Black Sheep: Rasheed Araeen, David Medalla, and Reconfigurations of Visibility in the 1970s

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Notes

1. Jane Blocker, Where Is Ana Mendieta? Identity, Performativity, Exile (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1999), 3.

2. Ibid., 73–4.

3. Kobena Mercer, ‘Ethnicity and Internationality’, Third Text 13, no. 49 (1999): 51–62 (56).

4. Ibid., 57.

5. Ibid., 54, 56. Mercer refers variously to black, diaspora and more specifically Asian, African and Caribbean artists. In this article my terminology changes according to the context in question, and includes referring to black, Asian and minority ethnic artists (I avoid the acronym BAME on grounds of legibility), black representation (which may concern African diaspora, or the distinct notion of radical or political blackness depending on the subject), and people of colour (where I point to the collective treatment of those seen as ‘non-white’).

6. Tavia Nyong’o, Afro-Fabulations: The Queer Drama of Black Life (New York: New York University Press, 2019), 35.

7. Sadly, David Medalla died on 28 December 2020 aged eighty-two (after this article had been written). Obituary of David Medalla, Artforum, December 29, 2020, https://www.artforum.com/news/david-medalla-1938-2020-84767.

8. Adrian Piper quoted in Uri McMillan, Embodied Avatars: Genealogies of Black Feminist Art and Performance (New York and London: New York University Press, 2015), 106.

9. Elizabeth Freeman has defined chrononormativity in terms of the inculcation of ‘forms of temporal experience that seem natural to those whom they privilege’ and work to regulate and subjugate difference. Elizabeth Freeman, Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010), 3.

10. Kobena Mercer, ‘Ethnicity and Internationality’, 57.

11. Rasheed Araeen and David Medalla, ‘Conversation with David Medalla’, Black Phoenix: Third World Perspectives on Contemporary Art and Culture 3 (Spring 1979): 10–19 (14).

12. Season Butler, ‘Heavy Lifting’, in Vanishing Points, ed. Salome Wagaine (London: Live Art Development Agency and Diverse Actions, 2020), 17–22 (22).

13. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ‘Explanation and Culture: Marginalia [1979]’, in In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics (London and New York: Routledge, 2006 [1998]) 139–160 (143).

14. Ibid., 146.

15. Ibid., 157–8.

16. I was unsuccessful in attempts to contact the artists in relation to this research, and acquire permissions for documentary images. Mainly, this is an unremarkable and predictable possibility in all research concerned with artists and their work. However, it is also worth pointing out that this amplifies the sense in which my readings are ‘unofficial’, and that this further extends the critical modalities of misreading explored here. In this context it is, of course, of paramount importance for me to self-reflexively consider the dynamic responsibilities between artists and publics, which is part of what distinguishes active and critical interpretation from careless misapprehension or misuse.

17. Nivedita Majumdar, ‘Silencing the Subaltern’, Catalyst 1, issue 1 (Spring 2017) https://catalyst-journal.com/vol1/no1/silencing-the-subaltern (accessed March 16, 2020).

18. Jane Gallop, Anecdotal Theory (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2002), 2.

19. Peggy Phelan, Unmarked: The Politics of Performance (London and New York: Routledge, 1993).

20. Amelia Jones, ‘“Presence” in Absentia: Experiencing Performance as Documentation’, Art Journal 56, no.4 (Winter 1997): 11–8.

21. Araeen commented on his move to the UK in an undated video interview with Anandi Ramamurthy, which was screened as part of the exhibition Rasheed Araeen: A Retrospective (Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, October 19, 2018–January 27, 2019). While there was a modernist art scene in Karachi, Araeen felt there was more opportunity elsewhere. His search for a ‘dynamic intellectual space’ had initially included Paris but Araeen was disappointed that it did not live up to the bohemian community he had imagined (finding instead more focus on US pop art at the time). In a more recent interview with Hettie Judah, Araeen said that his move to London was prompted by feeling that his work was not understood in Karachi. Hettie Judah and Rasheed Araeen, ‘“My life has been a struggle against the establishment”: artist Rasheed Araeen’, Guardian, January 16, 2020 https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/jan/16/rasheed-araeen-interview-restaurant-shamiyaana-stoke-newington (accessed April 27, 2020).

22. Guy Brett, ‘Life Strategies: Overview and selection Buenos Aires/London/Rio de Janerio/Santiago de Chile 1960–1980ʹ, in Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object 1949–1979, exh. cat. ed. Russell Ferguson (London: Thames and Hudson, 1998), 197–226 (200).

