tupilakosaurus - Print matters!

LegeNde
lugu, ajornanngippallu allanik oqaluttuanik
paasinneriaatsinillu ilassuteqartittarlugit.
Nammineq ima oqaatigaa: “Oqaluttuarpassuit
ilaatinniartarpakka asseq imaannaanngitsoq
kusanartorlu ersersinniarlugu.”
Immikkoortortaq suliarpaalunnik oqaluttuassartalinnik
imaqarpoq. Ilagivaat assilisat
qalipaateqanngitsut meeraanermi arlaatigut
attuumassutillit toqqaannarlugit allaffigisarsimasai
– ilaatigut assip sinaa toqqaannarlugu
allaffigisarsimallugu.
Isumalersuineq Arkep immikkut soqutigilluinnarsimavaa.
“Uagut inuiaqatigiit arlalippassuartigut
assigiinngequteqartut”, taamak
allassimavoq atuakkami Etnoæstetik-mi (1995),
“soqutigaarput katersugaasiveqarnerup iluani
saqqummersitatut ilanngutissasut. Soqutigaarput
Europamut attaveqarnerput qulaajassallugu
soorlu eqqumiitsuliortup eqqumiitsuliorneq
sammerusuttaraa annilaangaginagu pioreersut
mingutsissallugit – akerlianilli.”
Assit sinaani nipit ersarissut piffinnik, piffinnillu
tikitanik silallu pissusaanik telegrammitut
unikkaartutut akornanni amerikarmiut
nipaat tusarsaavoq. Arke pisariaqanngitsut
ilanngunneq ajorpai. Nipit immineq ersarissuupput.
Maluginiagassaavorlu tammaarsimaarnerpalaaq
aammalu sakkutuut
sungiusartarfii amerikarmiut peqatigalugit
saqqummertoq. Spejdererpalaarneq sakkutuujussusermut
ilassuulluni. Ulluinnarnilu sulineq,
malittarisaqarlunilu iliuusissat issakatsiaarfitoqarlu
timmisartoq qaartartunik imalik
B-52 eqqissisimaffiup nalaani naapipput.
Sorsunneqarfiunngitsup nalaani takorluukkat
paatsoornarsinnaasut angissutsit
saqqummertarput: Danmarkimineerannguaq
nunarsuarmi, Danmarkersuaq piginnaanilissuartut,
Kalaallit Nunaarannguat nalagaaffissuit
akornanni, Kalaallit Nunarujussuat
nassaartuiffissaq aqutassarlu … Danmarkip
mittarfeqarnermut sakkussanullu atomitalinnut
inatsisaa inerteqqut Kalaallit Nunaanut
atuussimanngilaq. Tamannalu oqaluuserineqarpianngilaq.
Ulloq mannattaaq tikillugu
Danmarkip NATO-mi inissisimanera eqqartorneqanngilaq
qanorlu nuna faktor 30-imik
sunnerneqapilussimanera.
Arkep aamma tamakkua eqqartunngilai.
Akerlianik nipaanneq oqaluttippaa.
THEME SECTION 6: LEGEND
This section looks more closely at the
play of irony in Pia Arke’s bricolages
– once again with a point of departure
in a specific work, namely the series
Legend I-V (1999). The five fragilely
monumental pictures appropiate maps
of North East Greenland that were
at hand. The maps are in themselves
wonderfully colourful, but they have
been treated with graphic powder,
which makes them dark in some
places, almost gloomy. In the middle of
these rough landscapes (in the middle
of the maps of them) shine a handful of
warm yellow-toned female portraits.
They come from Ittoqqortoormiit
and the time just after World War
II. Thus, Legend III is adorned by a
youthful portrait of Arke’s mother. At
first sight she and the other women
seem to have tattoos on their faces.
Perhaps a little like the five women
in the famous Qilakitsoq mummy
find, which can today be seen at the
Greenland National Museum & Archives
– or like the woman in Mathias
Blumenthal’s painting from 1753 of
The Greenlandic Woman Maria, hanging
in the Ethnographic Collection at
the National Museum of Denmark in
Copenhagen.
But on closer inspection we see
that the artist has attached a piece of
transparent paper strewn with place
names that refer to the resourceful
Europeans and Americans who took
the first places in the race to give the
world names: WULLF LAND (after a
Swedish botanist), KANE BASSIN (after
an American doctor), HUMBOLDT
GLACIER (after the German natural
scientist and founder of modern geography)
and so on.
“Greenland as construction” Arke
might have titled her work, and this
section would then have been given
the same unambiguous title. But of
course she didn’t. For Arke was great
at titles. She mastered the balancing
act between not giving too much and
not giving too little when naming her
works, not to close their interpretation,
but to keep it open, so one’s brain goes
into a spin when one tries to get a grip
on what is going on.
Arke plays with words, meanings
and preconceived interpretations. Legend
(in Danish: playfully). She points
to the myth – about Greenland, types
of peoples, folklore and all the tupilak’s
curses – before Christianity reached
the country. Legend. Christianity
arrived, and with it the religiously
edifying accounts of the exemplary
lives of the saints, male and female.
Legends of saints. One could go on. But
the most obvious reading (Medieval
Latin: “legenda” = things that are to be
read) must be the legend as explanation
of the signs used on a map, that is the
list of the symbols’ meanings that the
mapmaker provides on any decent map
or chart.
Arke has given her maps her own
explanation taken from the local store:
coffee, sugar, rice and the more domestic
products flour and oats. She pursues
juxtapositions that activate an ironic
play of meanings, and which therefore
examine the meanings to see if there
might be openings or fissures, into
which one could insert other narratives
and interpretations: “Instead of cleansing
the picture so it could become that
magnificent aesthetic picture I put a lot
of history on top,” as she phrased it.
The section also contains a considerable
number of the numerous works
onto which she quite literally heaps
a mass of history. Either by writing
directly on the black-and-white
photographs of the places where she
spent her Greenlandic childhood. Or by
scribbling directly on the frame.
The frame as a bearer of meaning is
of special interest for Arke. “We, the
ethnic in various shades,” she writes in
her book Ethno-Aesthetics (1995), “have
an interest in bringing the museological
framework into the exhibition. We have
an interest in unveiling the connections
leading back to Europe, in the same
way as the aesthete has an interest in
occupying him- or herself with art. Here
you will find no fear that authentic
values will be polluted, in fact, quite the
contrary.”
Among the voices heard on the frames
– and which describe places, arrivals,
weather conditions and more in an
excited telegram style – we now find
American voices. Arke doesn’t go into
detail. She leaves that to the voices. But
a general atmosphere of camps, a sense
of base camps and – very faintly – boot
camps makes itself felt with the presence
of the Americans. The boy-scoutish
shifts towards the military. Everyday
activities go hand in hand with strategic
tasks and the old seat board of a swing
meets B-52 bombers in peacetime.
The peacetime angle is part of the
ironic play with ideas that have to do
with size. Little Denmark in the big
world, big Denmark with the right
competences, tiny little Greenland
among the big nations of the world,
colossal Greenland to be discovered
and administered and so on. Apparently
Denmark’s ban on bases and
nuclear weapons in peacetime did not
apply to Greenland. But that wasn’t
talked about so much. Nor do we talk
so much today about what it means for
Denmark’s role in NATO to boost its
territory by a factor of 30.
Arke doesn’t speak about it either.
Instead she speaks about the silence.
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