Urban Tribe

by Luchia Meihua Lee

The subject of the "Urban Tribe” is a portion of the urgent topic of globalization. From this wider subject, focus in on cultural issues in a new community that has been created typically in the big city. I question whether hybridity is a sufficient description of the profound and ever-present opposition between remaining faithful to tradition and adapting to the circumstances of the enveloping milieu.  We might find a self-sufficient group in any ethnicity developing its own cultural identity, and diverging significantly from their original character. Yet the members of Urban Tribes do not completely take on the living style of the larger population in which they reside, and it is the differences that are most interesting. Here, I would like to use a fresh perspective to view small and possibly even isolated pockets of disjointedness, and then interpret them in a worldwide and international context.

In these multi-disciplinary projects, artists reinterpret the sense of the culture term “Tribe” in terms of urban reactions in the community. Nowadays, the definition of “Tribe” has already transformed to apply to a wider group, defined by ethnicity, national origin, language etc. The program will focus on underlining the diversity of life in and fostering interactivity with the community on Environmental subjects.

Globalization not only influences the international business climate, but also affects the national scene and local tribal natives. As one example, this is apparent among that part of the indigenous population in Taiwan which has moved from ancestral lands to the city. Some contemporary artists create a new language and means of expression from the aboriginal heritage – indigenous ritual, belief, cultural elements, and reverence for the environment. These works could involve individual tribal members or tribal groups – either as subjects or as artists.

Perhaps the most jarring change in the transition from pastoral homeland to urban milieu for aborigines is the loss of ritual and myth, or more accurately the wrenching need to adapt these human needs to the encountered environment.  Myth is a connection to the divine, and artists are best equipped to mediate a new connection that is relevant to city life and shakes off the dust of mundanity.

Here, the interconnection between the mind, body, nature, culture, and how artists work with this concept of the urban tribe create work that is constructed to pull a viewer through a symbolic journey of language and materials. Thoreau wrote of culture as “The Enchanter” and how immersing oneself in nature is the only way one can answer two simple yet indispensable questions without the influence of certain aspects of culture: how much is enough and how do I know what I want? He felt only in nature could one truly hear one’s own heart, divorced from the influence of cultural voices. The rituals and ceremonies and symbolic nature of the urban tribe act as a doorway back into both nature and the natural voice of the individual and group – divorced from the programming of specifically capitalist and consumer culture.

Sarah Walko studio installation

This is a multi-disciplinary project that will span different ethnic groups and tribes. All work presented in this exhibition will be contemporary art, produced either by aborigines – Taiwanese or American – or by contemporary artists commenting on the urban environment. Artists will be chosen not only on the basis of special indigenous background, but also because tribal culture has been incorporated into their work, with special emphasis on those living in the city, but taking the environment into account and using ritual to express a concern for the land.

TAAC Gala performance

紐約及愛爾蘭經驗 - 海外移民，殖民文化及孤島藝術

紐約及愛爾蘭經驗 - 海外移民，殖民文化及孤島藝術
The diaspora, colonial experience, architecture, and insular art - New York and Ireland 

綠可

愛爾蘭在一九九二年成爲獨立國家，脫離超過六百年的英國之殖民，這個國家現有超過四百七十萬人口，面積八萬四千平方公里（相比台灣為2355萬和40,000平方公里），雖然北愛爾蘭因爲宗教因素還是在英國之部分，但當地的人還稱自己為愛爾蘭人；而不會是英國人。這個國家的獨立經歷多次大大小小慘烈的獨立戰爭， 許多精英加入了激進分子的領導行列，革命中喪失了生命，給他們的家人造成了深重的痛苦，許多城市建築也燒毀，現已重建，在都柏林的市區可見一尊尊的雕像矗立街頭，如果瞭解愛爾蘭的歷史會完全理解現金愛爾蘭人的强烈愛國及國家文化的認同意識。有一首非常有名的詩歌“母親”[1]是愛國烈士帕斯博士(Patrick (Pádraig) Pearse)在1916 年在未成功的革命中被捕處決之前夕以母親角色來寫下他與弟弟威利Willie都為爭取愛爾蘭的獨立而犧牲了性命。

母親
我不遺恨他們：主啊，我不遺恨
我看著的兩個強壯的兒子走了
為了突破自己的強靭和死亡，他們和一些人，
在血腥抗議一件光榮的事情時，
他們應該在他們的人民中被說出來，
世代應記住他們，
稱他們為福氣，
但我會把他們的名字寫在自己的心上
在漫漫長夜裡;
那些曾經很熟悉的名字
圍繞我的火爐灰燼。
主啊，你對母親很努力：
我們在他們的來臨和他們的離去中受苦;
而我不吝嗇他們，我疲倦，疲倦
長久的悲傷 - 然而我有我的喜悅：
我的兒子是忠實的，他們奮戰。

這讓我們想起了台灣歌曲亞細亞的孤兒[2]以：

亞細亞的孤兒在風中哭泣；
黃色的臉孔有紅色的污泥；
黑色的眼珠有白色的恐懼；
西風在東方唱著悲傷的歌曲。
亞細亞的孤兒在風中哭泣；
沒有人要和你玩平等的遊戲；
每個人都想要你心愛的玩具；
親愛的孩子你為何哭泣。
多少人在追尋那解不開的問題；
多少人在深夜裏無奈的嘆息；
多少人的眼淚在無言中抹去。
親愛的母親這是什麼道理。

 
在談到愛爾蘭移民，必須提到移居在英國及美國和其他國家散居的人口。所有愛爾蘭的藝術家都希望有機會在倫敦展辦理展覽，並希望他們的藝術作品能夠在展示時被收藏，也同時有一些有趣的事情總會不時的發生，在十九世紀藝術家可以做出奇怪的改變來妥協現實狀態，例如，他們可以改變藝術作品的標題主題以避免挑起英國對愛爾蘭的偏見，因此可以取悅倫敦的觀眾或是不讓英國的收藏家請在。這個例子將會在之後的文章中逐步分析，儘管在愛爾蘭存在反英情緒，但都柏林的城市發展遵循了英國式的刻板印象,如城市規劃或維多利亞和喬吉亞的建築風格,十九世紀後期愛爾蘭發生了重要的文化復興運動。由於基督教影響了這個愛爾蘭島嶼，整個社會基本上分為兩組 - 新教徒和保守的羅馬天主教徒。[羅馬天主教徒佔絕大多數。]

