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INCLUDING WHAT’S ON

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UMBERTO ALLEMANDI & CO. PUBLISHING EVENTS, POLITICS AND ECONOMICS MONTHLY EST. 1983, VOL. XVIII, NO. 205, SEPTEMBER 2009 UK £6.95/ €11/USA $9.50/Canada CAN$13.95/ROW £9.50

“IAMWHOIAM”: OPULENCE UNLIMITED: “JOURNALISTS THOMAS CAMPBELL TREASURES OF HATED ME”: LUC ON WHAT COMES THE INDIAN PRINCES TUYMANS ON RESISTING NEXT FOR THE MET AT THE V&A EXPLANATION P22-23 P36 P38

US Banksy busts the box-office Artists and academics fight animal rights activists in Supreme Court Anti-censorship group believes law against images of cruelty limits artistic freedoms

BOSTON. US museums, art his- want to stop sales of “crush tory departments and artists have videos”, which depict women joined together to fight a federal torturing animals with their law which makes it illegal to sell high-heeled or bare feet. depictions of cruelty to animals, The current law exempts arguing in the Supreme Court depictions of animal cruelty that it is unconstitutional. which have “serious” value of

Although the law is ten years specified types, including seri- © Martin Parr/MAGNUM PHOTOS old, the first prosecution—of ous “artistic” value. But because A photograph by Martin Parr shows the staggering, four-hour Robert Stevens, a Virginia man the law does not define “serious queue outside the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery of visitors who sold videos of fighting pit value”, says the CAA, local eager to see the landmark exhibition “Banksy versus Bristol bull terriers—was in 2004. He prosecutors and juries will use Museum”. The display of more than 100 , installations was sentenced to 37 months in their own “subjective, ad hoc and animatronics by the guerrilla artist is the most popular UK prison, but the case has dragged assessments” of whether a par- show to be staged outside of the capital this millennium. As we through a series of appeals. The ticular questioned image has went to press, a massive 271,891 people have seen the exhibi- cultural lobby fears that if the enough “value” to merit First tion—an average of 3,776 per day—since it opened on 13 June. Supreme Court upholds the con- Amendment protection. The show is scheduled to close on 31 August. E.S. viction, the law could render The government argues the works by artists such as Adel law should be upheld because Abdessemed and Hermann A still from Adel Abdessemed’s Don’t Trust Me, 2008 the “serious value” exception Nitsch illegal. In April, the already protects works which Work by contemporary artists expression of unpopular ideas. A Supreme Court decided to the San Francisco Art Institute 1999 law, which makes it a advance “the exposition of such as Abdessemed and museum or gallery displaying review the federal law. The first was cancelled in March 2008 crime to create, sell or possess ideas”. But prosecutors and Nitsch, and the pigs tattooed by Abdessemed’s work “could hearing will be next month, after animal rights activists depictions of animal cruelty juries are ill-suited to determine Wim Delvoye, are “no more easily have been convicted under starting on 6 October. threatened museum staff with with the intent to sell them in “serious value”, the CAA says, likely to be immediately appre- Section 48”, the CAA says. In July, the College Art bodily harm. An exhibition of interstate commerce. “No one noting that in the history of ciated than that of Duchamp or The CAA’s membership Association (CAA) jointly filed the video was also closed in disputes that the government conceptual and avant-garde art, Warhol”, the CAA says. incorporates over 2,000 institu- a friend-of-the-court brief with Turin, northern Italy, in may penalise acts of animal the general public has often The CAA cites the hostile tions, including museums and the National Coalition Against February, after protests and cruelty,” the NCAC and