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Guy YedwabWriting The EssayPolitics And Memory In The Artistic SpaceEvery thought or work of art can be seen, in one light, as a product of the cultural history whichled up to its formation. Both Ngugi wa Thiong'o in “Enactments of Power” and Andre Aciman in“Shadow Cities” look at the spaces in which art happens with regard to the cultural history which gave birth to them; and, fittingly, each of their interpretations is the product of their own cultural history.To Andre Aciman, art is to be viewed as a slice of the everyday life of the culture. He views his“home” in Straus Park through that lens: he, as a foreigner, looks to Straus Park to see a mirror of thehomes he has left behind. He examines the Greek, the Italian, the German, and the French areas of NewYork; like Aciman, they live in a place that is based off of their idealizations of home. Exiled from their own homes, they have projected their own idyllic homes onto Straus Park to feel comfort. The uniqueflavor of the works of art which he imagines and experiences existing in the park—whether it's the1930s recordings of Beethoven, or the statue of Mnemosyne—serve to anchor the place with a beautiful work of the familiar. Whether or not the art is the most beautiful, it is a piece of culture and“home” which anchors the wandering exiles of the world to their newfound homes.For Ngugi wa Thiong'o, however, art is anything but everyday. He examines the structures of  power which control the spaces of artwork. This is not surprising: his cultural history is that of Kenya,an oppressed state for most of his life under the British colonial powers and equally oppressed under the dictatorial postcolonial government. For him, putting up a play is not as simple as booking a theater  —he discovers himself bumping up against the gulf between the Kenyan culture and the lingeringremains of the British power structure. His conclusion of art and its spaces, therefore, is that artists seek to make people free and make the spaces free for creation; governments seek to constrict people andalways attempt to constrict the spaces in which they work through permits, licences, and passports.Each is attempting to examine their power by provoking the other; artists enjoy the subversive satirewhich has the potential to spark anti-government thought, and governments attempt to stifle such
 
criticisms and replace them with sycophantic, controllable displays of “performance” such as publicarrests, public hangings, or military marches.When I visited the 14
th
St./8
th
Ave. subway station, I felt immediately as though I was lookinginto a slightly different relationship between art and space. To a degree, both essayists seemed to beright on the mark; something about the bronze-work, the non-threatening shapes, the use of culturalfigures (such as the early 20
th
Century suits, police uniforms, and gambling symbols) seemed to recallthe late 19
th
Century or early 20
th
Century. And this was fitting: the space in question was the New York Subway, a product of the height of the Industrial Revolution in America; these figures and this style of art seemed to leap right out of that period. And one half of Ngugi's equation did seem to fit: the artistwas creating a freer space. There was something about the small, out-of-the-way figures which mademe see the subway platform as more than simply an in-between place, more than just a dead-end. After seeing it, I noticed the buskers at the other stations a little more, realized the potential of performancein the subway. It seemed like a genuine
 place
, like a Point A or a Point B rather than the line connectingthem. It also seemed, in its own non-threatening way, to be slightly... unnerving. I was surprised to seea figure of a police officer who was in the tell-tale position of clearing out a homeless old woman. Iwas surprised to see a business executive whose head was a bag of money, as though he lacked anyidentity beyond his own greed. I was surprised to see a two-faced gambling lizard. And in the most out-of-the-way corner, in a place about to be trampled by passers-by, there was the figure of an immigrantwoman and her son. Her gesture was that of holding him back to protect him, as though he might getstepped on if he stands in anyone's way.They seemed to stand up for the rights of the poor, the rights of those the establishment forgot.They reminded me of the inscription, now unread, at the base of the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free.” This, of course, is a hugely influential pieceof New York culture. But at the same time, the yearning for freedom and the burden of the poor seemedlike things which I would have expected our government to deemphasize if, as Ngugi said,governments aim to constrict and to control. As Ngugi said, free movement is controlled by passports
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