remains staggeringly bold and relevant almost

served as an informant for the Fascist political police as well as

one hundred years after its original publication; it is not against

the Gestapo during World War II, given his fluency in German.

morality per se, but against a prescriptive sexual morality.

While there is a strong tendency to condemn him for his political

This distinction is both essential and revolutionary. The work is

actions, it is also important to bear in mind that his status as

presented for the first time in English here.

outsider made him vulnerable to political manipulation; as a known homosexual, he could have been sent to the concentration

—Emma Van Ness

camps, or at least “exiled” in confino,1 had he not cooperated.

The discomfort that the political and sexual marginality of this

1

Futurist artist causes those in academia has been reflected in

suspect individuals during Fascism.

his historical treatment. The collapsing of difference between

2

Futurism, Fascism, and Nazism has caused a (subconscious)

Museum in London, which relegates Futurism to a corner on the top floor and

The practice of isolating or exiling sexually, politically, and intellectually

As evidence of this tendency, it is enough to cite the whole Tate Modern

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places it under a description that calls the movement both naïve and proto-Fascist. Adrian Searle, in his review of the Futurism show at the Tate, states, “How quaint and naïve so much futurism looks now . . . the futurists often got lost in cubism. They recognized it had an amazing charge, but couldn’t invent anything radical with it for themselves. They talked of doubling the power of their sight, and wanted to infuse their paintings with the power of x-rays. Now we can see right through them.” Perhaps Searle wasn’t capable himself of interpreting the works and reduced his vision of Futurism according to the Francophilic gaze of so many contemporary art historians and critics. Yet, we must agree with his final point, that “The subject is ripe for an altogether different sort of reappraisal.” Adrian Searle, “Art review: Futurism falls flat at Tate Modern,” The Guardian, June 16, 2009.

3

For more information on the uncomfortable relationship between Futurism

and homosexuality, see Emma Van Ness “(No) Queer Futurism: Prostitutes, Pink Poets, and Politics in Italy from 1913–1918,” Carte Italiane, 2nd ser., 6 (2010).

4

The “repressive hypothesis” binds a Victorian morality to a Protestant work

ethic and spirit of productivity. In short, sexual activity must be reproductive or else it is a waste of time. Michel Foucault, “The Repressive Hypothesis,” in A History of Sexuality, vol. 1, An Introduction (New York: Random House, 1978).

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Lee Edelman takes Foucault’s theory a step further and postulates queerness

as a refusal of the social and political order of reproductive Futurism. The symbol of the child then becomes the antithesis to queerness, which is itself based on a sexuality that does not lead to reproduction or childbearing. Lee Edelman, No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005).

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To hell with him who got us in this mess!

who desires solitude, bothersome in its petulance, offensive

The one who first became enamored of

with its commands, insulting to independence, slandering

Decency, wickedness, virtue and vice—

instinct; once it has finally been relegated to hell, it

Who muddled up morality and love!

reappears fully surrounded by public opinion and policemen.

—Charles Baudelaire

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In a society of bankers, journalists, and other

. . . Morality is a venereal disease.

business types, that leaves no place for personality, intellect

Its primary stage is called virtue; its secondary stage,

has nothing to lose other than itself, and it possesses few

boredom; its tertiary stage, syphilis.

weapons in the battle against the strangling moralizing

—Karl Kraus2

impositions codified by tradition and convention. The intellect’s cause seems desperate because of the unfair

This is how I like to do it.

—Aldo Palazzeschi

conditions: the paperboys crying ethics do not limit 3

themselves merely to words, but make it so hunger and prisons take up their argument, and, if these methods fail, it is the life sentence of public opinion as a last resort. If

In this twentieth century of morality, of intellectual

gossip, naysaying, and defamation don’t work, the self-

hypocrisy that is definitively seen as a question of a good

righteous and well-mannered apply a more definitive

education, the idea is widespread that sexuality is either

torture: the straitjacket of conversation. The man of genius

a bad habit or a silly superfluity. Notwithstanding the

does not understand the jargon or gestures of virtue, and he

omnipotence of this opinion, the representatives of culture

feels tempted to attribute to imbecility that respect owed

should have forbidden the virtuous ones their orgies of

to incomprehensible things. The desire to make out forms

manners and repressed the warrior spirit of those idiots of

in the fog is enough to drive him batty. However, when

the avant-garde: there has gathered around the millennial

the plane of intelligence remains distinct from the plane

gaffes of sexual morality too much stupidity—so much that

of virtuosity, only then will a sensibility, when the gift of

it is by now absurd to feign respect and veneration for a

reacting against the existence of idiots as against a personal

social institution that is completely useless to everyone,

offense has not run its course, know how to revenge itself

no matter who they are. Rather, in our union of mutual

in an expression of suffering ignominy. Today it is enough to

annoyance, called “civil” in its illusion of normalcy, he who

express the happenings of the God-fearing world, to define

proclaims the practical necessity of this useless consortium

its institutions. How many people will piss themselves

is rendered venerable in the eyes of the fearful and by those

laughing at us in the future! The expression of our reality will

three or four legalized preconceptions that hold it up. If the

seem like a bad joke, and the definition of our moral laws

trifling morality of the state was only useless and nothing

will be in and of itself a satire.

else, intellectuals could do better than busy themselves

with it. But sexual morality offers itself up as a guide to he

who knows his own way, acting as life’s instructor to he who

a collection of things that one does but does not say,

already knows how to live, wanting to keep company to he

I would not have so many scruples and false considerations.

If sexuality were really, as I have been informed,

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I would not be weak, and I would not hesitate for a minute

sexuality is evil. And the sanctification of renunciation

to denounce it to the public. How sordid are those things

pollutes choruses and cerebrums, bringing into the world

that one does but not tell anyone, such as falsify bank

much pain and stupidity. If it were truly the God of the

records, or journalists who omit the fact that they had not

virtuous and virtue to create this world, where all are born

seen the event they report? It would be better to not do

by maculate conception and live by the grace of sex, He

them at all and get rid of them rather than always stand

should already know from experience how this world would

guard to be sure the secret doesn’t leak out. And if a

be more beautiful without manners, more perfect without

whisper of it does escape, poor us! Shamed and scolded by

prudishness, more rich without morality. He should undergo

the public and by others, continually reproached because

an act of reparation and recreate, re-create the world with

of our sexuality. Some malignant person might even go

the massacre of the professionals of innocence, guilty of

so far as to breathe a word of it to our ladies and our

poverty of the spirit; He should bring justice to the justices,

children—farewell blessed peace, farewell familial affection

those who judge because they don’t understand anything;

and every other good and beautiful thing. How are we to

He should, in the end, teach men to use the nauseating nut

rehabilitate our image in front of our friends? Gain back

of morality to wretch up once and for all the apple of good

the love of our wife? In this case, as they say, chastity is

and evil. Less similar to gods, but more ourselves, we would

preferable. But even the most rigid and extreme morality

return triumphant to our lost paradise: our earthly paradise.

remains, as always, a collection of things that one says but does not do, since the reign of those famous things that

will come does not, hence the “will come,” it doesn’t do to

small brains continue to give weight to the total distinction

trust prophets and debtors. And I bet five against one that

between the intellectual categories body and spirit. The

the chastity of the virtuous, excepting mathematicians and

boorish imagination of the body’s spiritualists swear by

impotents, closely resembles that of the collective, and

the body itself; the imaginative boorishness of the mind’s

that we would be screwed and lost between sexuality and

materialists believe with the faith of a coal miner in the pure

morality as between Scylla and Charybdis if it weren’t for

spirit; two warring factions, each full of contempt for the

Peretola, if sexual Peretolism didn’t redeem us in the virtue

other’s candidate. They cut the membrane that connects

of virtue. After risking itself perilously amongst whirlpools

the twin concepts of body and spirit to each other and fight

of sexuality, things that are done but not spoken, Peretolism

over the candidacy of the two cadavers. The Pureofspirit5

arrives on the coast morality’s basis, those things spoken

have one true hatred—sex—and all of their Bibles, their

but not done, and finally moors itself in sexual morality, the

codices, and their catechisms praise, demand, and impose

collection of things that are and are not done and said and

maceration of the flesh. Said maceration is a provisional

not said, or rather said and not done but done and not said

illness that the ascetic future must suffer with resignation

or, to be clearer: they are done but not said because we say

in order to gain eternal health. Pre-fated eternal health

we don’t do them.

would be the reward that the macerator receives after

4

Petty moralizers, petty immoralizers, and other

defeating the enemy. This enemy makes use of many hidden

The purges of Orphism, Buddhism, Christianity,

and Neoplatonism converge en masse in their judgment:

dangers and hiding places, many traps, many techniques of flattery that, while he aspiring to chastity is able to stop

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himself from transforming his desire into action, he is totally

of men follow the foolish festival of pre-made phrases in

incapable of liberating himself from his libido, that font he

pious procession and honor its holiness with each cunning

believes of all evil. At last, all his mental faculties hinge on

word. The majority of men believe a woman dishonored who

one problem only: do I do it or not? The strong imbecile

had willingly undergone the act, called “coitus” in scientific

won’t give up and will resolve the doubt by releasing

language, “instinctive coming and going” in Neo-Malthusian,

himself from life.6 For others, the faith of not doing will

and “extreme shame” in Chronicler and in everyday

remain even in doing. Finally, others will continue to pray

Theological.8 And yet, husbands continue to dishonor their

the rosary of doubt always and forever, conserving their

wives, and wouldn’t know how to have children without the

anatomical chastity and becoming saints to missed chances

assistance of extreme shame. Therefore, marriage is nothing

at libertinism.

if not the legalization of dishonor, and family that institution which confers onto extreme shame a meritorious title.

It is said that Someone triumphed over sex. Our

To proceed, the ethical basis constituted by the marriage

generation is not allowed to discuss whether or not this is a

bed becomes the prescribed place for consummating

myth. As everyone knows, the intellectual degeneration that

the instinctual coming and going, yet the marriage bed

informs and directs Italian opinion this very virtuous year

transforms the dirty lily if it has housed extramarital

will not tolerate investigations into the life of Jesus Christ.7

dishonor. In order to legally vent the illegal flames there are the houses of perdition, called by others houses of

If nevertheless some capable ascetic knows how

recreation, where filthy satyrs force lost women to suffer

to extort an immortality like Saint Anthony’s from history,

extreme humiliation, or, to speak frankly: where obscene

the majority of men are not able to achieve immortality,

degenerates vent their turpid desires on the peddled flesh of

rather with activity transcending the perpetuation of the

little butterflies.

species.

The bourgeois species abstains cautiously due to

Against a moralist’s phrasebook, where “lost

the austere asininity of extreme moralists, for whom every

woman” appears as a synonym for “butterfly” and where

manifestation of sex is itself evil—from a sexuality free of

“recreation” is the same as “perdition”; against a mentality

moral imperatives, it is diverted onto the main highway in

that divides sons into legal and illegal, that calls sexuality

the planes of intelligence, the usual middle road, the safe

by the nickname “depravation” and calls syphilis by the

and horizontal road of mediocrity, from which it is easy

pseudonym “unnamable illness.” For you there are no

to distinguish Good and Evil in a sexuality considered a

other legal pastimes other than this: pinning down the

necessary societal shitshow or an appalling, yet pleasurable,

big butterflies of lost men, naming unnamable illnesses

pastime.

according to their ethical basis, and interrupting the abusive coming and going of their little wordings impregnated by

Sexual morality registers in only a few brains,

those not armor-clad in clichés or stuffed full of half terms,

decency, by what’s understood, by their half terms and double meanings.

its congenital stupidity revealed in the language spoken by the virtuous and written by the chroniclers. The majority

Those idyllic pachyderms in love with the quiet

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life honor the categorical imperative as the director of all

greater attention these barbaric practices and customs

their modesties; according to men ready to judge each thing

to find an authentic sort of morality, genuine shame, and

in order to avoid the torments of experience, the internal

first-rate decency. The indigenous people of central Brazil,

voice, or sentence without appeal, the ethical conscience

for example, tie a cord around their foreskin, since they too

reveals the infallible nature of good and evil. The voice of

identify good manners with their glands. And the women of

the conscience reveals the best part of man, his divinity, and

the Naga tribe, who instead believe it is useless to hide the

proclaims absolute laws objective, universal, and eternally

region of the body that everyone knows from birth, rather

valid for all of humanity. Still, according to these men, the

show a love of honesty by covering those parts that develop

conscience acts as the final and sure proof of good and evil

later in life, the breasts. Furthermore, it is known that

also regarding sexuality and modesty—conscience of the

amongst the Guaycum the women are ashamed to undress

body, indicator of the internal imperative—and sanctions the

and the men to dress themselves, while amongst the Uaupà

commandments of morality.

it is the exact opposite; yet it has been ascertained that

certain Siberians limit modesty to the legs and the bottoms

If this were true, we could shoo away doubts

as we do flies, we could throw ourselves snoring onto our

of their feet, while the Japanese feel modesty in their feet

certainties. The sleeping pill of absolute morality would

and the Turkish their faces; this established, it should be

rock us to sleep with sweet dogmatic dreams. Kant would

said that even our most honest women do not feel at all

interrupt our nap only to give us permission to sleep until

ashamed to show décolletage at dances, at the theater,

next judgment day. And on that day, we would stir from our

and in the sitting room, and their legs when it rains. All this

rest, peaceful and festive, sure of getting good points for

demonstrates the extreme variability of modesty, dependent

conduct. If only it were so!

as it is on place, weather, climate, time of year, wealth et

cetera—one must ask those followers of the categorical

But the conscience is not one single point,

unique and indivisible as would be convenient for an upper-

imperative: suppose that their rigid measure of ethics is not

class divinity. Certain savage races seem to possess an

elastic rubber, if the voice of conscience is not an irritating

extraordinary sexual imperative, since they are not ashamed

noisemaker, if modesty is not a product of suggestion and

to be nude; they become ashamed only when the traveling

sexual morality a petty lesson we all memorize?

salesmen of virtue arrive on a mission. Some savages dress themselves, but their wardrobe is for ceremony or

defense, used for ornament or hygienic purposes, rarely for

The brightest children are hit, slapped, and beaten until

The origin of sexual morality is found in fists.

the moral end of hiding nudity. Nevertheless, it would be

they decide to become moral. They are chastised until they

a huge mistake to judge these people living in the natural

are chaste. For the children of virtuous and well-mannered

state to be without other corruptions or perversions. Certain

parents, parents who undertake lust’s efforts only when

practices serve to elucidate their moral criteria, such as

they feel the need to perpetuate the species, a simple verbal

the diffuse habit of smearing ashes on one’s ass as a sign

moral will be enough.

of grief or mourning, or the way parents stand nude in

front of their own children when they want to exert their

predisposed by heredity, I point out and suggest a morality

influence or divert a proposition. We must examine with

disregarded before now: to teach the well-born offspring

To the parents and educators of these youngsters

13

to shape their conscience with the immorality of yellow

corresponds to a real need. Perhaps this is why Mother

and the morality of sky blue. The supporters of morality

Church protects it so?

for morality’s sake will certainly find necessary the ethics

of colors just as necessary as sexual morality. In order to

darling little Christians run after the well-known divinity of

be better able to fortify little innocent eyes against the

moral conscience. If they did not do so, we well know what

onslaught of inconvenient colors, certain considerations are

the conscience represents: a constellation of impositions

recommended: yellow is evil because yellow is envy, yellow

and commands fixed in the weak soul; every hypnotist

is jealousy, most shit is yellow, yellow are the eyes of many

knows how to create in his subjects all sorts of consciences,

fierce beasts, yellow is jaundice, yellow is cowardice and

temporary and enduring, at his pleasure. Who still believes

fear; sky blue is good because sky blue is goodness, virtue,

in the conscience as revelation? The divine czarist’s orders

providence, celestial love, sky blue the sky where God our

do not frighten us anymore: we know their human source.

Impotence isn’t a convincing argument. And the

Father reigns.

The pedagogues should try it: the experiment

The doctrine of renunciation and pain has

would be a success. Children would be scandalized by

weakened too many of our forces; the heroic asininity of

yellow, and the morality of colors will triumph. It would

asceticism is starting to get on our nerves. It is time to

be a success because the conscience is a gramophone

search for the spirit in flesh, not in clouds.

put together in such a way as to tenorize all the nursery

rhymes sung by the divos of education. It will triumph, since

with this idea. He banishes, with proper reserves, the

morality is a scabies9 that attaches itself without prejudice

legitimacy of nature. His sexual encyclicals, plagiarized from

to everything; to intellect above all.

the Bible, are not in themselves despotic and do not in any

Father State agrees in part and in his own way

way limit the freedom of the citizen from choosing a wife

I hold in contempt immoralists who go about

from wherever he pleases, even among the Eskimos. They

preaching in the far-flung corners of democracy, spilling

do restrict, however, in faith with Moses’ code of sexual

hypocritical tears over the immorality of morality. Utopian

procedure, the possibility of extramarital fornication and

dreamers of new societies with fantasies of perfect

forbid the desiring of others’ women. In recompense, the

moralities, moral immoralists specializing in the shooting

married citizen can abandon himself to free will and bring

of toy pistols at rallies against the immorality of today in

into the world as many sons as he wants.

favor of tomorrow’s moral purity—they really bang my

drums and then some. All moralities are born, grow, and die

tolerate sexual functioning removed from its control or

ignobly, since morality distinguishes itself from insensitive

from its profit scale. And from bureaucretinism10 emanate

refinements by its notable tendency to deny itself and

strange ordinances: instinct is like a train—be sure it doesn’t

cancel itself out, by its constant drive to do itself in and to

derail; human seed is like a letter, and postal errors are

cede its place to immorality. Who knows, for example, how

unacceptable; desire conforms to a pre-established plan;

many Christians would not be able to fornicate if the idea

citizens should invest in the procreation of soldiers.

of committing a sin didn’t stimulate their consciences. As

a turn-on, a stimulant, an aphrodisiac, morality faithfully

if one refuses to drink down morality; if one does not

The State is a utilitarian voyeur. It does not

But if one crosses the confines of state sexuality;

14

consider sexuality as the art of making babies; well, then

of the government seems a mirage of love. Such imbeciles!

public opinion would cry out “Scandal,” the magistrates

Blinded by jealousy when the lightning of adultery strikes

would make a scandal, and the laws would punish in the

and illuminates the matrimonial system where it is most

name of Her Majesty, Scandal. And the verdict will be

foolish.

motivated by the philosopheme: sexual excess damages public health.

own. May domestic intercourse remain undisturbed. I do

Moral laws proscribe, therefore, excess. Alas,

I am not battling against marriage. To each his

alas, so it is. Even salt is monopolized like sexuality, and do

oppose, however, the overvaluation of those four walls on

you know why? Because if it didn’t cost so much, no one

ethical foundations and the devaluation of sexuality not

could stop us from stuffing ourselves to death.

styled in that social format. I observe with horror how the norms denaturalize into uniform variety differentiation,

The hellish boiler, in which intransigent morality

sexual multiplicity, and how nature is impoverished, how

keeps sexuality imprisoned, would have surely exploded,

reality is degraded into idealism. The modesty of the well-

sending these lobbyists of virtue into the air, had not the

mannered so offends my modesty, that it seems dignified

darling little Christians applied the safety valve of marriage.

to me to live as sexually stained, forever far away from

Damn those little Christians! With incredible conceit they

equivocal civil honorability resulting from the monotone

commanded that sex content itself with this orthodox

seeding of legal terrain fertilized with sentimental manure.

discharge, enacted to provide citizens for governments,

and they condemn refractory sexual impulses, those

an honor feared by the scriveners that govern us, there is

instincts unsuited to squeak out of the concession-valve.

an illegal justice, and to it one day we intellectual brigands

All dispositions, tendencies, and sexual activities of an

shall immolate the hecatomb of moralists. These moralists,

autonomous nature are systematically denigrated and

these pious folk, these christs,11 cripple nature in the name

devalued because they didn’t allow themselves to be

of the spirit. They poison sex, kill pleasure, massacre beauty,

contained within the system of monogamy. All whims of

encouraged by superstition that the spirit develops at the

erotic sensibility independent of social ends were declared

cost of the body.

taboo, that is to say, things should not be named in order

to deny their existence, to avoid affirming with nomination

the triumph of inexperience over life. Temperament,

their reality. And so throughout the Christianized world the

imagination, artistic sensibility all anguish in the pagodas

conjugal odor spreads, so pleasing to the tobaccoed noses

of renunciation. Where withering morality passes, spring’s

of fact-checkers and magistrates.

blossoms are deflowered.

Beyond the four walls and the two laws there is

And moral declamation generates this tragedy:

They are sly, those systematizers of sexuality, the

sanctifiers of marriage: the father, head of the household,

Neo-Malthusianism, paternal testing, abortion

allows himself to be governed, the bound man making a

rights, sexual education, free love, marriage for priests, and

good subject, since the married man doesn’t bring about

divorce for non-priests do not interest me in the least. I do

revolutions. And to these imbeciles of an impossible

not feel like hatching little social ideas. Nor do I believe that

imbecility, imbeciles above all called self-righteous, the aim

new sexual programs can redeem the corporal disgust of

15

Christianity. It is impossible to heal hysteria by yanking at

of man, we would not today be witnessing the hysterical

leaves from the fig tree. Morality must be killed in order to

masculinization of suffragettes.

liberate life from her most powerful enemy.

O sexual morality, dirty joke hidden in a corner.

