In ‘Barrier’ (1977 - 80) the animals arouse sympathy more easily. Two rhesus monkeys squat on a mirrored table against a glass partition that separates them from a set of beautifully crafted geometric forms - shining cones and pyramids of chrome, copper, porcelain and terra cotta, that demonstrate those levels of skill and knowledge which the monkeys will never attain and to which they cannot gain access. As in ‘Search’ and ‘Meeting’, fear, suspicion and anxiety are communicated through the soundtrack of animal cries and whispers. The threat to their safety is not immediately identifiable. There are no empty chairs or dangerous gadgets to suggest a human controller. They are alone with the achievements of mankind - nature confronts culture. