This article draws from cultural studies, political theory, international relations, art history and museum studies in order to consider `China Design Now' — the blockbuster exhibition, recently held at the V&A. It argues that, despite the inclusion of a number of interesting exhibits, the attempt to frame contemporary Chinese design independently of political contextualization has led to an exhibition which is largely unsatisfying. The approach taken by the V&A is further shown to have produced several ironic outcomes. First, by attempting to avoid `contentious' political issues, the museum has, in fact, forced the `political' to the fore. Second, by taking such an approach, the V&A demonstrates that it has failed to understand the essentially political nature of the design problem. Third, it has produced an exhibition which appears to advocate a (highly political) neoliberal agenda — one which insists on an inexorable drive towards greater global economic integration. Finally, it has failed to mention its own embeddedness within larger strategies of `cultural diplomacy' and the significance of such strategies for international relations and for cultural production. As well as drawing on a range of relevant literature, the article makes direct reference to exhibition wall texts, exhibit labels and quotations from the catalogue in order to support its argument.
This essay intervenes in debates about the depiction of conflict since 1945, by comparing two highly significant photographic 'hacks': Brecht's War Primer (Kriegsfibel) 1955; and Broomberg & Chanarin's War Primer 2, 2011. Kriegsfibel is a collection of images, snipped from wartime newspapers and magazines, which Brecht selected and situated alongside the four-line verses that he used to comment upon and re-caption his pictures. These acerbic 'photo-epigrams' captured Brecht's view, firstly, that photography had become a 'terrible weapon against truth' and secondly, that by repositioning the individual image, its political instrumentality might be restored. When, more than half a century later, Broomberg & Chanarin decide to re-work Kriegsfibel to produce War Primer 2, they effectively crash into and redouble the Brechtian hack; updating and further complicating Brecht's insights; re-animating his original concerns with photography as a form of collective historical elucidation and mounting, literally on top of his pictures of wartime conflict, images from the 'war on terror'. This essay argues that the re-doubling of War Primer performs multiple critical tasks. It explores the Kriegsfibel as a dynamic confrontation with images of war and stages the enduring need to interrogate and actively re-function images of conflict from WW2 to the present day. It re-examines debates about images as weapons of war in themselves, and finally, it situates the Kriegsfibel assemblage in relation to contemporary understandings of 'post-truth'.Keywords: Brecht's Kriegsfibel; Broomberg & Chanarin; war/anti-war photography; hack/hijack; radical pedagogy; truth-games; anachronism; interventionist thinking PrologueImagine a man standing in a valley and making a speech in which he occasionally changes his opinion or simply utters sentences that contradict one another, so that the accompanying echo brings them into confrontation. (Brecht 2014, pp. 229-55) Given the colossal literature that has developed around Brecht's writings and theatre in the course of the last century, it seems a little surprising that this highly evocative quotation is so frequently passed over without comment. After all, 'The Short Organon for the Theatre', from which the quote derives, is habitually declared to be one of Brecht's most important expositions of his work-at once a defence of his aesthetics and a politically-driven account of his experimental methods Parker 2014). So it seems remarkable that an image as poignant and instructive as this one is not more extensively analysed. On the other hand, the very neglect of the image is perhaps what makes it such an apt 'announcer' for another shockingly under-analysed piece of work-Brecht's Kriegsfibel (literally translated into English as 'War Primer'), 1955. There is a second, deeper reason however, as to why Brecht's image is useful here. For the image of the duplicitous speech-maker, whose echoes resound and clash with his original utterances, very effectively heralds the relationship between...
In this article I explore the nature of the relationship between art and terror/ism and ask why identifications between the two are so routinely and often insistently made. In so doing, my aim is twofold. Firstly, I explore the possibility of there being a deep-seated structural link that exists between art, terror/ism and creativity. In other words, I ask if terror is a necessary corollary of the ‘creative event’. Secondly, I explore explicit examples in which artists have sought to create or to emphasise this relationship, from the perspective of Contemporary Art practices. In the spirit of experiment rather than of judgment then, this article sets up a series of trials in which art and terror/ism are philosophically, aesthetically and politically blended. It asks where else should such tests be conducted, if not in relation to the artwork and in particular, in relation to those artworks which toy with terror/ism and those artists who claim on some level, to be ‘terrorists’? How is the ‘artist-as-terrorist’ to be interpreted and understood alongside existing definitions of both terrorism and of Art? And finally, what role does imagination play in the construction of experience?
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.