Laura Oldfield Ford, Savage Messiah
She is a British artist born in 1973 and author using mixed media and multimedia looks at political themes in British urban areas. She even uses something I had never heard of which is psychogeography, the exploration of urban environments that emphasizes interpersonal connections to places and arbitrary routes. She has been praised for her “authentic gifts as a recorder and mapper of terrain” in relation to her most famous work, Savage Messiah, a zine dedicated to different postal codes of London looking at gentrification, class inequality, decadence etc. She mapped by taking photos in an urban areas and placing them next to original and found texts with a view to describing people, places and events and published them in a Zine over a few years. The mapping seems to be a series of fragmented stories, broken narratives, people, connections to place etc. The concept of psychogeography is described as the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals. I wonder indeed how the gentrification, inequality, decadence, design, community, places etc. has an impact on and is impacted by people and I think this is what she was capturing and inviting the observer to see in a critical way.
Sources:
- https://lauragraceford.blogspot.com/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Oldfield_Ford
- http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/2
Mona Hatoum’s Routes II
Hatoum is inspired by Surrealism and Minimalism and looks a lot at conflict and contradictions in the world. Given that she was born in Beirut to a Palestinian family in 1952, never able to integrate into Lebanon with a proper ID card, I am not surprised that she says that Routes II is for the rootless and she sees herself as a nomad. The works are 5 maps of routes by different airlines that she has added ink and gouache abstract lines and designs on top of done in 2002.
She began to make installations and sculptures in various materials, household objects and often referenced systems of control within society.
An Evening Standard quote by Ben Luke says she embues the familiar with darker, stranger meanings which I would agree with given her background and how she uses daily things like maps, lights and cheese graters etc. for her works.
For this particular work, I think it symbolises the oppressiveness and global inequality related to migratory status and which nationality you are and which passport(s) you have which can determine many things in one’s life: freedoms, opportunity, inequality, racism etc. I like the idea of a more personal interpretation of the airline maps which are not only a map of the world but a map of connections across a specific network by a specific airline from a specific country – a system also controlled by economics, relationships and politics.
Sources:
- https://www.moma.org/collection/works/96106#:~:text=Mona%20Hatoum%27s%20Routes%20II%20is,%2C%20national%2C%20or%20political%20boundaries.
- https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/mona-hatoum-2365/who-is-mona-hatoum
Grayson Perry’s The Map of an Englishman
Perry is an English ceramicist born in 1978 in Chelmsford. He uses conventional things and adorns them or changes them to depict and chronicle social concerns, his own formative experience. It all has a psychological complexity and can be very sarcastic.
Grayson is also known as Claire in what is described as his transvestite alter ego. Though he is more known for ceramics, the Map of an Englishman is his first etching. This is a large scale antique style map is an island made up of states of mind, phobias and deviant aspects of English men in a humorous way. It was done with etching and photogravure onto paper. Grayson is also known as Claire in what is described as his transvestite alter ego. Though he is more known for ceramics, this is his first etching.
When you look at the detail is really is like a funny map of a English man’s life with little images or icons etc. to describe things like a pat on the back, boarding school, up the duff, sissy wet-pants, chocolate, fear of failure, love etc. He really has taken a traditional map and made it his own. Reading it in detail conjured lots of thoughts and feelings in myself about British way of life and it was both humorous and worrying particularly as a woman and given some of the words that link to relationships with women.
Sources:
- https://www.artsy.net/artwork/grayson-perry-map-of-an-englishman-5
- https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_2005-0429-22
- https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/name/grayson-perry-ra
Rirkrit Tiravanija’s Untitled 2008-2011 (the map of the land of feeling).
Tiravanija was born in Buenos Aires in 1961 but was raised in Thailand, Ethiopia, and Canada. He studied in Canada and since the 1990s, has created his art focused on or through social engagement, often inviting viewers to inhabit and activate his work. He has even rejected traditional art forms to cook for guests at an exhibition or filled a space with stacks of rejected or forgotten objects and art as a way to challenge the revered art object.
