This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
MIXED MEDIA PERFORMANCE
IN THE RADIO STATION A SHAMAN WAITS patiently for the
country tune to play out and for the local Norwegian DJ
to begin the interview. Dressed for business in a sharp suit Shamanism has enjoyed a more recent renaissance,
and full stag pelt, wielding a stuffed hare in one hand, with of course, thanks to a rampant postmodern tendency to
the head of another furry varmint poking cheekily from the wilful cultural (mis)appropriation, via 1990s New Age and,
folds of his jacket, the shaman explains his role as someone in the UK, the rave generation it coincided with. Coates’s
who works with his community, seeking solutions to very performances point up the flawed logic in Western society’s
difficult problems. This bizarre scene marks the opening of magpie attitude to outmoded cultural practices, in this case
British artist Marcus Coates’s filmed performance Radio bending another society’s beliefs to fit a consumer capitalist
Shaman (2006). It turns out that in his shamanic guise he has cult of the self, be that the shaman of New Age ‘inner healing’
been visiting the town of Stavanger, Norway, ostensibly to or the leader of the trance in Ecstasy-fuelled dance-music
address the residents’ concerns about the growing problem hedonism, neither of which belies any real engagement with
of prostitution. At the council offices, in a church and in a red- the shaman’s original meaning. Kamikuchi Tokyo (2006) is
light district we see him in an absorbing dialogue with animal one of his most extreme outings, in which, accompanied by
spirits, beating his chest and speaking in what could be the a drum-and-bass soundtrack, dressed as a hybrid of Marilyn
language of his favoured advisers – the coot, moorhen and Monroe and a shaman (a typical set of Coates displacements
baby seal. And what’s his solution to Stavanger’s problem? A triggered by notional associations: a shaman, drums, dance
course of considered empathy; it’s very dangerous to try and music, dance divas, the diva – Marilyn) in a Tokyo public
help or rescue a situation you don’t understand. square, he consulted with the spirits on the problem of illegal
This is Coates’s latest and best-known manifestation bicycle parking.
as the artist-shaman: the artist theatrically cast as visionary Coates addresses ideas taken out of context, the
outsider and social healer, developed most famously during better to consider their meaning. As his film- and videoworks
the 1960s by Joseph Beuys. Beuys pursued the idea that his – some of which are on show at the Whitechapel Art Gallery
art could be beneficial to everyday life, magically transforming in London throughout July – demonstrate, he has marked
the decimated culture of postwar Germany with mythical, out his artistic territory over the past eight years with similarly
spiritual art symbols with the shaman-artist himself as a absurdist projects. An early work, the bawdily eccentric Out
messianic leader. Nonetheless the position of the crusading of Season (2000), deposits a Chelsea football supporter
artist is one that seems increasingly unsustainable in the in the middle of a lush forest, where, all alone, he belts out
present day, characterised as it is by a mass culture cut off football chants, with his legs bent, finger jabbing the air: “We
from the concerns of both ‘high’ art and political engagement, don’t give a fuck, wherever we may be, ’cos we are the famous
and Coates clearly has a sharpened sense of the ridiculous. CFC!”, etc. In answer to this macho rallying cry, there are only
Traditionally the shaman acts as a conduit between the sounds of the forest, rustling leaves and birdsong. Man in
two worlds, the everyday and the supernatural, particularly nature seems hopelessly out of place: this fan’s actions are
engaging with animal spirits, often assisted in attaining a silly and ultimately meaningless.
trance-like state by drums. And while often thought of as Coates has been testing what habitat the artist can
a healer, the shaman isn’t necessarily so. Contrasting with authentically lay claim to as well. As the adage goes, art
Beuys’s self-mythologising shaman, Coates opts for the can’t change the world, but it can make you think about it
most prosaic settings, earnestly engaging with the everyday, differently; and while the artist’s shamanistic performances
even mundane, problems of a community. The artist came are ineffective in solving even the most ordinary real-world
to attention in last year’s British Art Show 6, where his film dilemma, as a cultural provocateur Coates is far from
Journey to the Lower World (2004) documented a similar chained to the railings. As eccentric as his mess of references
ritual performed for the elderly inhabitants of a condemned in Kamikuchi Tokyo might be, rendered glaringly wrong , 2004, performance still. Photo: Nick David. Courtesy the artist
Liverpool council block, a setting that offered a riposte to the when tacked to the body of a bespectacled artist, one might
pomposity of hermetic artworld elitism. The culture clash – reflect that this is but a distillation of the way modern society
between the exotic, rarefied artist-shaman and the tea-and- commits ill-considered acts of cultural tourism-cum-piracy,
sympathy world of the pensioners – revealed that Coates’s and a fitting warning of the resulting schizophrenia.
shaman (and by implication the artist) is hopelessly neutered
as an agent of social change. Work by Marcus Coates is on view at Whitechapel Art Gallery
from 27 June to 5 August, www.whitechapel.org
Journey to the Lower World
one.linzero.linseven.lin ARTREVIEW
p106-107 Mixed Media_4_Perform A107 107 6/6/07 02:51:36
Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 84 Page 85 Page 86 Page 87 Page 88 Page 89 Page 90 Page 91 Page 92 Page 93 Page 94 Page 95 Page 96 Page 97 Page 98 Page 99 Page 100 Page 101 Page 102 Page 103 Page 104 Page 105 Page 106 Page 107 Page 108 Page 109 Page 110 Page 111 Page 112 Page 113 Page 114 Page 115 Page 116 Page 117 Page 118 Page 119 Page 120 Page 121 Page 122 Page 123 Page 124 Page 125 Page 126 Page 127 Page 128 Page 129 Page 130 Page 131 Page 132 Page 133 Page 134 Page 135 Page 136 Page 137 Page 138 Page 139 Page 140 Page 141 Page 142 Page 143 Page 144 Page 145 Page 146 Page 147 Page 148