When he was asked by Michel Foucault, wether life itself could be approached as a work of art, Joseph Beuys answered with one word: absolutely! It was not only a challenge to a one sided understanding of materialism and bourgeois art, but also embracing a shamanistic persona.[1] Kara Walker, an African American artist well-known for her paper-cuts, though employing different media, has the same artistic responsibility and whollistic approach to her work. It can well be argued then that her paper-cuts hanged in the gallery is a shaman performance and very relevant to Beuys’ understanding of art. That is to say the two contemporary artists from different geographies have in common a traditional attitude.
Shamanism refers to a range of traditional beliefs and practices that claim the ability to diagnose and cure human suffering and, in some societies, the ability to cause suffering. The Shaman is perceived to be an intermediary between the material world and that of the spirits. On the one hand it is fiction, shaman is a performer with incredible talents who can make people believe in his deeds, which include even his body’s being cut into pieces and flying infront of the public. It, on the other hand, affectuates the healing –or desturbing- potential of art and creates facts, he does heal the pain and bring rain. He is an artist, whose art is embedded in his very life and his responsibility towards his community.
Beuys, in a
similar manner, elaborated his artistic style with reference to the powerful potential of art and its fuctions in social, political and cultural issues. Human creativity is universal to him and its manifesting itself in the particular oeuvre is capable of bringing about revolutions. He articulates this argument and claims the the society as a whole is to be regarded as a work of art to which each person can contribute, striving for –on the top of everything- freedom. This is called Social Sculpture.“Only on condition of a radical widening of definitions will it be possible for art and activities related to art [to] provide evidence that art is now the only evolutionary-revolutionary power. Only art is capable of dismantling the repressive effects of a senile social system that continues to totter along the deathline: to dismantle in order to build ‘A SOCIAL ORGANISM AS A WORK OF ART’… EVERY HUMAN BEING IS AN ARTIST who – from his state of freedom – the position of freedom that he experiences at first-hand – learns to determine the other positions of the TOTAL ART WORK OF THE FUTURE SOCIAL ORDER.”[2]
Indeed art helped him carve out a space for freedom providing him with the social technologies of expression and discussion. “With his paintings of the early 1980s” writes Greg Masters, “of the raped landscape and funerary cellars (in effect, of the brutalized psyche), a dialog was finally opened.”[3] It was not only a shamanistic underlining of what was wrong in the society, ie. suppression of collective shame and blindness, but also an invitation to a public discussion.
Indeed art helped him carve out a space for freedom providing him with the social technologies of expression and discussion. “With his paintings of the early 1980s” writes Greg Masters, “of the raped landscape and funerary cellars (in effect, of the brutalized psyche), a dialog was finally opened.”[3] It was not only a shamanistic underlining of what was wrong in the society, ie. suppression of collective shame and blindness, but also an invitation to a public discussion.
As much as Beuys was claiming to make the science of freedom in his warious works, K
ara Walker was also exploring the raw intersecion of race, gender and sexuality through her silhouetted figures cut out of paper. Hers was also a search of peace and freedom, and a harmonic social fabric when she creates that theatrical space in which her figures violate each other. Moreover, she avoids her work to be a meta and impose itself on the audience, on the contrary, very much like Beuys and even in the athmosphere of a gallery, she lets the viewers walk into the installation, their bodies cast shadows onto the walls, interacting with the silhouettes. “I project fiction into those facts” she says[4]; merging the fiction and the fact, making a rituelistic performance for the audience. Walker’s nightmarish fictions simultaneously seduce and implicate the audience, whenever they include themselves in, they face the nasty facts. The visibility and therefore reality of those facts make the audience responsible as well, who is now a part of that world.
ara Walker was also exploring the raw intersecion of race, gender and sexuality through her silhouetted figures cut out of paper. Hers was also a search of peace and freedom, and a harmonic social fabric when she creates that theatrical space in which her figures violate each other. Moreover, she avoids her work to be a meta and impose itself on the audience, on the contrary, very much like Beuys and even in the athmosphere of a gallery, she lets the viewers walk into the installation, their bodies cast shadows onto the walls, interacting with the silhouettes. “I project fiction into those facts” she says[4]; merging the fiction and the fact, making a rituelistic performance for the audience. Walker’s nightmarish fictions simultaneously seduce and implicate the audience, whenever they include themselves in, they face the nasty facts. The visibility and therefore reality of those facts make the audience responsible as well, who is now a part of that world. The most “agreed upon” meaning of Shaman is “he knows” in Turkic-Mogol languages[5]. In fact, he both knows the reality, and the methods to ameliorate it. It is crucial for the responsibility of the artist: everybody is exposed to the world, but he has the tools to respond to it. Beuys and Walker do that employing different media, but creating the same effect of a shamanist rituelistic performance.
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[1] Joseph Beuys: Interviews, published by the Walker Art Center, p: 4
[2] Beuys statement dated 1973, first published in English in Caroline Tisdall: Art into Society, Society into Art (ICA, London, 1974), p.48. Capitals in original.
[3] Greg Masters, “Joseph Beuys: Past the Affable”, on web http://www.artchive.com/artchive/B/beuys.html
[4] Kara Walker, in the documentary PBS Art:21
[5] Mihály Hoppál, “Sámánok Eurázsiában”, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2005, p:14
[1] Joseph Beuys: Interviews, published by the Walker Art Center, p: 4
[2] Beuys statement dated 1973, first published in English in Caroline Tisdall: Art into Society, Society into Art (ICA, London, 1974), p.48. Capitals in original.
[3] Greg Masters, “Joseph Beuys: Past the Affable”, on web http://www.artchive.com/artchive/B/beuys.html
[4] Kara Walker, in the documentary PBS Art:21
[5] Mihály Hoppál, “Sámánok Eurázsiában”, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2005, p:14
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Özge Uraz
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