Background on Controversial Artist
Shaun Richman
provoking many stupid statements on this newsgroup. At least know what
you're talking about before you spew.
http://www.nytimes.com/library/arts/092899ofili-brooklyn-museum.html
Chris Ofili: British Artist Holds Fast to
His Inspiration
By CAROL VOGEL
hris Ofili is hunkered down in his central London
studio, screening
the avalanche of phone calls he has been getting for
the last few
days and trying not to obsess about the uproar over "The
Holy Virgin
Mary," his 1996 painting of a black Madonna with a clump of
elephant
dung on one breast and cutouts of genitalia from
pornographic magazines
in the background.
"It all seems very distant and confusing to
me," Ofili said. "It's like a play, and
somehow I got mentioned in the script. I
think there's some bigger agenda here."
His painting is part of "Sensation: Young
British Artists From the Saatchi Collection,"
scheduled to open at the Brooklyn Museum
of Art on Saturday. When Mayor Rudolph
W. Giuliani threatened to cut off the
museum's city subsidy and remove its board
if the show was not canceled, he singled out
"The Holy Virgin Mary," along with several
other works, as "sick stuff."
John Cardinal O'Connor called the show an
attack on religion itself. The Catholic
League for Religious and Civil Rights said it
found Ofili's painting offensive, too. After
seeing a photograph of "The Holy Virgin Mary" in the
exhibition's
catalogue, the league's president, William A. Donohue,
issued a
statement saying people should picket the museum.
Asked yesterday to explain his "Holy Virgin Mary," Ofili
said in a
telephone interview: "I don't feel as though I have to
defend it. The
people who are attacking this painting are attacking their
own
interpretation, not mine. You never know what's going to
offend people,
and I don't feel it's my place to say any more."
In interviews since he won the Turner Prize for young
British artists last
year, Ofili spoke broadly about his unconventional approach
to art,
including his use of elephant dung and his Roman Catholic
upbringing.
The British-born artist talked about his African heritage,
which led him to
visit Zimbabwe, where he was disturbed by the remnants of
colonialism
he encountered and was moved by the beauty of the land and
its wildlife,
he said.
While Ofili's painting is the one
most
frequently mentioned in criticism
of the
Brooklyn show, other works that
have
drawn fire also use organic
materials,
including a shark suspended in a
tank of
formaldehyde, a bust of a man
made from
his own frozen blood and a
folded-over
mattress with a water bucket,
melons and
a cucumber standing between a
pair of
oranges.
This isn't the first time that
Ofili, 31, has
found himself in the center of a
hailstorm.
After he won the Turner Prize,
the
$32,000 award given annually by
the Tate
Gallery of Art in London, several
London
critics denounced the choice as
gimmicky
and dubbed Ofili the Elephant
Man.
But he said that this time he felt besieged by the public
outcry because he
and his work had been singled out.
Ofili, who has a master's degree from the Royal College of
Art in
London, is widely known in the art world, and his work is in
the
permanent collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum and
the Tate
Gallery in London and the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan.
Elephant dung, which has become something of a signature in
Ofili's
paintings, is in large part a cultural reference to his
African heritage, he
said. Although he was born in Manchester, both his parents
were born in
Lagos, Nigeria, and their first language was Yoruba. (His
parents are
now divorced, Ofili said.
Both work in biscuit factories, his mother in Manchester and
his father in
Nigeria.)
He describes himself as a churchgoing Catholic, although he
does not
attend every Sunday. Ofili went to state schools in
Manchester and
became interested in furniture design before gravitating to
art.
When he was 24 he decided to learn more about his roots. He
won a
scholarship to travel and paint for eight weeks in Zimbabwe.
"I was struck by the beauty of the landscape and of the
animals in their
natural surroundings," he said. "When a giraffe taller than
the average
house in Britain would walk by, it gave me that particular
feeling of being
shocked and simultaneously finding something beautiful. It
gave me an
excitement and a fear of the new."
In Zimbabwe, he said, he was
aware of its colonial past. There
were still signs calling the nation
Rhodesia, he said, and he
encountered colonialist behavior
among some of the people there,
both black and white.
His use of elephant dung, which
he gets from the London Zoo, is
in many ways a reaction to what
he saw and felt in Africa, he said.
"There's something incredibly
simple but incredibly basic about
it," Ofili said. "It attracts a
multiple of meanings and
interpretations."
While news reports have
described his paintings as being
splattered with dung, the clumps are actually carefully
placed on each
canvas. In one painting a clump of dung is a jeweled brooch
encrusted
with gold sparkles on a goddess; in another it is an
abstract element
floating in a densely painted background. In yet another
five balls of dung
descend in a line, each with a letter formed from colored
pins spelling out
the name Rodin. Many of the works rest on two large clumps
of dung,
which act almost as feet.
"It's a way of raising the paintings up from the ground and
giving them a
feeling that they've come from the earth rather than simply
being hung on
a wall," he said.
Most of Ofili's works are vibrantly colored and use multiple
layers of
dots (inspired, he said, by images from ancient caves in
Zimbabwe).
He frequently uses cutouts of circles reminiscent of 1960's
Op Art or of
triangles, based on a set of etchings he made while visiting
New York.
His oil paintings often include images cut from magazines,
comic-book-like characters and splashes of translucent
resin.
While he has detractors, the Victoria Miro Gallery on Cork
Street in
London and Gavin Brown Enterprises in Manhattan, the two
galleries
that represent him, report they have waiting lists for
collectors demanding
his work. One painting sold last year for $36,052 at
Christie's in London.
