Destroy “Art” (2009) Globalodromia
Destroy “Art”
Broken legs, broken hands, broken noses, no fingers, no heads, lost faces, partial bodies. When you hear this, you immediately think about a war or a hospital report, but it’s nothing of the sort. It is a simple walking tour through a history museum.
A history museum is a place where we can learn a lot about the history of human kind but also about ourselves, our behavior and our way of understanding different things and phenomena. What do we see when we go inside the history museum? Do we see the past? Do we see the present? Do we see both? Do we see the past through the present?
Or, how we would look and think about all this destroyed / damaged works if they had been specially made to look exactly as they do?
Normally, when we go to a museum we first try to switch off the “present” and switch on the “history modus”. But is that really possible?
Do we see what we see? Or we see what we want, or don’t want, to see? Is what we see reality or just our way to repress / displace it?
All these old works of art, in more or less damaged condition that we see in the historic museums mostly come from differ- ent sacred buildings all around the world. That means that they were once made by different cultures, different countries in different times.
Over time, these works were removed or stolen from these buildings and brought to historic museums (non-religious insti- tutions) where we can now see them. And the buildings which they were once a part of no longer exist, or they exist but they have different purpose now or, they are not in possession of these works anymore for different reasons.
These works were supposed to be on friezes, facades, altars and they were not meant to be exhibit in the middle of the room like sculptures. They were not made to be observed from the same / equal level, where the observer can walk around and look at the sculpture, The observer (believer) was supposed to look up at them from beneath, because these works depicted gods or holy beings**.
In fact, there have been many different external factors which have influenced the present condition of the sculptures or objects. From the creation of the work until the present, these works have been influenced by natural phenomena (earth- quakes, landslides, atmosphere and climate changes), or by human factors (individual or mass destruction)
Mostly we don’t know how these works became damaged, or when or why. There were many different reasons why people did this: religious (Iconoclast), cultural, economic, and psycho- logical or all together (war).
But what would happen if all these buildings still existed, and all the artworks were still inside them – would we have museums at all? If yes, what would they look like?
Historic Museum Tour
Presentation of the works and their maintenance
What do you think of when, during a museum tour, you see a thermometer hanging on Mary Magdalene’s back or instead of nails you discover dowels in Jesus Christ’s body, or when you see how the heads of Jesus and Mary hang on metal rods? When you see destroyed human bodies (sculptures) behind the glass in historic museums you have a feeling that you are in a medical laboratory or an orthopedic clinic.
Through the destruction of the works some of the bodies (sculptures) look deformed and the glass cubes where these bodies are placed look like incubators.
In other cases, we have bodies with missing parts, so two or more parts of the body (sculpture) are connected with metal
rods. This gives a strong impression of implants, which connect or make correction on the body (sculpture).
A motorist who’s had an accident might have similar metal rods coming out of his leg, after a medical intervention. This sight is very painful. But what about the sculpture? How do we remove the rods from the sculpture and from our minds?
How can we imagine what this works looked like once? In what context and surroundings was this work presented at the time when it was made?
In the historic museums we don’t look at the original work but essentially we look at the “operated leg”.
Perhaps in some cases you are confused and don’t know on what are you looking at. For example, a carrying construction is sometimes so central, that you could be certain that the hang- ing construction is the “main work” and the main work is just accompanying the main work (in this case a carrying construc- tion).
Or when you look at a main work “accompanied” by the car- rying construction which was made from different materials,
in some later period and with new technologies. The question arises, are we looking to an ancient work, a modern work or an eclectic work?
In one of the spaces in the Bode Museum, inside a glass case there is a small sculpture of the child Christ looking at the opposite wall where a painting of the crucifixion of Jesus and several sculptures of the crucified Jesus are hanging on their crosses one next to the other. So is child Jesus looking at his one death or his several deaths?
Some meters behind the child Christ, there are several sculp- tures of baby Jesus in the arms of Mother Mary. They are all looking at the crucifixion. This repetition of Jesus and Mary is not only the copying of people but also the copying of events. What happens when we change the perspective and observe from the perspective of the crucified Jesus and what he is looking at?
The question which comes as a consequence is: where is our (observer) positioned e in these “Observations”?
We are not consciously aware of how the scenes that we see in a museum tour are morbid and macabre.
Destroying means building something different. Without de- stroying so many buildings and collecting so many works from them, it wouldn’t be possible to build spaces in these constel- lations.
