The Silence of the Sheep

Here is an anecdote about the Liverpool 2006 Bienniale when the artist Santiago Sierra was asked to contribute a piece. The theme in 2006 was affiliated to the genre of documentary, when artists were asked to explore aspects of the culture and history of Liverpool and incorporate aspects of this research in their work. I can imagine that the impetus for this approach would have found favour from City Council bureaucrats, uncomfortable with the freedom of artists, when everybody else on their payroll is engaged in purposful instrumental activity.

Sierra, an artist whose work I greatly admire has always engaged with politics in his work which often results in outrage from the middle classes of the art circuit eg. paying prostitutes in Brazil to be tattooed, or employing illegal Mexican migrants - at above the minimum wage, in a project about illegal migrants .

Sierra's ehibition proposal to the 2006 Liverpool Bienniale was to "release a flock of sheep into a Liverpool City Council meeting Chamber". The Council officials objected and Sierra refused to submit another proposal and so was represented in the 2006 exhibition by old work. Sierra's proposal seemed an amusing situationist metaphor for the behaviour of elected politicians and in keeping with the values of his earlier work an example of how contemporary art can comment on official hypocrisy and the values of our society.

The fact that Sierra's proposal was rejected should perhaps not surprise us, I'm sure the council saw it as "insulting" or worse, but for me it was a work that succeeded without being made. Sierra is a rare contemprary artist who manages to produce highly provocative and targeted political art work while also becoming very wealthy, I was told the other day that Sierra now lives a reclusive life behind high walls in Rio.

But how rare these "clash of civilisations" contributions are, most contemporary Biennial artworks seem to share more with the feel good values of advertising and marketing than any awareness of the dire social, economic and spiritual values of contemporary society.

Peter Hagerty
arklo.com
Liverpool