White man got no dreaming is the title of the work by U.S. artist Michael Rakowitz at the Biennale of Sydney – yet another remake of the Tatlin Monument to the Third International, (see also the Wikipedia entry) a version of which we’ve just seen in the context of the Ai Wei Wei show. This is the latest in a long string of reconstructions of this monument, but unfortunately the Biennale PR (always vulnerable to naivete fuelled by enthusiasm) has billed it as “the never-before constructed monument to the communist revolution.” (Josephine Tovey, SMH, in the Biennale special promotion last weekend).
Perhaps this Biennale should be retitled Revolution Recycled, given it’s didactic and historical bent? On the one hand, including all the references to historical social revolutions (even Maximilian Robespierre gets a page!), and on the other, anything to do with circular forms. Coming from an American visitor, the White man got no dreaming reference is particularly grating: it’s a reference to the title of the book of collected essays by W.E.H. Stanner, White Man Got No Dreaming: Essays 1938-1973, Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1979. The pirated title itself derives from a more complex passage spoken by a Murinbata man, Muta, which reads:
“White man got no dreaming, him go ‘nother way. White man, him go different. Him got road belong himself.”
Its context is a passage written in 1953 (p. 24) which reads:
“Clearly, The Dreaming is many things in one. Among them, a kind of narrative of things that once happened; a kind of charter of things that still happen; and a kind of logos or principle of order transcending everything significant for Aboriginal man. If I am correct in saying so, it is much more complex philosophically than we have so far realised. I greatly hope that artists and men of letters who (it seems increasingly) find inspiration in Aboriginal Australia will use all their gifts of empathy, but avoid banal projection and subjectivism, if they seek to honor the notion.”
By contrast to Stanner’s lifetime of interaction with Indigenous Australians, Rakowitz’ reference to an Aboriginal perspective could scarcely be thinner, or more opportunistic. As the BoS describes it, “Rakowitz has constructed a full-scale contemporary version of avant-garde Russian artist Vladimir Tatlin’s model for Monument to the Third International (1919). Tatlin’s tower, which was to have been made of spirals, was never built; today, it is a symbol of revolutionary and visionary thought. Rakowitz’s Tatlin tower, White man got no dreaming, is a rebirth of collective hope, as it recycles discarded materials from old houses, soon to be demolished, owned by the Aboriginal Housing Company in Redfern, Sydney.”
Are we missing something here? What’s the connection between Tatlin’s tower and the Redfern reconstruction project (the Pemulwuy Project)? Is it that they are both visionary, in some way? Is that all there is? No wonder the Redfern residents had reservations about it (as he relayed to us in his ABC interview last Sunday)…
For context, here’s another example of another contemporary reconstruction of the Tatlin Tower (in 2000) by the French artist Michel Aubry, exhibited at the Centre for Contemporary Art, Vassivierre (partly constructed out of Sardinian cane, the culmination of a long-running series of works in the same medium celebrating the icons of 20th modernity). And of course there’s also the first reconstruction, at the Moderna Museet, in Stockholm, conceived by the late Pontus Hulten in 1968. And there’s bound to be more…
8 responses so far ↓
1 ABC » Michael Rakowitz speaks for himself… // Jun 24, 2008 at 6:00 am
[...] Michael Rakowitz speaks for himself… Is that all there is? No wonder the Redfern residents had reservations about it (as he relayed to us in his ABC interview last Sunday) [...]
2 Hetti Perkins // Jun 24, 2008 at 11:59 pm
There is a simple answer to the question ‘Are we missing something here?’; which should read ‘Am I missing something here?’ The answer can be found in the drawings and text annotations which form part of Rakowitz’s installation at the Biennale. a further and significant part of the process were the consultations that took place with organisations and Block community members prior to this work being constructed and that the installation was shown at the Redfern Community Centre for a week prior to it’s showing at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Rakowitz’s independent research leading up to this project was exhaustive not ‘thin’, and his demonstrated respect for members of the Aboriginal community and the struggle for The Block can in no way be construed as being ‘opportunistic’. Personally, I consider that Rakowitz has indeed used all his ‘gifts of empathy’.
3 Nigel // Jun 26, 2008 at 11:30 pm
Hetti Perkins comments as Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and refers in this comment to the documentation of Michael Rakowitz’ process and interactions with the Redfern Aboriginal Community. Her reference to this material is germaine to our points above, and it will be good when readers from outside Canberra can see this documentary material online.