First you dirty the corner, then you claim that the corner

The concert of burned-out morals resounding

dirtied you!

from principled men no sooner had I published “In Praise of Prostitution” in Lacerba12 raised my doubts about

penetrating the aura in which stupidity enshrouds its most

in the mud with their disgust for that business that they

dear prejudices. Some examples written by exemplary

enjoyed more than all other businesses. Today it is difficult

citizens seemed altogether taken aback by the existence

to recognize the symbol of an essence and a lifestyle in the

of prostitution and threatened me from afar, slapping me

word “prostitution,” but not any less difficult than defining

around with indignant exclamation points. Viperous gazettes

“god,”13 a word produced by man’s verbosity. Nevertheless,

sought to envenom me. It was made clear that one does not

instinct uncovers the veiled beauty beneath morality’s

say certain things.

crusts: the artist knows the value of the woman who affirms

man through sensuality without using him for fecundity. He

Which is why I say them. I enjoy speaking of the

The Philistines dragged the name of prostitution

taboo of prostitution. I also like speaking the contradictions

prefers the prostitute type to the mother type.

of a normative morality, at once usurper of the public

woman heading to her chambers and idolater of the public

He adores the opposite, too, virginity, but this should not

man heading to the Chamber.

be surprising, since the bourgeois is this pure concept:

synthesize the extremes.

The well-mannered should stop trying to

Not so for the bourgeois. He adores fertility.

understand anything if they are unable to grasp the instinctive nature of prostitution. An integral stupidity would

not bother women any longer were they released from the

certain institution of homosexuality. On a rare occasion the

prison of their “prostitutability,” women who enrich the

bourgeois will close a courtly eye on Sapphism, educated

sensitive cosmos with vibrations of the new.

as he is in conceding a discount to female nature, but he

will not tolerate pederasty in any case. He feels offended in

The problems these females face if prostitution

Among all the taboos, the blackest of all is that

is their vocation! The moral entities shit all over the

his triple dignity as citizen, father, and man each and every

phenomenon, until the hetaera must submit to the bordello.

time two individuals of the same sex abandon the norms

established by the majority and follow instead the norms

I say that morality is responsible for all

decadence. Had a ridiculous mental habit not exclusively

outlined by their own nature. Interpreting the existence of

limited female functions to the maternal, had public opinion

Uranism14 as a personal allusion, the rogue feels violated

not refused to accept prostitution in its naturalness as one

when he comes to know that virility is not always a synonym

of women’s psychic realities, then perhaps European society

of action, and cries obscenity.

could also benefit from the cultivation of prostitution,

as exists in Japan. And had an absolutist morality not

about homosexuality—its name, to begin with. Secondly,

forced part of femininity toward the intellectual functions

its compromise with morality, realized in the behavior of

Without a doubt, there is something disgusting

16

masculine, overprotective aunts who protect the young.

those who don’t serve themselves of it. We died, we who

Thirdly, and above all, the image that the Boeotians15 give it.

loved. Today we are nothing but shadows, we geniuses

of yesterday and tomorrow. We are the damned spirits

The rest is pure.

confined to the margins of society. We are the fear and

I am not explaining myself.

I am not here to illuminate the man with a head

remorse of principled men. We are the future.

full of prejudices, but rather to drive a fist into the head of

the man with prejudices. I do not need to defend pederasty, I

through the world. Again, let us return to our nature,

Again, let the nostalgia of spontaneity pass

need to offend morality. I am not here to discuss opinions—I

redeemed from “you must.” No longer the prison term of the

would rather annihilate them. I will not explain pederasty. I

senses, no longer the degrading subordination to ideals, no

sing its praises.

longer the outcry against pleasure, no longer the obscured loves and exhausted bodies. The flesh will rise again,

Nothing is more natural than pederasty. Whether

and may it inflame the parched spirit of a life full of guilt,

a vice or a sin, who cares? Nothing is more full of vice or

punishment, and death.

sinful than nature, eternal mocker of systems.

cheapened sexuality with the glorification of pure love. But

Be it illness! An illness that gives pleasure and

And thus morality is a scoundrel in having

whoever suffers from it is the flower of life.

as it is true that the most humble function of the human

body always deserves an ethical system, so it is also true

Be it turpitude! This congenital turpitude is

sacrosanct instinct.

that pure love is a sad consequence of repressed sexuality.

What are we to do with a purity that causes fits of hysteria?

Salve to this abjection, so well represented from

Socrates to Verlaine!

What about the fig leaf, a Christian bandage that infects sex? Rather a healthy dissoluteness in that case. And after

Morality, take care not to torment the prostitutes

us, the renunciation!

and the pederasts. Sexual exasperation creates social

vendettas.

even though most people imagine it as a particularly

Morality, be quiet. Sit. Stay. There is no sexual

order if not in sexual will.

Truly, sexuality is not responsible for the mess,

pleasing rubbing together of two particularly sensitive epidermises. What is responsible for the mess is morality instead: morality has reduced the sexual vibration of the

When entering puberty, we are dumbfounded by

world to a slight prolific shaking of the self-righteous. The

morality, where we find laws and not answers. A command

polite know this: that their batting eyes, their wagging finger,

seeks to arrest our passions, seeks to fall us out of love.

and their grunting is a caricature of eroticism. They know

Under the guise of tradition, religion, education, discipline,

this too: the sweet activity recompensed by the blessed

solidarity, we were forced into the duty of mediocrity.

tear isn’t yet a synthesis of sexuality. The reign of sex is

But the herd was not the object of our desire, but neither

far vaster. Sexuality is also what we feel when following a

was this middle, this mean, this equality. And morality

broom or a thought around. And we don’t love nature by

avenged itself, morality that poisons those not subservient,

chance. And we don’t give gender to nouns for the sound of

17

it. And the Maschio of Volterra16 isn’t the head of a family.

Tavolato’s discourse because itching worsens at night.

10

Sexuality is the vital relationship between

Bureaucretinism is an example of Tavolato’s portmanteau wordplay, making a

our whole being and the whole of the universe. A happy

compound word of two separate words. In this case, bureaucracy and cretinism

relationship makes us flexible and strong; the ability to

are combined to show that from his perspective the two are not distinct.

express it makes of us artists. The universe, however,

11

doesn’t respond to the moralists. Poor morality should

deprecation.

resign itself to limping after life, graced with a sexuality that

12

satisfies with senselessness, loving god if you want, or if you

scandal and a trial for public indecency as mentioned above.

want, humanity.

13

Tavolato leaves this instance of “christs” uncapitalized, in an act of literary

This article appeared in the May 1, 1913 edition of Lacerba and provoked a

Again, like christs, “god” is left in the lower-case, to emphasize that it is a

literary, not a spiritual construction.

Translator’s Notes: 1

Charles Baudelaire, “Femmes damnées,” Les fleurs du mal (1857), trans. Walter

Martin (New York: Routledge, 2002), 301.

2

Karl Kraus, Sittlichkeit und Kriminalität (1908), trans. Harry Zohn, “Morality and

14

This term alludes to the Greek myth that Uranus was deprived of his virility

by his son Cronus, and is traditionally associated with the passive member of a homosexual couple.

15

Boeothians, from the Greek region Boezia, who in contrast to the Athenians

Criminal Justice” in Half Truths and One-and-a-Half Truths: Selected Aphorisms

were known for their ribaldry.

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990).

16

3

Aldo Palazzeschi, “Lasciatemi divertire” (1910) in Incendiario, trans. Emma Van

A prison outside of Volterra, called Maschio, or “Male” in English, because it

was thought to be impregnable as a fortress.

Ness from original Italian (Milan, Mondadori, 2000).

4

Peretola is a neighborhood in Florence (now by the airport), but I don’t know

Emma Van Ness is a third year PhD student in the

exactly what he means here. Perhaps it was an area known for homosexual

Department of Italian at UCLA. She received her double

activity.

BA in Art History and Italian from University of Chicago

5

“Spiritopuristi” in the original Italian.

in 2004 and her MA in Italian Literature and Cinema from

6

One such “imbecile”—Otto Weininger—was the subject of another of

Middlebury College / Università di Firenze in 2006. Recent

Tavolato’s articles. In “L’anima di Weininger,” published in Lacerba in 1913,

projects include poetry translations of Lorenzo Calogero’s

Tavolato expressed his ambivalence toward this homosexual German writer who

The Villa Nuccia Notebooks (Quaderni di Villa Nuccia) and Nelo

committed suicide in 1900.

Risi’s Within the Matter (Dentro la sostanza). Interests include

7

As discussed in Sebastiano Vassalli’s Alcova elettrica, the Church and ruling

Italian Futurism, Verism, Neo-realism, modern literature,

politicians of Florence interfered with attempts by Futurist intellectuals to

poetry, cinema, and critical theory. She is currently working

investigate the life of Christ, the man, such as Papini’s “Gesu peccatore” (Jesus

towards a dissertation on forgotten Italian critic and

the Sinner), which was published in Lacerba following Tavolato’s “Elogio della

director Antonio Pietrangeli. She teaches courses on Italian

prostituzione” (“In Praise of Prostitution”). It is worth pointing out that Tavolato

language, cinema, and culture at UCLA, but spends as much

was indicted for his article, which was condemned as a threat to public decency

time as possible in Rome.

by Florentine officials, while Papini’s article was brushed under the rug.

8

What he means here is that those who write chronicles and use theological

language call women “shamed” if they willingly engage in sexual intercourse.

9

Scabies, a contagious and itchy skin disease caused by mites, is relevant to

N ATASH A SU B R AMA N IA M AL I SA LA P I D U S

ZERGÃœT 1 Film still Canon 5D, Mark II 2011

18

19

ZERGĂœT 2 Film still Canon 5D, Mark II 2011

20

ZERGĂœT 3 Film still Canon 5D, Mark II 2011

21

ZERGĂœT 4 Film still Canon 5D, Mark II 2011

F I LTE R I NG HI TCHC OCK ’ S PS YCHO T H RO U G H NI ETZ S CHE ’ S PR E -MOR A L WO R L D O F D E BT A ND GU I LT 22

CHRISTINE HAROUTOUNIAN

23

Without cruelty, no festival: thus teaches the oldest, longest part

of man’s history­—and in punishment too there is so much that

correlation between the German words for “guilt” (Schuld)

is festive!

and “debt” (Schulden), and explains that guilt initially

—Friedrich Nietzsche1

In his Genealogy, Nietzsche identifies the

had no relationship with morality. Creditors who made agreements with debtors that did not uphold their promises

W

hen one thinks of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, the

could retaliate by physically harming the irresponsible

iconic shower scene accompanied by the frantic

debtor, purely out of pleasure or an expression of anger,

shrill of violin strings in their highest, hair-raising register

thus making compensation “consist in a directive and right

often comes to mind. These searing elements not only

to cruelty.”2 The repetition of facing cruelty after forfeiting

helped launch the film’s celebrated status in cinematic

a promise, however, has been burned into memory since

history, but also transformed the B-movie horror genre

man’s prehistory, permanently training the mind to expect

into one of endless artistic potential. Despite its immense

that punishment will be exacted every time a promise

success during its 1960 release, Psycho goes beyond the

is forgotten or broken. Making a memory for the human

one-dimensional conventions of a commercial hit and keenly

animal is centered on pain being “the most powerful aid of

explores the age-old concepts of guilt and debt, which are

mnemonics,” where “only what does not cease to give pain

also subjects that Friedrich Nietzsche examined. Psycho

remains in one’s memory.”3

is not brainless entertainment; it blatantly expresses and

subtly intertwines these pillars of Nietzsche’s work within

relationship between guilt and debt and, to this day, are

the film’s dialogue, settings, composition, and actions of the

built around rituals of offenses and punishment. We are

characters.

all debtors to society, which “credits” us with protection.

Thus, we have social “duties” and feel violated when one

Nietzsche took up the relationship between

Social institutions are a product of this

guilt and debt almost eighty years before the making of

trespasses on these social obligations; what results is an

Psycho, and yet that relationship plays a critical role in this

urge to punish the offender to uphold the very security with

analysis of the film. Although Hitchcock refers directly

which society credits us. This causes people to constantly

to Nietzschean philosophy in other films such as Rope,

watch and judge others while monitoring themselves to be

Nietzsche’s intellectual concepts permeate the thrust of

sure that their behavior is appropriate at all times. Guilt,

Hitchcock’s best-known film through similar explorations

then, begins to plague the mind of the wrongdoer when

of the malicious underpinnings of human nature, and

he or she is obliged by an agreement but does not stay

particularly through the similarities (whether coincidental

true to it, creating an inextricable bond with debt. Hints

or purposeful) between the historical characters of debtee

of this relationship are expressed in the beginning scenes

and debtor found in Genealogy of Morality and the lead roles

of Psycho, the first instance of which is introduced by Sam

of Marion Crane and Norman Bates in Psycho. My intention,

(John Gavin), the handsome lover of Marion (Janet Leigh),

however, is not to show that Hitchcock directly used

as they get dressed in a cheap motel room after one of their

Nietzsche’s theories to create the storyline, but rather to

lunchtime rendezvous.

filter the film with relevant ideas that are brought up in the

philosopher’s line of work.

claims that he is “tired of sweating for people who aren’t

In this first scene, Sam turns to Marion and

24

there,”4 after he realizes that he cannot treat Marion the way

however, represents a dark behavioral transformation as she

he really would like to because of his tight financial situation.

begins to pack her suitcase to flee with the money. Marion’s

He explains that he works hard to pay his deceased father’s

darker clothing symbolizes her broken obligation to Cassidy,

debts and his ex-wife alimony while she lives on the other

which he can now use, according to Nietzsche, to attain

side of the world. Although he is referring to monetary

“the elevating feeling of being permitted to hold a being in

pressures that are tangible and have a direct impact on his

contempt and maltreat it as something ‘beneath himself.’”5

life, his mention of being indebted to “people who aren’t

The creditor, following the logic of the form of compensation

there” foreshadows the emotional and psychological dues

in the Second Treatise, can “subject the body of the debtor

that Marion and characters not yet introduced suffer as the

to all manner of ignominy and torture.”6 In other words,

plot unfolds.

Cassidy can feel a sense of satisfaction by participating

in the power of punishment against Marion because she

When Mr. Cassidy, the "old lease man," buys

property for his daughter for $40,000 in cash, the film

is injuring the creditor and the community through her

literally emphasizes money as he waves a thick envelope

criminal act of stealing the money given to her by Cassidy.

full of cash in front of Marion’s face after explaining that he

deals with unhappiness by buying it off. The composition

viewer can spot a shower in the background, foreshadowing

of this scene is particularly eye-catching because Marion

her tragic fatality later in the film. What is more noteworthy

is sitting below Cassidy with her hand to her chin, with a

and subtly nuanced, however, is Marion looking at herself

scrupulous look in her eyes. As Cassidy begins to question

in the mirror. This first mirror shown in the film becomes

whether or not she is unhappy, he assumes the position

a repetitive symbol, and the use of reflections alludes to

of a teacher as he explicates that earning and spending

the earlier reference to people monitoring others and their

money keep him content, while Marion, seated close to

own behavior to stay morally acceptable. The moment that

her desk, nods her head and takes mental notes. Cassidy’s

Marion steps in front of the mirror, the viewer sees two

pompousness, brief interrogation of Marion’s state of joy,

versions of her, which is representative of the dichotomy

and decision to pay the sum in cash serve to plant the

between what the public can judge and engage with based

formula of “money equals happiness” in Marion’s head,

on outward appearances, and one’s innermost impulses

especially since this all takes place immediately after her

and feelings concealed from any public knowledge. Her

stressful departure from her lover, Sam, who can’t be with

reflection is cast in slightly heavier shadows, hinting at

her mostly due to monetary concerns.

Marion’s sudden immoral decision to break her promise

to her boss of ten years by disappearing with the envelope

In the scene after Marion is entrusted to take

While Marion is preparing to leave her home, the

Cassidy’s money to the bank, guilt is foreshadowed in the

(and thus, her feeling the first inkling of guilt), while her

form of the black lingerie that Marion wears, in contrast

outward, “real” self is shown ironically in brighter light,

to her white lingerie at the beginning of the film. Although

representing what society sees her as: a stunning female

Marion doesn’t seem like the most innocent character

who is ostensibly incapable of even thinking of such a crime.

when she is introduced in a cheap motel as an unmarried

woman with a divorced man, she is still not a “bad” person

subsequent scene of her driving away from the city with her

that commits crimes. The change to black undergarments,

suitcase and Cassidy’s money. The viewer hears a voiceover

Marion’s guilt becomes more obvious in the

25

of Marion imagining Sam’s response when she surprises him

finds herself less powerful against the vigilant, unavoidable

with her presence: at first he is happy to see her, but then

judgment of society. It is a feeling that apprehensively

his tone becomes hushed and concerned as he notices that

hovers above her, so much so that she awakens the next day

something is bothering her and asks, “What is it, Marion?”7

to see the personification of authority outside her car door:

Before she can complete the conversation in her mind and

a police officer.

explain her rash decision to imaginary Sam, her boss and

Cassidy cross the intersection where her car is stopped,

rousing the officer’s suspicion, the image of the

pulling her out of her daze. Marion’s guilt is amplified when

vehicle-turned-predator from this earlier scene is featured

her boss, politely smiling at her as he walks past her car,

in a later scene in which she is driving to the used car

suddenly stops to stare at her sternly, as if instantly sensing

dealership. This time, rather than being surrounded by cars

her guilt, or at least that something is terribly wrong. The

in traffic, Marion is driving down a deserted highway with

drastic change in music heightens this tense moment, as

only the policeman stalking her. She has deviated from

incisive violin notes indicate a frenzied sense of panic––

present moral conceptions and she is isolated. As she starts

the kind of panic people feel when they are about to get

panicking, the same portion of the score from the scene in

punished for doing something immoral. The crescendo,

which her boss sees her stopped in traffic begins to play

coupled with Marion’s terrified expression, rapidly

again, and the police car behind her veers slightly to the left

transforms an ordinary street into a precarious setting, as

and then to the right. The veering of the police car not only

the cars that were just idling behind her in traffic take on a

foreshadows her being followed and watched closely at the

more predatory tenor now that her guilt is intensifying her

Bates Motel, but it also represents what is taking place in

paranoia.

her mind. The maneuvering of the police car portrays her

The guilty state of mind is exhausting; the mind is

Although Marion is allowed to drive away, despite

thought process of either going back and forth between

convoluted as one nightmarish thought sprouts obsessively

returning home (and to moral security) or continuing her

after another. All the while, nerves are frayed and the body’s

long journey. After all, Marion follows her base impulse to

“fight or flight” mechanism is overtaxed. Marion’s long

take the money in pursuit of her lover and their happiness,

drive to Sam, combined with her uncomfortable situation,

and yet she has not had one moment of serenity, let alone

makes it difficult for her to keep driving at night. She realizes

simple joy, since beginning her drive.

her level of exhaustion as she winces at the bright lights

of oncoming traffic while simultaneously being shrouded

the Bates Motel and meets Norman Bates (Anthony

in darkness. The blinding headlights represent the sharp

Perkins). When she signs a false name on the motel register,

glances and judgment of outsiders, and the heavy shadows

her reflection can be seen as she speaks to Norman, who

that surround her symbolize her acknowledgment that she

appears congenial and harmless. Here, the mirror and

has done something dishonest, even though it’s still not

reflection become clearer motifs in Psycho, as they highlight

too late for her to turn around, deposit the money, and go

guilty characters. Their role as revealers of guilt is apparent

home. With each oncoming headlight, she seems to grow

because Marion has committed a bad act, and thus far

weaker and weaker, eventually falling asleep on the side

her image is the only one that has been seen reflected in a

of the highway. While she still continues to flee, Marion

mirror. Norman, in reference to the motel’s lack of business,

The mirror is reintroduced when Marion enters

26

interestingly states, “There’s no use in dwelling on our

father died. Now, he feels indebted to his mother, who is

losses. We just keep on lighting the lights and following

supposedly very ill. He doesn’t dare to leave her or even

the formalities.” This speaks volumes about both of their

defy her, fearing the guilt that would arise from breaking his

personalities: Marion, who is troubled yet committed to her

obligations as a good, loyal son to the one person who has

immoral decision, stops obsessing over her recent actions,

supported him his entire life.

follows “the formalities” of being an attractive woman, and

adopts the passive role in which society and her closest

suggests that Norman send his mother to “another place,”

associates have placed her.

which Norman quickly and eerily infers as a madhouse,

where there are “cruel eyes studying you.”9 Once again,

8

Norman, too, keeps “lighting the lights” by

There is a great sense of tension when Marion

following the protocol of being a charismatic, welcoming

from Nietzsche’s perspective, the viewer can see how

hotel attendant whose sole purpose is to provide his guests

modern concepts of morality, manifested by careful hawkish

with comfort. Once they enter Room 1, there is another

examination on the part of others, have thrown these two

mirror that depicts only Marion as Norman introduces

characters into a sea of bad conscience. The terrifying

himself by his full name (a sign of honesty/familiarity),

stuffed birds in the parlor scene, along with the two pictures

offering her a cozy meal so that she doesn’t have to drive

of birds on the wall near the entrance of the bathroom in

out in the heavy rain. Here, it is as if the viewer is foolishly

Room 1, represent the relentless scrutiny these characters

led to believe that Norman is innocent because his literal

face­—the birds are ubiquitous, and while they are inanimate

reflection has not been cast thus far, and he has given

objects, they still hover above Marion and Norman, silently

the viewer no reason to doubt his courtesy. Meanwhile,

observing and passing judgment on their every word and

Marion’s undeniable sex appeal seems to intimidate him.

action.

