Alina Bliumis’ exhibition, On the Land of Eagles, voyages through global national symbols and identities. The Poems Without Borders series features the world’s tourism slogans in patterned rhymes. Amateur Bird Watching at Passport Control unlocks symbolic imagery from passport covers. The artist traces global territories in the allegorical Maps Unleashed drawings, and portrays national animal symbols in the Nature of Nations series.
“I feel Slovenia, I need Spain, Fiji Me, Cameroon is back.” Tourism slogans market countries to an expanding industry fueled by low-cost no-frills airlines. Abstract yet suggestive taglines allow foreigners to dream up their own ideas about the countries they want to visit. The series Poems Without Borders (2018-2019) arranges official national tourism slogans of forty-eight nations into sixteen poems. For this exhibition, the text-based piece is placed directly on the wall in one straight line that wraps around the gallery space.
Tourism and migration are the most significant manifestations of globalization. While economic, political and environmental migrants are routinely blocked at the border, tourists are ceaselessly wooed on various media and advertising platforms. While countries sculpt their national identities to make themselves more appealing to visitors, they use ethnic and cultural definitions to reinforce laws limiting migration.
“Free as a bird” we definitely are not. Yet ironically there are fifty bird symbols incorporated into the coats of arms depicted on the passport covers of forty-three nations. The Amateur Bird Watching at Passport Controlseries (2016-2017) presents forty-three works on paper. From eagles to doves, from Albania to Tonga, Bliumis studied all existing passport covers – 195 in total -- looking for birds in order to free them from their national context. She traced each bird, true to its source, with a focus on the species’ characteristics. The birds at the intersection of nation and nature include: the famous one-legged pose of a flamingo (Bahamas), a vulture in a gliding flight (Mali), an extinct flightless dodo (Mauritius), a rooster with an axe (Kenya) and a mythological creature that is part woman and part bird known as a Harpy (Liechtenstein).
Birds are not the only animals that nations use to symbolize themselves—a brown bear, a Fennec fox, an Apennine Wolf, a Barbary Macaque, a Marten or a goat are all official national animals. Nature of Nations (2019) is a series of watercolor portraits inspired by official national animals, heraldic design elements, geographical borders, folk fables, and stereotypes. The resulting images portray: A bird of prey, the bald eagle, freed from the USA coat of arms with a halo made of two olive branches is staring at the viewer, its claw is free of arrows. A seductive double-headed rooster of France is flirting with the audience. An outraged bear with wings is a combination of two symbols, the bear of the Soviet Union and the double-headed eagle of contemporary Russia. A goat of Iraq is crowned with a sword-shaped horn.
The series Nations Unleashed (2018-2019) is inspired by the historical tradition of satirical maps, which employ animal symbolism and stereotypes to convey biting political critique and/or to cover up human actions in certain political theaters. The series comprises watercolor and pencil drawings on paper. Delicately toned washes of blue surround loosely sketched landmasses populated by an array of diverse animals, each representing a critical political interest. Bliumis’ interpretations range from the literal – as in the American bald eagle – to the fanciful – as in a two-headed Scandinavian lion. What these maps lack in geographic accuracy is made up in thorough doses of imagination and humor, leaving further interpretation open to the viewer.
All four series in the exhibition investigate the formation of national identity, its historical and geographical roots and its ambitions in global geopolitics. National symbols often reflect national interests, but imagine for a moment if, as the myth goes, the U.S. Congress had conceded to Benjamin Franklin. For instance, he might have chosen the wild turkey as the national bird, instead of the bald eagle. Would the country’s domestic policies and international interests have unfolded differently?
