Therapeutic Aesthetics: Performative Encounters in Moving Image Artworks

240 Pages·2020·2.913 MB·English

by  Maria Walsh

Therapeutic Aesthetics
RADICAL AESTHETICS – RADICAL ART
Series editors: Jane Tormey and Gillian Whiteley
(Loughborough University, UK)
Promoting debate, confronting conventions and formulating alternative
ways of thinking, Jane Tormey and Gillian Whiteley explore what radical
aesthetics might mean in the twenty-first century. This new books series,
Radical Aesthetics – Radical Art (RaRa), reconsiders the relationship between
how art is practised and how art is theorized. Striving to liberate theories of
aesthetics from visual traditions, this series of single-authored titles expands
the parameters of art and aesthetics in a creative and meaningful way.
Encompassing the multisensory, collaborative, participatory and transitory
practices that have developed over the last twenty years, Radical Aesthetics
– Radical Art is an innovative and revolutionary take on the intersection
between theory and practice.
Published and forthcoming in the series:
Practical Aesthetics: Events, Affects and Art after 9/11, Jill Bennett
Transitional Aesthetics: Contemporary Art at the Edge of Europe, Uros Cvoro
Eco-Aesthetics: Art, Literature and Architecture in a Period of Climate Change,
Malcolm Miles
Civic Aesthetics: Militarism in Israeli Art and Visual Culture, Noa Roei
Counter-Memorial Aesthetics: Refugees, Contemporary Art and the Politics of
Memory, Veronica Tello
Working Aesthetics: Labour, Art and Capitalism, Danielle Child
Art, Politics and the Pamphleteer, edited by Jane Tormey and Gillian Whiteley
For further information or enquiries please contact RaRa series editors:
Jane Tormey: [email protected]
Gillian Whiteley: [email protected]
Therapeutic Aesthetics:
Performative Encounters in Moving Image
Artworks
Maria Walsh
BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK
1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA
BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo
are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
First published in Great Britain 2021
Copyright © Maria Walsh, 2021
Maria Walsh has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.
For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. x constitute
an extension of this copyright page.
Cover image: Primal Speech, installation by Liz Magic Laser (2016), from the exhibition
Psyche als Schauplatz des Politischen (Psyche as the Scene of the Political) at Staatliche
Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany
(© Uli Deck / DPA / Alamy Live News)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior
permission in writing from the publishers.
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for,
any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given
in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher
regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have
ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Walsh, Maria, author.
Title: Therapeutic aesthetics : performative encounters in moving
image artworks / Maria Walsh.
Description: London ; New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2021. |
Series: Radical aesthetics-radical art | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020029960 | ISBN 9781350093157 (hardback) | ISBN 9781350189430
(paperback) | ISBN 9781350093133 (ebook) | ISBN 9781350093140 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Art therapy.
Classification: LCC RC489.A7 W37 2021 | DDC 615.8/5156–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020029960
ISBN: HB: 978-1-3500-9315-7
ePDF: 978-1-3500-9313-3
eBook: 978-1-3500-9314-0
Series: Radical Aesthetics-Radical Art (RARA)
Typeset by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd.
To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com
and sign up for our newsletters.
Contents
List of Figures vi
Preface viii
Acknowledgements x
1 Introduction 1
2 Setting the scene – two supplementary vignettes 17
3 The imbrication of poison and cure in Harun Farocki 27
4 Homeopathic mimicry in Omer Fast’s war trilogy 47
5 Melanie Gilligan’s signifying semiologies and the micro-resistance of
collective subjectivity 67
6 Pharmacological reparation in Liz Magic Laser’s Primal Speech 87
7 Leigh Ledare’s pharmacological aesthetics of group analysis 107
8 Aesthetic modes of performative truth-telling in The O Show and
Self Made 127
9 The transitional pleasures of emotional labour in Lucy Beech’s and
Rehana Zaman’s videos 151
10 Conclusion: Toxicity and self-care – two poles of pharmacological
aesthetics 171
Notes 185
Bibliography 206
Index 222
List of Figures
2.1 Pipilotti Rist, Worry Will Vanish, 2014. © Pipilotti Rist. Courtesy
the artist, Hauser & Wirth and Luhring Augustine 18
3.1 Harun Farocki, Serious Games (I–IV), 2010. Serious Games I:
Watson Is Down, Video (colour, sound) 8 min. Courtesy HARUN
FAROCKI FILMPRODUKTION and Greene Naftali, New York 37
3.2 Harun Farocki, Serious Games (I–IV), 2010. Serious Games III:
Immersion (2009), Video (colour, sound) 20 min. Courtesy