In a museum all the works are numbered. Sometimes the numbers are in invisible places and sometimes they are openly visible on the sculpture. Some works have old paper stickers with numbers and letters on them, or they have been stamped. These stamps on the sculptures look similar to the branding on cattle.
One of the most interesting visual effects that can be observed on a restored work is when the work is restored using the same material (like marble, for example) but not the exact same nu- ance and structure. The different nuances and structure leave quite an irritating aftertaste.
There are examples when insects have eaten the wood and made holes in the sculpture.
There are cases in museums where Jesus Christ is attached to the cross with a nails. Painted fake blood runs from his hands and feet. Up to that point everything is ok. But several centime- ters behind the nails, there are screws visible which attach the cross to the wall.
Where does reality end and fiction begin?
Through this kind of hanging, attaching or exhibiting form, the works acquire completely different meanings and can be interpreted in many different ways.
When we rationally look and analyze these spaces, we come to the conclusion that what we are looking at is definitely some- thing else than the titles and texts close to the works.
The marvelous thing is that we don’t look or think of them in
Të gjitha këto vepra të vjetra arti, pak a shumë të dëmtuara që shohim në muzetë e historisë vijnë kryesisht nga ndërtesa të ndryshme të shenjta të mbarë botës. Kjo do të thotë se ato dikur ishin bërë nga kultura të ndryshme, vende të ndryshme në kohëra të ndryshme.
Me kalimin e kohës, këto vepra u hoqën ose u vodhën nga
këto ndërtesa dhe u sollën në muzetë e historisë (institucionet jo-fetare) ku ne tani mund t’i shohim ato. Dhe ndërtesat që këto vepra dikur ishin pjesë e tyre nuk ekzistojnë më, ose ekzistojnë, por tani shërbejnë për qëllime të ndryshme, ose nuk janë më në zotërim të këtyre punëve për arsye të ndryshme.
Këto vepra do të duhej të ishin nëpër fasada, altarë dhe ato nuk do të duhej të ekspozoheshin në mes të dhomës si skulptura. Ato nuk u bënë që të vëzhgohen nga niveli i njëjtë / i barabartë, ku vëzhguesi mund të ecë përreth dhe të shikojë skulpturën. Vëzhguesi (besimtari), duhej t’i shikonte nga poshtë, sepse këto vepra përshkruanin perënditë ose krijesa të shenjta * *.
Në fakt, ka pasur shumë faktorë të jashtëm dhe të ndryshëm të cilët kanë ndikuar në gjendjen aktuale të skulpturave ose objek- teve. Nga krijimi i veprës deri në ditët e sotme, këto vepra janë ndikuar nga dukuritë natyrore (tërmetet, rrëshqitjet e tokës, at- mosfera dhe ndryshimeve klimatike), ose nga faktorët njerëzorë (shkatërrimet individual ose të atyre në masë)
Ne kryesisht nuk e dimë se si këto vepra u dëmtuan, ose kur apo pse. Ka shumë arsye të ndryshme pse njerëzit e bënin këtë: ato fetare (Iconoclast), kulturore, ekonomike dhe psikologjike ose të gjithë së bashku (lufta).
Por çfarë do të ndodhte nëse të gjitha këto ndërtesa do të ekzistonin akoma dhe gjitha veprat e artit të ishin ende brenda tyre – a do të kishim muze? Nëse po, si do të dukeshin?
that way, because we are in the “historic mode”, we look at them more as kinds of artifacts of the past. Thus, this is our “reality” in that moment.
We pay money to go inside the museum to learn about things, that we didn’t see or know before.
There are ancient cities which are now overgrown with grass, and turned into pastures for sheep and cattle, and there are those submerged in deep waters among the fish and the corals. What do these animals think or see when they look at the ruins and damaged sculptures? How interesting would it be to know their opinion!
* The title of the work is Destroy “Art”. The reason why the word art is under quotation marks is because these objects, which we now consider them as art, were first made as religious objects. Maybe in the coming time, what we call art will be defined differently and will be seen/put in a different context. **
a) We can also conclude that some of them were made to be observed only from the front
b) We have cases in which sculptures look unfinished from
the back, or they are empty behind or in some cases look like contemporary artwork.
The sculpture of Mary Magdalene from the front looks like a sculpture of a woman from the middle ages and when you look around you see that from the back it’s just a big hole. You can see which material is she real made of (in this case from wood). So you don’t see Mary anymore but Mary and the material of which is she made.