Dialogue - Raimi Gbadamosi interviews Margareta Kern & Grace Ndiritu

Raimi Gbadamosi interviews Margareta Kern & Grace Ndiritu

Artists Margareta Kern and Grace Ndiritu presented artworks at Performing Rights Glasgow this February. Shortly after the festival they met Raimi Gbadamosi in London to discuss their current projects, aspirations as artists, and the challenges and complexities of operating in today's art world.

This article contains audio clips selected from the interview and four accompanying texts written by Raimi Gbadamosi. The texts introduce and respond to these parts of the interview, working together to create a dialogue. The final part of the interview – Part 4 is written on reflection 'post-interview', and raises possible new questions for future discussion.

Part 1
In order to make political art, it is imperative to see the world as a totality, acknowledge the state it is in, hold a model in the imagination of what would make for a better world than the one observed, and believe that what is being done will either bring about direct change to the world or be catalytic towards the desired transformation of society.

It is, however, possible to simply aim at being an amoral mirror of what is seen, but this strategy eventually proves itself impossible to sustain as the artist immerses themselves into the situation or research of the situation.

Part 1 audio clip, 7 mins 51 secs (mp3, 7.19 MB)

Listen now Download

Part 2
The artist is free to do what they want. This statement is only true to the extent that the artist can do what they want within their means and permissions granted by the Society within which they inhabit. Artists respond to their situation by self-censorship, either deliberately to satisfy requirements which provide the means to make their artwork, or are subconsciously affected by the factions, fashions, and forms which inform the discourses they come to accept. To be free, to free the self becomes the ultimate goal of the artist, as the ideal position from which to make work. Freedoms sought are treated as an attribute of the artists' community, but their manifestations almost always resolve themselves by becoming a limited freedom for the self.

Social justice is attached to the desire for freedom the artist seeks, and attempts to achieve. By being a social critic, the artist strives to direct society towards the things it [their society] does and deliberately ignores. This is ultimately a utopian model for change, where the artist is tacitly a social activist.

Part 2i audio clip, 5 mins 17 secs (mp3, 4.84 MB)

Listen now Download

Part 2ii audio clip, 4 mins 32 secs (mp3, 4.14 MB)

Listen now Download

Part 3
It is improbable that artists still necessarily make art in order to fill galleries or simply aggrandise systems they deem relevant. The ability of artists to make radical change has been severely undermined by their wholehearted adoption of materialism represented by moribund depiction of various consumptions, and their foreknowing of the inevitable commodification of what they produce.

Margareta Kern
Natasa (Catherine Zeta-Jones dress), Graduation Dresses, 2006

Margareta Kern
Zorica (Kira Najtli dress), Graduation Dresses series, 2007

Grace Ndiritu
Darfur, 2006-2007

Grace Ndiritu
Desert Storm, 2004

It is not that this is any different to the highly collectible still-lifes of the past, represented by high auction prices. That art becomes a commodity, especially if it becomes a significant signifier within any of the many conflicting discourses of art, is in the long run no longer an issue of debate. Art has become either a present or future commodity, the greater the antagonism with its society's mores the better, to the point that dissent is almost rendered impossible.

This raises questions whether Art can bring about change, social or political. Internalising this argument leaves fulfilling project planning and raising money a central objective of individual practice. For every compromise artists enter into in the production of projects knowingly slanted towards a successful grant application, passions are disentangled from the complex ideas to which they are committed.

Part 3i audio clip, 7 mins 5 secs (mp3, 6.49 MB)

Listen now Download

Part 3ii audio clip, 3 mins 40 secs (mp3, 3.35 MB)

Listen now Download

Part 4
'Post-' has become so important in the discussions of the self that the 'self' itself has come rather difficult to approach. Everything is seen as being so complicated that no straightforward answers are acceptable, and this includes responses to simple questions which could have simple answers. Answers to 'everything' are therefore sought in everything being produced within culture. While it is possible to find resonances of any particular circumstance in obscurantist strategies or works, the deliberate denial of possible resolution has become an end in itself. It has become impossible for contemporary artists to speak of any kind of truth, because they are intimately aware of the fate of art eventually subverting itself. The artist is now bound to a requirement and acknowledgement that they themselves are the highest authority with regards to their practice and their idiosyncratic appraisal of society. The reader and reading of artworks are secondary to the creation of work, as the work has to already exist to be read. At this point in history any reading of the text has become a mere corollary.

Further information
margaretakern.com
More information on Margareta Kern
luxonline.org.uk/artists/grace_ndiritu
More information on Grace Ndiritu