Boris Groys ART HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
We are accustomed to living in a disenchanted and designed world – the world of administration, technology, geographical maps, statistical data and abstract painting. In this world almost all wild forms of life are already domesticated and put under control: tigers and lions live in national parks or in zoos. However, there remains suspicion that some strange, alien forms of life are concealed under the familiar surfaces of our world and cannot be totally suppressed. In the polytheistic myths of ancient cultures the flows, woods and mountains became animated. And through this act of animation they became also dangerous and violent. In her art Alina Bliumis applies the same act of animation on the familiar images of our lifeless, soulless, administered world. As a result, the hidden energy of violence and aggression becomes revealed upon which those images owe their aura of tranquility and peaceful stability.
Indeed, when we look at the political map of the world, on which every country is presented by a certain geometrical form, we tend to forget that this form is always a result of bloody wars and oppression. In her series “Nation Unleashed” Alina reveals the “animal” energy of hate and aggression to which contemporary countries owe the shapes of their borders. She shows the peaceful surface of our world as camouflage concealing the violent fight for dominance. Of course, as an artist of Belorussian origin Alina cannot turn her eyes away from the eruptions of violence that currently take place in her region. However, long before these actual events took place, she was attentive to, what one can call, the political zoology of our contemporary world –the descent of national political symbols from mythical animals of the polytheistic past.
Alina’s disbelief in the surface characterizes her series “Bruises.” Images on their surface that look to be late examples of abstract expressionism become revealed as images that remain on human skin after a punch. Here again peaceful art for art’s sake suddenly turns into a document of physical violence and the fate of the body in the contemporary world. And in the series “Concrete Poems” familiar words that seem to be merely vehicles of ordinary communication begin to dissolve, revealing an abyss of the absurd hidden behind their grammatically correct surface.
Theodor Adorno famously said that to write poetry after Auschwitz is impossible. The appearance of the beautiful would only serve as cover making us forget the cruel reality of our world. Many artists reacted to this challenge by making their artworks look as ugly as reality itself. However, in this way they missed the cruelty of the second degree – the cruelty of the aestheticizing cover-up. It is this cruelty of the second degree – the cruelty inherent to the artistic practice itself – that Alina makes her topic in a subtle and at the same time surprisingly direct and convincing way.
*The exhibition Borders and Bruises at Anna Zorina Gallery, LA is accompanied by text written by art critic, media theorist, and philosopher, Boris Groys.
Boris Groys WHAT DO THE BIRDS DREAM ABOUT? Political Animals, Apero Raum, Berlin
When we speak about globalization we mostly mean the global circulation of information, money and commodities. However, long before this circulation started animals, birds and insects were circulating around the world – and they still are. Migration of birds and animals preceded the migration of men. At the same time not all the animals migrate. Some of them are local – and parts of local ecologies. That is why migration of animals and other living organisms, such as viruses and microbes, is seen as dangerous for the ecological balance in certain regions. Now, the analogy with the human migration is obvious. Often enough it is also seen as a negative factor destroying the ecological balance of certain national states.
Alina Bliumis came to the USA from Belarus. One of the persistent topics of her art is a reflection on the processes of accommodation and integration in which everyone with a similar background is unavoidably involved. The tone of this reflection is far from being dictated by personal ressentiment or protest. Rather, her attention is drawn by the absurdities of the processes themselves. Her recent projects Amateur Bird Watching at the Passport Control and Political Animals deal with the images of animals and birds that serve as symbols for different national states and thus put on the official documents, including passports, of their citizens. There is this standard expression: free as a bird. Speaking about the freedom of birds we mean, of course, the migrating birds that high in the sky cross all the national borders – the freedom which the planes, for example, do not have.
However, the birds which images we find in our passports are not migrating
birds. Mostly, they are birds of prey – like eagles, for example. In this respect they are similar to the political animals – lions or bears. The eagles do not migrate – they are circling in the air and controlling their territory. They are machines of surveillance. They look for a prey – and catch it. So it is clear enough why so many states have chosen the eagle as its symbol. Of course, there are also some more peaceful examples. But the common characteristic of all these birds is the fact that they are local – be it a pelican from Barbados or a parrot from Dominica. All these birds are prisoners of their territories. Do they ever dream to become free, to migrate, to visit different countries – and not only to draw always the same circles over the same territory? We do not know it. But if the birds have these dreams it is the citizens of the states that have images of these birds in their passports who realize these dreams – at least in symbolic terms. Thus, even if a parrot remains on Dominica and a pelican - on the Barbados the passports with their images have a chance to be checked at the airports all around the world. Whatever can be said about the migrants one thing is sure: they realize their birds’ dream of flying.
.
