Dr Michael Asbury, ART HISTORIAN, CURATOR AND CRITIC IN Conversation with Nandita Chaudhuri
During Nandita Chaudhuri’s MA,Fine art, studies at the Centre for Transnational Art, Identity and Nation TrAIN, at the University of Arts London, 2010.
Dr Michael Asbury is an art historian, curator and art critic. An internationally recognised scholar of modern and contemporary art. Questioning consensual notions in art history that have withheld the so-ccalled Western canon, his practice draws on post-colonial and decolonial methodologies whether through the critique of strictly aesthetic genealogies or the exploration of individual artistic trajectories. As a curator he has worked with institutions such as Tate Modern, Camden Arts Centre, Fundação Iberê Camargo, amongst others. His writing has been published internationally by institutions such as: Modern Art Oxford; Whitechapel Gallery; Turner Contemporary, Margate; The Americas Society, New York; Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon; Documenta 12, Kassel; Henry Moore Institute, Leeds; Parasol-Unit, London; and Tate, London.
MA: My immediate impression upon seeing your paintings was one of shock. You are, through the use of paint, implying a certain violence, or perhaps violation, by juxtaposing energetically appliedcolour with the imagery of a naked body. The way in which the body, a woman’s body, is presented appears at first sensuous, perhaps pornographic even. The manner that these bodies are painted also relates to the history of Western European art history. Yet speaking to you before actually having seen these paintings I had the impression that you were dealing with issues relative to your cultural displacement. How do you see these two fields of enquiry, the subjective and the historical/political, interconnecting?
NC: The works are titled ‘retinal residue’ which implies that layers of influences have converged leaving in their wake some residual matter in the retina; after eliminating some waste. A lot of this retained residue is dependent on the perceptual consciousness and perhaps through selective memory some images are retained as a result of context and/or the imagination. The reproductive imagination is the by-product of an association of ideas, objects and the context. The connection between the associated items is contingent, and dependent on various experiences and in this case they are multicultural. They therefore comprise of complex patterns of sensuous states constructed by a productive imagination. The outcome is a unified process guided by a combination of sensory input, memories, expectations and varied influences.
I don’t see a naked body necessarily as sensuous though that aspect cannot be denied. In this case I was confronting a stark and immediate brutality; and have articulated through aggressive paint the inherent raw quality of the image in an attempt to provoke a strong visual experience. Whether the womb embraces, spits, devours or produces these are all part of a spiritual cycle that relates to the birthing process. Whether it is burgeoning full or hollow and empty these are states that could be fraught with angst or celebration. It does not make any difference if she is clothed. And clothing cannot deny the consciousness, spiritual quality or sensuous quality of the woman. The works may have feminist leanings in that they speak clearly from a feminine subjectivity, especially with the use of mangled safety pins, dogs and phallic symbols which might draw some Freudian assumptions. The presentation is without apology devoid of the garb or the behaviour expected in conformity to the norms of society.
You are right that the manner or methodology evident in my practice is influenced by Western European art history. On the one hand, the aggressiveness employed by the abstract expressionism of Pollock for example and perhaps the starkness of the naked postures bears some leanings towards Tracy Emin’s works. On the other hand, the language 276 277 employed has an unmistakable hybrid quality: the undeniable juxtaposing and usage of warmer Indian colours bears similarity to Anish Kapoor’s recent red wax canon drippings. I find a certain unique richness in hybridity. I don’t see it as a displacement from any one point to another. There is a certain integrity in negotiating collective experiences and creating works that are rich in transnational references.
MA: So, if I understand you correctly, the residue in the title relates to your desire to allow the viewer to make his/her own relations according to individual subjectivities. This, in turn, is played against your own subjective instance. It seems therefore that the ‘third place’ that you refer to, operates at different levels. It is the place in between the artist and the viewer, a place of articulation of experiences, while also referring to the references within the pictorial space itself. Since the former case is inescapably transitional, one can only imagine how this might operate. My first question could in this sense be only one particular instance in which this place could establish itself. In the latter case however, that is to say, in the case of the imagery that you present within the composition, you suggest that you are articulating different traditions as a means to escape the narrowness of both the local and the global contexts. However, do you think that it is sufficient to juxtapose iconography stemming from different cultural sources in order to escape this impasse?
NC: Any perceptual experience or the manner in which objects are perceived can only come out of visualizing the experience of a given object or image. That in-itself; is an individual and subjective exercise. The act of visualizing the object as an experience and the object attributes may be vastly different. Imagery is invariably defined through association of the self, memories, background and experiences. For example, the painting of a rough sea brings to the fore sorrow and loss in one observer with a visual personification of the scraping away of something lost. To another person, it denotes the majestic power and glory of the rising waves and yet another is swept away with the beauty and spiritual aspect. To one person, this is a lovely wooden chair. To me, however, this is the chair my father sat on every day and he is no more. An object often visually mirrors some inner relatedness, hence the distinction between the act of seeing and the object seen. What often happens is that an image model is conjured as a reaction to the situation or object based on sensory impressions and psychological data processing. This image model is then projected onto situations or objects; the imagination responds to the stimulation of the retina and its residual build- up.
