Shia LaBeouf collaborator: I don’t think you need a sign saying ‘Don’t murder the artist’

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/dec/06/shia-labeouf-art-show-collaborators-first-interview

Version 0 of 1.

Shia LaBeouf’s shock revelation last week that he was whipped, stripped and raped by a woman in Los Angeles on Valentine’s Day has become one of the most talked-about celebrity stories of the year. The confession was all the more extraordinary for the seemingly bizarre circumstances of the alleged assault. It took place while the actor was performing in a gallery, as part of a collaboration with two young artists, with a paper bag over his head inscribed with the legend “I am not famous anymore”.

A media storm erupted as cynicism about contemporary art and celebrity culture collided with stereotypes about sexual assault; columnists, bloggers and social media users clashed over whether the alleged crime was a publicity stunt or part of the performance art. The revelation came in a Dazed interview with the 28-year-old Transformers star, which was also staged as a performance called #INTERVIEW; after exchanging emails, LaBeouf and the writer Aimee Cliff met in person and sat face-to-face in silence for an hour, filming each other with GoPro cameras strapped to their heads.

Over the past year, LaBeouf’s entire life has seemed like it might be an act. His increasingly erratic behaviour has rarely been out of the gossip columns – from walking out of press conferences to getting arrested for slapping fellow theatregoers during a Broadway performance of Cabaret. But at the same time, the actor has attempted to subvert his public image through a series of performance art pieces that play on his very public problems, and it’s never been clear where reality ends and the performance begins. In February, he began a project called #IAMSORRY, during which the alleged assault occurred, in which hundreds of people queued outside a Los Angeles gallery for a one-to-one encounter with him. Billed as a penance for his plagiarism of comic book writer Daniel Clowes, it borrowed heavily from the work of performance artist Marina Abramovic. Days earlier, at the Berlin premiere of Nymphomaniac, LaBeouf responded to questions about his sex scenes by quoting without attribution a surreal statement by Eric Cantona, in another reference to his plagiarism scandal. He later appeared on the red carpet wearing the now-infamous paper bag over his head.

Now matters have become more serious. But questions remain. Why did not one of the “hundreds of people” LaBeouf says saw his alleged rapist walk out of the Cohen gallery – people who posted hundreds of tweets, YouTube videos and blog posts from the event – mention the incident? These questions prompted a backlash from other, largely feminist, commentators who argued they reflected negative social attitudes about male victims of rape.

The duo – British artist Luke Turner, 32, and Finnish artist Nastja Säde Rönkkö, 29 – published two “important clarifications” on Twitter. The artists said they put a stop to “the incident” as soon as they became aware of it and “ensured that the woman left”. But they also tweeted that they didn’t know what was happening and that the woman had “swiftly exited” before they could stop her. Far from ending speculation, this just fuelled it. Piers Morgan lambasted Turner on Twitter, later writing that the incident was “a repulsive insult to every single person who has ever been genuinely raped”.

When they meet me, the pair seem anxious to say the right thing, sometimes correcting themselves, and they are clearly anxious to put the incident in the context of their collaboration. Turner has brought some lecture notes, which he quotes from and offers to email to me. The “metamodernist” theory they subscribe to is not for the faint of heart, and it embraces contradiction. In his 2011 Metamodernist Manifesto – the authorship of which was later attributed to LaBeouf in another nod to his plagiarism scandal – Turner writes that “it must be art’s role to explore the promise of its own paradoxical ambition by coaxing excess towards presence” ... Thus metamodernism shall be defined as the mercurial condition between and beyond irony and sincerity, naivety and knowingness, relativism and truth, optimism and doubt”.

At the start of the interview Turner insists they can’t say any more about the alleged rape. But as the pair talk through the set up of #IAMSORRY, more details emerge. Unfortunately, instead of clarifying things, they mostly invite further conjecture and confusion.

Here’s how it was supposed to run: participants entered a room where Rönkkö stood behind a table bearing an eclectic array of objects related to LaBeouf’s life and career – including a bullwhip, a Transformers toy, a bottle of Jack Daniels and folded notes bearing mainly derogatory Tweets about him. They were invited to take one into the next room, where the actor sat at a small wooden table. Once she had led the participants into the next room, the artist would leave. “There was another exit [at the back],” she says, explaining that she did not walk through the space but took another route to the exit. “I was waiting behind the other door and I could take them out through the back of the gallery.”

So, I ask, how long could people stay with Shia? “We had no set time,” Rönkkö replies. “We didn’t tell them what they were supposed to do.” What about the end of the encounter, then? If she led them out of the room, did that mean she could see what was happening? There’s a pause and then Rönkkö says: “I couldn’t see Shia.”

OK. But she doesn’t clarify how she knew when to lead people away. And later she expresses concern as to how her comments might be interpreted. “I’m not sure I should have said that,” she says, looking to Turner, who seems less worried by this particular detail. However, he later adds, with reference to the rape allegation: “I never feel I have a right to ask for details.”

That doesn’t sit comfortably with the decision to intervene on Twitter. So why did they do it? “People were saying it was this show in which you could do whatever they wanted to Shia, and that it was a publicity stunt,” says Turner. “I don’t think we need to say it was not a publicity stunt. We wanted to give clarity without speculating and adding. There was so much conjecture printed as fact. It’s not our place to say certain things.” In somewhat contradictory fashion, Rönkkö goes on: “We’ve been transparent about it, but what happens afterwards is beyond our control.”

