Ralph Darbyshire, New Orleans Gets Obscene
Suzie Walshe
"Red hot and Dutch, and Obscenity" is an installation piece by the British artist Ralph Darbyshire. It opened to the public at the university of New Orleans gallery on August 24th, four days before the hurricane rolled into town. The installation has, extraordinarily, survived intact.
The piece is intended to contemplate and note the death of 7,079 Bosnians who were executed in and around Srebrenica during the summer of 1995. During this time, Darbyshire was thousands of miles from his base in Europe, researching the genocide that took place in Cambodia during the 70s. On July 12th, Dutch united peacekeepers helped thousands of Bosnian men, women and children travel to the site of what remains as Europe’s worst massacre since the second World War. Unfortunately, it is not the only massacre to have taken place, simply the largest in terms of numbers. How long this retains this status is anyone’s guess. Fast-forward to the present day and the work was exhibited to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the massacre at Srebrenica. Almost instantly, the show became a inanimate victim of the most devastating natural disaster to hit the US. But did the presumed loss of "Red Hot and Dutch" really matter–after all, it’s only art.
The work consists of 7,079 (price) tags, hanging from a frayed rope that lines the gallery walls–each tag features an identification number and portrait, the faces taken at random from newspapers or magazines. The charred remains of burnt chairs are positioned around the gallery, and a selection of oscillating fans situated on top of the fragile chairs rhythmically disturb the tags at they circulate air around the room. Over time the fans move the tags, as they begin to assemble into groups, the subtle movement of the tags adds a kinetic element to the work, bringing sound and smell to the dance.
Despite this gradual alliance, the faces (tags) now seem to be further damaged, even claustrophobic as they hang in closer proximity to each other. They have no control over their situation, just as the people of Srebrenica are truly victims of circumstances beyond their control. As the fans continue to blow, they represent a futile attempt to breathe life back into the victims, the tags hang in unison and a sense of tension becomes equal to that of solidarity.
The reality of the faces stare back at you, they represent a time and situation we would be more comfortable forgetting. Memory, or its failure, seems to be a concern to the artist. These portraits, along with the scorched chairs propel the situation into the palpable present. Their faces are too real to be dismissed. No element of the work can be rejected as fiction or fabrication. Each face is symbolic of a life lost in Srebrenica. The central intention is to show the viewer what a mass of 7,079 people look like, and succeeds in doing so, adding a disturbing element in the process, a crucial part of understanding what the work is really all about. It all comes back to the reality of a situation–the underlining reality behind this work generating a sense of unease, introducing the audience to a somewhat unsettled and rarely visited perceptive territory.
So where does that leave us? Maybe art is not really thought of as reality, but as a representation of reality. Then, when art becomes too much of reality–whether it is something that happened in Cambodia in the 70s, in Europe a decade ago, or right now on our doorsteps–we are no longer at ease viewing it.
The responsibility of the artist is a principal thread running through Darbyshire’s work. He makes art hoping, on some level, it will make a difference, that it will matter, have a purpose. And there is importance in his usage of humble materials to stimulate historic memories and awaken conscience. The chairs, for example, are by no means subordinate to the tags; they not only comprise a sculptural element to the work but are also emblematic of the images of devastation prevalent in the media during the Bosnian war. Pictures of scorched homes and buildings frequently appeared in the news (specifically in England, where Darbyshire is based). However, the work contains no partisan references–"this was simply the worst massacre because it was the largest"–size seems to equate horror. Scale is a powerful propellant of meaning in art.
This again is an idea that’s reflected in reality, it is not the damage caused, it’s the amount of damage caused, the scale of destruction. Darbyshire asks us if biggest is baddest. The fact there were 7,079 individuals who needed life to be breathed back into them wasn’t a tragedy. Srebrenica was 7,079 tragedies.
Along with scale, the arrangement of the work also has an instantaneous effect on how the viewer proceeds to respond. Standard barriers between the art and the viewer are abolished. Physical immersion in the surroundings, sound and smell included, replaces observation of a static artwork from a distance. Darbyshire strips his work of such pretence and directs his effort into territories not previously covered. Darbyshire lists as his influences Edward Kienholz, whom he worked for, and Frenchman Christian Boltanski. Kienholz, Boltanski and Darbyshire deal with fear and outrage and the specifics of hate and injustice. "Red Hot and Dutch, and Obscenity" is about another catastrophic failure of the international community, and a failure of the human imagination. It’s about a lack of empathy, Unfortunately it’s about humanity. This work is art about a crisis in a crisis. It represents something before, during and after a disaster.
So maybe it’s not just art after all.
