‘The 10 Predicaments of Maui: Notes on Tricksters’, was written by Natalie Robertson, a photo media artist who is currently a senior lecturer in photography at Unitec in Auckland. In the reading she proposes that artists are a type of mythological trickster. The trickster is an archetype that crosses many cultures and appears in a wide variety of popular media such as a Coyote (1). She believes artists are “independent spirits that slip out from under domination and control, shaping and determining their own direction” (20). In elaboration on this she believes that the trickster is part of life as it has appeared all throughout history and she compares the artists to trickster because we have a way of pointing things out and showing them in a new way, this is explained by bring to light “new ways of seeing the world around us.” (20) Robertson links the artist with the trickster in their confrontation of culture, display of curiosity and by questioning standard practice, often through active investigation (20). As artists we challenge what is perceived though playful and humorous ways, changing the boundaries and creating new areas of investigation.
Robertson compares Francis Alys practice to that of a trickster as he makes works that have a specific narrative but explore the absurd, illogical and at times silly. Francis Alys has a multi- disciplinary practice in which he studies topics that are relevant to today’s world. His creative practice can be compared to that of the trickster. He aims not to show things for “ the ways things are,” (2) but to represent views, images, and representations in an way that contributes to our sense of who we are and our engagement with the world around us. This can be futher explained when we consider his work ‘The Ambassador’ at the Venice Biennale in 2001 where he sent a peacock to represent him as a way of removing focus from himself.
Many contemporary artists such as Alys can be acknowledged as a form of trickster as they challenge our views of the world around us which are relevant to contemporary society.
1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickster accessed Tuesday August 4, 2009
2 )Nichols,B Ideology and the image. Indiana University press, Bloomington pp 2-3
Robertson, N. (2008). ‘The 10 Predicaments of Maui: Notes on Tricksters’, in B. Butler (ed.) Artspace & Clouds. Auckland: Artspace, Vol. 1, pp. 48-70.
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Hi Emma, The artist as trickster also implies that we stand outside of, or will not conform to, society's norms and conventions. A current example is Dane Mitchell's winning entry in the Waikato art awards, which many of us 'get' and think is witty and humorous; however it has created controversy among others who regard it as 'not art' in a traditional sense; alternatively others think it has been done before and that the work says nothing new and that Mitchell was offensive in not even being present to construct his work! However within the context of the show and in relation to the other entries, Mitchell's work provides a playful commentary on the status of art competitions and our throwaway culture and creates a relationship between all the other entrants.
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