German artist Gregor Schneider has designed "a 46-foot cube made of scaffolding covered in black fabric," apparently "inspired by the Ka'ba in Mecca, the holiest site of Islam." It is part of a larger show, in Hamburg, called “Homage to Malevich" - yet the piece might offend Muslims, so it was turned down by the Venice Biennale. More at The Art Newspaper. So did we learn nothing from "Piss Christ" or Chris Ofili or even Marilyn Manson? | Earlier.
42 Comments
Geoff, there was a restaurant in Philly on 3rd Street called "Serrano" - I could never walk by and read their sign without picturing a glass of urine. Not appetizing.
Frightening image... But that'd be top of the line cuisine for Philadelphia, I think.
Maybe we should open a restaurant called "Piss Christ"?
what were we suppose to have learned from those pieces geoff?
Was Andres Serrano a Muslim?
Not that I'm aware of, Orhan.
John, the three examples I cite above are all cases in which a religion was offended, and so the Left came out in support of the artist - not of the religion. However, the tide seems to have turned.
So my implication here is that previous art controversies should have revealed that something will always offend a religion somewhere; and that, if we would protect the right of an artist to offend Christianity, then it would seem rather illiberal of us - not to mention hypocritical - to do everything in our power not to offend Islam.
But I'm curious what you think about this, John - especially if you think that offending Islam is somehow inherently right-wing. Is it? If so, how? Is it left-wing to challenge Christianity, but right-wing to challenge Islam? Or does it come down to who is doing the offending and what their motivations are?
For instance, if Gregor Schneider had built a model of the Vatican, and it had thus been rejected by the Venice Biennale because it might offend Christians, what would you think of that?
Similarly, if a Muslim artist were to build a fake manger to make fun of Jesus's birth, would you want to ban it because it might offend someone?
i think being critical of something should be conducted through an introspective process and not in an outward critique of the other. who am I to critique islam? i don't know enough about it to be critical. i think it comes down to a condition between blasphemy which is an extreme action to hurt the other where it hurts most. now I would suggest, a real critique should be an internal act of analyzing our own hypocrisies.
now the piss jesus from serrano's own writing's is an extremely personal and internal critique of his own relationship to this iconography--in my mind this isn't blasphemy in the same way the danish cartoon issue was, which in my mind more than anything unearths the true face of danish racism. those cartoons weren't published to critique islam they were produced to target denmark's own islamic minority population.
furthermore I would argue that the homage to malevich doesn't necessary have anything to do with islam directly because the actual sheet covering the sacred object isn't the thing of worship. what does this art work offer on the level you are presupposing or rather as the media has constructed the argument...i find this whole position to be somewhat difficult to even discuss because I don't see them aligned as you position them.
non muslim are banned from entering mecca. i always wondered how this is enforced?
i think the curators are better counterparts to question about the mock up kabe.
there is definitely some provocative moves by the europeans on muslim traditions. is west or chiristianity on a mission to teach to muslims what is acceptable?
i tell you why curators cancelled the show, because they are told by the politicians and muslim governments, warning their leaders that it might cost them a lot of money and they are afraid that a violent bomb might go off in the middle of the market place somewhere in the western world. what is so mysterious geoff?
stop tiptoeing around the subject matter and get to the point my friend. do christians feel that muslims have to learn something. if so, what?
It's not that I think Christians need to teach Muslims anything, is that I think the political Left has something to teach to both of them.
I'm also saying, as you imply, Orhan, that the Left shouldn't abandon its principles of free, secular self-expression when confronted with a religion that might retaliate against it physically.
But, John, I just don't buy the idea that you can't critique something if you're not a member of it. I can't help but point out how this, in very obvious ways, is incompatible with political liberalism. The implication is that you have no right to critique neoconservatism unless you're a neoconservative - or that you can't critique Condoleezza Rice unless you're a black woman. Or you can't critique the actions of the Israeli state because you're neither an Israeli nor a Jew. By that same logic, who are you to critique the Christian Right and their anti-abortion stance - unless you're a fundamentalist Christian? What about the Tiananmen Square massacre, or the invasion of East Timor?
Islam is not "the Other." As long as you act like it's the Other - and thus protected by a kind of diplomatic immunity, beyond the fires of political critique - then you're like the Reagan Administration: befriending dictators because it's more convenient than sticking to your principles.
So if there is a "lesson" in this, I think it's that Islam is part of the West now - it is the Right who states otherwise! - and so, if Islam is given the right to shut down art installations, then surely we should be wary of permitting this? How is this different from Christianity demanding that nude statues get covered with fig leaves?
Christianity and Islam are both part of the West now, so they're both open to liberal political critique.
So I simply don't think that you can write off everything that offends Islam as being right-wing or reactionary. I truly believe that.
i would agree with that last bit, but think what i'm attempting to say is that we must question why someone is putting forth such critiques. i have my opinions and positions to these issues, but i'd rather focus on my owe countrymen and the people who share my cultural cooridinates (this would include neo-conservatives). i think attempting to impose a position on to a different cultural order brings you to a position of more reaction. i believe internal pressures happen to work better for social change than external ones.
And, just for the record, I'm not trying to accuse you of being "right-wing"; I'm just pointing out that excusing the religious censorship of art puts one on a very slippery slope.
I just find it can be useful to ask: if followers of Pat Robertson were setting fire to Syrian embassies because of a cartoon, produced in Damascus, that ridiculed Jesus, would I be alarmed and think that they were all morons? If followers of Pat Robertson were demanding that the publication of a book of Palestinian poetry, that accuses Christianity of violence and barbarism, be stopped, would I be alarmed? Of course I would be.
And yet, for some reason, when the religions are inverted, the political Left suddenly defends that religion's right to be offended. So what is that? Why is that happening?
i'm not defending any of that. i would just question what the tenets of posing such a position are. i support free speech, but free speech for whom to do what? there must be some element of tact and positioning by you and I to what these things mean in our current situation.
My last comment crossed yours in the ether.
So, in response to your comment of 3:27pm, what I'm saying is that Islam is part of your cultural coordinates. It is part of American and European life.
As long as you pretend that Islam is this Other thing that you can't talk about, you're excusing the same behavior that you would condemn in the Christian Right. You thus forgive, overlook, or even condone thuggish right-wing extremism. Which is what I meant when I wrote that "friends of dictators" comment.
Islam is part of life in Europe and the United States. It is a religious system like Christianity or Judaism or Buddhism. It's not the Other.
no you're wrong. my critique is being hijacked by your owe positioning. islam isn't of interest to me therefore I don't have any need to critique it. furthermore, i find that most critiques are running on the emotional fuel of today's events and not looking at underlying issues. i think you have to have an understanding of something to make a potent critique otherwise your just creating spectacle. your position is diluted in that it creates divisiveness on the level of questioning abstraction. my points are more at the level of context what was the original position of the danish publishers? the fact that a bunch of people a thousand-miles away is not the issue to me. its the danish muslims why didn't they riot? you want to compare macro and micro as though they are exact. as though the context of the danish cartoons can be analyzed with a board brush...as though the whole event is equal. i'm interested in the initiation of the act itself and not the spectacle.
Fair enough.
I stand by all my comments, though, and simply do not think that the religious censorship of art is a good idea. I don't give a shit who it offends - nor do I care if it's the Christians or the Muslims who are doing the censoring.
I also think denying that Islam is a part of Euro-American culture - which appears to be what you mean when you say to me, "no you're wrong" - might not have the effect you were hoping for.
in addition, i would agree with your basic premise of islam in american and europe as being part of the context however i don't see how that fundamentally brings this into the equation of making it a known. i don't critique the tenets of buddhism or judaism either...they still remain within a position of the other...
i would also suggest that someone like eyal wiezmann and his civilian occupation critique have more resonance because he is an israeli.
so considering your last statement 4:13 pm racist art of black people in america or antisemitism art in germany or iran is to be defended? it works both ways under your logic! why stop there? and since you are arguing a zizek position I would counter with one of his other tenets "democracy is also about exclusion"
but it 'is' the other. in fact islam is often the 'enemy'.
'west' can talk about islam but usually in not very profound ways.
why are all the people in guantanomo muslims? only 10% of them charged with anything after five years. enemy combatants my ass. they mostly are there because they fit the pentegon manuals' description. there was a guy around here, patrick marcesano, he went as far as posting words short of declaring war on muslims. he represents the majority think, not like the leftist humanitarians like you and i, geoff. 9/11 was not the beginning of all this. you know this better.
europeans and their off springs like north americans and australians will not accept muslims as their western parts. at least for a looong time.
and guess what? the backlash of that is all over the muslim world today. do you know muslim nationalism is on the rise in previously unseen levels?
are we naive to expect that muslims are going to love us and feel part of our world regardless of iraq, afganistan, palestine and balkans and elsewhere?
