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Actions of Art and Solidarity Exhibition Booklet Booklet Spreads-01.Pdf 6 A Toufoul Abou-Hodeib Actions of Art and Solidarity 7 C Carolina Caycedo 8 C Chimurenga 9 D Heather Dewey-Hagborg and Chelsea E. Manning The notion of ‘solidarity’ has re-entered the global zeitgeist with 10 D Gitte Dæhlin resounding force in the last decade. It has driven new thinking 11 G Greenham Common focussed on countering systemic failures and outright abuses 11 Wendy Carrig related to climate, economy, surveyance, health, gender and race, 12 Tina Keane amongst other issues. ‘Actions of Art and Solidarity’ considers the 12 Beeban Kidron and Amanda Richardson 13 G Beatriz González central role that artists play within this historical shift in the new 14 H Maria Hupfield millennium, drawing parallels to cases of the twentieth century. Actions of Art and Solidarity 15 J Gavin Jantjes The exhibition proposes that the solidary imaginaries expressed 17 K Bouchra Khalili by artworks and embodied by specific artistic actions, are always 18 L Latin-Amerikagruppene i Norge / the outcome of extensive processes of artist-led care-building. The Norwegian Solidarity Committee for Latin America These take the form of networks of personal connectivity and (Astrid and Ingrid Fadnes) empathy that artists (in alliance with everyday citizens and 19 M Naeem Mohaiemen activists) create over time around a particular issue. By configuring 20 M Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende (MSSA) them in works of solidarity, they inspire society at large to imagine 22 Chilean Arpilleristas 23 Gracia Barrios life differently and step forward in ways that generate profound 24 Antonio Dias transformation. 25 Öyvind Fahlström The artists presented in ‘Actions of Art and Solidarity’ shed 26 José Gamarra light through their works upon the trajectories past and present of 27 Gontran Guanaes Netto feminist, queer, environmental, Indigenous and Black activism, as 28 Claude Lazar well as religious, gender, sexual and political freedom movements. 29 Clemencia Lucena Contents In this regard, the exhibition showcases how individual artists, art 30 Teresa Montiel collectives, cross-disciplinary associations and art institutions 31 Ernest Pignon-Ernest receive and provide solidarity and care in order to survive in, as well 32 Alfredo Portillos as transform, the conditions that challenge our very existence. 33 Kjartan Slettemark 34 Taller 4 Rojo Discussions and exhibitions of art and solidarity in recent 35 María Teresa Toral years have given special attention to the extraordinary burst of 36 Teresa Vila transnational solidarity that flourished around the world during the 40 R Hannah Ryggen Cold War era. World War II and its aftermath catalysed a wave of 41 S Sahmat – Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust anti-colonial conflicts, many of which led to the emergence of a 41 ‘Gift for India’ (TM Azis, Dora Longo Bahia, succession of independent nations in the global south (across the Eleena Banik, Rosa Irigoyen, Kamin Lertchaiprasert, African continent and the South Asia region, for example). However, Pavan Mahatta, Eric Metcalfe, Alnoor Mitha, in some cases, this first phase of independence simply went on Prashant Munkerjee, Peter Nagel, Kavita Shah, to reveal other forms of internal colonialism (this is particularly Jin Sook Shinde and P. Srinivasan) 43 ‘The Making of India’ the case with the experience of millions of Indigenous people 43 Pablo Bartholomew across these regions for whom independence continued to mean 43 Ram Rahman colonisation); and there are various instances in which that first 44 Inder Salim phase was never attained (such as in the Middle East). 44 Vivan Sundaram The post-war, anti-colonial communities seeking new political 45 ‘Making History Our Own’ alliances beyond the super-powers (US vs Soviet Union) system 45 Pushpamala N. of the Cold War led to what has been called the Non-Aligned 45 Ram Rahman Movement, and to the myriad artistic expressions that emerged as 46 Gargi Raina a part of it. In the case of the Americas, the extreme polarisation 46 Nilima Sheikh that resulted from pitting capitalism against communism held 47 Sashi Kumar 48 Public Programme captive most of the productive and creative energy of the continent 50 Maritea Dæhlin during the twentieth century. The loss of so many lives and the 51 51 Elin Már Øyen Vister infliction of tremendous psychological pain came as a result of a 54 Acknowledgements succession of brutal dictatorships and virulent civil wars across Latin America, a direct fruit of the geo-political battle ground at stake during the Cold War. 3 From our current stand-point in the global art world (art The unprecedented events of the last years (Climate Emergency, historically, environmentally and socio-politically) it would appear MeToo, Black, Trans and Indigenous