Roberto Cuoghi: Suillakku

ICA, 14 Oct - 23 Nov 08

Matthew Breen & Matthew Giraudeau

Matthew Breen: Of all the words one could use to describe the work of Robert Cuoghi, indifference certainly couldn't be one. This is not a man who half commits to his artistic ventures. Not that describing them as 'artistic' is necessarily enough; such is Cuoghi's obsessive, uncompromising nature, his body of work seems to stretch out beyond the realm of art and into the fabric of day-to-day human activity.

Consider the seven years Cuoghi spent as his father. Shortly after the elder man's death, he entered a process of radical alteration that led him to gain weight, grow grey hair, walk with a stoop and live out the life of a man in his sixties, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The effects of living such a double life are hard to gauge, but needless to say, it caught the attention of the art world. Cuoghi is evasive about his reasons for his transformation - whether for catharsis or closure, we cannot be certain, but its status as an artwork seems incidental to its existence.

Matthew Giraudeau: I have just read the Frieze article concerning Cuoghi and this show, and it starts in a similar way to how Matt has started this review. In fact, the review of the show itself only runs to two paragraphs, while the back story of Cuoghi's previous work fills up the rest of the article. It seems to me that there is a sudden focus on this artist, for various reasons, but perhaps we all wish that it wasn't this precise piece that we are having to talk about.

The piece at the ICA, called Šuillakku, is an intensely researched, two room, 8.1 ambisonic sound installation that attempts to recreate the collapse of the Assyrian empire. Now that sounds impressive, as does the piece itself, but I couldn't shake the feeling that the research, talking to the experts, hand crafting the instruments, recording layers upon layers of audio and editing and mixing the whole thing was more interesting than the final installation.

MB: Yes, there is the definite presence of 'research' here, and you really don't have to go that far to see it elsewhere in the work of other artists. For example, in another show at the ICA, the ongoing Nought To Sixty, there are many individuals who seem to have taken on the role of anthropologist/archeologist/archivist as much as artist. (Look further at the work of Ruth Ewan, Gail Pickering, and Duncan Campbell.) But these people have their sights fixed on critiquing/excavating/presenting 20th-century politics, belief systems, cinema and the like - Cuoghi is going further back to a period 2700 years ago that is shrouded in mystery.His research becomes interesting, I think, where it hits a dead end. I think the real dynamic in this piece lies on that threshold where historical information ends and Cuoghi's imagination begins.
 
It is undeniable that all the intense groundwork Cuoghi has committed to in this work is, in the end, backstage to the work itself. But the work is still interesting despite this unbalance.

MG: I think this idea of foregrounding research is prevalent in contemporary art because much of it is reference laden, and yet committed to a sort of post-modern minimalism when it comes to the final presentation. The irony of this archival trend is that it allows someone like Jamie Shovlin to create a fake Krautrock band called Lustfaust, and successfully satirise the whole notion of po-faced historian-artist.

With Cuoghi, it is different. The reason it is irritating, is exactly why it is so good. The idea that he set out to re-create something that could never have been heard is impossible, and therefore transcends (yes, transcends) art as archival (or whatever art is trying to be on a particular day...). In fact, this is the opposite of art as archival, it is art as invention, or as originality. Originality is something best spoken about in a quiet voice in contemporary art, but in grounding his piece in history and research, Cuoghi ironically side steps any need for arch reference, or knowing irony.

MB: I feel that issues of referencing/archiving/research are, in the end, just a byproduct of this piece - they are not a particularly important aspect of it. Cuoghi's wider practise reveals a greater concern with things like endurance and endevour. There's that kind of endurance/achievement thing you see in the films of Werner Herzog. In Herzog's films you also see the blur of fact and fiction that characterises this work. It's all quite heroic. No 'knowing irony'.

There's that image in the exhibition booklet of the studio in which Cuoghi recorded Šuillakku. We can see his handmade instruments, his props, everything he used in the creation of this piece. So I think it's not so much the research - the academic stuff - that is being promoted. Instead its Cuoghi's creative stamina and the making of the work.

MG: I agree with that, endurance as authenticity. I think I prefer the idea of 'Artist as genius', rather than 'Artist as OCD workhorse'. Both are falsehoods, in that, genius is nothing without work, and artists are lucky enough to be doing something that they (hopefully) enjoy. Herzog is a good example of a post-ironic hero, but he seems to me an historic figure, compared to Cuoghi as a contemporary figure. Maybe post-ironic heroes need to be old before we can take them seriously. Or maybe there will be a younger generation of artists who take Cuoghi's status as given, unlike us. Are we still obsessed with the idea of being hoodwinked by a charlatan? That was often the claim of Herzog's detractors. The apocryphal stories about Herzog are wonderful (and mostly true), and are a big part of what makes him such a cult figure. Maybe Cuoghi needs to eat his shoe to satisfy the curators of museums and writers of exhibition guides.

MB: Eating his shoe would be child's play, I should think, after seven gruelling years of living somebody else's life! And now would seem a good time to reach some sort of verdict on this installation at the ICA. Is there one we could reach together? For my part I found this sound work engaging, complexly constructed and with enough grasp of musical structure to keep us involved over the course of its 10-minute duration. A wise move of the ICA's was to have the exhibition guides at the ready before we enter the space. As the viewer walks around the space, listening to the piece, their eyes are kept busy reading the literature. So we process the art and its backstory at the same time. One enlightens the other.

MG: I think by being purely an audio installation, it bypasses the problem of having to read the back story. After all my whining about research-based art, I would actually commend the depth and complexity of the piece. It needs the viewer to engage with an active historical process that Cuoghi has carried out. It was musically interesting, impressive in scale, and I like the fact that he spent two years in a room, screaming at a microphone in a made up language.

matt_breen@hotmail.com

matthew.giraudeau@hotmail.com

www.dekersaint.co.uk

BACK