After Marion overhears Norman arguing with Mother, he

returns to Room 1, where he faces his lone guest outside.

society at the Bates Motel, they still feel the repercussions

When he begins to lie about his mother, it is here that we

of debt and guilt. The birds function much like the mirrors

finally see Norman’s reflection against the motel room

and reflections: whether a person monitors him or herself or

window. Perhaps Marion is not reflected in the window in

others, judgment is absolutely inescapable, especially when

this scene because Norman’s falsehoods are much more

a debt is not paid back. That is to say, even though Marion

harmful than Marion’s crime, which upsets her boss and

and Norman are cut off from any human interaction, they

others, but never leads to any murderous rampages beyond

still feel the pressure of judgment as a result of their moral

the one to which she ultimately falls victim.

decay (or rather the internalization of fear of punishment).

This guilt, as Nietzsche noted, is expected in a society that

Once Norman and Marion enter the parlor to eat,

Although the two characters are isolated from

the film introduces the less tangible, more psychological

has inscribed the “unpaid debt is guilt” connection in its

aspect of debt, particularly when Norman states that

collective conscience for centuries. We regulate behavior

everyone is in a private trap and cannot get out. Unlike

by constantly monitoring each other’s actions. This is

Marion, who deliberately steps into a trap by fleeing with

reinforced in the scene where Norman knocks down one

$40,000, Norman thinks he never had that choice because

of the bird pictures in Room 1 when he rushes into the

his mother sacrificed everything to raise him after his

bathroom to find Marion’s body on the floor after she is

27

murdered by Norman. As soon as he disposes of the body,

Psycho completely transformed the horror picture genre and

he tidies up the room and places the fallen picture back on

set the standard for what is still featured in scary movies

the wall so that, once again, the two birds face in opposite

today: a rousing musical score, sinister motifs, and outright

directions, each keeping an eye on the other and the actions

brutality. Although it is tame in comparison to the real-

that take place in the room. It is fascinating to note that as

world violence that permeates the media today, the film

Norman cleans up the murder, the focus of the shot is still

remains relevant not only because it is entertainment that

on the envelope of money that Marion hid in a newspaper

laid precedents within cinematic history, but also because

upon her arrival at the mote—thus, the viewer, like the birds,

it explores the mystifying underpinnings of human nature

witnesses Norman’s actions and does not leave even the

without providing any concrete answers. But perhaps

smallest detail in the room go unnoticed. The envelope (the

this is where its timelessness partly lies­—Psycho has the

physical representation of debt), the gazes of the winged

ability to open up age-old concepts of society and morality

creatures, the viewer, and guilt are omnipresent forces.

that countless intellectuals such as Nietzsche have done

centuries prior, forcing viewers to peer into the deep

Ultimately, Norman is stuck in a perverted version

of the pre-moral state that Nietzsche describes, in which the

crevices of their minds to consider their relationship to a

creditor satisfies an unfulfilled debt by submitting the debtor

world forever governed by guilt, debt, and punishment.

to cruelty and torture. Although Marion is not dealt with by her creditors for her failure to take the money to the bank,

1

she ends up suffering at Norman’s hands. He is so obsessed

Matters,” in On the Genealogy of Morality, trans. Maudemarie Clark and Alan J.

with paying his dues to his mother that his inability to

Swensen (Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1998), 42.

actually do so leads him to murder her once he feels inferior

2

Ibid., 37.

as her son, especially when she prefers time with her lover

3

Ibid., 41.

over him. Because he sees no corrective measure taken

4

“The Stolen Hours,” Psycho, DVD, directed by Alfred Hitchcock (1960: Universal

in the reprisal of his own debts throughout his entire life,

City, CA: Universal Studios, 1998).

it is possible that Norman develops his psychosis and a

5

penchant for murder to satisfy these pre-moral impulses.

6

Ibid., 40.

7

“The High Pressure Customer,” Psycho, Hitchcock.

Another eerie connection to Genealogy lies in

Friedrich Nietzsche, “Second Treatise: ‘Guilt,’ ‘Bad Conscience,’ and Related

Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, 41.

Marion’s death, in keeping with what Nietzsche would

8

“Dinner with Norman,” Psycho, Hitchcock.

call the “festive” nature of cruelty, where “seeing-suffer

9

“Mother’s Problem,” Psycho, Hitchcock.

feels good, making suffer even more so.”10 While Norman’s

10

Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, 42.

perversity seems to relieve himself of some of the guilt he owes to Mother, the audience also participates in the festive

Christine Haroutounian is a Los Angeles-based artist and

dimensions of her suffering by watching her grizzly death on

writer who will complete her BA in Fine Art at UCLA in

the screen. The desire for punishment is equally present in

2012. She has researched and given tours of exhibitions

the audience who recognizes the transgressions of Marion

at the Hammer Museum and has served as the head of

and Norman, as it is also within the characters themselves.

the Publications Committee within the Hammer Student

Association (HSA) since 2009.

Many of the elements that Hitchcock used in

SA R A H AWA D

BASE Oil on canvas 54 x 72 inches 2010

28

29

DITCH PAINTING #5 Oil on canvas 60 x 60 inches 2010

30

LIMBS Oil on canvas 54 x 72 inches 2010

31

AUDIENCE Oil on paper 37 x 48 inches 2010

32

PEANUT Gouache on paper 8.25 x 11.25 inches 2007

33

EGG Gouache on paper 8.25 x 11.25 inches 2007

KA R AWANE: A F R ACTUR E D SELF -P ORTR AI T

RUTH CHUN

34

35

When I started the Cabaret Voltaire, I was sure that there must

a violent war. In fact, when Ball began reciting “jolifanto

be other young men in Switzerland who, like myself, wanted not

bambla o falli bambla . . . ” the crowd was further unified in

only to enjoy their independence, but also to give proof of it.

their incomprehension of his speech. By composing a poem

—Hugo Ball1

purified of nationalistic “use,” he deconstructed the notion that language must be linked to nationalistic undertaking.

T

he emergence of Dada is often traced back to the

Ball’s sound poem severs a semantic

formation of the Cabaret Voltaire, when a group of

relationship—namely, the tie between what Ferdinand de

young intellectuals from all over warring Europe met in

Saussure defined as “signifier” and “signified.”6 In Course

neutral Zürich to enjoy their independence.2 The members

in General Linguistics, Saussure argued that the association

of the group, which included Hugo Ball, Tristan Tzara, Hans

between a specific “signifier” to a “signified” is completely

Arp, and Marcel Janco, experimented with various art forms

arbitrary—that is, “[the signifier] has no inherent connection

to explore the extent of their freedom as independent men,

with the signified.”7 Comprehension, then, hinges upon

liberated from the obligations of war and ties to a distinct

a mutual understanding of the semantic system. In his

artistic practice. On June 23, 1916, Hugo Ball premiered his

performance, Ball ruptured this system by using phrases

sound poem Karawane, a peculiar collection of noises he

that make no reference to anything at all. As he continued

would eventually call “Verse ohne Worte” or “poem with-

his performance with phrases like “schampa wulla wussa

out words.” By eliminating intelligible words from poetry,

olobodid,” it became clear that his poem was not meant to

Ball challenged the assumption that language must com-

deliver a message. By referencing a variety of “signifiers”

municate a coherent message. The poem instead directed

unrecognizable to any linguistic community, Ball challenged

the attention inward, to the speaker Hugo Ball. Karawane,

the necessity of associating a word with a real world

however, does not represent a victorious man savoring the

object or concept in the world. As a result, he emancipated

jubilance of newfound independence. On the contrary, the

language from its “use” of facilitating communication. In

incomprehensible fragments of syllables and broken pho-

the end, the audience simply received the poem itself—pure

nemes reflect the fragile remnants of a victim disfigured by

sounds without linguistic purpose.

the trauma of war.

also liberated his poem from being a means to an end, a

3

Ball’s desire to create a wordless verse, to “give

By purging language from its semantic “use,” Ball

up the word”4 as he wrote in his diary, represents his

horror he attributed to propagandistic journalism.8 Through

attempt to liberate language from its “use.” In the wake of

the advent of easily reproducible prints and posters, words

World War I, the misuse of language was destructive—at

were transformed into commodities that were “abused

that time, words were manipulated to justify murder and

and corrupted”9 to promote, in this case, world war. By

jingoistic self-promotion. Ball’s performance, however,

valuing “the performance of his poems over their graphic

rebuilt the community that had been brutally partitioned

representation,”10 Ball freed language from circulation and

under the guise of nation building. Like the artists of Cabaret

its use as a replicable object. Furthermore, absent semantic

Voltaire, Ball’s audience fled from their war-torn homes

significance allowed for the constant metamorphosis of the

to seek refuge in neutral Zürich. Gathered together in a

phoneme. The development from “gadji” to “gadjama” to

nightclub, they symbolized a moment of peace amidst

“glandridi,” for example, points to the alterable identity of

5

36

language. T. J. Demos, in his analysis of the poem, argues

excretions. To reiterate this point, Ball presented himself on

that “any given term can consequently never be fully located

stage, alongside three music stands holding his prepared

and is always becoming different.” Therefore, as a result of

text.14 Wearing a Cubist mask and a costume of blue

such plasticity, language is not consistent enough to realize

cardboard, he incorporated his body into his performance.

a specific purpose. As a poem of pure, ever-changing sound,

While the significance of the unrecognizable phonemes

Karawane exists only within the moment it is pronounced.

could not be associated with nationalism or semantics,

Ball thus prevented his poem from becoming an item that

the poem was clearly a representation of Ball himself: the

could be dominated by a personal agenda.

language was Ball’s voice, the written text was a part of the

stage equipment, and the performance showcased his body.

11

Liberated from promoting nationalism,

Although the incomprehensibility of Karawane

manipulating an audience politically, and facilitating

communication, Karawane represents the poem, and

liberates language from its nationalistic use, the fragmented

language in general, as is: an invention. While reflecting on

references to various dialects reflect the brokenness of the

the performance, Ball even called his poem an “invented

nation and the displacement of Ball himself. The poem is

. . . genre of poems.”12 Indeed, the structure of the poem

not written in a single language but touches upon several

suggests that the variations of unfamiliar phonemes

at once. For example, “jolifanto” phonetically points to

are endless. For while Ball continuously presented new

a French hybrid of joli (pretty) and éléphanteau (baby

combinations of sounds to hinder exploitation, he also

elephant).15 Just as these sound elements evolved from

adhered to a traceable evolutionary process. To remark on

each other, they are also a result of combining and adding

the previous example: “gadji” morphs into “gadjama,” which

onto the phonetic parts of familiar languages. In a way, this

soon expands to “glassala glandridi glassala.” Karawane thus

transformation process symbolizes the fractured nation. If

follows a pattern of amalgamation. The morphing of sounds

words like joli and éléphanteau represent France, then the

in the poem is Ball’s creative signature; his role as the

formation of “jolifanto” illustrates France, ruptured and

inventor of this new “genre” is unquestionable. Furthermore,

rearranged by war. There is also an allusion to Spanish, with

unbounded by any linguistic precedent or political itinerary,

habla (to talk), and Portuguese, with falli (speech).16 Ball’s

the evolution of these phonemes could theoretically

play with verbal communication continues as these words,

continue forever. Demos maintained that even “a laundry list

like the other phrases in the poem, soon transform into

could be poetry.” The possibility of infinite arrangements

other unrecognizable forms: “hollaka,” “hollala,” “fataka.” By

suggests that language, because it is an invention, can

fracturing and transforming the words that signify speech,

always be reinvented.

Ball demonstrated his own struggle for expression. It is as if

13

While the language in Karawane is free from

the Spanish, French, or Portuguese versions of a word were

misuse, it is still inevitably attached to its creator and

insufficient or perhaps irrelevant to Ball, and he therefore

speaker, Hugo Ball. During his performance, accented

moved on to other unfamiliar versions of these national

consonants soon developed into the chants of heavy

tongues. In renouncing nationalism, he no longer belonged

vowel lines. Although the sounds of the wordless verse

to any nationalistic community. While the references to

do not refer to any object, the noises clearly came from

Spanish, French, and other national tongues point back to

Ball’s mouth. In a way, the poem is a form of Ball’s bodily

Ball’s creation of a language unrestricted by nationalism, it

37

also symbolizes the remnants of nations devastated by the

and the politicians who endorsed the combat. Indeed, his

war and its result: Ball’s homelessness. The broken syllables

incomprehensible speech also critiqued the “senseless

of Karawane illustrate the wreckage of the nations and

noise, empty stories, [and] verbal blather” 19 of political

encapsulate Ball’s exile—he was also fragmented, mutilated,

discourse. He characterized all participants of war, which

and cut off.

included Ball himself, as broken individuals. Moreover, in his

As mentioned earlier, the poem’s broken

diary, he categorized himself as both a “ten-year-old lad” in

signifier-signified relationship points to an artificial

Mass and the presiding “bishop.”20 In his attempt to expose

communication system, yet it also represents Ball’s own

the artificiality of language, he ended up revealing himself as

inability to express himself. The jumbled fragments of

a fragmented and multifaceted being.

different national tongues indicate his homelessness. The

traumatic consequence of his exile is portrayed by a halted

identity. Ball himself characterized his outfit as an

verbal expression. His stuttering, suggested by the “ü ü ü”

assemblage of various elements: an obelisk, wings, a

in the middle of the poem, alludes to both a psychological

Cubist mask, and a high top hat.21 The combination of

and physical disability that prevented Ball from articulating

these unrelated components illustrates Ball’s difficulty in

complete words. Much like an individual paralyzed by stage

wholly encapsulating himself. Whether his costume was

fright, Ball stumbled over his words in fear and hesitation,

meant to be an extension of his body or an obscurity of

revealing his lack of self-confidence. Additionally, the

it remains unclear. At one point, he called the cardboard

stammering indicates a symptom of a physical defect, a

collar attached to his throat “my wings,” thereby infusing

speech impediment. Perhaps in reference to what Freud characterized as a “traumatized subject of brutal combat,”

Similarly, his costume symbolized his ruptured

the costume as a part of his body.22 This addition gave 17

him the ability to fly—an ability that surpassed his human

Ball presented himself physically handicapped by the war,

limitations. On the other hand, he also reported that his legs

a situation reflective of his actual experience.18 A symbol

“were in a cylinder of shiny blue cardboard.”23 The costume

of the fragmented semantic system, Ball himself became

debilitated Ball. Unable to execute normal activities such

disabled. Karawane thus displays a dysfunctional man

as walking, he was eventually “carried” offstage.24 The

disturbed by war.

outfit represented a means of improvement and a source of

harm. Moreover, it is unclear whether Ball evolved into this

The plasticity of language, in addition to pointing

back to itself as invention, reflects the unstable identity

cardboard sculpture or was concealed under a fabricated

of Ball. Within the performance, he played a variety of

exoskeleton. In Karawane, Ball evidently transformed, but he

roles. First, he was both the artist and the work of art.

left the nature of his metamorphosis and his true identity

He designed the outfit that enclosed his body, yet at the

undefined.

same time, he was also an essential part of his costume.

The blue cardboard covering and Cubist mask could be

of a splintered identity. In his description of the 1916

exhibited only if he were wearing it. Second, he resembled

performance, he separated his consciousness from his voice.

both a soldier and a politician. His rigid costume appeared

He wrote, “I noticed that my voice had no other choice but

like armor, while his position on stage alluded to an official

to take on the ancient cadence of the priestly lamentation.”25

orator. He, therefore, referenced the soldiers of the war

First, while he acknowledged his voice as his own with the

Ball’s diary entries allude to a third indication

38

use of a personal pronoun, he described the scene as if he

the fragments wholly. Hal Foster, in his article “Dada

was a third person narrator. For instance, he “noticed” the

Mime,” proposed that amidst the destruction and deception

change in his voice, which gave the speaker—“I”—the role

of the world war, “the Dadaists virtualized this figure of

of an observer and not a participant. He viewed his voice as

dehumanization as a form of defense.”27 And indeed, in

a character outside himself. Likewise, his inability to control

Karawane, Ball yielded his voice to pure sound—in order to

his voice signals the dichotomy between the voice and the

prevent complete dehumanization, he exhibited the broken

speaker; the voice is portrayed as possessing a desire of its

pieces of his identity.

own, apart from the consciousness of Ball. Furthermore, recounting that his voice “had no other choice” reiterates his

1

limited knowledge as a first person narrator. Once again, the

Voltaire, Zürich, 1916).

statement reveals that Ball is unaware of why his own voice

2

sounds a certain way. This illustration not only reemphasizes

revolutionaries. The city was a desired destination because of its geopolitical

his fragmented being but also points to his deficient position

neutrality and polylingual diversity. T. J. Demos, “Zürich Dada: The Aesthetics of

as a subject. This duality reveals an internal crisis taking

Exile,” in The Dada Seminars (Washington: National Gallery of Art, 2005), 8.

place within Ball. As demonstrated by his diary entry, it is

3

unclear whether he even fully grasped his own identity.

Viking Press Inc., 1974), 70.

4

Ibid., 71.

convinced of the unity of all beings, of the totality of all

5

In his diary, Hugo Ball refers to language and its “use” as two separate terms to

things that he suffers from the dissonances to the point of

question whether language has any “use” or function at all. I will be referring to

self-disintegration.”26 In his attempt to free language from

“use” in the same way throughout my paper.

its function of forming national communities, enabling

6

dialogue, and producing war propaganda, Ball strove

word, is made up of a sound image (“signifier”) and a concept (“signified”).

towards unity: a language without “use” and a verse of

7

pure sound does not divide people along political borders

Library, 1959), 69.

or deceive an ignorant audience—the poem is what it is.

8

Ball, Flight Out of Time, 71.

On the other hand, language in its purest form, which is a

9

Ibid.

product of an inventor and exists solely in the moment of its

10

articulation, reflects back to the speaker. Thus, while aiming

(Washington: National Gallery of Art, 2005), 11.

to reunite people under a homogenized language, Ball

11

Ibid., 10.

presented a fragmented speech and, ultimately, a fractured

12

Ball, Flight Out of Time, 70.

individual. In his performance of Karawane, Ball was not

13

Demos, “Zürich Dada: The Aesthetics of Exile,” 10.

speaking Spanish, French, or Portuguese, but every language

14

Ball, Flight Out of Time, 70.

and no language simultaneously. Similarly, he was not solely

15

Demos, “Zürich Dada: The Aesthetics of Exile,” 18.

the artist, the sculpture, the soldier, nor the bishop, but all of

16

Ibid.

these characters at once. Karawane is Ball’s self-portrait, and

17

Ibid., 8.

while it points to a fractured self, it nevertheless presents

18

Declared medically unfit for duty, Ball did not fight in the war, although

Ball conceded that the Dadaist “is still so

Hugo Ball, “Lorsque je fondis le Cabaret Voltaire . . . ” (facsimile from Cabaret

During World War I, Zürich was a haven for refugees, anarchists, and

Hugo Ball, Flight Out of Time: A Dada Diary, ed. John Elderfeld (New York: The

According to Saussure, a “sign,” which can refer to a linguistic unit such as a

Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics (New York: Philosophical

T. J. Demos, “Zürich Dada: The Aesthetics of Exile,” in The Dada Seminars

39

he did visit the front in 1914, which brought about a crisis that catalyzed his expatriatism and nearly ended in suicide. Ibid.

19

T.J. Demos, “Circulations: In and around Zürich Dada,” October 105

(Summer 2003), 151.

20

Ball, Flight Out of Time, 71.

21

Ibid., 70.

22

Ibid.

23

Ibid.

24

Ibid., 71

25

Ibid.

26

Ibid., 66.

27

Hal Foster, “Dada Mime,” October 105 (Summer 2003): 166-176.

Ruth Chun is finishing her last year at UCLA with a BA in Comparative Literature and a minor in Art History.

J EN N Y Y U R SH A NSK Y

40

41

PROJECTION (I HAVE A DREAM) Paper, offset print 10 x 26.5 inches x variable height 2008 (left and above)

I N DIALOG U E W I TH MEL AN I E OU YANG LUM: CONTEMPORARY ART IN CHI NA 42

IRIS YIREI HU

43

C

hinese contemporary art has a brief history of roughly

of painting from the dynastic period, and he used a lot

thirty years. In short, upon Deng Xiaoping’s reform of

of Soviet Realism in order to push forth the Communist

opening China to foreign markets in 1979, artists had the

Revolution. It was propaganda. The government also used

freedom to engage in Western art in ways they had not

a political pop style of art, and this dominated China during

been able to before. For a short decade, often known as the

the whole Cultural Revolution. In the 1970s, when China

“experimental period,” artists experimented with a variety

really opened up to the rest of the world, that’s when

of concepts and mediums; however, the Tiananmen Square

books about Western art and movements that took place

protests in 1989, also known as the June Fourth Movement,

during the Cultural Revolution in Europe and America were

led the Chinese government to terminate unofficial art.

exposed to the Chinese. It’s said that the first Chinese

Banned from museums and galleries, artists were prohibited

contemporary art exhibition on the mainland was China

to show work in the public sphere. But during the 1990s,

Avant-Garde, which opened in 1989 at the National Art

the West became interested in Chinese contemporary art,

Museum. A lot of people say that Chinese contemporary art

and began sourcing Chinese artists for exhibitions and

has only been around for thirty years, so ten years previous

collections abroad. Since then, foreign interest in Chinese

to China Avant-Garde is basically when many Chinese art

contemporary art has influenced the Chinese government

critics say Chinese contemporary art really first began. Last

to lift its restrictions on art. Thus, along with China’s

year, there was an exhibition called Reshaping History, and

modernization reforms, contemporary art in China has been

it was basically a large-scale exhibition showcasing Chinese

emerging both at home and abroad.

artists chosen by Chinese curators under the watchful eye

of the government documenting the last thirty years of

Having met Melanie Ouyang Lum while I was

in Beijing, I asked her to participate in an interview to

Chinese contemporary art.

discuss the rise of Chinese contemporary art. Melanie is the founder of ML Art Source, a consulting company based in

IYH: Can you tell me a little more about Reshaping History?

