tupilakosaurus - Print matters!

OQALUTTUAP IMASSAANUT
TOQQAMMAVISSAQ
suseqaraluartumik. Taama isumaginninnitsinnut
ingerlatsisuusimavoq inuiattut kanngusuuteqarnerput
taamatullu nunasiaateqarnerup
oqaluttuassartaata aammalu nassuerutigiumanngisatta
imminnut qanoq ataqatigiissuseqarnerisa
paasisaqarfigerusunneri tassungalu
atasumik kulturikkut qaffasinnertut naalagaanerusutullu
immitsinnut isumaqarfiginerput.
Taamaammat qanoq suleriaaseqarsimanerput
nassuiaateqarfigissallugu naleqqutissaaq, saqqummersitsinerup
isaariaanni tamanna takuneqarsinnaavoq,
tassani Arkep suliai tikkuussisutut
immata, apeqqusiillutik sumik oqariartortoqarneranik
– soorlu Maqaasineq (1981) aamma
Arkep Naalagaaffeqatigiinnerup nunataasa
assiliorneri, tassani nammineq inuttut attuumassuteqarninni
nalunaarsorsimammagit Danmarkip
Kalaallillu Nunaata akornanni titarnilersuinikkut.
Taamaalilluni soqutigisatta pissusittalu
naapinneri soorlu takussutissinneqartut, Arkellu
suliaanik illersuinitsinnik isumaginnissinaalersilluta.
Kinaluunniit Arkep suliarisimasaanik sammisaqarsimasup
maluginngitsoorsinaangilaa
assiliiviliaa putuinnalik. Nammineq sanasimavaa
imalu angissusilerlugu nammineq iserfigalugu
unnuiffigisinnaallugu. Allatut oqaatigalugu angisuujuvoq;
taamaattorli angallanneqarsinnaalluni
sumiiffinnut imminnut ima ungasitsigisunut soorlu
Kronborg, Vendsysselimi Lønstrup Klint aamma
Narsami Nuugaarsummut angallanneqarsimalluni.
Assiliisummi aamma Arkemik takorluuisarnitsinnut
ilaavoq saqqummersitamilu Qualuttuap
imassaanut toqqammavissaq qitiulluni inissinneqarsimalluni
tassa ilimagisap atuuttullu akornanni,
isumaqassutsitta isigisattalu akornanni.
Immikkoortup taamaalilluni assiliisut silataanit
isikkua – aamma assiliisutip sanaqqinneqarsimasup
(tammarsimasulli) imaraa, pinngoriartornerani
oqaluttuaq angalasimanera kiisalu
tassannga assit pinngortinneqarsimasut ilaallutik
– kiisalu qamuuna eqqaasassat ilaatigut ilaallutik.
Arke assiliissummik assilisaq eqqumiitsuliornikkut
akusatut isigerusunneraa. Imminullu
aamma taama paasilluni, tassa akusatut. Assiliissutip
putullip nammineq takutippa atortup
annikinnerpaanik atortulikkap pissusaa, tassa
assiliisuut pissuseqqaammisut ittoq. Kalaallit
eqqumiitsuliaat aamma taama pissuseqqaammisut
isikkulittut paasineqartarpoq, qanga
pissutsit nuannaartoralugit pinngortiteqqaarniarnermi
pinngortitamut atalluinnarnermik
paasineqarsinnaasoq. Soorlu qallunaat ilaata
tamakkuninnga paasisimasaqarluartup Bodil
Kaalundip atuakkami Kalaallit Eqqumiitsuliaat
allaatiginnissimaneratut, oqaasi-liornikkut
piginnaasaqarnerunngikkaluarluni aamma isummatigut
– eqqumiitsuliortoq nunamit kiffaanngissusilermagu
kalaallillu eqqumiitsuliaannik
atuakkiortillugu.
Assigiinngissutip annikitsup – tassa k –
akerliussutsimik takutitsineq ilimasaarutigaa.
Akerliussutsimik kinaasusilimmik pingaarnersiuinermillu
imalimmik, oqaaseqannginnermik
oqaluttuarisaanermillu allaaserinninnermik,
qanga pissutsinut nuannaartorinninnermik
aamma ilisimatusarnermik.
Immikkoortuni tulliuttuni kissaatiginarpoq,
taama akerliuniarnerup ersikkunnaarsimanissaa,
killormulli qaffakaatinneqassasut alapernaassutsillu
ikummarinnerannik misissorneqassallutik.
