Fortune of reversal

Question the universe about something, and miraculously I run into it in an unexpected way. This usually makes me feel pretty dumb, but at least I can be consoled by the fact that it is in the world. As a continuation of the previous post on the the rise in visibility of artwork from Africa, I saw two excellent shows recently of artists working in Ehtiopia and South Africa.

As I mentioned before, the work of William Kentridge at the SFMoma was fantastic. I allocated about two hours to spend with it, but ended up there for four. Kentridge's short films, video installations and animatronic "plays" display an expert use of screening in an art space. The relationship that ties different perspectives of different individuals living during and after apartheid gives the viewer a holistic look at the effects of universal government policies on the individual and the deep roots that these policies take in the psychology of the people.

The Santa Monica Museum of Art has the work of the Ethiopian multi-media artist Elias Sime currently on view. Sime's work is a polished mix of non-art materials that evoke the everyday with compositions that are both graphic and resonant of western painting traditions. A tonal white canvas was actually, on closer inspection, an embroidered swirl of line work that could have been made by Edvard Munch if stitching had replaced paint as his medium of choice. Primitive-looking carved chairs have varied-sized legs jutting out of the front of the seat and legs, as if the sitter were birthing them out of the wood. A self-taught artist who resurrects fragments found in the landscape of contemporary Ethiopia (sometimes collected by neighborhood children), Sime expertly expresses the cultural mash-up that becomes all too common as traditions of countries like Ethiopia are slowly subsumed into the hegemony of global popular culture.

"William Kentridge: Five Themes," San Francisco Moma, Mar 14-May 31, 2009.
"Elias Sime: Eye of the Needle, Eye of the Heart," Santa Monica Museum of Art, Jan 24-Apr 18, 2009.

Wendy and Lucy

I don't think I ever experienced with more frequency the immediacy of helping a stranger than when I lived in New York. Not in the sense of giving directions to a tourist or dropping a dime in a bum's cup, but in the sense of being face to face with a person in a situation that probably defied some city ordinance or park rule or code of conduct and forced to choose whether to engage with them or stay safely in my own life. I guess I stopped thinking twice about helping someone after that, mostly because I thought that in a place with such a large population, so many people lived under the radar or fell beneath the cracks. What happens to a person when they are not in a community? How do we form a sense of community with the individuals we share physical, real space with?
It seems a much more curious dilemma now that friendships are mediated through social networks like Facebook and micro-updated with applications like Twitter. Our closest friends are virtually present while the physically present are our nearest strangers. The difference between living the real versus "knowing" the virtual becomes very apparent. Which makes it odd to consider this idea through safely watching a film... Kelly Reichardt's latest, "Wendy and Lucy," follows a young woman as she makes her way to Alaska in what may be a futile attempt to find work at a cannery. The whole premise could not be more relevant in a time when the population is feeling the effects of downsizing and "re-organization" and are faced with the task of building new communities and sometimes starting over in other geographic locations. What happens when you don't have your trusted neighbor in the adjoining apartment to ask for help, or need transportation home and your bus doesn't come, or are not sure if you are safe in the neighborhood you are walking through? I read a good review of the film on the New York Times' website citing this circumstance as "the nature of solidarity in a culture of individualism." More here.