Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.03.2012, Síða 24

24
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 3 — 2012
WHAT IS A WORK OF ART REALLY WORTH?
Opinion | Mikael Lind
Art | Interview
Margo Dooney will be part of a group exhibit at
the SÍM Gallery on March 29. For more details
visit margodooney.com.
What is the condition of being a
teenage girl in Iceland today? It is
a heavy question with no singular,
simple answer, nor has it ever been
in any given time or place. Finding
some of the answers has been the
lofty goal of American artist Margo
Dooney, who is doing a SÍM Resi-
dency in Iceland.
Margo, a 24-year old New York City
resident, has spent the past two months
documenting ten local girls from vari-
ous walks of life between the ages of
15–19. She describes this as a period
when one is on the cusp of becoming
a woman, rapidly developing both emo-
tionally and intellectually. She has gone
about this by immersing herself in their
worlds, living vicariously through them
in a sense.
“The participants have been so
warm and welcoming, sharing their
lives with me,” Margo says. “The pro-
cess follows more or less the same
pattern; I go to their home, sometimes
meet parents and siblings, get a tour of
the house, photograph the girls, their
rooms, and their favourite possessions,
followed by a discussion where I ask
what it means to be a teenage girl in
Iceland. The answers are limitless.”
HERSTORY 101
The idea for the project actually came
from a distant spark that spread like
a wildfire: an outsider’s perception of
Icelandic hetero-mating dynamics, in
particular the visible aggressiveness
of females versus males. Wondering if
there is indeed an imbalance, Margo
began to do her research—speaking
with female professors she knew and
reading about women’s issues and his-
tory.
“Icelandic women have an incred-
ible history,” she says, “Over the past
century, they've made remarkable
progress. If I had grown up in a place
like Iceland, where it's possible for a
woman (and a gay woman!) to hold a
political office, how would I have de-
veloped differently? How would those
crucial developmental teen years have
changed?” Using this question as a
launch pad, she found a clear concept
for a complex topic.
Of course one may wonder: why Ice-
land? “Well, I’m here,” Margo answers
candidly. However, the location did play
an important role in the inception of the
project, Iceland not only being a hos-
pitable environment for it, but a crucial
element. “If I wasn't here, this project
wouldn't be happening, since it’s coun-
try specific, historically and culturally,”
she continues. “It's all very admirable,
especially to someone like myself, since
my home seems so far from being this
progressive. And the girls I've met with
are both very aware of and proud of this
progression, but it's second nature to
them. It's all they know.”
FEARING THE F-WORD
This pride and awareness of their his-
tory has also transcended their political
psyche, with a strong realisation that all
is not won yet. “What I found interest-
ing is that when asked about teen life
as a girl here, they immediately wanted
to talk about the freedoms of women,”
says Margo, “how fortunate they are to
have this sense of 'social freedom with-
out judgement' as girls in Iceland. The
other issue that surprisingly comes up
with the handful I've met is the idea of
gender equality and inequality in both
political and social realms. They're feel-
ing some sort of an imbalance, and they
want to level it.”
She points out that there is a sense
of respect for mothers and the impor-
tance of women within the family struc-
ture, but also their strong distaste for
the wage gap, turning some of them off
from the idea of work entirely.
Regardless of their seemingly in-
trinsic ideologies, labelling one’s desire
for equality is still mighty unpopular.
“Obviously this is a sensitive subject,”
Margo concedes. “They're not running
around calling themselves 'feminists' as
they believe it would only gather nega-
tive connotations, thus standing in the
way of what they're striving for—gen-
der equality, but they are educating
themselves, encouraging conversation
about their concerns with teachers and
classmates, both male and female, and
I think that empowers them—to have
a sense of community, and an under-
standing of what they are feeling.”
WHAT IT ALL BOILS DOWN TO
Margo says that the ultimate goal of
her project is to comprehensively docu-
ment them and pick up all the artefacts
of who they are. The end-result will be
put together in a multimedia installa-
tion incorporating still and moving im-
ages, sounds, text, music. Additionally,
she is reconstructing an amalgamation
of their bedrooms into her studio space,
where one can take part in the immer-
sive experience.
So what does it feel like for a girl?
The answer is obvious: it’s different for
everyone. “I've only met a clip of them,
a small handful that doesn't fully rep-
resent or speak for the entire teen girl
population here,” she says, “but from
who I've spoken with, these are a very
hopeful group of young women. Not
just for Iceland, but for everywhere.”
What It Feels Like
Margo Dooney delves into the life of the modern Icelandic girl
REBECCA LOUDER
MARGO DOONEY
According to Greek
mythology, King Midas
of Phrygia was given
the power to transform
everything he touched
to gold. As the Austrian
writer Ernst Fischer points out, capital-
ism on the other hand turned everything
into commodities. This mode of thinking
has been openly ventilated in the recent
discussions about the so called “artist
salary” (“listamannalaun”) in Iceland.
Every year, a certain number of artists
(this year 217 out of 639 applicants) re-
ceive a government-funded stipend on
the condition that they meet certain re-
quirements, such as giving a good pre-
sentation of their work and conducting
future projects. Those who receive the
support are given the opportunity to fur-
ther develop their craft, and thus enrich
the culture in different ways.
This artist salary is an object of harsh
criticism every year, and since pub-
lic debates have more and more been
taking place on the internet, it is easy
to follow people’s reactions. One com-
mon expression of disapproval is based
on the claim that those artists who have
to receive support from the government
to practice their art are pitiful creatures
who lack a serious relationship to the
“real” world (i.e. the world of the market
economy). If they were talented enough
to create something that people wanted
to consume, they would not need any
support from the government. In the
eyes of these critics, the market place
is the rightful judge—the consumers pay
for the art that they like and those art-
ists who are not popular enough should
stick to writing books, painting or mak-
ing music as a hobby, and preferably
find another job, or try to work harder
at selling their products. People who
defend the artist salary, on the other
hand, point out that the creative sectors
involved are a big part of the economy,
creating many jobs and in the long run
result in financial gain.
The discussions on forums and blogs
are often about financial matters and
more rarely about the value of art itself;
whether a good piece of art can be valu-
able even if it doesn’t sell. The value of,
say, a football player is more obvious.
People’s opinions may differ slightly in
those matters, but there’s not much hid-
den there that may be discovered later.
In the arts, however, things are differ-
ent. Van Gogh starved and committed
suicide at the age of 37, selling only two
works during his lifetime during which
he made more than 2.000 works. Kafka
enjoyed almost no success during his
lifetime. Bach was in his days not pri-
marily admired for his compositions
but for his skills as an organist. Cultural
critic Walter Benjamin argued that art
creates demand, which has yet to be ful-
filled; appreciation for the work does not
necessarily have to manifest itself at the
time of its creation.
So, what is the purpose of trying to
keep the art world independent from the
most brutal form of market philosophy?
I asked visual artist and art critic Jón B.
K. Ransu—who recently released a book
about modern Icelandic art from a theo-
retical perspective—what he thought.
“When the art market begins to oper-
ate as conglomerates producing works
themselves after a certain formula for
the consumption of art,” Jón says, “we
are certainly losing something pre-
cious from the art. And art is certainly
destined for decay if intended solely as
a commercial product.” We can find a
parallel in journalism. Noam Chomsky
and Edward S. Herman showed in their
book ‘Manufacturing Consent’ how the
media in the U.S. often fails to be a criti-
cal voice if their coverage threatens the
economic, social, and political agendas
of their owners.
If we want our literature, visual art,
design, music and theatre works to be
more than simply manifestations of the
current trends in society, and if we want
a creative scene that not only gives peo-
ple what they want, but also challenges
current modes of thought and common
opinions, then it is important to realize
that the value of artistic creations is a
much more complex phenomenon than
can ever be measured solely in eco-
nomic profitability calculations. As Jón
B.K. Ransu says, art satisfies a certain
spiritual thirst in mankind to relate itself
in different ways to the environment,
the society, our bodies, etc. “Through
art we look with a critical eye upon our
own culture and at the same time enjoy
its fruits.” If art is reduced to only be-
ing something safe, brief and instantly
entertaining, it loses much of its cre-
ative and experimental powers. There
are thus many factors in the world of
art and its relation to society as a whole
that can’t be estimated in money. When
reading many of the comments circulat-
ing on the internet, one can’t but find it
regrettable that so much energy is used
discussing only the brute economic per-
spective of art and culture.