I will describe two cases here. One is from the end of 1989 and the very early stages of the post-socialist transformation in Bulgaria. The second case is a recent one and, in a way, still in progress… Both cases concern the collecting of art and the art practices of two artists from Bulgaria. One is from the older generation, and that’s me; the other is from the younger generation, and that’s Ivan Moudov. The second case is the reason for this text, for its current status is the fulfillment of what I once »prophesied« about the way my own works would be collected, which did not actually take place - quite on the contrary… Actually, when Ivan Moudov explained his project »Fragments« and its progress to me for the first time, the first thing that came to my mind was that case from the end of 1989. Both cases are somehow related to a »culture« of plundering; both cases are awkward transgressions of property and authorship rights over art works and are related to time and space, which is our time and space.
Furthermore, this text will itself perform the act of plundering: a) I will use old material from my archives; and b) I will use somebody else’s text about »Fragments« without authorization - I feel that it is much better than any I could ever hope to write. My intention is merely to give the facts of the cases, not to interpret them - at least not very much… So I would actually first present the cases in a form that is as close to their original form as possible – in text and image.
[b]Case 1, end of 1989 / beginning of 1990[/b]
Luchezar Boyadjiev
»Open Letter. To an unknown connoisseur of my art«
Published in: Kultura Weekly, # 4, January 26th, 1990
I am an artist with a strange career. After nearly ten years’ practice as an art critic I decided to make publicly known my artistic ambitions in the field of visual arts. Acting on this intention I submitted to the attention of the jury of the »11.11« exhibition in the city of Blagoevgrad (Bulgaria) two of my works: a) the brochure with photo-demontages titled »Bulgaria – a land of rich heritage«; and b) an object, a cigarette box titled »The Pleasures of Life« (I trust you have appreciated my taste in the selection of photographs of nude models that were placed in a bunch in the box). I was flattered that the jury accepted these works of mine into the show; furthermore, some of its members even stated that these works were some of the most interesting in the exhibition. However, to my yet greater satisfaction, I learned that these works enjoyed a great success because they were the only ones that disappeared from the show. People who do not understand what is at stake might say the works had been stolen. I have no idea if any of the works in the show had been bought, but I think that you, my connoisseur, have chosen not only the most appropriate way to appreciate the works aesthetically but also to acquire an art work of a non-conventional type.
In a word, you have given me great creative satisfaction, because, upon my very first official participation in a contemporary art exhibition, I have found my audience. With your action you have encouraged me to go on working. Actually, you have made me an artist: thank you! I am convinced that this first step in my public artistic realization, taken by chance on the day of November 11th, 1989 (the day the show opened, which gave the show its title), which is quite a non-conventional date in itself anyway (on November 10th 1989, the dictator of socialist Bulgaria, Todor Zhivkov, was ousted from power and the processes of change started), with a non-conventional artwork in a non-conventional art show, enshrined by an act of totally non-conventional appreciation of my work, will be just the beginning of a brilliant career. I promise you I will work ceaselessly to realize this career. However, I must declare here that, in the future, anybody who wants to have an art work of mine will have to acquire it in the same way (that is to say, will have to steal it - if I must use a term that seems so outdated these days).
I hereby declare that I hold no financial or legal claims on you and thank you for your attitude to my art. However, like any artist, I am susceptible to vanity, so I would like to know who the collectors of my works are, as well as in what circumstances these works will go on existing.
So I beg you to emerge from anonymity and to contact me in whatever way you see fit. I would be glad to talk about art in general and my art in particular.
Respectfully,
Luchezar Boyadjiev
[b]Case 2, 2003/2004 and in progress[/b]
Ivan Moudov
»Fragments«, 2003/2004
The artist (Ivan Moudov):
For a year and a half I have been collecting parts of different art works from various museums, galleries and art centers in Europe. I made this valise in order to have my collection with me everywhere I go and to be able to show it to everyone who might wish to see it. It is my portable museum and Noah’s ark.
The critic (Dessislava Dimova):
A lot has been said about artistic appropriation and authorship. When we have to do with an art work which consists of stolen bits and pieces of other art works that have been exhibited in galleries and museums, the appropriation discourse is carried to an extreme. There is a disturbing quietness in this work of Ivan Moudov – one can hardly find any sign of a radical artistic gesture there. The whole action of behavior seems the only way to bypass that stealing has been held in discretion; each piece is meticulously labeled with the name of the artist and the work it used to belong to, and is carefully arranged in a beautiful replica of Duchamp’s valise. The artist is acting as a fetishist and this gives a structure to the entire process of creation of his collection. Appropriating the pathology of deviation from a whole lot of cultural and social taboos with an air of innocence.