you are either ultra liberal or too optimistic to think islam should be open to western criticism when they are still digging up mass graves in bosnia and kosova from as recent as ten years ago.
if it wasn't for the guestworker programs, reversed immigration from the former colonies and illegal immigration, there would be only five or six muslims in europe with the exception of the former ottoman teritories.
islam is the fastest growing religion right now. don't you think that itself constitutes alarming actions and reactions? plus they have now start to represent the world's disowned and opressed and they are politically militant.
any western corporation bringing their own money to seemingly friendly muslim countries are making big mistakes right now. dynamics of islamic realm is still a mystery to much of the 'west' and these corporations with their archaic thinking (classic imperialist expansionist way of doing business) are going to be left in the hot desert when the existing momentum islamic politics and way of life picks up even more speed.
i just start to realize how huge the stakes are in iraq.
i apoligize geoff and john. i did not edited my random flow of thoughts and hit you guys with bunch of questions and perhaps non linear writing here.
no problem that is exactly what i do...
The muslim question in the world is of the moment. Art has the potential to tread where mere polemic withers. This is a blessing in the current context.
Whatever one may think of Gregor Schneider's motives for constructing the piece one could easily argue that Malevich is overshadowed by the pregnant connotations of this cube. This is regrettable for both artists.
Self-censorship is also regrettable, as expressed here by the Venice Biennale. Where I'm coming from the judiciary is a check against questionable examples of freedom of expression. A more than sufficient check in my estimation. Everything else is within the purview of the chattering class, as exemplified in the charged exchanges found here.
'muslim question'? wtf. buddy, cough.
welcome to the chattering class orhan!
John, my feeling here - and I know you think these analogies just "hijack" your position, so please disagree with me here - is that if the city of Hamburg banned homosexuality because it might offend Muslims, then you wouldn't care... but if Hamburg banned homosexuality because it was offensive to Christians, then you would care?
Further, if Islam is not part of Europe, as you said earlier, and if external pressures to change a culture only breed resentment, then tell me why Europe should make any accomodation for Muslim thought on art and culture? By your own standards, Islam is an external, non-European force - in which case it seems that you should be pointing out that changes enforced from outside cause resentment... but, instead, you seem to be saying that Islam should be apologized to and even allowed to censor European art. Or am I wrong here?
I simply don't buy the argument that, because of the War on Terror, we need to treat right-wing Islamic cultural practices with a respect we would never give to Pat Robertson. It strikes me as hypocritical, collaborationist, and wildly illiberal.
It just feels like you're letting yourself off the hook here. When will it be politically appropriate, in your eyes, not to become culturally right-wing in the name of Islam? If the Kansas School Board converted to Islam, would you suddenly defend their right to deny evolution?
Pointing out that certain aspects of Islam are more right-wing than Dick Cheney doesn't mean that I hate Islam, I want a Christian society, and I want all mosques out of the West - none of which are true. It means that the Right is the Right is the Right - but for some reason you disagree.
I just love how the same people - and I'm not referring to you here, John, this is just a pet peeve of mine - the same people who would wear Bad Religion t-shirts and read books by Richard Dawkins and ridicule the Kansas school board and make fun of megachurches go ga-ga over protecting the rights of Islam. It's like this partronizing new way to be rebellious and to annoy your parents - nevermind the political consequences.
After all, if it's civil rights you want to defend, then defend civil rights, and I'll immediately join you; but don't arbitrarily defend a religion that, at this phase in its history, is so right-wing almost no one in America comes close.
PS: I know that my position opens up a space for anti-Semitic, homophobic, racist, and sexist art.
PPS: John, I missed this part of your comment: "in addition, i would agree with your basic premise of islam in american and europe as being part of the context" - in which case part of my own comment, above, no longer makes sense. Sorry!
This is the part of my comment that now seems irrelevant: "Further, if Islam is not part of Europe, as you said earlier, and if external pressures to change a culture only breed resentment, then tell me why Europe should make any accomodation for Muslim thought on art and culture?"
i think on most levels we are in agreement...my only caveat remains what are the issues behind such actions in art. what are the reasons for such declarations or positions. in the three examples you have sighted i think each holds more nuances than the the simple explanation you give. each event is more than art versus religion. furthermore, i think that the position that all art is just because it is art is the wrong conclusion here.
we have seen that art as much as anything else can be used as a tool to promote ideologies which are morally and ethically unredeemable. that art as any media can impacted and affect situations in a way which should be discouraged. the question of should we ban these displays? i would claim not! however, this is symptomatic of a neo-liberalism and not necessary those of the left as you claim.
in the case you highlight with the HOMAGE I would claim this prohibition exists within the neoliberal position which is not left by my definition. I would also suggest that no muslim could possiblly be offended by this installation because, as i specified previously the sacred object that the shroud covers is not and cannot be claimed. additionally, in this case the black cube becomes another object entirely and its more directed at a western-centric audience who will have a whole other relationship to this object. the silly thing for me is that "we" try and censor in a very interesting way...I could go into this further but i'd rather discuss this over a beverage...
