Present laughter?

Zurich Dadaist Hans Richter said, “We destroyed, we insulted, we despised – and we laughed. We laughed at everything. We laughed at ourselves just as we laughed at Emperor, King and Country, fat bellies and baby-pacifiers. We took our laughter seriously; laughter was the only guarantee of the seriousness with which, on our voyage of self-discovery, we practised anti-art.”¹ Art and humour have been correlated in art history, including the time of Dada and avant-garde movements in the 1960s. As artists laughed at high art for its elitism, they were
ultimately criticising it by presenting an alternative role for art in society. In the same way, humour in contemporary art today also acts effectively to open up our perception and understanding of the world. There are many other ways to look at things differently and reveal the truth often hidden under the surface of society. While one can be aggressive or deconstructive, or use shock therapy to do that, humour is a way to create alternative path. Yet, because humour is so subjective and closely related to one’s natural character, cultural background, language or memories, its perception is so diverse that it is not easy to make everyone laugh at the same punch-line. Slapstick, such as seeing someone falling down on banana skin, is simply funny in a more universal way, but it doesn’t take us much further than that.

In this sense, The Hayward’s exhibition, ‘Laughing in a Foreign Language’, was a real challenge to see if art works using humour to talk about culturally specific issues could be more accessible than works which put those issues on the table more seriously or directly. It was also a lot about outsiders’ or culturally peripheral views, and how they could turn a situation from negative to positive. The show also
tested whether the audience could be actively curious, and delve into unknown cultures. For example, works based on texts and stories in English wouldn’t be understood by those who don’t understand the language, unless reading its visual and situational codes. For most of the works, the ultimate goal wasn’t to make people laugh, but to show them the complexity behind the laughter, and artists
were “taking their laughter seriously”.

Kant said “Laughter is an affectation arising from the sudden transformation of a strained expectation into nothing.”² If you are expecting something to make you laugh, it becomes harder to laugh. Having given the exhibition a title that suggested that it would be comic, I must sincerely accept some of the criticism that the show wasn’t actually funny. However, one could say that it did something else: it was
successful in that people were able to feel the complex, melancholic and helpless psychological state of the artists. Yet, it is also true that many people were actually laughing and giggling at some, if not all of the works. It is more difficult for us to accept something unfamiliar, but today’s ever-globalising world is about continuous friction and conflict with different values and thoughts. And I still think that humour could be a lubricant to keep our life going while coexisting with differences, as well as a secret ingredient to make it more engaging and tasty.