"Dittborn's Oir Moil Pointings: the Invention of O Genre" by Guy Brett
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, Mtdd/e Hea.,d , G/arica /s/8nd ts T ••Pt " Sen Suck/er r M8cKenZles PI f Coogee • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • CENTRO CULTURAL PALACIO LA MONEDA CENTRO DE DOCUMENTACiÓN ARTES VISUALES Todos los derechos reservados. Prohibida la reproducción parcial y/o total. Conforme a la Ley N' 17.336 sobre Propiedad Intelectual en Chile. EL ROS;l'ItO OUE MA RECJt~El!rE$TA pJlolTtJ'RA AalOPO$TAL D EL l\Q$TJ\O DE UN ABOJUOItN DE TmIUlA DEL PUl:Oó t.LIi:VADO ltN 1829 DESDE EL EX TRJlMO AUSTRAL DE ~CA DEL SUR A LONDRES A BOJU)() Dmo "BltAOt.¡¡;,,· POR SU CAP! TAN ROBERT trITZ·RQY. aOJEN LO COMPRO POR UNOS CUANTOS BOTO JO:S y LO LLAMO .ntMMY BUT1"Ol\l• . ' .....- ...... , . • • • "Dittborn's oir moil pointings: AIR MAIL PAINTING NO. 49 the invention of o genre" TillE: JEMM Y BUTTON YEAR OF PRODUCTlON: 1986 by Guy Brett SIZE OF WORK : 154 X 210{M If I am especially cansciaus of being an English TECHNIQUE: BUTTONS, WOOL, person, sitting in Brixton, South London, writing FEATHERS, PAINTlNG AND about the work 01' a Chilean artist which will be PHOTOSILKS{REEN ON WRAPPING shown in Australia, it is because Eugenio Dittborn brings about thi s kind 01' linking. The other day, with two others, PAPER. we unwrapped, laid out and photographed one of Dittborn ' s ITINERARY : AirMail Paintings on a street in the East End of London. It 1 E. DITTBORN, STGO DE {HILE, contained an image 01' " Jemmy Button", an indigenous DECEMBER 1986 inhabitant of Tierra del Fuego who was ' bought ' by the Captain of Charles Darwin 's ship "The Beagle" (for a few 2 {HILE VIVE, PALACIO DE BELLAS buttons) and brought to London in 1829. To the British a ARTES, MADRID, SPAIN, FEB 1987 specimen. a mascot perhaps. And to himself? Dittborn 3. {HILE VIVE, {ASA ELlZALDE, wanted us tO ,record Jemmy Button's return 150 years later in another conveyance: an AirMail Painting. BARCELONA, MAR{H 1987 I have had two other sightings of Dittborn ' s work: once in 4. 3. DITTBORN, STGO DE {HILE, his house in Santiago when paintings were unfolded and {HILE, JULY 1987 spread out on the f1oor, and another watching a videotape in London when the camera panned round an exhibition af his 5. {HARLES MEREWETHER, AirMail Paintings in a gallery in Santiago. Curiously enough AUSTRALlAN {ENTRE FOR this last, most mediated g limpse, struck me forcefully. When PHOTOGRAPHY, AUGUST 1987 Dittborn's AirMail Paintings were hung together 1 realized that he is working with a new kind 01' ' composition', a new 6. E. DITTBORN, {HILE, MAR{H 1988 way of struc turing. No one work, no part 01' a work, has any 7. LUIS LAMA, CENTRO CULTURAL real stability. They are shifting inventories where found DE LA MUNI{IPALlDAD DE images rccuJ". always moving into new proximities or isolations. a nd where the compartments implied by the folds MIRAFLORES, LIMA, PERU, may hold an imuge or may be simply exceeded by wandering NOVEMBER 1988 lines or stitches. Hand painted marks also move across the 8. E, DITTBORN, STGO DE {HILE, given figurative image ry, veiling and un vei ling with another logic. {HILE DE{EMBER 1988 This structuring is new in that it seems to indicate. not a 9. GUY BRETT, LONDON, ENGLAND, compulsive desire to produce 'one 's own ' art work, to MAY 1989 master one's m eans, to create a world. but a sifting, a paying of attention to every kind 01' g raphic phenomenon - a stain. a 10. E. DITTBORN, STGO DE {HILE, newspaper photo. a stitch , a fold. a graffiti - and one's {HILE, AUGUST 1989 e ncounte rs w ith them in the course of living. Clearly, Dittborn's inte rest in these phenomena is not formalistic or simply aesthetic, for the graphic mark is also alife-trace. It is always paradoxically an indicator both 01' presence and absence, ex istence and oblivion, destruction and survival. In Dittborn 's work , the frailty o r persistence 01' the graphic means is linked with that 01' the body, the persono Without superficial express ivity or polemic, he makes us think deeply again about the re lationship between painling and human life. This is no t 0 1' course a mere specialist or professional matter, s ince it implies the relationship of the intellectual to the m ass 01' people, and extends to the whole problem of the connection between 'mediation and 'Iived experience'. The artist practices a kind 01' mediation. A study of Dittborn 's strategies: in this respcct could begin with his inve ntion oi" a genre: lhe AirMail Painting. The AirMail