Time
Saturday, November 6 · 2:00pm - 8:00pm
Location SIGIarts Gallery
Jl. Mahakam 1 No.11
Jakarta, Indonesia
Created By
Sigi Arts
More Info Artist Talk: Dodit Artawan & Asmudjo Jono Irianto
Sneakerhead Painting: Double Fetishism
“‘I challenge any art lover,’ exclaimed Bataille, ‘to love a canvas as much as a fetishist loves a shoe.’”
Shoes are indeed made for our feet, but one can say that their prestige is higher than that of head coverings. Shoes are even known as one of major fetish objects, as we know that there are cases of shoe fetishism, although it usually has to do with the shoes that are often linked with sexual fetishism or fantasy, such as the stiletto high heel shoes. Shoes are also a significant fashion item. The kind and brand of shoes signify the wearer’s social class, as insinuated by the expression “You Are What’s on Your Feet”. Shoes, therefore, also reflects the wearer’s lifestyle and identity, and often function as signifier for certain communities or sub-cultural movements, such as the boots-wearing punkers.
However, no other shoes are perhaps as important as the sneakers in serving as marker of the contemporary culture known as the sneaker culture.
The story of sneakers began from a pair of rubber-soled shoes sold cheaply and produced in 1839 by Liverpool Rubber Company. The shoes were initially called “plimsoll” and were in the form of simple rubber soles with coverings of canvas cloth. In 1892, the US Rubber Company made a higher-quality version and called it “Keds”. Since the 1900s, demands for the rubber-sole shoes increased rapidly due to the comfort they offered. The rubber-soles shoes almost never made any sounds whenever they were used, and the wearer could thus sneak in and out. That was why the rubber-soles shoes are subsequently known as sneakers. Sneakers then grew to become sport shoes, like basketball and tennis shoes. Sport sneakers, however, are also used in myriad of activities that have nothing to do with sport. The informal and casual nature of the shoes, as well as the comfort and “style” they provide, make sneakers the shoes of choice for the youth.
Sneakers become a mark of identity and the preferred fashion style for the urban youth. Like the jeans, sneakers have grown to become a fashion statement related to the spirit of freedom, the egalitarian and popular culture, and urban cosmopolitan lifestyle. Sneakers also become a part of the underground and street lives, and therefore often linked with the hip-hop culture.
Producers of sneakers shrewdly promote and heighten sneakers’ prestige. The passion and the fetishist attitude among lovers of sneakers are of course related to the identity construction surrounding the shoes, which are often linked to sub-cultural elements with the spirit of the counter culture. As usual, however, when huge capitals are involved, elements of this counter culture become co-opted and transformed into parts of the mainstream culture. Branded sneakers, therefore, have become representation of the middle- to upper class lifestyle. They do not come cheap, especially for most Indonesians.
Sneakers are the theme and subject matter in Dodit Artawan’s paintings. If we find ourselves stand face to face with Dodit’s paintings, we will immediately suspect that Dodit is crazy for sneakers. Such suspicion proves to be correct. Dodit is indeed a lover of sneakers; one can say that he is a “sneaker-freak” or a “sneaker head”. The range of sneakers that we see in Dodit’s canvases actually represents his personal collection. Scores of pairs of sneakers are neatly stored in a glass case in Dodit’s bedroom, like treasures. When he was still a high-school student, Dodit had the desire to collect branded sneakers. Branded sneakers, with their many kinds of designs, exert a strong appeal on Dodit—and to other sneakerheads in general, of course. In this case, we can say that they have a fetishist attitude toward sneakers. The term ‘fetish’ itself is defined as such:
“Fetish is a familiar word for an exotic thing. In ordinary usage everyone knows that it means an object of irrational fascination, something whose power, desirability, or significance a person passionately overvalues, even though that same person may know very well intellectually that such feelings are unjustifiably excessive.”
From the above explanation by William Pietz, we understand that the term “fetish (object)” was initially used for objects of worship in primitive societies, which are seen as having certain powers due to the spirits that reside within them. The term has a strong anthropological/ethnographic bias and at first only applied to objects in primitive societies according to the Western observers. Some observers, however, went on to say that the term “fetish” should also apply to the worship of objects or artifacts in the Western society, an act that is also far from being rational, as the above quote explains. The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu even said that in the modern society, manifestations of this fetish attitude can be observed in the peak of modern art: “While a sociologist like Bourdieu might have well written, ‘Greenbergian modernism was an apotheosis of fetishism in the visual arts in the modern period’.”
