In Art We Trust


 I n Art We Trust
Artist ArtWork Year Trust Page
Randa Mirza Untitled #6 (from the series 2006-8 APT Dubai 8
Parallel Universes)
Ahmet Ögüt Cut It Out 2004 APT Dubai 9
Fahrettin Orenli Shadows of Dust III 2007 APT Dubai 10
Regina José No perdemos nada con nacer 2000 APT Mexico City 11
Galindo
Basim Magdy Maybe There is a Message 2008 APT Dubai 12
Nedko Solakov Under Control 2008 APT London 13
Christie Frields In God We Trust - Everone Here 2005-6 APT Los Angeles 14
Yochai Avrahami Rocks Ahead 2006 APT Dubai 15
Fallen Fruit American Family 2008 APT Los Angeles 16
Fallen Fruit Elysian Park 2005 APT Los Angeles 17
Betsabee Romero Like a garden in a haystack 2008 APT Mexico City 18
Martin Weber To have more clients to cure so I 2002 APT New York 19
can maintain my family, Peru

Credits 20

Permalinks
In Art We Trust http://inartwetrust.aptglobal.org/
APT http://aptglobal.org/


 I n Art We Trust
In Art We Trust takes a closer look at
the idea of trust and how artists address its
political, economic, and social ramifica-
tions. By using visual metaphors in video,
photography, sculpture, and painting,
multimedia artists search for possibilities
to undo the damage that has been done
to trust. The two aspects of trust exist in
a dynamic contradiction: on one hand we
are willing to relinquish control and make
ourselves vulnerable to others; on the other,
we are anxious to predict what other people
will do and what situations will occur.
Trust is the foundation of every
interpersonal relationship; we trust our
parents, friends and lovers, and we have
to confide in institutions for them to
function. But a discredited news media, a
soured global economy and failed prom-
ises from governments have brought the
notions of certainty, credit, and reliance
under close scrutiny within the arts and
social sciences, exposing trust as a vulner-
able part of our social structure. Our time
has been called “the age of suspicion” and
the diminishing trust among neighbors
and citizens is evident in the popularity
of the phrase ‘Don’t talk to strangers’, in
approvals for government-sponsored
public surveillance programs, and the
complications of verifying credibility with
virtual users of the Internet. Apparently,
we know how easy trust is to betray.
In Art We Trust presents twelve in-
ternational artists from the collection of
Artist Pension Trust (APT). Each artist
deals with themes of political conflict
and social emergency. The exhibition is

devised in two sections. The first group
primarily deals with the erosion of trust:
Randa Mirza investigates the credibility
of the news media, while Ahmet Ögut
and Fahrettin Örenli contest the legiti-
macy of the current American war in Iraq.
Regina José Galindo explores the effects
of treachery, and Nedko Salakhov and Ba-
sim Magdy both address the mistrust and
phobias that ravage people’s consciences.
These artists sharply present disquieting
facts and reminders of political and social
betrayal, invoking feelings of discontent
and rejection in the viewer.
The second group not only critiques
the loss of confidence in our political and
social systems, but also presents new ways
of reactivating trust: Betsabee Romero
brings hope into zones of environmental
and political devastation while the collec-
tive Fallen Fruit proposes to re-establish
society’s bonds by means of sharing fruit.
Yochai Avrahami casts communication
devices between opposing checkpoints
and Christie Frields attempts to mediate
the tensions of American history. Martin
Weber articulates the hopes of marginal-
ized communities in Latin America. These
artists elicit optimism and reassurance
within communities of people. Largely
the controversy surrounding issues of trust
inspires artists to approach it through an
aesthetic outlet.
Recognizing the capacity of trust as a
uniting factor, the host of this exhibition,
Artist Pension Trust (APT), works to build
market credibility for a transnational
group of emerging and mid-career artists
by assembling a collective asset of their
artworks. APT provides an urgent alterna-
tive for artists in preparing for their finan-
cial future by offering long-term benefits,
using art as a type of symbolic currency.
Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman
notes that “In a liquid, fast-flowing and
unpredictable setting, we need firm and
reliable ties of friendship and mutual trust
more than ever before.” * In times of un-
certainty, art is a catalyst for challenging
present conditions, for experimentation,
and for alternatives: In Art We Trust.
The Lebanon-based artist Randa
Mirza questions the politics of represen-
tation and helps to understand how the
visual language works to produce and
circulate meaning. In the series of photo-
graphs Untitled (Parallel Universes) (2006-
2008), Mirza digitally collaged images of
mainstream movies and tourist snapshots
with the footage of Lebanese wars from
1975 and 2006, respectively. In the im-
ages, the scenes of destruction look oddly
extant when sensationalized by the foray
of news media images, leaving the viewer
confused by the seamlessness of the mise-
en-scene. The work takes its title from the
theory of “multiverse”, which accepts the
existence of multiple realities. Mirza aims
to reveal the tropes used by the media to
sensationalize events.
The image of the heroic American
soldier is tested in the video Cut it Out
(2004) by the Turkish artist Ahmet Ögut.
A young man sits on the floor wearing a
pair of pants patterned like the American

