...and it's reflecting on these roadside
memorials and so on I found things that
fascinated me moving to New York in 95
walking around Brooklyn what I call the
new American Memorial which is all these
you know you'd find doorways around the
sides of cliffs and apartment buildings
they'll paint these murals of young
people who died in a drive-by shooting
whatever huge are ip's and so on these
want the monuments that we were used to
the bronze monuments of people who
fought and died just you know 16
year-olds getting shot around the corner
that inspired this the other thing in
all this in my thinking relate to what
do people want in a Democratic Society
and then someone who sort of experienced
both a Democratic Society in an
authoritarian society I think that one
of the promises of a Democratic Society
is the so-called come on good a couple
of things that people expect you know
they expect that the Liberty to live in
peace they expect some kind of
protection from the state they expect
availability of certain amenities that
provide a sense of being human in a
civilized society and in my thinking one
of these would include access to health
care so this particular piece called
many thousand gone came out of that and
the images here random images that I
just generated and to represent the
masses of Africans at the time
in 2000 who were dying from AIDS
especially in South Africa and the
anonymous aides did not discriminate
between rich and poor although some
people had more access than others and
some who had access to knowledge and
education about it than others but woman
man child it didn't really matter right
and left people dying in Africa like
flies from AIDS and some of them were
well-educated people who did not
understanding I did not want to to
realize or recognize that it was an
epidemic one of those in fact was Fela
Kuti and some of you know he's his
brother was in charge of health care in
Nigeria because he worked with the
government what Fela Kuti
thought that AIDS was just something
that the West invented so he didn't seek
any help
which is how very sadly that great man
died so I sort of made this work to kind
of speak to that issue as well
the issue of environmental health has
also caught my attention and that's
where this particular work comes from in
2000 same year I was invited to make a
work in Japan and I choose to make a
work that spoke to the Reaver in that
area that was drying up from hydrolytic
exploitation and in the process of
providing energy for Tokyo the local
industry in fishing in agriculture
was devastated so I made this monumental
shrine if you like to the river but I
also invited all the children in the
area to do a competition writing poetry
about the environment so we made a
selection of poems by the children which
became part of the work this was
sandblasted into the work itself I also
think that another pillar of free and
democratic society should have to do
with gender parity and this particular
work was inspired by that I made images
of my heroes among women iconic figures
historical figures freedom fighters
teachers doctors housekeepers and this
work was in fact made at the World Trade
Center just a year before it was
destroyed in 2011 in fact the studio I
was doing this residency which destroyed
as well one of the artists died in the
tragedy Michael so some of them am i
doing for time
I began to make work about a freedom of
movement and the challenge is that those
Intel and my freedom of whom I mean
across borders in 2003 I had gone to
Genoa in Italy for some reason related
to this work in fact group of seven
developed economies at the time it's not
a group of eight at the time I was group
of seven I think I just had their
meeting there a young man who was
protesting was killed by the police and
that got me thinking about how people
including myself who travel around the
world trying to find a better life for
themselves and who willing to do
anything odd jobs that locals and
natives wouldn't do end up being pawns
in some huge game that they don't even
understand they just fickt himself and
which is what why this piece is called
again so I had a hundred and one game
board game pieces was it looked like
chess but it wasn't chess one chess
pieces I just used the number 101 to
symbolize infinity or the large number
of people who have to travel across
borders to find a better life in that
also somewhat inspired this particular
piece and in 2010 I made a wall in the
museum because I've always been
interested in the wall itself as a form
and I always believed that it wall can
serve different purposes it can be a
challenge
but it can be also be a dividing
mechanism between our peoples but the
idea of actually making it physical
within the museum space was something
that I always wanted to do and very very
quickly I just run through these images
and then we'll have opportunities for
people to ask questions if I bring up an
image that you interested in finding out
more about please do that because I
won't have the time to talk about them
at the podium this but this particular
