Geeting displays

 

Getting Displays

©By Abdel Hernandez San juan

Art and Anthropology

Written and composed in English 

by Abdel Hernandez San Juan

Meetings with Celia

A Phone Call

        

Celia: Express to be interested in anthropology, mentions George Marcus at Schneider and Crist and The Traffic in Culture, Refiguring Art and Anthropology

Abdel: The Traffic in Culture departure from Clifford Geertz The Refiguration of the Social Thought at The Interpretation of Culture first version published and still stay around artesanies nor preceselly high art, modern, fine and contemporary art. While my individual full agreement and accord is Stephen A Tyler with who since being a research associate at the faculty of anthropology at rice despites from June 1997 I am working as colleagues, friends and partner, I also knows well George and I specially recommends regarding him his late editions serie published at the university of Chicago because it firsts begins to near Stephen contemporary thought and begins to nearly arrives to contemporary culture of relevance to us.

Celia: George did Writing Culture?

Abdel: Again, by the same reasons, the attention should be moved to consequences responses in contemporary culture received the epitome and echoes about writing culture as the feminist volumes departures from The Deleuze reader such as Woman’s Writing Culture process the tradition pertinently to contemporary thought and culture. Did you read Carlos Reynoso The Adveniment of Postmodern Anthropology?

Celia: I read the Reynoso Introduction

Abdel: That Reynoso introduction and the volumes itself it better reflects the impetus of the santafe seminar from which and after which writing culture erases

Celia: But there one can see very distinct positions in between them nor homogeneous

Abdel: Certainly and I agree position with Stephen A Tyler, my choice of theoretical agreement and affinity, but even when Reynoso better reflect the seminar impetus than Writing Culture, it is also an edition so that the turn itself in anthropology need to continually reference to Santafe seminar despites from which everything comes from.

Celia: I am interested in experiences you did in anthropology and art in the eighties as pilon if possible to speak on that too.

Abdel: I did fieldwork theory and practice both in terms of art avant-garde theory and practice questions since earlier European XX century avant-garde and in terms of interdisciplinary questions with mainly modern, contemporary sociology but also a per cent of anthropology and ethnography considered within two projects Hacer, (Urban) and Pilon, (rural), well let just defines a meeting

Celia: Friday at 9:00 am is ok?

Abdel: Ok

Friday Meeting

Abdel: I can see your attention on two themes to be afforded, first anthropology from your mention of George Marcus and second you seems to be motivated to afford also art and anthropology at my late eighties projects in Havana (Hacer, urban) and Pilon (Rural), we can then divides the meeting in this two parts, lets begging with anthropology and then after we can speak on Hacer and Pilon.

  My attention to anthropology inside my theoretical and critical writings from the eighties 88 was first inside papers I did in avant-garde theory mainly references Peter Burguer, Umberto Eco, Terry Eagleaton and Pierre Bourdieu so that epistemologically my initial interest to makes anthropology inclusive inside my avant-garde critique writings dispate from structuralism, particularly anthropology as inclusive to modern, contemporary sociology, in a few words, mainly Pierre Bourdieu, I also  referenced Levis Strauss inside my art avant-garde writings 88s, particularly I first referenced Strauss in concrete papers his interview with Louis Charbonier and his paper art and ethnology.

  But being in Caracas thanks to my full readings and studies of various Svetan Todorov books mainly Symbolism and Interpretation which first really stablishes clear departures of a theory of the symbols and the symbolic despites from the issue of exegesis developing it as no one before him to a pluralist and democratic sense to a truly convival of infinity possible interpretations of symbols more than simply a tolerance, also his books Genres of Discourse and critique of the critique, I then begin to become thanks to Todorov gradually motivated and interested to the interpretationist turn in anthropology and in my first book Borders and Overflows of Art, Possibilities of the Transart, a very phenomenological book I conceived, written and composed in 92, a book from the art field centered around first the sociological theoretical discussion on the individual and the collective, indeterminism and determinism in sociology dispate from the theory of art autonomy, again as my main references, Peter Burguer and Pierre Bourdieu, I centered Junger Habermas Theory of Communicative Action in that book through a Thomas Mc Carthy development of the pragmatics of communicative reason and I dedicated extensive pages to discuss ethnomethodology as I written it after reading Habermas Theory of Communicative Action, Alfred Shurt Knowledge in the World of Every Day Life and Javier Muguenza and Salvador Bueno Contemporary Sociology Theory.

  From that perspectives, nor without references to Bourdrillard, I references again Levis Strauss this time according to Kristeva and Serres interventions at the seminar on Identity in Paris and I begin to include references to Interpretationism in anthropology particularly the Clifford Geertz theory of the symbolic as he abstracted it from his book The Interpretation of Cultures first version I full readen and studied in Caracas. 

  During that months I lectured at Hacer on Geertz The Interpretation of Cultures and makes references to a book of Geertz I liked a lot, his After the Facts, One Anthropologist and three cities, I also mentioned during that visit Carlos Reynoso compendium and James Clifford The Predicament of Cultures first version published at Gedisa which is an author I was interested in since I readen thanks to Desiderio Navarro his essay The Collection of Art and Culture earlier published by Desiderio at Criterios Magazine. 

   Celia: I am interested about how anthropology is being traditionally seen from art and biseversa art from anthropology because I feel myself I need to relates it in new forms and there is nor to many things done in a new sense.

   Abdel: It needs to be theorized and discussed in new ways, I in fact did two lectures preceselly on how art was seen from anthropology and anthropology from art previously in terms of stereotypes assumptions nor well informed and nor well communicated on each field in between, Anthropology from the arts and Arts from Anthropology discussed at the rice media center, Houston, Texas, spring, 1997

  But when I really approached it in a completely new perspective was as curator with my letlee curatorial practice of various exhibits I bring, exhibited and presented on campus at Rice University with my co-curator surpic angelini as we both montages, releases, opening and closure it to the general public during the spring of 1997.

  I try in fact with this letlee cutatorial practice series of exhibits to open and discuss a completely new way to explore this relation between high art and anthropology as I consider pertinently may be offering with each exhibit several ways and possibilities to afford and makes it successfully work. I first provided as curator a general approach to the issue itself, art and anthropology, offers a general background, I asked, including myself exhibit proposal, to each one of the artists I selected to afford it each one completely free getting with each exhibit a completely new and original, creative contribution to the issue.

   I bring it to Houston and presented it with Surpic Angelini, my co-curator, we both did opening, releases, montages and closures of each one and it was success with several success publications such as Patricia Johnson Art Market Review, The Houston Chronicle, Trance Plant by Donald Caledare, Artlies Magazine and publications at the Houston press and the Houston Press television then I stay living stablished in Houston from that date to currently, I am here like in 92 just visiting.

  The main critical, theoretical and also field critical and practical references to all this is a paper I did Regarding the Inmaterials, Lyotard at Pompidue. By Abdel Hernandez, which explicit and reflect how I conceived and focused all this from the beginning since I received the Lyotard catalogue at Mavao museum being the curator in 1994.

  Celia: How was your process as curator with each one of the artists?

  Abdel: I provided them my theoretical attention, statement and approach on this issue of art and anthropology, I also provided them as we are both doing here general references to all this we are speaking on about, I asked them to offer their own responses and ways to completely free afford it their ways including my own one also at my individual exhibit the market.

  Celia: Who are the artists and exhibits?

  Abdel: The Rice Media Center is a building on campus defined to exhibit during the year both scholars and students exhibits evolving photography, video and film, mainly audiovisuals, there is not at rice university a faculty to audiovisuals as there is one at ISA, but there is mainly the faculty of art and The Rice Media Center given an auditoriums to lectures and film projections, photography labs to print photography’s as well as film editions and sound editions rooms, then it includes an art gallery open a per cent a year to also guests exhibits coming from any university, museums and or the art field in general and also a general space available to exhibits with wood panels.

  Overthere, at the gallery, I presented an exhibit by artist Surpic Angelini also my cocurator of the general serie, who born in Venezuela, Armenian father, Anglo-American mother, she moved from Venezuela, like I did too from Cuba, 20 years old, she married with an italian cardiologist and stablishes living in Houston, being an architect as she studied architecture at the central university of Venezuela, the day of her exhibit opening there we included also a mexican American artist Gabriela Villegas who exhibit a performance.

  We both then, Surpic and I, exhibit and montage in campus an exhibit by Venezuelan artist Juan Carlos Rodriguez with also Juan Carlos the three of us at Media Center. I also selected and invited Lazaro Saavedra and Surpic and I exhibit his show with him at the same gallery she did.

