In "The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy" (1949) Georges Bataille presents his economic theory. Rather than looking at notions of scarcity, Bataille developed in the essay the concept of excess: in the three volumes of "The Accursed Share" (Consumption, The History of Eroticism, and Sovereignty), the author argues that civilization reveals its order most clearly in the treatment of its surplus energy, that excessive and non-recuperable part of any system that can't be invested but must be expended or it will cause a destructive outpouring, including war.
Bataille's essay provides the title for a group exhibition - featuring nine artists and artists' groups - currently on at Edinburgh's Talbot Rice Gallery. But while Bataille looked at excess, "The Accursed Share" (until 27 May) moves from the theme of debt from a global perspective.
The measure of what people owe is indeed intended here as the fundamental principle of human societies, but the theme is interpreted from different points of views. For example, monetary debt implicitly implies the sovereign figurehead on the banknotes and points therefore at colonisation, enslavement and exploitation of resources.
The exhibition opens with Cian Dayrit's tapestries, made in collaboration with farm-workers, fisherfolk and the indigenous minority in the Philippines, the artist's home. Dayrit is not just an artist, but an activist and a journalist in his practice as he works alongside local communities and develops his projects through interviews and historical sources.
In the Philippines the peasant (magsasaka) sector comprises 75% of the population and Dayrit's works create textile maps showing the historical and contemporary forms of oppression and corruption that damage the lives of the locals. "Tree of Life in the State of Decay and Rebirth" (a collaboration with Henry Caceres), for instance, reproduces a diagram of the feudal systems that continues to shape the Philippines to this day and that is represented as stemming from six roots. The latter include imperialism and capitalism and generate branches such as cheap labour, militarisation and ethnocide.
But there's more to discover in Dayrit's works, including systems of debts and dependency that oppress farmers, while a few landowning families retain the majority of ownership.
On ancient maps, cartographers drew sea monsters to enchant viewers while educating them or to imply that they didn't know what was out there; on these maps symbolical monsters include governments, ruling elite families and multinational corporations that exploit resources. Rather than talking about cartography in the case of Dayrit's practice, we can talk about textile counter-cartography, a new medium that doesn't only chart territories, but explores them while subverting power structures.
Dayrit's "Valley of Dispossession" (2021), for example, is a large textile map embroidered with geological features and provincial boundaries but its legend invites to consider the various abuses of land and people, so symbols like gold talismans embossed with bullets or burning indigenous stilt houses indicate military presence, while gold talismans embossed with tree stumps or sombreros indicate aggressive development projects or large landholdings.
Natural resources are also explored in Sammy Baloji's Untitled (2018/2023): the found copper mortar-shell casings decorated by First World War soldiers (after the conflict they became desirable interior design objects) are displayed in the gallery with potted plants from the Katanga region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Millions of Africans died in this area under the regime of King Leopold II of Belgium and, for Baloji, copper from the Katanga region is a symbol, standing for the people forced into labour in the mines and in the extraction industry.
Baloji recycled the mortar-shell casings, but Croatian artist Hana Miletić explores the themes of care and repair instead as forms of labour in the world. Her "Materials" series comprises textile reproductions of impromptu bandage-like mending done to a variety of objects, such as car headlights or patched windows. The shapes of the work look abstract, but they actually represent photographs of makeshift repairs that Miletić takes in urban spaces.
In the artist's practice the concept of debt is considered as the debt we owe to mothers (weaving being a tradition in Miletić's family) and to those who hand down techniques and allow them to circulate (the artist often created textile installations in collaboration with groups of women of diverse social and cultural origin).
The concept of circulation is behind Moyra Davey's series "Copperheads" (1990 - ongoing): the artist photographed the Lincoln Cent, minted since 1909, using a macro lens to create large, detailed colour prints. The images reveal the dirt and scars on the coins, juxtaposing worthlessness and value, simple metal and state power, while her system of folding and posting the work to exhibiting galleries leaves other traces of circulation and material reality.
Money is also the main inspiration behind Hanna von Goeler and Lubaina Himid's works. Von Goeler paints on defunct banknotes: her "Migration" series focuses on birds, representing nature traversing human territories, but also its vulnerability. At the same time, and especially when the artist employs for example a Syrian bird on Greek currency to hint at the refugee crisis, the birds turn into symbols and metaphors.
In Lubaina Himid's "Naming the Money", the theme is not used as the main medium of her work: the latter consists in a series of hand-painted, cut-out figures in brightly coloured costumes.
They represent the enslaved Africans depicted in history paintings of the European Royal Courts in conversation with each other. From anonymous signifiers of wealth, Himid gives them the dignity of individuality, adding on the back of the figures their own name and the name given them by their owners to remind us about their false westernised identities. In this way the artist makes a comment about the sense of belonging and people ripped from one life into another (a key theme in our times as well with the continuous flows of migrants arriving in Europe every day who at times are deported back to the countries they ran away from).
Considering the current global debt, the cost of living crisis and unaddressed colonialism, "The Accursed Share" reveals itself as a compact yet poignant exhibition that helps us investigating the theme of debt and exploring how artists and communities can analyse it, rebel against it and challenge it.
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