Beijing that sources emerging Chinese artists for museums, galleries, corporate clients, and private collectors around the

ML: Reshaping History was a really interesting exhibition

world. Our interview was conducted through Skype while

that took place at the National Convention Center, which

she was in China. Due to China’s prevalent governmental

is next to the Bird's Nest, one of the Olympic stadiums.

censorship, parts of this interview have been edited for her

It was curated by Lü Peng, a very important China-based

safety and security.

curator, and what was exhibited at the venue was only the most contemporary portion of Reshaping History,

Iris Yirei Hu: China has a rich history of more than five

also known as the First China Contemporary Documenta.

thousand years, but its contemporary art scene is just

So it documented the rise of Chinese contemporary art

starting to pick up. When and how did the contemporary art

from its roots to the current state, where we are now,

scene separate itself from traditional aesthetics?

globally recognized with high auction prices. It was really interesting for me to see because it was about the rise and

Melanie Ouyang Lum: Well, during the Cultural Revolution,

development of Chinese contemporary art from a Chinese

Mao Zedong basically did away with all previous styles

standpoint, not from a Western standpoint. The government

44

really got behind it since it was such a huge exhibition, so of course there was nothing controversial.

The Gao Brothers’ photographs were included, and I thought that was interesting because the show incorporated almost all of the artists who had an impact on the rise of Chinese contemporary art, even though certain works that made them iconic or controversial weren't part of the exhibition.

In addition, Lü Peng incorporated the five top-selling artists into the exhibition, and he did not choose artworks from their iconic series that have made them famous. For

Mao’s Guilt, Gao Brothers, bronze, 45.25 x 28.5 x 30.25 inches, 2009.

example, Fang Lijun didn't show his colorful, bald men with big, big mouths. Yue Minjun didn't show his cynical realism.

The curator chose new works from 2010 to show the artists'

regime and even the current regime. For example, I just met

development. The audience could view the new works from

with them recently and we were discussing [the Chinese

these famous artists and see that they’re much different

dissident] who won the Nobel Peace Prize.

from their earlier iconic pieces. Lü Peng was making a bold statement there.

IYH: What is their relationship to him?

IYH: I know you represent the Gao Brothers, and they’re the

ML: The Gao Brothers are good friends with [the Nobel

epitome of governmental censorship. Can you tell me a little

Prize–winning dissident] and his wife. They’re friends with

more about the Gao Brothers and their work? They recently

a lot of dissidents who have been persecuted by the current

had their first show in America, correct?

regime. They feel that it is one of their motives to show the rest of the world what China really is like, because a

ML: That was their first museum show in the United States,

lot of Chinese contemporary art just paints a beautiful

but they are big internationally. They’ve had a few shows in

picture, whereas the Gao Brothers really want to put forth a

the U.S., like the 2004 International Center for Photography

message. Their solo show at the Kemper Museum showed

in New York. The Gao Brothers are very special artists

an extremely controversial piece, Mao’s Guilt, a kneeling

because they, along with the few controversial artists

Mao, and I think that for a Western audience it doesn’t seem

remaining in the Chinese contemporary art scene, speak

like a controversial piece—maybe Miss Mao would be more

their minds. Very few artists do these days because of the

controversial—but [Mao’s Guilt] is ultimately more shocking

government crackdown on Chinese contemporary art. To

because Mao is put on his knees in reverence and guilt. It’s

me, they are very special because although their artwork is

called Mao’s Guilt because the Gao Brothers believe that if

controversial, they are sweet and endearing people. Their

Mao or his regime were able to apologize for all the things

father was taken from them during the Cultural Revolution,

that happened during the Cultural Revolution, China could

and they have a lot of friends who suffered under Mao’s

start talking about the atrocities that happened. But because

45

that has never happened, a lot of the younger generations

culture and their own history. Is this notion reflected or

have never known much about the Cultural Revolution, and

challenged in the art scene now?

so many of the atrocities are just unspoken.

ML: Right. I work with a lot of these post-’80s generation With regards to the government crackdown, the Gao

artists, and they are extremely different from the artists

Brothers fortunately are such huge international names that

who were born in the ’60s. The artists born in the ’60s,

the government can’t really take them down, but people

because of their close proximity to the Cultural Revolution,

around them have been harassed or punished. The foundry that created Mao’s Guilt faced the disappearance of its boss, so certain things like that are definitely still happening in China. But as China’s government is starting to back Chinese contemporary art more and more, there are also more restrictions. So many younger Chinese artists are far removed from the Cultural Revolution and don’t see the injustices as clearly as the older generation. With artists from the generation of the Gao Brothers, a lot of the ones who spoke up don’t anymore because of what has happened recently in China, incidents that no one ever hears about.

Earlier last year, the 0-0-8 incident occurred, forcing artists in the 0-0-8 artist community to leave their studios within a week. For most of the artists, that’s where they lived with their families, so they staged a protest and they wouldn’t leave, resulting in artists getting beaten with bricks in the middle of the night, many even to a bloody pulp. Several were taken to the hospital. Lots of unjust things are still happening, but it’s all kept hush-hush.

IYH: What about the youth in China? You briefly touched upon it earlier, how they’re so separated from and distanced from the Cultural Revolution. No one talks about it. I believe [the Chinese government] censored a lot—particularly a ton of pictures taken during the Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen Square student demonstrations. When I visited, it seemed to me that [the youth] was so deeply, deeply fascinated with the West—American culture, Europe, Italy, and beyond. They seem very indifferent about their own

Miss Mao No. 3, Gao Brothers, painted stainless steel, 94.5 x 67 x 59 inches, 2007.

46

don’t see the pretty picture of modern China. They see what

poor? Capitalism and consumerism?” Whereas the younger

China has gone through and then they see the capitalism

generation is saying, “Where do I fit into all of this?”

and consumerism of China today. The post-’80s generation are all products of the one-child policy, which is something

IYH: You mentioned the Great Firewall of China. Are there

that other countries have never been through. These

still ways around it and is that seen through the visual arts?

children don’t have brothers and sisters. They have parents

Do artists challenge this Internet censorship?

and grandparents who have cared for them a lot. They are more inwardly focused, and I think that comes from

ML: In my experience, I think the older generation definitely

just the climate that they’ve grown up in. They’ve grown

challenges the system more. There are ways to get around

up with a more affluent China, and they are mostly in the

the Great Firewall. There are lots of code names that have

big cities now, especially the artists I’m working with, or

developed, because if you want to know the truth, it’s out

showing internationally. They’re showing in the U.S. and

there. You just have to be very cunning. For example, one

Europe, they’re growing up with American television and

of the abbreviations for the Tiananmen Square incident is

European films, they’re allowed to leave the country and go

“6/4,” because it happened on the sixth month, the fourth

on vacations. The world is a much smaller place for them

day. Whenever you see “6/4,” it’s a code name for the

than for the ones who were born in the ’60s and felt the last

incident. There are many code words that are popping up

remnants of the Cultural Revolution.

in China. When the Firewall figures out what the code is, there’s already a new code in place. In order to find out the

The younger generations only see the China of today. Their

truth, you already have to be part of this circle and that’s

parents generally never talk about the Cultural Revolution,

very hard. If you’re just reading it and you don’t know what

so the children know nothing about it. They know maybe

they’re mentioning, “6/4” might not mean anything to you,

some propaganda, but they really don’t know the truth. The

but the people who are always trying to relay the truth to

Tiananmen Square incident and the Great Firewall of China

the rest of the world, or at least to the Chinese community,

1

is actually very, very impressive, and if you look up [the

come up with these code words because they know the

Tiananmen Square incident] in China, there are no pictures

whole Internet can’t be blocked. Things always pop up, news

of any deaths. Many educated Chinese actually think that it

stories always pop up, and then they are censored.

was just a protest and that nobody died. It’s very hard to be one step ahead of the Great Firewall of China. The post-’80s

The Gao Brothers are always trying to uncover the truth

generation is a very different breed with more emphasis on

on the Internet, but some other artists are content just

being self-reflective about “my feelings” in modern China,

painting, eating, sipping their tea, and hanging out with

what modern China means to them. It’s very much more

their friends, so it really depends on the type of artist and

of their own path and their own journey through modern

the type of person. Some artists are definitely intellectuals

China versus the older generation who ask themselves,

and some are simpler, and I think it’s good to have this

“What have we become?” The Gao Brothers ask, “What is

kind of spectrum. With the Internet, I always use a VPN2

our predicament? What is the Chinese people’s predicament

because so many websites are blocked, from Facebook and

these days? What is the difference between the rich and the

YouTube to things that are more important like [recent news

47

Family Belongs (Huanghe River), Ma Hongjie, c-print photograph, 47.2 x 59 inches, 2006.

regarding] the Nobel Peace Prize. For example, when I tried

losing their essence because of modernization and because

to search for the speech without a VPN, nothing came up.

of the flourishing contemporary art scene?

I always use one, and I’ve helped a few artists install VPNs on their computers. But an interesting thing about the VPN

ML: Before, I’d say that I really didn’t know much about

is when you search for things in English, you can find them,

traditional styles of art because I’m only focused on

but when you search for things in Chinese, it shuts off. The

contemporary. But as I’ve started working more and more

Great Firewall even extends to that point, where they realize

with Chinese institutions, I’ve realized that ink painting is

that foreigners will want to search the whole Internet, and

flourishing, but it’s something that the West is typically not

they are allowed to, but if a Chinese goes onto a VPN and

interested in, so the West never hears about it. It’s still very

types in Chinese, it functions according to the Firewall. It’s

prominent in China, and some of these artists that I’ve never

very, very strong and very, very powerful, yet at the same

heard about are very famous in the “modern” ink-painting

time, I don’t think that that many people are as concerned

scene, [and their] works are very expensive and well known

as they used to be because there’s so much to distract them

within Chinese circles. While it may not be a point of

these days. Modern China is very much a capitalist and

interest to the West, the Chinese will always be interested

consumerist society.

in their own traditional painting. It’s a circle into which the West will not and cannot enter.

IYH: Are the traditional arts, like ink and brush paintings,

48

IYH: Why do you think the West isn’t interested in

countries. I think that’s something very hard to deal with on

traditional ink painting or traditional arts?

a daily basis. A lot of young artists I work with really just talk about how to internalize modernization and how to not

ML: I think that the West is interested in antiques because

let it completely kill you. China’s a wealthy nation. You hear

they’re from a certain time period. From a Chinese

about its modernization and urbanization, but when you’re

standpoint, beautiful brushwork is always beautiful

in Beijing, the extreme wealth is thrown in your face. I’ve

brushwork, even if it’s the same styles, themes, and imagery

never seen so many Ferraris and Bentleys in my life before,

that have been going on for hundreds or thousands of

and I grew up in L.A., so you wouldn’t expect that. I’ve seen

years. But I think with Chinese contemporary art, the West

more in the 798 Art District,3 where I live, which is scary

really wants to see a “new China.” They really want to see

because a $70,000 BMW sells for at least $200,000 in

what China is projecting into the future versus the past.

Beijing—three times more because of the tax. To add to that,

They want to see what the Chinese think about their own

most of the wealthy Chinese are only buying with cash, not

modernization. I think that ink painting is very beautiful

on credit. There’s just so much money and such a disparity

and very rooted in concept, but from a Western standpoint

between the rich and the poor that it’s very hard to find your

there’s just not enough conceptual investment behind it in

place in this.

comparison to Chinese contemporary art. You can write essays upon essays on the conceptual developments in

A new artist I just started working with, Ma Hongjie, works

contemporary Chinese art, and curators can get behind it

for the Chinese equivalent of National Geographic. He goes

too. I think that Chinese contemporary art is a vehicle for

to these desolate far-reaching places and takes pictures

people to talk about the future of China and what the West

of families and their living conditions, and of course it’s

is worried about. I think that whenever you see Chinese

beautifully rendered, but you can see that although Beijing

contemporary art in the West, it’s very strongly concept

and Shanghai and the centers have so much wealth, there

driven and not just pretty to look at. There’s always some

are also so many places in China that will remain untouched

powerful message about the rise of China.

by China’s rapid modernization and wealth. They’ve been living the same way for generations and generations, and

IYH: I wouldn’t think that’s all there is to it. What other

I think that’s something people will want to see. In reality,

trends, ideas, or concepts do young artists in 2010 and 2011

ninety percent of China’s geography is still extremely

like to explore? How do they challenge modernization?

desolate.

ML: The majority isn’t challenging modernization. A few

Another thing that artists are starting to speak about is

artists do challenge it, and they’re pushing for more natural

the arrival of the post-’90s generation artists, who are

use of cai liao, meaning materials, in terms of wood or

very different from the post-’80s generation. When the

bamboo. But I think that mostly what I’ve seen from the

post-’80s generation grew up, China was still poor. As they

young artists is how to grasp a rapidly modernizing China.

became college students, China was becoming richer, and

There are over twenty million people in the capital, and

now they’re in a completely modernized environment. Tons

some districts of Beijing have more people than many small

of foreigners, foreign brands, and anything you want is in

49

Beijing now. But the post-’90s generation artists have really

media will play out with the post-’90s generation?

grown up with a China that is a world economic power, one that is technologically advanced. The younger generation

ML: More galleries than ever before are focusing on new

is growing up with the Internet and with families that have

media. The Chinese concept of art is still very traditional,

the ability to own computers, laptops, and other expensive

and they really do like paintings more than sculptures. In

gadgets. Many of the older generations of artists are

the mainland, they don’t think prints are art. Photographs

very scared about the development of the young Chinese

are something that are just recently being bought in.

generations, and how frightening the one-child policy is.

Before, photography didn’t make sense and now there’s a

There’s no other country that’s ever had generations of only

huge boom in contemporary Chinese photography—it’s

children.

what everyone wants to buy these days. I think once they see more of it, once there are bigger artists who are doing

IYH: Can you predict some trends or differences in the art of

video, installations, or whatnot, then it’ll be better. Is there a

the post-’90s generation?

stronger market for them now? No. But will there be? I think we’ll just have to see. The same could be said about large-

ML: I think there will definitely be more new media because

scale installations that push boundaries.

their lifestyle has such close proximity to many more gadgets than the post-’80s generation. I still think it’ll be

IYH: Do you think there’s room for an avant-garde, now that

heavily influenced by surrealism and fantasy, American

the upper bourgeois class of China is getting bigger and

culture and anime, and things of that nature. It’ll also

richer?

still be inwardly focused because they don’t see as many issues as someone who has grown up with different faces

ML: “Avant-garde” is always a difficult term. As for an avant-

of China. I think artists will be more international versus

garde art movement, I think that will have to take some time

always focusing on something that looks Chinese. The older

until more Chinese people are more comfortable financially.

generation’s art always looks Chinese because the market

Then artists will start thinking about bigger ideas like

wants it and because those artists haven’t seen as much as

freedom of speech, for instance. But when there are still so

the younger generation has. The younger generation is much

many people who are suffering, and when the gap between

better with English and different languages, so I think it’ll be

the rich and the poor is still so large, I don’t think that many

a more international sense of art versus what people liked

young people are going to think much about freedom of

to see previously. People want to see something else with

speech. On the other hand, many people think that several

more thought in it, and also something new.

Chinese artists are already extremely avant-garde, while others contradict that. I think that Sun Yuan and Peng Yu,

IYH: Zhang Peili established the New Media Center at the

two highly respected conceptual artists, are “avant-garde”

China National Academy of Fine Art in Hangzhou, and yet I

in my definition of the word. They are paving the way for the

also read that a lot of artists don’t focus only on video, just

future of Chinese contemporary art by pushing boundaries

because there’s no forum for showing it. It’s only getting

of what is considered art and what isn’t thought of as art.

harder because of the Firewall. How do you think digital

They have used everything from pouring liquefied human

50

fat into a body of water to driving a fabricated police vehicle

because it shows how much China wants to develop its

around town in order to create their videos. They have

own art field. To make it here, you have to let go of all your

used dog carcasses and made them into light boxes. On

preconceived notions of the Western art model, and just go

several occasions they have used baby cadavers for their

with the flow, and do it the way the Chinese do it.

installations. My favorite piece of art they created is called Freedom and is a fire hose feverishly pumping out gallons of

IYH: You were born in the States and educated here, so you

water.

have a really solid Western background. How has living and working in China changed your perception of art?

IYH: When I interned at Beijing’s Today Art Museum in the summer of 2010, I was very much like a foreigner in the

ML: That’s a really interesting question. Since I’ve been

beginning—I really didn’t understand the work environment,

here a little while, I’ve changed a lot of my concepts about

the different ideologies, and I would question or challenge

what the art market is and what my role is in the art market,

certain things that I didn’t think were “right.”

how long I want to be here, and how much I have to give up my Western notions of what’s “right” or “wrong” in order

ML: The art world in China is completely new. No one

to be here. I think the art scene here is extremely different

was taught how to do anything; we’re just trying to do it

from anywhere else in the world. For one thing, I think

ourselves. Especially with the whole gallery and auction

artists here are much more free, in a sense. In the West,

system—many people think it’s corrupt, many people think

artists are signed to galleries for a certain amount of time,

it’s not the way it should be, but at the same time, we’re

and they can’t really move around as much as they would

trying to take a Western model and make it our own. It

like to. In China, the majority of artists are not signed to

is a completely new arena and has grown so quickly, so

a single gallery, so they can work with several galleries or

there will be mistakes. There’s a lot of money and financial

with whomever they want. Depending on the results of an

support, which have allowed these institutions to exist for

exhibition, Chinese artists can decide to continue working

so long. For example, the Today Art Museum is, for the

or cut off the relationship with a gallery. That gives the artist

most part, a for-rent space. Because of that, it has financial

the freedom to choose how he or she wants to develop

security, so it can fund really large-scale projects.

his or her career. Being an artist agent here is a great opportunity because I can bridge the East and the West,

No one gave the Chinese a list of rules, they just had to

and there are so many Western galleries looking for Chinese

figure it out, and I commend that. The Western model has

artists now. Also, since many Chinese artists don’t speak

been around for generations and generations, and everyone

English, you really need an intermediary, especially when

knows what a dealer is, an artist is, a curator is. Everyone

it comes to contracts or exhibitions—it’s very different. In

becomes pigeonholed into some role. In China, there’s a

China, it’s very much about your relationship with the artist.

pioneer spirit, where they experiment to figure things out.

One thing I like about the Chinese model is the freedom to

Some places have succeeded, some places have failed. The

figure out what you’re good at, and once you’ve proved your

majority of the spaces in 798, Songzhuang, and Caochangdi

worth, a lot of people will try to find you. That’s where I am

are all China based, and I think that’s really fascinating

right now. I’ve been able to help several young artists find

51

opportunities abroad, which ultimately boosts their careers

She has been featured in The New York Times, Los Angeles

into the international realm.

Times, Global Times, and The Art Newspaper. For more information, please visit: http://mlartsource.com.

IYH: There are people who say that China is a bubble about to burst. Do you think there’s any truth to that, and if you do, how would that affect the art scene and the art market?

ML: I think if it were a bubble about to burst, everyone wouldn’t be coming here. Just look at what China’s doing with other countries politically and economically, and how much money China’s putting into other countries. In regard to the bubble, I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think China’s going to continue to grow.

1

2

Term referring to China’s blockage of unauthorized Internet access.

Virtual private network that provides secure access to the Internet within that

network.

3

Located in the Dashanzi area of Beijing’s Chaoyang district, 798 Art District

is a space dedicated to contemporary art and culture. Originally the site of electronic-producing factories, 798 is now a thriving artistic community that houses museums, galleries, coffee shops, and gift shops. It is often compared to New York’s Greenwich Village or SoHo area, and has now garnered a reputation of being one of Beijing’s most prominent tourist hot-spots.

Iris Yirei Hu is an artist and writer based in Los Angeles.

She is currently completing her BA in Fine Art at UCLA. A graduate of Wellesley College, Melanie Ouyang Lum is the founder of ML Art Source, a consulting company based in Beijing that promotes Chinese contemporary art in Europe and the U.S. She sources artists and artworks for international collectors, galleries and corporations.

JA M I N Y I E

FIGURE WITH DRAPES Monotype 18 x 24 inches 2010

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53

FIGURES AT THE FOREST EDGE Monotype 24 x 18 inches 2010

V I SUAL I Z I NG O R I EN TAL I SM O N SCRE E N : T H E WOR L D O F S U ZI E WONG AN D LO ST I N TRANSL AT I ON

IRIS YIREI HU

54

55

E

dward Said’s groundbreaking work, Orientalism,

as it sits blatantly at the port, declaring colonial ownership

heavily influenced postcolonial cultural studies.

and suggesting the ideological framework upon which this

Rooted in eighteenth and nineteenth century European

film is based. The camera then pans across the crowd and

colonialism, Orientalism is, in short, the historical and

zooms in on the male protagonist, Robert Lomax (William

ideological practice of European superiority over Oriental

Holden), whose introduction does not fail to suggest that

backwardness.1 The West’s overwhelming dominance of the

he constitutes the film’s perspective and is the one who

East ultimately undermined the latter’s identity, creating an

drives the narrative. In the following scene, he meets Suzie

entirely new representation and discourse for it by way of

Wong (Nancy Kwan), who introduces herself as Mee Ling,

Western consciousness. The films The World of Suzie Wong

and their conversation becomes crucial when Suzie says,

and Lost in Translation exemplify colonial and postcolonial

“Chinese girl must be pure when she marries. [She] must

views of the Orient: what is foreign is either exoticized or

be . . . virgin! Yes, virgin! That’s me!” At the end of their

ridiculed.

encounter, Lomax smiles satisfyingly and declares, “Mee

Suzie, the big-budget classic Hollywood film set in

Ling. Virgin,”2 implying his deepened interest and pursuit

1960 Hong Kong, depicts the romantic relationship between

of Suzie. The interaction between Suzie and Lomax can be

a Chinese prostitute and an American artist who unite

read as a metaphor for Western penetration of a “virginal

across racial and hierarchal differences. The objectification

landscape,”3 which is Hong Kong in this case. Said suggests:

of the woman, however, extends itself into a hypersexualized

“The metaphoric portrayal of the (non-European) land

and racially charged Asian woman as Other, with Suzie

as coyly awaiting the touch of the colonizer implied that

Wong’s body as the site of colonialist intervention. Half a

non-European continents could only benefit from colonial

century later, Lost in Translation portrays an unlikely bond

praxis.”4 Thus, Suzie’s “virginity,” which in actuality has

shared by two Americans—a movie star and a newlywed—

already been taken, is used to seduce and lure Lomax,

who coincidentally meet in Tokyo. Similar Orientalist

metaphorically suggesting that she is an “untouched” piece

attitudes as those seen in Suzie, ridicule and distort the

of land “awaiting a master.”5 Likewise, once “ownerless” and

foreign landscape of Japan. Though filmmaker Sofia Coppola

seen as a “virgin” land, Hong Kong became property of the

uses certain instances in the film to mock how unforgiving

British, not unlike Suzie’s eventual submission to Lomax.

