Theatre as Metaphor
Setting the Scene
This issue of Art Lies is situated between theatre and theatricality or, in more direct terms, between the theatre and its metaphors. The trigger for this inquiry was the result of the continued disdain for—and obsession with—theatrical tropes that preoccupy certain strains of contemporary artistic practice, as traced by a series of exhibitions over the past year that attempted to frame this phenomenon. These included City Stage at the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, Damaged Romanticism at Blaffer Gallery in Houston, Fressen oder Fliegen (Art into Theatre – Theatre into Art) at Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin and The World as a Stage at Tate Modern, London, among others.
Out of these exhibitions, and the notions of theatre they brought to bear, grew the pressing need to readdress the legacies of Michael Fried and the pervasiveness of metaphors related to the stage that continue to permeate the discourses of painting, sculpture, performance, installation, photography and film and video. The aforementioned exhibitions literally put theatrical staging on display, organizing works about and around its distinct modes of address, despite the fact that such work undeniably emerged alongside widespread skepticism that has continued throughout critical discourse.
The responses to this query contained herein reflect the lack of resolve surrounding the application of such undeniable terms, tropes and metaphorical devices as theatre, theatrical, theatricality, duration, drama, staging, narrative, etc., which continue to be used to describe experiences of and relationships between art and objects, producers and consumers. The intention of this editorial position is to move beyond the purposing of the theatrical as a discursive trope through which theatre becomes a cliché and a sort of linguistic shorthand.
What this issue is not is an inquiry into a specific form or tradition. Nor is it a guidebook to all of the likely—and unlikely—places from which theatre, theatricality and its antecedents might be thought to emerge. Instead, it is meant to function as a collection of statements that interrogate the primacy of theatre as metaphor in not only contemporary visual and literary contexts but beyond. And, much like W. J. T. Mitchell, who identified the vital signs of a “pictorial turn” in contemporary culture since the mid 1990s, one might ask what the characteristics of a “theatrical turn” would be, if there were ever such a turn.
Further, one might posit whether this term needs defining at all, since theatricality has preoccupied the attention of so many for so long; its grip within—and throughout—disciplines and media is unlikely to yield anytime soon. All the while, the condemnation and celebration of its strategies, consequently, appear to be at an impasse. Rather than accept the image that the theatre offers of itself, both in vision and language, a theory of a theatrical turn would surely have to contend with the possibility that it is through this very mode that all cultural and social exchanges are mediated. And, most certainly, the artistic and political stakes at hand are worth far more than any attempt to merely repel or embrace this condition.
Anjali Gupta, Editor & Aram Moshayedi, Guest Editorial Contributor