Artists and their media
Escaping stereotypes

Esteban Alvarez

ealvarez@elbasilisco.com

Esteban Alvarez is an artist based in Buenos Aires

This past October, I attended, with some curiosity, a round table discussion organized by the National Museum of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires, called “Visual Arts Today”. Among other participants, Lilian Llanes (Founder of the Biennial of Havana) was present, having been invited by the Museum to be a juror for the “Banco de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires” prize.

It came as no surprise that, while the theme was “Visual Arts Today”, the topic of discussion inevitably steered toward the more pressing topic of the state of the visual arts following the events of September 11. Lilian Llanes commented on the impromptu altars in memoriam, as well as to transmit information in the search for the disappeared, created by many victims´ friends and relatives in the affected zone after the attack on the twin towers. She felt that the visual aspect of these altars was reminiscent of some Latin American artists’ work, who invoke similar forms in response to similar events: massacres, the search for the disappeared and other abhorrent events that have produced personal losses and deep suffering in innumerable Latin American cities. Where these types of expression have often suffered a certain disqualification, characterized as “sociology” rather than art when in the hands of Latin American artists, she suggested the ironic possibility that this aesthetic might now become globalized, implying not only that the entire world would have a chance to better understand, albeit in retrospect, many Latin American works that have this type of visual vocabulary, but also that the simultaneous world-wide distribution of these images might result in other artists’ adopting and incorporating this visual vocabulary, leading to its eventual legitimization.

While on the one hand I agree with Llanes in the possibility of a certain type of globalization of visual language, on the other, I doubt to what degree the dissemination of these images can assist in the comprehension of an entire range of Latin American work that has been systematically underestimated, because the parallel constructed between the two is based solely on a superficial formal relationship, rather than taking into consideration the subtleties of the originating impulse.

The effect of globalization on aspects of visual language employed by Latin American artists, and the continuing formation and persistence of stereotypes are issues I will explore in detail, looking at the special relationship between an artist and their place of origin, their surroundings, and the subsequent repercussions these have in the role they are expected to play in global culture and markets.

Stereotypes as fomented by the art and culture industry

The persistence of stereotypes in the art and culture industries despite the expanding fields of post-colonial and multicultural studies is evident in many ways. Though works from more artists from non-Western, non-central cultures are being shown, the way in which they are selected and presented reveals ongoing prejudices, and serves as the mechanism to preserve regional hierarchies. The first consideration is still all too frequently an analysis of the artist’s identity, followed later by consideration of their artistic proposal. As Araeen observes, “... one is not defined or recognised by what one does in art, but one’s position as an artist is predetermined by these [cultural and racial] differences.”¹

These stereotypes create a double set of requirements; an artist must first contend with the preconceived notions corresponding to his/her origin before their work will then be examined and judged according to its level of success in aesthetic terms. The niche that is prepared to receive the work of artists from other cultures is clearly delimited. To quote Araeen once more, “... artists from other cultures ... must carry identity cards showing their cultural origins and must locate themselves within a specific space – an in-between space – in order to enter or encounter the dominant culture.”² Artists who attempt to incorporate an awareness of this phenomena into their work necessarily break away from the stereotyped image, which depends on their occupying a passive role as the object of study, not crossing over to the other side to comment upon it. Néstor García Canclini summarises this well, stating that

“Even when our people [Latin Americans] migrate extensively and a large part of our art work and literature is dedicated to thinking about the multicultural, Latin America continues to be interesting only as a continent of a violent nature, of an archaism irreducible to modern nationality, an earth fertilised by an art conceived as tribal or national dreaming and not as thinking about the global and the complex.”³

As Canclini describes, artists from other cultures are frequently expected to work in response to cultural roots reaching back to pre-colonial times and practices. Although the contact that resulted from colonisation means that Eurocentric culture has been present as a strong influence during the greater part of the century, this continues to be seen as an outside “contaminating” influence that never formed a legitimate part of the cultural development in dominated countries. Araeen observes “... modernity was an expression of ‘European Spirit’ which could only be authentically manifested in the work of white artists; and if it had found an expression elsewhere it was a disturbing aberration which should not be allowed to enter a modern discourse.”⁴

