Adventures in ironic activism

IT IS RARE that I find myself physically aroused while looking at big canvas art. However, that is exactly what happened when I first logged on to the Italian art duo Goldiechiari's website and watched the QuickTime version of Objets du desir #8 (2006), a video that shows two female hands giving a very thorough hand job to an inflatable toy airplane. Of course, it is not so unusual to be turned on while looking at a website. But what was unnerving, and perhaps even sublime, was the way in which, as I was watching, the ridiculousness of the eroticism was so deeply intertwined with thoughts of airplanes crashing into the World Trade Center towers and the enormous global political mess we currently find ourselves in.

Frankly, I have no idea if I should actually admit to my first response upon discovering the work of Goldiechiari. However, the manner in which I felt compromised by my rather literal physical reaction--the way I felt slightly sexist and embarrassed--seems worth mentioning. Here was a strange mix of feminism, politics, pop, critical theory and play. At the very least, it had managed to catch my attention.

This double condition--caused by images that, on the one hand, are attention-grabbing, light and playful, but, when you begin to scratch the surface, rapidly conjure up more consequent lines of political inquiry--runs through all of Goldiechiari's works. Sarah "Goldie" Goldschmied and Eleonora Chiari have been working together since 2002. Their work, described on their MySpace page as "ironic activism," strives to create images in which difficult and sometimes painfully political issues also manage to be entertaining, pleasurable and lively.

In their 2002 photograph Submerged Struggle, two fists in salute and two snorkels emerge from a body of water that bleeds to the borders of the image. It is a sign of resistance that barely makes a mark upon the watery landscape. In conversation, Goldschmied and Chiari told me that, among other things, this early work spoke to their feelings as new artists starting out, almost drowning but nonetheless ready to fight the good fight. But, looking at it again, I can't help but think of the current situation of the Left, how any activist's desire to change things for the better feels like a struggle against an ocean of near-impossible odds. Yet at the same time there is nothing else to do: one must continue to resist, while (almost) drowning.

In his essay "Problems and Transformations in Critical Art" (2004), Jacques Ranciere writes:

"In its most general formula, critical art intends to raise consciousness of the mechanisms of domination in order to turn the spectator into a conscious agent in the transformation of the world. We know the dilemma that weighs upon this project. On the one hand, understanding alone can do little to transform consciousness and situations. The exploited bare rarely bad the need to bare the laws of exploitation explained to them. Because it's not a misunderstanding of the existing state of affairs that nurtures the submission of the oppressed, but a lack of confidence in their own ability to transform it ... Critical art that invites you to see the signs of Capital behind everyday objects and behaviours risks inscribing itself into the perpetuation of a world where the transformation of things into signs redoubles the very excess of interpretive signs that make all resistance disappear."

Ranciere goes on to suggest that this "vicious circle" of critical art is little more than a false binary: that we do not need art to make us aware of the political situation, since art is already political in much the same way that politics are already aesthetic. In fact, according to Ranciere, both art and politics contain their own "aesthetic logics," and if instead of using art to generate new awareness, we were to see the relationship between art and politics as one of competing "aesthetic logics," it might give us new tools to seriously reconsider what kind of art might actually be emancipatory.

As, over time, I continued to look at Submerged Struggle, I thought about Ranciere's position and his continued insistence on breaking down the false divisions that enforce a sense of powerlessness in order to create connections and reversals that can open out onto a sense of emancipation. Here was a work of art that, with its simple humour and pathos, spoke to a feeling of powerlessness, of raising one's fist in spite of a situation that, at first glance, appears hopeless. Although it is not exactly an image of direct emancipation, it nonetheless conveys considerable empathy for those in a difficult (political) situation, perhaps suggesting what every good activist already knows: that even in a struggle against overwhelming odds there remain moments of intense optimism and hope. Or that even a fight that, on the surface, seems completely ridiculous is somehow still moving and valuable, still worth carrying out.