flag. The ramshackle room and the flickers
of masked faces in the background suggest
that he has been kidnapped. Repeatedly,
he utters the phrase “It’s a lost cause, I
want to go home,” and he curses the war,
the people involved, and the pointlessness
of the mission. There is nothing heroic
in this monologue, and he continuously
breaks into nervous laughter as if to rec-
oncile his discomfort with the terrifying
reality he faces. By disguising the physical
and psychological impact of waging war
with his protagonist’s bravado, Ögut dis-
avows the image of the American soldier
in Iraq. The viewer is left to pass judgment
about who, in fact, is losing the war.
The Iraq war is also the subject of the
animation Shadows of Dust (Episode III)
(2007) by another Turkish-born artist,
Fahrettin Örenli. Two figures represent-
ing Indonesian shadow puppets pull apart
a one hundred dollar US banknote, which
slowly morphs into an outline of the Iraqi
border. As this is happening, the subtitles
and voice over make statements about
American greed for oil and money, ref-
erencing conspiracy theories surrounding
the political rivalry for control of Middle
Eastern oil reserves. The torn map is a
metaphor for the destruction of war and
civilian casualties that have severed the
country as it has fallen prey to political
betrayal by the supposed foreign saviors.
Deadly civil war is at the core of a
video by Regina José Galindo, from Gua-
temala. The artist spent several hours lying
naked in a clear garbage bag in a munici-
pal dump. The video documentation of her
performance, titled No Perdemos Nada Con
Nacer (We Don’t Lose Anything by Being)
(2000), addresses the numerous examples
of secret political murders and discarded
evidence that occur throughout various
parts of Latin America. By placing her-
self at risk, vulnerable and unprotected,
Galindo internalizes her protest against
violence and her own country’s political
and social instability. The artist silently
asks if an individual protest can impact
“[the] daily nightmare of misery and po-
litical deceit that overcast Latin America.”
In this poignant gesture of self-expression,
the artist relies on the viewer’s ability for
compassion, aiming to spur the urge to
interfere in this unfair reality.
If the artists mentioned above reveal
circumstances where trust is under siege,
the artists that follow employ different
approaches in an attempt to restore trust
where it has been lost.
The video Maybe There is a Message
(2008), by Egyptian-born artist Basim
Magdy, begins with a lost-looking indi-
vidual tied to a chair in a ghostly forest,
and the character participates in a dialogue
with another person who remains unseen.
The conversation soon reveals itself as a
monologue between his split personali-
ties, illustrating the torment from a devil
doppelganger. The video relays a cogent
message from the artist; anguish from
separation haunts all of us and ravages our
well being, but we will be able to heal if we
can only trust in each other.

Humor and metaphor can be power-
ful tools to offer a different understanding
of a reality, reinforcing speculative hope
in a way that only art is able to articulate.
Nedko Solakov from Bulgaria uses un-ex-
pected metaphors when he talks about the
emotions of fear that have contaminated
our society. In the exquisitely rendered
drawings of Under Control (2006), three
male characters–a bald man with horn-
shaped ears, a falling man, and a wise
man–are each caught up in futile attempts
to control the uncertainties of their exis-
tence. The handwritten captions inscribed
beneath each drawing are witty and biting,
as the artist constructs a narrative about
the desire for certainty in the wake of the
apprehension and phobia that haunt the
contemporary world. A noted storyteller,
Solakov says that his way of dealing with
insecurities and mistrust is to make art.
The artist attempts to lighten the weight
of our worries by entrusting them to the
healing power of art, and the contagious
power of his humor and sarcasm.
A set of sculptures by Los Angeles-
based artist Christie Frields may very well
be found in the woodlands where we left
the protagonist of Magdy’s video. The set-
tee-sculpture In God we Trust – Everyone
Here (2008), is a carved redwood bench
adorned with juxtaposing American max-
ims; the first one used on United States
currency to convey religious sentiment
during war time, and the second a frag-
ment from a Native American oral tradi-
tion, taken from the book Technicians
of the Sacred. The two phrases describe
sets of opposing values: money, property
and government in the first and the com-
munal relationship between humans and
nature in the second. By using a bench as
a metaphor for convention and debate, the
artist is advocating for a liaison between
historical opponents. Frields proposes a
resolution of historical contradiction by
applying creativity and imagination.
Yochai Avrahami, from Israel,
constructs amorphous sculptural objects
from the refuse and detritus of war, such
as bullet casings and abandoned hardware
that he has found in the conflict zone
between the city of Jerusalem and the
nearby checkpoint in Ramallah. The artist
describes them as “instant fossils”, refer-
ring not to remnants of a past geologic
age, but instead from our present time. In
the video Rocks Ahead (2008), Avrahami
has animated these congealed sculptures
using nylon strings, as if they were kites
or marionettes. His fossils bring to mind
robotic-like creatures that move like spi-
ders, capering between the check points.
Avrahami’s imaginative and ephemeral
devices offer a glimmer of hope within a
conflict where people have ceased to trust
in each other.
The collective Fallen Fruit, from Los
Angeles, uses fruit as their artistic me-
dium, expressing concerns about frivolous
consumption and the commercialization
of modern life. “Fruit grows everywhere;
it is socially mobile and is a symbol of
hospitality,” say long-term collaborators

