tupilakosaurus - Print matters!

“ETNOÆSTETIK”
suuppai, eqqumiitsuliortut “inuiaasutsimik” aallaavillit
sulinerminni assigiinngitsutigut atugarisaat
takutillugit.Taama qulaajaanerit ersarissiartornerisa
tunngavilersorneqarnerisalu takussaajartornerisalu
nalaanni, nunani killiini ajunngissorisaminnik
qanganitsanik nuannaartorinnillutik aalajangersimasumik
“eskimuunik” eqqumiitsuliornernillu
“pilerlaannik” isummertarnerit annertuumik illuatungilerneqarpoq
– taamatullu Nunat Killiit kisimik
ineriartorsimasutut, nutaaliaasutut, “imaanaanngitsumillu
katitikkatut isigeqqunerat illuatungilerneqarluni”.
Annertunerusumik isigalugu oqaluttuaq
eqqumiitsuliortarnerup nalinginnaasumik eqqartorneqarneranik
aamma imaqarpoq – eqqumiitsuliornerup
paasineqarnissaani isumasiorneqarnissaanilu
atugassarititaasut qanoq innerinik,
taamatullu eqqumiitsuliornerup “kulturit
akornanni” pilersarneranik isuma isiginnitaatsip
pissarsinassusaannik, soorlu eqqumiitsuliornerup
oqaluttuarisaaneranik suliallip Lars Kiel Bertelsenip
tamanna tikkuarsimagaa.
Eqqumiitsuliornerup taama annertusakkamik
paasineqarnera – isiginnitaatsip nunasiaateqarsimanerup
kingunerisaannik misiliutaasumik immaqa
taaneqarsinnaasumik eqqaasariaqarpoq, tamatta in
the mix – akusaasugut – piumasarinngilaa, inuiaassutsimik
aallaaveqartumik eqqumiitsuliortoq
eskimuunik minguitsunik takutitsissasoq aamma
taamani nunasiaanngikkallarnerup nalaanni piuminartunik
takutitsisassasut, nunasiaatillit allamiut
isumaasa eqqarsartaasiilu suli paatsiveerutsinngikkallarmassuk,
pitsaanngitsunillu ilaarsiinnartutut
pissuseqarlersinngikkallarmassulli. Nunat inoqqaavisa
piffissaq allatulli utertissinnaanngilaat!
Arkep nammineq oqaluttualiornermi nalaanni
oqaaseq nunasiaqarsimanerup kingorna atortarsimanngilaa.
Oqaaserli etnoæstetik atussallugu
iluarineruaa, “oqaatsip sunut tamanut samminera
pissutigalugu, oqaatsip isumaa suli itisiliinerusumik
suliaqarnissamik isummersuisarmat.”Oqariartuutaata
isumaa aallavigissallugu ajornartuinnaanngitsoq.
Illuatungaatigut pitsaasuunngimmat: Inuiaat
pilersitaasa eqqumiitsuliornikkut sammineqarneri
aamma nunap inoqqaavisa kulturiisa eqqumiitsuliornikkut
soqutigineqarneri. Aappaatigulli periarfissat
ammapput, inuiaat pillugit pileriartornerisalu
ilisimatusarfigineqarnerisa eqqumiitsuliornermik
akuliuffigineqarneri, eqqumiitsuliornerup suussusaanik
isumaliutersuuteqarneq aamma kusanassutsimik
naliliisarneq. Akuleruffik, inuiaassuseq aallaavigalugu
eqqumiitsuliortup Europami taakkulu kusanassutsimik
naliliisarnerinik sammisaqarnissamik periarfissiisoq,
taamatullu ilisimatusartarnerni ileqqut
silatusaartarnermillu nalilersuutit sammineqarsinnaalersillugit.
Arkep oqartarneratut “akuliunnissamut
periarfissiisoq”. Tassa etnoæstetik Arke malillugu
isiginnittaasiuvoq oqaluttuartuuvoq “Nunat Killit
avataannit isigalugu qanoq inneranik.”
Etnoæstetik – atuagaq – pingaaruteqarpoq qallunaanullu
atatillugu nunasiaqarsimanerup kingorna
eqqumiitsuliornikkut siullerpaat ilagalugit isornartorsiuinermik
takutitsilluni. Atuagaarannguup
saqqummerneratigut sakkussamik tunineqarsimavugut,malunnaatilimmik-oqalliseqataasinnaanermik
(naalakkersuinikkut aamma isummersinnaanikkut)
nunat allat soorlu amerikkarmiut tuluillu
isumaliortaasii misilittagaallu sakkussarsiorfigalugit
ujartuiffiginngikkaluarlugit. Etnoæstetik
saqqummerneratigut nunat avannarliit kiisami
nammineq pigisaminnik allanut unammillernissaminnut
sakkussaqalersinneqarput!