CAA scorned work that was “later response of animal rights groups university art and Censorship (NCAC). The CAA questions of legality, although say. “But that does not mean that deemed to be ground-breaking to the Abdessemed exhibit in San departments, and over 14,000 and NCAC are arguing that the the show subsequently reopened. the government may also and influential”, including Francisco to argue that Section artists, art historians, art curators law, Section 48 of Title 18 of the Meanwhile, animal rights penalise speech about or images Duchamp’s Fountain urinal, 48 invites unconstitutional and visual art professionals. US Code, extends far beyond its groups and 26 states have filed of animal cruelty.” However, it 1917, and works by Warhol, “viewpoint discrimination” Martha Lufkin intent, criminalising “any” or joined briefs in support of the is believed that Congress does Lichtenstein and Brancusi. which could be used to punish the ❏ For comment, see p30-31 depiction for commercial gain which shows an animal being wounded or killed in violation of state or federal law, such as the Exclusive killing of protected animals, or hunting out of season. The disputed pit bull videos were commercial products, and Part of world’s oldest Bible found at ancient monastery not art, but the work of contemporary artists such as London-based student conservator spots fragment at library in Egyptian desert Abdes semed and Nitsch, depict- ing violence to animals, could LONDON. A fragment of the is probably the world’s oldest exposed where the lining paper than the high-resolution photo- “run afoul” of the law, the CAA world’s oldest Bible has been continually operating library, on an inside back cover had graph. He then brought the vol- says. It cites as examples “the discovered at St Catherine’s and has amas sed manuscripts been torn away. ume to the library window, pho- disembowelling of lambs” in Monastery, in the Sinai desert in since its foundation nearly 1,500 Sarris emailed Father Justin, tographing it in the muted after- Nitsch’s crucifixion-like pro- Egypt. It comes from the Codex years ago. the monastery’s librarian, mak- noon desert sun, capturing a ductions, and Abdessemed’s Sinaiticus, dating from around Back in London, where Sarris ing a tentative suggestion. He clearer image. controversial video Don’t Trust 350 AD, The Art Newspaper has is completing his studies at wrote: “Even if there is a one-in- He deciphered it as Joshua, Me, which shows livestock learned. The fragment, part of Camberwell College of Arts, a-million possibility that it could Chapter 1, Verse 10, in which being slaughtered with sledge- the first chapter of Joshua, was part of London’s University of be a Sinaiticus fragment that has Joshua admonishes the children hammers in rural Mexico. reused as a lining in the cover of the Arts, he was looking at some escaped our attention, I thought of Israel as they enter the Nitsch, an Austrian artist, uses an 18th-century binding. of the thousands of photographs it would be best to say it rather promised land. Only a quarter animal entrails, blood and car- The discovery was made by which had recently been taken than dismiss it.” of the parchment was visible, casses in his performances to Greek student conservator of bindings in the library. Late Father Justin immediately since most of it remains hidden embrace Dionysiac orgy and Nikolas Sarris, who has made a one evening in April he spotted went to the leather-bound vol- by a paper covering. However, catharsis. A show including dozen working visits to the Bound up: the fragment of the what looked like might be part ume in the Sinai library, but the after examining the Greek Abdessemed’s Don’t Trust Me at Orthodox monastery. It has what Codex Sinaiticus of a leaf of the Codex Sinaiticus, original was not much clearer CONTINUED ON P3 Rare English and Continental Silver. Antique Jewels and Miniatures. Fine Snuff-Boxes.