In the case of Latin America, the stereotype is strengthened by the quasi-canonisation of particular artists who fulfil these expectations, Frida Kahlo being one example. Once established in the authoritative centralised culture of the West, it is difficult to combat the image or to replace it with other equally valid or more current ones. Patricia Phelp de Cisneros comments: ”What we now have to fight against is the “chiquita banana” image. I am the founder of a virtual club called the “anti-Frida Kahlo Club”, and every time I say this in a conference, the reactions are interesting. My point is not whether or not Frida is a good painter; my point is that she embodies an image that leads the world to think that all Latin American art has to be completely picturesque, vividly coloured, tragic, folkloric...”⁵

Thus the promotion of certain artists, and the way in which they are presented are the main tools by which the art and culture industries conserve a stereotyped image of artists from other cultures. The general tendencies of post-modernism that have lent increasing levels of authority to critics and curators put artists increasingly in the role of providers of raw material for the production of cultural events. This further increases the concentration of power held by institutional cultural bodies and the extent to which they exercise control over the context in which an artist’s work is seen. García Canclini’s comment on this direction in general cultural terms is particularly true in terms of the visual arts:

“Traditional opinion shapers (political, union, and community organisation leaders) and those who determine artistic value (artisans, artists, critics, teachers) are relinquishing some of their functions to those who control the new structure of the symbolic market: information networks, marchands, entrepreneurial-minded galleries and publishing houses, radio and television producers, and video and record producers. Local forms of opinion and those that preserve any differences are incorporated into the national and transnational market.”⁶

The biennial format is one of contemporary art’s most successful institutional forms; it has been instrumental in giving the impression of expansion with the dispersion of events previously confined to central venues to many non-central regions. However, wherever the biennial happens to take place, the basic organisation of the works according to country continues to promote the idea that an art or artist is or can represent an entire country’s cultural production. García Canclini states that

“... the modern history of art has been practised and written, to a great extent, as a history of the art of nations. This way of suppressing the object of study was mostly a fiction, but it possessed a verisimilitude over several centuries because the nations appeared to be the ‘logical’ mode of organisation of culture and the arts.”⁷

“This practice of showing Art from different regions and cultures, with a uniform presentation, in the same arena, often achieves, instead of a globalising effect, a reinforcement of regional and sometimes even national prejudices regarding cultural identity”⁸. This “developed taste” can be seen as a consequence of the organisational strategy that for years has conditioned the way that the audience receives contemporary Art, turning the biennial experience into little more than “a confusing array of different works, most of them quite easy to pair with this or that ethnic provenance”⁹ . The strong relationship that then develops over time between certain countries or regions and particular visual or conceptual characteristics then becomes predetermined baggage for each artist emerging from these places.

The close ties between geographical region and mode of expression also reinforce one of the most insidious underlying tendencies that stereotypes are often based on – that of an anthropological approach. The isolation and preservation of a culture as a self-contained whole functions well as a “useful fiction or a revealing distortion.”¹⁰

Though the lack of credibility of such simplification would seem evident, it persists; Octavio Zaya observes:

“But what should be emphasised once more is the fact that we cannot continue to refer to Latin America as a “confined” space, the prisoner of a process of essentializing representation – what Appadurai calls “metonymic freezing” – in which an aspect of the life of a people is used to exemplify it or represent it in its entirety, thus constituting its theoretical niche within an anthropological taxonomy”.¹¹

The anthropological approach is also problematic because of its historical selectivity; it depends on an invented segregation of strictly linear events that is difficult to uphold in a contemporary time frame. As García Canclini argues, “The pretension of constructing national cultures and representing them by specific iconographies is challenged in our time by the process of an economic and symbolic transnationalisation.”¹²

Bifurcation as multiculturalism

The increased differentiation and recognition of smaller groups, regions or national identities under the heading of multiculturalism is a polemical question. It may be most controversial among those coming from the regions affected, as it presents the outward appearance of greater recognition for particular groups, often awakening some version of nationalism, at the same time that it basically repeats, in a different form, the same strategy of exerting control and domination via definition. This debate opens a divide within the region involved, diverting attention from the real question. In an interesting critique of multicultural practices, Alberto Moreiros states:

“Born of an ideology of cultural differentiation, its basic orientation looks to capture the Latin American differences to set them loose within the global epistemological corral. It works, then, as a homogenising machine, including when it is understood in terms of preserving and promoting differences. Through Latin Americanist representation, the Latin American differences are maintained under control, catalogued and put at the service of global representation.”¹³

