Artes Mundi's blog

Three men and some leeks

By Katherine Bujalska, Artes Mundi Live Guide

Last week I was given a recommendation to go and have a look in the Art in Wales Galleries, just off Gallery 1 on the 1st floor of the Museum, and particularly at the painting of Philip Proger.  It is by an unknown artist (perhaps the Italian School) and was painted sometime during the beginning of the 17th Century.  The wall plaque states that it is the earliest known portrait of a Welshman holding a leek and James I (whose court Philip Proger served at) commented that 'the wearing of leeks by Welshmen was a good and commendable fashion'!

The next time you come to the Museum, do make a special visit to see this painting, it's worth it and I can't pretend I didn't leave the gallery with a chuckle on my lips!

I walked from here through to the film installation by Bulgarian artist Ergin Çavuşoğlu, 'Voyage of No Return'.  In this piece, a father and son discuss what is is to depart from the familiar, in order to see places unknown.  Ergin filmed this piece in Oban, a small port town off the east coast of Scotland, a place he felt was symbolic as a place of departure.

Within the dialogue, despite the son saying that when he arrives at the place he intends to go, he will get a suit made as "I hear they make plenty of good suits over there", neither son nor father make any verbal reference to locatable places, throughout their conversation.  They speak of the mythical leader of the Scythians in Ancient Greece, of places Marco Polo may have seen and of a beautifully and accurately described city in a dream, but of no places we could find on a map.  So their conversation remains one of ideas and the abstract, lying outside of the realm of experience.

But if you look closely, you may spot symbols that Ergin has slipped in, just like unknown painter of Philip Proger did, of places pretty close to home.  There's a Scottish flag stitched into the hat of a man waving farewell on the dock, there are English lions on the sterns of ships coming into port, and of course there are the leeks lying in the bicycle basket being pushed around by one of the films' protagonists.  There are probably more.

What initially seemed to me one of the toughest pieces in Artes Mundi 4 to get to grips with, has become one of the most rewarding.  The abstract nature of some of the dialogue may, at first, seem too much of a challange but I urge everyone to stick with it for it is worth the effort.

The Great Gallery/Cinema Debate

By Ruth McLees, Artes Mundi Live Guide.

The Israeli artist Yael Bartana is one of the artists exhibiting films in this Artes Mundi exhibition. She explores Jewish-Israeli society and history, and in Wall and Tower she presents us with a scenario of the Israeli Jews, having moved back to Poland, constructing a kibbutz (a collective settlement)on the site of the Warsaw Ghetto.

During my lunchtime tour I was asked, "What makes this art? It should be shown in a cinema not a gallery. And if it is art, why wasn't Schindler's List (the film) shown in a gallery?"

Filmed as it is in a propaganda/documentary style, and presented on a single cinema-type screen with seating for the audience, I can see why reading Yael's film as an artwork may be quite challenging.

In comparison, the Bulgarian artist Ergin Cavusoglu presents his films on multiple screens arranged around the gallery. When setting up for this show he deliberately arranged the screens so as to transform the space architecturally and allow the viewers to move between and around, and so become immersed in the action. The sound is designed to change as we walk through the space. He stipulated no chairs or benches for the audience so as to avoid dictating where they must sit to experience the film. In this way he keeps away from the cinematic formula of one seat=one view, and so steers his work firmly in the direction of art as opposed to cinema.

So, is it appropriate that Yael's work is exhibited here in the gallery of National Museum Wales? Many of her films are regularly shown in film festivals in cinemas around the world, so why are they here in this gallery? Do they become art as soon as they are placed in a gallery setting? Since classical times art has served as documentary and reportage with the aim of inciting a response in the viewer; perhaps this is all that is needed for Yael Bartana's films to be successfully read as art.