Analysing the desire to use a language that is exclusive and cryptic
Like other areas of life, art too is full of ‘jargon’. If you read a catalogue essay, a newspaper article, a statement of intent, or hear an artist or critic talk about art, the entire discourse is infested with high-sounding words and phrases that are either difficult to comprehend or have been used too often to appear devoid of meaning.
One is prone to hear postgraduate students utter phrases like ‘whimsical ambience’, ‘potent ambiguities’, ‘despondent trajectories’ and so on. But the real shock comes when the tutors seem impressed by these ‘inventions’ and encourage them to start thinking further ‘within these parameters’.
With ‘juxtaposition’ having lost its supremacy in the United Kingdom of Jargon & Cliché, the ‘presence of absence’ is the current favourite phrase (in 2014, two galleries in Karachi held separate shows with the same title!).
In 2002, Saba Qizilbash held her solo exhibition at Rohtas 2 where she, along with her works on walls, produced a piece of paper that carried various phrases of art diction fashionable at that time. If she were to return to Pakistan today, she might want to extend her single sheet to a substantial document.
The dictionary describes jargon as ‘special words or expressions used by a profession or group that are difficult for others to understand’. Yet, what is uttered is also impossible to fathom by people in the same profession.
One needs to question and analyse the factors that lead to the use of such jargon. And there could be several reasons for this. Language, which is a means of communication, is also employed as a tool to conceal intent or hide the lack of clear thought. This is true for literature, academia and politics. The same tendency is visible in writings on art. Text such as ‘he rebuts internationalist gestures of this variety which could be interpreted as a vigorous confession of faith in the auteur theory’ convinces an ordinary reader that the world of art is beyond his comprehension.
Writings on art are often inflicted with phrases and terms that make a reader admit his inadequacy and exit. This may have something to do with a society in which English is not used as the first or only language and hence the need to coin dense phrases. Yet, one must recall the essays by T.S. Eliot that flow like a river without the boulders of heavy words; the great critic expresses the depth of his ideas only through clarity of his language.
Likewise, Nadine Gordimer, Christopher Hitchens, John Updike, Julian Barnes and others (the last two also write on art) offer insight without succumbing to jargon or cliché. Their views on art, literature and life are full of vigour that is derived from the power of their thought. However, one cannot draw a line between mainstream and periphery since that line is already diminishing where Sadiq Khan has become the mayor of London and where Salman Rushdie is considered a major English author. Reading V.S. Naipaul, one realises the writer is not trying to impress anyone with his language but with his command on concepts.
Maybe, the intention to use a language that is exclusive and cryptic is the manifestation of a desire to secure a ‘prestigious’ position for visual arts. Before modernism, the imagery of an artist was shared like common language or familiar code among the general populace. It is only in the age of modernism that the distance between the artist and the general public has become wider, almost unsurpassable. So, it was the art that first liberated itself from public domain, control and comprehension. Now, even though the once unconventional forms including abstract painting, performance, installation are accepted, the discourse on art still has its rebellious flavour and challenges a viewer’s/reader’s sensibility.
Thus what we see in our surroundings is not just the attempts of students to philosophise their studio practices, it is also naming the art exhibition that creates a distance -- not physical but mental -- between a common user of language and the owner/curator of the art gallery (in most instances, even the artists feel uneasy about the overt display of verbosity regarding their works). A few titles of recently held shows in Lahore and Karachi such as ‘Doppelganger’, ‘Inimitable Consilience’, ‘Cognitive Transcendence’, ‘Silent Decibels’, ‘Pachydermal’, ‘Agogic Accent’, ‘The Neoteric’ and ‘Paracosm 2’, are not likely to be understood by an ordinary person.
There have been efforts to move away from the tyranny of English phrases by coining art exhibitions in Urdu (like, Inshaye Tahayyur: The Oeuvre of Perplexity!). Apart from the sense of tokenism, these efforts are mere gestures to ghettoise art. A phrase in Urdu might appear indigenous, hence kosher, but it is as problematic as a Greek term. Because in Pakistani art circles, the entire business is carried out in plain English, be it the statement of artists, the invites of gallery, labels of art works, or the transaction between collectors and dealers.
So any attempt of naming an exhibition in Urdu makes it as pompous and problematic as an obscure term in English. It suggests that art is still bound to a region and to a language that is exclusive and elitist. But in this age, like offshore accounts, art too is an activity that operates and exists beyond the borders of locality, liability and language -- mostly of jargon.