series of works where works that dealt
with the practice of child brides in
certain cultures West Africa it's always
something that I found very problematic
so these came out of child marriage
practice that sort of inspired this is
that when you have children married off
at such young ages of course it
basically destroys their opportunities
in life now we even have worse
situations where they're not just
married of as child brides but we've had
a number of incidents where they
abducted by all sorts of organizations
and then married off amongst themselves
particularly hideous practice that sort
of inspired these works these are all
called child bride and it's that
abduction which came up on world
television in the chibok bring back our
girls campaigned and inspired this
particular series so I began to make a
number of altars for the chibok girls it
hasn't exactly brought them back but I
you know I think it's also my own way of
dealing with the extended trauma of the
experience and we've talked about this
particular work people who were into the
art world would have known a little bit
about this obelisk that Allen was kind
enough to address people you be quite
welcome to ask questions about it
the reason just to background that the
reason I chose the four languages that I
appeared on the out but it's cuz we
kissed these are the four languages
they're most spoken in this little town
of Castle it's an instant place kids
it's it hosts the world's most important
most well-known exhibition of
contemporary art but it's also a small
place Adam and I were joking about in
the morning cuz they go back and forth
you know they want to be a global city
but they don't act like a global city
they can't help themselves but anyways
this is my one this is my one to last
work does that make sense that English
one last put one word that's the right
expression that's my last but one work
off the scale
of Theophilus and this is also in
Germany and it's called appeal to the
youth of all nations you can read it
anyway I was invited to make this work
in the industrial region of Germany and
I chose to use existence structures
leftover industrial structures to make
the work and decided that I wanted to
make something that is an extension of
the ideas imported
so the languages are English German and
Romany Romany is the language of the
people that we call gypsies and the
gypsies of the Romani are Europe's
largest minority and most longsuffering
perhaps as far as European groups now
concerned
finally this particular work I just
finished in South Africa in September in
September and it returns me to an old
theme around gender parity and gender
related violence in 2013 a young woman
23 years old
Rockefeller kamalo I was kicked to death
on the sidewalk early hours of the
morning
and the man who is convicted of this
crime was one of South Africa's most
important artists she was a sex worker
and obviously they knew each other he
was a customer and it was very
interesting because he drove up to her
and his Maserati pulled over stepped out
grabbed her kicked her kicked her to the
ground and kept kicking her until she
was lifeless
and then he walks back into the Maserati
and drives drives off and I think it's
very poor Denis because we like to
associate artists and art with a totally
different kind of behavior the artist
suggests human beings we're capable of
heinous crime
as well so I made this monument and by
now you would notice that I make a lot
of monuments and memorials so it's
actually more of a murderer than a
monument
I made this memorial for Rockefeller
kamalo because although she was 23 years
old her mother could not find any
photograph of her and the press went to
speak to her the only thing she could
remember was that she liked white and
pink flowers
so we made this with I think it was
4,000 petunias why don't Peck and the
University of jets from South Africa I
want to go back there next year and
expand the work and maybe have an
international panel or conference or
whatever around the issue of gender
related violence not just in South
Africa but also many other places and
again interested enough when I was
making this work there was another
artist from India who was in residence
someone that I have a great deal of
respect for but upon his return to India
he was forced to resign his position he
was the founder of one of the biennials
in India is forced to resign his
position because of sexual harassment so
he was caught by
fortunately growing me to movement in
India so I'll stop here because I think
I've exceeded my time but I just wanted
to give a broader view of what has
caught my attention as an artist in the
vein of artists as agents true their
work in mostly democratic societies
where they have a Liberty to do that but
also even more poignantly
in authoritarian societies where they
don't have the Liberty to do that thank
you
good evening I'm very honored to speak
after Maria Magdalena campus cons who
invited us here in Holland Cotter and
whom I met in different rows were past
couple of years only so we haven't been