在這場長期的文化運動，愛爾蘭社會精英發自内心的熱愛塞爾特歷史，運用宣傳及有計劃的組織這一場蓋爾文化復興運動，以藝術加上政治從多個文化角度來引起歡慶愛爾蘭遺產。這些活動涉及文件記載歷史建築，地形，藝術，文學，出版物和政治上熟練的宣傳，這群人不移遺力致志向前推進，最終成功改變了政治環境。也因此，今天在愛爾蘭有一個非常明確的國家身份和文化認同。這一場文化運動不僅給愛爾蘭帶來了強烈的族群認同感，而且是一次重大的文化復興。有幾個重要的歷史人物必須提及，如威廉.斯托克斯博士和他的女兒瑪格麗特. 斯托克斯博士, 還有建築師如迪恩和伍德沃德，藝術家如喬治皮特里，後來的威廉濟慈，和他的兄弟傑克濟慈和姐妹蘇珊和伊麗莎白濟慈，還有像丹尼爾.奧康奈爾等政治家也多是其中一份子。

在十九世紀初的大饑荒期間，超過一百萬愛爾蘭人離開愛爾蘭鄉鎮遷徙到美國；些移民團體居住在紐約和美國其他許多州，他們在紐約市建立了一個非常強大的愛爾蘭社區，其中如在曼哈頓第五大道上的聖帕翠克大教堂和每年一度的聖帕翠克節遊行等都是重要的標誌， 還有有趣的現象是很多愛爾蘭裔美國人強烈地表現出對祖國的愛國情懷，在都柏林國家音樂廰，剛剛維修完成並於二〇一八年一月舉行了第一場音樂會，我們看到了在大廳中列出的贊助人名單使用較為大字的字體明顯標記贊助人名，其中最大的贊助者特別並標出“美國人”。另外，前美國總統約翰.肯尼迪是愛爾蘭後裔，他對愛爾蘭的訪問在本地也是一件大事並瞭解兩個國家間的緊密關係。

有個歷史事實，英格蘭和愛爾蘭之間的一大區別在於，羅馬人征服並統治了英國數世紀，但羅馬從未征服過愛爾蘭。查看愛爾蘭的藝術歷史及國寶凱爾斯之書（Book of Kells）的影響力，必須回到中世紀早期，當時來自羅馬的傳教士遍布歐洲，直至英格蘭，蘇格蘭，威爾士和愛爾蘭。這些僧侶攜帶手稿，複製手稿或向教皇請求給與；其後，傳教士逐漸分組，大多數的修道院遵循羅馬統治，而愛爾蘭人則因為離羅馬很遠而獨立運作。其中一位僧侶科倫巴（Columba）出生在愛爾蘭的一個王室，之後他成為了一個修道士，後來移居在蘇格蘭西部的愛奧那（Iona）建立了一個修道院，離愛爾蘭不遠。愛奧那修道院成為科倫巴建立的一系列修道院的指揮中心，其中一些位於英格蘭東北部的諾桑比亞（Northumbria），另一些位於愛爾蘭本島。

島國藝術（Insular Art）手抄本（manuscript）是指來自愛爾蘭和蘇格蘭，威爾士及英格蘭以及當時移居的書，這包含了交互影響的地中海區域，如瑞士，德國，奧地利，希臘，法國及意大利的島國藝術手抄本，這個詞在歐洲其他地方還沒有被應用。但是，如果沒有大寫字母，“insula”只是拉丁語中的“島嶼”，也可以更普遍地使用。在這些島嶼內觀察和開展研究，對於在一個小國家中保持國家形象和身份的重要性提供了很多擴展的視角。

__________________________________
[1] 帕斯出生都柏林，對於語言有極大興趣及學習，他原意係愛爾蘭國會獨立自主于英國，但之後決定投入愛爾蘭的獨立運動，並成立了男孩團體學校，讓孩子學習愛爾蘭語言及蓋爾文化，在1916年帕斯爲主的團體占領郵政總局，但是英國軍隊其後他的弟弟威利在其後也被槍殺。除了是老師與革命家，他也是作家與詩人，在死刑前夕所作的詩歌來表達他的母親對於兩個兒子的死亡。

[2] “ 亞細亞的孤兒》（日文名：アジアの孤児）是台灣作家吳濁流成名的長篇日文小說. 書籍對當年的台灣人，既不是日本人也不是中國人的身份認同，其矛盾與混亂深刻描繪。在對自身歸依的無助感及許多人生挫折打擊的日侵月蝕下，最後混亂發瘋，悲劇收場。”（ 蔡永強. 亞細亞的孤兒－吳濁流 (PDF). 國立編譯館. 吳濁流. 亞細亞的孤兒. 台灣: 草根出版社. 1995年. ISBN 9579897174. 衍生作品有台灣歌手羅大佑] 於1983年創作同名歌曲《亞細亞的孤兒》。但當時的副標題「紅色的夢魘，致中南半島難民」，使眾人以為此曲內容為描述當年「泰北異域孤軍」後裔的悲涼處境。直到約30多年後2009年，羅大佑才說此曲原意是影射中美斷交事件中的臺灣人，副標只為應付當年的歌曲檢查政策歌的故事／羅大佑《亞細亞的孤兒》原來是指台灣人民？ 今日新聞網. 2009-03-14: 影劇中心 [2011-02-15].

The diaspora, colonial experience, architecture, and insular art 
---- New York and Ireland

by Luchia Lee-Howell

A view from IMMA window

Ireland won its independence from the United Kingdom in 1922. It has a population of 4.7 million people in an area of 84,000 km², (compared to 23.55 million and 40,000 km² for Taiwan) Ireland has been through many rebellions against the English over the past 600 years, before the successful war for independence. Many elites have joined as activists, leading revolutions which ended in death, causing deep suffering to their family members. A renowned poem by “Pádraig Pearse before he was executed in 1916 for his role in an unsuccessful revolution, runs:

The Mother[1] by Pádraig Pearse

I do not grudge them: Lord, I do not grudge

My two strong sons that I have seen go out

To break their strength and die, they and a few,

In bloody protest for a glorious thing,

They shall be spoken of among their people,

The generations shall remember them,

And call them blessed;

But I will speak their names to my own heart

In the long nights;

The little names that were familiar once

Round my dead hearth.