Americans can be when it comes to cultural stereotypes of

the Other, she ultimately preserves American culture and

through the Western voyeur. In her influential book, The

attitudes by perpetuating Orientalist stereotypes. Suzie and

Hypersexuality of Race: Performing Asian/American Women

Lost, though nearly fifty years apart, show the racial Other as

on Screen and Scene, Celine Parreñas Shimizu argues, " . . .

one that can never exist in its own right without the West,

hypersexuality is the primary legibility of Asian/American

and as one that will remain the site for Western rescue.

women in Hollywood.”6 Suzie Wong is no different; she

The opening scene of Suzie establishes the West

Suzie is the site of racialized sexuality, as seen

is a prostitute whose sexuality constitutes her worth and

as the film’s dominant voice and perspective. Chinese

whose race reinforces her sexuality as an exotic alternative

fishing boats—seemingly dirty and poorly constructed—are

to that of a white woman. In the second bar scene, Suzie’s

shown in comparison to a large, powerful, and modern

entire body, tightly wrapped in a form-fitting qipao,7

British cruise ship. The camera privileges the cruise ship,

is consistently framed in the center of the shot as she

56

dances seductively with an American sailor. Though she is

while preserving her Oriental beauty, innocence, and

positioned in the middle of the frame, her movements are

subservience, exemplifying ideal, racialized sexuality.

so sexually pronounced that the sailor and everyone else

in the foreground become irrelevant. The other couples on

into Lomax’s room wearing a European floral-print dress,

the dance floor, along with the bar crowd, are intentionally

he finds the outfit distasteful and literally rips it off her.

blurred by the camera, reaffirming Suzie’s status as the

He grudgingly says, “You look like a cheap European

sole focus. The camera leaves Suzie’s body only to show

streetwalker,” strips her garments off while pushing her

the mere instances of the “male gaze”8 that Lomax and Ben

on the bed, and finishes with, “you haven’t the faintest

(Michael Wilding), whom she playfully seduces, direct at

idea what real beauty is.”10 Suzie does not fight back, but

her. She becomes the idealized object of the “gaze,” as she

only recites how much everything cost, and starts crying.

is being watched through the Western eyes of Lomax, Ben,

Suzie sobs and hides her face in the bed in a position of

and the lens of the camera. Suzie is the Asian femme fatale

defeat as the camera gazes condescendingly down on her.

who exemplifies the Western fantasy of hypersexualizing

As the racial Other, she has no voice or power to resist

racial and gendered subjects in representation.9 She is

while Lomax violently strips off her garments and leaves

tied to her race and sexuality; furthermore, her role as a

her sobbing in defeat, thereby exerting dominance over

prostitute underscores the marginal yet overwhelming

her. Considering that Suzie is clearly non-Western, she

stereotype of Asian women as passive sexual objects in

must be kept within the fantasized realm of the Orient; for

Hollywood cinema. The mise en scène is constructed to

her to exist, her sexuality must be differentiated from that

show how Asian women are sexualized and stereotyped

of Western women. Therefore, one of the ways in which

through the literal and metaphorical lens of the Western

she is exoticized is through Chinese fashion. This scene

voyeur.

not only constitutes the relationship between dominance

Furthermore, Suzie’s fashion choices articulate

By contrast, in the scene where Suzie comes

and submission, but more importantly it is a microcosm

Western fantasies of the racial Other. The way the qipao

of Orientalism: the Orient did very little to resist Western

accentuates her figure distinguishes her as the site of

intervention, and ultimately yielded to its power.

racialized sexuality; an emblem of cultural fashion, the

qipao verifies her Oriental presence. Lomax buys Suzie an

and docile nature symbolizes two extremes of colonialist

expensive Oriental gown that once belonged to a Chinese

discourse. In the first scene, when she models for Lomax,

Empress. Once she puts on the gown, she is immediately

Suzie is introduced in the center of the frame through

exoticized, as the camera even tilts up to idolize her

a downward camera angle that is condescending and

presence, signifying the way the Western voyeur glorifies

belittling. As she sits on the bed singing “Cloud Song,”

Oriental femininity. Suzie then kneels before Lomax,

viewers are invited to literally look down on her. In contrast,

declaring her love for him, and they share a passionate

the camera looks up at Lomax when he speaks, illustrating

kiss. This scene—of Suzie in an exotic royal outfit kneeling

the hierarchal relationship between him and Suzie.

down to Lomax—symbolizes idealized femininity of the

Furthermore, when Suzie asks Lomax if he wants to know

racial Other: a docile Chinese woman who falls at the

the meaning of the song, he tells her, “Yes, but don’t move,”11

feet of her Western lover. She prioritizes Lomax’s desires

and she continues telling the story. Lomax’s chastising

The dichotomy between Suzie’s hypersexuality

57

reminders for her to keep still consistently interrupt and

arranging depict Japan as a “pure and welcoming” place,

suppress her storytelling—the content of which is childlike

once again reflecting an extreme of colonial discourse, as

and immature—demonstrating an unusual parent-child

seen in Suzie. When Charlotte wanders into the temple, the

relationship, similar to colonialism. Innocent and childlike,

camera switches between the monks practicing a ritual and

Suzie obeys his commands, implying the Orientalist

Charlotte’s responses to her observations. Like a voyeur,

dichotomy between dominance and subservience as well

the camera follows Charlotte’s point of view and makes

as depicting the Orient as a “blissfully ignorant, pure,

its way into the temple, as the monks practice with their

and welcoming”12 land in need of European direction. The

backs toward us. The monks are faceless and unidentifiable

relationship between Suzie’s hypersexuality and innocence

and the significance of their chanting is undermined by

reflects the contradictory representation of a colony as

Charlotte’s presence. Buddhism, part of the historical and

being “pure” and equally “uncontrollably wild, hysterical,

ideological framework of Japan, is completely overshadowed

and chaotic, requiring the disciplinary tutelage of the law.”13

by Charlotte, essentially suggesting that the practice exists

In essence, Suzie, emblematic of sex and naïveté, needs

for her amusement. The camera privileges Charlotte’s

to be controlled, suppressed, and tamed by Lomax, who

responses to the situation, not the practice itself. Charlotte

is superior to her in the same way that the West exerts

walks into a flower arranging class the same way she walks

superiority over the Orient. Thus, Suzie does not exist in

into the temple. The camera again acts as a voyeur. Though

her own right without Lomax, just as the Orient seemingly

initially uninterested, Charlotte participates in flower

cannot exist without the West.

arranging and ultimately finds it pleasurable. The voyeurism

Almost fifty years after The World of Suzie Wong,

of the camera as it peers into Charlotte’s activities is

Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation depicts Japan—the

constructed not only to symbolize her interiority, but also

modernized and technologically advanced capital of the

to exoticize Japan from the Western perspective. These

East—in the same Orientalist light as in Suzie. Where Suzie

activities, traditional practices in Japan, are seen merely

was the object of the “gaze” in Suzie, Tokyo is viewed in the

as pristine and receiving: they connote nothing more. The

same manner in Lost. In fact, neglected newlywed Charlotte

significance of these practices is completely obscured by the

(Scarlett Johansson) is first introduced to the viewer

Westerner’s presence.

through her gaze onto Tokyo from the windowsill of her

hotel room. The in and out of focus on Charlotte and Tokyo

image of an uncivilized Orient is showcased by the film’s

implies her physical and emotional detachment from the

depiction of Japanese women. Whereas Charlotte and Bob

city. Her quiet gaze also contrasts with the loud and busy

Harris (Bill Murray) equally drive the narrative, the Japanese

atmosphere of Tokyo into which she is unable to integrate.

women are hypersexualized and objectified, existing only for

Charlotte is a Westerner in a foreign land, and her gaze,

comic relief and visual pleasure. A Japanese prostitute asks

which she employs multiple times throughout the film,

Bob to “lip [her] stockings”14 (by which she means “rip,” but

signifies her as the Western voyeur.

cannot properly pronounce it), and when Bob unwillingly

attempts to rip her stockings, she purposely falls on the

As a contrast to Tokyo’s neon-drenched

In contrast to Japan as pure and receiving, the

cityscape and loud crowds, Charlotte’s solitary excursion

floor at his mere touch and pleads in a sadomasochistic

to a Buddhist temple and her participation in flower

voice, “Oh, no, no, no! Don’t touch me! Mr. Bob Harris . . .

58

just lip my stocking! Oh, no, no, help please! Help!”15 While

frame. Her tantalizing presence is amplified by the mirror,

she screams, the camera focuses on Bob sitting on his bed

which literally doubles her bare body, ensuring her role as

in disbelief, with a pair of legs wobbling in the background.

a sex object. This scene epitomizes the film’s Orientalist

Although the prostitute is actually on the floor next to the

attitudes toward the Japanese. It represents the other end of

bed, we are only able to see her legs in the air and hear

the colonialist discourse: a foreign land can connote purity

her hysterical “pleas.” She is clearly objectified. Bob, still

and divinity (as seen through Charlotte’s solitary excursion)

in disbelief, tries to end the absurdity by making her leave,

at the same time that it projects uncontrollably sexualized

but ends up falling on top of her, unable to control the

and chaotic extremes.

frenzied situation. Ultimately, this scene has no meaning

other than its intended comic relief. The only difference in

whether mocking or subtly implied, exemplifies the clear

this depiction of the racial Other is that, although she is a

disconnect between East and West. Japan’s culture is

prostitute, she is unable to seduce Bob with her sexuality as

consistently ridiculed through seemingly silly and trivial

Suzie was able to seduce Lomax, and is therefore ridiculed

encounters. In the opening segment of the film, Bob's quick

for her presence.

introduction to his five Japanese agents ends with him

joking, “Great, short and sweet, very Japanese, I like that.”16

Additionally, whereas Japanese women are

The constant ridicule of the foreign culture,

hypersexualized, Japanese men are depicted as perverse.

The comment is immediately juxtaposed with the following

At Orange, the nightclub where Bob meets Charlotte and

scene of Bob in the elevator, where he is framed so that

her friends, Japanese men gaze erotically at exotic Japanese

he is uprooted in the dead center among a sea of short,

dancers. A girl dances on a pedestal in the middle of the

unidentifiable Japanese businessmen. The pairing of the

frame, and two Japanese men sit on either side of her. She

comment and the scene offers a humorous but stereotypical

is completely erotic and sexualized—unclothed except for

image of Japan through Western consciousness: it is as

a leather thong, garters, and platform heels. Other girls

if all Japanese are “short and sweet.” The juxtaposition of

dance in the background in support of this dancer. The

the scenes serves to mock the Western stereotype of the

camera then turns to Bob, who is seemingly uncomfortable

Japanese as being short. As Bob is noticeably taller than

and disinterested, and frames him from the space between

everyone, he sticks out like a sore thumb, disconnected from

the dancer’s legs. While Bob is uncomfortable, Charlotte’s

the rest, which signifies his detachment from the Japanese

Japanese friend, Charlie, is not. The camera frames Charlie

culture. While Coppola succeeds in depicting a cultural

and the dancer (who are in the next room) from Charlotte

disconnect between the East and West, which is the root of

and Bob’s point of view; the camera becomes the same kind

her critique, Orientalist stereotypes, nevertheless, ridicule

of voyeur that Charlotte was during her trip to the Buddhist

Japanese culture.

temple, which, in this scene, underscores the idea of the

Western voyeur perceiving the Japanese as animalistic.

television in his room, he is bombarded with fragmented,

Also, although the front of the dancer’s body is clearly

chaotic imagery: a team of Japanese girls exercising in what

visible, her back is reflected in the mirror behind her, which

seem to be policewoman outfits, a Japanese-dubbed version

is where we see Charlie staring lifelessly at her. The dancer

of one of his own films, and an overly enthused Japanese

projects a 360-degree view and commands the space of the

show host. There is little variety to choose from and

Furthermore, when Bob despairingly watches

59

nothing comprehensible in terms of language and image.

which is exactly the case in both films.17 Though Lomax

To further illustrate this difference in culture, Bob and the

breaks ideological and racial barriers, risks acceptance by

TV are rarely in the same frame. The camera didactically

the Western community, and even rejects Kay’s (Sylvia

depicts what is on TV in one frame, then captures Bob’s

Syms), the well-to-do Briton, love for him in order to

response to what he sees in another. The TV and Bob

be with Suzie, he ultimately dominates and objectifies

are purposely separated to show Bob’s inability to suture

Suzie, symbolizing the West’s dominance over the East.

himself in Japanese pop culture. It is also a metaphor for the

In the end, Lomax marries her and takes her to America

inherent inability to understand each other’s culture, which

with him—away from the chaos of Hong Kong—thereby

is the root of Coppola’s critique. The television, a tunnel for

preserving the integrity of the American landscape. Suzie

diverse and international imagery, is still seen as foreign

is the site for Western rescue, just as the East, in the eyes

and incomprehensible as the rest of Japan. In fact, it is so

of the West, was “rescued” through colonialism. Suzie’s

incomprehensible that it becomes absurd. The irony lies in

docile and subservient nature, coupled with her racialized

the fact that Bob, a movie star, has actually become part of

hypersexuality, represent the two “master tropes” of

Japan’s pop culture as seen in his presence on TV and his

colonialist discourse: “positing the colonized as blissfully

public endorsement of Japan’s Suntory Whiskey. He is the

ignorant, pure, and welcoming on the one hand, and on

face of Suntory Whiskey, whose advertisements are scattered

the other as uncontrollably wild, hysterical, and chaotic,

throughout Tokyo. Nevertheless, the separation of the TV

requiring the disciplinary tutelage of the law.”18 Similarly,

and Bob underscore the loud disconnect between himself

Japan is represented through the same dichotomy in Lost in

and Japan, and, on a broader scale, a lack of understanding

Translation, filmed half a century after Suzie, in a postcolonial

between East and West.

society. Japanese culture is ridiculed by Charlotte and Bob’s

inability to understand it, which in essence is a metaphor

Here, Coppola critiques how ignorant Americans

may be of cultural differences, while using humor to imply

for the historical and cultural misunderstanding between

that ignorance is an unquestionable part of the American

East and West. Their inability to act past cultural differences

mindset. Yet, Bob seems completely normal compared

suggests how American culture and conventions must

to the absurd content of the TV programs. The dominant

be preserved, especially in a foreign landscape. American

Western perspective still condescends the East through

culture can never be challenged, yet Japan’s can. Despite

ridicule and humor to exemplify this “foreign-ness,” which is

living in a postcolonial society, Hollywood’s on-screen

intrinsically tied to absurdity. Coppola’s critique is therefore

construction of race and culture still fails to transcend

ultimately inconsequential because it still perpetuates racial

preexisting notions of Western ideologies.

stereotypes of the East.

Although both films, Lost in Translation and The

1

Edward Said, “Edward Said (1935–2003) from Orientalism,” in Art in Theory, ed.

World of Suzie Wong, take place in the Far East, Orientalist

Charles Harrison and Paul Wood, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 1009.

attitudes and notions are still projected regardless of being

2

set in a foreign landscape. Dominant cinema speaks for

CA: Paramount Pictures).

the “winners” of history, taking advantage of narrative and

3

spectacle to tell a story from the Western perspective,

Media (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), 141.

The World of Suzie Wong, DVD, directed by Richard Quine (1960: Los Angeles,

Ella Shohat and Robert Sham, Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the

60

4

Ibid.

5

Ibid., 142.

6

Celine Parreñas Shimizu, The Hypersexuality of Race: Performing Asian/American

Women on Screen and Scene (Durham: Duke University Press, 2007), 65.

7

Qipao, commonly known as cheongsam, is a body-fitting Chinese dress for

women.

8

The “male gaze,” a term coined by Laura Mulvey, consists of two avenues:

voyeurism and fetishistic scopophilia. It is employed upon women, who as objects of male desire hold the look, whereas men are active bearers of the gaze.

9

Shimizu, Hypersexuality of Race, 31.

10

“Concepts of Morality,” Suzie, Quine.

11

“Story of the Clouds,” Suzie, Quine.

12

Shohat, Unthinking Eurocentrism, 143.

13

Ibid.

14

“Premium Fantasy,” Lost, Coppola.

15

Ibid.

16

Lost in Translation, DVD, directed by Sofia Coppola (2003: Universal City, CA:

Focus Features).

17

Shohat, Unthinking Eurocentrism, 109.

18

Ibid., 143.

61

J O N AT H A N A P GA R

AN END Oil on canvas 56 x 72 inches 2010

62

63

COLOR HIVE Oil on canvas 24 x 18 inches 2010 Collection of Mary Apgar

64

STILL LIFE WITH LEOPARD, SKULL, WORM, AND BOAT Oil on canvas 60 x 48 inches 2010 Collection of Alex Slato

65

MYTH OF REDEMPTIVE VIOLENCE Oil on canvas 96 x 84 inches 2011

66

TH E G H OST I N TH E M ACH I N E DANIEL BOWMAN

67

T

oday, I have compiled thoughts and tonal experiments

Eleven minutes and thirty seconds in: The patient’s

that were conducted through the Ghost in the

discomfort has intensified. The hair cells’ nerve endings are

Machine experiment at Coventry University’s Bio-Acoustic

now in an extreme state of vibration due to the disruption

Research Lab in 1983. Headed by Professor Victor Tandy,

of the ear’s auditory system. The patient is also exhibiting

the experiment dealt with the infrequently explored topic

an increased heart rate (seventy-five beats per minute, five

of infrasonic waves. Infrasonic waves are tones that dip

BPM higher than initially measured).

below thirty-five hertz, which surpasses our comfortable hearing levels in the low-frequency zone of the inner ear. In

Thirteen minutes in: The patient is now exhibiting

the past, they have been connected to the reason we can

disorientation and the inability to stay balanced without

see apparitions, or why we feel the sensation of a chill up

supplanting his feet or holding onto a fixture. Heart rate has

the spine that we might attribute to a ghostly presence.

now risen to eighty-five BPM. Pathological changes in the

In actuality, these sensations are created because of our

mitochondrial cells and disturbances in the microcirculation

bodily reactions to these infrasonic waves. The sound

of the blood reveal the patient’s white blood cells are in

wave, when heard long enough, slowly loses its audibility,

danger, with the basophil1 being the cell targeted by aural

thereby diminishing the wave to a mere vibration; a vibration

disruption.

that causes the eyes to physically shake, induces irregular heart palpitations after thirty minutes, and, as scientists at

Fourteen minutes in: The suspension of an individual amid

Coventry believed, causes the heart to fail in due time.

this vibratory sound wave is now the equivalent of a human body in a sustained earthquake. The basilar membrane of

The document I am about to recite to you is a transcription

the inner ear has been further augmented to the point in

from the notes gathered from one patient retrospectively

which sensorineural hearing loss is imminent, but not felt

(all that was written about the individual was that he was a

as a sensation. The fluid of the cochlea within the inner ear

male in his late twenties), and his physical and psychological

is stirring so violently that the electric signals it would emit

readings that the scientists collected while he was exposed

to the auditory brainstem and auditory cortex are not being

to the tone. I will read this as you feel with me the infrasonic

received. Therefore, the highest frequencies of sound would

waves for five minutes. However, you should know that you

be immediately hindered by the infrasonic wave, limiting

have been listening to the sound for ten minutes already.

the individual’s Hz frequency to a restricted palette. The heartbeat is measured at 110 BPM.

*** Fifteen minutes in: The subject cannot hear his own voice Ten minutes and thirty seconds in: The patient has

anymore.

recognized mild discomfort from the emanating tone. This is most likely due to the unusual stimulation of the hair cells,

1

located in the inner ear, that are damaged through the

inflammatory responses.

A type of white blood cell that releases histamine into the immune system for

low-frequency tones.

Daniel Bowman is an artist and musician at UCLA.

KA R I R E A R D O N

BEAR Found object, steel, plaster, flocking, and Lee press-on nails 6 x 6 x 3.5 inches 2009

68

69

SWEET SPOT Steel, brass, and plaster 4.5 x 1 x 5.5 inches each 2009

70

GET LUCKY TENT Steel, resin, nylon, vinyl, acrylic paint, velcro, and zippers 12.5 x 4.5 x 4.5 inches 2009

71

( AND I FE E L F I NE ) 1 72

BOO CHAPPLE

Greenwashing: The Clean Team, Boo Chapple, social intervention, Melbourne, Australia, 2008.