I think where I find your position most troubling is at the level of the danish cartoons which we have discussed before. I think here we have to be honest on what the merits and intent are. another angle to really get at here is the theo van gogh film submission and his assassination. I think these examples are far and away more interesting in creating a picture of what the field of discourse should consider.
I agree. My comments veer very close to implying the opposite, but I do agree with you.
the theo van gogh film submission and his assassination. I think these examples are far and away more interesting
Also agreed.
My position - though that word formalizes this a little too much - on the Danish cartoons is more about the reaction to the Danish cartoons. I just can't imagine, say, Allen Ginsberg responding to offensively homophobic cartoons published in a right-wing newspaper by setting fire to the paper's local offices! I would hope, on the contrary, that he would react - if at all - eloquently and with patience in order not to fall into the very trap that had been set for him, thus perhaps persuading his "enemies" of the moral ineptitude of their position.
So do I think Danish newspapers have the right to publish racist cartoons? Yes. But please, please, please someday let there be a Muslim Martin Luther King or even a Muslim Gandhi - whatever that even means - because all this thuggery, violence, and anti-diplomatic hatred drives me crazy. Whether it comes from Islam, Christianity, Judaism, or even secular scientific inquiry. Just stop bombing people, for god's sake.
That - in the space allowed by a comment on Archinect - is my position on the Danish cartoons.
But, like you say, I think on most levels we're in agreement. And I'll take you up on that beverage any day... Thanks for sticking around to have this conversation - and thanks to Orhan, too!
yes I look forward to a trip to LA. but i would like to add that its not that there hasn't been a forward thinking muslim peacemaker, but that they haven't been allowed to live long enough. and I would also suggest that the west for the most part has either help suppress, couped, or assassinated all viable peacemakers. i think the same can be said for many of the countries in africa. i would also maintain that if we admitted to this fact we could get to a better understanding of/with the other side.
thank you guys. it was a class act..
Agreed in full.
With one addendum: now, when someone like Ayaan Hirsi Ali comes along, she can only find an audience at a right-wing institution, like the American Enterprise Institute - which I think is deeply embarrassing for the American Left and for western feminism, as well as symptomatic of what I think is the Left's refusal to admit that Islam, like Christianity, is a religious system that can be politically critiqued.
this is where you and i differ completely geoff. and well we could debate that to no end I really have no time for it. I will concede that i think some of what she preach is well and good, but in the end her overarching opinions are more of an opportunists and they really do not seek to reconcile the situation. i think again your analysis of the situation falls way short of what the facts are. your pointing to ms ali as a peacemaker I find wholly ridiculous! but perhaps as a counter example to ms. ali I would offer to you this that you can't have a MLK without a Malcolm X you can't have a ghandi without another doing the dirty work (muslim and hindi extremists). perhaps (or hopefully) ms. ali is doing that dirty work.
Geoff,
before accepting wholesale the hue and cry surrounding Hirsi Ali you owe it to yourself to examine some of her proposals while an elected member of the VVD - a center-right liberal party that under pressure from Pim Fortuyn adopted controversial immigration policies.
1. Hirsi Ali wanted all immigrants to chose between the Koran and the Dutch Constitution. 2. She lobbied for a state-run monitoring system that would physically inspect young girls from Islamic immigrant families for signs of FGM(female genital mutilation). A practise that wasn't prevalent among the muslim population in the Netherlands, but that in her narrow understanding of Islam took for common practise.
Given her strident and poorly substantiated attacks on Islamic culture she managed to alienate members of her own party, and without doubt, feminists as well. Her untempered views are perfectly aligned with the AEI as a result. Perhaps her residence in the U.S. may expose her to a more balanced and nuanced perspective in time. One can only hope given her courage, charisma and determination.
