In short, Rio is portrayed here as having an end to
colonialism, then a heyday of Bossa Nova on the Copacabana Beach until a
coup in 1964. This translates into geometric high-modernism that will
either have you running with a piercing scream or nodding to yourself.
Helio Oiticica's Monochromatics look like a seventies sci-fi
computer readout enlarged wall-size, frozen, perhaps crashed, a prediction
of Microsoft Windows. Perhaps it represents the side of a building
at night, which would be very city. 'Ah, neo-concretism' you might read
aloud from the notice 'how very Rio!' Did those aloof tower-blocks in
Hackney draw inspiration from here? How about the French architect Le
Corbusier? Is architecture and art really a metaphor for a city and its
zeitgeist? Perhaps not here in Rio de Hackney. How about
Paris?
Paris was undoubtedly the world's art capital during
this period, even until the second world war. As such, the work on display
here gives the few people left who have never seen anything by Picasso yet
another opportunity to redress the balance, though not necessarily a good
one. Nor is there much to buttress Century City's premise. Poor
examples of Fauvism and Cubism stretch across 2 rooms with little
reference to cities. The exceptions are 2 cityscapes by Albert Marquet and
Robert Delaunay's excellent The City of Paris, which dominates the
2nd room.
The 3rd room of the 5 in this disproportionately
overrepresented period and city covers Cubism's relationship with theatre.
Picasso and Braque's papier colles work well opposite theatre programmes
and posters of the day. The avante-garde had a field-day. Cut-out
magazines being sold as art, Stravinsky's violent Rite of Spring, it must
have been difficult to comprehend. As would have been the pan-European war
looming over the capital. Strangely, considering the pummelling France
took, this is not developed. The mechanically obsessed Futurists with
their 
theatrical performances
that turned into riots have little to contribute here. Nor does what is
there.
Moscow 1916-30
Vladimir Tatlin, El Lissitzky, Aleksandr Rodchenko,
and the high-priest, Kasimir Malevich. This is an art history of
Suprematism. Suprematism, logical and reduced like Mondrian's grids in
another city at the same time. But Suprematism was more dynamic and speedy
with its diagonal movement, and importantly, very popular with the
Communist regime. The state's posters adopted this dynamism in a way that
advertising still does for similar and different reasons now. The purity,
as it were, of these geometric abstracts also has the addition of
materials you wouldn't necessarily associate with primary coloured
oblongs: wood, brass, leather. Mechanical structures protrude from the
paintings like physicist's diagrams. It was doubtless an exciting period.
And then Stalin came along and decreed socialist realism as the official
version of what art was. Suddenly, thrusting planes were out, and
romanticised and detailed canvases of farmers were in. It is amusing in a
way. The idea that one person or a minority could dictate which art has
value. Such was the evil of Communism, as it could never happen in a
democracy. Which leads us to, at least to some people, possibly the
century city. Now what's that term? The American Century?
New York 1969-74
This is a great period to examine, especially
politically and socialogically. After the post-war miracle through to the
first moon landing, somehow, previously unheard voices of doubt and
dissent could have been a more apt theme than 'city as stage'. This is
after all when Tricky Dicky buckled the economy under the Vietnam war. The
peace movement flourished, fuelled by fears of nuclear catastrophe. It is
astonishing then that as major an intellectual movement as feminism gets
only a cursory glance towards Hannah Wilke. And does Anarchitecture
qualify as a 'major' movement? Isn't Gordon Matta-Clark in the realm of
art lecture-halls and obscurity? Vito Acconci's Following Piece,
where he documented himself following strangers until they entered a
building, says as much of the alienation between itself and the other work
around it as it does of alienation in city life.
Lagos 1955-70
The Nigerian art here (subtitled 'highlife in the
city') was made during the formation of Nigeria's independence from
colonialism in 1960. The flavour is stridently non-european, but with some
inheritance. Folkish paintings by Malangatana Ngwenya sit somewhere near to Chagall and Outsider
art. Ibrahim Salahi's distended, tall and Gigeresque figures emerge from
sandstorms with, well, what exactly? Hope? Foreboding? Whatever it is, it
is visually more rustic than urban.
J D 'Okhai Ojeikere's photos of hairstyles show platts
in patterns more outlandish than black hairstylists produce now. They
raise certain questions about freedom and identity. Is freedom of
expression through buying a haircut necessarily a freedom? It both
expresses culture and is bound by it. Ditto the market economy. How free
can a people be? Commander In Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe smiles on his
record sleeve, band leader for his Nigerian Sound Makers on the Philips
label, dapper in his plaid jacket.
Has the Tate considered Lagos as more 'pivotal' than
Cape Town in representating post-colonialism? The news-reels of state
visits at the exit point the way to an earlier time in crackly black and
white, raising the future possiblities for defeating apartheid. Did these
news-reels validate Lagos's existence to Europeans in their day? The white
rulers smile on regardless, waving goodbye. If you went through Century
City in the order I did, you'd be forgiven for feeling like you want
to wave goodbye yourself pretty soon, as the exhaustion sets in. For not
only is this show a confusing hotch-potch, you could say that like the
Tate Modern itself, it is huge, in fact, it's beyond absorbtion. It is a
relief then that at least Vienna is treated with some empathy.
Vienna 1908-18
Overlapping time-wise with Paris for an unexplained
reason, the Vienna section of this exhibition has what the previous
sections miss - simplicity. The main theme is the Viennese intelligentsia.
This makes for photos of bearded white male patriarchs, with, I think from
memory, the exception of Melanie Klein, which requires being seen in
historical perspective. And so does the primary subject, Freud's research
into children's sexual development. But with today's tabloid hegemony
toward protecting children from abuse, it is worth remembering that time
before Freud postulated that children are individuals too. Child abuse was
institutionalised through the workhouse. Many became the backbone for
domestic industrialisation by sweeping chimneys. The paintings here by
Kokoschka and Schiele have you wondering at the difference between
children and adults at all. Awkwardness, vulnerability, ordinariness,
fear, contempt: which of these feelings refers to the infants displayed or
to the hysterical citizens claiming to protect children's interests by
driving paedaphiles underground and away from police monitoring? The
instinct to protect our youngfolk brings out a confusing irrationality.
Today's comforted victim, it is quickly forgotten, is tomorrow's
perpetrator.
This humanist part is thus the only lucid and
contemporaneous part of Century City. It is nigh-on impossible to
digest the patterns in this extravaganza. Does this show show the major
artistic and intellectual achievements from cities?
Could it expect to? It was at this point that the preview evening
finished. Bombay and London still awaited.
The Tate should have stuck with a few specific
subjects and drawn parallels with other cities undergoing similar changes
rather than claiming origin points that don't exist. It would also have
been better if a less lofty claim were made about its content's
importance. Such is the competitive patter in the major exhibitions
marketplace. The real worry about the scale of major exhibitions is how to
cope with them. Perhaps the strategy to adopt is one I heard of recently.
It involves a brief stroll to take in the whole, followed by a leisurely
one which benefits from an overview. But to be on the safe side, book
ahead with your chiropodist.
Century City is at The Tate Modern, Bankside, London
Review and photography copyright Jeff Lee 2001.
