The Grand Grotesque Parade, a live art performance by artist duo The Girls, was more than simply a historical re-enactment. The work was based
on a spectacular and lavish parade that took place as part of the 1910
Bournemouth Centenary celebrations; a festival that cost the Council a
total of £30,000. An absurdly large amount of money at the time that
illustrates not only the kind of revenue brought by wealthy visitors but
also the Council’s commitment to making Bournemouth one of Europe’s
most exclusive holiday resorts, rivalling the French Riviera. Whilst the
project does indeed illuminate a quirky, long forgotten footnote of the
town’s history, it is also a celebration of the strange nature of
popular seaside pleasures.
The British seaside resort and in particular Bournemouth, has
traditionally been associated with health, be it in the quiet
convalescence and sophisticated pleasures of the upper classes or in the
organised escapes from industrial pollution, urban squalor and
drunkenness started by Thomas Cook in the mid Nineteenth Century.
However, there has always been a flipside to the sobriety, which
represents a repressed aspect of Englishness that often manifests itself
in our national sense of humour. Encompassing black comedy, surrealism,
silliness, camp, double meanings, and a celebration of the downright
absurd; the alternative to being prim and proper, towing the line,
heeding social convention and the putting up with the humdrum of
everyday life is the carnival. Indeed, there is a direct lineage between
the traditions of the seaside resort and those of the medieval
carnival. The word ‘holiday’ or ‘holy day’ has its origins in the one
day festivals prescribed during the Christianisation of central Europe
in the Dark Ages as controlled outlets for the wyrd pre-Christian rites
of indigenous people. The carnival became a ritualised form of
transgression from both Christian values and the social norms and
conventions of the time.
The seaside embodies the pre-modern social formation of the
carnivalesque; the ritualised inversion of accepted norms, or what
Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin describes as “life turned inside
out”. Though Bakhtin attributes the origins of the carnival to the
medieval festival known as the Feast of Fools, he contends that the term
can equally be applied to all aesthetic forms that disrupt the
boundaries of everyday existence. Central to this is the idea that
normal life is suspended during the carnival. In particular it subverts
hierarchical social structures and behaviours of deference, reverence,
piety, etiquette and other social norms and conventions. Indeed, many of
The Girls’ past works have explored the carnivalesque inversion of
normative cultural conventions, such as weddings, family portraiture,
garden parties, bathing and beauty pageants. The carnivalesque also
encompasses the blurring of vital binary divisions between rich and
poor, ugly and beautiful (through mask wearing), and powerful and meek -
through the ritual crowning of a ‘fool king’ or ‘king of the day’. The
carnival is a limbo or in-between state: an alter reality in which what
is considered to be good in society is momentarily killed off, later to
be re-born as the carnival king or queen is de-crowned thus returning
things to ‘normality’.
Another central concept of the carnivalesque is Bakhtin’s notion of
grotesque realism or the aesthetic of the carnival. Grotesque realism is
the stripping away of all social, cultural and moral gloss to both
reveal and amplify the material baseness of the human form. It is,
however, not simply an aesthetic of ugliness but one of truth; striving
to emphasise degradation, degeneration and disintegration is a material
celebration of the human animal in all its abject corporeal glory –
brutal, base, crude, dirty and carnal. Indeed, there is a long history
of artists who have used abjection to undermine the symbolic order of
society and to reveal some kind of existential truth beyond everyday
systems of meaning. Antonin Artaud’s ‘Theatre of Cruelty’, Hermann
Nitsch’s Actionist bloodbaths, Franco B’s self mutilation and Andreas
Serrano’s sacrilegious effigies were all attempts to reconcile subject
and object, human and world, and at the same time shatter the social and
cultural illusion of reality. The Girls have also explored the
threshold between acceptability and abjection, most notably in 'Corn
Fed' (2008). In this work the contorted female form takes the place of a
trussed chicken in a roasting tin, ready to be cooked and consumed.
This uncomfortable subject position is not only a direct challenge to
the male gaze as a consumer of the female form but also places the human
body in the position of meat. For Bakhtin, this debasing or degrading
of the human form is an essential feature of grotesque realism: "The
essential principle of grotesque realism is degradation, that is, the
lowering of all that is high, spiritual, ideal, abstract; it is a
transfer to the material level, to the sphere of earth and body in all
their indissoluble unity" (Bakhtin, 1965, 19-20). One artist whose work
best articulates this aesthetic is Paul McCarthy. The Californian artist
is best known for his visceral performance installations in which
grotesque figures appear menacingly, like horrific versions of
characters from Grimm’s fairy tales to enact bizarre rituals in dingy
storybook workshop settings. The addition of Ketchup, chocolate and
other food stuffs to substitute bodily secretions and excretions,
combined with harsh lighting and colours all add to the aura of
psychological disturbance and unease. Masks are a vital element in much
of McCarthy’s work as a means of erasing the reassuring features of
humanity from his performers. Likewise, The Girls have recently used
this devise in ‘Diamonds and Toads’ (2011). The performance installation
piece is based on the fairytale of two sisters, one of whom is given
the gift of producing jewels from her lips when she speaks in
recognition of her pure nature, and the other, the curse of emanating
forth repugnant items such as toads, snakes and worms as punishment for
her base character. The Girls, however, use masks to generate ambiguity;
stirring up doubt and clouding the crystal clear waters of this
moralistic tale. Moreover, their costumes and props add earthy weight to
the human form, bringing this floaty fable of black and white morality
down to earth with an obstreperous thud.
Masks, costumes and makeup are vital elements within The Girls’ work.
Indeed, it is carnivalesque concept of the ‘alter’ or the transformation
of identity that perhaps relates most strongly to their canon. Their
highly staged self-portraiture, like that of Cindy Sherman, draws
heavily on the notion of alters; that is, false or masked identities. In
'William and Harry' (1997), The Girls transgress both gender and class
to embody the two young princes, and in doing so unlock something of
their humanity.
The notion of parody is also central to The Girls’ work. And parody,
also has its roots in the carnival. In the Middle Ages, the mockery of
powerful or sacred figures, texts and rituals was sanctioned during
feasts under the legitimised license of laughter, ‘parodia sacra’. More
than simply venting individual frustration and diffusing dissention,
parody enabled the celebration of artifice essential to a harmonious
social world – it was a license to be silly and to see others as such.
Rather than hate your governing men, laws and rites, you could simply
parody them for one day with no recourse. In dystopias such as that of
George Orwell’s “1984”, such mockery is forbidden, therefore throwing
the social world out of balance and generating a climate of fear and
loathing.
The seaside holiday is structured around a built-in tolerance of minor
transgressions, like unhealthy eating (fish and chips), gambling (arcade
games), cross-dressing (end of pier pantomimes), impersonating figures
of authority (stag and hen nights), and sensory excess (fairground
rides). Indeed, the environment of the seaside resort facilitates a kind
of alter reality where social norms are inverted and the pursuit of
pleasure enables not only the avoidance of pain but is also a means of
eliminating the sense of boredom, pre-determination and fate experienced
in everyday life. Stag and Hen nights are an example of a carnivalesque
happening - an organised pseudo-event that allows the bride or groom to
‘let their hair down’ for one night only. During a stag or hen ‘do’
certain types of transgressive behaviours are not only permitted but
actively encouraged. Cross-dressing, drinking to excess, kissing a
member of the same sex or even, dare say it, sleeping with someone met
on the night, are all permissible in an unspoken way for the prospective
bride or groom; who occupies the liminal or in-between state between
youth and adulthood, singledom and marriage. Even stripping the groom
naked and tying him to a lamp post, which under normal circumstances
would be viewed as a criminal activity, becomes a permitted
transgression, which police will turn a blind eye to. In a sense, stags
and hens are not responsible for their actions; they are simply enacting
a socially constructed performance in a twilight limbo land where
anything goes so long as it has gone before. They are the objects of a
collective social dream that cannot exist without the glow of the
mimetic subjectivity that they bath in – the universal carnival of
everyday ethics. Hens parading their train through a moment of pink
lycra magic, become their own carnival float; a reassurance to the world
that nothing too sinister is happening to society.
The carnivalesque is also manifest in many forms of seaside
entertainment. For example, an arcade game momentarily gives its players
a unique status, defined by both their significance in beginning the
game and entering its world, and insignificance once they have stepped
out of that domain. The arcade game forces its player to grapple with
the primal constructs of superstition, catharsis, death and renewal. In
the carnivalesque world of the seaside resort, participation offers the
opportunity to buck against modernity’s sterilisation of nature and
return to a primal state of consciousness. Indeed, the carnivalesque
concept of crowning and de-crowning mirrors the experience of winning
and losing in an arcade game. The concepts of crowning/de-crowning,
winning/losing relate that of death/re-birth, a construct that can be
found in many religions including paganism; the notion that everything
is cyclical and seasonal.
