Third Text
Issues
Volume 35, 2021
Issue 4
Number 171, July 2021
PeoPL’s Bursting Light: Melting Down the Afterlives of a Monstrous Colonial Monument 413–430
Joachim Ben Yakoub
The afterlives of a monstrous colonial monument are being contested in the heart of Belgium. Engaging in a visual analysis of the ‘PeoPL’ happening, facilitated by artivist Laura Nsengiyumva, I will argue that this visual proposition is witness to a renewed wave of revolt, altering a still very present colonial order, its vibrant properties of space and possibilities of time. By melting down an ice reproduction of the equestrian statue of Leopold II, Nsengiyumva renders visible the lingering possibility to restructure the shared division of the sensible proper to the colonial present of Belgium and beyond. This wave of revolt opened a discursive space that altered the conditions through which difference was historically thematised. From (failed) multiculturalism, diversity, superdiversity and the present turn in securitisation through the misnomer of radicalisation, processes of inclusion/exclusion are for the first time in history being discussed on the conditions of the primary concerned.
An Affect Alien in Aotearoa: Diane Prince and the Flag Controversy 431–452
Edward Hanfling
‘Flagging the Future: Te Kiritangata – The Last Palisade’ (1995), by Diane Prince (Ngāti Whātua, Ngā Puhi), was a controversial installation in the Auckland Art Gallery’s 1995 exhibition ‘Korurangi: New Māori Art’. Prince’s use of a New Zealand flag, placed on the floor and stencilled with the words ‘please walk on me’ – a challenge to the flag’s symbolic exclusion and betrayal of Māori – led to the work being removed from the exhibition. This article argues that Prince’s notoriety as a ‘Māori radical’, in the eyes of the public and media, is consistent with theorist Sara Ahmed’s concept of the ‘affect alien’, as someone who conspicuously contravenes mainstream values by holding on to historical injustices. It suggests that Prince’s work was a focal point for debate in the context of Māori activism in the mid-1990s, reflecting the social relations of its moment, while also pointing up present political follies and subterfuges.
The Broken Dinner Table: Art Tales of Failed or Imaginary Meals 453–471
Livia Judith Alexander
This article examines performative dinners carried out by a number of Arab artists as vehicles for unpacking the crises sweeping the region in the early 2000s, implicating viewers in the intensifying neoliberal globalism propped up by repressive authoritarian regimes that continually expand political repression alongside social and economic inequalities. Using allegories of dinners, dining practices and diners coming to the table, in the works under review the dinner table is set publicly as a stage, diners take on the role of actors, and viewers are invited to vicariously engage as guests at the table. Drawing on theoretical discourses on hospitality and space, I argue that these dinner performances accentuate an experience of a truncated hospitality, one of being unwelcome, not necessarily at the dinner table per se, but more broadly in the world.
Brexit and the Occult: Gendered Ghosts of Empire in Project O’s ‘Saved’ and Rita Duffy’s ‘Soften the Border’ 473–497
Edwin Coomasaru
Since the EU referendum, Leavers and Remainers have increasingly used occult metaphors to attack each other as they decry the UK’s drift into ‘uncharted waters’ or descent into ‘tribalism’. How might gender and race shape this current crisis of British identity? In 2017 Rita Duffy created ‘Soften the Border’, an installation of hand-knitted votive dolls on the Northern Irish–Irish border. In 2018, Project O exhibited ‘Saved’ at London’s Somerset House, a video depicting women of colour performing magical rituals in a post-apocalyptic watery wasteland. What might these artworks tell us about the ways in which magic has long been weaponised by patriarchal white supremacy, as well as the ways in which the supernatural has also been used as a form of political resistance? ‘Soften the Border’ and ‘Saved’ offer an image of a UK no longer ruling the waves, unable to ‘take back control’ and haunted by ghosts of empire.
‘Artistic Exile’ and Professional Failure: Brazilian Artists in New York in the 1960s and 1970s 499–515
Dária Gorete Jaremtchuk
During the 1960s and 1970s, several Brazilian artists lived abroad in ‘artistic exile’. This self-imposed displacement was precipitated by many things: the immaturity of the Brazilian art system, the lack of a market for young talents, institutions’ failure to incorporate young artists’ work, the United States’s ‘policies of attraction’ and – of course – the military dictatorship in Brazil. What I propose here is an understanding of this displacement as a collective phenomenon, with historical and political dimensions and common motivations, in which artists experienced professional failure and were forced to redefine their creative processes. This article examines the trajectory of Amilcar de Castro and the works he produced during his ‘artistic exile’, as a way of comprehending aspects relevant to the displacement of this particular social group.
THIRD TEXT is published in print and online by Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group