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Hassan Musa "Arbre" (Sudan)
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Article 26: Right to Education
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325 x 290mm woodcut 607 x 428mm paper size
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Artist Statement: Hassan Musa
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| "Optimistic" I was optimistic, I wanted to change the worldthrough art - I mean the whole world, in the physical, social andintellectual sense. I wanted to change all the kind people around me who could not understand why a normal middle-class young man had decided to study art in a country like Sudan. |
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As far as I was concerned at that time, my ambitions were well planned. The fusion of my artistic practices with my political activities helped me to develop analyses about the social function of art in Sudanese society; but I soon discovered that the complexity of Sudanese society surpassed the local scale to become part of international perspectives of human identity.
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| I became pessimistic the day I realized that we Sudanese - as well as many others - have been expelled out of our ancestors' pre-capitalist dream by the irreversible logic of capitalism. My pessimism was heightened by the understanding that the same irreversible logic of capitalism wouldn't allow us access to the capitalist dream except as a pariah. However, there is one positive thing about being pariah within the international capitalist system: this mutation relieves me from the burden of the "traditional -modern- African artist" It offers me a new identity as a "mutant" - free to take roots wherever I choose ( thanks to my television, telephone, fax, computer, and all the astute imagination of humanity at my disposal!) At first, I wanted to change the world. |
| Then, I wanted the world not to change me. Now, I want to reconcile my internal contradictions with those of the world! To me, art is "a state of fight" - with oneself and with others. Art is the most refined - and perhaps the most violent - state of fight that man has ever invented! "If I say this is art, then it is art." At the time Marcel Duchamp said this, people laughed at him because he was not yet considered an authority on the matter. Now, Duchamp's words are at the center of debate about the sense of art. This may be because the definition of what art is involves concerns beyond the conventional issues of visual arts. The History of civilizations teaches us that the aesthetic of a society depends upon its ethics. |
| During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Christian art as defined and supported by the church, was the visual focus for European societies. If today's art is submitted entirely to the international market place, one can imagine the kind of ethics that might inspire contemporary artists. Today we have the kind of art that is defined and supported by patrons seeking ( commercial or political ) gain through their support. ( Immoral? Since when does morality escape market law?). |
| Under these circumstances, I would prefer that the artist say, "this is art because I am saying so and I am the only authority entitled to define the ethical bases of my work!" If the contemporary artist says this, he becomes a martyr. If he says nothing he remains a buffoon! Between the Martyr and the buffoon the legitimacy of creative work in the arts is compromised. To return to Duchamp's proclamation, I am not going to say, "this is African Art" because it is more than that. It is a multicultural ambition to reinvent the universe on a human scale: "IT IS JUST ART!" |
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