Miss-Delectable
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052600399.html
Getting deaf teens to sing Bach is:
(a) Exploitative and voyeuristic.
(b) Culturally inclusive and respectful.
(c) A celebration of failure and chaos.
(d) A celebration of determination and hope.
(e) Art.
As any good test-taker knows, once you're pretty sure that certain answers can't be right, you simply settle for whatever's left.
Art it is.
An impressive video called "Singing Lesson 2" begs you to take a moral and aesthetic stand on the concert it shows. Its success lies in how it makes that task nearly impossible.
The piece is typical of Polish artist Artur Zmijewski, who has been ruffling feathers in his homeland for about a decade. Recently, the 40-year-old has also been impressing, and discomfiting, art audiences around the world. A film in which he re-created Stanford's famous "prison experiment," a 1971 study of the psychology of human domination that had to be stopped when its participants got violent, was a main attraction at the last Venice Biennale. "Singing Lesson 2" had its U.S. premiere in Boston a little while back, just recently joined the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and is now making the rounds of European museums.
The 16-minute work is built around a simple premise, like most of Zmijewski's work. For "Singing Lesson 2," the artist got a group of deaf teenagers in Germany to practice cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach, including the exquisite "Jesu, der du meine Seele," then perform them in St. Thomas Church in Leipzig. It was Bach's own church, and is an almost holy site for Bachophiles -- such as the skilled musicians who accompany the deaf choir.
The video first shows us the deaf students learning to sing, under the guidance of an enthusiastic young music teacher. Not surprisingly, the result comes close to pure cacophony. It's likely to provoke a grimace from music lovers. It's also likely to pain anyone with even a hint of political correctness: Giving deaf kids a task they can't succeed at seems awfully close to setting them up to take a fall. It invokes a whole history of cruel exploitation of the disabled. (But it also invokes a history of music lessons for the hard of hearing that most of us don't know about. In the 1980s, Gallaudet University, the nation's most famous center for deaf culture, had a music program for its students, led by a singer who had lost her hearing later in life.)
Zmijewski's video also breaches our culture's etiquette: Our parents teach us not to stare at people who walk funny, or look funny, or talk funny -- and here we are, genteel lovers of fine art, gawking at a bunch of kids who, through no fault of their own, sing as funny as can be. The video is very hard to watch.
On the other hand, the most striking thing about these singing lessons is how much Zmijewski's teens seem to be enjoying them. They're confronted with an almost absurd challenge -- like painting by smell or cooking by sound -- and yet they embrace it with enthusiasm. There's even a sense that the absurdity itself seems to appeal to them, so that the whole thing becomes a kind of dada exercise that they embrace.
Who are we to say that they shouldn't be given the chance to explore the whole idea of musical expression? Mainstream culture goes on and on about the supreme joys of great vocal art: Why shouldn't the deaf be given the chance to get some kind of glimpse of them?
Surprisingly, the choir's efforts also end up giving pleasure to us hearing spectators. Watching Zmijewski's record of the choir performing in Leipzig, it becomes clear he's crafted a substantial work of modern musical art. The contrast between the hooting, groaning choristers and their gifted instrumental colleagues -- there's also an ethereal soprano who sings some of the solos -- makes for an aesthetic mix that's strikingly effective. It may not be good Bach. But it has the contrasts between beauty and ugliness, fragile order and impending chaos, lyricism and aggression that are behind some of the best and most affecting compositions of the 20th century. It's like a modern painter reworking a Duerer engraving with a paintbrush dipped in tar: It emphasizes both the delicate beauty of the original, the expressive force of the modern intervention and the added energy that comes from their confrontation.
The performers, both deaf and hearing, are exploited -- in every sense of the word -- as neutral art supplies to achieve Zmijewski's experimental ends, which are both social and, more surprisingly, aesthetic.
The musicians, used to propagating the old-fashioned sonic glories of Bach, sometimes look pained during the exercise. They're almost like the viewers of the video, wondering what kind of bizarre event they've got themselves caught up in.
The choir members, whom we're tempted to feel for as the butts of Zmijewski's art, seem overjoyed by their efforts, smiling and hugging their conductor when the singing is done.
We viewers may have doubts about the whole affair. Apparently, they don't.
To see some clips from "Singing Lesson 2" visit http://www.washingtonpost.com/museums.
