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shirin salehi
Manifesto of an Artist in Times of Noise
To Antonio Muñoz Carrión
For you, dear reader, holding my words in your hands: listen softly to them.
It is a strange encounter when those grapes so accurately depicted by Zeuxis do not awaken our interest. For it is true that we are not intrigued. We find something recognisable in the work of Zeuxis, in its virtuosity, something that is strangely familiar: is this not the false illusion of virtuosity so intrinsic to our time? We recognise in him the desire for his painting to be exhibited, to be seen; we recognise his yearning to create a show around that illusionism, and we cannot help but think of our own epoch. In the confusion of our gaze, in its exhaustion from this arbitrary invasion of visual perceptions –always so talkative, so eloquent– the artistic image dissolves, despite its constant battles, amid the disorder of images. Nowadays, Art that is presented for the sake of
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being exhibited and with the aim of moving the masses uses the extraordinary advertising tools of our sociĂŠtĂŠ du spectacle. But let us pause; let us think for an instant: What happened to its poetic condition? What happened to its verse? We may well question, as individuals committed to refuting oblivion, whether there is a place in our historical context, in our time, in our European history built on the ruins of the War, for talking about the urgency of poetry (in art). On this subject, Celan was, without a doubt, a memorable rejoinder to the declaration of Adorno. From our context, we too will clamour for the recovery of an Art whose poetic condition has not been betrayed by the longing to impress an audience increasingly allured by consumerism, as though it were in a
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a funfair. We will clamour for the recovery of its poetic condition wherever imagination, which would be empowered by an artistic mode of thought, is dismally abandoned by the glorification of febrile exhibitionism. It seems that is the only way to arouse our disillusioned gaze, that is always demanding greater stimulus, but it would be a false awakening. This is the illusion that recreates the simulacrum of Art, against which Baudrillard so often warned us. From the inner workings of our society of communication, to speak out against transparency in defense of imagination could give rise to a mistaken resonance, an interpretation of meanings that could provoke repudiation. From our visual societies, speaking out against transparency could
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certainly provoke some distrust. However, in this scenario, where the informative and transparent nature of visual languages suppresses other subtle dialects, we would invoke, from the perspective of Art, the plundering of imagination. We want to display our deep disenchantment with a system that drags us towards a world of the imagination that is constructed around images that can wear out, that are worn out. Do we perhaps see in the work of Zeuxis a precursor of today’s surface-images? Faced with the imperative of excessive show-and-tell that wants to negate our spaces of secrecy, silence and intimacy, we would like to turn our backs on the transparency of current visualities, refuting the indifference and banalisation of their content, caused
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by a gaze that no longer sees, a gaze that has been vanquished, constantly over-stimulated, constantly over-excited, always yearning. We want to pause and turn our gaze elsewhere: a terrain of greater abstraction, certainly more opaque, in which complexity emerges, a terrain that seems evocative and enigmatic, that seduces us, taking us to other places in our mind and our memory: this will be a journey that will enable us to return, gently, to places in our mind and our memory: this will be a journey that will enable us to return, gently, to the terrain of illusion in Art, the land of imagination. Let us with some affection acknowledge Parrhasius at this point, as we struggle for an artistic image that does not exhibit, but rather conceals; a pictorial image that does not hinder
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thought, but contains thought. We will announce a rupture with excess and the glib eloquence of some of Art’s current practices, some of its excessively displayed stridencies, and we will defend the poetics of concealment. This is not mere boldness, but a direct challenge to the perverse exercise of excess, where it becomes a question of urgency to interrupt if we are to recover the poetic condition of images from Art. So this is an invitation to find a different gaze, a gaze that is oblique rather than head-on. We would like to leave aside that sharp focus, always yearning after control, and introduce shadows, such as the shadow implicit to Parrhasius’ veil. This is a veil that hides, that conceals, that establishes a process of visual silence in the act of not
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showing, in a pictorial gesture redolent with symbolism, a veil that would take time to uncover or that, in some cases, could perhaps never be raised without betraying the work’s raison d’être. Today’s spectator is someone with a weary gaze. One that has been negated by the visual spectacle of strident imagery, with extraordinary installations and showpieces. Their weary gaze finds refuge in the grammar of mystery, of withdrawal and silence. Somewhere with no place for excess, shouting or games of spectacle, where imagination at last finds sanctuary, despite everything. This is a silence that is not mute, but rather full of language. This is a silence that is a hideaway, a recipient of secrets, a generator of
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correspondence that is not divulged. The artistic image thus will turn into the silent claim for a reflexive and imaginary dialogue and may, finally, seduce us. It will be precisely in this not-showing-everything where we can play the language-games and perhaps create new possibilities for producing meaning. When we deny the artistic image its yearning to be exhibited, a fictitious, imaginary space opens up beyond perception, where we no longer feel like passive, tame spectators. We will feel capable of creating (and not re-creating) worlds of the imagination that have not been imposed from outside; indefinite spaces; open spaces for interpretation, imagination and thought. Perhaps our weary gaze can then come close
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to the poetic condition of Art, venturing a little further, as Celan tried to from his telescope of fantasy.
Shirin Salehi
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Written in Madrid within the cavities of some long summer days in 2016
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Manifesto of an Artist in Times of Noise Translation by: Henrietta Fielden and Victoria Hughes @ text by Shirin Salehi, 2016 All rights reserved.
First edition: Madrid. February 2017 { 50 print edition } ISBN: 978-84-617-8315-1 Legal Deposit: M-3597-2017 www.shirinsalehi.com