Anh Do - The Happiest Refugee

The Happiest Refugee is one of those unique unputdownable stories which forces its way to the top of your already long list of priorities and engulfs your time and imagination until you have reached its conclusion. In the midst of one very busy week, I found myself relegating many of my other more important, yet far less interesting, tasks to the side and losing myself in the beautiful tale of Australian comedian Anh Do’s life.

Do’s story is that of thousands of migrant Australian families, including my own. Trapped in a life of poverty and hopelessness, under a merciless Communist regime, young Mama and Papa Do had no choice but to risk their lives and that of their extended family’s, to escape to a better country. So 40 men, women and children snuck out onto the open sea before dawn, into a dingy nine-metre long boat, to make the harrowing journey away from Vietnam. They eventually make it to Australia where they are confronted (yes, confronted, as it’s all too much to take in) by a world of hope, opportunity, generosity and small pleasures that they never imagined. Most amusing is the lucky discovery of St. Vinnies, where you can get a bag full of clothes for almost nothing, even jeans for your toddler. “What a great country!” is a phrase often repeated throughout the narrative, as the family revel in their new life.

Of course, life for a migrant family in Australia is anything but easy, particularly when education and English are key requirements of many good jobs. So, like many of our own migrant parents, Anh’s were forced to take whatever money-making opportunities they could find in order to create a better future for their children. But while such tales of hardship, displacement and loneliness could be told with self-pity and exasperation, Anh recounts his family’s day-to-day struggles with humorous anecdotes that reveal lessons learned the tough way, and how most things invariably work out. Interwoven with these stories are heart-warming and humbling tales about the tiny pleasures we take for granted, what Anh calls “little windfalls of luck”. Like when, as a teenager, Anh discovers a voucher in the mail for 50-cent Big Macs at Yagoona McDonald’s, with a limit of four per voucher. Having not had Maccas for years, due to his family’s financial situation, the Dos had hit the jackpot and went around to the neighbours to gather more vouchers. Armed with six, the family drove to McDonald’s, purchased the 24 Big Macs and Anh and his two younger siblings shared a banquet which they still reminisce about today. Or even more touching is the time when Anh found a green chip in his packet of crisps, sent it back for a refund on the off chance that he might redeem his couple of bucks, and got sent a humungous box of chips as compensation. For the next week, he had the same chips as everybody else at school, and as he recounts, “For a week I was normal.”

However, there are some stories that are too painful, too humiliating in their desperation for even a comedian to sugar coat. Like the time his mother was sick in bed, but insisted on getting up to finish sewing the garments for delivery the next day. As he helped his mother to her sewing table, Anh describes the horrible shame of “secretly hoping she would go on, keep sewing, even at the risk of her becoming seriously ill. The fear of having no money was so merciless and so overwhelming.”

Overall, and as we know, this tale has a happy ending. Anh goes on to achieve the dream of many migrant parents – for their child to be offered a high-paying job, in this case it is as a lawyer for a top firm – only to turn his back on it to pursue a career as a comedian. The idea of a Vietnamese migrant comedian is so funny that it can only be true. And Anh does achieve the fame and fortune he needs to give his mother family a better life.

Do’s storytelling is simple but captivating – like talking to a mate over beers. His story isn’t remarkable in any kind of splendid way; it is the story of so many young Australians from a migrant family who witness the cultural, social and financial struggles of their parents and commit to forging a different future for themselves. But it is in this ordinariness that Do captures the collective experience of an entire generation of people. The ordinariness is only made incredible (to Do and his siblings at the time, and to us now) through the stark juxtaposition between Anh and his North Sydney private school peers. His is a relatable tale that, as the daughter of migrants who came to this country when I was five, took me back to the ‘poor stories’ (as one of my Eastern suburbs friends calls them) of my own childhood, but cast them in the humour, warmth and simplicity in which they occurred. We didn’t have much, but at least we had fun and were creative with what we had. I think that’s the experience of most migrant children, and Do captures that naivety and innocence, while being honest about the hardships his family endured. It truly is a great read, and a part of Australian social history that is rarely acknowledged in literature or art, but completely indelible in the character of our country. [Image from http://www.thereadingroom.com/]