The artist’s insistence on his right to exhibit his »collection« serves only to remind us that a gesture which today seems so primitive in its reasoning used not so long ago, during the times of exploration and conquering, to be a sign of cultural awareness. It lies at the foundations of most historical collections in today’s big European museums. It seems as if history has been reversed here – this is a new exploration and a less glorious conquering – an artist coming from a country where a tradition of museum grandeur and copyright doesn’t really exist is »ravaging« expensive contemporary art collections.
Ivan Moudov assumes the risk of even perhaps damaging the art work just to acquire a tiny bit of it. And although most of the time he chooses pieces that are reproducible and could easily be replaced, the fragment that he takes becomes as important as the whole art work: a tiny fragment becomes the carrier of the symbolic value of a whole set of objects and ideas. Curiously enough, by questioning the value of the art work, Ivan Moudov reinforces it; instead of undermining the value and criteria system of the contemporary art world, he uses its strategies to carry it to an extreme. In a silent agreement between the artist and the viewer, a slide from Douglas Gordon’s »In self portrait« stands for the whole piece, and a playing card (the nine of diamonds) stands for »Table et chaises« by George Brecht. They are simultaneously lost small objects whose only reference to a certain context (and value) is a label with a name as well as artifacts.
They remind me of the piece of broken guitar in Michelangelo Antonioni’s »Blow Up«, which everybody is fighting to have, but which, once it is brought out onto the street away from its initial celebrity context, loses all its aura and becomes a useless piece of wood. Ivan Moudov however goes further by blowing up the fetishist value of the fragment to a point, which is an excuse for any damage caused, and then, ironically, bringing it back to the exhibition space, which can be the only appropriate context to support its exaggerated importance.
[b]Comments – for beginners[/b]
A) To collect means to identify your own fetish (or obsession) and then to do everything possible to act it out and possess the thing that is the object of it. Artists tend to make you think that »my work is your fetish«… Dealers have basically the same task, but they would claim that »this (or that) work is your fetish«… Mark Rothko once offered the following reasoning to a collector who was asking why the price of a painting of his was so outrageously high: »You have to pay for the whimsy to have it, just as I have »paid« for the whimsy of making it…« The only difference between artists and collectors in this approximation is the difference between introverted and extroverted fetishism. You as a collector must convince the general public as well as eternity that your collected fetishes/works are the most significant and glorious ones; I as an artist have to convince the world as well as eternity that my fetishes/work are the same… No difference there either.
B) The great historical collections in the biggest and greatest museums of the world have largely been a product of questionable activities of »acquiring/collecting realia of the empire«. The larger, the stronger and the more vital the empire (whichever one), the more widely spread are its practices of civilized plundering for the benefit of the metropolia. The collecting empire sees the whole world as a fetish it wants to possess; it sees its own aspirations to »collect« territories and influence materialized in so many objects/fetishes. Plundering was termed collecting by the dominant idea of civilization in order to cover the traces and hide the skeletons in the closet.
So why not just do the reverse and term theft collecting? That would at least be more descriptive and would save a lot of misunderstandings… In the case of the artist featured in Case 1, no one has stolen anything in his subsequent career. The »theft as collecting« paradigm did not really catch on… or so it seemed at the time…
Case 1 shows that this artist did not need to convince a collector, for his work was already seen by somebody as a fetish worthy of theft. He tried to transform theft into acting out a desire for a fetish to aid public understanding of both art and collecting in a new situation in society. He was helped by the drastic change in his country. He tried to activate the audience. He tried to concentrate on having a concrete audience, whatever audience, as opposed to the situation before 1989, when every audience was a state/collective/anonymous/official one, not individual and fetishistic at all – unless, of course, one sees the socialist state in general as one big fetishist who collects artists as well as art works for the »collection/benefit of utopia«.
Case 2 shows how the fetish-based interaction could be transgressed by joining it up in a tight loop – I make fetishes which you buy; but then a new artist comes along and takes that very personally; then he loops it – his material is your fetish; his obsession is only hampered by a lack of tradition and proper means; his obsession is advanced by the fact that he might not be civilized enough to know your ancient civilized postulates as mentioned in the Good Book (or he has temporarily forgotten them by virtue of his project/work); he makes/objectifies the »material« of the aura of art, as well as of the art world, and they become tangible and visible; he sees you for what you are – a petty fetishistic bigot. But he seems to like that, so he »copies< you and becomes a »collector«; he pinpoints the aspect of collecting which is at the core of its historical aura – I will do all it takes to act out my fetish inclinations… The artist in Case 2, while doing his project, sees the whole art world as a fetish he wants to and can possess.
»Fragments« was shown May 15th – June 13th 2004 in »Werkstatt: Junge Academie 2004« at the Academy of Arts, Berlin. Hopefully, nothing was stolen from this work… However, it was well insured too…
Translated by Timothy Jones