tupilakosaurus - Print matters!

1981-2006
limanngitsunik isiginninneri takussutissiaralugu
inuttalersorsimagamiuk. Suliami
tassani Arkep isiginnittup isigisallu paarlanneqarneri
takutiutigalugu, eqqumiitsulianik
tuniniaaviit paatsiveerutsippai:
Inuit, eqqumiitsulianik pisinermikkut
kalaallit assilialiaannik “piginnittunngortut”,
takussaasumik assilineqarnerisigut
isiginnaagassiarinerisigut allaallumi inunnit
allanit pigineqalersinnaalersillugit.
Arke 1992-mi Dansk Polar Centeri Strandgade
100-miittup kusassarneqarnissaannut
piumaffigineqarsimavoq, tamannalu
allaanerusumik suleriaaseqarluni iliuuseqarfigaa.
Atortussani amerlisarniarlugit
Danmarkip Katersugaasivissuani Kalaallit
Nunaat pillugu ataavartumik saqqummersitat
(Nationalmuseets permanente
Grønlandsudstilling) pulaarsimavaa,
katersugaataanilu atortut arlallit assilillugit
qalipassimallugit. Qalipakkat
taakku tassa assileqqissaarlugit suliarisimavai,
natures mortes, taakkulu Arkep
piareersarluni assitalersuinerminut
suliarisimasaatut takuneqarsinnaallutik
atsersimallugillu Nature Morte allatulluunniit
Perlustrationer 1-10 (1994). Assilisatullu
taakku piareersaataasimasut
inuiaat pillugit katersat nittarsakkani
assilineqartarnerisut saqqummersitsivinniittarnerisutullu
takutippai. Taakkunani
aamma siunertaavoq takorluueriaatsip
isaterneqarnissaa. Assilisap isikkuata
qalipaganngortinneqarnerinilu avissaanganerujussuaq
pilersissimavaa, ilaarlugu
assilisap sinaakkuserneqarneratalu akornanni.
Sakkortuunik qalipaasersorneqarnerisigut
aappaalaartoq kadmium,
kajortoq ikumasimasoq, tungujortoq
kobolt qalipaasiullugit atortut kinaassusitoqaat
ersernerluttunngortippai, taamaalilluni
inuiaat pillugit parnaarussatut
katersaaneriniit aniguisillugit nutaanik
oqariartuuteqarnissamik nukissalerlugit
eqqarsaatigisimanngisaagaluatsinnillu
takorluuisinnaanerput annertusarlugu.
Misissorniakki pillugu Arke ima oqaasertaliisimavoq.
Kalaallit nunataata qalipaganngortinnerani
ilisarnaasersuisarneq
kalaallillu pisataasa katersugaasivimiittut
assileqqissaarneri pineqarunarput:
“Inip pisataasa suunerinik nalornginarsisup
isikkua qanoq ittuua? Ilisarisaqarsinnaaneq
soqutaajunnaarsimappat assillu
isigisat allamut alakkaatsimmatigut?”
Stefan Jonsson
Pia Arke. Paintings. 1981-2006
Alongside her photographic works
Pia Arke experimented from the
beginning of her career with the
classical branch of the visual arts:
oil painting. Here she typically
chose the most traditional genres:
landscape, portraiture and still life
or nature morte. The private and
public commissions she received
gave her opportunities for testing
out the conventions that have dictated
how Greenland and Greenlanders
have been turned into
pictures and spectacles for Danish
and Western eyes. The tone is
often humoristic, the undertone
melancholic and political.
A typical Greenland picture uses a
limited number of props. They are
obligatory: “Eskimo” (alone or in
a group), kayak, polar bear, seal,
fish (or some other Arctic animal)
and a snowscape. In the paintings
from the mid-1980s we see how
Arke intentionally submitted to
this limitation. Her motifs are also
Eskimo, kayak and seal. But she
stylises the motifs, renders them
abstract to a point where the landscape
is emptied of reality. It is
deprived of its naturalistic illusion
and transformed into what it has
always been – an exoticised and
primitivistic emblem for the alien.
Arke submits to this convention
in order to turn it inside out. She
wants to show the viewer what
Greenland is expected to look like
in a picture. But she also wants to
show what paintings a Greenlandic
artist is expected to paint.
Arke played with and made
fun of these expectations in a
way that can make the viewer
laugh – for instance in front of a
painting from 1987 titled Camel
in Snowscape. But perhaps even
more clearly in the project that
was running in parallel with her
paintings, in which she parasitised
on her public by photographically
documenting the people who
bought her paintings, whereby
they came to personify the
metropole’s view of the periphery.
In this project Arke reverses the
relation between the viewer and
the viewed while at the same time
short-circuiting the art market:
The people who through their art
purchases become “owners” of a
Greenlandic painting are exposed
as objects in a photo that for its
part can be viewed or even owned
by someone else.
In 1992 Arke was invited to
decorate the Danish Polar Center
at 100 Strandgade in Copenhagen,
and this time set about things
rather differently. She expanded
the number of her props by
visiting the National Museum of
Denmark’s permanent Greenland
Exhibition and choosing a number
of objects from the museum’s collections,
which she then painted.
These paintings, then, are literally
still lifes, nature mortes, and can
be seen today as preliminary studies
for Arke’s photographical suite
Nature Morte alias Perlustrations
1-10 (1994). As in the photographs
in the suite, she here depicts the
ethnographical objects in accordance
with the same perspective
from which they are depicted in
ethnographical catalogues or museum
showcases. But here too the
intention is to destroy the illusion.
The paintings contain a colossal
tension between their motifs and
their execution, between subject
and framing. Through a strong
colour scheme of cadmium red,
burnt umber and cobalt blue Arke
erases the old identities of the
objects, liberates them from their
ethnographical prison and gives
them strength to disseminate new
messages and to activate unknown
fantasies.
Arke formulated the question
she wanted to investigate in a
commentary. It probably has to do
with both her stylised Greenland
landscapes and her still lifes of
Greenlandic museal objects: “What
does the space look like where one
ceases to know what things are?
Where recognisability becomes
unimportant because the picture
opens up for something else?”
Stefan Jonsson
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