Devised by Sydney based artist Deborah Kelly, the world wide public art event Tank Man Tango aims to teach, rehearse and exercise the exact steps undertaken by the iconic “tank man”, who on 5th June 1989, stood alone facing the army tanks on Tiananmen Square

For hundreds of people around the world, tank man tango: a tiananmen memorial (2009) was not simply art, an exhibit, but a dance they learned to make their own, to share and perform collectively as protest, or as vigil, from instructions on youtube in english, cantonese, german and mandarin. the project gave new meaning, dimensions and form to the notion of public art and the possibilities for protest.

The geographical distribution of the work is impressive. Kelly writes that “[Tank Man Tango] was made on June 4 in Perth, Brisbane, Sydney, Warrnambool, Daylesford, Hobart, Leipzig, Weimar, Bielefeld, Erfurt, Singapore, Mexico City, Melbourne, St Catharines in Ontario, Philadelphia, Auckland, Dunkerque, Belgrade, Athens, Richmond in Virginia, Bristol and in three different parts of Brussels. And maybe other places.”[1]

Kelly had to accept that Tank Man Tango would develop a life of its own in other hands, some with different intentions: “I love that people accepted it as a gift—no, as their right. Many didn’t let me know they were doing it, many didn’t know an artist, or even a person, had made it. Many I have found by sleuthing—some had intentions very different to mine. Some strangers did it somewhere in the US and subtitled it Dancing on the Grave of Maoist Atheism (Jesus!). In Athens, the artists who took it up there seemed to frame it in an understanding that the protestors of Tiananmen Square were demanding capitalism. I realise I undermine my own will for the work by releasing it so freely that people can and have filled it with their own meaning. But that makes it all the more interesting to me; the work’s own disseminated autonomy means I get to understand it newly, over and over.”[1]

[1] http://www.realtimearts.net/article/issue93/9564

Introduction – present argument – beyond representation

Cover can an artwork act as more than just an art object

Introduce the artwork -

Structure of presentation
Medium week 8
-Identify topic from reading.. an image can carry an experience of history and the experience of taking these images is as relevant as the scene portrayed

-Duscuss briefly the Auchwitz photo (show photos)
discuss how didi-huberman reads these images
discuss the counter arguements briefly
Discuss the christological reading

-intruduce the tankman tango (2min vid)
What is it, who did it
what is the historical relevance and source material
How does it relate to the reading
discuss christological reading
experience of taking the image
the act of creating the image, print, turning shroud, performance video

-conclusion
it doesnt matter if an image is proof of a truth, the image exists

Discuss the artwork

This artwork comprises two main forms, the performance and the video used ot create the performance

Name of artist (if known) : Deborah Kelly
Dates of artist (if known)
Title of work: Tank Man Tango
Date of work : 2009 - ongoing
Dimensions
Medium/media: Performance
Present location and original location : Multiple locations

Name of artist (if known) : Deborah Kelly
Dates of artist (if known)
Title of work: Tiananmen Memorial: Tank Man Tango Dance Instructions (English)
Date of work : 13 May 2009 - ongoing
Dimensions 6:9 ratio variable size
Medium/media: Performance
Present location and original location : Youtube : URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MziREAZ_WqA tankmantango account

3-5 key points about the work (you should use these as reference points for your oral presentation)
At least 2 bibliographic references in proper form. These must be scholarly - references to Wikipedia are not allowed.

Discuss the relevance to the Weekly reading – beyond representation

discuss reading
identify artwork
visual analysis of artwork
how does the artwork relate to the reading

discuss reading

1. Identify the author’s central argument and approach

2. Identify the textual and visual sources used to evidence the argument

3.Identify the main points of the argument

Identify the author’s central argument and approach

Central argument

First, photographs are not static but dynamic. They do not

merely mirror the real by freezing it but empathically4 convey an experience of history.

Second:The experience of taking those photographs is thus as relevant to historical truth as the scene that they present.

Identified the author and his opposition in opening statement

Identify the textual and visual sources used to evidence the argument

3.Identify the main points of the argument

First, photographs are not static but dynamic. They do not

merely mirror the real by freezing it but empathically4 convey an experience of history. The experience of taking those photographs is thus as relevant to historical truth as the scene that they present.

Introduction: introduces the photographs of the holocost and the way they were presented. Introduces Georges Didi-Huberman. Introduces the context that the photographs that were taken in a concetration camp. Finally outlines the structure of the essay, first paragraph page 2
Defines what Didi-Humbermans reading of the images is. Which is the central argument.
Discuss critics veiw of newest form of holocaust denial. The photographs do not show the gas chambers in action. The discussion revolves around two main views regarding “faith in the power of images”, that the existance of these images act as proof of the despite the attempt to erase all traces of extermination. The places of memory and the memory of the places. In other words, there should be no image because there is no image, and there is no image because there should be none.Didi-Huberman’s detractors’ reasoning is circular: there is no image of Auschwitz because Auschwitz exceeds imagination, and Auschwitz exceeds imagination because there is no image of it.
Art as History: images show neither everything nor nothing. Instead, they delineate the fragile place of a fleeting encounter between then and now, between there and here, between the invisible and the visible.images present a flash of history and history as mere flash. Such a dialectic of the visible arguably constitutes the keystone of Didi-Huberman’s history of art history,
discuss the conceptual theory of the print. For Didi-Huberman images present a flash of history and history as a mere flash. Which he relates to the print, a footprint, finger print, photographic print etc. The motion of the foot is indispensable- the walker must move away – for his print to become visible. The process of print therefore embodies the dialetical synthesis of presence and absense, of visibility and invisibility or the now and then.
Ad imaginem Auschwitzi Christological reading of the Holocaust. Focus on the The Shroud of Turis is not properly speaking a representation, image or portrait but a print of the face of christ. A phenomenological paradox, present and absent subverting resemblance and representation. As Paul put it “the image of the invisible God” which christian painters had been seeking for centuries. The Aushwitz images are? presented by Didi-Huberman just as the figure of Christ, displayed religiously as sacred relics. The victims turned into Christic, sacrificial figures, and the holocaust morphed to martydom.
“S’imaginer”: From Auschwitz to Mount Sinai, and Back …Didi-Huberman links the the process of creating the photographic image, He makes the connection to photographic processing in a chemical bath to the process of being Born again by immersion, the Christian and only the christian is in the likeness of God: only he bears the seal of the divine light. “Baptism reveals the iconic essence of the Christian in the same way as the filmm developer reveals the image on film.” The christian appears as the print of God. This link pushes the image into the realm of the mystical.