TALENT IS NOT DEMOCRATIC, ART IS NOT A LUXURY (The Grasshopper and the Ant)
Solo exhibition: artist Liliana Basarab
Borderline Space, Iași (17 June - 29 July, 2016)
Curator: Cătălin Gheorghe; performers: Petronela Grigorescu and Bogdan Pălie; project designer: Costel Chirilă
Text by Mihaela Varzari
Published with Revista ARTA, issue 30/8, print version, 2018
This
three fold project of the visual artist Liliana Basarab (b. 1979) traverses
into the area of installation bordering self-curated art works. The video, featuring
two performers sitting round a table, is the documentation of the performance during
the opening. When browsing on-line data available on a computer in a corner, it
becomes apparent that the script is based on short and concise excerpts from
international artists, activists and politicians’ public discourses, forming a
live archive organized by key words in both English and Romanian. This
constitutes the research part of the project, which is still gathering
information even now, one year after its initiation, a reflection on how
meaning is formed in our live-streaming era (accessible on http://lilianabasarab.com/greierelesifurnica).
 |
| Liliana Basarb, TALENT IS NOT DEMOCRATIC, ART IS NOT A LUXURY
(The Grasshopper and the Ant) 2016, ceramic sculpture. Courtesy the artist
|
Basarab’s work doesn’t suffer from the incomprehensible or the
irrational attributed to the classical Western artist responsible for the
maintenance of such myths as the autonomy of art. Following
from her interest in working with the medium of ceramic based sculpture, two
representations of the grasshopper and the ant, plus a
dialogue bubbles are mounted on a wall. Aesop’s famous characters appear here
half human, half animal following from children’s books and animation. This
ludic quality runs through her previous work, also prompted by her constant
engagement with children through workshops, which sometimes become art projects
in themselves, like in Imagine Beauty! Postcard project, (2003-2004)[1].
For this
project, Basarab worked with a group of 8 to 12 years old girls from a
schools in Tătărași district in Iași and was hosted by the local Post Office.
The paradox proposed by the title together
with the subtitle, TALENT IS NOT DEMOCRATIC, ART IS NOT A
LUXURY (The Grasshopper and the Ant) is prepared to
give a lot away and it could be rewritten as a dialogue between two
interlocutors: the first is a conservative and essentialist European high
culture nostalgic while the second follows the path laid out by Joseph Beuys
interested in the social function of art. Who is the lazy, irresponsible
hedonist and who is the goody-goody, hard working ant? No answer would be
satisfying enough but I sympathize with the grasshopper not because he doesn’t
receive any help from the ant but because I see him having to perform the role
of the rebel, he who just plays his guitar in the summer and starves in the
winter to the point of self-destruction. When did we become subject to the
injunction to rebel?
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| Liliana Basarab, TALENT IS NOT DEMOCRATIC, ART IS NOT A LUXURY
(The Grasshopper and the Ant) 2016
Exhibition view features performers Petronela Grigorescu and Bogdan Pălie. Courtesy the artist |
Revisiting classical themes of Western art
like beauty or truth has been taken up by Basarab in the past. I distinctively
remember seeing the documentation of her performance titled, Truth/s
(Adevăr/Adevăruri) (2004–2005)[2] where
an artist friend is asked to perform truth in a 15 min video. Graduated in 2002 from the media specific
training, at G. Enescu Arts University where such categories like truth and
beauty were still believed to be solid, universal pillars, Basarab revisited
them when she started developing her own career. The morale of the fable is rescued is seems
from a political populist discourse of simple black and white choices and
subdued to art’s vocabulary. Basarab’s work is grounded on the current reality
and the fragments composing the script make reference to the relevance of art
and its incestuous relationship to the market questioning the presumptuous
autonomy of art. This is also reflected in the presentation of this project,
where the documentation is incorporated into the art project itself.
[1] This project took place in other places
like Chisinau,
Helsinki, Amsterdam amounting to a total on 500 post cards and it involved
adults as well.
[2] Evening of performances curated by Alex
Moldovan, hosted by ICR London, 2007.
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