Artists’ response to Stereotypes

“Identities are constituted now not only in relation to unique territories, but in the multicultural intersection of objects, messages and people coming from diverse directions.”¹⁴

Artistic formation in Latin America has, since roughly the beginning of the last century, been largely based on the European model, and since the middle of the century, the U.S. has also exerted a strong influence. An institutional art education is thus based on a centralised, Western view of the history of art, made more complex by the fact that this history is superimposed upon a very different set of political, economic and social experiences. In this way, the lessons of Modernism were experienced in Latin America as they were in Europe on the one hand, but from an outsider’s perspective on the other. Mari-Carmen Ramirez describes the history and ongoing effects of the phenomena:

“... at the heart of Euro-American modernism there has always been a unilinear concept of enlightened progress that was destined to justify colonialism. The absorption or domination of less materially developed cultures, i.e: “others”, led in turn to the compilation of a vast reservoir of “primitive”, “exotic” sources that since the early part of the twentieth century has resulted in an alternative projection of modernity based on the irrational, the primitive and the unconscious. Curatorial practices based on this perspective, therefore, are not only incapable of viewing the arts of non-First World societies without the ethnological lens that resulted from colonialism, but also tend to divest these arts of the complexity of their origins and development. Such practices invariably replicate the us/them perspective whereby the achievements of the colonised subject are brought up for objective scrutiny to determine their degree of rationality or authenticity, thereby reducing them to derivative manifestations or variations of already existing tendencies.”¹⁵

Though in the past a certain delay often occurred in transit as ideas and movements were communicated between the centre and the periphery, improved methods of communication and increased possibilities for travel have shortened this delay to the point that it has now virtually disappeared. In this way, many simultaneously overlapping cultural forms and influences are present at any given moment. García Canclini speaks of the process of such interaction as “cultural reconversion”, stating that:

“In Latin American Countries, where numerous traditions coexist with varying degrees of modernity, and where sociocultural heterogeneity presents a multiplicity of simultaneous patrimonies, this process of interchange [reconversion] and reutilization is even more intense. High, popular, and mass art nourish each other reciprocally.”¹⁶

Postmodernism itself has led to the inclusion of an ever greater range of material as the basis of artistic practice, and the permeability of the borders between current work and its historical precedents has increased. Tracing the roots of the work of any contemporary artist is therefore quite challenging, and perhaps even more so in the case of Latin America. One of the biggest challenges that the stereotypes of art from other cultures presents, then, is the extreme focus placed precisely upon determining the provenance of the different influences present in an artist’s practice, and the analysis of their relation with that artist’s origin. The issue of legitimacy is always too present. Sebastian López observes:

“While the European artist is allowed to investigate other cultures and enrich their own work and perspective, it is expected that the artist from another culture only works in the background and with the artistic traditions connected to his or her place of origin (even though many Dutch managers of cultural politics, curators, dealers were ignorant of these traditions and their contemporary manifestations). If the foreign artist does not conform to this separation, he is considered inauthentic, Westernised, and an imitator copyist of “what we do”. The universal is ours, ‘the local is yours’”¹⁷.

Using a more specific example, Mario Flecha postulates:

“American artists have a tradition of looking to Europe. At the same time, European artists look abroad to find inspiration. Picasso painted “Demoiselles d’Avignon after seeing African masks (even though he always denied he saw them in the Museum of Mankind in Paris, there is a little doubt about it). His appropriation has a twist; when an Argentinean painter, Petorutti, copied Picasso’s style he was accused of being derivative. What made Picasso a genius for borrowing an image and Petorutti a second class artist for doing the same?”¹⁸

Emilio Petorutti, the Argentinean artist in question, was severely criticised for having incorporated a Cubistic approach to his work. This was seen as an illegitimate source for his work, although he followed the Modernist tendency to look toward “primitive” art for his inspiration. His personal investigation of his roots led him to travel to Italy (where his family came from), where the Modernist masters who were his guides directed him toward Giotto and Fra Angelico as “primitives”¹⁹. Once he returned to Argentina, in 1924, his work was rejected for its lack of authenticity. As Miguel Angel Muñoz states: “Innovative artists were frequently accused of frivolously appropriating some European artistic trend and bringing it as a novelty to the unaware artistic scene in Argentina.”²⁰ He goes on to comment that originality was an integral part of the criteria established by Modernism. According to this criteria, there was no way Petorutti could win.

