UCLA, the mandala and the big taboo

Mandala is not the name of one of Todd and Sarah Palin's children; instead, it's a Sanskrit word used for a geometric design that symbolically represents the cosmos. A mandala's design tries to focus outer thoughts on inner worlds.

A dust-up over a mandala in UCLA's graduate art program could also use some focus. As my colleague Diane Haithman reported in Culture Monster, a portion of a student work in a recent show at the school was removed over the objections of the artist. She said the geometric linear form, part of a larger installation (and seen on the side wall in the photograph at the right), is a mandala. But the exhibition's curators weren't so sure. They were concerned that it too closely resembled a swastika.

Like mandala, swastika also comes from Sanskrit. This ancient symbol always had positive connotations of life and good luck -- until Adolf Hitler, failed Austrian artist, wrote Vol. 2, Chapter VII of “Mein Kampf.” That's where he described how he came up with his red, white and black graphic symbol of National Socialism. For him, and soon enough for everyone, the bent-arm black form signified “the struggle for the victory of Aryan mankind and at the same time the triumph of the ideal of creative work which is in itself and always will be anti-Semitic.”

Horrible stuff. I didn't see the UCLA show, which closed earlier this month, but it's easy to see why nerves might be rattled.

You can make up your own mind about what happened with the student exhibition. As for the artist and the curators, however, I suggest they get together and make a bee-line to the Museum of Contemporary Art downtown. There, a painting in the current retrospective of the late German artist ...

...Martin Kippenberger addresses the very issue they wrestled with.

The painting is not about the power of symbols, but about the power of taboos.

For German artists, the taboo problem has obvious connotations. Swastikas were forbidden from public display when Kippenberger made the painting, which is a jumble of rectangular bars painted over a serpentine tangle of plastic rope against a dingy, dark gray field. As soon as you know the work's sly title -- “With the Best Will in the World, I Can't See a Swastika” -- you start looking for one in the grim muddle of geometric forms.

Ah, the triumph of the will.

Just to complicate matters, the painting at MOCA is from the collection of Christian Flick -- grandson of Friedrich Flick, the arms manufacturer and steel magnate who supplied the Nazi regime, and who was sentenced at Nuremberg for exploitation of slave labor. Kippenberger painted it in 1984.

Hmmm. 1984. What could that mean?

--Christopher Knight

Photos: Top, Maya Lujan's “White Magic and Xanadu,” by Ben Duggan; below, Martin Kippenberger's “With the Best Will in the World, I Can't See a Swastika,” by Christopher Knight.

Comments

[Mary Anna Pomonis]

What does it all mean? I wish Christopher Knight would expand a bit more. That Lujan's piece is too taboo to talk about speaks of its power. I feel it deserves some expanded discussion by Los Angeles' most astute critic. Perhaps it means that we live in a time of war in a society that sees pre-emptive military action as an acceptable practice. I think its shocking that the Wight Biennial curators did so little soul searching about the timeliness of an image of violence like the swastika and what it says about our collective inner selves. Lujan's work is hardly alone, the Melanie Pullen show at Ace Gallery is yet another example.
-Mary Anna Pomonis

[Christopher Knight]

Thanks for the kind words, Mary Anna. As I noted in my post, however, I didn't see the UCLA student show, which closed earlier this month, and as a rule of thumb I try not to make pronouncements about art I haven't seen. A photograph of a painting, sculpture or installation is just a shadow of the real thing--good for reference, but not good enough for criticism.

[Maya Lujan]

Mr. Knight, MaryAnna, this is Maya Lujan. First, I want to thank you and express my appreciation to you both.

It seems we are stuck in space-time warp that would take us back to 1971, before I was born, when Lucy Lippard argued, in the catalog for the show 26 Contemporary Women Artists, whether there was a "feminine spirit" inherent in art made by a woman. She describes feminine art as vaguely "earthy, organic, curvature, etc." Furthermore, she wrote, "There is now evidence (in reference to Georgia O'Keefe) that many female artists have defined a central orifice whose formal organization is often a metaphor for a woman's body," and containing "A unified density, an overall texture, often sensuously tactile and often repetitive to the point of obsession; the preponderance of circular forms and central focus."