David Burns, Matias Viegener, and Austin
Young, who also stage fruit-based events
that fuse humor and critique. In their gi-
clee print Elysian Park (2005), the artists
have re-appropriated the famous WWII
image “Flag Raising on Iwo Jima”, depict-
ing five United States Marines planting an
American flag on a hill overlooking Iwo
island in Japan. Cohesively arranged as a
single mound, the artists imitate the origi-
nal Marines, but substitute the branch of
an apple tree for the American flag. Apples
also stand for hope in another Fallen Fruit
photograph, American Family (2008).
Inspired by Giorgio de Chirico’s rapidly
vanishing architectural perspectives, the
artists place an average American fam-
ily on top of a dining table, representing
the traditional place of familiar bonding.
The mother and father wave white flags
of surrender, while the daughter and son
hand over apples to unseen antagonists.
The artists are addressing the problem of
deteriorating family ties in the wake of
encroaching modernity.
Mexican artist Betsabee Romero at-
tempts to disseminate hope by giving away
potted plants to inhabitants of the slums
living in landfills outside of Mexico City.
This series of photographs, Like a garden
in a haystack (2008), documents her jour-
ney in a minibus covered in green bushy
plants as she travels to these communities,
bringing green sprouts where there are
no other traces of vegetation. The artist
is condemning the delay of improvements
to these areas and attempts to prolong the
faith of the inhabitants by small, individual of the media, these art works resist the
actions. The generosity of her gesture will mainstream take on today’s events. These
harvest faith in art that never ceases to examples help to raise confidence in our
initiate change in peoples’ lives. endurance as a society and the continued
The Chilean-born photographer reliance in people that are close to us.
Martin Weber also hopes to bring change In Art We Trust.
into the people’s lives as he asks his sub- —Yulia Tikhonova
jects to talk about their dreams. A Map of
Latin American Dreams is a series of black- Notes
and-white photographs Weber started in * Zygmunt Bauman Liquid Life, (Malden:
1992, depicting poor and displaced Latin Polity Press, 2005) 108.
Americans. Each subject holds a small
chalkboard on which he or she has written
a dream of theirs. “To have more clients to
cure, so I can maintain my family,” reads
a note by a Peruvian shaman. An acrobat
in La Niña, Argentina, contorts for the
camera and holds up her sign that reads,
“I want to be a lawyer.”, and a mother of
four in Brazil writes, “I dream of having
silicones.” “Dreams are the only things
these people have” says the artist, and his
artwork communicates this positive mes-
sage about untested possibilities. He seems
to say, our lives can only be changed if we
trust in our ability to transcend present
conditions and overcome our histories.
In Art We Trust brings attention to the
complex issue of trust as it is articulated
through a variety of formal and conceptual
approaches. While several works chronicle
the duplicity of politics and the machina-
tion of the corporate news media, they also
release the expressive potential of art as an
alternative, more positive representation
of reality. By exposing the political agenda
of images and the manipulative tools


 Ran da M i r z a

Untitled #6 (from the series Parallel Universes) (2006-2008)

C-Print; 84x120
APT DUBAI


 Ahm et Ögüt

Cut It Out (2004)

Single-channel video; 02:00
APT Dubai


Fah ret ti n O ren li

Shadows of Dust III (2007)

Single-channel video; 03:58
APT Dubai

10
 Regi na J osé Gali n do

No Perdemos Nada Con Nacer (We Don’t Lose Anything by Being) (2000)
Single-channel video; 01:58
APT Mexico City

11
 Basim M agdy

Maybe There is a Message (2008)

Single-channel video; 06:55
APT DUBAI

12
 N edko So l akov

Under Control (2008)

Sepia, black and white ink, and wash on paper; 19 x 28 cm
APT London

13
 Ch risti e Fri elds

In God We Trust - Everyone Here (2005-2006)

Redwood; 18.75 x 69.75 x 11 in
APT Los Angeles

14
Yochai Avr ahami

Rocks Ahead (2006)

Single-channel video; 08:27
APT Dubai

15
 Fallen Fru it

American Family (2008)

Giclee print; 40 x 60 in
APT Mexico City

16
 Fallen Fru it

Elysian Park (2005)

Giclee print; 40 x 60 in
APT Los Angeles

17
 Betsabee Rom ero

Like a garden in a haystack (2008)

Photograph; 120 x 55 cm
APT Mexico City

18
 M arti n Weber

To have more clients to cure so I can maintain my family, Peru (2002)

Silver gelatin print; 24 x 20 in
APT New York

19
 Cred its

This online exhibition has been curated by Yulia Tikhonova with

support from the Artist Pension Trust (APT).

© 2009. All images displayed are property of their respective owners.

http://inartwetrust.aptglobal.org/
http://aptglobal.org/

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