The map of the land of feeling is his first officially completed print and first fully autobiographical work. It is a scroll with digital printing, lithography, chine colle and screenprint. It is based off his 3 passports which he went through and retraced the places he went and what happened etc. Different sections are meant to be different periods of life, going to North America, the last one about leaving America and not having to worry anymore about having to be somewhere. He also echoes this idea of normalising nomadic life and living in a global world. It seems to symbolise finding ways around the barrier of borders or life perhaps.
You have to move in and out of the print and try to decode it and understand it as its quite messy with lots of detail, text and mark making. The many arrows and crowdedness of it suggested movement to me, which works with the theme. Given how strict the US and Canada are on immigration and his nomadic life, I can see why this is important and I understand this idea of leaving a place where it has been hard and difficult to integrate and get your papers to not have to worry about that anymore, given my own very nomadic life!
Sources:
- https://www.moma.org/collection/works/147128
- https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/rirkrit-tiravanija
Alighiero Boetti’s Map of the World
Boetti was an Italian Conceptual artist and member of the Arte Povera movement. Born in Turin, Italy in 1940 and died in 1994. Boetti used a wide variety of materials for his work like ball point pens and postal stamps to make a series of maps and graphical charts of the world.
Boetti’s challenged systems and classifications applied to the natural world, questioning global power imbalances and the validity of national identity. For his work, Map of the World, Boetti traced a world map onto canvas, coloured it according to the national flag of each country, and then gave the canvas to Afghan craftswomen to use as the base for a tapestry.
Given how the world was perceived at the time and has also changed, it is a reminder that nothing is permanent on our earth. Some countries do not appear on the map because they did not yet exist (Ukraine and Belarus) and some nations, such as Israel, are not represented because the Taliban regime of Afghanistan did not then recognize their existence.
I really like this reminder of the challenges with national borders and identity. This idea of ownership and belonging linked to the nation state was also challenged by the fact that he even denied that he made anything with this piece – saying that the world map and the flags already existed and then Afghans created the tapestry. For me this is connected also to the fact that one does not choose where they are born – they didn’t make the borders up, nor draw the flags yet it has such a massive impact on your life. Yet at the same time he is making a point about universal humanity in the Farsi poems also embroidered in the piece. A contradiction of individual human identity in a nation state yet the common denominator being that we are all just humans.
Sources:
Juan Downey’s Map of America
Juan Downey was born in Santiago, Chile, in 1940. He travelled and worked in Europe studying painting and print making and was friends with fellow Chilean Surrealist Painter Matta and Poet Pablo Neruda. He is known more as a pioneering video artist but his works are made of drawings, installations, media, painting, performance and printmaking all based on an idea to encourage reflection on perception and the self to generate a more complex multicultural discourse. He also lived and taught for a while in Washington and finally settled in New York.
On the Map of America, Well before I even get started I am ashamed to admit I was expecting a map of the US not South America and yet I love this map and was pleased to see it wasn’t the US! Contrasting from the borders and flags of Boetti, this is an amalgamation of colour inside South America that has no borders. A lovely swirl of colour cuts across it and is based on a concept of bridging cultures inspired by his travels from New York all the way down to the southern tip. The piece was drawn using coloured pencil, pencil and acrylic on a map on five boards. He took a lot of videos on this trip too and would share them with other peoples he met on the way – again with this idea of sharing knowledge, finding commonalities in their humanity and aiming to connect across isolated communities.
This piece speaks to me the most of all those I have seen for this exercise. I have been to Latin America and I do speak Spanish and I of course have only been some places but I really connect to the fact that each place has different traditions, colours and manners yet at the same time there is an impressive kinship across the countries and I think it goes beyond the language being the same (except Brazil of course). The idea of sharing knowledge between communities and looking for shared humanity is a beautiful one and the round swirl of colour seems inviting and pleasant, the way one would hope to be received in any new place they might move to or visit.
Sources:
Jo's Illustration Learning Blog 