THEME SECTION 4: “ETHNO-AESTHETICS”
This theme section takes its point of departure
in Pia Arke’s Danish-language
pamphlet-like book Ethno-Aesthetics,
which was published in 1995 by the
Aarhus-based art journal ARK, and
which has been republished in connection
with the present exhibition in a trilingual
version (English, Greenlandic,
Danish). But the section also takes its
departure in Arke’s relation to painting
and its status as the artistic medium
par excellence in Europe’s proud art
tradition.
It is tempting to read Arke’s formal
choices as if hers was a classical
development story. According to such
a perspective the introduction would
describe the serious young artist who
from the beginning of the 1980s and onwards
paints polar bears, seals, hunters
in their kayaks and their wives with
topknots and ulus (women’s knives).
The motifs are genuinely felt, but so
Greenlandic that it almost hurts. Then
the turning point, which comes with
a series of conceptual photos from c.
1992-93 of clients proudly posing with
their newly acquired Arke paintings in
front of the artist’s lens. After she has
thus held her own work out at arm’s
length and subjected it to a critical
view, there seems to be no way back.
The artist has to pass through a series
of self-examinations and showdowns
that have to do with involvement
and “ethno-aesthetics” (more on this
shortly). And then the final showdown,
the climax that does not come until
1995 with the graduate thesis Ethno-
Aesthetics. With it Arke completes her
education as a visual artist at the Royal
Danish Academy of Fine Arts (the only
Greenlander to do so, it would seem,
since Hans Lynge) and acquires an MA
in Art Theory and Communication.
After this the story fades out with the
picture of the artist who tackles the
really big conflicts with colonial history,
and has found her artistic stance in the
liberating media of photography and
installation.
But this reading does not hold water:
At any rate not entirely. For the account
cannot explain why, for instance, parallel
with her photography Arke continues to
paint, right up to the point when illness
stops her work, and does so with great
seriousness and respect for the medium
and the authorities that commission
paintings from her. But where in the
early paintings she seems to use Greenlandic
motifs as an ironical commentary
on what the “Eskimoic” artist is expected
to paint, in the later paintings she rather
goes in the opposite direction and dissolves
the motifs to such a degree that we
can no longer read them as Greenlandic
ethnographica.
The dissolution of fixed patterns of
interpretation is for that matter also
the intention behind Arke’s thesis
Ethno-Aesthetics, which has the effect of
a showdown and a turning point for Arke
– and for many other young artists of
Greenlandic origin. The essay illuminates
from a number of different angles
the special forms of articulation and the
special conditions that “ethnic” artists
work under. Gradually, as these insights
are unfolded and fleshed out, the essay
presents a devastating critique of the
well-meaning Western world’s romanticisation
and stereotyping of “original”,
“Eskimoic” and “primitive” art – and
of the resultant counter-picture of the
West, and only the West, as “civilised”,
“modern” and “complex”.
In a broader perspective the essay
is also about art in general – about the
preconditions for understanding and
interpreting art and about the benefit to
be gained from regarding art as something
that comes into being in “the space
between cultures”, as art historian Lars
Kiel Bertelsen has pointed out.
An expanded concept of art – as one
might (very tentatively) call a postcolonial
notion of art, remembering that we
are all in the mix – does not require the
“ethnic” artist to express some kind of
Eskimoic purity and naivety from before
the time when the colonists arrived and
warped their minds with forms, ideas
and ideals that were alien to them, and
of which they could only make bad copies.
Indigenous peoples cannot turn back
the clock (either)!
Arke herself did not use the term
postcolonialism, at any rate not at the
time when she wrote the essay. She
preferred ethno-aesthetics “because it is
a messy concept, a concept that inspires
further work.” It is not an easy concept
to work with. On the one hand, it represents
something bad: the ethnographic
cultivation of “ethnic” art and the artistic
cultivation of indigenous peoples and
cultures. But on the other hand it also
represents a space of opportunity, where
the ethnographic and the anthropological
are mixed with artistic practice, art
theory and aesthetics. A mixture that
makes it possible for the “ethnic” artist
to occupy herself with Europe and
its aesthetics, scientific tradition and
concepts of rationality. A possible way of
getting to “rub shoulders”, as Arke put
it. Thus, in Arke’s optic ethno-aesthetics
is an account of “the West seen from the
outside.”
Ethno-Aesthetics – the book – is an
important and in a Danish context
very early attempt at a postcolonial art
critique. With this little book we have
been given an instrument that enables
us to conduct a discussion of representation
(both in a political and a symbolic
sense) without constantly having to take
recourse to American and British theorists
and their experiences. With Ethno-
Aesthetics we have, so to speak, at last
acquired our own Nordic counterpart!
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