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Entering the exhibition, Don’t You Know Who I Am?, one is immediately faced with an extensive arrangement of mis-matched chairs from various eras and in various styles. Abstract, slightly confusing but imbued with meaning, this is contemporary art as we know it and over the past few decades have become familiar with. Visitors are sitting on the chairs – when clearly asked not to – looking slightly perplexed but more importantly, interested. We are in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp (M HKA) and their summer show that aims to revaluate identity politics, Don’t You Know Who I Am? has just opened.
Identity politics has slipped on and off the radar of the international arts scene, and in and out of public awareness, since the late 1970s and early 1980s. During that time, the threat of nuclear weapons was still widely felt and feared and the oncoming AIDS crisis was beginning to become acknowledged, art was utilised as a tool to process the demands of equality once again. While left-leaning artists in America were pushing the boundaries of art and social consciousness, so were individuals in the UK and Germany – creating a tri-centre arts movement between the three countries. Arguably the biggest step forward for the genre came in 1993 when the Whitney Biennial (New York) made identity politics is central concern, thrusting it onto the international arts stage.
More recently the subject has returned to the horizon. Last year the Wellcome Collection (London) exhibited Souzou: Outsider Art from Japan, a show that celebrated Japanese artists who are attendees at social welfare institutions; and more currently, the Tate Modern (London) has an exhibition titled Identity Politics, reuniting the artists (and their artwork) who made the cause so prevalent back in 1980s New York.
Due to the very nature and history of this art form having been created previously by the marginalised and now established within the mainstream, we as a contemporary society can now enjoy a rich tapestry of international art.
Here at the M HKA, Don’t You Know Who I Am? focuses on this ever changing artistic discourse, bringing together 26 global artists to re-consider what identity politics means once again. As we’ve become familiar with this genre of art, can we still learn anything? And can this genre still speak for the culture we live in?
Augustas Serapinas’ project researches existing architectural structures (the M HKA museum in this case), locates neglected spaces and opens them up. Visitors can disappear through the orifice-like opening in the main exhibition hall and into a shaft that was previously disregarded. Simple in approach but interesting in practice, Serapinas regards these spaces as pockets of subjectivity that society has carved for itself. Many visitors do walk past without noticing the gaping hole in the museum wall, making this piece even more interesting; it questions awareness and highlights disregard – a condition that is arguably increasingly evident in today’s society.
Onkar Kular and Noam Toran’s piece entitled I Cling to Virtue (2010) certainly attracts the curiosity of visitors with its striking cobalt blue frame housing ghostly white artefacts that individually tie in with the two short films playing within a central screen. Examining the relationship of objects to human subjectivity, this artwork is one of the more literal pieces at the show, creating a linear approach through archival materials.
To open this show, M HKA invited Glass to join their symposium which united artists, performers and lecturers to explore cultural shifts that are occurring in today’s society. Lawrence Abu Hamdan discussed the objectification of speech used in legal systems across the world and probed the use of technology as a means of testing truth. Hamdan theorises that this process focused on the right to silence as a significant detail that he sees contributing to free speech. This was by far the most interesting lecture at the symposium as it actively pushed the boundaries of what is accepted truth in a practical way. Probably for practical reasons, but a shame then that the symposium isn’t a regular feature in the programme of this show.
Considering Hamdan’s important research and the subtleties of Serapinas’ work in comparison to the strife felt in the 1980s, art has certainly developed and changed. So is there still a place for this genre in our contemporary arts scene? Surely it would be more innovative to break away from genre-based connotations with a progressive title that doesn’t re-confine the art backwards, but challenges it? Despite the prefix, the mixture of mediums and careful curation of this show still contributes to an interesting and diverse array of art, perhaps one of the best collaborative shows on offer this summer.
by Stephanie Clair
Don’t You Know Who I Am? will be on display at the M HKA museum in Antwerp until September 9, 2014
An e-book which has been published in conjunction to the exhibition can be downloaded from afteridentity.muhka.be