Lord, thou art hard on mothers:

We suffer in their coming and their going;

And tho' I grudge them not, I weary, weary

Of the long sorrow--And yet I have my joy: My sons were faithful, and they fought .

 IMMA to the Phoenix part

This reminds us of the Taiwanese song The Orphan of Asia, which starts  “The orphan of Asia was crying in the wind，Black eyes had white phobia, Western wind in the east was singing sad songs…..”

The orphan of Asia was crying in the wind

Black eyes had white phobia

Western wind in the east was singing sad songs

Orphan of Asia was crying in the wind

No one wanted to play fair game with you

Everyone all wanted your beloved toys

Dear Child, why were you crying?

How many people were pursuing that unsolved question^[2]?

 In talking with new Irish immigrants, reference has been made to the diaspora in the UK, US, and other countries. There were some interesting things that happened when artists exhibit in London, where all artists seek the chance to exhibit and hope their art works will be collected. Artists can make weird changes to compromise and thus please the audience in London. For example, they can change the work title to avoid disturbing British prejudices against Ireland. Despite anti-British feeling in Ireland, city development in Dublin has followed the stereotypical British format, such as city planning or the Victorian and Georgian architecture styles. There was an important cultural revival movement in late 19th century. Since Christianity has influenced this island, society has divided into two groups - Protestants, and conservative Roman Catholics. [The Roman Catholics are a large majority.] 

Irish elites acted as propagandists, organizing a movement to celebrate Irish heritage from multiple cultural angles, politically and artistically. The activities involved documented historical architecture, topography, art, literature, publications and politically skillful propaganda. The efforts moved forward and eventually successfully changed the political environment. Thus, today in Ireland there is a very clear identity and culture. This movement not only brought a strong identity to Ireland, but also a significant cultural revival. There were several important figures. Such as Dr. William Stokes, and his daughter Margaret, Architects, such as Deane and Woodward, artists such as George Petrie, and later William B. Yeats and his brother Jack Yeats and sisters Susan and Elizabeth Yeats. politicians such as Daniel O’Connell, and others.

Over one million Irish people left emigrated to America during the Great Famine of the 19th century. These immigrant groups lived in New York, and many other states in US. They built up a very strong Irish community in New York City with their significant icons such as St. Patrick’s Cathedral on 5th Avenue and the annual St Patrick’s Day parade. Interestingly, Irish-Americans strongly show their patriotic feelings for their home country. The Dublin National Theatre was just renovated and had the first concert in January 2018. We have found the patrons listed in the lobby; on the top in larger font is clearly marked “United States.” John Kennedy, the former US president, was of Irish descent, and his visit to Ireland was a large event.

One big difference between England and Ireland is that the Romans conquered and ruled England for many centuries, but Rome never conquered Ireland.

Investigate the national treasures in Ireland back to the early Medieval period, when missionaries From Rome had spread out over Europe, as far as England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. These monks carried manuscripts with them, and copied manuscripts or requested them from the Pope, and the missionaries gradually divided into groups. Most followed the rule from Rome, while those in Ireland became independent because they were so far from Rome. One of these monks, Columba, was born in Ireland of a royal family. He became a monk andhile later founded a monastery in Iona - west of Scotland and not far from Ireland. The monastery at Iona become the command center of a chain of monasteries founded by Columba, some in Northumbria (in northeast England), and others in Ireland.

Insular manuscripts are those from Ireland and England, and this term has not been applied anywhere else in Europe. But when not capitalized, “insula” is simply the Latin word for “island” and can be also used in more generally. Observing and doing research within these islands has provided much extended perspective of what is significant in keeping national icons and identity in a small country.

---

[1] Patrick (Pádraig) Pearse (1879-1916) was born in Dublin and had a great interest in the Irish language and spent many summers in Rosmuc in Galway learning Irish. At first he just wanted a parliament in Dublin rather than total independence from Britain. However, he later decided to start a rebellion and fight for independence. He established a school for boys, St. Enda’s School, where children could learn about Irish culture and language. During the 1916 Rising, Pearse was in charge of the General Post Office (G.P.O.). When the British army overpowered the Irish rebels, it was Pearse who ordered their general surrender in order to save further loss of life. He was tried and executed by a firing squad in Kilmainham Jail on the 3rd of May 1916. His younger brother Willie was also shot.

In addition to being a teacher and a revolutionary, Patrick Pearse was also a poet and a writer. One of his famous poems is called The Mother. It was written the night before his execution and describes his mother’s thoughts on the death of her two sons.

[2] The Orphan of Asia is novel by Wu Zhouliu. The book reflects Taiwan’s wandering-orphan status through time not only in its political content, but also in its publishing history. The book was written in the late Japanese colonial period (1895-1945; at the time, the controls over speech and writing were pretty strict, so, the novel had to be clandestinely penned, and it was not possible to publish the book. After the Pacific War, Taiwan was the governed under the Chinese Nationalist 9KMT) immigrants, Mandarin Chinese became the national language, and the novel which was written in Japanese was again facing unpublishable status and the feelings Taiwanese people through the metaphor of an orphan abandoned by its parents, the book evoked a tremendous response from readers. Its English translation was made possible in 2005. Wu, Zhuoliu. 2006. Orphan of Asia. translated by Ioannis Mentzas. New York: Columbia University Press.

Old Library, Trinity College Dublin

Brian Boru Harp

Annotated Selections III - Yayoi Kusama and the Amazing Polka-Dotted, Selfie-Made Journey to Greatness(NY Times)

Annotated Selections - III


ROBERTA SMITH, Yayoi Kusama and the Amazing Polka-Dotted, Selfie-Made Journey to Greatness, New York Times, NOV. 3, 2017 New York City, Art and Design. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/03/arts/design/yayoi-kusama-david-zwirner-festival-of-life-review.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0#story-continues-12

                                                                        A woman looking at Longing for Eternity. 