There are multiple articulations interwoven in canvas and paint; which are open to interpretation.There are references to feminist theories with particular emphasis on gender bias in the birthing process with preferences for one or the other. The incessant imagery for instance, of the safety pin is a very good example of individual subjectivity. It could be interpreted as an imposition, pain, bondage, violence, or as a way to negate and reduce the object. However, in another mind’s eye, it could serve as a conjoinery, something that brings two halves to a whole and affects completeness, something that seeks to heal or resolve. In this instance, it is all of that; mostly representing ‘fragility’. The open pin has a very temporal quality, like sand slipping through fingers, just as life is. It is like an incomplete story.
It would be then logical to say that on viewing a visual object, imagination comes into play so as to give a conceptualized structure and framework to the object, and there is a reaction. It would not work if there was no association or sensing. Individual subjectivities are important and necessary within rationality. It does not matter what the quality of response is, or what the perceptual reference points are, as long as there is an association and imagination. It would not be necessarily ideal if interpretations were more closely linked to subjectivity employed by the artist which is why I prefer not to be too specific or literal in my compositions or translations as there needs to be some space available for the viewer to occupy.
MA: We are discussing the conjunction of different cultural traditions, and how to avoid the pitfalls of purporting a sense of authenticity on the one hand and crass marketability on the other. However, is not painting as a medium not deeply engrained within this very impasse?
NC: Authenticity is an ambivalent and ambiguous word. Did the chicken come first or the egg? Was Picasso influenced by African and Indian art or was it the other way round? Authenticity in aesthetics is only as good as ‘authentic as opposed to what’? Whenever there is a discourse on authenticity or ‘fixity’ we are questioning stereotypical insertions and the marginalization of some of the corresponding valuations. It is deterministic to apply a sedimented and dogmatic notion of ‘cultural tradition’ in its purest sense when the points of intervention of multiple languages blur in a transient or temporal reality. Homogenous cultural reality is in a process of redefinition where borderlines seem obscure with a lesser significance applied to the ‘other’. There are newer collaborations that emerge as a result of the underlying negotiations. To what extent are these driven by market dominance? There are two important and diametrically opposite aspects to the question raised here. In the first instance is the situation where change is inevitable and incumbent. The debate on ‘authenticity’ in fine art and its dilution in popular or mass culture is not a new one and erupts in an incessant cyclical manner, globally. In the second instance, incongruity arises when mixed and disparate languages are juxtaposed in un-fused incoherent layers creating levels of contamination and noise.
This polarization is not limited to the visual arts alone. It also extends itself to dance, music etc and is a widely debated subject. In seventeenth century, Western Europe, the term “fine art” was used to distinguish between “high” and “low” productions. The focus was on the “high” arts including drawing, painting and sculpture versus other art forms which were called ‘craft. Today photography, digital art and film are also art forms and there is a shift in perceptions. The end of the twentieth century witnessed widespread links between the mass media and fine art. Most definitely new technological media or conceptual art cannot purport the same sense of authenticity that was apparent even fifty years ago. The early 1960s saw the emergence of Pop art based on mass media themes and subjects erupted and Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe (1962) Pop Art with criticism on aspects of triviality and crass marketability. The same with the Graffiti Art of the 80’s, exemplifying a
shift and deconstruct from accepted norm.
There is without doubt a ‘me too’ generation in a commoditized society with a Eurocentric dominance. There is a visible and recurrent metaphor of the ‘identity’ neutralized or marginalized in varying degrees in this ‘space’, causing a narrative struggle that many artists grapple with, as they rewrite with a feverish double language. Sarat Maharaj says “Hybridity is often seen in an unambiguously positive light, but one culture can never be entirely present to another”. One of the landmark influences from the West is ‘conceptual art’ where the concept or idea involved takes precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns and a major historical preoccupation with the ‘form’.
Even so, at what juncture does art becomes politics? This brings up once again, Marx’s theory of ‘commodity fetish ism’, where art is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ depending on their exchange value in monetary terms or symbolic capital or prestige. It can be argued that art cannot be separated from its environment especially when it comes to issues of technology or class. There are differences in aesthetic dispositions whereby differentiation of taste is intimately connected with classism, cultural relations of power, and exposure. The viewer is exposed to and thus educated in aesthetic preferences in diverse degrees. There is a clear divide in tastes and representation. Hence the market is divided. There is a clear division based on criteria of classism, commoditization, reproductive imagination, and perception (or the ability to perceive based on a prescriptive normative). The debate is not new; to endeavour to piece together parts of a desired whole. These divisions in values are not limited to the artist alone, they affect and create varying levels of anxiety: more importantly in the masses, the art appreciators/collectors, and the gallery; with one bipolar end catering to the slow adopters to notions of Western art appreciation, and others who are more exposed and appreciative of the Western ideology of art. It is understandable then that the anxiety to re-confirm value points or to ‘be’ is not different from searching for newer definitions in ‘identification’ itself.rt