Abstract
My paper examines Mieke Bal’s concept of migratory aesthetics through the prism of hospitality. Critical of academic and institutional tendencies that either deny particularism or pin agents and artefacts to their alleged context, Bal develops her concept as a way of accommodating contemporary mobility without undermining cultural specificity. While arguing that “there is no such thing as site-unspecific art”, Bal is also critical of new historicism’s and traditional art history’s overemphasis on “provenance”, and underscores the political ramifications of this approach. Her critique can be read through the framework of hospitality. The notion of “provenance” frames the guest as the other and limits her ability to participate in the host’s culture. Hospitality, however, as Jacques Derrida maintains, is an ambivalent concept. While extending a friendly welcome, it also preserves hierarchy between the host and the guest. In my paper, I examine this other side of hospitality in Yael Bartana’s film True Finn (2014) and in Lost in Space (2005) of Mieke Bal and Shahram Entekhabi. I explore how these films organise the host/guest relation and how they deal with the political entanglement of hospitality.
Highlights
My paper examines Mieke Bal’s concept of migratory aesthetics through the prism of hospitality
In this paper I explored the migratory aesthetics of True Finn through the prism of hospitality
Following Derrida, I underscored the ambivalence of hospitality and its entanglement with power
Summary
Yael Bartana’s True Finn epitomises the impact of mobility on what can be designated only by way of proximity as Israeli art. This is not to say that the term “Israeli art” has lost its classifying. Bartnana be Stunned (2007–2011), her identity as an Israeli and a Jewish artist played a central role, in True Finn explores local issue of aissue foreign. If assassins are asking the host for his guest’s whereabouts, the former should always tell the truth even if it leads to the latter’s death Derrida ascribes this surprising view to Kant’s adherence to the laws of conditional hospitality.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have