  We did also both exhibit and montage at the farish gallery at the faculty of architecture which is also defined to yearly exhibits architectural projects by scholars and students and provides a per cent a year to guest exhibits from any university, art museum and or the general art field like the media center, we exhibit overthere an exhibit by Juan Jose Olavarria, a Venezuelan artist stablished in the city of Valencia, and Ernesto Leal, both who works before together as duo to an exhibit they did at the Center of Development of Visual Art in Havana, 1994.

   There was also at the sculpture court back yard sewall hall an exhibit of my authorship as single author I bring, montage and exhibited, The Market from Here by Abdel Hernandez San Juan with my guest participant scenographer Fernando Calzadilla, a bipersonal show by both of us. The sculpture court, like the media center and the farish gallery is being mostly an space back to the sculpture room of the art faculty, it is an outdoor biggest space under the sky and under the ground.

  There was finally at the Rice Media Center a meeting conversation by Thomas Mc Evilley who after visiting all the exhibits on campus say:

   Well, there is currently simultaneously opening all the exhibits on campus and we are here with the curators Abdel Hernandez and Surpic Angelini, and me, from the department of art, and George Marcus, from the Department of Anthropology, and I think we may say something from each faculty. Mc Evilley provided a one hour and half extraordinary lecture which approached the curatorial serie in regard to the campus exhibits openings, extends to many philosophical analysis and developments since Hegel and discusses also significant developments about art in the united states since the sixties with accent on the current Anglo-American art palestra and feminist art in united states. 

   He also provided significant reflections on main art issues he considered relevant to be theoretically and critically attended in regard to this serie of specific exhibits, he also comments the ones of his choices, and on the issue of art in art history in general providing pertinent analysis to previous artists cases evolving this relations between art and anthropology, he also mentioned and reflect around backgrounds in regard to Stephen a Tyler, James Clifford and George to then courtesy introducing George who immediately counterpoint and offered his impressions on the exhibits he also visited. A conversation film record.

  A year after Mc Evilley published also an interesting article on the exhibits on campus references me Abdel and surpic as curators and George with us, an article published at art in America titled Artists in Trance, Various Artists, New York, 1998.

  Being as I am a permanent resident living in Houston I traveled driving my car from Houston to north Mexico Monterrey legally crossing the border to visit my sister who was living in the city and to meet my mom and dad after almost 10 years without seem them.

  Celia: I mentioned I seen something by Schneider and Crist, Art and Anthropology and something by George Marcus.

  Abdel: Let me tell you something on this issue of art and anthropology that nor only I did proposed and focused a new way to explore these relations with my letlee curatorial serie of exhibits already mentioned but I also first anticipated to include to the spring a publication announced as conclusions titled Reports from the Threshold of Art and Anthropology. By Abdel Hernandez, Stephen A Tyler, Surpic Angelini, George Marcus and other Ethnographers.

  Now as I explained before given your mention of The Traffic in Culture, Refiguring Art and Anthropology it is still related and regarded to artesanies mostly and not properly to high art, fine arts, modern and contemporary art.

  Now as I expressed before in terms of high art avant-garde questions, fine art questions, contemporary and modern art questions, the one who is clearly, pertinently and successfully understanding all this with me is Stephen A Tyler, we are both fully agree in this, there is not, in fact, a paper still created and produced major to understand all this than the one written by Stephen in response to me Evocation, The Uwriteable, a Response to Abdel Hernandez, Stephen did after the spring Sept 9, 1997, I will even say about that the main two pivotal papers to afford and understand this serie may be yet Regarding the Inmaterials, Lyotard at Pompidou. By Abdel Hernandez and Evocation, The Unwriteable, a Response to Abdel Hernandez. By Stephen A Tyler.

   Why and how maybe all this work in terms of curatorial practices, how may all this be significant and why should we consider a curatorial practice already exhibited and finished as a continues point of references going back on it cyclically?, first because a curatorial practices of exhibits supposes to be and should be defined and understood through a concept Stephen and me Abdel are gratefully agree in working on with which is the concept of display, a curatorial practice evolves to be and is being in fact a display to various heterogeneous kinds of theoretical, axiological and critical attention, it is something you may return to accent something such as curatorial specific, concrete practice pointed out, clarified, lightened, given language, made explicit, centered, etc. 

