Horizontal Obeah GOLIO
One of the pieces that stood out to
me was Horizontal Obeah GOLIO by Remy Jungerman. This was strange as I’m usually
not attracted to contemporary art aspects as I feel they’re very simplistic and
minimalist. I can appreciate the “but you didn’t think you put white circles on
a white canvas first” argument but these works simply don’t entertain me.
However, this piece was very eye-catching. It immediately looked like a boat to
me, incorporating the ideas of black Europe that had roots in stolen people
carried away on large ships. With the La Rochelle pictured here, towards the end
of the 17th century joining the slave trade endeavour, the vertical
lines of the masts and the horizontal lines of the sails, it connects to the
grid-like piece towards the right of jungerman's work. The yellow panel behind this reminds me of a sun, bringing on the feeling of a hot sweaty exhaustion that people on these ships were forced to endure. Jungerman's. The painted white panels look like the decorative panelling along the side of the ship's hull, or even the shrouds found on older ships. I believe that even if this piece was on show alone, I'd see a ship. Perhaps a different kind of ship, but in conjunction with the other pieces and themes of this art show, it definitely holds it's own perfectly in the collection. After reading about the piece, however, I feel like the ship imagery connects well with the true meaning of the artist's intentions of displaying a map of cultures, languages and history. The different colours might symbolise something as simple as different skin tones coming together to piece together Jungerman's home of the Netherlands or it could be something deeper like our experiences and paths giving us different hues. "An artwork easily open to interpretation provides a certain freedom from instrumentalisation - from agenda - and allows a viewer to experience speculation and consideration." (Thompson, 2015) The map intentions along with the shape of a boat may imply that the history of the Netherlands will forever be shaped by slavery, as one of the last countries to abolish slavery. Jungerman's native Surinane experienced an extra ten years of slavery even after it was abolished in 1863 due to a ten-year transition period stated in the law. The word Obeah describes a vague set of practices used for spiritual healing, originating in Jamaica, perhaps this is Jungerman's attempt to cure the Netherlands, to heal those with history rooted in suffering, despite it's every present stain.
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| Horizontal Obeah GOLIO - Remy Jungerman |
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| La Rochelle slave ship Le Saphirex-voto, 1741 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Rochelle |
Black Magic at the White House
Immediately there's a tongue in cheek reference to the White House, home to the US President, but I feel this is more than just a clever title, but a comment on the colonialism. The constitution was written to detail the rights of those who were considered US citizens. This, however, did not include slaves living there. Out of eleven clauses in the Constitution regarding slavery, ten of them protect the slave masters and their property, meaning the people they legally own. Some consider the US to have been built on the backs of slaves with how much of the country's early history is rooted in the normalisation of slavery. The White House was built by slaves and other labourers from across the globe; a desire for cheap manual labour and high skill work not practised in the US, like Scottish stonemasonery. In this video, a girl dances around a grand home, performing a vodun dance and creating a symbol on the floor. This looks like a protection veve, a symbol meant to channel something, in this case protection. Ehlers takes the persona of a woman taken there, from her home, to be a slave. She is both there, and not there, from the time that slavery has been abolished to today, it's easy to forget. The location, Marienborg, that is very interesting too; the home of the Danish Prime Minister but not only that, the house was once owned by Peter Windt, a man who profited on the slave and sugar trade. With this piece, she is trying to combat "colonial amnesia" in Denmark by directly addressing the history of slavery and how normalised it is due to being in the past. What statement does the Prime Minister give by staying in a home that intimately witnessed slavery? Coming from a country that participated in the initial movements that ended the slave trade, I've seen a clear distance that is put up between the UK and slavery, as if it wasn't the UK that was one of the first countries to absolutely perfect the horrors to the point it became a mechanically efficient industry. Although I can't speak for Denmark's education system, I can relate to Ehlers' annoyance in that our history classes were diluted with a "Oh, but remember, we also championed the abolition of slavery!" as if that is somehow supposed to negate the reality that people were brutalised. The ghost in this home will forever be there, performing vodun dances. Nothing will change her history, or anyone else affected by the slave trade in other grand mansions of the world. This piece is an example of intervention as, currently, there's a soft cushioned imagined reality of how the world exists now in the absence of slavery across Europe. It's easy to dismiss it, but Ehlers is determined to remind people of what happened with this piece. "To study art and activist projects that have attempted to address the underlying conditions of social and cultural capital and the privatisation of space is to home in on a productive lens through which to view models for contemporary action." (Thompson, 2015)
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Black Magic at the White House - Jeannette Ehlers
https://vimeo.com/98147771 |
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| Protection Veve https://cellcode.us/quotes/voodoo-veve-protection-meaning.html |
Thompson, N.
(2015). Cultural Production Makes A World. In N. Thompson, Seeing Power: Art
and Activism in the Twenty-first Century (p. 28). New York: Melville House.
Thompson, N. (2015). Cultural Production Makes A World. In N. Thompson, Seeing Power: Art and Activism in the Twenty-first Century (p. 35). New York: Melville House.
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