Fair enough - but let me add quickly that, despite the context in which I mentioned her, I wasn't tryng to say that Hirsi Ali is a "peacemaker"; I was just saying that, as someone who challenged Islam on a political level, in the United States, she can only find people on the Right to listen to her. The Left simply doesn't want to hear criticism of Islam; critiquing irrational, right-wing religious beliefs, in this case, becomes equated with cultural imperialism.
But you are right to point out the weird inconsistencies in Hirsi Ali's political views.
To continue, though, briefly - and I swear I'll shut up soon - let me just summarize what I'm trying to say.
It seems like the same people who want to critique religion in all its guises, in favor of rational, scientific inquiry, secular democracy, and even atheism, have now decided that defending Islam against Bush's War on Terror is more important than treating Islam the way those same people treat Christianity.
Which is my point about civil rights: if you really just mean civil rights for all religions, then I couldn't agree with you more! But if you mean giving in to bans on imagery, for instance, in the name of religious beliefs, then I would only ask: why not make the same accomodations for Creationists, or for Mormons? Evolution is offensive to Creationists; cartoons of Mohammed are offensive to Muslims; in both cases, I'm astonished that anyone on the Left would care. Both views are ridiculous - yet Islam get special treatment, despite being, as Orhan points out, the world's fastest growing religion. It doesn't exactly need our help.
Post-Iraq, the Left seems to take any criticism of Islam as being inherently right-wing, as being motivated by racism, and as being driven by the propaganda of imperialism - instead of being what the Left is supposed to do: calling out the belief systems of lunatics, and offering evidence as to those systems' mistakes - even if the people in question are enemies of Bush & Co.
Anyway, blah blah blah. I know that John thinks my analogies over-simplify the issue; but I think that evades the question I'm trying to ask - which is: why does the Left now hide behind the wall of "cultural difference," refusing to condemn activities that are more right-wing than Bush?
The Left is acting like Islam is the retarded younger brother of the West, and so no one wants to offend it; they all want to steer Islam safely through the gates of a threatening modernity. Needless to say, I think that view is the one that's patronizing, racist, and illiberal.
If you wouldn't give in to the religious needs of the Kansas School Board, then don't give in to the religious needs of Islam. It doesn't need your protection, and patting yourself on the back for cultural open-mindedness in this case is absurd.
is that the position of the Left? like I said before i think your speaking more directly of neoliberal positions.
i would fully agree with your position that this notion of respect is intolerable, but like I said before i like to consider both sides of the issue and the origins of each critical positioning. I think xentr0py makes the clear example of my point what are the conditions of these positions and do I support those. It's not a matter of difference from one religion being favored versus another for me, it is rather considering the nuances of the situation and why something is stated.
back to your original news post I think the kaaba/malevich installation being banned is a clear example of what you are stating, but I don't think this is the position of the left per se but rather the position of a neoliberalism which in all of its niceties wants to maintain the status qua through its ideology of politically correctness.
When you say "neoliberal," though, I'm hearing a reference to free market policies. Do you actually mean that I sound as if I'm advancing the cause of free market capitalism? Or is "neoliberalism" here meant as a kind of "new left"? Just curious.
I think the left you're referring to would be people like Hilary Clinton, Jacques Chirac, et cetera. I personally don't consider these types of people to be Left
okay third-way left or liberals who are also neo-liberals...
I don't think people like Noam Chomsky, Tariq Ali, Cornell West, or Arundhati Roy are making excuses for what you are suggesting. it's the don't worry be happy middle of the road "left". to me this isn't left. liberal yes, but not left
I wouldn't say "left" or "liberal," actually.
So if you're saying that Clinton, Chirac, etc., are third way neoliberals, as well as guilty of what I've been talking about above, then I agree with you. And I agree with you about Tariq Ali.
The only thing I want to add, though, is that being deliberately provocative when it comes to Islam is seen as unacceptable, and even somehow imperialist; whereas being deliberately provocative when it comes to Christianity is seen as artistically ballsy and worthy of intellectual celebration.
Of course, 1) there is the racist and/or imperialist provocation of Islam - I don't deny that, and I don't endorse that. But 2) there is also the leftist/secular provocation of Islam - and I do endorse that.
So I think I'm saying to you, John, that the second should not get lumped together with the first, and thus dismissed outright; while I think what you're saying to me is that the first should not be mistaken for the latter. If that's the case, I think we both have very good points, frankly!
yes I would agree with your summary. and i hope you don't think i was diminishing your point, i just don't like to be drawn in and labeled as taking a position that i am not. that is where the "No, your wrong" came in, as in wrong about what I think.
Cool - understood.
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