Letter from London
Nina Zivancevic
London’s recent exhibitions of note include a show of Robert Mapplethorpe photographs at Alison Jacques Gallery and a Joseph Beuys retrospective at the Tate Modern.
Mapplethorpe’s exhibition of black-and-white stills is small in scope, but important in terms of quality. Stretched over two floors in a very small gallery, this show recalls the controversial photographer at his best. His portraits of American underground luminaries are just as breathtaking as the shots of huge black dicks, which compete with forms of flowers and plants rendered by the photographer with equal grace.
Mapplethorpe loves living forms in nature. His interest in human genitals does not exceed his interest in other forms of life and yet, he was wrongly censored in the U.S.: An artist with a pure vision of life and art, Mapplethorpe was condemned by the righteous right-wing intelligentsia as a pornographer. This view of Mapplethorpe was prevalent in the 1980s when his photography was being banned from major galleries and museums in the U.S. but fortunately, he acquired a much wider audience in Europe during that time.
This highly subversive artist is still a bit of a persona non grata in American public spaces. His choice of subjects is also quite subversive: a self-portrait in drag, William Burroughs in his three piece suit, Patti Smith with her casual, larger-than-life looks and an Iggy Pop as innocent as a baby and as high as a kite.
Mapplethorpe was cruel and tender at the same time: a presenter of things as they are, things to come, and things that have happened but that exceeded our capacity to fully grasp.
Joseph Beuys (1921-86), one of the most important artists of the 20th century has just had a very big retrospective at the Tate. Knowing that Beuys’ work is complex and multilayered, I was not entirely surprised to find that this show was completely different in its tone and subject from the one at the Pompidou Centre in Paris a few years ago.
The Tate show spoke much more of the skeleton of his work, the materials he had used and the Actions (performances) that he undertook during his lifetime. For conceptual and existential artists the explanation of their own work used to be a very important thing, so I was happy to discover a theoretical or historical approach in the current show at the Tate. The Pompidou show showed focused on the moment when Beuys started working with fat and showed various objects he applied it to. It also showed his use of felt, not so much the felt itself, but rather objects made out of felt, such as his felt piano.
In the first room of the Tate show, we find eight piles of felt of varying heights and topped with sheets of copper. Beuys described this work as a battery with the felt as an insulator, which could store energy and warmth, and the copper as a conductor that could transmit this energy beyond the object itself. As a child, Beuys loved the natural sciences and his use of materials is always informed by an understanding of their physical properties.
Enzo Cucchi of the Arte Povera movement once said that "almost every living and contemporary artist has fed on the bodies of Joseph Beuys and Andy Warhol," as if they had been indispensable for one’s own creative development as an artist. Observing this show, I began to fully understand Cucchi’s deceptively simple statement. Beuys saw a close link between the scientific and the spiritual and at times these two meant just one thing for him. Thus many artists have interpreted his work to fit what they themselves wanted it to be or to mean. Beuys left the field open to this free association interpretation of his work. However, there were moments when he wanted his statement to be almost didactic. This was made largely apparent in his actions.
I found strangely moving the title of his Action "I Like America and America likes me," shown on video in the show. In it, Beuys casually feeds a coyote inside a cage, dropping pieces of meat inside the cage and subsequently creating an obscure ritual.
The show examines three of the distinctive ways in which Beuys worked as artist, teacher and philosopher: the vitrines from the late 1960s, the Actions or performances, and his sculptural environments. During the 1960s he came to international attention through his actions, which usually took place in galleries and lasted several hours, although sometimes they went on for days. He became increasingly active in the 1970s in the political spheres of educational reform and green peace reform and his actions evolved to include public discussions and lectures. Aside from the powerful words that he used, Beuys worked with fat, with dead birds‚ feet, with garbage, copper, and many found objects. He had a deep vision, which could be called a talent for the philosophy of art, and it is clear that he helped many artists find ways to claim their own territory.