However the work White Man Got No Dreaming stands in the foyer of the Art Gallery of New South Wales as the outcome of this process, and our responses to this work are based on our perception of a complex problematic, with at least a double disconnection of its form, origins, meaning, and multiple historical references.
Firstly, the form and its origins, and its use of materials: how do we reconcile the forms of the monument to the Soviet revolution with the materials derived from urban reconstruction of Redfern? Is there any substantive connection, or meaningful evocation of one to the other?
Secondly, the form and its title: how, in its museum context (and its Biennale context) is its title to be interpreted? Is it in relation to its original context – Stanner’s essay, and interpretation, based on a part-quotation from the original author? If so, this is a radical decontextualisation of its origins, with all its throw-away racist implications. It’s inescapable that the title signals that the work is some kind of commentary on race in Australia, but who is the “white man” in a multi-ethnic society like Australia, whose spirituality or imagination is shown to be lacking through a work like this? Playing the race card is a risky strategy for an outsider, we would have thought…
Or does this play off some kind of clumsy analogy between “white” Australia and the historical White Russia, enemy of the Bolsheviks, for which the Third International was a short-lived moment of triumph? No? Just a coincidence? Or are we over-interpreting it, and perhaps like other works in the Biennale with no politics at all, this began as a formal reference to the original Monument (where some of the elements go round and round) and ended as a both-ways reinforcement of the Biennale’s “revolutionary” theme, with the local hot-spot of social tension rusted on?
4 Hetti Perkins // Jul 1, 2008 at 4:07 am
I comment more in my capacity as a member of the Biennale audience, as well as having a role in introducing the artist to various community members. It would appear you have not seen the installation. The drawings are intrinsic to the work which you are critiquing and hold the answers to the questions you raise.
5 Nigel // Jul 3, 2008 at 9:51 am
Impressive, and rare, the capacity to step aside from a role as curator and facilitator, to view the work with eyes uncomplicated by inside knowledge. For this viewer, the presence of a documentary trail (simplistic and tendentious as it may be, with no sense of the artists experience), with illustrations of no particular merit, seems to reinforce my sense of an exoticised politics delivered back to its local audience, with a splash of mysticism (“dreaming is a revolutionary space”). I could go on, but the rationalising thrust of the narrative in no way ameliorates the contradictions identified above, and there are other things to do…
6 Nigel // Jul 10, 2008 at 1:18 am
And if anyone is still reading the thread, and wants more, you can go to the frighteningly hilarious interview with Zanny Begg in The Broadsheet June 2008 (V37 #2) where Director Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev and Michael Rakowitz reveal the source of their collective inspiration: “Dreaming? What’s that? That’s a cool idea! Bet nobody’s thought of that before… but why is nobody talking to us?”
7 Hetti Perkins // Jul 12, 2008 at 1:24 am
To those who may be still reading this thread I recommend that you see the work in situ and rely on your own observations. worth noting that the last post “quote” in particular is misleading regarding the consultations and responses that occurred with the Redfern community.
8 carolyn christov-bakargiev // Jul 13, 2008 at 4:44 am
Hello! i read in the previous comments: “It’s inescapable that the title signals that the work is some kind of commentary on race in Australia, but who is the “white man” in a multi-ethnic society like Australia, whose spirituality or imagination is shown to be lacking through a work like this? Playing the race card is a risky strategy for an outsider, we would have thought…” yes, it is also some kind of commentary on relations in Australia, and fortunately non-australians are allowed (still) to enter into the dialogue, although there seem to be gate-keepers here, and not necessarily amongst the non-white. I also read: “with a splash of mysticism (”dreaming is a revolutionary space”)” – interesting use of “mysticism” as a negative connotation by you. For what reason do you wish to eradicate this from contemporary culture?
You also write: “how do we reconcile the forms of the monument to the Soviet revolution with the materials derived from urban reconstruction of Redfern” _ Reconciliation is a problematic term, like unification, and unity (bringing to one), and assimilation. Maybe elements may not be reconciled, nor brought to together, nor to unity. And this inability or unnecessary reconciliation is an emancipatory space. end of comment in this little box on the screen.
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