"Waiting for Harry"

This week’s film, Waiting for Harry, was about the Anbarra people at the Djunawunya clan estate in Arnhem Land. The late Les Hiatt, a noted anthropologist in Australian Aboriginal studies, helped produce and translate the film. He had become a ‘brother’ to Frank and his clan and strived to understand their culture. At the request of Frank and with the help of Les, the film revealed the mourning process and rituals of this aboriginal tribe. Most of their rituals are usually performed at night time, but for the purposes of filming were performed during the day. Although the film is a little dated, it’s an interesting look at the effort spent on their burial traditions. What they didn’t explain is the first part of the funeral where they lay out the body for months or so to let the flesh rot away, leaving the bones to be painted with red ochre. To them the red ochre marks the blood of the ancestors, which is used in their paint as well. Later in the ceremony the bones are placed into a painted hollow log. Even the actual decoration of the hollowed log is ceremonial-like. The clan sings songs in relation to the symbolic paintings of his clan and ancestral beings. Harry oversees the quality of the work making sure everything is done well for the sake of the deceased man and for the visitors of other villages. The ceremony continues over weeks while the people wait for Harry to return. The climax of the ritual takes place towards the end when the decorated log is placed upright and the people (men and the widow) mask their bodies in white paint, dancing and singing. The funeral ceremony of the aboriginals is very much about them making sense of their surroundings as well as ‘making special’. They make the deceased persons log coffin ‘special’ with the symbolic paintings so that it resembles his clan, specific to his ancestors. Their beliefs and legends of ‘ancestors of the Dreamtime’ all play a part in making sense of their world. Most aboriginals believe in reincarnation, so having an appropriate funeral and having enough men to dance away the spirit is important. The spirit must go back to its origin (commonly believe to be a waterhole) so that it can be born again. I found it interesting that females, with the exception of the widow, did not play a role in the final ceremony. Even she was outside of the group. I also realized that we do not hear of the ‘dead man’s name, but I do remember reading somewhere that using the name after one’s death is forbidden in some tribes.

The Cave Painters: The World In Their Hands

“Of the two periods represented in the cave, the older, from about 27,000 years ago, consists entirely of finger tracings on the walls and stencils of hands (196).”

 (Lascaux)

As I read chapter 9, A Passage Underwater; The Skull on a Rock, I found myself slowing down on page 196 where Gregory Curtis began discussing the evidence of hand stencils. I couldn’t understand why less than two pages in this entire book focused on the stenciled hands. Here was the most delicate evidence of human being presence. I know someone else is reading this now, thinking ‘she’s crazy’. But while not in the presence of the paintings as a whole, these outlines of prehistoric peoples’ hands are what speak to me. It was the pictures and the thought of these stenciled hands that allowed the reality to truly resonate with me. These people where really here; tens of thousands of years ago. Seeing those negatives relayed a positive answer. That’s when I began to wonder on my own. What were they like? I began to imagine what they were thinking as they outlined their hands with paint. Curiously, many hands have “missing fingers”. Curtis explains that some scholars believed in reasons such as ritual mutilation, frostbite, debilitating diseases, or extreme malnutrition. As he points out, the thumb always appears. No causes such as the last three would spare the thumb every time. And in disproving rituals, experiments have shown they were created by folding down a specific finger or fingers. Scholars now generally agree that it marks some type of code. And that is where it’s left off in the book. So I ventured off to do my own probing. 

 I can believe that the hand stencils more than likely symbolize a code. A code hypothesis could be supported by the claim that the human hand also had a role in language formation, which, as Curtis explains, was preceded by the ability to communicate only by gestures and signs. Max Raphael’s opinion that the basis of composition in all Paleolithic painting is the hand is supported by “the fact that the hunters used the hand as a means of communication in order to avoid frightening their prey by shouts … (132)” Using the “golden ratio” of the hand to paint animals was aesthetically derived from a magical significance. Maybe Henri Breuil could have argued that the hand symbols marked the gestures of the hunters to aid his hunting-magic hypothesis. 

I may be biased, because I’ve always had a strange fascination with hands, but maybe the painters weren’t just marking the walls with a code. They must have acknowledged the importance of their hands and how it made them distinct from other animals, stirring fascination. Our opposable thumbs give us the ability to grasp things, throw things, and thrust weapons, and our thumbs stretch farther across our hands than any other primate. Max Raphael states that the “hand was the organ by which erectly walking man could translate the superiority of his consciousness over the animal’s thinking capacity into practice (131).” He believed it was the “instrument of domination”. The stencil code-theory is purely logical, but it could be argued that it was inspired by a fascination with the human hand and its significance. I’m sure that if I were to stand face to face with the Paleolithic cave paintings of animals, I would be less distracted by the hand paintings. However the hands link the drawings to their artists and resemble something very unique about our species. I believe they will always leave me with a sense of connectedness to these ancient ancestors. 

"Exit Through The Gift Shop"

Exit Through The Gift Shop was a documentary (or a mocumentary - how ever you'd like to classify it) put together about "street art".

The idea of the film was born from Thierry Guetta. Guetta was obsessed with two things: his video camera and graffiti art. After following around legendary artists such as Banksy and Shepard Fairey , Guetta decides to pick up the hobby himself. Long story short, he winds up a celebrity nearly overnight and puts on a gallery selling his pieces for thousands of dollars.


This is where the story gets controversial. The whole purpose of this "street art" movement was supposed to be about anonymity, social issues, and political or anti-government statements. It challenged people and ideas, it made people rethink what surrounded them.
 

 


What Banksy is trying to point out in a polite way is that Guetta a.k.a. "Mr. Brainwash" basically destroyed the essence of street art by exploiting it. I think Guetta was truly inspired by the movement, but instead of taking it to heart and understanding the deeper meaning of it, he saw it as a new thrill. He recreated images that he'd seen throughout his years of filming that inspired him. And in doing so he hired other artists as minions to create the work he visualized. Guetta ended up selling almost a million dollars worth of artwork throughout his first show "Life is Beautiful". He seemed more interested in the media before the show than actually finalizing the display. Many people may very well call him a phony or a joke. However you have to give the gentleman kudos for his passion. He seemed so enthusiastic and motivated by his visions and the final pieces. His work is surely art but it doesn't seem entirely original. Although we are all inspired by what we witness, recreating someone else's idea and selling it for massive profit doesn't make it original.