jernej
kožar
Karl Schüssler, Peter Hergold, Sandro Trotti, Gabor Zongor
Italo Calvino, Invisible cities, Cities and the dead 1
At Melania, every
time you enter the square, you find yourself caught in a dialogue: the braggart
soldier and the parasite coming from a door meet the young wastrel and the
prostitute; or else the miserly father from his threshold utters his final
warnings to the amorous daughter and is interrupted by the foolish servant who
is taking a note to the procuress. You return to Melania after years and you
find the same dialogue still going on; in the meanwhile the parasite has died,
and so have the procuress and the miserly father; but the braggart soldier, the
amorous daughter, the foolish servant have taken their places, being replaced
in their turn by the hypocrite, the confidante, the astrologer.
Melania’s population renews itself: the participants in
the dialogues die one by one and meanwhile those who will take their places are
born, some in one role, some in another. When one changes role or abandons the
square forever or makes his first entrance into it, there is a series of
changes, until all the roles have been reassigned; but meanwhile the angry old
man goes on replying to the witty maidservant, the usurer never ceases
following the disinherited youth, the nurse consoles the stepdaughter, even if
none of them keeps the same eyes and voice he had in the previous scene.
At times it may happen that a sole person will
simultaneously take on two or more roles - tyrant, benefacator, messenger – or
one role may be doubled, multiplied, assigned to a hundred, a thousand
inhabitants of Melania: three thousand for the hypocrite, thirty thousand for
the sponger, a hundred thousand king’s sons fallen in low estate and awaiting
recognition.
As time passes the roles, too, are no longer exactly the
same as before; certainly the action they carry forward through intrigues and surprises leads towards some
final denouement, which it continues to approach even when the plot seems to thicken more and more and the obstacles
increase. If you look into the square in successive moments, you hear how from
act to act the dialogue changes, even if the lives of Melania’s inhabitants are
too short for them to realize it.
The painters
Karl Schüssler, Peter Hergold, Sandro Trotti and Gabor Zongor are interested in
the problem of the representation of reality rather than in the reality they
represent. Their interest is foc used precisely on those tiny oscillations in
representations that are shared by all but are nevertheless so very much
individually different. This fundamental sensation places them within the
modernist tradition.
In
postmodernism, artists deal with reality rather than its representation. They
make interventions in matter itself, in the signifier, and they (re)shape it.
They aim to change reality, to see the concrete effects of their actions rather
than the subtle wavering between different levels of representation, which an
inept eye can hardly perceive. Since art theory normally lags behind art
practice, classic modernist works still present a radical challenge to the
general public. In the meantime the world has already changed at least twice.
These artists
either source from and remain faithful to modernism (Karl Schüssler) or, like
Peter Hergold, turn away from postmodernism back to modernism in a desire to
refashion representation. In certain conditions this kind of work is
characteristic of areas where the circle of consumers of artworks is smaller –
and where, consequently, there is a lack of benevolent patrons. From this point
of view the products are less problematic by one step at least, but they are
certainly not free of conflict. On the other hand we should not forget that the
present day allows for a pluralism of styles. Seen from this perspective, the
perseverance of the artists in a sort of modernism is perfectly understandable.
But the mission
and responsibility of artists is to change reality – also because their
audience expects them to do so. Today artists are the only people in controlled
societies who are permitted to intervene in and shape reality. It is urgent
that artists understand that artistic expression is not and cannot be limited
to one chosen medium alone, for new information demands new forms, since old
forms carry reactionary ideologies even if their contents are progressive.
The artists
selected for this exhibition not only praise their surroundings and their way
of life in their works. The selected artists are also capable of insight into their
own creativity, of an understanding that even their creativity (just like this
writing) has been conditioned by the surroundings from which they come, by the
ideology to which they submit, so that the construction of bridges can convey
several meanings. Therefore I wish in this little paper to face reality and let
fine art representation achieve its purpose by itself. For in the
representation of representation, ‘discourse about art’ represents ‘artistic’
representation which, on the other hand, represents the representation of
ideological representation …
The
inhabitants of these four cities were famous for their skills. Once they
discovered in a debate that their knowledge of each other was inadequate, which
was probably due to the fact that in each of the cities people spoke another
language. They called a philosopher for help. There is but one language that
the citizens of all four cities will understand, said the philosopher – the
language of painting.
Artists build
bridges. People’s representatives send artists to scout, just as Genghis Khan
sent heralds to pronounce and spread rumours. Perhaps this is also the case
with territorial conquest. Nowadays however, the conquest is less stained with
blood than it used to be, for even interests are no longer only black or white.
Every conqueror sent by the people’s representatives to conquer is now aware
that the territory has to remain undamaged and unchanged, for only preservation
of the existing structures enables the conquerors to finance this and following
conquests. Every conquest is supported by merchants who expect to benefit the
most from the conquered areas – the conquered territories present new markets
for them, a possibility of spreading their activities, employing more labour
and contributing to the wellbeing of the entire community. (Perhaps conquest is
simply a metaphor.)
Let’s be
careful: even the construction of bridges can have two facets. When we build a
bridge over a river or a precipice, we build it on a certain spot, on a defined
place, not just anywhere. Since the construction of bridges is usually
connected with money, which is chronically lacking, only one bridge, or a few
bridges, can be built. If a bridge is being built, it is built in a certain
direction, and thus other directions are being neglected.
Everyone can
profit from the construction of bridges: artists, merchants and politicians. It
is not necessary that a territory be material, tangible. It can also be virtual:
it can be a territory of trade, a field of consumption, of the making of an
object, or merely an idea for the production and marketing of a product. How
does one fasten somebody to oneself, make him/her dependent and get his/her
money, enabling one to live comfortably?
This exhibition
not only aims to present the contemporary art production of the four cities.
The organisers are counting on more from the exhibition: they wish to show in
the exhibition that there are cultural, artistic and economic differences
between cities and regions. By pointing to obvious differences, the exhibition
encourages visitors (inhabitants of cities and regions) to exchange opinions.
Only when differences are defined through art can we establish a firm ground
for more fruitful communication and, at the same time, show how it is possible
to bring different cultural surroundings closer to each other. On a definitely
more subtle level, artworks will also speak about trouble in the everyday life
of the inhabitants of these cities, about their burdens and problems and their
visions of future developments in their surroundings.
When a
wanderer comes to a city and meets a girl, perhaps a worker in a cigarette
factory whose name he is never to know, he might stop stupefied in a narrow
street filled with cars and instantly recognise: “Ut pittura poesis.”
And so politicians choose artists and send them to regions to bring back news – to prepare people for modifications that are bound to follow when others come after the artists. Artists with their artworks can prepare – to a certain degree – an environment for a world of motives, for an ideology, for the mode of thinking that rules in the surroundings from which they come.
Genghis
Khan used to send heralds before his army to launch and spread the news that he
was a devil and his army was the Devil’s Army. Poor people believed these
stories. The heralds proclaimed that no one who resisted was to be spared. They
narrated horror stories about things that the Mongols did to cities that dared
to resist: they robbed, raped, killed, slaughtered and burned. Not a memory of
the city is left in the end. But if a man does not resist, he is offered life,
his wife and daughter are left unharmed, his son is not taken away, his house
remains undamaged.
Historians
say that Genghis Khan often took cities without battles. Some cities he left in
place, some cities he displaced; since cities are more enduring than man and
his rumours, the cities survived and the water receded.