NON-ALIGNED
Why Go Anywhere Else? Exhibition: Lessons in Mutual Co-existence
Matthew Blackwell, Denise Carson, Adam Cvijanovic, Craig Drennen, Gregory Eltringham, Suzanne Jackson, Stephen Knudsen, Blazo Kovacevic, Natalija Mijatovic, Laura Mosquera, Morgan Santander, Todd Schroeder, and Roger Mark Walton
As Erin Dziedzic, curator of the group exhibition titled Why Go Anywhere Else? explains, the participating artists are brought together by their relation to the painting department at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) in Savannah, Georgia, USA. They were all active in the life of the department – as the full-time or part-time faculty, or as residents/visiting artists. Their heterogeneous artistic practice does not guarantee a sort of legible coherency desired for a group presentation. One should look elsewhere for the cohesive factor between these different individuals. Each of the artists represented in this exhibition have impacted and influenced students in the SCAD painting department. As an art historian and critic who visited the painting department in 2008, I am prone to think about framing these diverse practices in such a way so as not to disturb their original differences. At the same time, I believe that the curatorial point of grouping these individuals together is a sound one – insisting on the notion of creative collaboration as an impetus for not only creating, but for a continuous dialog. In this way, a local convergence transcends its coordinates and can become a trans-local platform. The reception of the show in its many guises will revolve around these questions of relevance within various contexts.
Again, my work here is to develop a way of conceptualizing this representational situation. After examining different styles, modes and techniques of these thirteen artists, I realized that these notions would not lead me to a fruitful way of talking about them all. Should I offer a compare and contrast approach here? I don’t think so. Rather, I offer an art historical intervention that consists in establishing the framework for thirteen disparate artists working simultaneously in the medium of painting. Painting, revered as the most admired traditional artistic practice should not be singled out; I see it more as an institution in which all of the participating artists feel comfortable. To their diverse responses, I apply the notion of non-alignment, but not in its geo-political sense. Rather, applying it in a more abstract sense of “not belonging to the same alignment, “ to emphasize the artists’ strong individuality and the possibility of mutual co-existence that enriches the viewing experience.
Using the term non-aligned here ironically evokes the concept of non-alignment, coined by Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru during the Cold-War world political climate of the 1950s when the Non-aligned movement was formed. Nehru described the five pillars to be used as a guide for Sino-Indian relations that were first put forth by Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai. Called Panchsheel (five restraints), these principles would later serve as the basis of the Non-Aligned Movement.[i]
The five principles were:
Mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty
Mutual non-aggression
Mutual non-interference in domestic affairs
Equality and mutual benefit
Peaceful co-existence.
By creating works in the globalized late capitalist art world today artists of course transcend the daily politics and interact with each other following rules similar to these five principles. This is the platform for the interaction of these artists who come from different backgrounds into the SCAD painting department. This framework, I believe, can also be a starting point for investigating the various ways artists respond to the particular cultural context they encounter in their practice as well as their teaching careers. As we learn from the curatorial text, these artists do share their experience of Americana, but their filters are quite different. Yet, their mutual representations merge the figural and abstract, as well as painting in the extended field, devised not to represent them as inane chroniclers of reality. In my view, they could be perceived as delegates on a fantasy Non-Aligned Conference: they come to this exhibition with a similar agenda – to argue for their version of painting to prove it will survive and make sense in different contexts.
Moreover, I hope that these artists also share a belief in the possibility of an individual ethical transformation via aesthetic experience. Even while depicting conflict and ruptures of our shared reality, the very act of its depiction gives us meaning for which we strive.
This is a common cause I detect in these different practices. So, let them peacefully co-exist promoting equality and mutual benefit–also for us, the viewers.
***
A full disclosure: As I personally stem from the same region of the world as the two of the painters in this group, I am usurping the egalitarian principle to address the sub-group of the “non-aligned”– my compatriots, Natalija Mijatovic and Blazo Kovacevic. When I learned of their art practice, I was even more intrigued to discuss their mutual co-existence. They operate within yet another social structure–a marriage between two painters. It makes their dynamic even more interesting. Having in mind traditional gender roles in the history of art, this duo proves that change has come to us. Both painters developed, and more importantly, sustained their own distinct painterly idioms. Their works represented in this exhibition speak eloquently about possibility of mutual beneficial artists’ co-existence. Kovacevic overtly displays his fascination with multifold aspects of the notion of conflict. The artist has created conflicting visual elements, which look for spaces of freedom within a representational sphere. His figurative images bear the burdens of collective fears and also let them offer a consolation, in visual terms. This is where the painter sees freedom reside. Mijatovic explores the possibilities of representation by a specific strategy she devised to deal with a depicted object. In her austere palette and her tactile treatment of inelegant, mundane objects, I see restitution of poetic of the ordinary. It does not bring Mijatovic to the terrain of domesticity. Rather, it moves her further to the industrial imagery only to emphasize that beauty occurs unexpectedly. Her paintings are focused efforts that return beauty to the realm of unadorned everydayness, reminding us of its ethical resonance. These quiet representational strategies offer glimpses of a transformational potential that transcend the realm of the visual.
Jovana Stokic, Curator of Abramovic Studio at Location One
[i] Chung, Tan, ed. Across the Himalayan Gap: An Indian Quest for Understanding China (New Delhi: Gyan Publishing House, 1998).
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