Musée national de l’histoire de l’immigration 16 October 2018 – 20 January 2019 Co-curated by Anne-Laure Flacelière, MAC VAL collection Study and Development Officer and Isabelle Renard, Collections and Exhibitions Director at the Musée national de l’histoire de l’immigration
With works by Bertille Bak, Dominique Blais,Alina Bliumis, Jeff Bliumis,Halida Boughriet, Kyungwoo Chun, Philippe Cognée, Pascale Consigny, Hamid Debarrah, Latifa Echakhch, Eléonore False, Claire Fontaine, Laura Henno, Pierre Huyghe, Bertrand Lamarche, Xie Lei, Lahouari Mohammed Bakir, Moataz Nasr, Eva Nielsen, Gina Pane, Laure Prouvost, Enrique Ramirez, Judit Reigl, Anri Sala, Sarkis, Zineb Sedira, Bruno Serralongue, Chiharu Shiota, Société Réaliste, Dan Stockholm, Barthélémy Toguo...
Welcome ! Festival 6 October – 11 November 2018 Programming: Stéphane Malfettes Under the eyes of philosophers Fabienne Brugère and Guillaume Le Blanc, authors of La fin de l’hospitalité, this two-fold exhibition will be complemented by a cultural programming: Welcome! at the Musée national de l’histoire de l’immigration (6 October-11 November 2018) and Attention fragile at the MAC VAL (30 November, 1 and 2 December 2018).
With works by Eduardo Arroyo, Marcos Avila Forero, Bertille Bak, Richard Baquié, Taysir Batniji, Ben, Bruno Boudjelal, Mark Brusse, Pierre Buraglio, Mircea Cantor, Étienne Chambaud, Kyungwoo Chun, Philippe Cognée, Delphine Coindet, Julien Discrit, Thierry Fontaine, Jochen Gerz, Ghazel, Marie-Ange Guilleminot, Mona Hatoum, Éric Hattan, Laura Henno, Emily Jacir, Yeondoo Jung, Bouchra Khalili, Kimsooja, Claude Lévêque, Lahouari Mohammed Bakir, Lucy Orta, Bernard Pagès, Yan Pei-Ming, Cécile Paris, Mathieu Pernot, Jacqueline Salmon, Bruno Serralongue, Esther Shalev-Gerz, Société Réaliste, Djamel Tatah, Barthélémy Toguo, Patrick Tosani, Sabine Weiss...
Attention fragile Festival-Rencontre, 30 November, 1 and 2 December 2018 Programming: Stéphanie Airaud - Thibault Capéran
The Musée national de l’histoire de l’immigration and the MAC VAL- Musée d’art contemporain du Val-de-Marne are collaborating to present a project questioning the notion of hospitality through the prism of contemporary creation. Together, the two institutions- a social museum that value contemporary creation and a contemporary art museum that tackles social issues- are happy to present “Persona grata”, an exhibition organized over the two locations with a rich cultural programming: an occasion for artists to explore all the dimensions of what constitutes or corrodes the notions of hospitality and alterity through their own vision and sensitivity.
The acceleration of migratory flows and the growing place these issues occupy in the public debate increasingly question the foundations of our societies. On one hand, camps and walls mushroom and confirm the irreversible setback of our hospitality duty, while on the other, citizen involvement grows to help, support and welcome migrants. Is the answer of today’s harsh society to bring emergency assistance rather than implement long-term and effective hospitality policies?
In this context and from the collections of both museums, this artistic partnership aims at highlighting a contemporary creation that reflects today’s world as well as tackling these issues from the point of view of the many artists who have explored the theme of hospitality over the last years.
The exhibition will provide a platform for artists to share their analyses, critics and feelings toward national fold, behaviors of rejection and revolt. These artistic testimonies will help us think these questions through and look at ourselves yet without any moralistic judgment.
Through this unique and engaged partnership project, the Musée national de l’histoire de l’immigration and the MAC VAL look to raise awareness, foster reflection and debate, and call our certitudes into question. Although central, the issues related to migratory flows do not cross out other neglected –and little known- forms of hospitality toward helpless and weakened populations. The exhibition will bring forth proposals around community life, care for others, the necessity of nursing homes, public health-care and hospitality centers held in a spirit of attentiveness, kindness and sharing we should rehabilitate.