                                                                        Credit: Vincent Tullo for the New York Times


     Roberta Smith is a senior art editor of the New York Times; of course, she is normally very perceptive when reviewing western art. This article reviews world-famous Japanese female artist Yayoi Kusama, whose dramatically dotted art work is very recognizable and is found in all the world’s major museums. However, given the lack of serious comment about Ms. Kusama’s art, it seems the purpose of the review is basically to introduce two new Manhattan commercial galleries. For example, Smith vacuously writes “Ms. Kusama’s current three-ring circus of exhibitions at David Zwirner’s uptown and downtown spaces — which include 76 works on canvas — argue in favor of greatness.” According to Smith “The artist of “Infinity” rooms has become an Instagram darling. But two new gallery exhibitions in New York show that she’s much more than that — an almost frighteningly fertile talent.”

This article, in contrast to real art criticism, is basically to respect a senior, consistent, renowned artist in her ninth decade who is still very productive, and of course continuing to turn out cheerful, colorful, paintings with dots and reaching audiences of diverse ages. This might be because this basic round shape directly connects with people’s childhood memories. This article addresses the new installation, especially in the Chelsea gallery, and how the paintings fill the entire room to create an entire environment. All the work titles deal with spirituality - for example “Infinity” or “With All My Love for the Tulips, I Pray Forever”.

The author uses lovely, decent language, sweet words full of description, and very well provides the artist’s background, personality, art work, and the installation view. All this is pleasant to read. However, from a respected art critic like Roberta Smith, one would expect something more cynical, or a different perspective rather than sweet, flattering words like this: “Sometimes I think Yayoi Kusama might be the greatest artist to come out of the 1960s and one of the few, thanks in part to her long life, still making work that feels of the moment.”

While I must admit that the photographs, credited to Vincent Tullo for the New York Times, were taken from an excellent angle that includes the audience as well as the work. Also, the installation view did well present Kusama’s work in very spiritual way.

(by Luchia Lee-Howell)

Annotated selections II ‘In Defense of Artist: Francis Bacon,’ - Eric Wayne

Annotated selections 2018-II


Eric Wayne, ‘In Defense of Artist: Francis Bacon,’ ART & CRITICISM BY ERIC WAYNE, August 31, 2014. https://artofericwayne.com/2014/08/31/in-defense-of-francis-bacon-2/

“Three Studies of Lucien Freud” 1969, by Francis Bacon.
The triptych sold for over $124,000,000 in auction at Christies, in 2013.
Nevertheless, the artist’s reputation is plummeting for all the wrong reasons.

Eric Wayne protects Francis Bacon, because he thinks Bacon is an excellent artist, although some of the author’s language might be a little horsey and not academic, such as “This was dead serious shit, and it wasn’t pretty”. The article addressed various perspectives to investigate the negative criticism of Bacon and provides a clear point of view to combat it. When reading, one will be hard put to stop halfway, and one is willing to follow through to see something more radical to come. 

The article is from Eric Wayne’s personal viewpoint, especially his own history as an artist, and he mainly focuses on attacking two art critics, Jed Perl (art critic of The New Republic) and Jerry Saltz (art critic of New York Magazine). Wayne accused these esteemed critics of “picking through the flotsam and jetsam of gossip and rumors for sensationalist, humiliating tidbits with which to decry the artist.” It is interesting to see his transition into discussing Van Gogh’s influence on Bacon, and what he calls nasty criticisms from both critics who reviewed Bacon’s posthumous retrospective at the Met in 2009. 

Wayne does not agree with Jed Perl’s link between Caravaggio’s still life painting and Bacon’s art. He furthermore points out Bacon followed Van Gogh’s painting by drawing several pieces in the manner of Van Gogh’s sower paintings. And he uses strong quotes from Bacon to prove that Bacon was not interested in illustrations. 

I applaud the article’s clearly described details and several proofs that Bacon has his own reason to produce horror paintings, that he is not trying to shock audiences, but to express his free will as an artist or be true to himself in art principle. 

While the bulk of the article was a fine and impassioned rebuttal of some art critics, one section of this article is very unpersuasive and shows the author’s own bias. He is an artist himself. Not only at the beginning of the article does he clearly introduce his own painting, but also at the end he tries to sell his paintings and descends to the commercial issue. It is not that I dislike his art work. But by asking for money, he has lost his objective position and lowered the value of this criticism. 

Also, when he attacked the viewpoint of Jerry Saltz, the author showed his personal hatred and turned his dislike into an extreme attack on the writer. Jerry Saltz may indeed like mediocre art, but that is not relevant to Saltz’s criticism of Bacon. Why did the author not point out that Saltz was partly correct in talking about Bacon’s fondness for meat, because Bacon did learn from Rembrandt‘s image of slaughterhouse meat? But quoting Bacon’s words was quite positive. 

(by Luchia Lee-Howell)

Annotated Selection I - ‘Moon Shot: Race, a Hoax, and the Birth of Fake News’ from The New Yorker,

Annotated Selections  I

Kevin Young, ‘Moon Shot: Race, a Hoax, and the Birth of Fake News’ 

The New Yorker, October 21, (2017) 

Also published in Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News,” Graywolf Press, 2017. 

A French print, published in the New York Sun newspaper, in 1835,
purported to show all manner of plants and life on the moon’s surface.
Photograph by SSPL / Getty

    This article in the October New Yorker “Moon Shot: Race, a Hoax, and the Birth of Fake News” addressed the events of 1835, the year in American history of a report of plants and other creatures living on the moon. This announcement of humanoid lunar life caused a big sale of newspapers, and as a result people started to believe in mythological figures. The hoax claimed that hairy men about four feet in stature with wings lived on the moon, and attributed to them features stereotypically assigned to African Americans – for example, wooly hair.

This incident shows how people make fake news and gradually build on the farce and force themselves to believe it, so more and more the fake news becomes seemingly a truth. People disregard or intend to block themselves from the real facts. The article brings up an interesting subject, and targets the weakness of human minds for fragile, insecure data. While the fake is fake, eventually the facts are still available, and ultimately the wise will never be easily able to believe fabulous tales.

