MONOCULTURE | A Recent History
Artists include: Hannah Höch, Lovis Corinth, Karl Hofer, George Grosz, Carol Rama, Werner Peiner, Belgian Institute for World Affairs, Joseph Beuys, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Åsa Sonjasdotter, Andy Warhol, Nicole, Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Haseeb Ahmed, Sven Augustijnen, Candida Höfer, Papa Ibra Tall, Maryam Najd, David Blandy, Oxana Shachko, Matti Braun, Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys, Luc Deleu, Jimmie Durham, Catherine Opie, Charlotte Posenenske, Public Movement, Philip Guston, Mladen Stilinović, N. S. Harsha, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Rasheed Araeen, Ibrahim Mahama, Kerry James Marshall, Vincent Meessen, Renzo Martens/CATPC, Danny Matthys, Jonas Staal, Sille Storihle, Makhmut Usmanovich Usmanov, Nicoline van Harskamp, Dimitri Venkov, Plus artefacts from several cultural archives: the Arthur Langerman Archives for Research into Visual Anti-Semitism (ALAVA), and the cultural archives of Flanders: AMSAB – Institute for Social History; the Liberal Archive; KADOC Documentation and Research Centre on Religion, Culture and Society; and ADVN – Archive and Research Centre for Flemish Nationalism.
The exhibition MONOCULTURE – A Recent History begins from the principle that any understanding of ‘multiculture’, should necessitate an investigation of ‘monoculture’. The societal understanding of monoculture can be defined as the homogeneous expression of the culture of a single social or ethnic group. The project seeks to approach the notion of monoculture with an open mind. It will thus aim for an analysis of, rather than an antithesis to, monoculture, approaching it not only from historical, social, cultural and ideological perspectives, but also philosophical, linguistic and agricultural ones. MONOCULTURE will provide a tentative mapping, allowing for a comparative analysis of different manifestations of monoculture, as well as their reflections in art and propaganda, seeking to draw some conclusions that might be relevant for society and culture at large.
The project will set out some core questions, including: What might we mean by monoculture? What is the impetus for ‘identitarian’ or nationalistic monoculture movements who do not see, or wish, their society to be pluralistic, not just in the context of Europe but globally? Might we locate positive or even emancipatory aspirations of monoculture? Might a culturally homogeneous society also be inclusive and transformational? What lies at the fringes of monoculture, and what does it not tolerate? What may be the position of the arts within the context of monocultural ideology? Or alternatively, how might the arts look under monocultural ideology when taken to its logical conclusion? Looking at the recent relevant part through to the present day, the project will aim to address such challenging questions, beyond the tendencies and bias of liberal ‘groupthink’, as a way to consider notions of culture in a different way to established lenses such as identity politics or post-modern relativism.
MONOCULTURE will formulate exploratory constellations of art, ideas and propaganda. Alongside various examples of official culture sanctioned by nation states, one of the most striking historical demonstrations of ideological monoculture in the cultural field was through the infamous 1937 ‘Entartete Kunst’ (‘Degenerate Art’) exhibition staged in Nazi Germany. Holding up the modernist avant-garde as an aberration, Nazism sought instead a decidedly unambiguous ethno-centric conception of culture inspired by a Greco-Roman imaginary. Yet monocultural conceptions of culture might also be formed through emancipatory imperatives. Some argue that a post-colonial movement such as Négritude in Senegal for example as having implemented a form of cultural homogeneity. These will be among the many case studies for exploring different trajectories and intersections of monoculture, particularly their articulation in art and ideology, from the early-20th century to the present moment.
MONOCULTURE – A Recent History is part of ‘Our Many Europes’, a project of the confederation ‘L’Internationale’.
Exhibition curated by Nav Haq, Associate Director, M HKA
The conference Considering Monoculture was co-organised by deBuren, M HKA and Van Abbemuseum took place at deBuren, Brussels, on 27 and 28 February.