Petorutti is just one example of the destiny faced by many artists, then and now, who travel abroad seeking cultural exchange and growth, and instead find themselves face to face with a stereotyped image that is then difficult to overcome. For many of them, the most natural reaction is to reject this image, deny its authority and undergo a rediscovery of their roots. This can be dangerous territory, as in some cases, it winds up being a confirmation of the very anthropological preconception and definition that forms the stereotype. García Canclini comments: “... the Latin American artists who work with globalisation and multiculturalism interact with the strategy of museums, galleries and critics of the metropolis who prefer to keep them as representatives of exotic cultures, of ethnic alterity and Latin otherness, that is, in the margins.”²¹

A particular example is the artist Alejandro Puente, a recognised contemporary artist working in Argentina responding to Geometric Minimalism and Conceptualism in his work. Upon returning from a stay in the United States, he was strongly affected by a need to re-establish his roots: “I choose, not my parents’ [vision of the world], the Mediterranean; I choose America. I was born here. Today we begin to discover her. A far away culture that reappears, old and new. A new world. ... A concept of space and time different than that of Europe.”²² As Nelly Perazzo further relates:

“From this moment on, the artist begins to use names from indigenous sources: “Haynú,” “Quetral,” “Chamal,” emphasising the point of intersection between his investigation of conceptual art and his need to include elements with regional connotations.”²³

Obviously, there is no easy solution to the confrontation between outside preconceptions and the relationship each artist has with their own particular history, and how these may affect the composition of their artistic influences. Araeen makes an observation that presents as a possibility the investigation of roots, but not necessarily going back to a pre-colonial time frame to do so:

“... liberation from colonialism did not mean a return to precolonial structures but a redefinition of modernity, and a Third World claim to its own modernising and progressive ideas ...”²⁴

This option is perhaps more viable in a post-modern framework, though much more complicated and elusive. García Canclini cites Luis Felipe Noé, an Argentine artist who was one of the founders of “Nueva Figuración” in Argentina in the 1960’s and who now forms part of the artistic establishment there: “Rather than devote ourselves to the nostalgic ‘search for a non-existent tradition’ he [Luis Felipe Noé] proposes we take on the diverse Baroque nature of our history...”²⁵ Taking on this history is easier said than done. It becomes a multi-dimensional puzzle that combines many different perspectives of current events with similarly layered interpretations of the strands of the past that have gone before. Finding common denominators, even between artists who share a common origin from the same generation, can be difficult, and lead to even more diversity. As Zaya observes,

“Thus in the constant cultural flow affecting both aspects - origin and destination, departure and arrival - the search for stable points of reference, which after all is what makes possible any critical reflection or choice, becomes increasingly difficult. It is precisely in this atmosphere that the invention of tradition (ethnicity, relationship, and other identity markers), as Appadurai points out, may become a slippery task, while the search for certainty is constantly frustrated by the fluidity of transnational communications.”²⁶

The obstacle course that determines to a great extent what stance an artist chooses to take in terms of identity, to be perceived as neither primitive nor derivative, is yet further complicated by the duality he or she may face in terms of how they impact the artistic scene in their country of origin. Luis Camnitzer aptly analyses this complex situation:

“... ethnic and national artists belonging to subordinate cultures could only be successful in this market if they worked within an acceptable formal repertoire, while the expression of ethnicity and/or nationality had to remain confined to content. This residual ethnicity allowed their projects to be perceived as lightly exotic, enough to maintain a satisfying self image of openness and pluralism on the part of the market. The same residual ethnicity would signal the “roots” of the artist in his or her community of origin. Yet the community’s pride would turn on the fact that their artist had “made it in the art world” rather than on the artist contribution to his or her community.”²⁷

The very choice of whether or not to travel in order to pursue studies, participate in programs of cultural exchange, or simply work becomes an issue. The difference between exile and what has been termed “professional migration” can be sensitive, and neither is yet fully accepted. The former tend to be categorised and permanently seen as victims, and the latter, as opportunists, or worse, as having abandoned an ongoing struggle in their country of origin. Araeen comments on the change in attitude between eras and between regions, referring to Picasso, Mondrian and Brancusi, among others:

“They knew they had to be in exile, not for the sake of being in exile and celebrating it, but it was essential for them to be at the centre of modernism in order to produce new ideas. It was essential for them to transgress not only the cultures they left behind but also their experiences of exile.”²⁸

The power struggle over who defines the dialogue concerning
an artist’s work

The role of the artist has never been an easy thing to define, and it is further complicated by the fact that today, more often than not, an artist’s work occupies some place in various geographical, cultural and political environments simultaneously. This phenomena has been instrumental in making evident the relative power held by different cultures to frame the artist’s role, and thus create or re-create their image, for their contemporaries as well as for posterity. The artist’s authoritative ability to define himself, grounded within the act of expression, creation or edition, might seem to be a given; however, the malleability of the interpretation of identity itself, of the image, has become in many cases the battleground where the artist finds him or herself at a disadvantage, engaged in an ongoing tug-of-war with external forces that are often superior in strength.

I would like to discuss two Latin American artists who enjoy success in the Western/European mainstream and who are represented by the institutional and critical art world in very different ways, by way of a concrete example of the issues that I have discussed so far. It is very difficult to make a choice and try to illustrate points without seeming to imply that there are better or worse ways for an artist to engage with the art and culture industry today, or that there should be a difference in this engagement between artists from the centre and those from other cultures. I would like to clarify that these are my reactions and opinions, upon which I go about reflecting upon these issues.

The two artists are Francisco Toledo and Gabriel Orozco, both from Mexico. The recent exhibition of Toledo’s work at the Whitechapel was intriguing as much for the choice of artist and manner in which he was represented as for the works themselves. In the Whitechapel Agenda, the initial framework within which the show was presented was a claim that “This exhibition connects with the Whitechapel’s ongoing desire to avoid a Eurocentric outlook...” presenting “...a rare opportunity to consider Mexico’s most important and controversial artist, who willingly removed himself from the mainstream.”²⁹ Whether the Whitechapel can claim to have fulfilled their ongoing desire, merely by choosing to show the work of a Latin American artist, instead of a European one, is questionable. The description of his work, while certainly not incorrect, seems to summarise the usual menu of stereotypes attributed to Latin America: “His dense, highly charged images are executed in vivid graphic detail, suffused with an air of violence, irony and eroticism, and realised with potent combinations of organic materials.”³⁰ His influences are carefully charted, (including “an attraction to Kafka,” an admiration of Goya, Blake and Ensor, and the fact that he is currently “re-drawing Dürer”) and neatly separated from the elements of his work that come from his “roots”. All the elements of his work that are attributed to his roots are presented in terms of discovery and anthropological preservation:

“Toledo also uses indigenous materials like cochineal and amate fibre, affirming his attachment to local, endangered economies.”

“His most radical social interventions are in support of fragile rural cultures threatened by tourism and global values.”

But the most surprising comment is the comparison made between Toledo and three other artists:

“Toledo’s compulsion to react to street life and shift between media has parallels in recent exhibitions of Tunga, Guillermo Kuitca and Francis Alÿs.”³¹

This is an obvious, but nonetheless very strained attempt at grouping four completely different artists under some umbrella of “otherness” related to a “compulsion to react to street life” and to use different media. This comparison brings up several types of question that remain unanswered: is Francis Alÿs, also working in Mexico, considered to be less important, or less authentic, than Toledo? For artists working in Latin America, is there so little difference between artists who are working in response to the criteria of Modernism and those who are dealing with post-modern issues? Is it Toledo’s success in the market outside Mexico, or his activity within Mexico that results in his importance to the Whitechapel? Is Toledo’s work being viewed in the framework that he presents it in?

These questions lead naturally to a consideration of Gabriel Orozco by way of contrast, an artist who works in a very different manner than Toledo, and who would seem to be substantially more free from the stereotypes mentioned above. His reputation is generally more centred on a consideration of his artistic proposal, rather than a question of his relationship to a pre-colonial Mexican culture. However, in comments from an exhibition catalogue from 1998, Francesco Bonami betrays a subtle but persistent necessity to view Orozco through his national identity; he qualifies Orozco’s work generously, but sees him in the function of representative of Mexico:

“His rise to become one of the most influential artists of this decade, and maybe of the next, is based partly on the preachy misunderstanding of Western/Northern culture. Gabriel Orozco incarnates the dream of all curators, critics and dealers: an artist capable of handling the language of recent history without giving up his original soul, expanding his roots, not severing them, as many others did in the mirage of modernist culture. What brings Gabriel Orozco into his idiosyncratic reality is the Mexican identity he stubbornly claims while not wearing a cultural sombrero. His is a contemporary artist without erasing the personal grammar of his origins.”³²

Many of the same questions applied to Toledo could be applied here, as questions of acceptance, representation and the basis of his importance as judged by the center also apply. However, the impression that one gets is that he is perhaps a bit closer to being able to dictate the terms on which his work is evaluated. In conclusion, the artist’s consciousness of all these issues seems to be the most important weapon against them. Bonami makes a comment about Orozco that for me summarises many issues in an optimistic light: “He looks at the origins not of his culture but of the abstraction of any origins.”³³

top...

Notes

1. Araeen, Rasheed, “A New Beginning: Beyond Postcolonial Cultural Theory and Identity Politics,” Third Text #50:3-20, 2000.

2. Ibid.

3. García Canclini, Néstor, “Remaking Passports: Visual thought in the debate on multiculturalism” in The Visual Culture Reader, ed. Nicholas Mirzoeff, Routledge, London, 1998 (pp.372-381).

4. Op cit.

5. Phelp de Cisneros, Patricia, “Interview with Celia Sredni de Birbragher,” Art Nexus No.36: 81, 2000 (trans. Tamara Stuby).(Phelp de Cisneros is an important art collector from Venezuela).

6. García Canclini, Néstor, “Cultural Reconversion” (Trans. Holly Staver).

7. Op cit., García Canclini, “Remaking Passports...”

8. Mosquera, Gerardo. “The World of Differences: Notes about Art, globalisation, and periphery”, from The Marco Polo Syndrome: Problems of intercultural communication in Art theory and curatorial practice. (conference catalogue) Online. Available:http://universes-in- universe.de/forum/marcpol/english.htm

9. Bonami, Francesco, “Sudden Death: Roughs, Fairways and the Game of Awareness,” Exhibition catalog, Gabriel Orozco at the Musés d’ Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1998.

10. Op cit., García Canclini “Cultural Reconversion”.

11. Op cit., Zaya.

12. Op cit., García Canclini, “Remaking Passports...”

13. Moreiras, Alberto, “"Fragmentos globales: latinoamericanismo de segundo orden," Edición de Santiago Castro-Gómez y Eduardo Mendieta. México: Miguel Ángel Porrúa, 1998.

14. Op cit., García Canclini, “Remaking Passports...”

15. Ramirez, Mari Carmen, “Beyond ‘the Fantastic’: Framing Identity in US Exhibitions of Latin American Art” in Beyond the Fantastic: Contemporary Art Criticism from Latin America, Ed. Gerardo Mosquera, inIVA, London, 1995.

16. Op cit., García Canclini, “Cultural Reconversion”.

17. López, Sebastián. Quoted by Canclini, Néstor García, “Remaking Passports: Visual Thought in the Debate on Multiculturalism,”in The Visual Culture Reader, ed. Nicholas Mirzoeff. Routledge, London 1998.

18. Flecha, Mario, “America,” Untitled No. 16: 11-12, 1998.

19. Muñoz, Miguel Angel, “Emilio Pettoruti”, Art Nexus #34:76-83, 1999.

20. Ibid.

21. Op cit., García Canclini, “Cultural Reconversion”.

22. Perazzo, Nelly, “Alejandro Puente: el arte como búsqueda y afirmación de una identidad regional”, Art Nexus #34:68-72, 1999. (trans. Tamara Stuby)

23. Ibid.

24. Op cit., Araeen.

25. Op cit., García Canclini, “Remaking Passports”.

26. Op cit., Zaya.

27. Camnitzer, Luis, “Access to the Mainstream” in Beyond the Fantastic: Contemporary Art Criticism from Latin America, Ed. Gerardo Mosquera, inIVA, London, 1995.

28. Op cit., Araeen.

29. The Whitechapel Agenda: Apr – June 2000, London.

30. Ibid.

31. Ibid.

32. Op cit., Bonami.

33. Op cit., Bonami (in reference to the work presented at Documenta 1997, Black Kites: “a human skull decorated with a compulsive pattern of lines and black kite-shaped forms.”)

top...