People do not know that this fake news can be well spread or scattered because human beings long for a paradise, such as Shangri-La, a lost horizon to be found. This hoax may have succeeded because it mirrored people’s expectations in discussing racial hierarchies on the Moon. Also, angels or evangelists that bear wing to take people to a time-space that can confer a physical and spiritual freedom may share some characteristics of hoaxes like this.

Therefore, I thought this an interesting article that recalled a little-known incident from the 1830’s. This hoax underlines the fact that Trump did not invent the notion of fake news. Do we believe it’s fake news that the largest population ever to see the inauguration of an American president stood in front of the White House on the day of Trump’s inauguration? 

(by Luchia Lee-Howell)

Transitory Existence - Dorothy Cross An Environmentalist or Humanist-Naturalist?

Transitory Existence

Dorothy Cross

An Environmentalist or Humanist-Naturalist?

by Luchia Meihua Lee-Howell 

Dorothy Cross, Glassilaun snow peak 2014. Archival pigment print, 88.3 x 124 cm

Dorothy Cross, Glassilaun snow peak 2014. Archival pigment print, 88.3 x 124 cm 

Vías túas, Dómine, demónstra míhi: et sémitas túas édoce me.

Glória Pátri, et Fílio, et Spirítui Sáncto. Sicut erat in princípio, et nunc, et semper, et in saécula saeculórum. Amen[1]

“It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-twentieth century…Global Mean Sea Level will continue to rise throughout the 21st century” - From Climate Change 2013: the Physical Science Basis [2]

Introduction

Ecology is the science of the relationship between the organism and its environments[3] hence human ecology should involve a partnership between human culture and the physical conditions of life. This leads to enunciating contemporary artistic response to observed anthropogenic challenges to the environment. The question remains: can the link between artistic practice and the environment be adumbrated? Is art degenerated or dehumanized in the modern and contemporary era by disengagement from the most advanced consciousness of its time? The current essay is an attempt to address this question.

This essay proceeds by selecting works of Irish artist Dorothy Cross to investigate the pertinence of contemporary art in reaction to nature and the environment. The probe here is not chronological and does not celebrate the beauty of nature or laud the charming or romantic; rather, it investigates self and society, from which environmental awareness must spring. Giannachi writes that Eco-artists have tended to adopt one or more of three strategies: representations, performance environments, and interventions in a delineating the outlines of the practice of Eco-art[4]. Dorothy Cross has pursued representation and performance. She extends her creativity to natural, collaborative, generative, anthropologic and futuristic visions in exploration of the contradictory mechanisms of our environment. Arguably, her art in raising the consciousness of her viewers may participate in mitigation as well.

This research paper investigates this subject by using resources such as artist talks, lectures, seminars, exhibition catalogues, as well as viewing the actual art in museums, current scientific and environmental exhibitions, and the National Irish Visual Art Library archive. Moreover, secondary resources used include historical books on land art, nature, landscape, or Eco-art, digital resource, conversations with museum staff, scientific exhibitions on environment, and the scientific evidence on climate change. Therefore, it is possible to lay a scientific foundation for Eco-art, and discuss the work of Dorothy Cross in terms of environmentalism and naturalism.

Ecological Art and Dorothy Cross

Glassilaun snow peak (2014) is the view that greets Irish artist Dorothy Cross every morning. Much of her work material is from the environment presided over by this mountain - dead whales, wrecked boats, dead birds, fish, and other elements from the ocean. It is an exquisite and sacred scenery which is reflective of Cross’s multifaceted exploration of the interconnection between humans and the natural world. She relocates, refigures and reassembles nature to give new perspectives and meanings.

There is an opposition between anthropocentrism and eco-centrism.[5] We acknowledge that art has expanded the discourse from humans as the central actors of the universe to the importance of all life. As humans, we are confronted with a transitory existence that is relative to the world when we arrived. Dorothy Cross uses her personal life experience to explore the relationship between herself and environment, and furthermore to express her concerns about the surroundings.

To further discuss environmental subject and Eco-art presentation, if as Giannachi claimed this art must have aesthetic, social and political value,[6]  is Dorothy Cross an Eco-centric artist? Is she an Environmentalist[7] or a humanist-naturalist[8], or might she inhabit another ambiguous area? To answer these questions, consider the following grouping of some of her art.
1. Visual communication and mobilization, via performance, and site specific works – Chiasm, Poll Na Bpeist, Ghost Ship, and Tea Cup
2. Everlasting and transit: to discuss the shark that Cross uses often and the existence of heart Everest Shark, Shark-Heart Submarine, and Foxglove, digitalis purpurea.
3. Wild to wise-Human consciousness: addressing human awareness in Tabernacle and Currach; Antarctica and Scale.
Visual communication and mobilization in environmental performance
Poll Na Bpeist and Chiasm, Ghost Ship and Teacup

Nigel Stewart and Giannachi claim “nature can only be appropriated by means of performance”[9] or studied in terms of performativity. Diverging from the Land Art[10] imperative to make art work using the earth, in Poll Na Bpeist (2008) and Chiasm (1999), Dorothy Cross followed the geography of nature or a dated human-built. In both works, the performers - Cross herself (Poll Na Bpeist) or the two singers (Chiasm) - changed, but the natural spectacle remained the same. Humans are part of nature’s scenery, of the change of seasons, of oceans moving following the moon.