Part of the problem is that, while they didn’t invite the attack on LeBeouf, they now see it as indelibly linked to their art. “It is not part of the work, but it is at the same time, paradoxically,” Turner says. But when they co-opt it in that way, and when they have spent the past year turning much of the actor’s life into performance art, can they at least understand scepticism? Not really. “This isn’t a postmodern critique,” Turner says. “There is no ‘ha ha, I got you!’” Rönkkö, for her part, says that she is shocked by the response. “It’s ingrained prejudice,” she says. “It’s hard to gauge. I’ve been thinking about what they would write if Shia was a woman. I hope all this will bring some important conversations.” Turner adds: “Without wanting to give the impression that that was the intent. This is not manipulated in any way. It’s a genuine, sincere pursuit of something meaningful.”

Do they regret not having a code of conduct for participants, particularly given LaBeouf’s notoriety? The actor has been the victim of stalking, after all. The pair say there was a discussion of risk, and although there was no security inside the performance, there was a guard at the gallery entrance checking for firearms, and several others outside, whom they think were hired by Shia’s management. But Turner adds: “I don’t think you need a notice on the wall saying ‘Do not murder the artist’.”

The pair, who met while studying at Central Saint Martins art school in London, are keen that the incident is seen in the wider context of their collaboration with LaBeouf, thecampaignbook.com, which came about after the actor approached Turner in January via Twitter, where they began “a dialogue”. As it turned out, the actor was filming in London, and subsequently turned up on the artist’s doorstep. An intense discussion of art history, contemporary art, LaBeouf’s films, fashion and his acting method ensued. Turner says: “He just came into my flat and talked about his love of Joseph Beuys and performance art. I was showing him my Duchamp books.”

In moments like this, Turner seems a bit starstruck. He describes LeBeouf as “incredibly brave” and “a very rare person”. But he says #IAMSORRY was not about celebrity culture per se: rather it explores how people use their interactions with celebrities on social media to promote themselves, and vice versa. “I think it was a journalist who first took the bag off [LaBeouf] and took a photo. People would see photos online and everyone wanted a selfie – it became a ritual. Take a photo, a selfie, a selfie with the bag on and the bag off.”

On the last day of #IAMSORRY all the objects were removed from the table. The pair say this decision had nothing to do with the alleged rape, which happened two days earlier. Rönkkö explains: “By the Saturday people had a checklist. It became apparent that they knew what they would do. It was an attempt to change the atmosphere back to what we can control – not control, scratch that – to have the magic back.”

Is that partly their frustration with the focus on the rape allegation – that it has distracted from the art? Turner says: “It’s sad for the three of us. What was taken from 18,000 words [of the Dazed interview] was violence. By negating the rest of it, you’re negating his [LaBeouf’s] agency – the rest of his voice. Everything in that email correspondence [with Dazed] is on his own terms, and it’s clearly him attempting to claim back his sense of representation, or soul, from the media. You can see the journey he goes on. The overwhelming outcome [for LaBeouf] is one of the artist as aesthetic athlete … building oneself up from a genuinely dark place and healing from art and empathetic engagements. The overwhelming resonance of the work was beautiful. The overwhelming sense was a positive one.”

Did they know he was going to mention the rape in the Dazed interview? They later clarify via email: “[W]e weren’t aware what Shia was going to write in his emails to Aimee before he wrote them. We knew that he had brought this up before publication, since we saw the emails shortly after they were sent.”

Rönkkö and Turner clearly have a sophisticated understanding of social media and its relationship to celebrity culture. But I was a student at Central Saint Martins, like them, and to me their framing of the incident smacks of an art school mindset that risks riling the general public, especially in such harrowing circumstances. It’s not clear if they recognise this. (Turner says at one point, “Going to art college is a means of living your life.”)

Surely they can see why people would focus on a crime involving a major celebrity rather than their art or LaBeouf’s personal journey? In a follow-up email, they say: “Yes, of course it is absolutely understandable. The nature of some of the discussion and conjecture in the media, however, is dismaying. It is also sad that the meaning, transparency and radical honesty of the #INTERVIEW piece has somewhat got lost amongst all of this.”

During the interview Turner observes: “We’re very aware of what we’re doing [and] we’re aware the mainstream media mocks the art world.” He and Rönkkö seem sincere; earnest even. The gaps and contradictions in their account may well stem from their own confusion about the incident, and a genuine concern for LaBeouf’s privacy. But I cannot suspend a niggling doubt that another agenda is at play. In his emails to Dazed magazine, LaBeouf wrote: “People are less upset by a mystery they can’t explain than an explanation they can’t understand.” For once, he might have a point.

• This article was amended on 14 February 2015. An earlier version suggested, because of an addition made during the editing process, that Turner and Rönkkö had agreed to the interview because they had decided to speak out about the incident involving Shia LaBeouf. In fact they expected the interview to cover their practice as a whole. The article has also been amended to remove a suggestion that Turner and Rönkkö stayed quiet after LaBeouf’s revelation of the incident, and to correct a quote from the Metamodernist Manifesto. Turner and Rönkkö have responded to the article here.