   By the way, each time you need by any reason in the field to discuss something, or any time you may be of awareness about something despites from a certain current writing or research it may transport you or invite you, suggest you to go around, to revisit, to move around certain things a display made explicit, so if you have as I have several curatorial practices I displayed at distinct spaces, then you may visit one or another display optionally to more or less discuss a variety of things, and also mostly it is a display nor only after being exhibited and finished but best yet it is also a display before, to the curatorial statement as a way to explore experimental relation between modes of discourses, theorizing, from writing or lecturing to exhibiting exploring also riches forms of relations between texts and displays, texts and the visual, sintaxis and spaces, including also what the exhibits itself development and display, explicit and pointed something evolves to be a display nor only to me as the curator but to each artist and to me also as author of one of the exhibits.

  There is no one around in regard to this meeting theme exploring it as clear and successful as Stephen and me are, there is also by the way a whole theoretical and intellectual production each one of us did during this years, me my recent significant books The Subject in Creativity. By Abdel Hernandez, Being and Monad. By Abdel Hernandez, The Presentational Linguistic. By Abdel Hernandez, The Given and the Ungiven. By Abdel Hernandez and The Intangible. By Abdel Hernandez   

  Now, however, I recognize all this references books and papers moves beyond the spring, it clearly and usefully applied even helpfully to the spring too, but it is in fact of significance to an intellectual, theoretical production despites after the spring evolves writings by me, Abdel and writings by Stephen but with clear results also from the faculty graduated students. 

  I am research associate at the faculty, but the results of a move is being finally considered as definitive when you may have clearly successful graduated students from the move, and there we have Scott writings on the Entertainment parks and Stanford Carpenter thesis of comics which evolves nor only discussing comix but doing comix himselves with discussing around being Afro-American exploring the concept of the chorus, etc. Nothing of that were possible without Stephen and me Abdel. But if we stay around the spring I will mention as the main references Regarding the Inmaterials, Lyotard at Pompidou. By Abdel Hernandez, Evocation, The Unwriteable, A Response to Abdel Hernandez. By Stephen A Tyler and additionally I will mention to be considered Mc Evilley lecture already explained.

  Now as I expressed before after reading several main books regarding such a turn in anthropology I may provide a synthesis resume on what really means something interesting in terms of high art avant-garde questions, fine art questions, contemporary and modern art questions. First I will mention as relevant to us additionally to mainly and overall Stephen, a James Clifford paper on Ethnographic Surrealism included at his The Predicament of Culture Book, a book I readen fully and I prefer in his first version as published by Gedisa. In this paper James Clifford explores the possibilities of ethnographic surrealism to ethnography questions coming from a France ethnographer, Michael Leiris who was both a part of the art surrealist movement of the early XX Century in Europe and also an ethnographer who written the Africa Fantom, a writing Jacques Derrida included by first time in the first chapter of his Margins of philosophy moving his writing in a column and leiris writing through another column simultaneously.

   I consider also of relevance George Marcus notion of Conspicuous Productions, Conspicuencies pertinent in my terms to contemporaries conspicuencies, a concept he discussed in his Late Edition, I have for example various conspicuencies in my own practices between for example curatorial practices and production, (explanations provided on how the curator itself as a figure born in the art field as a conspicuency contingency between the old producer and the old art critic), I second have myself practices conspicuencies between Curatorial Practices and fieldwork, this concept of George is being certainly useful and relevant to curatorial practices, there is also very interesting results regarding George attentions to Corporated Futures, Corporate Identities, if you revise any of the softweres you may have in your computer you will faster recognize in the credits how the identities of corporations works, you will find overthere Georges and Johns, Stephens and Mikes, Anglo-American names, but also Isiko Kasushi, Kens and all kins of Japanizes names, chinesses names, indian and Pakistan names, shukia and also hispanics, hernandez, lopez, etc, all people working together in a corporated identity.

   Finally, there is also a pivotal attention George pay and this is something a phenomena maybe nor easy to be understood overhere, discussing both poscapitalist identities as there is today a transformations turn in capitalism moving beyond all the previous parameters and postsocialist identitites, meanings interviews and works about and around subjectivities that comes from exsocialist countries discussed as posocialists identities. Finally, there is also a concept developed by George I also experience in my own writings and practices, which is that one of multisite, this is mainly what I consider really relevant regarding George, I am not saying The Traffic in Culture is nor an interesting efforts, but I reference it only in Papers I discussed which evolves artesanies.