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38 Features THE ART NEWSPAPER, No. 205, SEPTEMBER 2009 Interview Why paintings succeed where words fail Belgian artist talked to us about the messages art can convey on the eve of exhibitions in Europe, Russia and the United States By Gareth Harris

uc Tuymans has painted figurative works since the mid 1980s and few artists can be meets China Las closely identified with a particular palette. His taste for mouldy pastels, cool greys Luc Tuymans and Chinese artist Ai Weiwei and dead plaster white make for blurred, obtuse have co-curated an exhibition opening at Bozar images. This reductive colour scheme represents in next month (“The State of Things”) the elusive nature of history and memory, which includes the work of 50 contemporary reflecting the artist’s belief that representation can artists—25 Belgians chosen by Tuymans (Wim only be partial and subjective. Loaded political Delvoye, , Ana Torfs) and 25 Chinese themes are developed in seemingly tangential practitioners selected by Weiwei (Liu Wei, Yang ways with , Belgium’s controversial Fudong, Wang Xingwei). The show is role in post-colonial Congo (the influential scheduled to travel to the National Art Museum “Mwana Kitoko: Beautiful White Man” series of China in Beijing in 2010. Tuymans says that, which was shown at the 2001 Biennale) despite the difficulties of dealing with Chinese and the US response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks officials, it is important to him that the show given an oblique, fragmented treatment. The opens in a public venue in China, rather than a diversity of Tuymans’s subject matter, which also private museum such as the Ullens Centre in encompasses banal paraphernalia such as Beijing. However, with the recent arrest of Ai wallpaper patterns and tea settings, goes hand-in- Weiwei (see p9), “we don’t know in what form hand with his use of varied source material drawn the show will go to China. The input on the from photography, film and television. Chinese side is next to nothing now”, says The latter features prominently in Tuymans’s first Tuymans. “It’s disrespectful [to me] especially major Russian show at the Red October since [Bozar co-curator] Fan Di’an, director of Chocolate Factory opening this month. Twenty the National Art Museum, wants to do a series new works, first shown in Brussels earlier this of shows in China on me, Richter and Bacon.” year, examine TV reality shows and the internet. The exhibition, part of the Moscow Biennale, forms part of a Tuymans onslaught this autumn TAN: So you are ultimately concerned with with the artist’s first US retrospective also the fragile nature of memory in relation to opening this month at the Wexner Center for both personal and historical events? the Arts in Ohio and an exhibition curated by LT: It always remains fragile. Every aspect of Tuymans and the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei history is partly false, it’s never complete, history opening at Bozar in Brussels (see box, above writing can only be factual to a point. right). TAN: But your recent art, such as your works The Art Newspaper: You once said that your on view in Moscow which explore aspects of technique is “borne out of a genuine distrust of virtual reality found in television shows and on imagery”? What do you mean? the internet, seems to be about disengagement Luc Tuymans: Well, being part of the television from contemporary realities. generation means there is already an overload of LT: “Against the Day”, the show’s title, is taken imagery available. But a lot of the imagery is not from one of my favourite novels by Thomas lived through but just seen, or you pretend you’ve Pynchon. It’s about the invention of paranoia in at least seen certain images, so this implies that US literature. I’ve also been influenced by the there must be a huge amount of distrust towards 2008 films “There Will be Blood”, “No Country what you’re looking at. The practice of for Old Men” and “Control”. On a cynical level, is much more of a habit, rather than being these films achieve something the art world has something exquisite. If you try to create a style or not yet understood in that, in a sort of a reductive refine your painting mode, you just lose the way, they work with a narrative on a different intensity of the moment. level. For example, there is no dialogue for 15 TAN: Much has been made of the need to minutes at the beginning of “There Will be “decode” your work with viewers looking to Blood” which is amazing. Two works on show in your titles for guidance. Do you place too Moscow, Against the Day I and Against the Day much responsibility on the spectator to II [a diptych showing a gardener digging], unravel your images? capture the effect of pressing the pause of a TV LT: First, you should not underestimate the remote control. But they’re a combination of public and try to be overly didactic which is things set into a scene which are not real. always the problem with institutions, they force And then you have “virtual” ideas which are you to produce text after text. For my much more instant. An assistant of Fan Di’an Modern show [2004], the education department [director of National Art Museum, Beijing] took a wanted bigger captions but I wanted to make photograph of me and the red focus light them less visible. There were already distorted the image [I-phone, 2008]. It will be explanations outside each gallery but each picture interesting to view these works in the context of also required texts. We fought over it. how Moscow is developing; it’s a brutal city. I started out as an artist to demythologise myself TAN: Would you ever make