Arts Interview - Bridget Smyth

Another artsinterview piece with Bridget Smyth, Director of Design at the City of Sydney. The topic was Diversity. http://artsinterview.com/2011/11/28/arts-interview-bridget-smyth/

Two Highlights from the 12th Istanbul Biennial

Nicolas Bacal, The Geometry of Space-Time After You, 2010
This work directly references Gonzalez-Torres’ iconic Untitled (Perfect Lovers) (1991) with two clocks in separate parts of the biennial and just a minute hand signifying the endless passing of time. The word ‘vos’ (Spanish for ‘you’) is repeated around the edges of the clocks’ faces. Bacal describes the work as “ridiculously romantic”; whether in its representation of love, frozen or eternal time, or simply the obsession with one person. The class presentation by Anna and Jess also examined this work from a similarly positive, quixotic perspective. What is worth considering, however, is the possibility of cynicism contained in this work. Gonzalez-Torres’ clocks were side-by-side, touching, but eventually fell out of sync as one ‘died away’ before the other, suggesting a physical end to their love. Bacal’s clocks are placed outside the white (and grey) cube, are separated, and do not show any passing of time, just an obsessive preoccupation with an ambiguous ‘vos’. Even though Bacal’s is hopelessly romantic, the love that is signified here perhaps never exists outside the boundaries of the clock faces. After all, they are not in sync, and the artist initially intended for numerous clocks to be displayed in disparate locations throughout the biennial, something that would undermine the ‘couple’ metaphor. Furthermore, the minute hands futilely run around in circles, chasing after the elusive ‘vos’, but sadly never finding each other. [Image from http://12b.iksv.org/en/sololar.asp?id=11&show=gorsel]

Ahmet Ogut, Perfect Lovers, 2008
A work which wholly and beautifully captures the entire spirit and conceptual credo of the biennial is Perfect Lovers, another powerful appropriation of Gonzalez-Torres’ clocks. It presents a one Euro and two Turkish Lira coin (the same size), side-by-side and encased in a black velvet-lined vitrine. The work captures the desire to fuse minimalist aesthetics with political concerns, which here holds more substance than the combined worth of the coins, but is lighter, more poetic than their combined weight. This is a work which is grounded in the political and completely dependent on an imbalanced and constantly shifting geo-political context for its continually-renewed interpretation. Created in 2008, the two coins are, of course, never ‘perfect lovers’. Instead, the fluctuating struggles within their turbulent relationship are entirely dependent on the oscillating power relations between the European Union and Turkey. Ironically, this kind of tempestuous chemistry could make them the perfect lovers, depending on the audience’s understanding of love and relationships. The endless interpretative possibilities, along with the layers of meaning encased within this small vitrine, between these two unassuming coins, make this artwork the most powerful and effective in the 12th Istanbul Biennial. [Image from http://www.ahmetogut.com/ahmetwebperfect.html]

Untitled (12th Istanbul Biennial)

The 12th Istanbul Biennial is a quiet and contained exhibition which rejects the seduction of the spectacle characteristic of most biennials. In line with its institutional departure, the show’s grounding in the work and practice of artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres establishes a solid and unique conceptual framework. Untitled (12th Istanbul Biennial) is divided into five sections, each also ‘Untitled’ followed by a description in parentheses. This emulates Gonzalez-Torres’ naming practices in order to instil a sense of timelessness and never-ending possibilities for meaning-making. The underpinning premise of the biennial is to invest life and politics into a minimalist aesthetic in the spirit of Gonzlaez-Torres’ understated creations; deceptively sparse, yet teeming with political potency. Curators Jens Hoffman and Adriano Pedrosa have revived this method of art making in a concentrated and tightly-curated exhibition thematically linked to specific works of Gonzalez-Torres’.