23. Michael Newman, ‘Equality, Resistance, Hospitality: Abstraction and Universality in the Work of Rasheed Araeen’, in Rasheed Araeen, ed. Nick Aikens (Zurich: JRP Ringier, 2018), 65–74 (68).

24. It is worth noting that racist violence and police harassment was enabled to some extent in the late 1960s and early 1970s by newly instituted legislation of the Race Relations Acts of 1965 and 1968 which proved partial and ineffective in addressing and preventing racism; indeed, some forms of racist discrimination effectively remained legal.

25. Naseem Khan, The Arts Britain Ignores: The Arts of Ethnic Minorities in Britain, 2nd ed. (London: Commission for Racial Equality, 1978). I note here that while Khan’s report is an important milestone in the ongoing pursuit of diversity and inclusivity, Rasheed Araeen strongly criticised it as he interpreted it as something which confined BAME artists to ‘the narrow boundaries of their ethnic traditions’, outside of mainstream institutions. This demonstrates ways in which diversity as a discourse was manifested by, and subject to, fierce contestation during the period (as now). Rasheed Araeen, ‘Preliminary notes for a BLACK MANIFESTO [1975–76]’, in Making Myself Visible (London: Kala Press, 1984), 73–97 (91).

26. One of the key outcomes of Khan’s report is that, following its recommendation for the establishment of ‘a linking, publicising and advisory service for ethnic arts’, MAAS (Minorities’ Arts Advisory Service) came into being in October 1976. It was founded by Khan and Jamaican-born Veronica Lovindeer, and included board members Norman Beaton, Peter Blackman, Ravi Jain, Shantu Maher, and Tadek Jarski. Khan, The Arts Britain Ignores, v.

27. Courtney J. Martin, ‘Rasheed Araeen, Live Art and Radical Politics in Britain’, Getty Research Journal 2 (2010): 107–124 (110).

28. Rasheed Araeen interview with Anandi Ramamurthy, undated video exhibited as part of Rasheed Araeen: A Retrospective, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art exhibition, October 19, 2018–January 27, 2019.

29. Rasheed Araeen interviewed by Jens Hoffmann, ‘Rasheed Araeen: Countless (Untold) Stories’, Mousse 58 (April – May 2017): 132–140 (136). While there certainly were other non-western artists in London during this time, Araeen’s point is useful for considering issues of institutional invisibility or evasion which made it harder for BAME artists and activists to forge open networks of practice.

30. Ibid.

31. Rasheed Araeen affirmed Medalla’s influence in a panel discussion, ‘Rasheed Araeen: A Symposium’, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, January 12, 2019.

32. Araeen made a point of emphasising how he sees himself as distanced from the terms of performance art during the aforementioned panel discussion, ‘Rasheed Araeen: A Symposium’.

33. Interestingly, Eva Bentcheva’s interview and correspondence with the artist shows examples of Araeen developing a performance practice as early as 1962, but these remain mostly hidden from history. Eva Bentcheva, The Cultural Politics of British South Asian Performance Art, 1960s to the Present (PhD diss., SOAS University of London, 2017), 121.

34. Rasheed Araeen, ‘Conspiracy of Silence’, in Making Myself Visible (London: Kala Press, 1984), 67.

35. Here I invoke the racial and ethnic ‘Other’ (which is outside or at odds with white neutrality) as conceptualised by postcolonial scholars such as Edward Said. For instance, in Orientalism, Said identified ways in which Western imperialism renders the Eastern ‘Other’ in terms of a homogenous mystical essence and inherent deficiency. See, Edward W. Said, Orientalism (London: Penguin, 2003 [1978]).

36. Nick Aikens, ‘Introduction: Burning Ties’), in Rasheed Araeen, ed. Nick Aikens (Zurich: JRP Ringier, 2018), 10–15 (10).

37. Hugh Stoddart and Rasheed Araeen’s letters are reproduced in facsimile in Rasheed Araeen, ‘Baba Goes to Birmingham’, in Making Myself Visible, 136–44.

38. Ibid., 137.

39. Ibid., 139. The final exhibition, Imagination Is the Venom Passing Slyly Through the Vein included Brian Catling, Stephen Cochrane with Lol Coxhill, Stephen Dilworth, David Duly, Tom Gilhespy, Richard Mackness, Jayne Parker, Ian Sinclair, Elaine Shemilt and Sue Wood.

