Art

Euro-crisis art

The next big movement?

Sep 27th 2012, 16:22 by S.J. | BERLIN

ART movements often spring from history's bumps in the road. Dadaism was an artistic convulsion against the abominations of the first world war. Social Realism blossomed from the Depression-racked wastelands of 1930s America. The question of whether an episode of collective trauma in the 21st century could spark another body of art is an important one. The ongoing euro crisis is a serious contender. As the public mood has darkened, and governments have cut arts budgets, artists have begun to respond.

One of the first major artworks to flirt with euro-crisis themes, “Entropa” (pictured right), was produced in 2009. It has a suitably ironic back story. The Czech Republic commissioned a native artist, David Cerny, to produce an artwork to mark its presidency of the Council of the European Union. The appointment of Mr Cerny, talented but prone to showmanship, proved fatal. He created a satirical map depicting the incompatibility of EU countries and the region's economic malaise. The sculpture depicts Greece burning and Spain as a deserted building site. Eureaucrats were horrified by Mr Cerny's mutinous accomplishment. The public was delighted.

Other artists are working in the same rebellious spirit. Frank Buckley's “Billion Euro House” (pictured below)—an abandoned building covered in shredded, decommissioned euro notes in Dublin—has been attracting tourists since January. Mr Buckley found himself without a job and struggling to pay his mortgage after the crash in Ireland. Ripping up useless money to build his euro house became therapy. And he claims he wanted to create a shrine to the “bankrupt” single currency.

Art in response to the euro-zone's trials is stylistically diverse but has a common theme. Sabotage of key symbols of Europeanness is popular, as is subverting the map of Europe to emphasise obdurate divides between countries. Images of the euro are commonly reduced to emblems of failure, debt and destruction.

Key euro-zone politicians are also vital muses. Ilse Wielage, a Dutch artist, paints spoof portraits of key figureheads, such as Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, and former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. Ms Wielage describes her painting of Ms Merkel, depicted as “an abundant bourgeois lady”, as a parody of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres's “Madame Moitessier” (1856). She holds a heavy euro coin to symbolise the region's burdensome currency and Germany's disproportionate power in the euro zone. Her expression is provocatively haughty.

Abstract artists are taking up the euro theme too, but their works are harder to read. These experimentalists seek to capture the complex anthology of feelings evoked by the crisis: uncertainty, fear and the awkwardness of groping towards a solution. Eckhard Besuden, a German artist, belongs to this branch. His works, such as “die Krise” and “Eurorettung” (pictured below), resemble little more than shrill paint splatters on a canvas. But they contain a subtle and layered narrative of Mr Besuden's confused reaction to the euro-zone’s troubles: “I had to paint about the crisis in an abstract and not a concrete way. That's partly because I don't know if the euro “game” is winnable. I'm doubtful. But we Germans have a duty to Europe, I think,” he explains.

There are geographic and linguistic barriers separating euro crisis-inspired artists. They are scattered across Europe and, to a lesser extent, North America and Australia. Creatives are working in other media too, such as literature, theatre and music. It will take some time before they are able to communicate on a sufficient scale to create anything as cohesive and deliberate as an art movement. But members of this loosely connected network are already talking to each other, mostly online. ArtBOX, a creative arts-management organisation, has set up a web platform called “GRenter” for artists to discuss the euro-zone problem and explore art's function as a response. Their ambition is calculated: they want it to become “an accumulator of ideas of significant impact and an accelerator of creative dissemination,” according to Lydia Chatziiakovou, a co-ordinator at ArtBOX.

Artists are also working together. ArtBOX helped a group of Greek artists to showcase their collaborative project called “Rethinking Crisis” at OPEN 15, an international art event in Venice this September. In the same month Tom Nicholson, an Australian artist, and Riccardo Vaglini, an Italian composer, opened a Greece-focused installation combining music and visual art in Melbourne.

The question of whether euro-crisis art is a passing fad is a valid one. With no resolution to the single currency’s problems in sight, however, the region will continue to throw ample raw materials at politically-aware artists for some time. Ms Wielage's view seems to speak for them all: “As long as this crisis is part of our daily lives, I cannot ignore it,” she says. “It will be visible in my work.”