By Giuseppe Marasco
Ends January 8th Kensington Palace
Call and Responses is a liberating and transformative exhibition with a Magic Vocality that enables statues to speak histories.
To speak again… to have real presence… there are plenty of ghosts of the Palace, but this bust of the Moor, with the much love that it has received over the centuries, it feels that so much of the sitter remains.
I believe that it was the, French Ethical Philosopher, Simone Weil, who said, thinking looks like staring into the distance. Distance is not a thing, we can look into. The sense of the Moors Bust is that whilst in conversation, he’d been asked, what his homeland, the land he was born in was like. His look upwards, into the distance, is of trying to recall so much, so many lands so many languages far into the past.
The look is codified as… anguish in the 17th Century. – Parted lips, near trembling agony partly stopped by the firming of a thought.
The exquisite and mysterious art work, is placed by Graeme Mortimer Evelyn within a gilded cage, with its doors open to a view over Kensington Gardens. Regal Bird Soaring upwards. Its a sculpture that you are drawn towards, the lines of the fabric radiating towards the Moors head, like a birds rich plumage.
Great curatorial sensitivity and subtlety has been paid to the historic context of the space exhibited in… ideas of invisibility and the voice are visited as well as the idea of turning underestimation to advantage. Graeme Evelyn alights on the framing device of exotic birds. Explaining, they were literally the first ipods. With their ability to reproduce bird song and even mimic human words, would have seemed like the ability to control nature itself. A exotic status symbol, that asserted a living link to a distant and luxurious land. (I can imagine there is a sense of voices extracted from their lands, their projection standing in for the dematerialised land).
Graeme Evelyn, is Jamaican with some Scottish descent, born in England. Evelyn weaves history together with our contemporary concerns.* He spoke with us about Pirates, the nature of crossing Oceans and the egalitarian quality of their organisation.The incredible freedom and the danger that posed to the conception of social and racial class structures of the day.
Whilst the contrast of the Slave ships, know as Slavers. Which imposed sadistic discipline onto the ships on crew, as a way of signalling just how much more severely slaves would be treated.
*
The moor comes palpably alive. Bringing moments of the past right to us.
Evelyn is a great interpreter of histories. At his Best when he inverts, our expected readings of exotic wonder, status and dominion, and even the manner he shifts perspectives whilst standing and looking at a work of art.
The unseen is teased out by Evelyn. The theme of the voice repeats and grows, making the invisible visible.Evelyn has restored the ability of the Moor to speak again through an researching the evidence or histories of a particular individual known to have been favoured and advised William III.
Finding a great nuance in the particular story of William the III who ruled with his wife Queen Mary II following the Glorious Revolution, specially by looking at the lesser well known aspects of the Glorious Revolution.
William III repositioning and widening of the Enterprise, from London based monopolize to opening the trade in Africa the Indies to the rest of the country. There is much sense that it was his moor as adviser who helped shape or supplied William III with local knowledge and counsel.
The Moor, who was he? Evelyn is fascinated by this man who secured such a close relation to the King. To be spoken and to be heard.
Expanding on, the immediate sense of the world of this individual being a big one. At time when few had journeyed much… the Moor had visited an incredible number of lands.The Moor made real, and brought knowledge from on the ground, to that which would have simply remained paper relationships.
Proximity’s.
a tale a of brilliant application, of learning many languages. and social custom, of a world flung open. and social orders and possibility’s in flux. along with plenty of ambiguities. (as much affection, advantage)
Who. Key to Evelyn is the recasting of the Moors story through the figure of Ulysses and his Odyssey. So that we can imagine and refocus the story of capture as containing a series of peregrinations, and a survival directly linked to much necessary learning. It is easy to see why Evelyn sees such a useful parallel and model for the challenges of our modern world. One where on a personal level, but also nationally life feels ever more in closer contact with other cultures customs and competitions.
This Dutch Speaking Polyglot, (William III spoke little English), like Ulysses a polytropos “much-traveled” or “much-wandering,” as it means litterally in the ancient Greek. Polytropos is an important word to Evelyn as it also means in the Greek, brilliance, guile, and versatility, in being able to turn to many situations and learn or apply skills.
The Bust of the Moor Originally had a gold padlock on his collar. The Name and owners name lost with the Gold padlock. Denoting a Social status… as well who owned him. Not any person or slave. But the Kings Personal elite guard. A Praetorian guard of 200. Who depended directly on the king. It is understood that these 200 Elite guard would have worn this golden padlock on their collars, virtually like a badge.
The bust, made by John van Nost, is one of the best loved works of art in the Collection. Also being one of the only original objects to have never left the room in which it had been installed. Adding to the rarity of the bust, is that this is the only known remaining life size bust by Nost, who normally made small lead sculptures.
When in front of the bust, the sensation is of stepping into a parcel belonging to that very time. Graeme Evelyn teases out history from details of the bust and the known documentation of the Kings adviser. From the sitting. From the knowledge of that the Moor was present at the premiere of Henry Purcells’ O solitude, my sweetest choice. Another interesting way that the Moor comes alive to us is the play list that Evelyn put together ODYSSEY of the MOOR art 2013.
The Esteem, but also the extraordinary wealth that such an individual represented. Evelyn touches on the appreciation and admiration that the King had for his adviser. ((Value)) Highlights the statues of this particular individual. How the collar in the particular context of the court would have allowed … greater proximity to the King, making such … privilege in the highly competitive nature of favour seeking of court to be invisible.
System of influence and the rooms one who have to move through, having passed a (cut) sum of money…
Great Circulations around the sculpture.
With the spiraling words of the inlaid Marble that is the floor of the giant bird cage.
Above at the point the cage curves inwards, a carved wooden frieze is set on the interior.
so that one has to sympathetically align oneself with the Moors line of sight. Evelyn often employs a late Cubism of clear graphic quality with strong lines and rich joyous colours that recall many modernists forays into stain-glass windows. In this case Evelyns’ carvings are graphically simplified, light, shadow depth and concavity are played with as elements of the composition, and palette has been reduced to White Black and Blue. This is to reflect on the principle colours of the time, found in the Porcelain that lines the room in the Palace. As well as bring the theme of the sea to the fore. There are many reflections, remakings and adoptions of the myth of the Odyssey, that would make any keen of observe grow a wry smile… in particular the scene were the Moor insists not on listening to the Harpy, but singing back his own song whilst remaining unbound. Here you can also see Evelyns concern with the contemporary and how he speaks about new slaveries with which we may want to unbind ourselves from.
Evelyn is always touching on the tantalising possibilities of an outward going attitude, that positions one, where the sky’s the limit. Alternative model not only, for black history but for all now living in contemporary world of many languages.
Tales, experience, advice and striving.
Graeme Mortimer Evelyn, has found in the Moor a transformative symbol.
Ends 8th January 2014, Kensington Palace.
http://www.hrp.org.uk/NewsAndMedia/kpresources/graememortimerevelyninstallation