"I was an underbidder on some of those paintings at
Christie's," said
Dean Valentine, president and chairman of UPN Network and a
collector.
"Of all the young British painters I think he's by far the
best. The paintings
have a depth of expression. He has something to say."
Valentine admitted that at first the elephant dung did give
off an
unpleasant odor. "It took some work to air it out," he said.
"He's not
trying to offend but to make you think."
Gavin Brown, who first showed Ofili's work in 1995, said he
believed
the uproar at the Brooklyn Museum "doesn't bear any relation
to his art."
"Paintings aren't offensive," Brown added. "They don't kill
people."
This fall is to be a big moment for Ofili in the United
States. He has been
chosen as one of the 41 artists whose work will be shown in
the
Carnegie International, a survey of contemporary art that
opens at the
Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh on Nov. 6.
On Oct. 16 Brown is mounting a second show of Ofili's work,
five new
paintings that are to together being called "Afrobiotics."
Ofili said he was concerned about his notoriety.
"I find it off-putting that people judge you before they
know you," he
said.
While he liked being included in "Sensation," he said he
worried about
being seen as one of the Young British Artists and not as an
individual.
"People see me as part of a package," he said. "It scares
me."
During an interview in his London studio in August, Ofili
worked on two
paintings at once. The larger of the two was of a character
he calls
"magic monkey" holding up an empty turquoise vessel.
He said the monkey was trying to capture the three powerful
elements of
life: sex, money and drugs, which are represented by three
separate
clumps of elephant dung bearing the three words formed out
of straight
pins with colored tops that he buys at his local grocery
store.
The painting's surface was thick with beads of paint applied
with a thin
stick that is actually a brush that has no hairs on it.
Using the kinds of
aluminum containers that Chinese takeout food comes in,
Ofili mixed the
paint to a consistency he described as cream. He spread
layer upon layer
of glitter, besides the painted dots. On top of that he
applied coats of
translucent resin to give the surface a transparency.
"That's to make it seem that in some ways it's more imagined
than real,"
he said.
Across the room was another painting, its background
three-quarters
finished.
Ofili applied large black and white spirals with a thin
brush.
"I think I roughly know what I'm doing," he said, moving
from the magic
monkey to the black spirals.
"It might be a female portrait.
I need a princesslike figure."
He likened the process to writing a song. "You know the
lyrics," he said.
"Then you want to get the right rhythm and base line."
Outside the entrance to his London studio that day, several
teen-agers
huddled together smoking crack. Above their heads was a sign
warning,
"This area is being constantly watched and patrolled by the
Lord."
Ofili said he made the sign because he wanted the addicts
who regularly
used his doorway to think about what they were doing.
"I was brought up a Catholic and was an altar boy," he said.
"I believe in God, but I'm not dominated by it.
We all studied math, but we don't go around spewing numbers.
Religion
should be used in the appropriate way."
"The church is not made up of one person but a whole
congregation, and
they should be able to interact with art without being told
what to think,"
he continued.
"This is all about control," he added. "We've seen it before
in history.
Sadly, I thought we'd moved on."
--
Shaun Richman
Young People's Socialist League
339 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10012
phone/fax: 1(212)982-4586
http://sp-usa.org/ypsl
McReynolds 2000 Committee
"Building a Movement for Jobs, Peace and Freedom"
P.O. Box 91, Floral Park, NY 10012
phone/fax: 1(212)780-9405
http://votesocialist.org/
JOHN C CROSS
politicians I know. Der Fuhrer comes to mind. Unless some of our
distinguished rabid right-wing nut cases want to argue that screwing around
behind your wife's back is the sign of a good catholic? The biggest insult
to the Catholic faith in this city in recent memory has been Giuliani acting
like he was "defender of the faith". Thats like Hitler telling us what a
good Catholic he was.
john
http://pages.prodigy.net/johncross/campaign.htm (Liberal Lunatics on the
Loose)
http://pages.prodigy.net/johncross/books.htm (Liberal books)
http://www.openair.org/cross (Informal Cyberspace)
Shaun Richman wrote in message <37F3F7FD...@sp-usa.org>...
>This is a profile of the artist behind the "Virgin Mary" piece that's
>provoking many stupid statements on this newsgroup. At least know what
>you're talking about before you spew.
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/library/arts/092899ofili-brooklyn-museum.html
>
>
> "It all seems very distant and confusing to
> me," Ofili said. "It's like a play, and
> somehow I got mentioned in the script. I
> think there's some bigger agenda here."
>
He's got that right. The title of the play is "I wanna be Senator and then
Emperor, cause I just do" by Rudy "Der Fuhrer" Giuliani.
> While he has detractors, the Victoria Miro Gallery on Cork
>Street in
> London and Gavin Brown Enterprises in Manhattan, the two
>galleries
> that represent him, report they have waiting lists for
>collectors demanding
> his work. One painting sold last year for $36,052 at
>Christie's in London.
>
That ain't cookie money. It seems like the "marketplace" seems to like
elephant dung.
> "This area is being constantly watched and patrolled by the
>Lord."
>
> Ofili said he made the sign because he wanted the addicts
>who regularly
> used his doorway to think about what they were doing.
>
> "I was brought up a Catholic and was an altar boy," he said.
>
> "I believe in God, but I'm not dominated by it.
>
>
Funny, he doesn't SOUND like a catholic bashing athiest? I wonder why?
> "This is all about control," he added. "We've seen it before
>in history.
> Sadly, I thought we'd moved on."
>--
You got that right!