works with by giving the source material I’ve used. certain collectors in mind? Journalists liked this, they knew what to write LT: No, I would never do that. What is more about me but later on they hated me for it important is that together with my dealers, we’ve because without any explanations, they couldn’t always guarded the work in the sense that it does comment on me. It’s a controversy that really just not crop up too much at auction and when it exists in the media. My ultimate aim is to detach does, it sells for the right price, or we just buy it myself completely and look at my works as a back. I’m very well aware of the game with spectator would but that is a dream. Charles Saatchi who bought pieces on the TAN: Has your use of the bleached and secondary market for his “Triumph of Painting” blurred image reached its limits? exhibition in 2005 and then dumped them after LT: That depends. Some of the later works are the show. The US tour should lead to steady actually extremely colourful, like Orchid (2008). sales. The blurriness is actually sharp because, unlike TAN: Are you happy with the selection of with [Gerhard] Richter, it is not wiped away but Luc Tuymans and his CCTV, 2009, which goes on show in Moscow this month works for your US tour? just painted. Painting is a very physical object, LT: Yes, it’s taken a long time for a US institution it’s very difficult to compromise it. It’s difficult to political. Isms, such as modernism, post- managed to take his brothers out of school but he to ask me to do a show. There are 76 works. I’ve remember it correctly because it’s so complex. modernism, etc, they’re just not applicable to the couldn’t save one of his younger siblings. Thirty- installed all 80 of my solo shows myself. This is But it’s much more detailed than any photograph world we live in. The whole practice of painting five years later, I was having dinner at my the first time I can trust other curators to install will ever be. But if you ask people to remember a is about two things: timing and precision. parents’ house when my father took a phone call. my art. They’ve decided to re-create three photograph or painting, they’ll remember the TAN: It’s well documented that your He went completely white because he had just exhibitions as they were shown in commercial photograph in terms of the size, colours, etc. childhood was dominated by various schisms found out that this younger brother had died as an galleries [“At Random”, Zeno X gallery, , TAN: Do you believe art historians will credit in your family over the fallout of World War SS mascot, with a bayonet in his belly. 2004; “Der Architekt”, Galerie Gebauer, , your muted palette with creating a new kind of II. Can you explain how your personal history On a historical level, WWII could have 1998; “Mwana Kitoko”, David Zwirner, New reductive form? Or would you rather they continues to have an impact on your vision? destroyed the whole of Europe while the York, 2000] and then will work around this labelled you a post-modern history painter? LT: My mother was Dutch, my father was Holocaust was a psychological breakdown of chronologically. It’s interesting as they’re not the LT: Well, neither of those. I would be much Flemish. They both lost brothers during the war. sorts. And these things completely shaped this most iconic works. happier if academics understood the idea of My father’s mother, she was a fanatic and part of the world and the US. So yes, the war has TAN: How do you think US audiences will understatement. Art is not something you have to determined to send her children to German provided a basic underlying structure. I always respond to your work? imply is political. Art is not political, life is schools. At the end of the war, my father saw it on two levels; on a personal level and then LT: The Demolition painting (2005) will be it grew into an understanding of why things are shown which has 9/11 connotations along with the shaped as they are now. It triggered the Cold War, Condoleezza Rice portrait (The Secretary of State, Biography Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden—they’re all 2005). Museum people didn’t buy it at the time Coming up: Luc Tuymans retrospective Wexner Center for the Born 1958, Antwerp creations of the west. because it was too topical. But then Glenn Lowry, Arts, Ohio, 17 September-3 January 2010. Travelling to San Education École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Visuels de la TAN: So would you agree that your work is MoMA director, decided to acquire it because Francisco Museum of , , Museum Cambre, Brussels deeply personal rather than historical? she’s a public figure [Tuymans’s US dealer David of Contemporary Art Chicago, Centre for Fine Arts (Bozar), Brussels. Selected solo shows LT: I think it tends to be more of the former than Zwirner gave the painting to MoMA as a Against the Day Red October Chocolate Factory (Baibakov Art 2007 “Luc Tuymans, I Don’t Get It”, Museum van Hedendaagse the latter. Of course, it’s been triggered by things fractional gift in 2006]. It had been misunderstood Projects), Moscow, 25 September-8 November 2009 Kunst, Antwerp 2006 “Luc Tuymans: Dusk/Penumbra”, Museu of which I’m not totally aware, otherwise I in a private collection, it was out of place. The The State of Things (co-curator) Bozar, Brussels, 18 October- Serralves, Porto 2005 “Luc Tuymans: Les Cinq Anneaux”, Galerie wouldn’t do it. Every visual is in opposition to fact that it’s been acquired by a public collection 10 January 2010. Carlier/Gebauer, Berlin language because if we could say everything, is an interesting insight into how the American why make a picture of it? people think. ■