Exiles of Modernism.
In his book, The Radicant, Nicolas Bourriaud describes the post Cold War condition of the art world as one that moved into a polycentric discourse that could be engaged by many cultural centers worldwide. Bourriaud claims that the reading of history up until recently was marked by a linear sequence of evolving ideas which were conditioned by a colonialist mentality, while the new post historical condition allows for a poly-centric mobility of discourse and ideas. This shift however, may have already been one of the germinating principles of Modernism. As john Maynard Keynes noted in 1919:
“The inhabitant of London [before WWI] could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth ... he could at the same moment and by the same means adventure his wealth in the natural resources and new enterprises of any quarter of the world...[He] regarded this state of affairs as normal, certain, and permanent, except in the direction of further improvement ... The projects and politics of militarism and imperialism, of racial and cultural rivalries, of monopolies, restrictions, and exclusion ... appeared to exercise almost no influence at all on the ordinary course of social and economic life, the internationalization of which was nearly complete in practice.”
It is as if the socio-cultural development of the world was turned on its head with the rebirth of nationalism during the two World Wars. Modern artists, and their artistic movements, for the most part inherently trans-national, found themselves in a state of exile, dispossessed of the reality they had come to view as their own.
Walter Benjamin first attempted to leave France disguised as a sailor on a ship leaving the port of Marseille. Once this failed he went to Port Bou and tried to cross the French border by land. After failing to enter Spain, he committed suicide on September 26, 1940. While visiting Walter Benjamin's grave in Port Bou, on the border between France and Spain, I became interested in the condition of the nomad and exile and how this affected the parameters of cultural production that we still see today, as with artists traveling worldwide to the various hubs of exhibition. This condition in some ways also parallels my personal experience, growing up between the three cultures of Mexico, Italy and the U.S. It is one that, as an artist, I see rooted in the very beginnings of Modernism.
The Readymade is a (utilitarian) object that has been exiled from its function, from its "home".
Brancusi, by assimilating pedestals into the sculptures he made, turned these into things that could travel, nomadic artifacts. Unlike sculpture of the past, which was to be viewed in situ and usually very difficult to move, Brancusi's works were conceived site-less, and homeless, or as crab-like creatures carrying with them their own houses.
"[The exile is] a man at home between the jaws of a crocodile which he holds apart with iron struts."
-W. Benjamin
"Maison de Fada" (house of the mad), a housing project built by Le Corbusier between 1948-52, in Marseille. The building is raised on pilotis and in this way touches the ground minimally, abstracting it from the context of site.
In 2005, children of marginalized immigrants throughout France rioted for the better part of three weeks in protest of their condition as second-class citizens. These communities are primarily located in housing projects at the periphery of cities.
-M Duchamp: "I can fit everything I have ever made into a suitcase." Portable art is art without a home. Duchamp's Boite en Valise is a "portable museum" title cards wall labels and display system all integrated into a portable suitcase. It is a "Retrospective" 20 years before that word was ever used in the context of an exhibition, but it contains reproductions, miniaturized facsimiles.
During the Spanish Civil War the Republican government made a concerted effort to protect national treasures from the ravages of war. As Franco, the Germans, and the Italians, began their bombing campaigns in 1936, a major portion of the Museo del Prado collection was moved from Madrid to Valencia. In 1938 it was moved to Catalonia. In 1939 it was moved by train across southern France to Geneva and held at The League of Nations. Six days after Germany invaded Poland, the works were carted back to Spain for fear the Germans might seize them.
In 1941, after the German occupation of Paris, and while staying with his sister at Snary-Sur-Mer in the south of France, Marcel Duchamp completed work on his Boite en Valise. He made several trips back to Paris disguised as a cheese merchant in order to finish the project.
"This seeking for my home.... was my affliction....where is my home? I ask and seek and have sought for it; I have not found it." - Thus Spoke Zarathustra
"Either you are Modern, or you are a museum." Said Gertrude Stein to Alfred Barr, director of MoMA, when he asked her to donate her famous portrait by Picasso to his fledgling museum.
"The artist should be alone...Everyone for himself, as in a shipwreck."
-M. Duchamp
Walter Benjamin's possessions, handed over to the court in Figueras, were described as: "a leather briefcase, a man's watch, a pipe, six photographs, an X-ray picture, a pair of glasses, various letters, magazines, a few other papers, and some money."
The Mexican suitcase was an archive of Spanish Civil War negatives taken by Robert Capa, Geda Taro and Chim. They were smuggled out by Capa's assistant during the Nazi occupation of Paris and somehow ended in the possession of the Mexican ambassador to Vichy France. Their whereabouts only came to light in 1995.
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso, was born in Malaga Spain. He adopted his mother’s name as an artist and lived in France for most of his life. He died in Mougins in 1973.
Marcel Brodthaers, suitcases: Hotel,1975, Sculpture,1973, Valise Belge, 1966, Valise Charbon, 1968.