73

A

meditation on the contemporary catastrophe. A

manner not unlike that of the environmental guilt market:

call to get down and dirty with life. This essay

pay someone on the other side of the world to plant some

sets out to discuss the material and metaphor of my art

trees, and the smog hanging in the air behind your daily

experiments with apocalyptic thinking in the form of videos,

commute will magically dematerialize. It maintains the

interventions, wearables, and events. It ends up with a

illusion that we are discrete individuals—always separate

discourse on beginning again; constantly.

and with the sanitizing power of money, always clean— and obviates the necessity for us to participate in the consequence of our material congress with the world.

The Clean Green Dream Probing at the cracks of the clean green dream, my Environmental anxiety is rife. With peak oil and global

experiments with this functional parallel between machine

warming combined, the world as we know it is coming to an

and market culminated in the production of a video triptych

end. This represents an unprecedented opportunity for the

entitled Greenwashing. In the first video of the series (The

guilt market. The coming apocalypse is one of inconvenient

Clean Team), turf rolled directly onto the laundromat’s

materiality—snowstorms, heat waves, floods—that even

tiled floor is an immediate cue to a fantastical disjunction

now intrude upon our travel plans and infotainment time.

between aesthetic and actuality. With hanging pots and

We don’t want to lose our comfort and consumer privilege,

lawn, the space comes to resemble a neatly tailored

however guilty—“So spend a little more.” Carbon offset

suburban yard dropped into a parlor of industrial cleanliness

schemes are a growth industry. Green is the new color of

—an elision of the sacrosanct space of individual ownership

choice for advertising. Nature, Inc. offers to save us from

with the machine that produces the dream. Pure salvation

ourselves in a language where “sustainable” means holding

is manufactured for mass consumption in the comfort of

onto the status quo, and the only route to salvation is

our own homes. In the second video (The Machine), the

through consumption.

absurdity of cleaning “nature,” or indeed ourselves becomes fully apparent. The literal washing of the plants, the slow

Observing this new cultural-economic trope, I decided to

ooze of dirt from around the door seals, and the final

undertake some experiments with the aesthetics of green

exploding gush of suds and mud speak to the impossibility

washing, beginning with an urban shrine of automated

of maintaining discrete boundaries between ourselves and

cleanliness—the laundromat—and progressing to the

our world—the pressure of containment is too much and

function of the cleaning machine itself. I have long found it

in the end it creates more mess. The third video (The Long

instructive that in our society we have invented a machine

Distance Runner) documents the farcical race of a lonely

to fulfill the ritual function of purification for us. In using

runner—with washing machine in tow—along a path lined

a machine to remove our dirt, we remove ourselves from

with greenery to the always vanishing point of an endless

an engagement with the history of our passage through

horizon. The futility, and poignancy, of an individual quest

the world—of the places where our boundaries meet the

for a clean resolution.

environment—and with what happens to the dirt once it is gone. In this sense, the washing machine functions in a

74

Pimp Your Politics

stylistically inspired by the ubiquitous aircraft safety card and takes the series into the realm of a multiple that I have

The perversity and paradox of an environmental market for

distributed at several events, along with a petition calling on

the discrete individual is something that I explore further

developed nations to subsidize the poor and unemployed

in my series Environmental Anxiety Wearables, alternatively

around the world to wear white hats. Taking its cue from

titled Prosthetics for the Apocalypse. The first of these

a geoengineering scheme to counteract the effect of the

wearable items, an edgy, on-the-street fashion statement

melting polar ice caps by covering large areas of the earth

documented in Rebreathe, tells the world that you don’t

in reflective white surfaces, it also seeks to alleviate some

exhale: “There’s no carbon coming off me.” But, by playing

of the anxiety surrounding the rising global population

this logic of disconnection out to its inevitable conclusion,

by taking advantage of the increased number of heads.

the continuous loop of “rebreathing” in fact enacts the

While this functions as another superficially silly satire of a

symbolic, or imminent, death of the individual that it sets

penchant for facile identity commodities that enable us to

out to advertise. Once again, it engages with the difficulty

pay lip service to changing the world and pimp our image at

of containment as a strategy and expresses, in an absurdly

the same time, it also invokes some of the deeper psychic

outsized relation of breath to global consequence, the fear

and political issues at stake in our enviro-anxieties. Like the

of being porous, of having an immediate material relation to

turf over the laundromat tiles, the WhiteOut pamphlet plays

the world.

upon its correction fluid namesake in drawing attention to our tendency to want to cover over or blot out the unwanted

In a similar manner, I have imagined the Wearable Carbon

content rather than rewrite the script—a whitewashing.

Offset Scheme—originally invented to help sufferers of extreme environmental anxiety get out of the house

Like the other wearables, it is an installation at the surface

by enabling them to offset their personal emissions in

of the body and, as such, speaks to the propensity for

a portable manner—to be the latest must-have ethical

enviro-commodities to reinforce the boundaries of the

accessory for the young urban hipster. Rather than paying

individual and thereby preclude any real engagement with

for trees to be grown elsewhere, this scheme picks them

the act of consumption—with what flows through—and

up and brings them along for the ride—a decontextualized

its counterpart, waste. And, of course, it also engages

instrument of containment no less ridiculous than the

the question of race. The yoga-going, white, middle-class

CO2 Rebreather. Still, perhaps it is too perfect a parody of

consumers who make up the bulk of the guilt market are

conspicuous enviro-consumption, for I have been asked

called upon to “Get your whiteness out there and save

more than once where to get one. Maybe, unlike the carbon

the world.” The fear of the burgeoning hordes of brown

offset button on the flight purchase form, this feels up-close,

people from the developing world polluting the planet and

personal, and real—and reality is an authentic experience

destroying the quality of life that we have come to feel we

that we all strive to own.

deserve is caricatured in the call to keep them employed and useful by covering them over with white.

My most recent wearable, WhiteOut, is a piece of the action that anyone can have. The instructional pamphlet-hat is

The card in the seat pocket in front of you is meant to make

75

you feel safe and, like the carbon offset button, to keep you

involved in activating connections between the material and

buying and flying. But in the event of a crash would you stop

the social—collective actions and collective consciousness.

to read the instructions? And will the new foliage cushion

While Miwon Kwon’s claim that “the artist used to be a

the impact? Hold your breath, we’re going down!

maker of aesthetic objects; now he/she is a facilitator, educator, coordinator, and bureaucrat”3 is very relevant to

Playing Dirty

this type of work, I nonetheless still consider an engagement with materiality to be key. I understand my function as an

I like to play dirty. To poke my fingers into the sore points of

artist to be one of mediating between the broad sweep of

paradox and roll around in the mess. To laugh at the sad bits

the contemporary bureaucratic landscape and the everyday

and leave before the soppy ending. To stick my nose in at

detail of material ritual and consequence. In fact, the

the back door when I’m not invited. To make inappropriate

conceptual seed for much of the work that I have presented

things. To draw attention to shit—my own and everyone

here comes from a period when I worked as artist-in-

else’s. To be indiscrete—not only, nor always, for my own

residence cum educator as part of the Biospatial Project4 at

amusement, but as a constant political experiment with life.

RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. My role in this

An indiscrete life is one that acknowledges its own material,

project was to be something of an interdisciplinary sticky

political, economic continuity with the world. An indiscrete

beak—working between environmental science, fashion, and

life does not attempt to contain, or politely shovel difficult

architecture students and faculty to help imagine different

excesses under the proverbial carpet. It makes jokes and

material relationships between individual and environment.

laughs at its own expense. For, to laugh is to release, to

Muddying the disciplinary waters, connecting people

let it all hang out, and to seriously consider the nature of

together, and getting my hands dirty with the tools and

how it comes back together again. Indeed, recent research

techniques of design and science.

suggests that “humor may have coevolved with another cognitive specialization of the great apes and humans: the

Experiment with art and experiment with life. Contrary to

ability to navigate through a shifting and complex social

the sanitizing mechanism of washing machine and market,

space.” Inextricably caught, as we are, in a global web of

a labored-over process of purification involves a detailed

consequence and relation—from the looming nitty-gritty of

engagement with the relationship between body and

the interpersonal foreground, to a far distant war—the act

world, individual and environment. It is a becoming new,

of laughing allows us to see things differently, to reposition

for a moment, in order to begin the process of getting dirty

and to keep on following through. Importantly, it also draws

again. It is not the artificial suspension of any relationship

us together and allows us to experience our anxiety, the

to dirt, waste, shit. This is the experiment. Be indiscrete.

predicament of a contemporary existence, as a collective

Be attentive to the shit. Be intimately engaged with the

phenomenon.

processes by which you are constantly being produced in

2

the world and by which the world itself is produced and Making art is about making connections, material, visual,

sold. Play with these cycles of production and consumption

sonic, social, rude, witty, poignant, and sometimes banal.

and see what comes about—you can always try again. The

The history of my own practice is one that is very much

Greek root for the word “apocalypse” means “to uncover.”

76

If the apocalypse is an uncovering, then I say bring it on!

of Design by research from RMIT University, Melbourne,

Or, then again, maybe we are already there—in the middle

Australia. She is currently an MFA candidate in Art Practice

of the discomfort of being uncovered, so that we might

at Stanford University and was a recent recipient of a

reposition and begin again.

Murphy Cadogan Fellowship.

Mankind [sic] conspires to ignore the fact that death is also the youth of things. . . . Life is a swelling tumult continuously on the verge of explosion. But since the incessant explosion constantly exhausts its resources, it can only proceed under one condition: that beings given life whose explosive force is exhausted shall make room for fresh beings coming into the cycle with renewed vigour. ­

1

—Georges Bataille 5

R.E.M., “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine),” Document,

1987, I.R.S. IRSD–42059.

2

Karli K. Watson, Benjamin J. Matthews, and John M. Allman, “Brain Activation

during Sight Gags and Language-Dependent Humor,” Cerebral Cortex 17, no. 2 (2007), 314.

3

Miwon Kwon, One Place after Another: Site Specific Art and Locational Identity

(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004), 51.

4

The Biospatial Project was directed by Pia Ednie-Brown. The outcomes of the

project were published in Pia Ednie-Brown, ed., Plastic Green (Melbourne: RMIT University Press, 2009).

5

Georges Bataille, Eroticism, (London: Penguin, 2001), 59.

Boo Chapple is an artist and researcher who creates work and collaborates across diverse media, from performance through video and photographic documentation, to art/science projects. Her work has been exhibited at Arts Electronica, the Beijing Biennale of Architecture, and SFMOMA. She has also been an invited panelist at the Whitney Museum in New York, and the SPILL Festival of Performance in London. Her writing has been published in Art of the Biotech Era (Milentie Pandilovski, ed.) and Plastic Green (Pia Ednie-Brown, ed.). Chapple holds a Masters

77

Rebreathe, Boo Chapple, video stills, 2007.

78

Environmental Anxiety Wearable: Carbon Offset, Boo Chapple, performance, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2009.

79

BEAT I NG A DE A D HORS E WITH E R I C W ES L E Y MARA FISHER

Eric in Studio, Mara Fisher, color photograph, 5 x 7 inches, 2011.

80

81

I

first met Eric Wesley in the office at China Art Objects

world in relation to a formal arts education and perhaps

during the opening reception of its Inaugural Show. Later

to open the discourse for his future endeavors. In 2005,

that night, artists, friends, and interns like myself retreated

Wesley and the Naples-bred L.A. artist Piero Golia founded

to the back room to munch on leftover hors d’œuvres.

The Mountain School of Arts (MSA) in Chinatown. Despite

As one tastefully suited reveler wrapped a rogue Almond

his enthusiasm on the subject, Wesley told me he wanted

Roca in a piece of roast beef, Wesley turned to him with an

to be very delicate in discussing The Mountain School,

expression of deep concern and asked, “Are you from the

which considers itself “a supplement and amendment to

islands?”

the university system.” 1 It was a natural place to begin our

Eric Wesley doesn’t give anything away, nor does

discussion.

he like to be pinned down, or perhaps even interpreted at all.

Everything he does seems to be infused with humor, but I do

Mara Fisher: Are you careful about The Mountain School of

not think I’ve ever seen him smile. He speaks circuitously,

Arts? Is it something you’re protective toward?

teetering on the line between sincerity and irony with a consistent sense of dissatisfaction in attempts by outsiders

Eric Wesley: Well, I’m by nature a paranoid person about

to reiterate or incorporate his explanations.

everything. I think both Piero [Golia] and I were interested

in the idea of starting a school independently. We had

Wesley is as enigmatic as his work, which is most

comfortable when it is in flux, improving or worsening. Many

been friends and things naturally jelled, and we pooled our

of his projects don’t pan out the way they were initially

resources and started the thing. We invited various people

conceived, but the focus then becomes the advancement

we knew and kept it very open. That was the idea, that both

toward a conclusion that may never be reached. In his work,

he and I would be the founders, the administrators. I wasn’t

Wesley courts the idea of failure and the point at which

to teach a class per se, and Piero wasn’t to teach a class,

it becomes interchangeable with success, drawing from

and that’s how it is today. It has morphed into something

parallels to this interplay as they occur in the history of

different because originally we had the idea of, within three

space exploration. His approach is idiosyncratic, based on

years, establishing a school and then being out of it and

everyday interactions with his surroundings and the self-

letting it take its own course, which clearly didn’t happen.

consciousness that results from it, as evinced in his plans to

The whole thing was to not be like an art school, so we

build a nocturnal L.A. office to accommodate the working

decided on a few disciplines. Science and art are definitely

hours of European galleries.

a part of it, of course. Piero brought in a scientist in the field

of astrophysics. I called Richard Jackson. I also pulled in

Wesley’s gestures are simultaneously grand

and commonplace. When first displayed, his piece, Kicking

two attorneys to teach a law class. I think that it is harder to

Ass, a donkey statue that had kicked a hole in the museum

get lawyers to teach for free. Students don’t pay anything,

wall, was largely interpreted as a critique of the museum

teachers don’t get paid, we don’t get paid. When we started

institution, when Wesley’s purported intention was simply

out, there was no money, the place was free, housing was

for it to kick a viewer at chest level. He never pursued a

free, and so on.

master’s degree, but called his first solo museum exhibition Thesis Show, intending to analyze the climate of the art

So skip ahead five years, and the climate that we’re in is

82

quite different, and that’s in small part due to the graduate

everybody is at war with themselves. This is not an old

art school thing, but other things that are also coming

idea, but perhaps it’s not so un-new. I think that I always

up. The art world itself is changed, and there’s the New-

consider that one element as an impetus for my work. The

Yorkification [of Los Angeles], so I think that my role is

chief thing for me is a formal pursuit, and then everything

shifting in a way. What I wanted to say also at the start of

else just helps things along. To make a cube about a cube

this interview is “Welcome to the Underground,” because I

is less interesting than if it’s about the cosmos or, let’s say,

think MSA has surfaced.

something political, or any number of topics. I’m really into Minimalism. Everything has to be part of the work, which is

MF: What does that mean more explicitly?

what I try to do.

EW: We are very successful. Applicants now number in the

MF: In your work it seems as though you don’t necessarily

hundreds, and the first year was a very underground thing.

like to pick a side, you’re just examining that there are those sides.

MF: So would you say it’s like institutionalizing what was a more underground movement and making it into a formal

EW: I think I don’t like to pick sides. I like to deal with

education, with teachers, students, and a set curriculum?

physics—it has no sides. There’s something going on there between the art, the physics, the politics of something.

EW: I think that we always aim for a curriculum, to be rigid.

Da Vinci, as an example, was great because he was working

Piero is very good at getting people there on time and not

for governments building war machines and he was also an

drinking. And I’m not. I think that’s kind of what makes up

astronomer, but in a certain sense he was just an artist.

the underground, if that makes sense. I think the idea is to accept everything and I think that it’s always wavering with

MF: Well, he was an innovator, and when there’s any new

MSA between what is acceptable to myself and Piero, the

technological innovation the first place it’s always applied to

co-founders. I think success wins naturally.

is the military.

MF: I feel like that’s kind of the idea I’ve gotten from a lot

EW: I think that’s right. I’m a big enthusiast of aviation and

of your work too, is that there’s an interplay of responses

aviation history and aviation future and aerospace and space

to a set of external expectations. Even your Thesis Show

travel. Like you’re saying, a lot of technology is progressed

[a part of MOCA’s Focus series] made me wonder: is this

through war. So much of the progression in that field and in

necessarily just a criticism of higher art education or is there

aviation was made in the First World War, where they were

an inclination toward it at the same time? I wanted to know

flying just years after man achieved flight. Consider that the

how that tied into MSA because it seems like you think a lot

war was not more than decade after the Wright brothers,

about art education and how it can be re-imagined.

and so many technological advances were made during that time and in subsequent wars, and you kind of question why

EW: Yeah, or even the “establishment.” You can’t help but laugh when hearing that word because I think that now

that is. There’s a back and forth in the Second World War.

83

Wernher von Braun was a Nazi, reluctant or not, developing

and find parallels in what you said, like the occult and

V2 missiles, but his dream was to go to space, to walk on

everything else?

the moon, and to walk on Mars. That’s what he wanted to do from the time he was a kid. When the war came, he

EW: I think the artist has all the jobs, from shipping the

had to work in Nazi Germany and develop these horrible

work, to the inception of the idea, to talking to people to

weapons, but as a stepping-stone to get to space. I think

understand what they’re thinking. The job of the viewer is

that is a kind of analogy, a Faustian realization. He later

nothing. The job of the collector is financial support. The

worked for the U.S. and NASA, of course, to develop Apollo

role of the viewer is not to be entertained, but to participate,

missions. And then a man walked on the moon. Whether

to go see the show and then write about it and think

that is a result of war or peace, or of technology for its own

about it.

good, for man to be better, is a question. These things weigh heavily on my mind.

MF: Your work comes in so many different forms and so many different mediums. Does it begin with a concept, or do

MF: Does it have to do with the supposed failure and

you focus on the object first? How does a concept dictate

success dialogue? How does that fit into your work?

how it’s going to manifest itself physically?

EW: It’s kind of like, a real artist doesn’t care about the

EW: I don’t like this dictatorship and authority. . . . I want to

truth or not-the-truth, otherwise you’d be a businessman

make a big wheel that I spin that says “music” or “poetry”

or scientist. Rather, if you put something out there like,

or “painting” or “time to eat” or “performance” that dictates

“This is what’s going on,” the artist is telling you that it

the thing. So if something hits my brain, I spin the wheel

doesn’t matter if it’s accurate or not, or if you can crunch the

and say, “Okay! I’ll do a drawing.” Then, of course it could

numbers and make it fit into science, or look at it a certain

develop from that, but I kind of like the idea of this

way and make it fit into the occult or alchemy. I think the

Dada-esque approach, or just a method of freedom. Cause

function of the artist is another one. So, all those things

it’s such bullshit. For me, to be a conceptual artist these

really start to get mangled up. That’s kind of the only thing

days means being lazy, or having some engine behind you

we have.

like a social system or a financier.

If aliens travel to earth before humans travel to them, they

It is unfortunate to have to talk about your work. Isn’t that

may find no use for anyone but artists. This would mean

why one makes work in the first place? I’m not so good at

they understand “science” better than humans. [They would

any other language. I didn’t pursue this career to talk about

have] no use for business, and lawyers would probably be

what I’m talking about. So it’s not worth it for me to think

the first to go. But with artists, it’s just kind of like, “What

about an English translation of the work. I guess I choose

the fuck are these people thinking?”

not to. I’d rather work on something else and hope that thing sticks. I hope that people who understand conceptual art

MF: So, is it the role of the artist to begin that discussion,

through English can also understand my next project, try to

and then for everyone else to make their own conclusions

define it, or perhaps other things I’ve done or other things

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I will do linguistically.

that did not fail. It’s more of a metaphysical thing. “The astronauts might die, but that is not a failure.” I like how

A perfect example of that is something I’m working on now,

those two things really play off each other or are the same

which goes back to what I was saying about what is the

at a certain point.

truth and what is not-the-truth, and the importance of that distinction. I’m working on a “liar” and a "truer." You spin the

MF: So it’s the difference between “Failure is not an option”

wheel and adjust the spokes, and it produces a true wheel.

and “Failure is not even possible”?

And then there’s the lyre, the musical instrument. There are, at this point, many manifestations of that object. It’s just an

EW: Yeah, but “possible” and “option” go back to semantics

object, but it’s more about dealing with English. That is my

and linguistics and how fast you can understand the

way of talking about the work, but they’re just objects.

English language. I used to read and be engaged in that a lot more when I was younger, and I think there comes a

MF: Is it something about binaries in general?

point where you have to just put up or shut up. There’s a lot of weaseling going on in art criticism, where everything

EW: Yeah, but more like fractals. Now there’s thirty-two

has to fit into something. Perhaps in school you should be

possible incarnations of these two essences of these

taught a little bit of history, but I don’t know what I believe

things: the lyre and the truer. I am more interested in

anyway, besides looking at the movement of Orion’s belt, or

music than talking, but I’m not good at music and I’m not

something.

good at sculpture. I think perhaps that’s where the failure thing comes in. I look at artists like Jason Rhoades and

It has to do with this project I’m working on now, which

Kippenberger as very fortunate, in a way, to be understood

is all about Europe. And the first thing is to make a map. I

outside of those boundaries of what is real. They just made

didn’t want to order a relief map, so I started just building

up reality. That’s genius for me. I think that’s a fundamental

this topological map that’s derived from many different

point, that you create a universe where failure is impossible.

maps. It may be kind of pathetic that you and I don’t know this [where particular countries lie on a map]. It might

One of my heroes is a man called Gene Kranz, who was the

be inspirational to some people, but I’m trying to rectify

flight director at mission control during the Apollo missions.

that. My idea is to try to set up this office, this space, this

During Apollo 13, when they had to scramble to get the

zone. I was tentatively calling it Eurozone, but now it’s

astronauts back alive, “Failure is not an option” was his

something else. I want to make an operation here in L.A.

saying. You can read that in two different ways. First there’s,

that’s open during the operational hours of the EU. So, from

“Failure is not an option.” Surely it’s about morale, saying,

midnight to 6 a.m. I will be in this office working. With my

“What we are doing, we cannot fail at.” And then there’s,

gallery in Germany, I’m the only artist in L.A. It’s hard to

“What we are doing, we can not fail at.” In one sense, it’s like

communicate, it’s hard to ship work, it’s hard to be on the

the whole infrastructure and money put into the operation

same wavelength. So I figure if I am operational on their

has to get these people back to earth. In the second sense,

hours then I can be on a webcam or do something to rectify

anything I do, like if I drop this [picks up and drops lighter],

the situation. Also, if people come visit here for three days

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I’ve been interested in Dada [in the past], and I feel like that’s creeping up in my subconscious at the moment of making work. And the wheel truer has become about that, the idea that Duchamp’s wheel needs a tune-up. Everybody has seen Duchamp’s wheel on the Internet, it no longer possesses any qualitative essence. I like shock art and shock value. There’s the idea that nothing is shocking. I mean, you could see the most fucked up thing or the most loving thing, disgusting or cute—but the idea that shock is out of the question, I beg to differ with that. That’s another project I’m working on.