Punch and Judy shows illustrate perfectly the narrative of the carnival
or ‘life turned inside out’. The story in its traditional form turns
inside-out that which we consider to be right and wrong, inverting
social norms and venerating anti-social behaviour. Throughout each
performance Mr. Punch averts punishment for mistreating his wife and
child by bludgeoning various characters of authority to death with his
‘slapstick’. Indeed, earlier versions of the puppet play involve the
appearance of a hang man, whom upon attempting to enforce justice upon
Mr. Punch, is tricked into putting his own head in the noose. The show
also originally contained the macabre characters of a ghost, the grim
reaper and the Devil; all of whom were defeated in Punch’s battle for
total impunity. Indeed it is no coincidence that The Girls chose to
portray themselves as Punch and Judy in a commission for Loud Tate 2010
(in response to Tate Britain’s 'Rude Britannia' exhibition (2010), for
this grotesque duo are the archetypal figureheads of carnivalesque
transformation.
Transformation is a key feature of seaside entertainments, whether of
appearance, by means of dressing up or standing behind a themed cut out
and posing for a seaside portrait, or state, by going on a fairground
ride to thrill or scare you into a condition of sublime terror. Indeed,
the perceived pleasure of fairground rides stems from the eighteenth
century notion of the sublime; the same aesthetic fad that drove artists
and early tourists to wander the craggy passes of the Swiss Alps in
search of breathtaking views that would induce feelings of terror. Again
this relates to the notion of the threshold or in-between state, as the
sublime is a subjective moment of looking toward or perceiving a point
of mortal transition from a safe distance. In the case of a fairground
ride, as we are safely suspended high above the ground, what we perceive
is the potential of our own mortality. In a sense we are suspended
between life and death. Thus, upon exiting the ride we are reborn; so
the fairground ride serves as catharsis and a release from the mundanely
of everyday life.
One of the most interesting forms of seaside entertainment from the
perspective of transformation is the hall of mirrors. The mirror image
is predominantly what we think of as ourselves and therefore any
deformation of this affects how we perceive the self. The French
philosopher Jacques Lacan argues that the stage of development in which
children recognise themselves in the mirror is pivotal to the creation
of the ego. He suggests that during the ‘mirror stage’ there is a
mismatch between a child’s physiological unity and the wholeness that it
perceives in the mirror. In other words, whilst a child may be clumsy
and uncoordinated in real life, in the mirror they are recognised as a
whole, complete ‘me’. The ego is produced via language in the symbolic
order; the mirror image becomes not only a symbol for the unified
subject but also a signifier for the self; a signifier for ‘you-ness’.
In life drawing classes at school, I remember being told to draw what
you see, not what you think you see. And indeed one of the key
challenges in art is in overcoming the desire to represent the obvious;
to create a mere signifier for something. A tree for example is not
simply a green cloud-shape on top of a brown rectangle; it is a complex
physical object, much of which is invisible behind its intricate surface
or below ground. What the hall of mirrors does, is allows us to see the
world as it is by showing us something different from that which we
expect to see. In a world obsessed with body image and indeed bodily
perfection, it is refreshing for us to be confronted with a self image
so alien and out of proportion that our real life bum’s don’t really
‘look big in this’ anymore.
The problem with the carnivalesque is that in today’s world of moral
uncertainty it is uncomfortable. We no longer live in a world of moral
absolutes but instead one of carnivalesque ambiguity with endless
opportunities for transgression: excessive consumerism and even cosmetic
surgery to enable our own transformations and mask our identities;
ever-more graphic and distasteful horror movies to push the boundaries
of moral and aesthetic acceptability; computer games in which we can
kill without consequence - rebellion without cause. However, The Girls
have always sort out the uncomfortable, the un-categoriseable, the
un-definable and the in-between state between what we know and what we
don’t. And, if the purpose of art is to make you see the world in a
different way, then there is no more different a way of seeing than
theirs. The Girls' work is the very embodiment of the carnivalesque
because it reflects a carnivalesque society. Popular seaside pleasures
are not quaint, archaic, marginalised and restricted to the coast but
are all around us. One hundred years ago the Grand Grotesque Parade
represented a strangely upper class form of exuberance and excess.
However, the democratisation of luxury in the twenty-first century has
meant that we all seemingly get the opportunity to take part in today’s
grotesque revelry. Moreover, we are all equal, or at least appear equal,
in the everyday carnival of today’s Britain. The Grand Grotesque Parade
therefore, has a peculiar resonance, as we question the value and very
meaning of carnivalesque transgression in today’s society.
