A WORLD FAR AWAY – SO CLOSE

An academic attempt on artistical dissemination

On Wim Wenders, Donata Wenders and Salvatore Ferragamo
“Off Scene” photo-show in Florence
 

At Museo Salvatore Ferragamo ;

June 26th - September 30th

    It seems that thinking of art as a contemporary cultural discipline is a very provocative thing, especially if it is connected with highly consumerist products such as films. However if we look at any glossary of philosophic semiotics, we can see that it is a much defined category. Nevertheless all academic literature defines movies as seventh art. The thing is that many of as are connecting the terminology of movie productions with the entertainment industry. The terms of consumerism and box-office success are immediately reminding us that movies are product that has to be consumed, and therefore they have to make money. So is it the consumerism a category that is defining what film is going to be produced, or the movies that are present in the cinemas are defining the tastes of the consumers? Now when the highly commercially oriented movie productions are dominating the cinema repertoire, this issue has become a topic of a primary interest for the art theoreticians. A new category has emerged- the so-called cultural industries. Though many movie professionals are claiming that it is not good to separate the movies on consumerist oriented and art ones, this difference emerges on the market more than ever before. Trying to define what categorizing approach is the most suitable for this field of interest, it is more than clear that it is not the way the movies are produced that is defining whether some movie is going to be artistic or not, but the final product- movies themselves.

EUROPEAN ARTISTS WORKING AROUND THE WORLD

    Being as one of the best known European film directors so far, and being born in Europe, German director Wim Wenders is one of the rare examples of artistic personalities that is believed that has succeeded in playing both the rules of the market oriented film-productions and chasing funding for works of art; and the final product was always work of art. Though Europe is recognized as a continent where due to its artistic heritage works of art are highly recognized, if we see the current European art data it is more than obvious that there are less and less works of art each day. Probably as a consequence of this, there are less and less consumers for this. Therefore it was a real pleasure to visit the latest exhibition of photos “Off Scene”of Wim Wenders and his wife Donata, together with Salvatore Ferragamo in the “Salvatore Ferragamo Museum in Florence”. I don’t want to deny the fact that I am a big fan of Win Wenders and that this was a real artistic dessert for me. What was always fascinating me in his works of art is that he was always trying to speak and fight for his own world, not only to speak about the world we are living in. So what is the world of this exhibition?

 That’s a world where desire for daydreaming is stronger than the morning news. But that’s not a world where everybody present is an escapist, nor everybody is afraid from it, so they need there dream world. That’s a sphere where everybody present is full of love with its surroundings. Whether in Hollywood and its splendor or Cuba with its neglected, yet adorable facades, photographs of this exhibition are expressing the love of these three artists to stay as long as possible in the world they love so utterly. Not only spaces but living people are also portrayed as dependently and vividly existing with each other. Longley forgotten disciplines as friendship, sense of belongingness, enjoin in little pleasures such as cigarettes are present in these photographs.

EXPLORING MATERIALISM CAN BE INSPIRING

    Weather materialism was something that was fully recognized as a discipline worth exploring in the art world is a very interesting question for those who think opposite. At least that was a dominant generalization for everybody that had intention of becoming serious art theoreticians in the sixties. General opinion on this particularity is that artists despise materialism. However that’s was not my impression of this exhibition. On the contrary the message was- we love this world, and this world is materialist. Try these photographs we can see images of splendor and poverty, of people that enjoy life and of people that are in an existentialist struggle, of reach and urban landscapes and of visions of designations and abandonees. Whether it’s portrayal of an old woman, or a snapshot from a movie set, the artists attitude is to treat all artists equally and with the respect of there individual integrity. The eye of the artist is prejudicial of nothing. However different from any accepted aesthetical discipline that might be, authors of these photographs are not trying to define what is of what can not be beautiful.

If we look in any lexicography, we can see that terminology of aesthetics defines what is beautiful and what is not-that’s non- aesthetical. So trying to define the beauty of these photos can be a really complicated job for a conventional art- theoretician, because it is not related to any conventional or generally accepted definition on what’s beautiful. In many cases we can see objects that usually no-one will take a picture of, such as some really pitiful urban landscapes from Russia, which many conventional art-theoreticians would define them as there place was in an article of a daily. That is also the case with the techniques used, which are varying from really sophisticated equipment, to intentionally raff imagery taken directly from electronic media.

AESTHETICAL ISSUES

    That art is a discipline which can always surprise us, we can see if we try to notice the difference between this and any other photo-exhibition. And the difference is that in the conventional approach artists are trying to show how much do they know about there craft. To show us how well they can use lighting, colors, composition of objects etc. On the contrary, these photographs do impress us with something else; with the ability to articulate the inner world of the artists. That they developed there own dimension of existence which is presented try there photographs. Hence we can not define this photographic collection as another conceptualist playground, nor is this something that belongs in the category of the so-called author’s works of art with artists sign (art products where the presence of the authors is obvious and dominant).

It is obvious that this is something that is coming out of Wim Wenders workshop, thought what is typical for his approach – he is never placing his artistic credo in the first lines of the artistic absolving. It is more that he is letting or helping the objects of his work to express there own inner world.

 Thought the artists that are working on this project are European, we can freely define them as internationalists. Especially interesting is the American aesthetical influence which is mostly connected with the American pop-art from the seventies or the so-called “art of the anonymous photographers”. The subscriber of these lines is particularly fan of the pictures with artists friends done in New York style, and photos of various designated areas (gas-station, desert etc.), which are enlightened with the very popular category of American Beauty. That is America that is loved in Europe, that wonderful, that soft America.

By Igor Pop Trajkov