40. Ibid., 139.

41. Ibid.

42. Araeen has written that while Paki Bastard contains ‘autobiographical references, it would be wrong to read it at a personal level’, and has referred to the figure that appears in the work in the third person. Araeen, Making Myself Visible, 114–9.

43. Ibid., 5.

44. Martin, ‘Rasheed Araeen, Live Art and Radical Politics in Britain’; Bentcheva, The Cultural Politics of British South Asian Performance Art, 1960s to the Present.

45. Paki Bastard was performed four times in total at different venues in 1977 and 1978. Bentcheva, The Cultural Politics of British South Asian Performance Art, 1960s to the Present, 117, 120, 127.

46. These scenes are further developed by an accompanying text written by Araeen, published in Making Myself Visible, 114–9.

47. Martin, ‘Rasheed Araeen, Live Art and Radical Politics in Britain’, 112, 114.

48. Part of Suzy Adderley’s Artscribe review is reproduced in Araeen, Making Myself Visible, 120.

49. Adderly, ibid.

50. Bentcheva, The Cultural Politics of British South Asian Performance Art, 1960s to the Present, 125–8, 123.

51. Ibid., 125.

52. Nyong’o, Afro-Fabulations, 19.

53. Ibid., 6.

54. Ibid., 3.

55. Ibid.

56. Ibid.

57. Ibid., 4.

58. Ibid.

59. Ibid., 6.

60. I would like to elaborate on how queer temporality figures in relation to Medalla’s work, but I have focused on other lines of enquiry in the space of this article. This would involve engaging key concepts such as Elizabeth Freeman’s notion of a desiring and coalitional ‘temporal drag’, as well as Jack Halberstam’s influential theorisation of queer time. See Elizabeth Freeman, ‘Packing History, Count(er)ing Generations’, New Literary History 31, no. 4 (Autumn 2000): 727–44; and Judith/Jack Halberstam, In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives (New York and London: NYU Press, 2005).

61. Guy Brett, Exploding Galaxies: The Art of David Medalla (London: Kala Press, 1996).

62. Colin Naylor and Genesis P-Orridge, ‘David Medalla’, in Contemporary Artists (London: St. James Press, 1977), 631–2.

63. Brett, Exploding Galaxies, 31.

64. David Medalla in a roundtable discussion chaired by David A. Bailey, Documenting Live, Roundtable 1 [‘1990s artists’], DVD, (Live Art Development Agency, 2008).

65. I do not to disclose full details of this source here for ethical reasons; email correspondence to the author, September 5, 2015.

66. Dominic Johnson, Unlimited Action: The Performance of Extremity in the 1970s (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2019), 40.

67. Nigel Gosling, ‘Straggling Onwards’, The Observer, September 3, 1972, 30.

68. Anthony Everitt, ‘The Avant-Garde in Britain at Gallery House, London’, Birmingham Daily Post, August 25, 1972, 2.

69. Jeff Nuttall, ‘The Situation Regarding Performance Art [1973]’, Contemporary Theatre Review 22, no.1 (2012): 175–7 (176).

70. Ibid.

71. Many critics have responded to the art ↔ life narrative in the critical reception of performance art more broadly. A recent example is Lara Shalson who draws attention to elastic frames of life as well as art in the work of Tehching Hsieh among others. See, Lara Shalson, Performing Endurance: Art and Politics Since 1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), especially 109–125.

72. George Melly, ‘Pretty Rubbish’, The Observer, October 29, 1967, 25.

73. Many artists were part of or otherwise impacted by the Exploding Galaxy. For instance, Genesis BREYER P-ORRIDGE describes their experience of participating in the group in Dominic Johnson, ‘Positive Surrender: An Interview with BREYER P-ORRIDGE’, Contemporary Theatre Review 22, no.1 (2012): 134–45 (141).

74. Jill Drower, 'The Exploding Galaxy', Third Text 22, no. 2 (2008): 229–236.

75. Hugo Williams, ‘A cult of inspired amateurishness that seized the 60s’, The Spectator, May 3, 2014, https://www.spectator.co.uk/2014/05/tripping-through-psychedelia/(accessed July 16, 2019).

76. Melly, ‘Pretty Rubbish’, 25.

77. Pierre Restany quoted in Brandon Taylor, ‘David Medalla: In Conversation with Brandon Taylor’, Artscribe 6 (April 1977): 20–23 (20).

