***  Haus der Kulturen der Welt: Forum1 Archive  ***
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   [Date]: Fri, 01 Oct 1999 20:42:32 +0200
   [From]: beral madra <btmadra@turk.net>
     [To]: "forum1@hkw.kbx.de" <forum1@hkw.kbx.de>
[Subject]: answer to catherine mc govern's question

Dear Friends,

Since 17th of August, the night of the earthquake we are in deep
distress. We could not enjoy the Biennale, not onlybecause of the
earthquake but also because it is not integrated into the context of
Turkey; it did not get down to the enormous events happening here since
a year. Judging from the concept and works one would think: "Art
pretends not to see the reality!". After I have seen the exhibitions I
did not regret that I wrote the following text for
http://www.clubmedia.de. I hope this gives you an idea about what is
happening in Turkey. The dialogue and freedom in our Forum seems to be
exemplary. I hope it will go on...



THESAURUS IS A TREASURE

Thesaurus is a treasure. A glance at the entry for "earthquake" will
vomit to one's face that all the words related to it almost explain
everything that has happened and is happening in Turkey. Reciprocating
motion, tremor, agitation, disturbance, violence, flux and reflux,
shake, shiver, attack, stroke, shudder, eruption, change, blow up,
outbreake, outburst, disruption, breaking out, disorder, tumult, fury,
transition, blast, epidemic etc. 

Earthquake is a well-known issue in Turkey; since more than fifty years
three generations of people from different regions of Turkey have
experienced it with pain and sorrow. The memory of earthquakes are still
vivid and sore. Yet this one was quite different. It was not only the
outburst of an enormous power pending in an impassable time and the
outbreak of an unfamiliar fear and anxiety, but also the emergence of a
bewildered but inevitable awareness.

The energy waves throw away with violence the gangrenous cement
dwellings together with the supremacy of the violent movements of the
Capital and destroyed the confidence in the "sacrosanct" Nation-state
and in ist commanding bureaucratic apparatus. If Freud's "unheimliche"
(uncanny) is well-founded and convincing, one can imagine that 30000
people were the martyrs for a revelation, for an awakening from a
suffocating dream. So far, many of us keep on hoping that this disaster
will teach the people not to surrender and succumb to the frauds and
deceptive manipulations of the State apparatus.

The help from other countries was enormous and generous; the people have
embraced the rescue teams with affection. Greek and Israel teams were
the most popular and the most welcome. Yet, the damage and the
catastrophe was beyond all imagination. It will take quite a time to
restore the cities and heal the hearts and minds of the people. 
There is a one month mourning in Turkey, all activities and festivities
are cancelled except the Biennale. It is surprising that for the first
time a contemporary art event is treated as a serious undertaking and
not as an entertainment. It is announced that 20 artists have
contributed works to an auction and the income will be donated to the
victims of the earthquake.

A year ago, when he came to Istanbul, the artistic director of the
Biennale Paolo Colombo would not have imagined that his concept "Passion
and Wave" would be an ironic interlude to the catastrophe of the
earthquake. We hope that the waves of the earthquake will not sweep his
optimistic/humanistic/poetic concept away.

Unfortunately, optimism and humanism cannot elucidate the ongoing debate
among the macroscopic and microscopic elements of the global art scene.
Lately there was a crucial question in the internet forum of the Haus
der Kulturen der Welt. Catherine McGovern was indicating that there is a
question that keeps coming up for her- in fact for everybody-: What are
the implications, problems, issues surrounding the idea of organisations
or individuals from the West going to developing countries to implicate
themselves in art projects, as collaborators, educators, technical
advisers, etc?

In the context of this question the following three issues should be
discussed and negotiated:

1. To face and admit the imparity of the art systems between the
developed and developing art scenes, to disclose the conflicts and
deficits within and among the systems, and to give equal chance of
speech and expression to the representing organisations and individuals.

2. To reflect on Beuys' words: "Injustice characterizes all markets,
including the art market. It is a consequence of the capitalistic
system, which should be abolished. However, we do not yet have a method
for doing this. Capitalism has the word freedom on the tip of its
tongue, affirming that it works for man's freedom, which is why it
cannot be trusted." (in Art Talk, The Early 80s, Edited by Jeanne
Siegel, New York: Da Capo Press, 1988, pp. 77-84)

3. To consider that there are numerous artists within both systems who
are not gratifying the current policies of the organisations or
individuals from the developed art scenes. What is left undiscussed,
unquestioned is exactly the market processes that reinforce the
author(ity) and the power of the curators. In the peripheral countries,
the hegemonic developmentalist ideologies (in their neo-liberal
disguise), in the name of the Development and the capital accumulation,
enthusiastically applaud and welcome the Multinational Capital. It is
true that the Capital does not have a nation and Capital is Capital.
And precisely for this reason, all types of Capital should be questioned
and regulated and the social fabric should protected from the violence
of the markets and the Capital. However, the very logic of Multinational
Capital defies control and regulation: The Multinational Capital flows
towards the periphery precisely because it hopes to evade the social
control that has been imposed on it in the Centre. Futhermore, the
possibility of the Capital to flow away from the Centre towards the
periphery, also known as the capital flight, enables the Capital to be
much less vulnerable to the questioning in the Centre.

It is an imperative to investigate, question and deconstruct the
intricate and complex linkages between the art market and the structural
economic processes of the Multinational Capitalism. The Biennal of a
post-peripheral regional centre like Istanbul should be different from
the biennals of the Centre. It should be instead treated not like the
showcase of the so many "humanist" curators' personal speculations at
random, but should precisely question the violence of the markets, the
showcase itself, the modes of articulation of art and the cultures of
consumption, and the claims of author(ity) of the curators. In an era in
which artists names are turning into brand-names, one way to resist to
this process is to turn our faces away from star- or hero-artists
towards the discourses that are carried by many nameless artists who are living and working all around the world, both in the peripheries in the centers and
the centers of the periphery. 

BERAL MADRA/ AUGUST 1999