Poll Na Bpeist (Worm Hole) from 2008 was a recorded action reacting to the spectacular scenery in western Ireland. Cross did not merely photograph it; she jumped into the water and had herself filmed while floating in the Poll Na Bpeist to dramatize human insignificance. In rising tides and stormy weather, sea water thunders dangerously into the pool, eroded from a limestone mass. In viewing this spectacular landscape as a whole, the swimmer is a tiny object within nature, dwarfed by the water, stone, and gigantic surroundings. This piece showcases human limitation. Cross has often expressed her hate of this limitation. [11]
We tend to admit that nature is part of culture, and must be interpreted with the parameters of culture.[12] Cross gives nature a presence in her work, and the connection she established between Poll Na Bpeist and Chiasm aptly demonstrates her contextualization of it in culture. Cross noticed that outdoor Irish handball courts – popular in the 1950s and 60s, but now abandoned and, one might even say, endangered like the shark - have nearly the same dimensions as the Poll Na Bpeist. For Chiasm, she projected footage from Poll Na Bpeist on the floor of each court. This natural image of the surging water and the precipitous drop into the Poll Na Bpeist paradoxically lent an unearthly air to the handball courts. Cross invited two opera singers to join her performance. She placed one singer in each handball court, directing them to move about the court at random while singing. This symbolized both possibility and lack of relationship, since had they arrived simultaneously at the door connecting the two handball courts, they could have met, but in fact the two singers did not meet. [13] The projected waves roll in and out, the singers walking through them, the scene changing at every moment, emphasizing the unpredictability of relationships between people and their surroundings.
Dorothy Cross epitomizes the search for a new vantage on this precarious subject, and focuses on the struggle to redefine, or bring to a more acute awareness, the relationship between humans and nature. Her perspective is not patently political, let alone dogmatic; scientific alarms have been filtered through artistic sensibility to reflect social and aesthetic considerations.
Humans always return to the search for the eternal. While it never exists in the impermanent human material world, we might find some images to be clearer, while others are a jumble of memories from several lives. In Teacup(1997) and Ghost Ship (1999), nature is in mobilization, while one ship is gigantic on a vast ocean, and another miniature landscape in a teacup as daily life.

Ghost Ship dealt with the themes of time and its passage, in a context more personal to the artist. Cross located a ship that her father had photographed. She painted it with phosphorous so that the ship glowed eerily at night. It was a creation of ghost phenomena, and alive in a different way. After a two-week display in Dublin harbor, the ship was junked as originally planned. Only a small model and video projection survive. Ghost Ship appeared and disappeared in a doomed light while painted with a gradually fading phosphorescence, which points up the tenuous and weakening relationship with the past. Also using a nautical theme, Teacup shows a projection into a dainty cup placed on a saucer of a segment from Robert Flaherty’s film ‘Man of Aran.’ The video showed a currach struggling in dangerous water. The film suggested that sharks were still hunted by this means, providing a link to Cross’s other work. This miniature waterscape revisits the relationship between nature and humans. Both these art works on water represent another historical transit. The artist took part in a journey across the sea. The fusion with time, landscape and participants made the works remarkable.
Cross’s complex exploration of the connection between humans and the natural world plays with material, relationship and time, illustrating the artist’s ongoing compulsion to explore new perspectives and points of view, and take part in both historical and literary discourse.

Wild to Wise: Human consciousness

Everest Shark and Shark-Heart Submarine, Foxglove: digitalis purpurea and Sapiens

        

Historical excavation of ecological or land relevancy uncovers a current that runs through the 20th and 21^st century concept of Eco-art and its presentation elements. Initially this took the form either of art that harmonized with the natural environment like Carl Andre’s Stone Field Sculpture  (1977) or Cross’s Poll Na Bpeist, or presented a stark intrusion into the land like Richard Serra‘s Schunnemunk Fork  (1991). More recently, it has involved politically correct art in action to proclaim the danger to the land and to creatures. [cf Switzerland, Aletsch Glacier, for which Spencer Tunick posed 600 naked models on a Swiss glacier.] Arguably, such polemical events are ineffective both artistically and politically.

According to Weintraub, ’Eco art stands out from the din of environmental warnings, policies and campaigns with its content enriched by artistic imagination and its strategies.’ Dorothy Cross has edged closest to this in her various works involving the endangered shark, as best demonstrated by Everest Shark (2013) and Shark-Heart Submarine (2011). These two artworks recall the characterization of environmental art as not resembling studio practices and not necessarily involving art professionals.[14] Cross’s way of dealing with material from nature by reforming it into an art work is another way of performance emphasizing immersion and experience, thus participating in Giannachi’s second and third categories.

 

Everest Shark was originally made for an exhibition in Croft Castle, Shropshire. “It’s close to Darwin country. Excavations nearby showed that the site had once been part of the ocean floor,” commented the artist. Cross obtained, from a fishmonger, a two-metre blue shark which she had recast. Cross said of her materials: “The shore, and the things you find along it, including things washed up, broken and dead.”  Surmounted on the bronze cast of the shark is a scale model of Mount Everest.  The first sharks evolved approximately 400 million years ago; modern sharks developed 100 million years ago; and Everest emerged about 60 million years ago. The back of the shark has been altered to support a range of mountains, and upon closer inspection we can see the texture and ribs of the Himalayas. The green of the mountain in Everest Shark has faded as time has passed. As Cross said: “It is the relationship of time and earth.”  This work also comments on the relationship between life and the physical geography of the earth.

 

A striking and unsettling expression of concept is encapsulated in Shark Heart Submarine. A paint-spattered 19^th century easel cradles the sleek form of a nuclear submarine. She commissioned a model of a submarine, gilded in white gold, a sleek, seductive but menacing object. There’s a drawer built into the belly of the craft, and in the drawer is a shark heart – from an accidental catch off the Irish coast – in a glass specimen jar. It’s a rather magical, surreal piece: Cross enclosed a message of love for the earth in this symbol of war. This piece was exhibited at Turner Contemporary amid paintings by Turner and Constable. Cross views the gallery as another landscape.

Continuing the cardiac theme, turn now to Digitalis purpurea. Extracted from the Foxglove plant, a native of Ireland, digitalis is used to treat heart disease. But great care is required, since only a slight increment from a therapeutic dose yields a fatal one. Foxglove: digitalis purpurea, Cross’s first web-based art piece, was launched 5 December 2005 on the website of the Dia Foundation. In it, a child narrates the foxglove story and is supported by images juxtaposing the flower and the girl’s blue eye – playing on the blue vision caused by overdoses of digitalis - and a bee flying into the finger-shape flower in quest of pollen. Cross mines from this intriguing floral subject a nostalgic, exotic, and mysterious atmosphere.

