Let’s tackle controversies
NOT since Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses has there been such a violent reaction to art as there now is to Brett Bailey’s Exhibit B as seen in Paris this past week. I support Bailey’s right to free expression and his right as an artist to stage the work.
Those who have seen Exhibit B have been moved by its poignancy. They get it!
Those who challenge the work – with or without having seen it – also have every right to express their views on what they argue is centred around issues of representation. The argument expressed in several places on social media (and extensively on Bailey’s Facebook wall), that people who have not seen the work may not criticise it, is foolish.
There is substantial information, video clips, reviews and debates published on the internet which can be the basis for building an argument and an analysis of the work. Festival directors and/or funders around the globe critique and make assumptions about previously unseen work when proposals are reviewed.
Like the protesters, the decisions that we arrive at are also based on the varied sources of information that we are able to access.
In Bailey’s artistic statement, he makes it clear that he intentionally sets out to create work that challenges and provokes. It is interesting to note however that while Bailey’s provocation was to challenge those whose values are rooted in colonialism, the work has instead provoked the anger of those who are claimants of the pain that colonialism has endowed them.
Simply to dismiss this group with negative vitriol, as has been the case by so many of Bailey’s supporters, is disconcerting.
Even Bailey admits in a recent statement he issued that there is some validity in the protesters feeling offended by his work. Bailey explains: “I acknowledge that seeing a photograph of a shackled black woman and reading that it is the work of a white South African man can cause deep offence.”
Those of us who have seen the work and who support Bailey’s right to stage it should also be at the forefront of engaging those who simply write off the pain and anger of those who are protesting against Bailey’s work.
The responsibility to do so should also rest with Bailey, to challenge those who write such stuff on his Facebook wall.
Otherwise instead of being the provocateur for positive change, he will be guilty of being the canvass on which negative perceptions about the very people for whom his voice had intended to speak is reinforced.
Bailey has since the above comment was sent to him issued the following statement: “I empathise, and I am saddened and horrified and angered at the violence playing out on the other side of the barriers. And I despise the unworldly platitudes of support posted on my Facebook page by white suburbanites who see confirmation of their prejudices in the actions of the protesters.”
Those of us who choose to be at the centre of defending Bailey’s right to stage the work also need to be at the centre of knowing that this kind of provocative work cannot be staged without a public engagement programme. The Barbican in London failed to do so and so what we are seeing is the eruption of a volcano that will burn down anything that is in its way. We can’t fight that volcano by throwing stones at it. We can either get out of its way, which would be the cowardly thing to do, or we need to hear the roar of the volcano and respond to it with a soothing lullaby.
Interest in presenting Exhibit B at a range of international festivals continues to grow each day. How this work is staged without further polarising communities is a question that festival producers, Bailey and the artists are going to have to engage with very seriously.
It is a question that will not find its answers in a theatre boardroom. Those answers are more likely to be found in a broader forum involving a broader range of stakeholders.
If ever there was a need to open up a discussion around these sensitivities there can’t be a better time than now.