Getting deaf teens to sing Bach is:
(a) Exploitative and voyeuristic.
(b) Culturally inclusive and respectful.
(c) A celebration of failure and chaos.
(d) A celebration of determination and hope.
(e) Art.
As any good test-taker knows, once you're pretty sure that certain answers can't be right, you simply settle for whatever's left.
Art it is.
An impressive video called "Singing Lesson 2" begs you to take a moral and aesthetic stand on the concert it shows. Its success lies in how it makes that task nearly impossible.
The piece is typical of Polish artist Artur Zmijewski, who has been ruffling feathers in his homeland for about a decade. Recently, the 40-year-old has also been impressing, and discomfiting, art audiences around the world. A film in which he re-created Stanford's famous "prison experiment," a 1971 study of the psychology of human domination that had to be stopped when its participants got violent, was a main attraction at the last Venice Biennale. "Singing Lesson 2" had its U.S. premiere in Boston a little while back, just recently joined the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and is now making the rounds of European museums.
The 16-minute work is built around a simple premise, like most of Zmijewski's work. For "Singing Lesson 2," the artist got a group of deaf teenagers in Germany to practice cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach, including the exquisite "Jesu, der du meine Seele," then perform them in St. Thomas Church in Leipzig. It was Bach's own church, and is an almost holy site for Bachophiles -- such as the skilled musicians who accompany the deaf choir.
The video first shows us the deaf students learning to sing, under the guidance of an enthusiastic young music teacher. Not surprisingly, the result comes close to pure cacophony. It's likely to provoke a grimace from music lovers. It's also likely to pain anyone with even a hint of political correctness: Giving deaf kids a task they can't succeed at seems awfully close to setting them up to take a fall. It invokes a whole history of cruel exploitation of the disabled. (But it also invokes a history of music lessons for the hard of hearing that most of us don't know about. In the 1980s, Gallaudet University, the nation's most famous center for deaf culture, had a music program for its students, led by a singer who had lost her hearing later in life.)
Zmijewski's video also breaches our culture's etiquette: Our parents teach us not to stare at people who walk funny, or look funny, or talk funny -- and here we are, genteel lovers of fine art, gawking at a bunch of kids who, through no fault of their own, sing as funny as can be. The video is very hard to watch.
On the other hand, the most striking thing about these singing lessons is how much Zmijewski's teens seem to be enjoying them. They're confronted with an almost absurd challenge -- like painting by smell or cooking by sound -- and yet they embrace it with enthusiasm. There's even a sense that the absurdity itself seems to appeal to them, so that the whole thing becomes a kind of dada exercise that they embrace.
Who are we to say that they shouldn't be given the chance to explore the whole idea of musical expression? Mainstream culture goes on and on about the supreme joys of great vocal art: Why shouldn't the deaf be given the chance to get some kind of glimpse of them?
Surprisingly, the choir's efforts also end up giving pleasure to us hearing spectators. Watching Zmijewski's record of the choir performing in Leipzig, it becomes clear he's crafted a substantial work of modern musical art. The contrast between the hooting, groaning choristers and their gifted instrumental colleagues -- there's also an ethereal soprano who sings some of the solos -- makes for an aesthetic mix that's strikingly effective. It may not be good Bach. But it has the contrasts between beauty and ugliness, fragile order and impending chaos, lyricism and aggression that are behind some of the best and most affecting compositions of the 20th century. It's like a modern painter reworking a Duerer engraving with a paintbrush dipped in tar: It emphasizes both the delicate beauty of the original, the expressive force of the modern intervention and the added energy that comes from their confrontation.
The performers, both deaf and hearing, are exploited -- in every sense of the word -- as neutral art supplies to achieve Zmijewski's experimental ends, which are both social and, more surprisingly, aesthetic.
The musicians, used to propagating the old-fashioned sonic glories of Bach, sometimes look pained during the exercise. They're almost like the viewers of the video, wondering what kind of bizarre event they've got themselves caught up in.
The choir members, whom we're tempted to feel for as the butts of Zmijewski's art, seem overjoyed by their efforts, smiling and hugging their conductor when the singing is done.
We viewers may have doubts about the whole affair. Apparently, they don't.
To see some clips from "Singing Lesson 2" visit http://www.washingtonpost.com/museums.