Sapiens (2011) is rhetoric and expresses the vicissitudes of life or society. Made after her trip to New Ireland, this human skull, cast and mounted on a tripod, is an instrument of discovery, potential, imaging, and death - without indication of gender. While Land art started mainly as male territory, there are female artists in this field, such as Anna Mendiata (1948-85), who engaged with earth or soil or tree in a ritual way to express her concern for mother earth. Fran Cottell’s collaborative performance Passing Through (1987) involved one hundred women on a canal in the East End of London. The fusion with time, landscape and female participants made this work break through the categories. [15]

Another female artist using found objects is Mierle Laderman Ukeles.[16] Ukeles, since 1977 Artist in Residence at the New York City Department of Sanitation, invites us to reconsider indispensable urban systems and the workers who maintain them.  Yet, she follows a divergent path, since her objects are only rarely and accidentally taken from nature. Cross occupies the role of nature maintenance artist.  Cross intended to bring awareness of the low cultural status of maintenance work, same tasks that she would perform in her daily life, including entertaining guests.

To understand the relation between humanity and nature, one must highlight sustainability, ecological footprints, and the dichotomy of anthropocentrism vs. eco-centrism as central tenets. There are numerous art works that intend to create a permanence of mass industrial production. They participate in anti-Eco-art by consuming maintenance and energy.

3. Transit Everlasting

Tabernacle and Currach,  Antarctica and Scale 

       

We relentlessly confront the requisites of art and culture; our society glories in free choice, with more individuality and less reliance on institutions. Schapiro wrote:

“Diderot anticipates a dilemma of artists today. They wish to be free creators, unconfined by any goal external to art, but they wish to participate in the most advanced consciousness of their society and to influence it by their work.”[17]

The consequent question is whether art should or can be separate from society. When we dismissed the white cube, the rest of the world become endlessly available. [18] And real life came to provide reference to art materials. Existence regarding the environment regenerates a parameter of relationship between life and society.

Dorothy Cross’s work is a free expression of her nature. Fundamentally, her sources, materials used in environmental art are only be performed once. Upon returning from a journey to the South Pacific island of New Ireland, Currach (2013) was developed. It shows an upside down boat and bird symbolically remapping tribal culture.  In Currach, the placement of an upside down boat over a flying gannet was a direct death cry, born of the anxiety of our day. Nature and culture both are being destroyed by humans.

On her trip to the New Ireland, she found natives living between ocean and forest. A unique ritual of the islanders is shark calling. They use rattles and sing to the sharks to call them up from the depths. Cross filmed traditional singing and an old man’s tears of sorrow that the communion with ancestral spirits to call sharks is fading, that the impending encroachment of western civilization – heralded by plans for a road – will mean the loss of his culture and land. He grieved that “life is changing, and will be gone in the next generation.” Indeed, there remained only one man on the island who believed in catching sharks by singing to them. Cross displayed with Currach the film she made in New Ireland of an elder lamenting the harmony between man and nature which he saw slipping away from his tribe.

 John William Lindt took an old photograph entitled Mourners and Dead House at Kalo, New Guinea, 1885.[19]. Cross’s upside down currach bears some resemblance to the death house of Lindt’s photograph. An echo of this mourning is found in Currach.  Cross has highlighted the painful process of cultural change consequent upon the inevitable separation from nature of western “civilization.” (Lindt 1885)

In Cross’s multi-disciplinary projects, she reinterprets the sense of the term “Tribe” . Nowadays, the definition has already transformed to apply to a wider group, defined by ethnicity, national origin, language etc. Her program focuses on underlining the diversity of life in and fostering interactivity with the community on environmental subjects.

Cross supports the goal of environmental movement, and is engaged in and believes in the philosophy of environmentalism. For she seeks to improve and protect the natural environment through change of harmful human activities. And she is a naturalist, by definition, one that advocates or practices naturalism. She takes action based on natural desires and instincts to make her art work.

As with Currach, Cross again pairs installation with video in Tabernacle (2007). The installation in

 Tabernacle, is similarly surmounted by a damaged, reversed currach. A bottle of holy water dangles 

by a string from the prow of the currach. Tabernacle’s video shows tidal water in a cave. Tabernacles 

host something tribal and sacred. The time, sound, and physical presence of people tend to be 

subordinate elements to the natural environment. Cross said about this piece, “It’s a place where the 

body can reside, I think … The cave and the boat: spaces that preserve and protect life. Also, 

perhaps, metaphors for the body itself.”[20]

By questioning the role of the artist in a world of environmental and cultural change, Cross seeks to give humans back their place in nature. Her love of botany, zoology and science led her to conduct new works on New Ireland and in Antarctica. Her bronze sculpture Conglomerate (2010) functions as warning signal[21].

 

Powerful questions accompany melting icebergs, indicative of dangerous water crises. Dorothy Cross has found the conditions for art in extreme conditions. Her Antarctica (2005) is the negative of a black-and-white film showing deep sea divers in the clear waters of Antarctica. It was prepared for the open submission exhibition Crystalline[22]  (Dec 2012 – Jan 2-13), timed to coincide with the exploration of sub-glacial Lake Ellsworth in Antarctica. (exhibition, Crystalline 1 Dec 2012 - 26 Jan 2013 2013) 

In an exhibition entitled “View”, Cross displayed a new vision, especially in a piece called Scales (2014). She took the right and left portions of a skull, and made them into scales, filling them with meteorites. The human skull was gilded in gold leaf.  Cross’s meaning is that humans came from heaven, and are born to the earth and creation.[23]

“I like the word ‘belief.’ In general when people say ‘I know’ they don’t know, they believe… to live is to believe; that is my belief, at any rate.”[24] A wonderland only exists in its own time and space. It might suggest a tranquility of spirit. A fertile imagination makes a flower grow in the middle of a concrete floor, an ancient goddess transform to a modern working lady, or pervades a forest with the metaphysical, purifying the soul and spreading harmony. 

Conclusion

Bring a contemporary art historical viewpoint to comprehend this complex environmental subject, nowadays a global issue for us all as transitory creatures needing to be aware of planetary sustainability.  To reinterpret Cross’s core value, we underline her reaction to address mindfulness of nature through her works so as to pay more attention to the surrounding crises.