"Ironic activism" is a rather intense contradiction in terms. To be effective, activism must be fierce and committed. Irony, so beloved of 90s-era advertising and the apathetic generation, seems clearly contrary to such aims. But if a defence of irony is needed, it is not difficult to find. Used in the right spirit, irony puts things in their place, generates a striking sense of perspective and proportion. It might even be possible to place the virtues of political irony in direct opposition to the savageries of political cynicism. However, this would be little more than backing the wrong David in the fight against Goliath. Instead, let me pull back a little and propose that, if we were to no longer equate irony with inactivity, yet another microfissure would emerge in our generalized leftist/political stalemate. One need not be serious or earnest in order to take to the streets; this is a cliche, and it is surprising that we did not leave it behind long ago.

In Goldiechiari's 2004 work Welcome, viewers entering the gallery encounter an imposing barrier. A number of narrow nooks and passages within the structure, which runs the entire length of the gallery, suggest a maze, yet it is a maze that repeatedly blocks the viewer's way. In the next room, climbing a ladder to peer over the partition wall, the viewer is given a new perspective: the sculpture that had just blocked the way spells out WELCOME in eight-foot-high letters. On the website for Spencer Brownstone Gallery, it says quite clearly that "Goldiechiari resist any claims toward single interpretations of their projects," but in conversation, the artists told me that one of the impulses behind Welcome was the building of the "apartheid wall" in Israel. Much like "ironic activism" a wall meant to keep people out that, at the same time, explicitly welcomes them (though only those with an overview) embodies a provocative contradiction.

If we think about this piece in direct relation to the Israel/Palestine conflict, what might it tell us? That you can't say you want peace while at the same time building walls? Or perhaps that you can, that such contradictions can quite pleasantly sit side by side with perfect ease, but within such contradictions there is little room for change or movement? Welcome practically oozes irony, and yet, if I think of it in relation to the plight of the Palestinians, I also feel a great pathos and sadness. This sadness carries over if we think of the work in more general terms: people in our lives who welcome us while at the same time putting up walls; all the borders in the world that claim to welcome us while at the same time becoming more and more difficult to cross.

Of course, like Ranciere says, often work that is trying to be progressive ends up being somehow reactionary, ends up only reinforcing the all-consuming logic of the system and our ongoing powerlessness in the face of it. And I do genuinely wonder if the work of Goldiechiari manages to sidestep this particular trap. Perhaps Welcome does reinforce a contradiction, and, in all of its ambiguous insights, merely further polarizes our understanding of a certain kind of dynamic--whether it be Palestine/Israel or a more general propensity of governments to set up pervasive walls and borders--that, as it becomes continuously more rigid, produces ever more isolating and gruesome results. In so pleasurably and effectively manifesting this contradiction, do they only make its strictures less flexible? With all their comedic charm and visual catchiness, Goldiechiari shares many traits with the language and strategies of advertising.

And yet, here I feel a powerful desire to pull back and reconsider. Because in pointing out similarities to advertising, in identifying possibly reactionary strategies in work that is otherwise politically evocative, I am also responsible for generating a certain sense of powerlessness, for encouraging the fairly common perception that political art is ineffective or that it creates effects contrary to its intentions and that therefore there is no reason to consider making political art in the first place. This is simply not a helpful position. Whatever the difficulties and pitfalls of such an endeavour, it is always better--with open, critical foresight--to try.

In an interview in a recent issue of Artforum Jacques Ranciere said:

"As for me, I would speak of a lightening, an alleviation, rather than a distancing. The problem, first of all, is to create some breathing room, to loosen the bonds that enclose spectacles within a form of visibility, bodies within an estimation of their capacity, and possibility within the machine that makes the 'state of things' seem evident, unquestionable."

Ranciere reminds us that the "state of things" can and must always be questioned; we must continuously search for the openings, the ways of thinking that make emancipation feel possible and alive. Therefore, even if the work of Goldiechiari falls short of the lofty goal of generating emancipation, for me at least, it never fails to contribute to a sense of lightening, to create a little bit of new breathing room within political questions that can often seem completely deadlocked. A little bit of breathing room, a great sense of humour and an honest, yet critical, sense of delight.

Jacob Wren is a writer and theatre director. Recent performance works include En francais comme en anglais, it's easy to criticize and Unrehearsed Beauty / Le genie des autres, both of which have toured extensively in Europe and Japan. His new book Families Are Formed Through Copulation will be published by Pedlar Press next year.