Lives Matter, as well as especially pertinent to move beyond the grand narratives that have the COVID-19 pandemic) have thrown into sharp relief, and tended to shape the history of art and solidarity during the Cold accentuated further, the many disparities and vulnerabilities War era. This exhibition eschews the past emphasis on artworks afflicting the world (human, animal, plant, and non-animate). The and processes best described as being of ‘hydraulic solidarity’ urgency of bringing back, sustaining and creating new forms of that echoed the grandiose geo-politics of the time in their scale care and solidarity is therefore today more important than ever. and in their muscular or bellicose qualities. ‘Actions of Art and Artists are agents of great power in this process. Solidarity’ recognises the mostly patriarchal (white, male-led) and The case studies included in the exhibition have been sourced standardised character of such narratives, as well as their tendency Actions of Art and Solidarity across four continents, and cover a seventy-year time span of to homogenise and universalise difference. With this in mind, the artistic creativity. The exhibition is the result of a three-year logic of the exhibition as a whole is to emphasise overlooked artistic research period and is made possible by the various friendships, micro-narratives that constituted, arguably, the veritable and alliances and collaborations with its participants, for which we are enduring power of artists and their expressions of solidarity during deeply grateful. They include the radical Delhi-based collective the Cold War and beyond. Sahmat and its thirty-year artistic mobilisation against inter- Whilst the exhibition highlights the relevance of the Cold War religious strife in India (with works by Pushpamala N., Ram Rahman, era in generating new forms of artistic solidarity globally, it points Inder Salim, Nilima Sheikh, Vivan Sundaram and others); the too towards its precedents and successors: from the legacy of the two-decade long anti-nuclear women’s peace camp in Greenham early left-wing, avant-garde’s commitment to social justice at the Common, UK, where artists and citizens innovated non-hierarchical turn of the twentieth century, to the outburst of radical imaginaries forms of female and queer protest and co-habitation (with works of solidarity being configured in our times. The exhibition also by Tina Keane, Wendy Carrig and others); artistic and allied centres ancestral Indigenous perspectives that endure today, rarely testimonies from the legendary PLO exhibition ‘Palestinian Artists’ considered when discussing and displaying the history of artistic at Kunstnernes Hus, 1981; the radical museology of the Museo de solidarity. la Solidaridad Salvador (with works by Chilean Arpilleristas, Gracia This point is of particular relevance for the growing wave Introduction Barrios, Ernest Pignon-Ernest, Öyvind Fahlström, Claude Lazar, of voices in the art world interested in challenging modernism Kjartan Slettemark and Teresa Vila, amongst others, as well as (whether western or non-western) as the only optics from which archival material); artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg’s collaboration to narrate creative processes globally. On the one hand, from an with whistle-blower and technologist Chelsea Manning; personal Indigenous perspective solidarity is understood as a relational and stories from the forty-year commitment of the Norwegian intrinsic value. It is to be found in the essence of Indigenous being, Solidarity Committee for Latin America; as well as artworks and doing and thinking that prioritises the sustaining of harmonious contributions by Carolina Caycedo, Chimurenga, Gitte Dæhlin, relations with others (human, animate and non-animate). It is Maritea Dæhlin, Beatríz González, Maria Hupfield, Gavin Jantjes, thus not an external factor that needs to be invoked; it pervades Bouchra Khalili, Naeem Mohaiemen, Elin Már Øyen Vister and instead all forms of creative practices. On the other hand, Hannah Ryggen. Indigenous conceptions of solidarity are ‘grounded’ in the specific site that a community co-inhabits with its other living and non- living elements. From this epistemological (knowledge-based) perspective, the much-used term ‘transnational solidarity’ loses much of its relevance. ‘Actions of Art and Solidarity’ is an exhibition that looks back in time and forward into the future to consider the extraordinary ability of artists, art collectives and art institutions to narrate and build empathy around fundamental global conflicts and injustices, and provide the radical imaginaries of care and solidarity that can stimulate their resolution. The exhibition is housed in Kunstnernes Hus (The Artists House, Oslo) an institution that has played a recurrent part in Norway’s own contribution
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