Il
n'y a que l'artiste dont le mensonge ne soit pas total,
car
il n'invente que soi.
E.Cioran, Précis de décomposition, 1939.
For its fourth exhibition, F18 has chosen once again a
discursive proposal, rich in complementary ideas . Brought together in one
space, the videos of Pawel Wojtasik and Stefaan Dheedene are articulated as two
sides of the same coin or the two hemispheres of the same, fundamentally
divided world.
Wojtasik continues untiringly his work of observation and
questioning the environmental and aesthetic value of sites related to
rejection: demolitions, discharges, junkyards... In the very recent "Dark
Sun Squeeze", the artist explores an industrial complex which treats
biological waste of New York's population. Decantation, filtration,
purification... From the start, one is struck by the extent of this site with
its open sky and by the precision of its technology. The artist offers a
glorified vision of this unexpected site where the extreme aesthetisation of
the faecal matter serves to amplify our discomfort. The absence of any human
presence only reinforces the ambiguity diluted by the artist's use of the
nauseous lapping of the waves. In his own way, Wojtasik is also reprocessing
waste. Not only by taking it towards the sublime - and thus enacting the
relativity of the concept of nobility applied to matter -, but also by giving a
visibilty to this technological reality. Like his elder North-Americans, Lewis
Baltz or Roy Arden, Wojtasik uses the art document to explore this typically
American paradox of a visual culture which, after having celebrated the product
in all its forms, is confronted with the management of its own remainders.
Without escaping the risk of a base scatological reading, "Dark Sun Squeeze"
postulates the capacity of the art document to inform the socio-political field
from the margins of the media. Right up to its vilest aspects. Taken further,
it is also the value of waste as pop heritage and cultural metaphor which is
being played out. In the image of its stagnant water which cuts into multiple
layers, the diagram of Wojtasik reflects the malaise of a society that has
always been haunted by the purity and the hygiene of bodies.
Across, the video of Dheedene acts as a sharp counterpoint.
Its portrait of a Cameroonian butcher busy with the dissection of a frail piece
of game, caught in the jungle close by (see: a manual part one), brings us
brutally from the 'First World' to this "other" world. In an
economical documentary mode, "a manual part two", as its name
indicates, initially renders an account of the gestural. By thoroughly
remarking the various stages of the cutting of the animal, the video breaks
down, in the manner of a manual, a practice. One will agree here that we're in
exact opposition to mass production and the thrift permitted by industrial
cutting processes. Seemingly, all is consumed and nothing seems intended for
rejection. As meanwhile on the radio, BBC World announces a series of programs
to come on the topic of globalisation, one understands that the subject matter
of Dheedene exceeds anthropological observation. "The world we live in is
getting smaller. If you think it doesn't affect you, think again" the
trailer warns us before starting with a language course intended for business
managers. In this, the subject is lateness and delayal. Of an employee or an
entire continent? A instananeous contraction of space and time. The media is no
longer informing. It would seem its role has been reduced to a tool of the powerful
for holding back the "others".
The robot-like radiophonic litany redoubles this rupture
between gesture and word. Dheedene points out the latent ideological imposition
made through language. Only French
and English seem to be voiced here in a country which counts for more than 70
national ethnic groups. By contrast, the rare words of the butcher in native
language escape us as if to emphasise on one hand our incomprehension and on
the other hand this incompressible
load of neocolonialism, both cultural
and economic. Dheedene succeeds here in making a portrait, very simply, of the
state of contemporary postcolonialism: constrained to rebuild
identity-crossroads in a world where its conception of space and time are
denied more than ever.
Vincent Meessen March 17, 2005