•• 001,003 news.qxp:205 26/8/09 19:37 Page 1 INCLUDING WHAT’S ON TM UMBERTO ALLEMANDI & CO. PUBLISHING EVENTS, POLITICS AND ECONOMICS MONTHLY EST. 1983, VOL. XVIII, NO. 205, SEPTEMBER 2009 UK £6.95/Europe €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 paintings, 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 art history 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. 17th century Norwegian silver beaker by Erich Olsen, Trondheim c.1678 Straight tapered sides embossed with dimpled spheres on a wrigglework ground, 139 New Bond Street London W1A 3DL the rim inscribed 'PNS A DD 1678 RSSH ITDW' Tel.: 020-7629 6261 Fax: 020-7495 6180 82mm high Visit our website on www.sjphillips.com •• 038 Features :tan 205 26/8/09 18:41 Page 38 38 Features THE ART NEWSPAPER, No. 205, SEPTEMBER 2009 Interview Why paintings succeed where words fail Belgian artist Luc Tuymans 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 Belgium 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 Brussels 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, Jan Fabre, Ana Torfs) and 25 Chinese themes are developed in seemingly tangential practitioners selected by Weiwei (Liu Wei, Yang ways with the Holocaust, 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 Venice 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.