Chris Ofili, "Afrodizzia"

Chris Ofili, "Afrodizzia", second version, 1996. Photo from Tate Britain

Using "Afrodizzia" (second version) by Chris Ofili merely as illustration of what I want to say below, is really quite unfair. Especially since this work lends itself very poorly to photographic reproduction.

It is a canvas filled with layers of lots of different stuff, like paint, cut out photos and elephant dung. And as you can see above, the frame itself also rests on balls of elephant dung. By using that rather untraditional material, Ofili quite blatantly plays with stereotypical notions of African culture. - Like he does when he spreads out images of faces with afro hairdos across a very colorful surface.

The reason why I'm showing this work today is that I want to say something about art and Advent. - Some connection, uh? Well, it's December 1 today, and Sunday was the first of the four last Sundays before Christmas, when we light purple candles. - Four of them in a wreath, and one more to be lit every Sunday.

This year we invited our friends who are originally from Ethiopia to come light the first candle and have dinner with us. So it's not really Advent I want to say something about, but the experience of getting to know Sara and Omar, who are refugees from Ethiopia, and their four children. They are Muslim, and sharing our Christian traditions with them, gave me a fresh perspective on those actions that I perform every year without really thinking about them.

Sara and Omar are great people that I would enjoy hanging out with in any circumstance. But sharing Advent with them and getting to take part in some of their ways and traditions, gives me such a valuable perspective on my own life choices (small and large). And it confronts me with plenty of stereotypical and generalized notions that I have about Africa. - For instance, I realize that Africa is so much more diverse than I tend to assume since I have never been anywhere on that huge continent.

So thinking about all this in relation to Advent, I searched my memory for suitable African art to go with it. But tellingly enough, the British artist Chris Ofili was as close as I got. I think it must have been his "Afrodizzia" (second version) I saw in the SENSATION show at Hamburger Bahnhof in 1998.

I do not know anything about African art, but Ofili's work does more or less the same as getting to know people from Africa: It highlights my prejudice.

Michael Krebber, "Miami City Ballet IV"

Michael Krebber, "Miami City Ballet IV", 2010.
Photo from Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Berlin, 2010

I stopped by Bergen Kunsthall the other day to see the exhibit of four artists that is currently showing there. Among all the works that are included in that show, the one above, by Michael Krebber, gave me the most momentous moment of seeing "something".

But what was it that I saw?

For starters: Three primed canvases in a vertical pile that is halfway covered by a polka dot "hood", with a smear of black paint up towards the right.

This seemed quite meaningless to me. But knowing how rear it is, - that experience of not immediately connecting a visual uttering with some kind of perceived message, I was thrilled. And even more so when I found out that the work is titled "Miami City Ballet IV".

The connection between the covered up canvases and the title "Miami City Ballet IV" made no sense to me. I could find no literal connection, apart from thinking of other artists that have painted ballet, - Degas, for instance. But bringing Degas's impressions of dancers into my moment at Bergen Kunsthall, just seemed like an irrelevant distraction.

- Or maybe the three canvases could be perceived as stopped in moment, lined up and covered by a mutual piece of costume? No, the title "Miami City Ballet IV" left me with an even stronger notion that this work does not give any direct meaning in and of itself. (But the exciting experience of actually trying to find one, and feeling very close to finding it, was what made that moment at Bergen Kunsthall worthy of bringing on.)

What I found when I looked for meaning outside of the artwork itself, you can read below the next pictures. But that is more or less random information which ends up confirming a notion that this work is not a painting in any traditional singular sense, but a "painting" that is only concerned with the premises of "painting" as a general notion, and with the context that makes works like "Miami City Ballet IV" possible.

(If you are uncertain about the term "context", please look at this former post).

Michael Krebber, "Miami City Ballet I", 2010.
Photo from Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Berlin, 2010

Michael Krebber, "Miami City Ballet II", 2010.
Photo from Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Berlin, 2010

Michael Krebber, "Miami City Ballet III", 2010.
Photo from Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Berlin, 2010

Since then, I have found the paintings "Miami City Ballet" numbers I-III. They were included in a show Michael Krebber had at Galerie Daniel Buchholz in Berlin this summer.

Michael Krebber, "Miami City Ballet", Installation view, Galerie Daniel Buchholz, 2010

And this was how the paintings were installed: Three of them to the left, and then the covered up ones to the right. With a big box clad in fabric between.

Michael Krebber, "Miami City Ballet", 2010,
invitation card photo,  Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Berlin, 2010

I also found out where the artist got the title from: The entire show at Daniel Buchholz was titled "Miami City Ballet", and here is an excerpt from the invitation card written by Krebber:

"'Miami City Ballet" shall be the first stop in, or the downbeat of a series of ”new” exhibitions
following a lengthy period of inactivity. I took the photograph on the invitation card during a
Douglas Crimp lecture. It shows the photograph being projected—of Edward Villella—the ballet
dancer and later founder of the "MCB"—in the midst himself of holding a lecture. He shows his
arm; looks at it and—according to Crimp-comments on it. That he is “beholding” his arm is un-
knowable from my blurry photograph. More or less the same applies here, too.

[...] At this point we put in the picture of Paul Swan, the actor and dancer who once held the title: "Most Beautiful Man in the World"; Swan who appears and dances beside a curtain behind which he disappears for a costume change or some other preparation but doesn’t reappear except perhaps when no one can believe it any more.[...]

- So was this what Michael Krebber intended all along: Covering up the paintings ("painting") until no one can believe in them (believe in "it") any more?


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On December 2, David Joselit will speak about "Painting Stripped Bare" at Bergen Kunsthall.