Untitled (Abstraction) contains works which complicate the sterile environments of Minimalism and the Modernist grid with elements of the social, political, personal, historical and, quite simply, the everyday. The works in this section appear to unravel abstraction, inject it with subjectivity, and then reconstitute it as a strange and provocative hybrid. Works such as Geta Bratescu’s Vistigli from 1978 and Lygia Clark’s Bicho sculptures from the 1960s retrace a history of art which effectively infused elements of the everyday into essentially abstract forms, thus blurring the divisions between the two.
Themes of love, loss, homosexuality and the AIDS epidemic are explored in Untitled (Ross), the section named after Gonzalez-Torres’ candy spill work. This section abounds with quite literal and anthropomorphic interpretations of gay love, along with works which directly reference Gonzalez-Torres’ presentations of this idea, including Kutlug Ataman’s Forever. However, there are also some noteworthy pieces, including ceramics from the Ardmour Ceramic Studio in rural South Africa which depart from the more self-indulgent pieces. Made by locals, these depict didactic narratives, presented in a series of confronting literal and symbolic images, to educate locals about HIV and AIDS awareness.

Untitled (Passport) envisages new ways of looking at the world and understanding its physical, political and psychological boarders. Works such as Ataman’s Su and Kirsten Pieroth’s Weltkarte (Map of the World) completely subvert the imagined boarders of identity and political geography in order to reinterpret these constructs. Meanwhile, solo presentations like Simon Evans’ deal with the quest (and inability) to locate identity within an increasingly globalised and disjointed world through playful panderings to obsessive idiosyncrasies.

The writing, rewriting and non-writing of history are played out in Untitled (History) which explores the tasks of recording, censoring and interpreting the past. This section presents contemporary artists who reflect on history and its constructions. Works like Julieta Aranda’s plexiglass cube containing pulverised 20th century history books, as well as Claire Fontaine’s replacement of Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle with a brick are anarchic acts which undermine Western practices of empirical recording of knowledge and events. Furthermore, Taysir Batniji’s Suspended Time is a metonymic freezing of history by presenting an hourglass on its side – static and unchanged.

Finally, Untitled (Death by Gun) concludes the biennial on a sombre and disconcerting note. Many of the works in this section were made before Gonzalez-Torres’ time, and thus trace a timeline of gun violence and its portrayal through visual media as far back as the American Civil War. The proliferation of gun violence and the social apathy which now accompanies it is reflected through the plethora of gory, gruesome and graphic images. The fact that much of the audience are merely ‘unsettled’ by these images attests to our engrained societal desensitisation, and hence inaction, to such violent subject matter. It is a fitting conclusion to an overall thoughtful, stirring and dramatically understated exhibition.

In a rapidly expanding art world that is being invaded by biennials, art fairs and overblown international events, it is easy to lose (or never even gain) the thrill of an exhibition in the attitude of ‘yet another biennial’. Untitled (12th Istanbul Biennial) has snapped art world inhabitants out of their biennial sugar coma with a heavy dose of thoughtful, unassuming and compelling contemporary art. Its grounding in the works and philosophies of Felix Gonzalez-Torres offers a fresh and effective way of conceptualising biennials. It steps away from the acutely political, and embraces the artist’s whimsical spirit, injecting the biennial model with what Pedrosa calls, “a sort of poetic angle that maybe enchants and enlightens you, maybe makes you think differently about the world.” This ambition has been achieved with integrity and humility in what many are referring to as an ‘intellectual biennial’; an exhibition which effectively stimulates the interaction between abstraction and politics, formalism and subjectivity, high art and the everyday. Above that, the exhibition has reintroduced an important artist and a provocative, and enduring, concept of art making to a new generation, a new century, of arts practitioners. That is the gift of Untitled (12th Istanbul Biennial).

