The Migrant Image: The Art and Politics of Documentary during Global Crisis

Abstract

THE MIGRANT IMAGE: THE ART AND POLITICS OF DOCUMENTARY DURING GLOBAL CRISIS T. J. Demos Durham, NC: Duke Universit y Press, 2013 (xiii + 250 pages, acknowledgments, notes, index, bibliography) $26.95 (paper)In The Migrant Image, T. J. Demos explores how selected contemporary artists represent migrants both sympathetically and as potential figures of resistance. Framing contemporary artworks dealing with the theme of migration within the twenty-first century context of "crisis globalization," Demos engages with a growing and interdisciplinary body of scholarship on neoliberalism and uneven development. The book's main intervention, however, is within the subfield of global contemporary art history, where it will serve as a ver y useful text for students, researchers, critics, and curators concerned with the relationship between art and politics in the post-September 11 era.Demos claims that conventional mass media and documentary images of migrants-a category that includes refugees, exploited laborers, nomads, and exiles-reinforce stereotypes of victimhood and criminality, and thus entrench political positions within conflict zones. By contrast, artists working with documentary material in unconventional ways, he argues, offer nuanced and even redemptive representations of these figures, thereby "uprooting" them from binary and polemical discourses on victimhood and criminality. The extent to which these latter artistic representations "intervene in the cultural politics of globalization," as he says they do, is less clear (xv).The artwork Demos considers is displayed in international exhibitions or biennials for limited audiences. Following curator Okwui Enwezor, Demos argues that the work contributes in these contexts to the formation of a "diasporic public sphere" (18). For Demos it is within this sphere that the figure of the refugee is redeemed and put forward as "the paradigm of a new (global and post-national) historical consciousness" (4). There is a leap here from the diverse political and economic circumstances of migration to representations of the migrant's postnational consciousness in artworks. Demos argues that in setting up a forum for reflexive "cross-cultural interactions" the biennial can forge a "community of sense" among its participants (18). Nevertheless, a gap remains between the artistic community formed by such participants and the diverse political community of migrants whose figures circulate in their work. Demos grants that the artwork, when viewed at international art fairs and in private galleries, might well function as a humanitarian alibi for corporate interests, but he does not examine this problem in detail. For Demos the question of the art market is secondary since the work extends beyond its context of production and display to "constitute a site of potential subjective transformation with ultimately immeasurable political implications" (248). The artwork's political power is described throughout the book as speculative or deferred-an aspect of what Demos, following political philosopher Giorgio Agamben, calls a "politics to come"-rather than as a contribution to activist initiatives in the present (156).The Migrant Image is most compelling when it relates formal and representational details of the artworks to the thorny histories and geopolitics of their associated confl ict zones. The book is cast as a study of a model of documentary-based art practices rather than an "exhaustive" survey of global contemporary art. It touches upon the Congo and South Africa in the work of Steve McQueen; the Sahara and North Africa in the work of Ursula Biemann; Palestine/Israel in the work of the Otolith Group, Ahlam Shibli, and Emily Jacir; and Beirut in the work of the Atlas Group, Lamia Joreige, Rabih Mroue, and Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige. The artwork is presented in three major sections ("Departures") separated by shorter philosophical interludes ("Transits") on the broad themes/problems of the book: aesthetics and politics, neoliberalism, and globalization. …