78. Brett, Exploding Galaxies, 18.

79. José Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopia (New York and London: New York University Press, 2009), 26.

80. Lorde used the term ‘biomythography’ on the cover of her book, Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (New York: Crossing Press, 1982).

81. Muñoz, Cruising Utopia, 65.

82. Rasheed Araeen and David Medalla, ‘Conversation with David Medalla’, ibid.

83. Ibid., 14.

84. Ibid., 16–7.

85. Brett, Exploding Galaxies, 94.

86. Ibid., 94–5.

87. Araeen interviewed by Hoffmann, 136.

88. The images are captioned as being performed at Jans Kirkhof, Utrecht; Bateaux Mayflower II, Quai de Tuileries, Paris; and Camden Arts Centre, London. Brett, Exploding Galaxies, 100–1.

89. Nyong’o, Afro-Fabulations, 7.

90. Nyong’o, ‘Racial Kitsch and Black Performance’, The Yale Journal of Criticism 15, no.2 (Fall 2002): 371–91 (383).

91. Ibid., 7.

92. Caoimhe Mader McGuinness, ‘Protesting Exhibit B in London: Reconfiguring Antagonism as the Claiming of Theatrical Space’, Contemporary Theatre Review 26, no.2 (2016): 211–26 (211, 215).

93. Aleasha Chaunte quoted in Mader McGuinness, 222.

94. Another recent model for challenging the archive can be found in Prarthana Purkayastha’s ‘historical fiction’ as a corporeal methodology’. See Prarthana Purkayastha, ‘Decolonising human exhibits: dance, re-enactment and historical fiction, South Asian Diaspora 11, no.2 (2019): 223–38 (224).

95. Trinh. T. Minh-ha, When The Moon Waxes Red: Representation, Gender and Cultural Politics (New York and London: Routledge, 1991), 74; Trinh T. Minh-ha interviewed by Marina Grzinic, ‘Inappropriate/d Artificiality’, http://trinhminh-ha.squarespace.com/inappropriated-articificiality/(accessed July 16, 2019).

96. Claire Bishop, ‘Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics’, October 110 (Fall 2004): 51–79 (54, 66).

97. Ibid., 52.

98. One example of police harassment of the Exploding Galaxy, for instance, is detailed in Mary Holland, ‘Is It The Police v The Young?’ The Observer, May 5, 1968, 9.

99. Editorial, ‘Visitors wreck modern art show’, Birmingham Daily Post, February 15, 1971, 25.

100. ‘ICA, The Mall’, clipping from unknown source dated December 22, 1972, described how an ICA staff member ‘kicked’ at art work by Dugger, before Dugger responded with a punch to the face, TGA 955/7/2/50, ICA Collection, Tate Archive, London. Medalla also reported events in this way in an article in Art and Artists, and ICA Secretary Jonathan Benthall wrote to the journal insisting that this had not happened. The journal later issued an apology for any ‘embarrassment’ caused; letter from Colin Naylor to Jonathan Benthall, TGA 955/7/2/50, ICA Collection, Tate Archive, London; Medalla, ‘John Dugger: A collage-article’, ibid.

101. David Medalla interviewed by N. P. James, David Medalla: Works in the World (London: Cv Publications, 2012), 7.

102. Images of A Stitch in Time can be found in Brett, Exploding Galaxies, 102–5.

103. Taylor, ‘David Medalla: In Conversation with Brandon Taylor’, 20.

104. Araeen and Medalla, ‘Conversation with David Medalla’, 12.

105. Here I want to acknowledge Giulia Palladini’s recent work which has articulated the domestic as uncoupled from historical notions of the merely private and the domesticated, and – rather – as a possible site or instrument of radical transformation in public life. Giulia Palladini, ‘Domestics Against Domestication’ (symposium organised by Giulia Palladini and Valeria Graziano, University of Roehampton, May 30, 2019).

106. ‘Alternative facts’ was a term infamously deployed by Kellyanne Conway (then senior White House aide) to bolster falsehoods spread by US President Donald Trump. More broadly it represents ways in which neoliberal or authoritarian governments and hate groups propagate false information. See, Jon Swaine, ‘Donald Trump’s team defends “alternative facts” after widespread protests’, Guardian, January 23, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/22/donald-trump-kellyanne-conway-inauguration-alternative-facts (accessed July 16, 2019).