THEME SECTION 1: TOWARDS A HISTORICAL NARRATIVE
The French thinker Michel Foucault
must have been joking a bit when in
order to answer his own question: “What
is an author?” he imagined the following
scenario. A great writer – for instance the
German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche
– dies, and his collected works are now
to be published. Inasmuch as we already
see Nietzsche as an auhtor, we are faced
by the question as to whether everything
the philosopher had written, said and
left behind should be regarded as a work.
Where does one stop?
Everything that Nietzsche himself had
published must of course be included. And
the draft versions of his works? Obviously.
The deleted passages and the notes at
the bottom of the paper? Sure thing. And
if one finds among the notes references
to an important meeting, an important
address or perhaps a shopping list? Are
these works?
Our situation in a nutshell. We knew
from the start that we wanted to curate a
retrospective exhibition of Pia Arke that
should not be the ultimate statement
about the artist’s work and practice.
Therefore it would not follow her development
in the linear perspective that is so
typical of retrospectives, and which often
ends by closing an artist’s oeuvre for
further interpretation in an attempt at
explaining it exhaustively. And if it was
to be monographic, then it should at least
be polyphonic.
This was partly because Arke, as we
experienced her, was never willing to
adopt a definitive viewpoint. So how could
we? But it was also because at the time of
her death she had already been engaged
for more than 20 years in investigating
Greenland, Denmark and the historical circumstances
that bind them together. And
in all probability she would have continued
her investigations for just as long into the
future, had she lived. Who knows where
they would have led her?
What we had not been aware of at the
start was that Arke had dissolved many of
her works, and that this was apparently
connected with a work concept that in
itself would negate the idea of showing her
oeuvre. After a while we were also forced to
conclude that some of the works that were
privately owned have simply disappeared.
Taken together, the missing works and
those that were left behind pointed every
which way and confronted us with Foucault’s
dilemma. For the sake of honesty
we have therefore chosen to start this
first section by articulating our dilemma.
In doing this we hope to be able to justify
other choices that we have made throughout
the exhibition. For instance, that we
have not reconstructed Arke’s dissolved or
disappeared works except in a few cases
where there could not be any doubt as
to how this should be done, or where the
temptation was too strong.
However, our difficulty is not limited
to simply having to decide whether
something should be regarded as a work
or not. The question is rather how in
our unmixed Danishness we are at all
able to curate an Arke retrospective?
Appearances to the contrary, we think
we are because we too are products of
that colonial history, albeit the other way
round. Our drive as curators is based on
an ethical embarrassment and a longing
to understand the connection between
historical colonialism and current phobias
with their concomitant ideas of cultural
superiority and a greater right to rule.
It was therefore natural to link the
evidence that one meets at the entrance to
the exhibition regarding our work process
with works by Arke that point to the question
of where one is speaking from – as in
the print Longing (1981) and Arke’s map
of the United Kingdom of Denmark in
which she has marked her personal points
and lines of attachment between Denmark
and Greenland. In this way they come to
stand for the place where our interests
and practices meet, and where it becomes
possible for us to curate Arke’s work.
No one who has been interested in
Arke can have failed to notice her pinhole
camera. She made it herself and saw to it
that it was big enough for her to be able
to get into it and spend the night there
if she wanted to. In other words, it is a
fair size, but was nevertheless capable
of cross-country travel and reached such
remote spots as Kronborg, Lønstrup Klint
in North Jutland, and Narssaq Point in
South Greenland.
And indeed the camera plays an
important role in our ideas about Arke. It
therefore has a central place in Towards a
Historical Narrative somewhere between
thesis and empiricism, between what we
believe and what we see. The section thus
contains both the camera seen from outside
– a reconstruction of the camera itself
(it has been lost), accounts of its genesis
and travels and a number of the pictures
it produced – and, in addition, it contains
aspects of a more inner nature.
Arke saw the photograph as a kind of
mongrel art form. And she saw herself
as just that, a mongrel. For its part the
pinhole camera is regarded as the most
primitive form of photographic apparatus,
in brief a prototype. And Greenlandic art
is also often seen as primitive in the romantic
sense of a prototype of the urge to
create and an original symbiotic relation
to Nature. As when a Danish authority
in the field, Bodil Kaalund, writes the
work Grønlands Kunst [Greenland’s
Art] and does not – less possessive both
grammatically and figuratively – set the
artist free of the country and write a
work on Greenlandic art. Behind the little
difference – just an “ic” more or less – lurk
major confrontations. Confrontations with
identity and essentialisation, with silence
and the writing of history, with sentimentality
and science.
In the following sections our wished-for
objective is that these confrontations
should no longer lurk behind the scenes
but that they should on the contrary
unfold and be examined in full blaze.
13