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How is Contemporary Art Reacting to the Refugee Crisis?

Clara Tipper

The second half of the 20th century witnessed the emergence of a new artistic style that was inherently political.[1] Artists began to use their craft as a political machine, in an effort to raise  cultural awareness surrounding issues such as the HIV AIDs crisis, ceaseless warfare, and dictatorial leaders.[2] But in the last decade, contemporary art has been reflecting its inextricable link to politics through its focus on the refugee crisis. In 2019, the UN Refugee Agency recorded 26 million refugees, and a further 46 million internally displaced people. Among the 26 million refugees, around half were children, and perhaps more disturbingly, developed countries are hosting only 15% of the refugee population.[3] Forced displacement is no longer a tragic anomaly. Figures have doubled since 2012, and as countries continue to tighten their asylum rules and conflicts persistently wage through politically unstable nations, the statistics are set to rise. This article will discuss how contemporary artists are reacting to the refugee crisis, and how controversial art installations are gaining magnetism.

I first came across Ai Weiwei after seeing the controversial depiction of himself as Alan Kurdi, a three year-old Syrian boy, whose picture circulated British media after his death in 2015. Initially, this image of Weiwei face down on a Lesbos beach appalled me, but after I researched his other work, I got his point. His art is provocative, and thus often criticised, but it gains attention instantly and evokes an emotional response from the viewer. An installation in the Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen was revealed in 2017, on International Refugee Day.[4] Ai Weiwei filled the windows of the gallery with 3,500 life jackets collected from refugees landing in Greece. The Chinese artist had previously wrapped the columns on the facade of the Konzerthaus Berlin with 14,000 life jackets, along with a hanging lifeboat which read, #SafePassage.[5] 

Banksy is famous for his satirical and politically fraught art. Last summer, Banksy funded a rescue boat for refugees crossing the Mediterranean.[6] He named the boat after the anarchist, Louise Michel, and decorated it with pink spray paint; he included his famous image of the girl with the balloon, but this time she wore a life jacket and held safety buoy. Banksy announced his project on Instagram, writing, “because EU authorities deliberately ignore distress calls from ‘non-Europeans’”. The street-artist has also auctioned off a trio of paintings named, ‘Mediterranean Sea View 2017’, for £2.2 million in aid of a Bethlehem hospital.[7]

There have been several other astounding exhibitions which, some beautifully and others more uncomfortably, have depicted the struggles of refugees across the world. These include ‘The Warmth of Other Suns’, organised by the Phillips Collection in New York, and ‘Journeys Drawn: Illustrations from the Refugee Crisis’ in King’s Cross, London. Both of these exhibitions displayed contemporary artists interpretations of the crisis, and their efforts to reconstruct the stories of refugees. Marc Quinn’s controversial installation in front of the New York Public Library, named ‘Odyssey’, consists of two cubes, each filled with one tonne of frozen blood. One cube contains the blood of 5,000 celebrities such as Kate Moss, Sir Paul McCartney and Anna Wintour.[8] The other cube is full of the blood of 5,000 refugees. Quinn’s message is simple: we are all the same beneath the surface of our skin.[9] An equally captivating exhibition was installed in the Biennale di Venezia, in 2019. As his centrepiece, Christoph Büchel used the wreck of a fishing vessel, which was carrying around 800 migrants before it sank off of the Libyan coast in Spring 2015.[10] The sheer scale of the ‘Barca Nostra’ makes it impossible to ignore; the boat has come to symbolise the immensity of the crisis, Europe’s indifference, and consequently, Europe’s complicity.

Critics, such as Jason Farago, have branded Quinn’s exhibition has “repulsive”, and “exploitative”.[11] But although they may provoke an initial disgust, I believe that this is the artist’s intent. Installations, like Quinn’s and Büchel’s, have made the headlines, and consequently, so too has the refugee crisis. Migration and forced displacement have been deprived of media coverage; contemporary artists are shining a spotlight on what has become a chronic global dilemma. This notion aligns with Charakvorty Spivak’s post-colonial theory of ‘strategic essentialism’, which highlights the sometimes advantageous effects of marginalised groups ‘essentialising’ themselves.[12] In other words, refugee-inspired art may appear to portray the crisis in a stereotypical or exploitative manner, but the aim is to draw attention. The refugee crisis is not being addressed by powerful countries with the means to make an actual difference, and it is the hopes of these contemporary artists that their work could mobilise these actors.

 

Sources

Footnotes

  1. Balca Arda, ‘Contemporary art on the current refugee crisis: the problematic of aesthetics versus ethics’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 46:2, p. 311.

  2. Jonathan Wong, ‘The Nexus of Art and Politics in the 20th Century’, Sotheby’s, (2019)

  3. The UN Refugee Agency, (18/06/2020): https://www.unhcr.org/uk/figures-at-a-glance.html

  4. Ai Weiwei, Soleil Levant, (2017): https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/ai-weiwei-soleil-levant-kunsthal-charlottenborg/PwJS7qECC_PyIQ?hl=en

  5. ‘Ai Weiwei Brightens Berlin’s Konzerthaus Facade With 14,000 Refugee Life Jackets’ (2016): https://worldarchitecture.org/articles/cecgc/ai-weiwei-brightens-berlins-konzerthaus-facade-with-14000-refugee-life-jackets.html

  6. Lorenzo Tondo, ‘Banksy funds refugee rescue boat operating in Mediterranean’, (21/08/2020): https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/27/banksy-funds-refugee-rescue-boat-operating-in-mediterranean

  7. ‘Banksy Auctions Refugee Paintings for £2.2m to Aid Bethlehem Hospital’, (28/07/2020): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-53564953 

  8. Tim Jonze, (23/10/2018): https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/oct/23/5000-people-two-tonnes-of-blood-marc-quinn-odyssey-to-address-refugee-crisis

  9. Ibid

  10. Elisabetta Povoledo, (06/05/2019): https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/06/arts/design/migrant-boat-venice-biennale-christian-buchel.html

  11. Jason Farago, (12/08/2019): https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/13/arts/design/the-museum-is-the-refugees-home.html

  12. B. Ashcroft, Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies, (1998), p. 159.