This exhibition was about secrecy and fantasy. The two artists that stood out for me were Roberto Cuoghi and Henry Darger. Cuoghi, a Milanese artist, decided to become his father. He abandoned his life as a twentysomething and let his weight balloon to 20 stone, grew a beard and dyed his hair grey. He took on the deportment and lifestyle of an old man. So convincing was he that concerned neighbours would ask after his welfare and prepare meals for him. Naturally his father was disturbed when Roberto asked for his clothing, to make the transformation complete. Cuoghi wanted to disappear from society. The piece that is exhibited in the DLWP, an anaglyph, depicts him as a grotesque man, which wouldn’t appear out of place in Royston Vasey. The image is of a half-concealed side-profile of the artist, who is looking to the left and whose form is covered by an arrangement of childhood objects. Although his image is disrupted we still capture a glimpse of him, as we do of the elderly in our own society. We know mortality haunts and troubles our existence in Western society yet occasionally, fleetingly, as Cuoghi reminds us, we confront it. But it is only a glance. We see it as unreal - an illusion.
Darger’s work (see inserted picture) is equally in this vain. Several large panels of Darger’s illustrated novel appear at the DLWP. Entitled, in its full, “The Story of the Vivian Girls, in what is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion), this is a secret work that runs to 15,000 pages. Darger began this work aged 19 and never stopped. He died aged 82. It tells the adventure, as the exhibition guidebook states of “the Vivian Girls, seven sisters from the Roman Catholic land of Angelinnia, who, protected by magical, butterfly winged humanoid creatures, run about liberating child slaves from the evil, atheistic adult armies of Gladelinia. It is an epic tale in the style of a boy’s (but in this case girls’) own adventure, but filled with Hollywood blockbuster violence).” It should be made into a film by Jeunet and Caro. It is an extraordinary narrative, known only to its creator until the work was discovered by his landlord following his death. There is something Orwellian about the work. The social and political commentary invites us to see an adult world opposed by forces we take for granted. As in 1984, where the affective power of revolution was realised through the remembrance of nursery rhymes, so in Darger’s work, the world of man is shaken to its core by small girls, happily playing in the open, with ribbons in their hair, budding breasts and male genitalia.
Darger’s work (see inserted picture) is equally in this vain. Several large panels of Darger’s illustrated novel appear at the DLWP. Entitled, in its full, “The Story of the Vivian Girls, in what is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion), this is a secret work that runs to 15,000 pages. Darger began this work aged 19 and never stopped. He died aged 82. It tells the adventure, as the exhibition guidebook states of “the Vivian Girls, seven sisters from the Roman Catholic land of Angelinnia, who, protected by magical, butterfly winged humanoid creatures, run about liberating child slaves from the evil, atheistic adult armies of Gladelinia. It is an epic tale in the style of a boy’s (but in this case girls’) own adventure, but filled with Hollywood blockbuster violence).” It should be made into a film by Jeunet and Caro. It is an extraordinary narrative, known only to its creator until the work was discovered by his landlord following his death. There is something Orwellian about the work. The social and political commentary invites us to see an adult world opposed by forces we take for granted. As in 1984, where the affective power of revolution was realised through the remembrance of nursery rhymes, so in Darger’s work, the world of man is shaken to its core by small girls, happily playing in the open, with ribbons in their hair, budding breasts and male genitalia.
These works are fascinating for they show that we can elide the surveillance state and dare to imagine and create our lives from other fabrics. For all the discussion of fixing our identities through bio-technology (ID Cards) and optical referencing systems, it is still possible – although the window is closing – to imagine our lives differently, live out our dream worlds, create personas and disappear. Concealment and creativity are twins – identities and products can be fashioned. If original, the artist gains a reputation and steps into the public sphere. More commonly the material product remains while its creator recedes into obscurity. However, our politics and society find it more troubling if we actively create our disappearance through changing our identity, living out different lives or simply disappearing. This is why the work of Cuoghi and Darger is so provocative.
No comments:
Post a Comment