I am often reminded of Nikolai Gogol’s grotesquely witty novel, DEAD SOULS,
Chichikov is an interestingly absurd character who effectively comes into a provincial town looking to buy property in the form of names of dead peasants, whom by some administrative oversight were still legitimate entities on formal records.
His enterprise appears, to me at least, to resemble a form of “purchasing souls of
those who are dead”, much like what archeologists, fossil collectors, treasure
hunters (liberators of lost antiquities) and art collectors do with the creative works of
deceased people.
Accumulation of cultural artefacts and proprietization of artworks has long been a
niche for select cabals within colonial families and they continue to have a stranglehold on the contemporary art landscape, even discarding bodies, persons denuded of agency, depicted in various artworks ranging from photographs to portraiture.
There are vast collections acquired through scrupulous means, during wars as pillaged booty stolen by soldiers in unsanctioned wars ravaging the world’s heritage sites.
There are wanton destruction campaigns of monumental historical ruins disguised
as acts of religious valour and conviction, masking illicit trades in antiquities which
will forever plague a humanity that commodifies even memory.
Therefore, there is no absolution to white cultural privilege that black poor artists
can offer, and there is no obligation for such atonement for white people’s sudden
spurs of conscience when it comes to restitution of stolen artworks and erased
archives, as well as hidden cultural items.
There will remain a validated and entrenched mistrust when it comes to black
communities opening their vaults of memory to any academic and curious collector
intent on creating archives for future generations, based on past experiences.
For most families, parting with images of their forebears, as well as those often associated with religions rituals, marriages; and those contested portraits of black lives is akin to dislodging oneself from their spiritual source.
And their conflicted sentiments towards donating these revered artefacts for preservationist projects has never benefitted their current historical standing.
And while attempts are being made by varied institutions, not only to repatriate but to redress ideological misnomers employed to discredit these valued items, western preservation institutions require vast non-exploitative resources from those
communities to which the items belong.
These institutions will require black counter-critical analysis of contemporary artistic
output, to provide a relational understanding grounded not in the illusion of objectivity but practices of questioning and authenticating memory and its sources.
Patronising Black Artists To Oblivion?
When artistic glory calcifies into obligation to market-success demands; the
incompatibility between genuine art and kitsch expressionistic work is blurred; and
the creation of artistic works is transformed into regurgitative production of stylised
replicas.
The hollowness and fragility of reputation enjoyed by a few in the art world tempts
artists of colour towards unacknowledged corruptibility, a form of decay that affects
even the most benevolent of makers and collectors of black art.
Replicating their originality for commerciality, sanitising their rebellious art to
conform to the chaotically profitable provenance, these artists often exhaust
themselves before their pinnacle, when the inevitable disappointment inches on
their transitory fruits of fame.
As though patrons are vying to subdue all black artists into a permanence of
banality, the subtle tyranny of critics disguised as learned opinions often leaves our
artists overwhelmed by the entire sham of reputations that are established and
venerated.
No major museum or gallery in South Africa, with their bureaucracies of value, have
gone beyond commodification of artistic output by artists and people of colour; and
this also impacts on the dynamics of reciprocity between institutions and
communities.
Most of these art institutions’ hierarchies of cultural inertia can’t even humanise the
inhumane ornamentation of people of colour (Ncome Museum as an example), and the objectification that still continues to be exploited by internationalist collectors who continue to desecrate art that is endowed a social function.
Exhibitions have become orgies of gossip and congratulatory spaces for inflated egos, where artists make pragmatic decisions at distinct phases of their lives, which in turn affect their future career prospects.
From the curatorial compromises that intrude throughout their developing oeuvre, to the curiorization many succumb to for sales, undoubtedly these transactions taint the innocence that carries the spirit of their artistic endeavour.
These artists become complicit in a system that demeans their craft, shifting alliances and resentments, blurring the line between appropriation and plagiarism; while building a legacy that will represent a collective black experience from their own personal anguish.
Retired corporate moguls establish galleries for wives and trusts that spend millions on acquisitions, mansion walls covered with predominantly white artists and their orbiting acquaintances; forging a system where works decanted in hatcheries of white privilege are capital business.
And having received different responses to their work, many black artists have begun to reject comfort and expectations, freeing themselves to create beyond the silenced rage of consumer-driven exploitation and expectations.
***
In this digital age when social media algorithms have spurred a surge in the
proliferation of artistic content that verges on artificiality, the question is even more
pertinent.
The compulsion for exposure and audiences have nudged artists towards a stream of styles condensed into pictorial wonders that flood timelines like gallery isles, yet many of these artistic masterful works are regurgitated replicas of what the art world has been engineered to appreciate.
Then one wonders if the art is being produced for art’s sake or motives driven by monetisation prospects patronised by technocratic agents; or is today’s art being
produced by artificial agents through prompts that scale human sensibilities down to predictable aesthetics.
When creativity has been tainted by greed it has to re-orient and test its elasticity against social institutions, but this process is in itself a transformative and degenerative to a degree, as quality is often forsaken for quantity.
But can black artists afford to overlook these persistent urges to produce for an audience
disguised as bits and digital avatars on computer screens?
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