Dis/Locations: Mapping Black Europe
Whilst wandering around the Harold B Lemmerman gallery at New Jersey City University in Jersey City, I stumbled upon an eye-grabbing exhibition from artists of African diaspora in Europe. The exhibition consisted of a series of work created from the early 2000s to the current date in which the artists portrayed their identity and experiences throughout the years in a culture that has tried to intentionally exclude them and erase their presence. The work was curated by the Professor Deborah Jack, whom describes the exhibition to be an “incomplete attempt to disrupt the notion of what it means to be European, and a look at how some artists are craving out a space for themselves and the ever evolving space of the European city”.
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| Jeanette Ehlers, artist based in Denmark. |
Consisting in video montages, installations and paintings, the artists presented challenge cultural identity, nationality and space in activist ways. They represent the black and immigrant population that enriches Europe with their spiritual beliefs, traditions and authenticity. The way in which these pieces challenge cultural identity is palpable, especially in the visual components of the exhibition. In Black Magic at the White House, the artist Jeannette Ehlers assembles a video montage in which cultural identity is being erased from her. The audiovisual consists on her performing a Vodun dance in Marienborg, the video was digitally manipulated so one can only be aware of a silhouette performing in a white space, causing spectators to interpret it as an oppression from the whites. If one dissects the montage, one can become aware of the symbolism behind the artwork. For instance, the white house can symbolize the vast population of whites in Europe as well as it can symbolize authority if we connect it to American culture. By assuming its connection to the whites, we are affirming the oppression of identity since the overpowering presence of the whites is eliminating the presence of the folkloric cultures. However, Ehlers also brings into the conversation slavery. By selecting Marienborg as the location for the digital intervention, she connects it to an historic event that has eventually led to the subjugation of blacks in a contemporary moment, slave trade. As stated by Deborah Jack in the curator’s statement, Marienborg was a historical house previously owned by Peter Windt whom became a powerful man in results of trading slaves and the profits that surged from producing sugar. Windt transported slaves to Denmark, where this all takes place, and it is believed that Ehlers is performing this “Ghost Dance” in honor to their endurance.
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| Black Magic at the White House, Jeannette Ehlers |
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| Remy Jungerman, artist based in Amsterdam. |
Another piece showcased in the exhibition was Horizontal Obeah GOLIO, this artwork was assembled by Remy Jungerman, a Surinamer artist based in Amsterdam. With this piece, Jungerman takes modernism and African culture and collides them seamlessly to address Eurocentric spatial systems and its omission of African migration. He merges African patterns, maroon culture and twentieth-century modernism to depict the condensation of time in his installations. Using grids, lines and primary colors is a repetitive pattern that can be found in his past work; he composes them in map-like forms and incorporates other objects that interact with the piece. The composition of this work is well-balanced, he effectively utilizes color to represent the influence of Mondrian and bathes those with colors and motifs of the Winti religion. By having that contrast of Western culture and African culture, Jungerman brings attention to the historic relation between the two, and looks to create a different center where western culture is not dominant anymore. In a way, he is challenging the imperialistic society that has dominated contemporary art and has pushes aside the influence of African culture towards the previous mentioned. Furthermore, the curator of the exhibition exalts an interesting rhetorical question in her statement, she asks if the map being formed is a city or a space of overlapping cultures, languages, and histories. Personally, I believe he is trying to redefine the space and convert it into a place with more cultural inclusion. A place in which you do not only know about western culture, but you know more about your own heritage. He is trying to step away from a constructed Eurocentric center that has been integrated in everybody’s culture, and create many centers where difference is welcomed.
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| Horizontal Obeah GOLIO, Remy Jungerman. |
Both pieces mentioned above are challenging the system that has only favored the whites, meaning they are indeed intervening for a cause. Bell hooks mentions in her book Understanding Patriarchy, that if we engage in collective denial about a systems impact, we won’t be able to dismantle it, and Jungerman and Ehlers are very much aware of the western context and its impact in our perception of art and culture. We are used to seeing activist work being violent and vulgar, or at least some might categorize it as such; this leads us to believe that passiveness cannot be related to activism. However, I consider these pieces to be examples of an intervention and activism. These artists are addressing issues that affect a minority group in an elegant way per se, they are dismembering European culture by trying to insert themselves into a space that has not permitted them to enter. In the book Seeing Power, Nato Thompson says “the increasing privatization of space, culture, and time speaks to a powerful new system that artist and activists must reckon with- and work within” (Page 27) and that’s what these artists are doing, they are studying the Eurocentric system and working from the inside that way they can reconstruct it.
Works cited
Thompson, N. (2015). Cultural Production Makes A World. In N. Thompson, Seeing Power: Art and Activism in the Twenty-first Century (p. 27). New York: Melville House.
Hooks, B. (2004). The will to change : Men, masculinity, and love (p.24) (1st Atria books hardcover ed.). New York: Atria Books.
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