Two publications accompany the exhibition: MONOCULTURE – A Recent History, exhibition catalogue published by M HKA, and The Aesthetics of Ambiguity – Understanding and Addressing Monoculture, co-edited by Pascal Gielen and Nav Haq, published by Valiz as part of the Antennae – Arts in Society series.
About the ‘L’Internationale’ confederation:
L'Internationale is a confederation of seven modern and contemporary art institutions. L'Internationale proposes a space for art within a non-hierarchical and decentralised internationalism, based on the values of difference and horizontal exchange among a constellation of cultural agents, locally rooted and globally connected. It brings together seven major European art institutions: Moderna galerija (MG+MSUM, Ljubljana, Slovenia); Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid, Spain); MACBA, Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (Spain); Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen (M HKA, Antwerp, Belgium); Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej w Warszawie (Warsaw, Poland), SALT (Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey) and Van Abbemuseum (VAM, Eindhoven, the Netherlands). L'Internationale works with complementary partners such as HDK-Valand Academy of Art and Design (HDK-Valand, Gothenburg, Sweden) and the National College of Art and Design (NCAD, Dublin, Ireland) and together with them is presenting the programme "Our Many Europes".
About ‘Our Many Europes’.
Our Many Europes is a four-year programme (2018–22) comprising exhibitions, public programming, heritage exchange and institutional experimentation, organised by the European museum confederation "L'Internationale" and its partners, and co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. The programme takes the 1990s as a starting point when our current Europe was born. It aims to think speculatively about the role of culture as a driving force in showing who and how we are in the world.
In the press:
"Every single room of this amazing exhibition functions in a similar way, though with its own specificity: Mapping underlying ideological dichotomies through the combination of the works, the lighting, and the architecture, the juxtapositions show unexpected nuances, sketching an incredibly dense and accurate portrait of our times, accounting for their inner complexities. Presenting the works of forty-two artists next to some famous, controversial, or underestimated theoretical books, magazines, and exhibition catalogues (by the likes of Benedict Anderson, Simone de Beauvoir, G. K. Chesterton, and Friedrich Nietzsche) and improbable but revealing items (A Record from Ronald Reagan to All Californians, distributed for his 1966 gubernatorial campaign), this exhibition is as intense as a whole biennial, while occupying only one level of the museum: a rare stroke of genius." - Yoann Van Parys, ARTFORUM
3D Scan:
Please enjoy the 3D scan of the presentation here.
Items
Benedict Anderson, "Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism", 1983
E. Maxwell Fry, "African Experiment - Building for an Educational Programme in the Gold Coast", 1953
European Security - Problem No.1
The Novosti Press Agency was founded in 1961 with the aim "to contribute to mutual understanding, trust and friendship among peoples in every possible way by broadly publishing accurate information about the USSR abroad, and familiarising the Soviet public with the life of the peoples of foreign countries". The Agency operated as an impressive propaganda machine with numerous branches all around the world and a total annual publication circulation of 20 million copies. Their range of books covered such topics as the Soviet contribution to the economic development of 'Third World’ countries, the Soviet policy of support for National Liberation Movements, criticism of “contemporary colonialism” and the imperialist policy of the West. As stated in one of the books titled European Security – Problem No.1, the publications propagated the Soviet policy of international friendship and cooperation, as opposed to the Western policy of political exclusion. Alongside propagandising on significant concerns of the Cold War-era, some publications by Novosti Press were also aimed at Jewish people living outside of the USSR who were considering moving to the newly established state of Israel. In the booklet The Deceived Testify for example, the propaganda takes the peculiar form of presenting emotional confessions of those who deeply regretted the decision to try their luck in “capitalist” Israel.
