[-empyre-] Abu Ghraib and the image

["G.H. Hovagimyan" <ghh@thing.net>]

The second documenta question reads;
"... There is, however, also a lyrical or even ecstatic dimension to  
it – a freedom for new and unexpected possibilities (in human  
relations as well as in our relationship to nature or, more  
generally, the world in which we live). Here and there, art dissolves  
the radical separation between painful subjection and joyous  
liberation. But what does that mean for its audiences?"

The obsessive documentation of the staged humiliations of prisoners  
at Abu Ghraib is of it's time. On the web is an information war that  
is being fought back and forth. The prurience on all sides is  
enhanced by the internet. My search on the words photos of Abu Ghraib  
returned 3,920,000 references. I have stayed away from viewing these  
images, however there are several important benchmarks that refer to  
the documenta subject.

If you look at the video and photos from Abu Ghraib they are art  
works, albeit rather twisted. For a certain segment of the West, the  
image of Arab humiliation is a catharsis and a revenge for all the  
terrorist acts of the past. The images assert Western power. They  
also assert the power of the media and the power of the internet.   
The Documenta asks about joyous liberation and what it means to it's  
audiences, well, for a certain section of the West, the Abu Ghraib  
photos are quite liberating just as the beheading of Westerners by Al  
Queda thugs is for Arabs. Obviously I don't think that the Documenta  
curators were thinking of Abu Ghraib when they posed this question. I  
believe they were thinking more of a transgressive art that is part  
of a fairly standard Avant-garde position essentially épatez du  
bourgeious. However, the position of the transgressive, you know,  
elephant dung Virgin Mary, Photo of Crucifix submerged in piss, are  
also the symbolic transgrtessive techniques used on the Abu Ghraib  
prisoners.

The relationship that the documenta question talks about is one of  
power and submission. It is also in some measure about fairly  
traditional Sado-Masochism where pain and pleasure are mixed  
together. I find these definitions to be rather old fashioned when  
discussing the information environment of the 21st century. It  
assumes that pain created through some sort of power relationship or  
a stripping down to bare essentials such as a minimalist reductio ad  
absurdum can somehow create liberation and ecstacy.  Yes maybe, but  
no, not really. The creative processes of an artists' internal logic  
might be  what the question is about. This reminds me of a minimal  
artist I knew, Lee Lozano; she reached the conclusion that the art  
object was de-materializing. She tried to illustrate that in a series  
of op art paintings that were also a challenge to her physical body.  
In the end she set up a painting structure that she could not  
complete. She stopped painting and insisted on staying high on  
Marijuana as her art project.  Based on the Documenta's premise this  
would be ,"..a lyrical or even ecstatic dimension to it – a freedom  
for new and unexpected possibilities.."