calendario eventi  :: 

X

9/11/2006

Swetlana Heger

La Salle de bains, Lyon

The Walk of Fame (Knights and Knaves)

Knights and Knaves, the new set of photographs exhibited by Swetlana Heger at La Salle de Bains, takes its origins in the rumours that are put about concerning well-known artists. With its growing importance in the mechanisms of the culture industry, art is attracting ever more media coverage; and for some of its practitioners, at least, it has become a source of considerable income. This media interest, stimulated by the buoyancy of the art market, has generated all sorts of legends and gossip about artists' lifestyles, their supposed fortunes, their luxurious possessions, the extraordinary number of assistants required for the completion of their projects (whose production costs are staggering), and so on. "More is more" seems to have become the adage of the age, and celebrity the ultimate aim of the artistic enterprise.

A few decades ago, Andy Warhol stated that business was the highest form of art. Today, it would seem that art has become the highest form of business - its new model. Art is the ideal of the modern company - a dematerialised entity, or a Nike-type design office that outsources the entire production process. Like most of today's artists, in fact.

It used to be the case that one of the artist's natural roles involved projecting an image of what art was supposed to be. Artists embodied the image people had of them; which meant that they were seen as not being like other people. This was the case, for example, with Van Gogh, the first of the visionary artists. And it was also the image that Jackson Pollock represented, for a time. As the objects created by artists became more and more abstract - and more intimately individual - the image they projected of themselves took on more and more importance.

But the abstract character of art has ceased to be compensated for by a particular image that sets apart the kinds of artist who, like Warhol and his successors, identify themselves as "entrepreneurs", and who have made their public persona a part of their stock in trade. They have turned into Dan Graham Inc., or IFP (Information, Fiction, Publicite'), or Swetlana Heger(r). There is nothing that makes them different from other members of the public. A part of art's current problem stems from the fact that there is no longer a public image of the artist to refer to.

So what is the image of today's artists, following on from the one that Richard Prince's generation gave of themselves, with photos in magazines showing Pollock at work, or Franz Kline in his studio? Does any of them perpetuate the time-honoured image of the inspired bohemian? Representations of the artist at work loom up out of the past like fading auras - that of the painter or sculptor alone in his studio, the solitary genius living on the margins of the social world. But in what precise way does the everyday reality of a famous artist differ from that of a designer or an international architect? Warhol's vision of the future (in which each individual is famous for fifteen minutes) meets Beuys's utopia (in which each individual is an artist). Everyone's "creative". By giving the modern artist's individualistic values a positive spin, the economic world has ushered art into a populist era. The image of the artist is now that of the man in the street. It has merged with that of creativity; and the memory of past art makes up the deficit, if only by default.

Knights and Knaves takes its place, precisely, at the heart of this void.

By choosing to show images of computer-filled rooms - in a possible evocation of contemporary studios - and the attributes of the business manager, which are the same as those of the successful artist (the private plane, the briefing of an assistant from behind a desk, or the external signs of wealth that correspond to the function), these photographs illustrate a crossover between two worlds - that of art and that of business - and reflect back, to those who look at them, their own expectations about art.

"All the found images", explains Heger, "are based on myths, legends and rumours about successful artists. […] An artist in today's world is a constant traveller, a manager, an estate agent… In search of inspiration, artists go off to distant isles to meditate. They learn to fly planes; they buy designer clothes and have call-boys… They don't come up with ideas by themselves, given that they're always working on a number of important projects simultaneously; but they have the wherewithal to pay assistants, and they use them as think tanks, computer experts, etc."

The framed photographs, taken from image banks, have been rendered in black and white (as opposed to Richard Prince's first "rephotographs", which were black and white images photographed in colour). This procedure gives the source-images a look of seriousness or documentary veracity that is lacking in the originals. The images are generic, and thus anonymous, awaiting legends (in both senses of the word), like the coloured star on the opposite wall (which comes from Los Angeles' Walk of Fame, with its palmprints of Hollywood stars.) The star is still blank, still lacking a name - an (abstract) image of the artist onto which one can project oneself, and to which one can aspire. The artist as star, nabab - celeb.

Vernissage friday november 10th h 6pm.

La Salle de bains
56 rue saint-Jean - Lyon

stampa

permanent link