Artist Tracey Rose challenges the Kunstmuseum Bern
Published: Wednesday, Feb 21st 2024, 16:10
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South African artist Tracey Rose did not face the media before the opening of the "Shooting Down Babylon" exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Bern. Her signature on a petition critical of Israel in 2021 caused controversy. It had been expected that Rose would explain herself in person.
Instead, the Kunstmuseum Bern issued a written statement to the media on Wednesday. In it, the institution focuses on dialog. The Kunstmuseum emphasizes its role as a platform for "an open and polyphonic debate on works of art". In other words: The Kunstmuseum Bern wants to "explore artistic freedom with each other from different perspectives", as Kunstmuseum Director Nina Zimmer told the Keystone-SDA news agency.
Art asks questions
And the exhibition? "Shooting Down Babylon" (23. 2.-11.8.) is a large-scale retrospective of the work of performance and media artist Tracey Rose, who was born in South Africa in 1974. Upon entering the central room of the art museum, visitors stand in front of a double rainbow that fills the entire large wall. In front of it are individual works on plinths. The rainbow is a clear reference to South Africa and its first democratically elected president, Nelson Mandela (1918-2013). After his release, he described his country as a rainbow nation, a nation for all people who have left apartheid behind.
But Tracey Roses' individual works before this are question marks. For example, the work with the bird, entitled "The Boys of Bird Island": a reference to a pedophile ring that was uncovered during Mandela's presidency and in which people from his circle were also involved. "A Dream deferred" is also the subtitle, in reference to the poem of the same name by the African-American Langston Hughes (1902-1967).
The entire work is called "Mandela Balls". Based on the poem, Tracey Rose builds a total of 95 so-called monuments, one for each year of Mandela's life - and uses the sometimes bizarre objects to ask what remains in South Africa after the hopeful democratic awakening and Mandela's presidency.
Radical art
In her works, Rose deals with apartheid and thematizes racism, gender and post-colonialism. Her work consists of videos, sculptures, photographs, installations and drawings. Unlike in "Mandela Balls", she often stages herself and her body as a place of protest, resistance, discourse, but also of healing.
She is allusive, humorous - and often provocative. Take, for example, the almost life-size photograph "For King and Cunt". Laughing, wearing a Union Jack outfit, she stands with St. Paul's Cathedral in London between her legs; lifting one of her legs, she urinates on this central monument of the British Empire.
The exhibition "Shooting Down Babylon" shows around one hundred works from the period from 1990 to 2021, ranging from Tracey Rose's early work, in which she explores identity, to the aesthetics of violence and her examination of healing processes and rituals. It was organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art Zeitz Mocca in Cape Town, curated by Koyo Kouoh and Tandazani Dhlakama - in collaboration with chief curator Kathleen Bühler from the Kunstmuseum Bern. It will be officially opened on Thursday, February 22.
Controversial position
Against the backdrop of the controversy surrounding Tracey Roses' signature on the "Artists against Apartheid" petition in 2021, the art museum wants to organize a round table discussion and present statements by the artist on the artworks in the exhibition. The bone of contention is the comparison of Israel, at least in part, with the apartheid regime in South Africa.
In the Art Museum's statement to the media on Wednesday, Jonathan Kreutner, Secretary General of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities (SIG), is quoted as saying that the artist makes it clear "that she obviously represents radical and not constructive positions". He attests that the petition has a "slippery slope".
Tracey Rose herself also has her say in the paper, referring to her Jewish and Muslim roots. According to the paper, she condemns the "cruel attacks by Hamas on Israel and the severe retaliatory measures taken by the Israeli government". She has "clearly spoken out in favor of a ceasefire between Israel and Palestine" and believes "in the right of the state of Israel and the state of Palestine to exist", as the paper states.
In an interview with the newspaper "Der Bund", Kreutner welcomed the approach taken by the Kunstmuseum Bern, according to which the artist's positions are to be disclosed and debated.
©Keystone/SDA
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