F.K. Günther, Kleine Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes, 1943
Published by J. F. Lehmanns Verlag
from The American Indian series, 1976
The American Indian (Russell Means) is a silk-screen painting by Andy Warhol from a series of eighteen he produced in 1976 depicting the American Indian activist and actor Russel Means. Means, who was from the Oglala Lakota people, became widely known for his leadership during the occupation of the South Dakota town of Wounded Knee by the American Indian Movement in 1973. The occupation was in protest against the alleged corruption of the local government as well as their mistreatment of American Indians. The site was symbolic, as Wounded Knee was at the centre of the 1890 massacre of the Sioux by the U.S. Army. The siege between the activists and federal law enforcement lasted 71 days, and was covered widely in the media. In the 1970s, Warhol made many portraits of celebrities and people that he admired across the political and cultural spectrum. Means appealed to Warhol as a figure who sat at the intersection of activism, celebrity and popular culture. The representation of American Indians was a common, and also controversial, subject in Hollywood movies. Warhol’s ‘Pop’ treatment of Means, in traditional dress, reflects how American Indians are part of the distinct American cultural iconography. Ace Gallery in Los Angeles, who first exhibited this series of painting in 1977, contributed $5,000 to the American Indian Movement in exchange for Means’ participation. Means found fame once again decades later for his role as Chingachgook in the Oscar-winning movie, The Last of the Mohicans.
Nicoline van Harskamp’s performance My Name is Language takes place in a bureaucratic looking setting – a place where names are collected, filed, inflicted, withdrawn, and adapted. A storytelling session takes place between several people ‘waiting’ among the audience members in the room. Their anecdotes are a synthesis of narratives the artist gathered through extended research and (group) interviews about the fate of personal names in multilingual and migratory contexts. The stories are brought together and fictionalised into a script, that provides the basis for an immersive performance, in the course of which it becomes clear that names are not always bound to their owners. We learn that names and naming traditions can cross cultural boundaries in ways that most other words cannot, but they can also suffer damage along the way. Mispronounced, garbled and even replaced completely with something more acceptable to the dominant culture, they can start to lead a life of their own. In the performance, names appear in spoken, written and translated forms, and nobody speaks the same language or variety of a language.
Paris Match, "Conference de Bandung", 1955
Bandung Conference - Report by Stephane Groueff, Fred Smoular, Ernst Haas, Rene Vital in "Paris Match", no. 318, 30 April 1955
Règlement Général. Exposition Internationale Coloniale, Maritime et d'Art Flamand, Anvers 1930, 1930
Règlement Général. Exposition Internationale Coloniale, Maritime et d'Art Flamand, Anvers 1930, 1930
Schoolstrijd artefacts from KADOC
KCB 2398 : affiche schoolstrijd 1950-58
KCC 387 : affiche schoolstrijd, 1932
KCC 1587 : affiche schoolstrijd, 1912
Marc Sleen, Gij wilt schoolstrijd, 1955; Courtesy: KADOC-KU Leuven. Verzameling Marc Sleen. 19.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its Predecessors (1679 - 1948), 1949
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its predecessors (1679-1948) edited by Baron F. M. Van Asbeck, 1949
Published by E. J. Brill
This video documents the collaboration between Renzo Martens and the art league CATPC (Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise). Plantations have created great wealth for a few Western families since colonial times, including some that created or supported museums in their own names, such as Tate in England and The Ludwig in Cologne. CATPC create their works at the White Cube in Lusanga, Democratic Republic of Congo. This arts and research centre in the middle of the Congolese plantation zones was designed by OMA, and comprises a quintessential white cube museum space. The location is symbolic. Lusanga, formerly Leverville, was established as Unilever’s first palm oil plantation. Here, Unilever has confiscated land and violently imposed monocultural agricultural practices and labour conditions. Unilever has also established itself a major art patron.
In this on-going project, CATPC’s fifteen members make self-portraits out of mud, which are 3D scanned and reproduced in chocolate in Amsterdam, the biggest cocoa port in the world. The sales of their chocolate sculptures have thus far generated profits which they have bought back 85 hectares of land around the White Cube, where they develop ecological and inclusive gardens, in opposition to monoculture. The monoculture of the homogenous, modernist white cube of art provides the capital to reclaim land, overcoming the other monoculture of corporate agriculture.
Chocolates portraits by CATPC are also available for purchase from the museum shop. All proceeds go towards helping CATPC buy further acres of land, that they will turn into ecological food gardens.