Brazilian artist Gil Vincente has made a series of 9 charcoal drawings of himself executing 9 of the world's elite figures, including but not limited to Iranian President Ahmadinejad, former US President George W. Bush, Queen Elisabeth II, former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and former UN General Secretary Kofi Annan. The series, which is called Enemies, is on display at 29th São Paulo Biennial opening today. The Brazilian College of Lawyers is in uproar apparently, and wants the series dismantled from the exhibition, claiming it is a glorification of violence.
The biennial was asked to remove the drawings as, according to a statement, "Even though a work of art freely expresses the creativity of its maker, without limits, there have to be limits to exhibiting it publicly". Of course the biennial responded with a firm no, and why should they remove these? What would have happened to artistic freedom if they had done so?
According to AFP, "The artist said he came up with the provocative idea because of his "disappointment" with leaders whom he saw as inflicting wrongs on the world with impunity. 'Because they kill so many other people, it would be a favor to kill them, understand? Why don't people in power and in the elite die?' he asked."
Political art often come under attack for blurring boundaries and displaying uncomfortable ideas and concepts in the public sphere, but how else will the art be seen and how else will art continue to impact society and change attitudes. Is it right to want to kill, execute or assassinate these figures of power? Well, maybe some of us have also fantasised about these acts against at least some of these people, and I am sure they are aware of their love/hate relationship with the population of this planet. Is it then wrong for an artist to portray this in his or her sketches? I fear that if it were so we would not have Picasso, Dali or even Caravaggio on display in our museums.
Caravaggio, Judith Beheading Holofernes, 1598-99, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, RomeThe nature of Gil Vincente's array of victims is what upsets and discomforts the viewer, but it is not to us to decide what can be portrayed by an artist, even if we think it is wrong. Even if the act of killing is against our beliefs, this is barely the point of the sketches as they portray an alternate reality where fantasy prevails. 'Enemies' display the structures of power dismantled and cast away as an ordinary man executes figures which he would probably never come into contact with. Some of the figures in 'Enemies' have had their hands in killings, torture of innocent people, wars against unwilling nations, and that is our REALITY.
(The pictures of Gil Vincente's works and the Sao Paulo Biennial is taken from AFP's website as well as NRK, copyright belongs to these.)
3 comments:
Is the Left so impotent (again) that it needs art to provide the stimulus and (maybe, just maybe) become the Goblin that expresses its most extremist thoughts?
What happened to righteousness and justice guaranteed by institutionalism? Has that too been usurped by the Right? Or has the Left played some role in it? More importantly, is there time for introspection or is violence the only way for an immediate answer?
what struck me most is that, while the AFP article rather implies revenge as a motive for the "killings", the method of execution is quite straightforward. One might expect more sadistic creativity, considering the choice of 'executees'.
Personally, I 'm tempted to thing that the artist's point of view is more of a "doing a job that needs to be done".
Then again, I 'm an arse arts-wise
update: I 'm not 100% precise in my comment above. Hi slits Lula's throat with a knife. How about that?
To be honest I am not so sure that Vincente is a Leftist, but I for one assume so. However, art has always serviced the elite and the institutions so maybe, just maybe the time has come for a reversal of those ideas.
I feel that these images are introspections and not directions for violence, the artist may express the ideas of extremists but essentially it is his own 'fantasy'.
Apparently Vincente was going to 'use' different weapons, but seeing the efficiency of the one bullet to the head imagery decided against it, at least one image as you've rightly pointed out has him cutting the throat of one of his 'victims'. And Ghallas I think you are right about its meaning, it is not about revenge and if what I wrote made it seem that way I apologise. Moreover, the series meaning is multi-layered and could mean something else to another viewer or even to the artist himself. That is the beauty and marvel of art, we all detract our own interpretations and anyone of these can be validly argued is the right one.
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