Using Bourdieu’s opinion above as our basis, we can say that Dodit’s paintings displayed in this exhibition are a form of double fetishism, as they depict fetish objects (i.e. the sneakers) while the paintings are themselves fetish objects. Dodit seems to combine two kinds of fetishism, just as George Bataille has once commented, “to love a canvas as much as a fetishist loves shoes”. The two aspects are evident in Dodit’s paintings. They strongly reveal how Dodit is a true sneaker-fetishist. Observe how he is almost drowned in a sea of his beloved sneakers, in Colourful Sneakers. The colorful sneakers appear strong and life-like, and we almost forget that we are actually looking at a painting. With highly sophisticated and detailed photo-realist techniques, Dodit is able to make the paintings look “alive”. Sneakers, as fetish objects in Dodit’s canvases, make for enticing images.
Dodit’s paintings are interesting as they explain to us two matters that are actually separate or detached: the territory of high art and its rival, i.e. that of popular art or popular culture. At the same time, many parties are of the opinion that the boundary between the two realms has become increasingly blurred; in many cases they even seem to merge. The mechanism involved in the production and consumption of Dodit’s paintings is nevertheless far removed from that found in the production of sneakers, as Julian Stallabrass explained:
“The art market is still dependent upon the buying and selling of rare or unique objects far removed from the mass-produced commodities found in ordinary shop. In most markets a few dominant companies control production, but there are few in which consumption is regulated. The commercial art world tries to hold both reins tight, for the buyers of these objects are few and known to the sellers, production is often artificially limited, and patronage often has a personal dimension.”
One thing that often seems to obscure the boundary between popular art and high art—so much so that many often believe that the two territories have merged—is the fetish drive that the two regions of art can create. Many producers of fashion products often take advantage of this fact. The fetishist attitude toward sneakers is brought up by giving personal touches on the sneakers, for example by means of special-edition products or limited edition linked with certain famous athletes or celebrities. The limited edition sneakers gain thus higher values and become precious collectibles. This is reflective of what Karl Marx has explained about commodity fetishism.
“The theory of commodity fetishism therefore suggests that capitalism reproduces itself by concealing its essence beneath a deceptive appearance. Just as quality appears as quantity, so objects appear as subjects and subjects as objects. Things are personified and person objectified.”
Special edition sneakers like Nike Air Jordan—a product of collaboration between Nike and Michael Jordan—are highly successful in the market and reflects what Marx said, “things are personified”. Nothing, however, beats works of art in reflecting how “things are personified”, as obvious in Dodit’s paintings. One cannot separate Dodit’s paintings from the artist himself. The works exist because they are seen as representing the artist, while at the same time the artist gains credits in the world of art through his works—just as explained in the quote above about commodity fetishism: “things are personified and person objectified.”
However, there is still separation between high art and popular art; between art and non-art—although the two are sometimes represented by the same images or visual methods. Stallabrass further confirms:
“Above all, while ordinary commodities live or die by millions of individual decisions to buy or not to buy, the feedback mechanisms which determine the track of contemporary art are regulated and exclusive, and the ordinary viewer of art is permitted no part in them.”
Stallabrass goes on to show that there are different spaces of consumption and production between branded consumer goods and works of art. The separation between the two remains, no matter how strong the efforts are to obscure it.
“Separated from the full rigour of the market, art can flirt with consumer culture while remaining assured of its safe demarcation. Indeed, those works that appear to threaten such a merging of art and the commodity actually reinforce the boundary by making it visible.”
Nike Air Jordan refers to mass-produced sneakers, while every one of Dodit’s paintings—just like any other work of art—is a unique “product”, the only one of its kind in this whole wide world.
Athletes or celebrities from the territory of popular art gain their recognitions based on certain standards of achievements, and this is especially true for athletes. Meanwhile, we can judge how popular artists perform by observing their record sales, for example. For artists like Dodit, however, it is rather difficult to determine the parameters with which we can assess their qualities—although lately their financial or market success, with their works being sold in high prices, has been considered as one of the hallmarks of a successful artist.
In art, myths about the artist becomes important. Modern art considers important artists as creative geniuses. Recognition and awards are hard to come by in modern art, and that is why we know only a few modern artists in the world (all of them coming from the West). Sometimes the recognition is given posthumously. This, for example, is obvious in the myths about van Gogh:
“In this family of artists, figures whose ‘art and life are one,’ Van Gogh is the absolute champion, in all categories. Madness, the severed ear, unlucky in love, unsuccessful commercially—Vincent was no winner, and not even a moral example. But he did suffer, and that is a serious point in his favor. You can imagine the high priests of the artist cult having replaced Christ’s words ‘for this is my body’ with ‘for this is my canvas’.”
As Judith Benhamou-Huet points out, the fetish for van Gogh’s paintings has been inseparable from the myths regarding van Gogh’s torturous life. Van Gogh’s suffering became a myth that could “sell” and “advertise” van Gogh’s paintings—after his death. Van Gogh’s canvases serve as the reification of the artist’s suffering. What we see happening with van Gogh’s paintings is the example of how “things are personified” in the context of commodity fetishism.