Eric Wesley Insurance Co., Eric Wesley, silkscreen on paper, 21.5 x 27.5 inches, 2010. Image courtesy China Art Objects.

MF: You recently had a framed screen print in a show that read “Wesley Insurance Company.” Can you tell me a bit

they don’t have to switch to our time zone. And that is

about that?

about time and space and about the land, and why things move. It’s all very interesting to me. We are a European

EW: Advertising and insurance go hand in hand, and the

society in L.A. . . . It’s not Mexican or African or Wild West,

idea of creating a real business is something I’m interested

it’s European. I want to understand that and rectify my

in, in terms of my work. The history of insurance is an

understanding in Europe and still have it have to do with

incredible one. Three thousand years ago insurance was not

elements like time and space.

on the books. If you lived in a community and a neighbor’s house burned down, you were expected to help rebuild

MF: Do you think that looking at Europe necessarily

it. Maybe what interests me more about that is how it

disconnects you from L.A. then?

has come to be on paper, it’s become an industry, and I think that there’s sarcasm going on. If you say you insure

EW: I think that it’ll be seen as a kind of cliché and a typical

something, it’s a little Mafioso, isn’t it? It’s kind of an

thing to identify with Europe, which is not necessarily what

aggressive thing. The way that I’m looking at it is one of

I’m doing, on the contrary, perhaps. I think that it will be

total honesty.

seen as this kind of typical interest in or representation of the standing relationship of contemporary artists from L.A.

What Wesley Insurance, WIco, would be is if someone

with Europe. I’m trying to deal with that. Making something

were to collect an object, or anything I do, and something

so typical about Europe at this point is like beating a dead

happens to that piece for which there is a policy, then I, the

horse. I want to beat the dead horse. That’s a creative act,

company, would not only repair it, but make it better. [Picks

I think. It might be disgusting, but it’s still some sort of

up lyre] If someone were to buy this lyre as an artwork,

performance or action, some sort of creativity comes from

and that’s clearly the point, that it’s not a lyre to play—if it

that. It is, in fact, the essence of creativity . . . like a dance.

breaks or someone steals it, and there is a policy for this

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item, then we would not only replace or fix it, but make it

not fully figured out, as I suspect it will never be. But that’s

better. For me that’s real progress.

progress, I think.

MF: Is WIco a way of keeping the artist’s hand connected to

MF: That also leads to the question of inconclusiveness. Do

what’s being sold?

you feel as though that goes for a lot of your work? The idea that it’s always in progress and that it can be improved? Do

EW: I think it is, yeah. I was thinking of writing something

you feel a certain attachment to it?

for the policy and how to approach it, but rather, as you’re saying, return the artist’s hand. Instead it would be whatever

EW: It seems like a beneficial thing for the artist to stay in

the company can do to make it better, a substitute perhaps

the loop, no matter how far away. Maybe I subconsciously

for the artist’s hand conceptually. So maybe, if this thing

don’t complete anything because if I did they could just get

were stolen and the policyholder for it came to me, then I

rid of me. I think there’s a coldness in our world. Maybe, in a

would buy a fully functioning lyre online and give it to them.

way, the art dealer and the art collector and the curator are

Would that be better because it works? Because it’s a real

the stars and the artists are the workers.

lyre and not a fake one? I don’t know. That’s determined by WIco officials.

MF: Do you think that when a piece of yours is sold, it becomes inactive?

MF: And it’s still a Wesley.

EW: Perhaps the opposite. It may be activated by that EW: That’s right, and the idea is to take the sarcasm out of

sale. If a collector supports my work, I feel like they are

it, if you can believe that. If I ball up a piece of paper, I’m an

not buying this truer, which cost me $60, for $10,000.

artist, so it’s $20,000 versus returning a fully functioning

They’re not buying it to get the truer. They’re supporting my

lyre. Is that better or worse? That’s the artist’s job, not a

cause, my ideas, which I really value. The individual or the

normal insurance company’s job.

institution supports something that is not the thing nor the painting. If I make a painting and somebody buys it, they’re

There’s this Van Gogh painting of a café with stars behind

not buying it as a painting for their collection. I feel like

it. I wanted to re-create that painting with total accuracy,

they are supporting future production or a reason for me to

because it’s Van Gogh’s style and it’s crazy. I wanted to

continue with my stories. I was just thinking about that the

realize what day of what year that was, what perspective,

other day. It’s kind of what I rely on: generous people who

and where exactly the real stars were on that night, and

understand the story of things and not the objects or the

then remake the painting with that accuracy. So, it would

money.

be a WIco policy for a Van Gogh painting, let’s say. That’s more to do with the past, but when you start to talk about

I like the Duchampian idea that goes along the lines of

that kind of stuff, the past and the future is a level playing

“You make artwork not for the people that are out there

field. There are many objects out there that have policies

now”—like what is popular. Your real audience is fifty years

on them, but the overriding concept for the company is

from now, and you’ll be gone. I think that’s a positive thing, a

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little what that work is about. But I was thinking it’s way more about body art critique than white cube art critique.

The thing was designed to kick somebody really hard at chest level, so it’s more like an impact on your body than the institution. Usually things I make are intended to be interfaced with humor, entertainment perhaps. Comedy and humor—kind of more digestible than death.

MF: I remember one of the pieces you had in the Inaugural Show at China Art Objects was a Xerox of your butt. And that to me was the ultimate prank, a bold gesture of you coming out and perhaps owning the prankster thing.

Kicking Ass (Plan), Eric Wesley, pencil on paper, 16 x 20 inches, 2000.

EW: I think that it goes back to words, also. It’s kind of about words, and it’s supposed to be a poem. Perhaps

romantic thing. Maybe in the future people will understand

my wheel wasn’t operating properly to determine what

you. It’s definitely a waiting game.

medium to present that idea as. It’s supposed to be about procrastination and meditating, like “But, but but . . .” It’s a

MF: I’ve seen and read a lot of things that categorize your

lyrical thing in a way. I think that the prankster element in

work as “prankster art” or “institutional critique.” Are those

my work says more about my personality than about my

dangerous words for you?

product. It’s kind of a style perhaps, a conceptual style. But “prank” is not right. “Joke” is so much better.

EW: That’s what sucks about an artist’s reputation or pigeonholing. Like the prankster thing, I really hated that

MF: There’s always a victim in a prank.

word, but now I kind of like it. Institutional critique is just stupid. If it’s critique of a real institution, like a scientific

EW: Yeah, that’s right, and a joke is for everyone, including

institution or a political institution, that’s more interesting.

the person telling it. In a joke, you’re always kind of making

Art institution critique, eh. I don’t really see the point. I did

fun of yourself or pushing yourself and what’s appropriate.

this piece, a mechanical ass that kicked holes in the wall.

Everybody would agree that a Xerox of a butt is appropriate and a cliché perhaps. That’s one thing I was thinking about

MF: “Breaking down the white cube” in a very literal sense.

with that, to do the most accepted form of expression.

Even if it’s looked at as a prank, it’s really nothing until you

EW: I think it was read that way, and I totally didn’t expect

think about what it literally is. It’s supposed to be about

that. I mean, yeah, you see a wall and you want to punch a

procrastination, about not coming into its own or having an

hole through it, that’s just how I am. That’s more creative,

end. It just kind of keeps going, so there may be a thousand

I think, than looking at it. And that’s perhaps maybe a

butts. Like Pee-wee [Herman] said, “Everybody I know has a

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big but.” So, the saga continues.

1

“The Mountain School of Arts,” last modified May 13, 2009,

http://www.themountainschoolofarts.org.

Mara Fisher received her BA in Art History from UCLA in 2010. She currently works as an assistant at China Art Objects and is considering pursuing a Master of Architecture in the near future. Her areas of interest include classical civilization and etymological myth.

Eric Wesley was born in 1973 in Los Angeles, where he currently lives and works. He received his BFA from UCLA and is the co-founder of the Mountain School of Art (MSA) with Piero Golia. His work has been shown in the U.S. and internationally in several single and group exhibitions, including Snapshot: New Art From Los Angeles at the Hammer Museum, Nation at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London, England, and Focus: Eric Wesley, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA.

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L U K E B U T LE R

THE END Transfer lettering on paper 4.5 x 7 inches 2007

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THE END Transfer lettering on paper 7.5 x 4.25 inches 2008

G R ASP I NG AT THE EPHEMERAL: E NDI NG S A ND T H EIR FUNC TI O N AS PART O F A D R AMATIC E V E NT MEROPI PEPONIDES

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E

ndings in theater are elusive things, oftentimes more

artists must rely on their emotional and artistic impulses

obscure than beginnings. Once a story has begun, the

to both follow and defy dramatic structural formulas with

major question is: where and how should it end? In fact, the

endings that are simultaneously shocking and appropriate,

end often dictates how the piece begins. When playwrights

experimental and logical, surprising and inevitable.

or performers create work, they often know what they’re

working toward but just need to figure out how to get there.

early 2010 at the Vineyard Theater in New York and had

Most directors and designers, when they begin a creative

a brief run on Broadway from October to December 2010,

process, have an idea of how they want the end product

features a bold, exciting ending, but one that does not

to look, sound, feel, or come together at the end, and must

follow the rest of the story.1 The musical is about the famous

create a path that will allow them to reach their goal. The

Scottsboro trial, in which nine young African-American

most fascinating part about endings in theater is the longing

men are convicted of raping two white women, despite

for unattainable perfection in an inherently flawed form of

overwhelming evidence in support of their acquittal. The

expression—one that does not last beyond the moment, is

controversy surrounding these events sparked rallies and

incapable of exact replication, and has become financially

protests across the country, eventually laying the foundation

unsustainable at present.

for the American Civil Rights Movement.

An ending in theater should leave you wanting

The Scottsboro Boys, a musical that opened in

The play opens with a young woman sitting

more. Yet, endings of theater pieces are rarely exciting or

alone onstage, presumably traveling on a train or some

satisfying; often, they leave you wanting a bit less. I’ve heard

other vehicle. She is silent but remains onstage throughout

countless theatergoers, after having seen a show, say, “That

the opening scenes, which focus on the events that lead

was great, but it was ten minutes too long,” or “That was

up to the boys’ arrest. Other than a few key moments in

great, but why did it slow down at the end?” This sense of

which it is crucial that the action take place in private, this

slowing down, as well as achieving a feeling of a successful

woman remains onstage for the entirety of the piece, as a

ending, is both an art and a science. It is deeply rooted in

silent observer. As an audience member, this increasingly

dramatic structure but also has everything to do with the

mysterious character became a distraction, even leading

story being told, the feelings being felt, and the ephemeral

a bold (and tactless) audience member in the balcony to

life of the specific moment.

wonder aloud, “What’s that lady doing onstage, she hasn’t

The endings of The Scottsboro Boys, A Doll’s House,

talked the whole time!” Others around him laughed softly

The Octoroon, and Vollmond, in particular, explore both the

but appreciatively, as he had no doubt vocalized something

merits and challenges of theater. None of these endings are

that everyone had thought at some point during that night’s

ideal, yet all are highly influential to the overall work and,

performance. The mystery disappears when the final scene

given the diverse styles of each selected work, a singular

of the piece focuses on the woman sitting alone, at which

formulaic commonality among them is almost impossible

point she refuses to move to the back of the bus she is

to identify. An ending inherently holds more weight than

riding, uttering the famous words, “I am going to sit here

the rest of the story, yet it also has the responsibility

and rest my feet,” finally revealing the young woman’s

of summing up the work by bringing the previous acts

identity as the legendary civil rights activist Rosa Parks.

together. Thus, in these cases as well as in countless others,

The most notable aspect of this ending is that

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it is actually the beginning of another story, one that

connection to be established early on—perhaps even for this

elevated the legacy of the Scottsboro Boys to a new level of

to become a memoir told through her eyes. Yet, in choosing

importance in the context of twentieth century American

to reveal Parks’ identity in the final moments of the piece,

history. Structurally, however, this tradeoff changes the

the creators sacrifice a parallel story, which could have

focus of the story and detracts from the onstage action.

been interwoven compellingly between the minstrel show

The awkwardness of having a silent character onstage

numbers and lent clarity and greater emotional weight to

throughout the entire performance does not quite redeem

the last moments.

itself in the story’s final reveal, and if the writer and director

had been able to find a way to weave this observer into

and Dion Boucicault’s 1859 melodrama The Octoroon each

the story in a more subtle manner, the story could have

feature two different endings as part of their now-published

proceeded undisturbed. Furthermore, it was not necessary

texts.2 In each case, the alternate ending was written for

for Ms. Parks’ identity to remain unknown throughout the

a particular production and audience. Unfortunately, both

piece in order to achieve the power of the final image.

Boucicault’s original ending and Ibsen’s alternate ending

The fact that this moment is such a famous act of civil

dilute the potentially disturbing ideas both playwrights were

disobedience holds its own weight. What is missing,

attempting to elicit.

however, is the onstage connection between this final event

In A Doll’s House, the lead character, Nora,

and the proceedings of the Scottsboro trial, which was the

resolves to leave her husband and family at the end of the

focus of the performance leading up to that moment.

play for a host of complex reasons, but chiefly because she

Henrik Ibsen’s famous 1879 work A Doll’s House

Rosa Parks’ onstage presence throughout the play

feels that she needs to take time to learn about herself as

suggests that she is a significant character. The construction

an individual and determine how she relates to the world.

of the play, however, does not communicate this connection.

While these justifications may be widely accepted in our

The play parodies a minstrel show, a form of entertainment

current society, the notion of a woman rejecting her duties

popular throughout the 1800s and into the 1900s, featuring

as a wife and mother in favor of her own interests was a

music, dancing, and comedy. Although this form firmly

scandalous notion in Ibsen’s time. In the production with

established the piece as a part of a nonrealistic genre,

the original ending, staged in Denmark in 1879 and 1880,

Rosa Parks’ prolonged lack of identification still cannot be

Nora successfully leaves, taking calm and decisive control

justified. The key point overlooked in the unfolding of the

over her actions and consequently the course of events that

story is Ms. Parks’ very personal and noteworthy connection

end the play. She refuses to see her children before leaving,

to the Scottsboro Boys. The average audience member with

despite her husband’s insistence, and goes out into the

little to no historical context, however, would not know

world to fend for herself.

of Parks’ presence at rallies in support of the acquittal of

the Scottsboro Boys, the fact that she met her husband at

actress who was hired to portray Nora in the 1880

one of these rallies, and that their subsequent civil rights

production in Hamburg and Vienna that she demanded a

work became seminal in the shaping of the American Civil

different ending, forcing Ibsen to either write a conciliatory

Rights Movement. As Parks is the character who opens as

ending for the piece himself or have someone else alter his

well as closes the play, the seeds have been planted for this

work. At a time when a playwright’s voice and convictions

This idea was so unfathomable to the German

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were always secondary to the commercial success of a

whether she lives or dies.

production, the German producers undoubtedly supported

the actress’ more conservative opinion over the bold social

The Octoroon significantly change the overall ideas behind

statement that Ibsen was making. Thus, he changed the

each piece. Nora’s successful decision to leave her family

last few lines, choosing instead for Nora to see her children

in Ibsen’s original ending and Zoe’s potential for survival in

before leaving. In this moment, Nora, overcome by a flood

Boucicault’s alternate ending empower these characters’

of emotions, decides that she cannot leave her children,

bold, socially transgressive actions. A moralistic reading of

and the audience is left with the presumption that she will

these endings suggests that the playwrights are promoting

decide to stay and continue fulfilling her role as an obedient

progressive ideas that were socially unacceptable in their

wife and mother. It is likely that Ibsen, who was committed

respective time periods.

to exploring the complex psychology and repressive nature

of women’s roles in society at a time and place before such

The Octoroon, it would have been unfathomable to show

notions were widely accepted, felt forced into changing

miscegenation in a positive light onstage, in the form of

the ending in exchange for the benefits of being produced

an octoroon and a white plantation owner being together

internationally. However, the controversy surrounding

happily. In England, however, where the subject was less

Ibsen’s work, as well as his subsequent portrayals of

immediate, Boucicault was able to write a stronger ending

strong, self-possessed women, was an early indicator of

that evokes more questions for the audience. By refusing to

the innovative nature of his plays. It is the original ending

make a decision about whether Zoe lives, Boucicault leaves

that spread to the United States and England, and is still

the final message of the play morally ambiguous, forcing the

produced to this day.

audience to extrapolate whether she lives (or deserves to

Both alternate endings in A Doll’s House and

In the original pre-Civil War production of

The Octoroon is a melodramatic examination of

live) in light of her unfortunate circumstances. Structurally,

southern plantation life, first performed on the eve of the

his original ending adheres more closely to the conventions

American Civil War. Central to the series of events taking

of melodrama, in which the villains are punished and

place on this plantation is a romance between George,

virtuous characters are rewarded or saved. Boucicault makes

heir to the plantation, and Zoe, an octoroon (an individual

a conscious choice, however, to discuss characters of mixed

one-eighth African American) who passes for white in

race in his play, and portrays Zoe as virtuous, making a

most situations, and is much more knowledgeable of white

bold statement for his time. The contradictory message of

social customs than the other plantation slaves. After it is

the original ending, in which Zoe induces her own tragic

made clear that Zoe is an octoroon, she and George are

end (presumably because of the trouble in which she finds

forbidden to be in love, and thus Zoe’s inevitable and tragic

herself after transgressing her place in society), dilutes

end becomes clear. In the original ending, intended for

the statement Boucicault is making about the humanity of

American audiences, Zoe takes poison and dies a graceful,

mixed race people and the arbitrary distinctions that were

tragic death rather than separating from George because

placed on them. The ending for English audiences represents

of her background. In the alternate “happy” ending written

a bolder political choice, but was obviously too controversial

for British audiences, George carries an unconscious Zoe

for U.S. audiences in light of the pre-Civil War atmosphere.

onto the stage, leaving it up to the audience to determine

3

Conversely, Ibsen’s original ending to A Doll’s

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House was the bolder of the two, choosing to embody

success or failure: in Ibsen’s case, changing only the last

onstage an independent woman taking control of her own

few lines of A Doll’s House demonstrates the crucial weight

destiny. Indeed, such a thought was so terrifying to the

of the ending. The altered endings of A Doll’s House and

European society of 1880 that Ibsen was forced to write

The Octoroon not only affect the plays’ themes, but also say

what he referred to as a “barbaric outrage” of an alternate

something about the specific time period and location in

ending.4 It is a testament to Ibsen’s craft that he was able to

which each was performed. It is worth noting that the more

change the entire outcome and action of the play within the

daring endings of both plays were used in performances that

space of half a page. The fact that he was forced to rewrite

took place in geographically distant locations from the world

the ending for the play’s German tour is both evidence of

that the plays portray. Though Ibsen was Norwegian, the

how forward-thinking Ibsen’s characters were for their time

play premiered in Denmark, and Boucicault, an American

and how powerfully they were realized onstage through the

writer, chose to take a risk with the British production. While

lens of his masterful writing.

the subjects of both plays in their original societal context

were treading along the line between social commentary

The remarkable aspect of both these changed

endings is that the overarching thought or theme of the play

and social revolt, Ibsen’s altered ending and Boucicault’s

undergoes a significant change with the simple manipulation

original one pull both pieces firmly back in the direction of

of the last few pages or lines of the piece. In Ibsen’s original

the status quo.

ending, Nora’s decision to leave advocates a woman’s

individual empowerment over her familial responsibilities.

