“X-factor in Art”: Reality Art Show on BBC Two

On Saturday early evening when I was on my way back from work, reading a weekly company newspaper that I got from my boyfriend, I found out that there will be a new “reality art show” with Charles Saatchi coming up on BBC Two this autumn.

The article on ariel (written by Claire Barrett) starts with the following statement that was made by Francis Bacon:

“[A]rtists aren’t born [;] they need to meet the right people”

Having used to discuss about this controversial idea quite passionately with my friends when I was in an ”Art School,” I was drawn into the article on the train.

The idea is that in the University class room, we have studied the canonical idea of the figure of artist being represented or recognized as a genius, and yet later on realised that it can actually be a matter of who you know rather than just what you produce in the reality outside the class room that will define the future of an artist – it was a question of nurture or nature, or a matter of having the both to be come an “Artist” with the big capital “A”.

The central idea of this upcoming programme Saatchi’s Best of British is to invite Charles Saatchi as the key figure to pick up 6 amateur artists, and to nurture the talent (and people connection, possibly) for over 3 months at a specially created Art School where the artists will be enrolled into.

The interesting point is that Saatchi will not appear directly in front of the camera – rather, “We see him as a kind of Charlie figure from Charlie’s Angels,” giving suggestions and opinions to the artists as well as tutors who will be mentoring the students. In other words, here, Saatchi is almost presented as a God like figure. With the image of Saatchi as an art dealer being synonymous to the image of success in Art, the artists’ success seemed to be guaranteed with the blessing of the God of Art World Saatchi.

In the art theory class I used to attend, what mattered was more of the figure of artists themselves being genius or God/des like. However, the history might have slightly shifted its spotlight to the dealers with God/des like talents as well as (social & financial) authority, and of course, a great passion for Art.

*Saatchi’s Best of British; Entry to the competition is open to any UK resident who is over 18, and is not represented by a gallery. You can register on www.submityourart.com for further detail and submit your work until the mid night of 28^th March, 2009. Hurry, hurry!

*The Press Release from the BBC can be read from here.

チベット現代アート：新しいアイデンティティーに向けて

現代アートブームにより注目を集める中国現代アート。そして北京オリンピック開催に伴い浮き彫りにされてきたチベット問題。この二つの狭間に存在しつつも今も尚充分に認識を得ていないアイデンティティーがある－1966年の文化大革命の時期に生まれ、毛沢東政府による反ダライ・ラマ教育の元で育ったチベット民族第二生の存在だ。

ゴンカー・ギェイツォはそんなチベット民族第二生の一人で、北京で現代アートを学んで以来自身の「チベット」と「中国」という二つの混在するアイデンティティーを題材に、ロンドンにて作品を作り続けている。４枚のセルフポートレイト写真から成るシリーズ作品”Life”では、文化大革命前・後・インド亡命・ロンドン移住と、移り変わりながらも重なり合う異なる文化に身を置くアーティストの多面的人物像が提示されている。

この作品は、伝統的なチベット仏教アートであるタンカや仏像を現代アートの素材として使って来た事により、自らが民族として属するはずのインドで亡命中のチベットコミュニティーからは”邪道”として批判を受けた、「チベット人」「中国人」のどちらでもなく同時にそのどちらでもあるというアーティスト自身のアイデンティティーの葛藤の象徴であり、その存在の認識を求める叫びであるもと言えるだろう。今、存在するのに見られていないアイデンティティー＝主体性が、複数の主体により単数の存在となるという新しいアイデンティティーの生産と認識への可能性を求めているのである。

(※この画像はアーティスト本人のホームページから非コマーシャル目的でリンクしているものであり、コピーライトはアーティスト本人に属する。)

Contemporary Tibetan Art; Towards the New Identity

Contemporary Chinese Art has been cerebrated in the midst of Contemporary Art boom. Political problem of Tibet has been brought into daylight accompanied by the opening of Beijing Olympic. In between these two, there is still an unknown identity that has been struggling into the light of recognition – it is the existence of the Tibetans who were born and taught under the Maoist Chinese government of post-1966 Cultural Revolution.

Gonkar Gyatso is one of these Tibetans; he has been making art works in London on the subject of his dual identity of “Tibet” and “China”, ever since he has learnt Contemporary Art in Beijing. The serial photography work “Life” consists of four self-portraits of the artist himself, each of which presenting him in different yet crossing over cultures – pre-Cultural Revolution, post-Cultural Revolution, exile in India, and immigration in London – representing the multiple-figure of the artist.

It could be argued that this work symbolises the identity dilemma of the artist, whose works were influenced by the traditional Tibetan Buddhist Arts yet criticised by the exile community of Tibet in India as being “improper” to the sacred art; i.e., being rejected from the community where his ethnic origin resides, the figure of the artist has been simultaneously split and integrated between “Tibetan” and “Chinese,” calling for the recognition of its unique existence. The unrecognised minority existence of an identity = subjectivity is demanding the possibility of creation and recognition of a new singular identity that consists of plural subjectivities.

(*The image has been retrieved from the artist's own web site for non-commercial purposes, and its copyright belongs to the artist himself.)

(*A modified version of this article has been published in "invisible man / paper" at G/P Gallery in Tokyo and Institute of Contemporary Art bookshop in London.)