Taken as a whole, these three groups of artworks elucidate the interconnection between the mindset, physical body, nature’s landscape, culture diversity and dynamism of society.  Cross takes her place as practitioner of Eco-centric art to create works that construct a symbolic journey in language and materials. Thoreau wrote in “The Enchanter” how immersing oneself in nature is the only way one can answer two simple yet indispensable questions without the influence of certain aspects of culture: how much is enough and how do I know what I want? He felt only in nature could one truly hear one’s own heart, divorced from the influence of cultural voices. The rituals and ceremonies and symbolic nature of Eco-Art act as a doorway back into both nature and the natural voice of the individual and group – freed of the programming of capitalist and consumer culture. From this, is not Dorothy Cross a humanist-naturalist environmentalist?

Images list

Works by Dorothy Cross:

1. Glassilaun Snow Peak 
2. Chiasm 
3. Poll Na Bpeist 
4. Ghost Ship 
5. Teacup 
6. Everest Shark 
7. Shark-Heart Submarine 
8. Ghost Ship 
9. Sapiens 
10. Tabernacle 
11. Currach 
12. Antarctica 
13. Scale 
14. Conglomerate II 

Other reference images:


15. John William Lindt, Mourners and Dead House at Kalo, New Guinea, 1885. 100 x 131 cm


16. Spencer Tunick, Switzerland, Aletsch Glacier (Greenpeace) 2007.


17. Carl Andre, Field Sculpture, 1977, constructed Stone in Hartford, Connecticut,


18. Richard Serra, Schunnemunk Fork, 1990-1991.


19. Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Touch Sanitation Performance, 1979-1980.


20. Fran Cottell, Passing Through, 1987

  

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[1] From a video showing stunning pictures of wild animals. Latin translation: “Make your ways known unto me, O Lord, and teach me your paths.  Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.” (Introit Antiphons - Traditional Catholic Latin Mass Hymns 2011)

[2]  IPCC Fifth Assessment Report Climate Change 2013: the Physical Science Basis written and published by IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) published January 2014. (IPCC 2013)

[3] (Stauffer 1957)

[4] (G. Giannachi 2012) page 125. Representation involves visualization and communication. Performance Environment emphasizes immersion and experience; interventions include mitigation and behavioral change.

[5] (Weintraub 2012) p.

[6] (G. Giannachi 2012)p.1

[7] An environmentalist is a supporter of the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that seeks to improve and protect the quality of the natural environment through changes to environmentally harmful human activities". An environmentalist is engaged in or believes in the philosophy of environmentalism. “Environmentalism claims that living things other than humans, and the natural environment as a whole, are deserving of consideration in reasoning about the morality of political, economic, and social policies.”  (Elliott 1998)

Environmentalists are sometimes referred to using informal or derogatory terms such as "greenie" and "tree-hugger".

[8] Definition of NATURALISM from Merriam Webster:

1: action, inclination, or thought based only on natural desires and instincts

2: a theory denying that an event or object has a supernatural significance; specifically : the doctrine that scientific laws are adequate to account for all phenomena

3: realism in art or literature; specifically : a theory or practice in literature emphasizing scientific observation of life without idealization and often including elements of determinism

[9] (Nature performed: Environment, Culture and Performance 2008)

[10] Land Art is an art movement that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. Also known as Earth art, environmental art, and Earthworks. Generally the works on site specific in the nature environments, and use the materials from earth. The works temp to be erode when time passed. It centered on rejection of the commercialization of art-making and enthusiasm with an emergent ecological movement.

[11] “It’s about limitation, and we’re all limited. It’s the biggest frustration, in a way, I feel, being a human being, as well as an artist. As much as you try to break out of that plane, you are always held within it.” Cross in conversation with Sarah Glennie, Director of the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Filmed at the National Gallery of Ireland on 6 February 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmGl4L_N4bY&index=7&list=PLj72-Jqud8Cv82Kz7lSl0MDmYkmhb8XHA, accessed 7 December 2017.

[12] (Futurenatural: nature/science/culture 2013) p3 Performing Nature: Explorations in Ecology and the Arts Gabriella Giannachi and‎ Nigel Stewart, (Editors) 2005 London and New York Peter Lang p 20

[13] (Guestbook Lecture: Dorothy Cross 2009)

[14] (Giannachi 2012)

[15] Fran Cottell, 1987. Passing Through, Performance. An outdoor journey on land and water

A large scale collaborative arts event the project was part of a residency process of performance workshops, rowing practice and lunches with local community groups

Image source: http://www.francottell.com/artwork/passing-through

 (Cottell 1995) p.83

[16] Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Touch Sanitation Performance, 1979-1980. Citywide performance with 8,500 Sanitation workers across all 59 New York City Sanitation districts. Courtesy of Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, photo: Robin Holland.

[17] (Schapiro 1994) p.207

[18] Kaprow discussed the line of happening between theory and production, “The line between art and life should be kept as fluid, and perhaps indistinct.” Allan Kaprow (b 1927.) ‘From Assemblages, Environments and Happenings.’  (Kaprow 2003) pp.717-719

[19] In 1885, photographer John William Lindt (1845-1926) accompanied Sir Peter Scratchley's expedition to the newly-proclaimed Protectorate of British New Guinea. In 1887 he a book entitled Picturesque New Guinea. An historical introduction and supplementary chapters on the manners and customs of the Papuans accompanied fifty full-page autotype illustrations from negatives of portraits from life and groups and landscapes.

[20] (Dunne, Dorothy Cross: life, death and magic on the Connemara coast 2014)

[21] (Hancock 2013)

[22] “The exhibition incorporates pieces submitted through Open Submission and by invitation, and the work explores the twin themes of scientific endeavour and the landscape of Antarctica, the latter of which has proved unfalteringly seductive to artists. Working in various disciplines the artists represented in Crystalline cover many facets of Antarctic exploration, teasing out aspects of the barren terrain, seemingly devoid of colour, sound and life, and the inverted sub-glacial landscape below the surface.” In 1959 the Antarctic Treaty was signed making the entire continent a science reserve and ensuring that no one country could claim sovereignty.  Antarctica may therefore be viewed as the world’s largest living laboratory. https://www.artrabbit.com/events/crystalline

[23] In the lecture, she talks about parentship being important to her, and this brings her to searching from the birth to the human body and gender.  (First up; Dorothy Cross, Visual Artist 2015)

[24] “Given” Eric Cameron. p. 6, quoting Marcel Duchamp in conversation with James Johnson Sweeney.