Tuesday, November 28, 2006

This tiger is roaming in the jungle.

What Michel Szulc Krzyzanowski believes is that an artist must be in a position of a tiger roaming freely in the jungle. That is a choice an artist could make. However, to make work is one thing. To have it go to the attention of the audience, the artist needs the distribution system. And that, fervent blogreaders, is a circus. The curators, art-dealers and critics are like tamers. Like animal trainers. They try to have the tigers do their tricks. The tigers that are good following-up the instructions and who don’t bite the tamers, are allowed in the cage and do their tricks in front of the audience.
Michel Szulc Krzyzanowski is not a circus tiger at all. He despises animal cruelty, which is what tigers doing tricks in the circus is about. And the audience should realise that there is no beauty seeing in a cage a tiger doing a stunt taught by an animal trainer, but that the beauty can be found in observing respectfully the tiger in the wild.
Having this point of view, it automatically creates a problem in the relationship between the tiger in the jungle and the circus people.
The circus people have the key in their hands to reach the audience.
The freely roaming tiger needs to give sense to his existence as an artist by presenting the audience the results of his creative activities.
Mr. Tiger wants to stay away from the circus while he needs the key holders.
This issue plays strongly when roaming in the jungle.
Why roam if Mr. Tiger as a result might end up in the cage of the circus?

There is one very good solution to this dilemma.
If an artist makes excellent work, he or she did the best possible.
That by itself is a great achievement.
Justifying existence.
Next, the circus people are presented the results and whether they like it or not, whether it fits in the repertoire of tricks and stunts of what they imagine the tiger should have, doesn’t matter.
It is of no importance because it is in the end irrelevant.
Many animal trainers are very mediocre and often even incompetent.
The audience is to pity for having to see what they present.
The spiral going upwards an artist should be in, should never include any thought about the circus.
How could the tiger roam in the jungle successfully when paralysed thinking of the tamers?

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