[-empyre-] On Francis Danby's Opening of the Sixth Seal

[Johannes Birringer]

Dear Premesh,
thank you for this dialogue; after reading your very thought-provoking response, regarding  Francis Danby's "Opening of the Sixth Seal" – and how you read  the painting as moving into view a "specific model of postcolonial aesthetic theory,"  extending an "understanding of the lingering potential of the constellations of images of 'faltering hope' that bears upon our understanding of a 'digital baroque' (not sure what this is, but I believe Tim Murray has written on this?).... Beyond its anti-slavery sentiments... the circulation of the painting may help to place it in a new constellation of communication......" –-

I almost got distracted a bit by also doing some small investigation into the buying and selling  -- from very wealthy collector William Beckford to another wealthy collector/telegraph engineer John Watkins Brett (and the damaging and repairing) of "Opening of the Sixth Seal" –  since I assume you wish to connect the commerce side (of globalizing art) with the political and colonial histories and now the more or less terrible & un-reconciled post apartheid imaginings that also Kentridge's art installations over the years have kept re-invoking (from "History of the main complaint" to the recent "Refusal of Time" and “The Head and the Load”)?

Kara Walker's "Fons Americanus"  (which was instaled at London's Tate Modern in 2019), sings a strong, darkly ironic anthem to that story too ( of the interconnected histories (of trade) of Africa, the United States of America and Europe. Her dedication of the fountain, written on a plate attached to the walls, is incisive, and she also references a number of so-called history paintings in her sculpture. 

Your reply is so layered and rich that one needs more time to reflect on how you might connect the "necropolitics" of industrial/postindustrial capitalism (unfortunately Achille Mmembe, who I think coined the notion of necropolitics  in "On the Postcolony", is now criticized in Germany for alleged antisemitism and relativizing the Holocaust, in "The Politics of Enmity"), and the continuing damages of enslavement racism (after abolition) and a systemic existing racism in societies worldwide, to a cutting aesthetic theory, and one that is about respect, not enmity and separation.

[I am not sure, Maurice Benayoun, what you mean by "can the artists be considered as viruses of social consciousness/awareness?" (your last postings on "Speculative Speculations on Values" I found confusing or probably simply over my head)]. I worry the metaphor is too negatively connoted. 

in your last sentence,  Premesh, I think you call for an aesthetic practice (within contexts of this pandemic) of unregulated generative forces (the "liquid blackness" some have spoken of) -   yes? 

and I do sense you are thinking a bit about Kentridge's pedagogy (along with his deeply collaborative productions in all media) on "thinking through materials"?  
(Kentridge's lecture on "thinking in & through the material" is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQnpBYpXYE8)

this would be something I'd really like to see us discuss more, in a concrete way -- what are our materials? (and in my body-based performance or somatic practice,
working with bodies of course forbid social distancing, and any recuperative/therepeutic and social-work practice forbids it too)


with respect
Johannes Birringer
dap-lab
http://www.brunel.ac.uk/dap
http:/interaktionslabor.de

________________________________________
From:   Premesh Lalu
Sent: 21 April 2020 15:21
Subject: [-empyre-]  On Francis Danby's Opening of the Sixth Seal