 (Or: "Only God knows...")
La
Nona Ora (1999), the sculpture/installation of Maurizio Cattelan,
caused one of the most well-known scandals in the art-world when
it was exhibited in Zacheta gallery in Warsaw. Cattelan laid the
wax figure of Pope John Paul II on a red carpet pressed down by
a large stone, i.e. "meteorite" that fell down through
the gallery's glass ceiling. Halina Nowina-Konopka and Witold Tomczak,
members of Polish Parliament and of Catholic National Party, decided
to take resolute action against such blasphemy and to remove the
infamous meteorite from the Pope's back. (The task was difficult
because, according to Tomczak himself, the meteorite was not made
of styrofoam as he had expected.) Beside the usual anti-Semitic
comments on account of Anda Rothenberg, the gallery manager, the
two members of parliament asked themselves: "What it would
be like if the figure of Great Rabbi crushed by the feet of Stalin
or Yasser Arafat would be exhibited in the National Gallery of Israel?" Apart
from such statement's once again indicating identification of the
alliance between communists and Arabs as synonymous with "pure
evil" (the possibility of the Rabbi also being crushed under
the feet of, say, Hitler, is not mentioned here), the question is
appropriate: really, what would happen if similar work were exhibited
in some other place? The new work of Zivko Grozdanic, Meteorite
Rain, was conceived exactly as realisation of this possibility or
threat. It is a replica, that is, appropriation of Cattelan's work,
in which the figure of the Pope was replaced by the figure of Serbian
Patriarch Paul. Therefore, the project in question does not in any
way hide the wish to cause a scandal - respectively to talk exactly
from the infamous position which many cautious purists would call
"everyday politics" - and the work that can be freely
called plagiarism, mere repetition, taking over, copying of already
existing artistic idea. All the worst that can be imagined in the
field of "spiritless" contemporary art can be recognised
in Grozdanic's work: scandal for the scandal's sake, non-originality,
extremity and abusive joke. Grozdanic not only takes over Cattelan's
installation, but the entire discourse that accompanies it: he evokes
all that is already known in the relation between individual provocation
and ideological system. All these reasons to completely ignore Grozdanic's
work indicate developed system of ideological prohibition and untouchability
of certain subjects, which goes without saying. There is no point
in using the platitudinous statement about "the freedom of
artistic expression" in defending this work, because in this
case it is more the question of "forcing" the artist to
do something like this, than the question of freedom. This "forcing"
is carried out by the society. It is the product of necessity to
finally hit the centre of paternal/patriarchal untouchability.
As
is the case with other Grozdanic's works, this one also speaks in
language of allegory which appears when one text is "doubled"
by some other text, respectively when one text is read through some
other text. "The allegoric impulse", as Craig Owens wrote,
does not emphasise "the creation of images", but their
"confiscation", as well as it bases the new possibilities
of interpretation on confiscation of the existing ones. The concepts
of allegory and appropriation are similar because they concern the
manner of "usurpation" respectively adoption of somebody's
ideas and their consequences for the purpose of one's own application
and within the framework of new and specific situations. Because,
let us just imagine how different interpretations would be if Cattelan's
"original" with the Pope were exhibited in Serbia from
the interpretations that can be caused by Grozdanic's "appropriation"
with changed "leading character". And again, on the other
hand, it is at the same time one and the same work that tells the
story about "universalism" of one fictitious event. What
assumptions does/do Grozdanic's/Cattelan's work/works use and activate?
What event is actually described here? For the start, let us imagine
the possibility that meteorite really falls on somebody's back.
Scientists give different estimates here. While for some of them
the probability is quite large, 1 in 20,000, considering that about
5,800 meteorites with at least 100 grams weight fall on the Earth
in one year, experience shows us that there were relatively few
serious incidents in the recent time. In the past century the most
well-known was the event in Tunguska in Siberia, when in the year
1908 about 2,000 square meters of wood were scorched when meteorite
fell, although only two human victims were reported because of scarce
population in that area. In November 1954, Mrs Anne Hodges hurt
her hip when meteorite with 4 meters diameter fell down through
the roof of her house in Alabama. Similar thing happened to José
Martin, whose car was hit on the road near Madrid, but he, as well
as Mrs Hodges, stayed alive by some miracle. There were also reports
of other such events, but as far as fatal outcome is concerned,
we can mention only one dog, which was hit in Egypt in 1911. Still,
the threat exists and it seems that there is little we can do about
it. Meteorite is thus either the product of pure chance or within
the domain of "God's will" and its path is either the
proof of cosmic chaos in which we found ourselves by accident, or
one of those "strange ways of God". Therefore both the
Western and the Eastern Church approach the phenomenon of meteorites
with great caution and awe. The meteorite that fell in Alsace town
of Ensisheim in 1492 was preserved in the local church after the
official decision was made that this was a "good omen",
after all. Similar thing happened a little earlier, in 1421, in
Veliki Novgorod in Russia, where the stone was preserved within
the monastery walls. This event still served as the warning, noted
in the monastery with words: "Through fear of such terrible
stories we will learn to do good and to abide by the God's commandments
and then we will be blessed". The God has his reasons. After
all, did not the God by falling of that terrible meteorite on Yucatan
once already realised the project of the "end of the world",
erasing the world of dinosaurs (as obviously being a large obstacle
to the future development of human civilisation) and commence the
creation of life from scratch? Today, too, the concept of the end
of the world can be best visualised as the strike of a cosmic body
on the planet Earth. Thus,
is the meteor rain which for now hit the Pope and the Patriarch
(and who knows to whom else this may still happen) the result of
the God's will or pure chance? Do Grozdanic and Cattelan speak from
the position of Christian creationism and in this way communicate
to us that the fall of the meteor is some kind of the God's punishment
or do they speak from the opposing materialistic/evolutionist position
and communicate to us that the Pope and the Patriarch are only accidental
victims of the general chaos that occurs in the space over our heads?
To take the first position as determinant, would exactly mean terrible
condemnation of the God's representatives on Earth, while taking
the other position gives evidence about having no special plan,
about pure coincidence. Is it not interesting that both the Pope
and the Patriarch seem to succeed in bearing the heavy burden on
their backs, to defy the force of mere substance, holding feverishly
to their church insignia, by which their faith overcomes all the
trials of nature and space? Can this work be interpreted as affirmation
of persistence of faith and the institution of church itself, even
in the critical moment of facing the meaninglessness of accidental
event, respectively as one trial more, martyrdom to which those
who believe are exposed in this materialistic world of today contaminated
with evolutionism? Well, it can certainly not. |