Painting could be understood at one level as a rejoinder, a riposte, to the prevailing art system, and one devised specifically by a n artist working at its periphery, in the so-called Third World. Made 01' cheap material s, easily transported, evading the imperatives of the art market, insubstantial , il arrives to unfold and occupy a substantial amount of the hotly-contested space of the cultural AIR MAIL PAINTING NO. 11 metropo li s. lt a lso, in the process, refuses to be seen as a TITLE: TO FIND (THE SWIMMER, THE fI oating, neutra l, internationa l cultural commodity, since it s po int of ori gin in Chile and its journey to another part of the MUMMY) world is exhibited as part of it (v ia the envelope with its YEAR OF PRODUCTION: 1985 postal frankings, li st of previous journeys, etc). SIZE OF WORK: 154 X 210 CM "Transperiphery" accurate ly describes Dittborn 's activity in the past four years with AirMail pa intings ex hibited in TECHNIQUE: BLACK INK, FEATHER, Australia, Argentina, Colombia, Peru , Ec uador, Canada, PAINTlNG, CORD, WOOL AND PHOTO Cuba and East Germany. One begins to reali ze, however, SILKSCREEN ON WRAPPING PAPER. that there are al so other, more enigmatic and suggesti ve leve ls of the AirMail Painting. ITINERARY : ' In transit ': what is this state exactly? T he journey impli es a 1. E. DITTBORN, STGO DE CHILE, fixed po int from which the person o r obj ect o ri g in ated, and a CHILE, JUNE 1985 destinati on. It implies locality, habitati on, dome ti cati on, stratificati on, sedimentati on (an idea often indicated by the 2. GEORGE PATON GALLERY, arti st in hi s AirMa il pa intings by a small house symbol). On MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA, JULY 1985 the other hand, moti on, travell ing, carryin g, vagabondage is 3. CHAMELEON GALLERY, HOBART, a lso a sort o f primordi al state. The A irM ail Pa inting, as Dittborn himself po ints o ut , is onl y an extension of the first TASMANIA, AUSTRALIA, SEPTEMBER bag (and, beyond that, of the kangaroo's pouch, or th e 1985 womb). And it is not onl y the 'work' that travels. T he 4. GALERIA BUCCI, STGO DE CHILE, images Dittborn uses are themselves c irc ul ating, and moving between the states of be ing ' Iost ' and 'found', forgott en and CHILE OCTOBER 1985 remembered. The surface in thi s sen se beco mes a temporary 5. ADELAIDE FESTIVAL, resting-pl ace of signs whi ch are travell in g thro ugh space and EXPERIMENTAL ART FOUNDATION, through time. It seem s to me that Dittborn, in hi s meditati on on the ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA, MARCH re lationship o f the graphic mean s to human li fe - not as a 1986. genera li zed problem but in the here and now of hi s s ituati on 6. INSTlTUTE OF MODERN ART, as a Chil ean arti st in the late 20th century - plu nges to the heart of a paradox, a double meaning. Pai nt ing deals wi th BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA, JULY 1987. the transitory, the fleeting, the "q ui verings" of life. as 7. ART GALLERY, CLEVELAND STATE Mati sse said . At the same time painting becomes pan of a UNIVERSITY, OHIO, U.S.A., 1988. traditi on, a world -v iew, a cultura l hegemony whi ch may be imposed was an act of power (as the European pictoria l 8. GEORG E PATO N GALLERY, traditions as im posed in Latin Ameri ca after th e Conq uest). MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA, MARCH Photography too rescues a moment of li fe from obli vion, but 1988. also fi xes it in profoundly 'social' ways. A ll technical advances in graph ic represent ati on (photography, video) are 9. E. DITTBORN, STGO DE CHILE, also advances in c riminology, surveillance and contro l. CHILE, AUGUST 1988 Photography, as Walt er Benjamin po inted o ut in one of his 10. LUIS LAMA, CENTRO CULTURAL essays on Baudela ire, superceded the signatu re as a means of identificati on, and was " the most decis ive of all conq uests of MIRA FLORES, LIMA, PERU, 1988 a person 's incognito." T he who le concept of the in cogni to 11. E. DITTBORN, STGO DE CHILE, oscill ates between freedom and un freedom. When Dittborn CHILE, 1988 uses photos of ind igeno us inhabitants o f Tierra de l Fuego, found in a book of the I 920s, or poli ce photos o f Chi lean 12. GUY BRETT, LONDON, ENGLAND, petty crimina ls from police fil es found in cheap detecti ve MAY 1989 magazines of the 1950s, or forgott en sport s figures fro m 13. E. DITTBORN, STGO DE CHILE, newspapers, we fee l strong ly these opposing senses. The photographic image is both " the materi a l trace of people CHILE, 1989.