***  Haus der Kulturen der Welt: Forum1 Archive  ***
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   [Date]: Sat, 16 Oct 1999 09:52:07 +0200
   [From]: Pat Binder <pat@uinic.de>
     [To]: Cultural Exchange via Internet <forum1@hkw.kbx.de>
[Subject]: Re: The Humberto Nilo Case with translation

Dear friends,

Humberto Nilo had to quit for the 3rd time his teaching position at the
University of Chile's Faculty of Arts. During the last years the now
reelected deacon Luis Merino Montero, following sinister ideological
threads, has been eliminating all staff that criticizes his "plan" of
imposing a biased esthetical criteria of art creation and teaching, with
the goal of standardizing and eliminating particular kind of knowledge
which could be dangerous not only for his ideological project but also
for a logical reflection and comparison that students could undertake
with respect to what they are and what is actually going on in all the
diversity of artistic making. 

As for myself, I was an art student under the military regime in
Argentina, now I am living in Berlin. I graduated when my country got
back to democracy. All the stories of horror that came to light after
that, I could only deal with, through an artistic dialogue with the
ideas of Joseph Beuys, and the fresh and innocent way of approaching the
art by the kids in my own art teaching classes. (works from that time
can be seen at: http://pat-binder.de/es/art1/index.html - or the version in German http://pat-binder.de/de/art1/index.html)

I would like to express my support for Humberto Nilo by contributing
with the translation of the letter he wrote for his students of art when
he left the Faculty (any improvements of it by English native speakers
is more than welcome):

"I think that no expression or particular teaching of art is in
possession of the absolute truth. By no means we can accept that any
form of expression would have the authority to perform hegemony upon its
peers or to position itself over other activities of human knowledge or
actions. To understand this gives us the multiterritorial measure to
create and to assume the responsibility that our relationship with Art
is also a great deal of community commitment and of communication.
Therefore we must take on, build and warrant respect for Pluralism, for
diversity of simultaneous worlds which enrich our dialogue;  respect for
freedom to explore different positions, to choose them and to classify
them. Our doing is no more than the continuation and part of the
ancestral search of humankind to understand, to know and take territory
in the objective and subjective, to cautiously visualize the immediate
and secure the transcendental.

I believe that the Art and Artist sustain their dignity as such, as far
as there exists commitment and will consistent with the environment,
with a sensitive communication and a rigorous ethical clarity.  In this
way Art deserves who is practicing it, and who takes in the utopias, the
unsatisfied hopes, questions and all that fantastic and magic world we
develop in the making of visual work....

I believe in the Art as expression which aspires to create a state of
consciousness and improvement of the spirit. It is a territory which is
shared, co-inspired and empowered by those of us who not only believe
the presence and rescue of our memory, tradition and history as
relevant, but also by sharing the necessity of finding new means and
frontiers to speak about what affects us in this contemporary world"


best wishes 

pat binder
http://pat-binder.de