Of course, the myths regarding the contemporary artists are an altogether different thing. The “myths” of the contemporary artists must be constructed while they are still alive, and they can immediately perceive the results—while they are still young, if possible. This is evident in the case of the Young British Artists (YBAs), with Damien Hirst as its “forward propeller”. The success of the Young British Artists show that myths regarding the “greatness” of young contemporary artists have to do with their market success and celebrity status. The same is true on the global level: the Indonesian contemporary artists today enjoy the fruits of their artistic career—in terms of successful market reception—more so than their seniors, and earlier, too.
The success of many young artists all over the world reveals that the plurality of contemporary art still requires “heroes”. The world of the contemporary art is nevertheless the continuation of the patterns of production and consumption of modern art—but without the absolute parameters of formalist modernism. Heroes in the contemporary art thus appear with many different parameters, but one thing remains the same: the artwork is the object of the elite’s fantasy.
“Sotheby’s, Christie’s and, now, Phillips, take twofold approach to their key customers. They arouse the desire to possess a painting or sculpture by transforming it into fantasy object… If such an excessive price was paid for this lot, then there must have been a good reason. And that can only be the quality of the work. The work, it is assumed, is unique and irreplaceable, and, therefore, priceless.”
Fantasy object, of course, is none other than fetish object. In this case, Dodit’s paintings open the path for us to understand the kind of fetishism that is different from other kinds of fetishism that are related to fetish objects such as sneakers. Dodit’s paintings—like many other modern or contemporary paintings in general—are works of oil paints on canvas and exist as works of art. Today we are sustaining a massive assault by elements of the mass culture.
The visual appearance of digital technology such as the LCD screens or the gigantic advertising banners naturally threaten the visual potentials of works of art. Art must compete with all these elements of mass culture. Dodit, however, takes the path that goes in the opposite direction from that of the ease offered by digital technology, by creating photo-realist images through paintings.
This is an old technique—some even say primitive. Our foremost fascination with Dodit’s paintings do not originate from the visual aspect—which we can easily produce using photography—but from the fact that the images were hand-made. An image that looks like a work of photography but is in fact a painting surely catches people’s attention. In this case, Dodit’s paintings are able to “entice” the audience to keep on looking at the collection of shoes in his canvases. Apparently the method of photo-realism is the most logical method to take. One can say that it is even the logical consequence of his choice, and one that he must take advantage of. It is only by employing this method that the characteristics and the quality of the sneakers as the object of desire can be brought to the fore.
The theme of sneakers in Dodit’s paintings is an “alibi” for him to create (or to produce) paintings (i.e. works of art). Isn’t it true that contemporary painting always has to deal with “something”? Of course, for a painting to be considered significant, the content, or the alibi, is also important. This significance (the content or the meaning) is what the audience will “read” in the work. The quality of such an effort of reading—and how well the audience enjoys the work—mainly has to do with the selection of visual methods. In this case, Dodit has chosen to present sneakers with the technique of photo-realism. That is why Dodit’s sneaker paintings are far removed—in terms of the context and the appearance—for example with Van Gogh’s shoe paintings that are highly expressive in nature.
Apart from the appearance of his paintings that entice the viewers, as works of art Dodit’s paintings contain rich meanings and messages, and are especially important in terms how the issues are presented. Observe, for example, the work Footwear and Fashion that clearly speaks of how identity and “value” of a person are often seen as depending on what the person wears. To stress upon this fact, Dodit deliberately does away with faces in his paintings, presenting a statement of sorts that what is important is not the person, but rather the attributes, or that someone becomes important because of the attributes he or she is wearing. In Low Rider, sneakers take a central position. The wearer seems proud and keenly aware of how special the sneakers are. Again, the wearer’s face is invisible, because what is important here are the cool sneakers that he or she is wearing.
The work Purple reveals how shoes—like other fashion items in general—often have far more important functions than merely their physical functions. They often have symbolic meanings. That is why the shoes here seem to be hanging from the user’s neck. Again, the face is not shown; what we see are only the tattoos that run through the person’s arm. It is as if Dodit is trying to say that tattoos and sneakers have similar function: to shape the wearer’s identity and character. Meanwhile, the work Look Up becomes interesting because it makes us feel as if we are standing under a cloud of sneakers. We are seeing the soles of a multitude of sneakers. Is Dodit actually talking about the superiority of sneakers? Is that why these sneakers are present above us, instead of existing merely as foot covers? Fetishism for mass produced objects has affected our frame of thoughts and our perceptions about objects. The modern human is one who is often proud of his or her rationality. The fetish attitude, however, reveals how the modern humans often become irrational simply because they want to have fun. Or perhaps the fetishism tendency constitutes an “escape” by the contemporary modern humans to run away from the burdens of modern life. One of the most accessible havens to which we can escape would be the “objects” produced by modern civilization. The world of capitalism gladly provides the fantasies that they attach to their products—or run toward works of art. The two aspects are present in Dodit’s paintings, which I think are representatives of the “double fetishism”.
Asmudjo Jono Irianto
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DIY
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