There are way too many artworks for me to share all the images. So check out the Biennial website for artwork images http://12b.iksv.org/en/sololar.asp

Jay Z - Decoded

Jay Z’s Decoded is part autobiography, part ode to hip-hop and all heart. Unlike most autobiographies, which continue chronologically in an almost obsessive attempt to get all the stories in, Jay Z shares the pages of his life with the history of hip-hop, insights into the impoverished world of his youth, and a deep-seated respect for the artform which makes this world liveable. The goal here is not just to tell the story of his life, but to properly contextualise it in the binary worlds of poverty and desperation, followed by unimaginable riches and fame.

Jay Z recounts his life in the projects with a system that not only didn’t care about his situation, but preferred to pretend that that sector of society simply did not exist. It was within this neglected environment that hip-hop found relevance and Jay Z discovered his talent at the tender age of 12. However talent means nothing when you’re struggling to get by in life. So rather than fully committing himself to rhyming (and hence allowing the impossible dream of becoming a rapper), at 15 little Shawn Carter hit the streets of Brooklyn to hustle and eke out a living. He continued along this path well into his 20s with significant success. But the love of hip hop and rap kept their hold on him as he allowed himself intermittent forays into that game. When Jay Z finally decided to leave the hustler life for the rap game, he pursues that passion with the same hustler spirit and determination that got him the cars and the bling in his previous life.

Parallel to this captivating story is a careful and thorough dissection of hip-hop; its history, misunderstood public perception, status as a political scape-goat, and most importantly, its effects on all types of audiences. Jay Z successfully imparts a deep, respectful understanding of hip-hop. He unpacks the myriad of (uninformed) criticisms towards it and recasts it in the light that its creators and supporters see. In a discussion on some of the original MCs and hip-hop artists like KRS-One, Poor Righteous Teachers, Queen Latifah and much more, Jay Z outlines the way their music – through its brutally honest, visceral nature – changed some of the negative mentality of the hood. He writes:

The hip-hop generation never gets credit for it, but those songs changed things in the hood. They were political commentary, but they weren’t based on theory or books. They were based on reality, on close observation of the world we grew up in. The songs weren’t moralistic, but they created a stigma around certain kinds of behaviour, just by describing them truthfully and with clarity.

Such powerful defences and explanations were only strengthened by the ‘decoding’ of many of the rappers own songs. Indeed, a unique feature of this autobiography is the intense breakdown of many of Jay Z’s songs (both the popular and obscure ones); the poetic techniques that went into them, the stories behind them, and the messages they impart onto the world.

Thrown in with the biography and intense discussions of hip hop is an overall contextualisation of the political and cultural reality of American society. Jay Z is unabashed and candid about the political and cultural roots of much of the social neglect that is imposed on underprivileged groups in America. And he is not shy to point the finger at the specific individuals who either encouraged the deterioration of his world, or simply turned a blind eye, pointing to governmental policies that were “genocidally hostile” by aiding or tolerating the unleashing of guns and drugs onto poor communities while simultaneously cutting back on schools, housing and assistance programs.

What Jay Z has effectively done is paint a holistic picture of the nature of America in his lifetime, placing hip-hop at the climax of this story. But rather than glorifying or hyping it up with colourful hyperbole, Jay Z simply re-establishes hip-hop’s rightful place in music, society and politics. It’s a noble endeavour which he achieves with integrity and honesty, delving into every crevice and niche of hip-hop, not only unearthing its gems but also exposing its many flaws. The book is underscored by an exceptional writing ability – which is unsurprising given the complexity and technical sophistication of his raps – passion and conviction which are contagious and heartfelt. One walks away with a profound respect for the hip-hop form materially and for its ability (when done correctly) to incite social change and revolution. Above all, I walked away with a deep admiration of Jay Z; his compelling story, uncompromised social consciousness, and amazing ability to manipulate language and storytelling. [Image from: http://thatsenuff.com]