Rethinking Borders

244 Pages·1996·14.52 MB·English

by  John C. Welchman (eds.)

RETHINKING BORDERS
Also by John C. Welchman
MODERNISM RELOCATED: Towards a Cultural Studies of
Visual Modernity
Rethinking Borders
Edited by
John C. Welchman
Assistant Professor
Visual Arts Department
University of California, San Diego
© John C. Welchman 1996
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1996
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of
this publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or
transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with
the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988,
or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying
issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court
Road, London W1P 9HE.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this
publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil
claims for damages.
First published 1996 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
ISBN 978-1-349-12727-6 ISBN 978-1-349-12725-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-12725-2
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
05 04 03 02 01 00 99 98 97 96
Contents
List of Illustrations vi
Acknowledgements viii
Notes on the Contributors ix
Introduction xii
1 An Acoustic Journey 1
Trinh T. Minh-ha
2 The Bleed: Where Body Meets Image 18
Brian Massumi
Response from Paul Patton 41
3 Battle Lines 51
Beatriz Colomina
Response from Sue Best 65
4 The Cultural Periphery and Postmodem
Decentring: Latin America's Reconversion of Borders 71
Nelly Richard
5 Vulture Culture 85
Celeste Olalquiaga
6 Zones of Marked Instability: Woman and the
Space of Emergence 101
Charles Merewether
7 Metramorphic Borderlinks and Matrixial Borderspace 125
Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger
8 The Philosophical Brothel 160
John C. Welchman
Response from David Avalos 187
Index 200
v
List of Illustrations
Chapter 1
Fig. 1 Still from Surname Viet Given Name Nam Colour and black
and white film, Trinh T. Minh-ha, 1989.
2 Stills from Shoot for the Contents Colour film, Trinh T. Minh
ha, 1991.
3 Stills from Shoot for the Contents Colour film, Trinh T. Minh
ha, 1991.
Chapter 2
Fig. 4 Jenny Holzer, Sign on a Truck 1984 (Vito Acconci Piece),
Mitsubishi Light Board, Grand Army Plaza, New York.
Courtesy Barbara Gladstone Gallery.
Chapter 3
Fig. 5 Le Corbusier, Cabanon, 1952 (Cap Martin, France).
6 French postcard of Algerian women: Scenes and Types -
reclining Moorish women.
7 Le Corbusier, Etude d'apres les Femmes d'Alger de Delacroix,
Ink and blue crayon on paper. Private Collection, Paris (50
x 64.5 ems).
8 Le Corbusier, Graffite ii Cap Martin. Mural in Eileen Gray's
house E.1027, Roquebrune-Cap Martin, 1938.
Chapter 5
Fig. 9 Advertisement circulated in Venezuelan magazines dur
ing 1991.
10 From Guerreros Pacificos (dir. Gonzalo Justiniano, 1985). Still
by Celeste Olalquiaga/Third World Newsreel.
11 Dressed for success in the 'Executive Realness' category in
Paris is Burning (dir. Jennifer Livingston, 1990). Still re
leased by Prestige, a division of Miramax Films, NYC.
12 Hong Kong pop collectible image.
vi
List of Illustrations vii
Chapter 6
Fig. 13 Maria Teresa Hincapie, Una cosa es una cosa, 1990.
Fig. 14 Doris Salcedo, Atrabiliarios, 1991-92 (detail of shoes, cow
bladder and surgical thread).
Chapter 7
Fig. 15 Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger, He began by draw(ing), nos. 1
and 2, 1991 (135 x 40 ems each).
Fig. 16 Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger, Matrixial Borderline panel
no. 3 (detail), 1990-91.
Chapter 8
Fig. 17 Elizabeth Sisco, The 1980 Summer Olympics, San Cristobal
de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico (1980).
Fig. 18 'In the Tule Mountains,' from Views of the Monuments and
Characteristic Scenes along the Boundary between the United
States and Mexico. Courtesy Arizona Historical Society.
Response to Chapter 8
Fig. 19 'Rebate Receipt' from Mariano Rodriquez, dated 30 July
1993; from Art RebatejArte Reembolso, David Avalos, Louis
Hock, Elizabeth Sisco, 1993. Photo by Elizabeth Sisco.
Fig. 20 David Avalos, from the Hubcap Milagro Series, 1984-88,
mixed media.
Acknowledgements
The editor makes grateful acknowledgement to Tony Bond (Artistic
Director, 9th Biennale of Sydney) and the Board of Directors of the
Biennale of Sydney for the context and their financial and organ
izational support of the symposium (in March 1993) that made this
book possible.
Many other people contributed to the success of the event and I
regret that not all of their efforts can be included here. Brenda
Croft, Pam Hansford, Sarat Maharaj, David Bromfield, Dipesh
Chakrabarty, Fay Brauer and speakers from the floor all partici
pated in responses and debate. Their time and effort is greatly
appreciated.
Thanks are due to John Brotherton, in Sydney, for his translation
of Chapter 4 by Nelly Richard; and to Kate Haug, Liza Johnson,
Graciela Ovejero and Chandon Reddy at the University of Califor
nia, San Diego.
The Blennale of Sydney JoHN C. WELCHMAN
viii
Notes on the Contributors
David Avalos is a Chicano from National City, who has lived and
worked in the San Diego - Tijuana border region all his life. He was
artist-in-residence at the Centro Cultural de la Raza 1978-88, and
co-founder of the Border Art Workshop/Taller de Arte Fronterizo
in 1984. Currently Professor of Visual Arts at California State Uni
versity San Marcos, his work and writing was featured in the La
Frontera/The Border exhibition, organized by the Centro Cultural de
la Raza and the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (1993-
94).
Sue Best teachers feminist theory, aesthetics and contemporary art
in the Department of Art History, University of Western Sydney,
Nepean, where she is currently completing her doctorate on sexu
ality and space. Her recent and forthcoming publications include
chapters in Catriona Moore (ed.), Dissonance: Feminism and the Arts
1970-1990 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1994); and Elizabeth Grosz and
Elspeth Probyn (eds), Sexy Bodies: Strange Carnalities of Feminism
(London: Routledge, 1995).
Beatriz Colomina teaches in the Department of Architecture at
Princeton University. She edited the innovative anthology Sexuality
and Space (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992).
Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger is an artist and a psychoanalyst, based
in Paris. Among her one-person exhibitions: The Israel Museum,
Jerusalem (1995); Museum of Modern Art (MaMA), Oxford (1993);
the Russian Museum of Ethnography, St Petersburg (1993) and the
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1987). She is the author of Matrix
a
et Le Voyage Jerusalem de C.B. (1991); Time is the Breath of the Spirit
(conversation with Emmanuel Levinas), 1991-1993;A Threshold Where
We Are Afraid (conversation with Edmond Jabes); and Matrix. Halal(a)
- Lapsus: Notes on Painting 1985-1992 (Oxford: MaMA, 1993).
Brian Massumi is Professor of Communications and Comparative
Literature at McGill University, the translator of works by Gilles
Deleuze and Felix Guattari, including A Thousand Plateaus (University
ix