I would like to confirm that the mandala painting is comprised of pieces of velvet fabric attached to the wall, with the center intentionally "cut-out", or just the bare wall, which, I believe, forces the point of origination of the mandala back to the entirety of the gallery itself. In the proposal for the show, I wrote, " I incorporate the notions of windows looking into a vast expanse, with a consideration of the insurgent power dynamics that are present within architecture." Also, "I take on the inherent polemics of the space, including the gender-sexual particulars of whatever space I work in. The painting will be centrifugal with the intention of the viewer being sucked into a tactile, sensual mode of perception." The entire installation is laden with sexual symbology that is traditionally considered sacred and representative of power.

The problem is not that the mandala resembles a swastika- it's that I insist the symbol is a mandala, and that this particular mandala is overtly feminine. Luce Iragary, the author, states, "New, feminine language must be made outside a patriachical system." I admit I wanted to "seize" a traditionally masculine form and recontecturalize it, therefore, I have never referred to this symbol as anything else but a mandala. I find it hard to believe, that after works such as Chris Burden's columns with swastika's outside LACMA West on Wilshire Blvd, or Mike Kelley's frequent use of the swastika, for example on the forehead of a representation of Abe Lincoln or on the arm of a Hell's Angel biker in the "Black Curtain" series, that there would be such a level of offense as to actually hold up the reception of the show for half an hour, and being given the ultimatum to leave it up incomplete or deinstall altogether. In keeping then, with Christopher's concept of taboo- as a feminine symbol, it must reject the fear, madness, and ambivalence that have been projected on to it as a masculine symbol, or essentially, kill it's father.

I believe the mandala did capture the spirit of the show, albeit, through a certain misrecognition. Therefore, I cannot blame the curator's unspoken projection of the sexual economy of the insulated world of fine art and it's affiliated patriarchical institutions. This was apparent in the fact that the mandala was taken down without my permission, with no explanation or accountability.

I also noticed a guttural and emotional response to the mandala, which I would like to look at more closely. The mandala represents a raw form of our vital feelings, deepest, most inner thoughts and personal connection to the larger universe. Jung, in Man and his Symbols, writes, "It is natural that the image of the center (he had several ways of describing a mandala) should appear in an especially striking manner when the psychic life of the individual is threatened." It was my objective that the installation acknowledge the world outside the gallery and be reflexive of the impending tone of panic in our country. The title "White Magic and Xanadu" refers to the predicament of the hope for an idyllic space and the subsequent failure of Modernism. It is of utmost importance that we look at this symbol now, and start, as individuals, to make a commitment to not repeat the mistakes of the past. These are indeed very troubled times when Governor Sarah Palin makes comments such as "The United States needs to be a beacon of light " in reference to foreign policy issues and the enforcement of a westernized democracy around the world, and refers to anybody in the eastern hemisphere as "bad guys" and anybody in the west as "good guys."
Last, I just want to say: Now is a major psychic event! May the mandala always represent a symbol of the cosmos, peace, nature and unity.

[Hugo]

I started to read Lajuan's comment, but oh god, I nearly crashed into my keyboard from boredom.

Lajuan used the word "recontecturalize," I searched in three dictionaries and Google, and I still don't know what it means. On top of this, I think Lajuan was talking about rebelling against the oppressive patriarchal system by calling the symbol something else, or making it look different. Nevermind that the person who actually took out her Mandala was a woman. Never let the facts get in the way of a good artistic/feminist hyperventilation right?

[Maya Lujan]

Hugo,

Just trying to keep it real. My last name is spelled LUJAN. Recontecturalize means to assign new meaning or take the aspects that are present and re-arrange them. The person who took out my mandala was, in fact, a man. Although I appreciate your comment regarding the other article, don't sell this one short by making the quick assumption that it's merely some kind of hysterical feminist rant, otherwise you would be subscribing to the conditions I'm talking about.

-Maya

[Maya Lujan]

Hugo,

recontextualize- sorry for spelling it wrong, this is the nature of fast information and socialist jargon.

Main Entry:
re·con·tex·tu·al·ize Listen to the pronunciation of recontextualize
Pronunciation:
\ˌrē-kən-ˈteks-chə-wə-ˌlīz, -chə-ˌlīz\
Function:
transitive verb
Date:
1978

: to place (as a literary or artistic work) in a different context