paul second session: monuments back home

on

 rough notes: 

__lauren: authenticity of symbols and traditions.. Valentin Carron... ‘at the point of origin of all artistic traditions and icons we treasure, we might find some thing that looks synthetic or copied, or we might not find anything there at all’ (Christy Lange)

-aboriginal Australian culture/ extreme conservatism. hundred dialects, no word for progress, or aspiration for progress bc at the heart of the belief system is the belief that anything that we do, humans, should be directed as keeping the earth as it was the moment it was created. complete antithesis of progress. bc of climate change and state of the world, a lot of people find it desirable. thoughts could be in tradition story / session later.

_luke: architecture as communal story and memory -we talked about monuments last week - architecture itself or in general. cultural memories. Victorian houses shrunken, beyond that, he can see sixties council block, just by looking from his window, record of the history built into the city. whenever he needs to leave the city, bc expensive, often wonder what it is that keeps him in the city - thinks history is a big part of what it is. -visiting Edinburgh, full of monuments and history, re-see London’s incredible monumentality. regard this as history too. see history being built before our eyes. affecting our rent prices, skylines etc.

_platform: don’t take centre stage in film, Chinese history, mostly young people’s lives growing up in cultural change how it manifests in their life in tiny ways. relationships/love affairs. beautiful model for artists who discuss history in subtle way.

_alberte: ‘antimonument’ about German post Second World War monumentality .. the hollow/empty/falling monument. -in reading list will find WJT Mitchel art in the public sphere. will scan into pdf. And exhibition Unmonumental. some all around us. work of artist Hew Locke. working with London’s monuments. not something preserved but something to be pulled down, strange power over society. whether artists should be contributing to monuments..

_lauren: Carron creates satirical sculptures, where he questions whether beloved nationalist symbols could be manufactured - or, more specifically, if he could manufacture them, and if there would be any difference between a local craftsman version and his own. seemed interesting to have interesting connection with challenging memory/ monuments and symbols from last week

_karen: question where we are and what we are doing, is history a thing of the past or in the present. -epistemology, episteme -as artists trained, question what we see and feel and how we think. history also does that maybe different the way sense do it. thing of the past - is always a thing of the present?

different responsibility to the world, maybe sounds pretentious and it could be, but that’s one of the things that attracts him to it, engagement to society and history. fine art maybe doesn’t allow him, both fine art and history to question where I am and what I’m doing. -benjamin: “our coming was expected on earth.” first thing we think of history is past but actually all around us, present changes the way we look at history. greater sense of responsibility. in this sentence sense in which we were expected therefore previous people knew we were coming, therefore somehow prepared for us or left it for us, in an inhabitable state perhaps, consciousness that other people were coming. Benjamin saw that, really profound, how we conduct our lives etc.

_kaja: private vs public experience of monuments or monumental events - walking alone on Sunday morning in London can be very atmospheric. Benjamin very interested in, curious atmosphere in modern city can never be found in countryside, premodern. If you walk alone, experience private experience with monuments.

_anna: interested to find out the destructions of the buddhas of bamyan by the taliban in Afghanistan. erase symbols seen as unwanted. valued more than reality of the people. -quote from destroyer? concerned about non living objects of buddhas, had they come for humanitarian work, I would never have ordered the buddhas destruction.

_zhongling: we are being - we are becoming?

-‘the truth will run away from us’ -put in artist names in chat that interacts with history in interesting ways. -antimonument: bronze cast like balloons, hollow. first class quality is hollow, skin is only as wide as back of knife, for excellent cast. thin enough to have maximum detail, but thick enough to survive the wingers and public life that monuments live. few millimetres. actual hollowness being symbolic. how similar it is to balloon. Cheap, don’t last, colourful. but something structurally similar. -monuments that were anti, falling, inverted, displaced, in field, not fixed. poems are tiny immaterial things, remembered not even written down, means sth different every time. monuments try to be big bulky objects that fix history, important people and events. monuments and fixed ness immobility etc.

_abdullah: kuwait, caused uproar. national council for culture and arts in Kuwait is iconic building. commissioned to create mural, new life engagement with public that is rare, art in conservative young country, became monumental, acceptance of public art and commentary on nation. earlier this month erased completely by new Secretary General from national council. short article link. why they did what they did? Didn’t think represent well/ comical. -debate of different generations more or less historical of some sense. different ways of seeing history and tradition. need to be constantly updated. a lot of abstraction in that patterning as well, some ways traditional. -childish/comical, claimed. bejamin wrote series radio plays for children attractive for them but not patronising to them. has respect for children’s special minds. sth very funny about this idea of being childish not historical as if it doesn’t exist. London museum of childhood. comedy has a place too.

_ruyi: ‘history is subject of a structure whose site is not homogenous, empty time, but time filled by the presence of NOW!’ Benjamin. -people talk about history as if empty thing filled up with events, reminds us not one singular empty space homogenous time. events Are history. important throw away image of history as container.

_medb: free Derry corner -reminds him of michelle Obama reminding that the White House is built by slaves. -that free Derry corner often repainted, like BLM or free Palestine, symbol of self-governance. -international exchange, without waiting for nation to come along, people just turn to towns into signs

_eleni: ‘illuminations’ boundaries are blurred between past and present, even in monuments. find these elements (present and past) in same place. some encourage and some oppose, either by deleting the present or the past. -historians have challenge of writing histories, transformed by perspective of present. way we see past events through everything that comes between us.

_roberta: how children and childish not wanted as part of history they are so clearly part of everyone personal memory- book ‘living autobiographically’. a lot of us turn towards childhood and memory to think that through, important part of persons history, but not apparent in monumentality. Kensington gardens to Peter Pan. child who never grows up. what is museum of childhood for? full of children, but not really for children, they already know what it is being a child. two pm everyday and somebody tells a story in the museum. -‘the children’s crusade’ Martin honert

_alberte: erased monuments. the present that keeps past in view. recognises things of present.

_donna: as street artist, semi permanence that she relishes. adore transient nature of street art. -Keith haring. actually want art to be for people, natural way.

-structure of session. led on by us. next week more structured

-reference: ‘destruction of tilted arc’ by Richard Serra.

_natasha: South Africa art casted hands of colonial sculptures and bloodied them. haroon Gunn Salle -indexical trace : physical trace has been there. -taking away indexical trace by casting -Johannes pholeka

_jannat: feel like monuments become monumental when it is meg with conflict/ intervention, some large objects fade into the background like houses and shops. Asleep ignored.

_medb reminds her of Titus kaphar’s paintings especially enough about you (2016)

_zhongge: are mani stones monumental? religious ritual in Tibet for prayers. - thinking about nature of monuments

_luke: are monuments up to the viewer, not the creator? -*Robert smithson ‘monuments of Passaic New Jersey. leaving ny city, going back in derelict nominate things as monuments ,

-outside white cube tradition, although Unmonumental was a show.

-seminar intro page: back to country life story which will lead to Benjamin.