(Full Moon), a dance theater piece choreographed by Pina

Her ultimate commitment to stay, however, indicates a

Bausch, features an aesthetically beautiful but altogether

woman’s emotional weakness and lack of conviction toward

general ending.5 The series of conflicts and resolutions

fulfilling her goals, implying that it is her place to stay in

portrayed in the isolated interactions of the couples

the home. In Boucicault’s piece, the decision to keep Zoe

onstage, often fraught with emotion, are not summed

alive in the alternate “happy” ending suggests that she

up or reflected upon during the ending sequence. The

should not be punished so harshly (or at all) for breaking

work is a joyful examination of love, fear, and humanity’s

the social code, whereas her ill-timed death in the original

relationship to the earth. It is characterized by extremely

ending implies that a person of color who transgresses his

precise, mostly minor movements illustrating the evolving

or her social rank should be punished or even killed. These

relationships between the dancers onstage, while sweeping

changes, because they occur as endings, greatly influence

movements performed in solo interludes are meant to be

the message of the rest of the story.

the external representation of an individual’s inner thoughts

and emotions. These interludes, although often difficult to

When analyzing dramatic structure, it is common

Tanztheater Wuppertal’s production of Vollmond

to look at where the play ends in order to determine the

interpret, offset the minute precision of episodes in which

success of the play’s action. If a moment or aspect of the

pairs of performers set their razor-sharp focus on each other

story does not relate to the overarching action of the play

to silently explicate their complex relationships of love,

(usually made clear at the end), it should be removed in

feuding, and indifference. These short, often disconnected

favor of focusing and streamlining the story. Deceptively

episodes take the place of a linear narrative in a way

and ironically, endings often steer the rest of the play toward

that modern dance rarely achieves, characterized by the

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vividly nuanced portrayals of particular dancers in isolated

them for us to more carefully examine. The structure of

moments throughout the piece. The culminating episode,

a dramatic story is nothing more or less than a carefully

however, features a dance in which the entire ensemble

arranged series of moments in people’s lives that attempt

of twelve performers engages in larger, more sweeping

to mean something when experienced all together. Endings

movements; some play in the pool of water that traverses

often become convoluted, however, because the answers

the upstage area, others commune with the earth in the

are not always there, or are not completely clear. We do not

form of a bare stage, and all revel in the light and energy of a

necessarily know what it all means; we simply try to dive in

full moon.

and explore a little. In order to dramatize these explorations,

The precision and minute adjustments in the

though, it is necessary to make some sort of statement, to

dancers’ bodies, however, make Vollmond truly engaging

choose a perspective and cling to it throughout, in hopes

to watch. When one is not aided by language (there is

that it may contain an inkling of truth.

minimal text in the piece), the only way to achieve precise

storytelling is through extremely meticulous movement

of questions, but by utilizing a fundamental analysis of

and visual staging. If the ending is a general celebration of

dramatic structure, it is possible to identify points of

earth, water, and moonlight, it becomes difficult to ascertain

weakness and perhaps suggest ideas for strengthening

the overall point of the piece. While each episodic scene is

these moments. The reason all these works merit attention,

starkly clear, the ending fails to string the disparate stories

and perhaps one explanation for their problematic endings,

together, encouraging the audience to view the performance

is that they are grappling with issues that are eternally

as a collection of moments rather than elements of a whole.

relevant to society at large. The Scottsboro Boys, in utilizing

The result is a mild confusion about why and how the

the form of a minstrel show as satire, is confronting the

preceding stories connect and make sense together. The

racially charged origins of American theater while bringing

lack of linear narrative in such works is indeed intentional,

to light an often overlooked incident of racial injustice

and the end would work quite seamlessly if the company

that represented a monumental change in the national

treated the celebration and revelry that takes place in the

conversation about civil rights for African Americans. A

final minutes of the piece with the same rigor and attention

Doll’s House portrays the still-controversial idea of a woman

to detail as it does throughout the rest of the piece. Instead,

leaving her children as a form of liberation. The Octoroon

the telling of momentary, yet utterly specific stories results

addresses issues of nontraditional marriages, something

in dancers scattering around the stage, some baptizing

that resonates today in gay marriage, and Vollmond

themselves in water, some rolling on the floor, others leaping

examines the universal and eternal themes of love, fidelity,

on and off stage, seemingly without motivation. Thus, the

and jealousy, and how our emotional impulses relate to and

choreography aims to display visually attractive movements

are informed by our environment. To examine and engage

rather than commit to the startling specificity of focus

with the endings of these works is to attempt to make sense

previously used.

of some of the more complex and lasting challenges that we

face as human beings.

So, why do the structure and, in particular, the

The endings of these plays present an array

ending of a play or performance work remain significant?

Because they mirror our lives, dissect them, and expose

ambiguity within an ending, this must not be misconstrued

While these examples discuss the problems of

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as an argument for over-explanation or didacticism within

cultural divides, break down linguistic, demographic, and

an ending. Endings should pose questions that hint at

economic boundaries, and to create a more hopeful future.

answers, but should not provide concrete, simplified solutions to the often complex scenarios discussed onstage.

But how much, exactly, is enough? What absolutely needs to be told, and what should be left open ended? There is, of course, no fixed answer. And that is why most theater practitioners continue to work—to explore, experiment, and test dissimilar approaches in hopes of one day achieving success around this ephemeral and elusive concept.

1

David Thompson, The Scottsboro Boys, music by John Kander and Fred Ebb,

directed by Susan Stroman, 2010 (Lyceum Theater, New York City, NY).

2

Henrik Ibsen, A Doll's House (1879) in Four Major Plays, (New York: Oxford

University Press, 2008), trans. Rolf Fjelde, 86–88. Dion Boucicault, The Octoroon (1859) in The Wadsworth Anthology of Drama, 5th edition, ed. W.B. Worthen (Florence, KY: Thompson Wadsworth, 2007), 1009-1012.

3

Boucicault, The Octoroon in The Wadsworth Anthology of Drama, 991.

4

Ibsen, A Doll's House in Four Major Plays, 88.

5

Pina Bausch, Vollmond (Full Moon), Tanztheater Wuppertal performance on

September 29, 2010 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Meropi Peponides received her BA from the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television and is currently pursuing an MFA in Dramaturgy at Columbia University. She has produced numerous theatrical events in Los Angeles, with a focus on the South Los Angeles communities of Watts and University Park. In addition to developing and producing new theater and facilitating numerous outreach and arts education programs, she has also built a career in non-profit administration at Center Theater Group, Watts Village Theater Company, and 24th Street Theatre. Her goal is to become a creative producer, working nationally and internationally to realize the vision of the world’s most innovative and exciting artists. She believes in using the universal phenomenon of storytelling as a way to bridge

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M I C H A E L R U SSE L L

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UNTITLED BIBLE STUDY #1 Rolled bible pages, science dictionary, gesso, pins, thread on foam board 75 x 75 inches 2010

A NOTH E R EXT E N S I O N: A N I NTE RVIE W W I TH M A RK FLO R E S TIFFANY SMITH

See This Through (detail), Mark Flores, oil on canvas mounted on wood panel, pastel on paper, digital slide show, installation view, 2010, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA.

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B

efore Mark Flores painted any image of Los Angeles,

to paint rows of CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black)

he spent entire days and nights walking through the

fluorescent dots for the halftones.

city alone. When he did paint, he chose modest sizes for

Zoomed in on these minute details, the project

his canvases and treated each one as an irreducible unit in

as a whole was abstract to me. The metamorphosis of the

a much larger system of parts that fit together like pieces

images was not visible until the exhibition. After months

from three different puzzles, with some pieces intentionally

of speculation about what those solitary walks were like, I

left out. No matter how recognizable his subjects may be,

saw the documentation for the first time along with many

the empty spaces of the wall between canvases remind

other visitors; but, unlike everyone else, I have a special

the viewer that the images are incomplete. To scale down

relationship to these images. Here, I attempt to account

Mark’s subjects into the space of a single canvas would be

for what I missed in the project, in hopes of resolving at

physically impossible, if not morally wrong. The majority

least something on a larger list of everything else that I am

of some canvases are not even visible beneath the stacks

missing.

of twos and threes that he arranges on the wall. Exposing fractions of these stacked canvases, one image cuts off an

Tiffany Smith: Mark, describe the beginning of your project,

adjacent one, and at the same time also complements or

See This Through.

extends an image from yet another surface. One painting is never enough, but one hundred paintings are one too

Mark Flores: I did three walks. The first one was from my

many. His recent project, See This Through at the Hammer

apartment building, which is very close to Sunset Boulevard,

Museum, required only ninety-nine of them. Still, ninety-

to the beach. The second one was the entire length of

nine paintings would have been incomplete without a

Sunset Boulevard to the beach, leaving in the morning. And

flat screen television streaming an endless slideshow of photographs from the street taken by Mark with his digital camera. The images document three separate occasions that Mark walked the expanse of Sunset Boulevard, from his home in Los Feliz to the beach.

the third walk was the entire length of Sunset Boulevard, leaving at sunset and arriving at the beach at sunrise. The first walk was really casual, just outside and down the street.

And then, the next two walks were about trying to go back, being a little more comprehensive, and looking for images that would lend themselves to the painting.

I met Mark through the Hammer Museum, in

the aftermath of his photographic excursions on Sunset

TS: How do those walks relate to your installation in the

Boulevard. By then he had decided which of the digital

Hammer Museum?

images would become paintings and how each image would be represented. One of the ways that Mark reproduces

MF: I was thinking about the space of the museum that the

digital imagery is with his halftone paintings, which seem

show was going to be in, and thinking of its function there,

to have been rendered by a machine but are painted by

and then trying to expand it outside of that space. I was

hand. Up close, the image dissolves into colored dots, like

thinking that you would be able to see it from the street,

Roy Lichtenstein paintings. My job as a studio assistant was

and the idea of reading images shot on the street from the

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street was really exciting to me because a mirror is created,

but still really personal, so it has these dual paths.

echoing back and forth from the street to the museum.

One of the things I wanted to do was open the museum up

TS: You mean you’re in two places at the same time—

a little bit to take in some of the more mundane everyday

physically on the street in public but still very much in a

things. You might see something on the street, but you don’t

private space. . . . How do you walk like a flaneur? When did

really see it until it’s presented to you.

you become one?

The idea of traveling, and even climbing the stairs in the

MF: In some ways I think of myself as a flaneur, and in

lobby became about the journey: there’s that exit right in

others I don’t. Yes, I am interested in the way the landscape,

the middle of the stairs, and that exit is kind of a problem,

the architecture, and the incidental inform experience,

but also a solution. I decided to make that a jumping-off point—to take that area of the museum and expand it to the outside. In my mind, the exit opened directly onto the street, even though it doesn’t in actuality. But if it symbolically opens out into the street, then let’s see what’s out there and let’s bring that into the space.

and, in turn, observations. On the other hand, while the walks started off as casual, at some point they morphed into something else. The length, the amount of visual information, and their effects on my body make it clear that the walks had a purpose.

In grad school I made paintings from Internet news sources.

I was going through a lot of photographic information and I

TS: The photographs that ended up in the slideshow could

began to think about how distant they were, how removed

tap into a collective unconscious that is specific to L.A.—the

they were from my own experience. I decided to start

types of things that we’re used to seeing on the street but

shooting my own source material and the best way to do

are now presented deliberately. Did the idea of a collective

that, in my mind, was to get out and walk around. In my

unconscious ever cross your mind in the process of making

work now, I go back and forth between various sources for

the work?

images.

MF: The idea of a collective unconscious is sort of

TS: Did you consider walking along Sunset Boulevard to be a

unavailable to me because I don’t feel like I really participate

form of drawing or a preparatory sketch for this project?

in popular culture. I can’t say, “Yeah, this is what I’m thinking that everyone’s thinking about.” But the work begins in

MF: I was thinking that the camera is an extension of

public, and we’re all seeing the same streets. It’s a very

my hand because of the shift in the way that people take

public thing. I was trying to address this idea of a public

pictures now with digital cameras. You can just hold

consciousness, although the fact that I walked down Sunset

the camera out in front of yourself and you’re shooting

is very personal as well, because most people don’t walk

things. The hand sort of points at the thing that you are

in Los Angeles like that, and the idea of walking that way

photographing and captures it, so there’s the relationship

in public, or flaneurism,1 is very personal and solitary. The

between what I’m doing with my hands and how I’m

experience flips back and forth between being really public

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TS: I never thought about seeing through the architecture itself. You mentioned halftone painting. Can you describe the pixelated or halftone paintings and why you decided to incorporate that style into your work?

MF: I consider myself to be a painter, and part of painting is thinking through brushstrokes, the way that paint lays down on canvas, and what different styles of painting can reveal. Part of what I’m interested in is the deconstruction of that moment of brushstroke on canvas—how things come together and how they fall apart. The halftones really do reveal that moment. From a distance, the halftone looks like a photographic image, but up-close it becomes paint, dots of paint on canvas, and the image really does fall apart into See This Through (detail), Mark Flores, oil on canvas mounted on wood panel,

abstraction.

pastel on paper, digital slide show, installation view, 2010, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA.

TS: Why do some images become paintings and others remain photographs?

accumulating images. That relates to drawing or painting,

MF: Some of the painting choices were images that echoed

and it was preparatory.

aspects of the project space and allowed for some play with meaning. Other choices were based on how I felt a particular

TS: You actually did make a drawing of waves from a

image might make an interesting painting. It’s a different

photograph you took on the beach, which seems to function

way of looking at photographs than most people take into

like a destination, there at the top of the stairs.

consideration. When I was taking pictures, I would think that some things lent themselves to painting, like the flowers

MF: If you could actually see through the wall, you would

in particular. I was really looking forward to painting them

see the ocean, so it’s just another way of thinking through

because they offer the opportunity to make an interesting

the building—out. It is the end, but it is also the beginning

painting. The landscape has been represented by painting in

because a wave is cyclical. Also, See This Through is an

a certain way, and I was trying to push that a bit.

echo of previous work. . . . The idea of waves returning and going back and returning and going back in a cycle creates

TS: I see that push in the way that you cut up or present

a pattern that’s never exactly the same. That idea is also

the flowers in fragments. I feel like See This Through cannot

expressed in the painting itself, especially the halftone

be taken in entirely at once and it resists a holistic view.

painting.

I assume the viewer is scanning the various surfaces, zooming in and out and piecing together the imagery,

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reconciling the different ways of representing one thing,

MF: I would include all of these as documentation because

yet filling in the blank spaces between the canvases where

every moment, gesture, and consideration is recorded in

there isn’t necessarily information, but you can complete

the making of the work. Ultimately, if you want to put it all

the picture. With respect to the viewer’s encounter with

into one thing, then I would say it’s all documentary but it

the work, do you consider the piece to be a metaphor for

includes all these different approaches, considerations, and

memory?

practices.

MF: I think the whole piece itself is a document of

TS: Do you consider storytelling to be part of the piece?

something. It’s a document of the walks, moments that I chose to photograph, and the decisions I made of what

MF: I was thinking about the narrative but I didn’t want it

to paint and how to paint it. It’s an interesting question

to have a beginning, an end, and this is what happens in

because I think that the things you remember most are the

between. I was trying to tease out a narrative. There are

things that you experience in a certain sort of setting or

certain sections where you can understand how things

situation, and if that situation is kind of extraordinary then

played themselves out, but then there are really disjointed

you remember it a lot better. Part of the experience was

moments as well, where you’re not able to follow the story

about knowing that I would have a certain kind of memory

as closely. I didn’t want it to be overly narrative driven.

of it. It wasn’t going to be an everyday kind of thing.

TS: Speaking of narrative driven, See This Through has been TS: Is that why you decided to incorporate the slideshow?

linked to the infamous story of Bas Jan Ader, who similarly walked across the hills and freeways of L.A. to the ocean

MF: A lot of people think I didn’t need the slideshow. I

in his piece In Search of the Miraculous.2 What is your

think they wanted the pure experience of just looking at

relationship to his work?

the painting, but you can still have that. The slideshow isn’t always so present. For me, there’s this interesting dialogue

MF: I was thinking about stories related to Sunset

between the dynamics of the painting installation—the

Boulevard—films that have been shot on Sunset Boulevard

composition, the way that it’s painted—and then the

or have to do with Sunset Boulevard, and then there’s the

dynamics of walking down the street, and photographing

street itself, and all these different Hollywood moments

those things. . . . It becomes this odd narrative about walking

that have happened there, from the glamorous spectacles of

down the street, and all the different ways of looking at the

openings and film premieres, to celebrity deaths, overdoses,

city, and how those photographs and compositions play

and different moments when not so fabulous things

themselves out. Each individual painting echoes what the

happened on that street. So it’s not necessarily Bas Jan Ader

slideshow plays.

that I was thinking about when I was making the piece. . . .

Because Ader was a focus in the printed explanation of my

TS: Do you consider your work to be a hybrid of painting,

work provided by the museum, people may be letting that

drawing, photography, installation, and performance?

determine the understanding of my work, but I don’t want

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it to be over-determined by that. I do like that Ader is a

Contemporary Art, Chicago; Orange County Museum of

consideration of the piece, and his work is really interesting

Art, Newport Beach; Patricia Faure Gallery, Santa Monica;

and so poetically beautiful. I appreciate any comparison, but

California State University, Los Angeles; Golinko Kodansky

it’s not necessarily the only thing that was on my mind when

Gallery, Los Angeles. Reviews and articles of Flores’ work

I was making the piece.

have appeared in Artforum, Flash Art, Los Angeles Times, Frieze, and The New York Times.

TS: The way that you’ve reproduced the trip across Sunset Boulevard in various ways seemingly defies one narrative with a definitive ending. What are your thoughts on our culture’s fascination with endings?

MF: Well, it’s one of those things that everyone has. There’s an end in sight, at some point [laughs]. As I get older, it’s more on my mind . . . I guess there’s something mortal about what I do.

1

A flaneur is a person who walks through the city and in public space, as a

solitary observer. Flaneurism is a byproduct of industrialized societies and is a way of understanding urbanization.

2

In the 1970s, Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader famously hiked overnight from the

Hollywood Hills to the Pacific Ocean as part of his three-pronged project, In Search of the Miraculous.

Tiffany Smith is an artist and writer from Los Angeles. She works at the Hammer Museum researching and giving tours of exhibitions. In addition, she teaches woodworking classes with the non-profit, artist-run organization Side Street Projects. She graduates this year from UCLA with a BA in Fine Art. Mark Flores was born in Ventura in 1970 and currently lives in Los Angeles. He received his MFA in 2002 from CalArts and his BA from UCLA in 1999. Flores has had solo exhibitions at David Kordansky Gallery in Los Angeles and Alison Jacques Gallery in London. His work was also included in group exhibitions at the Museum of

PAT R I C K B LO C HER

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.4 OZ. Graphite on paper 11 x 14 inches 2010

110

N ATA S H A S U B R A M A N I A M ALISA LAPIDUS

JAMIN YIE

Natasha Subramaniam is a multimedia director and

Jamin Yie is a senior at the Rhode Island School of Design.

published film writer currently based in Los Angeles. Alisa

Born in Seoul, South Korea, she grew up in China, spending

Lapidus is a projection designer and multimedia artist with a

four years in Hong Kong and eleven years in Shanghai. She

background in animation. Aiming to push the parameters of

is currently pursuing her undergraduate studies and will

how food and cuisine merge with cinema and art, Natasha

complete her BFA in May 2011.

and Alisa continue to collaborate on a range of hybrid film/ video projects with a gastronomical bent. Their recently

J O N AT H A N A P G A R

completed short film Zergüt has been invited to screen in a range of international film/video festivals. Natasha received

Jonathan Apgar is a graduate student in Painting at UCLA.

her MFA in Film/Video and Alisa received her BFA in

He lives in Long Beach, CA with his wife and daughter.

Experimental Animation from CalArts. To follow their work, please visit www.zergutfilm.com or e-mail

KARI REARDON

zergutfilm@gmail.com.

Kari Reardon was born in Minneapolis, MN. She received her

SARAH AWAD

BA from the School of The Art Institute of Chicago and is currently a first year graduate student at CalArts.

Sarah Awad was born in Pasadena, CA in 1981. She completed her MFA at UCLA in 2010 after obtaining her

LUKE BUTLER

BFA in Illustration from Art Center College of Design and a BA in Studio Arts and Mathematics from Claremont

Luke Butler was born in San Francisco in 1971 and grew up

McKenna College. Her work has been shown in several

in New York City. He attended the Cooper Union School

group exhibitions at Praxis International Art in Miami, FL,

of Art, completing his BFA in 1994, and obtained his MFA

Billy Shire Fine Arts in Culver City, CA, and Art Center

at California College of the Arts in 2008. Butler’s work

College of Design Gallery, in Pasadena, CA.

contemplates masculinity and mortality in contemporary heroic figures and consists mainly of figurative painting and

JENNY YURSHANSKY

collage. Butler has shown at 2nd Floor Projects, the Eagle Tavern, and Silverman Gallery in San Francisco, as well

Jenny Yurshansky was born in Rome and lives and works

as Kantor Gallery in Los Angeles, and the 2010 California

in Los Angeles and Uppsala, Sweden. Yurshansky earned

Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art.

her MFA from UC Irvine and was a participant in the postgraduate Critical Studies course at the Malmö Art Academy.

MICHAEL RUSSELL

In 2010 she was the first international artist awarded the Maria Bonnier Stipend from Bonnier Konsthall in Stockholm.

Michael Russell is a Southern California native and a third

In 2010 she was also invited for a residency and solo

year Fine Art major at UCLA. His current art practice

exhibition at Galleri Rostrum in Malmö and Workspace in

revolves around mixed-media sculptural work, as well as

Los Angeles. She has participated in group shows at the

minimalist drawings.

Laguna Beach Art Museum, MAK Center, LA><ART, the Torrance Art Museum, the Armory Center for the Arts,

PAT R I C K B LO C H E R

Cerritos College Art Gallery, and UC Irvine Art Gallery.

Past exhibitions include S1F Gallery in Los Angeles, the 7th

Patrick Blocher transferred from MiraCosta College in

Istanbul Biennial, the Hammer Museum, Rooseum Center

Oceanside, CA to UCLA in 2010. He currently lives and

for Contemporary Art in Malmö, Sweden, and the Toyota

works in both cities. Blocher uses a variety of media

Museum in Toyota, Japan.

including photography, printmaking, interactive sculpture, and design.

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The GRAPHITE editorial staff would like to thank Susan Bell Yank, the Assistant Director of Academic Programs at the Hammer Museum, for her incredible support, guidance, and enthusiasm for the journal. We would also like to thank Visiting Assistant Professor at the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television, MarĂ­a Elena de las Carreras, and Aparna Sharma, Assistant Professor at the UCLA World Arts and Cultures Department, for their mentorship.

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