acquainted for very long time but I much
appreciate this acquaintance however
brief and occasional so far I also like
to thank the Vanderbilt University and
all the members of faculty also the
students hosted us ensure some of the
work today
the topic that Maria Magana proposes an
opening conference or lecture in three
voices four voices today it seems to be
slightly the title might sound generic
this terms art democracy and justice
needs to be filled with content and they
need to be relived and in practice they
have to be put in some sort of practice
in order to show some efficiency
efficacy to begin with democracy
perhaps but first let me quote maybe not
exact quote from what my predecessors
said today I recognized this moment of
asking what what art can do already in
maria margall Anna's introduction and
there is a lot of
fairly banal and I think slightly
redundant discussion lately about the
intersection or or a possibility of
thinking art and activism together or
whether these two forms of political
expression or attitudes go along
together well and are somehow possible
to to negotiate whether art is a form of
activism and so forth but what art can
do what can art do that seems to go back
to to a question that was asked a little
bit earlier and namely around the year
1800 in Germany which was around the
peak of German movement known as pre
romantic moment very very fruitful
moment in German poetry and thought
where among other things magazine called
Atheneum was founded by a number of
poets writers philosophers enthusiasts
of whom to French authors who wrote a
very interesting book about early german
romanticism and namely Jean Luc Nancy
and Ernest like hula Bart speakers of
the first avant-garde so the Turner was
18th and 19th century for Nancy and like
hula Bart is a moment of the birth of
the first avant-garde movement first
avant-garde group and that will be the
German romantics and friedrich hölderlin
german poet was not exactly a part of
that avant-garde perhaps because he was
an outsider one could say he walked his
own ways
and he wrote this elegy called bread and
wine in which he asked the famous
question which in the German language is
what sue dicta in drifty good side which
translates variously depending on the
translation chosen into English who once
poets in lean times or what are the
poise for in a destitute time or what
are the points for in poverty-stricken
time and all these translations of the
very concise German phrase what should
indeed endure if de garde side seems to
be somehow adequate and also resonating
with contemporary question about - about
the political necessity of art and
political utility of beauty as horn
cutter in a very precise way formulated
before so I think this political
necessity of art doesn't have to be
negotiated with the political utility of
of beauty they they come together and
perhaps it is worth mentioning this are
a quote from the work of Walter Benjamin
another German author who in the 1934
which is precisely the year in which the
Nazis are taking over fully in Germany
taking a grip on the German society at
that time noted in in his essay artist
as producer that a work of art should
demonstrate no other quality if it shows
a correct political tendency and this is
a very controversial formulation but it
doesn't have to be understood as a
dogmatic
exist a statement that would only be
about the sort of preeminence of of
content and political content in the in
the work of art so this just a few
remarks to to open this brief talk which
will rather have a character but I hope
walk rather than then then talk walk
metaphorically through centuries but
also through places and I chose three
places which are in a very strange
almost mystical mysterious way connected
through this edifice and since you are
over here many of you probably citizens
of Nashville you've been living here you
you certainly recognize the building the
edifice yes this is Parton on the symbol
of democracy for some why is it a symbol
democracy symbol of democracy well we
don't really know it's difficult to
argue the original part and on which is
illustrated here was a temple to Athena
par tennis and also to some degree it
was a proto Bank in which the statue
said to be by Phidias the important
Greek sculptor of classical period was
made of gold and ivory the precious
metal and ivory and this was not only to
impress but it was a kind of physical
locus of wealth of the Athenian police
so the temple on Acropolis what was
the same time kind of bank because as
you know this monument was a rather
enormous size here another picture well
this is this this is a kind of canonical
picture on the left-hand side you see a
Greek flag proudly the Greek state in
its modern form was founded in the 1818
20s only after the Greek so-called Greek
war of independence or Greek revolution
where Greeks went against the Ottoman
Empire and created a constitutional
monarchy ruled by the German Bavarian
dynasty the first Greek King was a
German Bavarian Prince Otto von
Wittelsbach...Move to Part Five
