An Artist Who Cannot Speak English Is No Artist

The title of the work by Jakup Ferri was borrowed from a different work by the Croat artist Mladen Stilinović. In 1992, Stilinović, who studied Bakhtinian linguistic explorations, embroidered a sentence on pink canvas: “An artist who cannot speak English is no artist”. The work was created after the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, and touches on problems that all artists from the countries of systemic transformation had to face: the need to find oneself in the global art world, which is dominated by the Anglo-Saxon institutional model. By making a reference to the communist interpretation of the world which identified English with the language of Western capitalists and pink with the colour of the bourgeoisie, Stilinović points to a new cultural hegemony.

Ferri takes up on Stilinović’s deliberations over a decade later. In a home video, the artist delivers a soliloquy about his art. He tries to speak English, but his statement is not logical and the language is far from correct. The artist tries to meet one of the requirements of the global art market: he uses the lingua franca of curators, organizers of fairs and large exhibitions. His ridiculous effort is a response to a deadlock: in order to become part of the global art scene, one has to accept its rule according to which one who does not speak English is artistically doomed.

In reference to the gesture made by Stilinović, Ferri reveals the relevance of his diagnosis. The rules of the new reality, as defined by the Croat artist, are just as relevant to young artists active in the political and economic margins of the world as they are to those who had to find themselves in the post-communist reality. Both groups are forced to determine their place in a world with no borders. The stance adopted by Ferri is based on the general acceptance of the principles imposed by the center. In the video, the artist shows that he is aware of his peripheral condition, though the great solemnity with which he tries to speak English suggests that he treats the whole situation with much distance and irony.

Izabela Kopania