#dejazing

A snapshot: Kevin is sitting under a Christmas tree in Munich holding a framed postcard. The Heinrich Hoffmann photo shows Adolf Hitler in profile looking into the light of candles enflamed on a Christmas tree. Intended as a contribution to gay and festive celebrations, the card is entitled "Deutsche Weihnacht". This man staring into open fire with relaxed features, just about to crack into a smile is an entirely cynical concept and in this sense the perfect ready made illustration for “Evil Camouflage.”

"Psychologists discover everything to be camouflage. It is then made clear how little these experts know of tanks." For the passage from France to England, Caesar invented the little green men, later in Scotland, at Birnam, the woods were taken for a walk, in short, human mimicry practiced in a terrain of military significance has had many literary and historical predecessors. Nevertheless, the technique of camouflage, as we know it, is a 20th century contribution to the history of warfare. It is the strategy of obscuring objects with the intention of deceiving the enemy. These objects can be subjected to the attempt to render them invisible within their given surrounding, or to make them appear as something, they are in fact not. Its invention is closely linked to Modernism. Seemingly, military camouflage, its patterns provided by Cubism, Vorticism, or Futurism applied, often in quite a dazzling way, is nothing but modern art put to use and practice.

As such, "Evil Camouflage" is yet another example of the abuse of warlike techniques for peacetime pastime activities. The artworks assembled for this project, as diverse in style and context as they may be, all employ some strategy of disguise, obscurity or deceit in their technique of communication. Against the background of the viewer's expectations, the appearance of an image or the nature of the presented topic might read as harmless or as pleasant. A closer look reveals that the story told has taken rather unexpected turns. In such a manner, "Evil Camouflage" gives room to trick and twist and make ironic. In its finest examples it offers a forum for the challenged states of mind or serves as a technique for insight and critique.

This project also takes into account the natural existence of camouflage. Even in nature, no one is safe. "There are predators everywhere. The possibility of discovery and of subsequent death provides the arena for the evolution of deceptive strategies." In the course of the following investigation into contemporary evolutionary practice, four arenas will be entered. "The Female" introduces mean kids, evil mothers and sexual desires. "The Body" is subject to mutations and mutilations. "Objects" will be introduced as the anticipation of casualties. And some "Suspicious Minds" reflect upon attitudes and politics.

—Adriaan von der Have & Rafael von Uslar

seminars/lectures (s/l) is an ongoing project of Rainer Ganahl’s – a series of photographs depicting education as a utopia, “a network of interconnecting tunnels with people gathering…for the sake of exchanging ideas.” In this series, Ganahl captures the side of education where classrooms are used to gather academic interest as a driving force for productivity in our society.

Without a doubt, education is essential for progress. This can be seen in political movements across history, where academic institutions are broken down for a tyrannical regime to gain control and undermine the power of individuals. Bessa gives the example of the military junta in Brazil in 1964, where their first deliberation was to close the Philosophy Department in all universities across the country. In Cambodia, during the genocide in the 20th century, educated people were the first to be killed, making it that much harder for the society to rebuild once the Khmer Rouge regime ended.

The images in seminars/lectures capture people in moments of preoccupation and intensity, focusing on whatever material is being presented to them. This content isn’t clear to us as viewers, suggested only by the title of the photographs. In Homi Bhabha, Whose Modernity Is It Anyway?, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 11/18/1997, two students are seen grappling with the lecture, both faced the same direction, focusing on the same thing. In the foreground, there is a pen in someone’s hand, another indication of a student actively listening. As viewers of these photographs, however, we aren’t forced to think about the specific content being taught. What we are being prompted to reflect on is people engaging, thinking critically – ultimately to be productive members of society, which is what the purpose of education is supposed to be.

  In a different way than the students, the lecturers are highlighted in the title of these pieces. Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, Middle East Politics, Miller Theater, Columbia University, New York, 4/9/1999 singles out Noam Chomsky and Edward Said. They are placed on a platform, marked as people of importance who have something of value to teach, and the photos in the series reflect the significance of this type of individual. As such, seminars/lectures portrays this structure (often created by institutions), of an individual with somehow supreme knowledge which they are spreading to the masses. The important response from the students, which we are seeing in this series, is engagement which then leads to critical thinking. This is what results in “truly democratic” spaces, where ideas are exchanged in a utopian way.

But is education still functioning in this democratic way? Are people still gathering in classrooms as Ganahl depicts and fighting for “the ideals of humanism” (1)? I wonder if this exchange of ideas for the sake of academic interest is still the point – for both academic institutions as well the students attending them. Are these institutions more concerned with class and reputation than developing curiosity in their students? And are the students attending actively choosing to learn, or has school just become a means to an end?

How do we, as a society, fuel this passion so that it will culminate in ways similar to these moments captured in seminars/lectures? Ganahl shows the crucial aspect of education – how interest and passion act as a driving force for us as a society, but we must make sure students and people in general are learning to question as they learn, to debate and think critically. This craving for knowledge still exists and can be seen in socially and politically engaged people around the world, so we must find a way to make sure it’s given the appropriate outlets.

“I’ve thought of doing a version of Emerson in which you simply take every sentence of ‘Self-Reliance’ and flip it... So like at the beginning he says, ‘Yesterday I read in a book somebody stating very well an idea I had myself, and I felt ashamed that I hadn’t expressed it myself.’ Well, you could say, ‘Yesterday I read in a book somebody stating very well an idea I had myself, and I felt glad that I was not alone, and that my ideas were not my ideas.’” —Lewis Hyde

I’m fairly certain about the events that led up to the day that I answered the question to: “Which came first the chicken or the egg?” I don’t know why I suddenly knew the answer to this question but it may have something to do with a specific sequence of moments. I figured out the answer while I was looking at a James Ensor painting. This work (I can’t remember the title) was interesting to me at the time because it looked a lot like of work that a bunch of young artists were making - artists who may or may not have seen this piece. Whatever the case, it was remarkable to me that work separated by nearly a century could look so similar. The other thing that happened the day before the Ensor “moment” was that I read somewhere that a certain type of liquor was made in America during the 1800’s in 8 separate places, and that each gristmill had produced identical booze entirely independent of one another. This is easily explained if not for the non-standard, complex nature of the recipe.

That people reach similar, sometimes identical conclusions independently of one another is something that happens with regular frequency. In science this is called multiples. This fact is almost never celebrated. In art, as in science, it’s almost always about who got there first - like landing on the moon. Ample evidence exists to show how people figure things out or make discoveries at the same time. Darwin is credited with his work in On The Origin of Species as being vanguard when in fact many of the ideas discussed therein are remarkably similar to ideas expressed in Alfred Russel Wallace’s papers published a full year in advance although there are many explanations for this. The invention of the four-track recorder (probably the single most important invention to shape modern music) is also still hotly contested as being invented at the same time in two different places by Tom Dowd and guitarist Les Paul. And there are endless examples of this phenomenon occurring throughout the history of art. That both Italy and Tibet were using near identical materials and process’ to create Secco for Frescoe paintings in the 15th century is yet to be fully explained except for the obvious explanation which is that it was a good idea and good ideas aren’t contained by geography and sometimes even time.

Recently I’ve been finding the notion that it’s actually cause for celebration if you reach a similar conclusion that someone else already did even if it stings a little when you find out your brilliant idea was already patented by 50,000 people 100 years ago. Most of us are all too familiar with petty arguments that ensue about who went where first, about who did what first, about who saw what first, who made what first; sometimes being first is a cheap form of entitlement and other times being first means everything. The images that follow are a very small selection of work that bears un-avoidable similarities – either visually, materially, in terms of process, ideas, or all of the above. Rather than drawing from the vast well of art historical examples that hammer home this point, these images are culled from more obscure sources although there are also some well-known, well-debated examples. Admittedly, I have also included a few pairs that have nothing to do with each other whatsoever other than surface similarities. This is to demonstrate the way that artificial context can be manipulative/persuasive.

What remains truly rare over time is invention. Innovation is the constant but invention is much trickier ground. Where invention is credited and where it comes from is almost a total mystery. The images that follow are neither an indictment nor a provocation (discussions about influence and originality are endless...) just a small collection of works that carry a dialogue some even unbeknownst to one another. The choice to highlight similarities, to group and catalogue (taxonomy) is one aspect of empirical endeavor but does little to explain the impulse to materially realize ideas or notions. The way that ideas are formed and then realized materially is similarly one aspect of making art but does even less to explain where those ideas come from.

View the rest of this this issue #22 project here.