HARUN FAROCKI FILMPRODUKTION and Greene Naftali,
New York 38
3.3 Harun Farocki, Serious Games (I–IV), 2010. Serious Games IV: A
Sun With No Shadow, Video (colour, sound). Courtesy HARUN
FAROCKI FILMPRODUKTION and Greene Naftali, New York 41
4.1 Omer Fast, The Casting, 2007. Four-channel video installation,
colour, sound, duration: 14 minutes, Credit: Nick Trikonis,
Courtesy of the artist and James Cohan, New York 51
4.2 Omer Fast, The Casting 2007. Four-channel video installation,
colour, sound. Duration: 14 minutes, Credit: Nick Trikonis,
Courtesy of the artist and James Cohan, New York 52
4.3 Krzysztof Wodiczko, Abraham Lincoln: War Veteran Projection,
Union Square, New York, 2012. © Krzysztof Wodiczko. Courtesy
Galerie Lelong & Co., New York 57
4.4 Omer Fast, 5000 Feet is the Best, 2011. Single channel HD video,
colour, sound. Duration: 30 minutes looped, Credit: Nick Trikonis,
Courtesy of the artist and James Cohan, New York 61
5.1 Melanie Gilligan, Popular Unrest, 2010; Courtesy the artist and
Galerie Max Mayer, Düsseldorf 74
5.2 Melanie Gilligan, The Common Sense, 2014; Courtesy the artist and
Galerie Max Mayer, Düsseldorf 84
List of Figures vii
6.1 Liz Magic Laser, I Feel Your Pain (2011), Production Still by Yola
Monakhov, Courtesy of the artist 91
6.2 Liz Magic Laser, Primal Speech (2016), video still, Courtesy of the
artist 99
7.1 Leigh Ledare The Large Group (Zurich), 2016. Courtesy of
the artist 115
7.2 Leigh Ledare The Large Group (Zurich), 2016. Courtesy
of the artist 115
7.3 Leigh Ledare The Task, 2017. Courtesy of the artist 121
8.1 Oriana Fox, The O Show: The Therapeutic Potential of Performance,
2012. (video still) Courtesy of the artist 131
8.2 Oriana Fox, The O Show: You’re Only as Sick as Your Secrets, 2019.
(production still) Courtesy of the artist and Block 336 138
8.3 Gillian Wearing Self Made (2010) colour film with sound, 84
minutes. © Gillian Wearing, courtesy Maureen Paley, London 143
8.4 Gillian Wearing Self Made (2010) colour film with sound, 84
minutes. © Gillian Wearing, courtesy Maureen Paley, London 144
9.1 Lucy Beech, Cannibals, 2013. Video still. Courtesy of the artist 158
9.2 Rehana Zaman, Some Women, Other Women and All the
Bittermen, 2014. Video still. Courtesy of the artist 168
10.1 Rehana Zaman, Sharla Shabana Sojourner Selena, 2016. Video still.
Courtesy of the artist 180
Preface
The RaRa series explores what aesthetics might mean in the twenty-first
century by integrating practice and theory and firmly embedding the
discussion of artworks in the social. Maria Walsh’s Therapeutic Aesthetics
contributes a focused analysis of a range of contemporary artists’ practices
from the perspective of contemporary psychoanalytical and political theories,
with particular reference to film and video. Making a clear distinction between
‘art therapy’ and the therapeutic tropes and discourses deployed as both subject
matter and form within these moving image art practices, the book makes a
unique contribution to our series as it provides a new context for radicality and
the intersection of art, aesthetics and politics.
Walsh traces a cultural ‘turn’ to therapeutic discourse, finding evidence
in a range of narratives to do with psychological disorders such as post-
traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, burn-out and depression. Furthermore,
she identifies how therapeutic form is invoked by artists’ films that model
themselves on therapy scenarios, often involving the artist as a pseudo-
therapist or interviewer. She argues that moving image artworks, in particular,
frequently instigate a faux therapeutic encounter through their performance
of the kind of interpretive processes of experience usually associated with
psychoanalysis. Deploying the motif of the pharmacological as both remedy
and poison, she highlights the politicized role and impact of these strategies,
arguing that these forms of practice allow viewers to acknowledge, rather than
heal, the psychical disturbances and traumas of emotional life under cognitive
capitalism. Ultimately, Walsh’s book offers an exploration of the problematic
aspects of therapeutic practices, but it also posits hope for the contribution
that art practices make in helping us see and experience how our desires
and emotions can be harnessed to make social change rather than for the
exploitative instrumentalization of cognitive capitalism.
Therapeutic Aesthetics: Performative Encounters in Moving Image Artworks
provides a series of important case studies for artists, researchers and students
Preface ix
in the field of contemporary art history, cultural studies, film and media and
performance studies. This study is timely in its contribution and response
to the affective aspects of lived experience under contemporary capitalism.
As such, the book’s concerns lie very much within the territory of the RaRa
series and it makes a significant addition to the range of current titles that
address some of the most pressing issues of our time.
RaRa series editors
Jane Tormey and Gillian Whiteley
April 2020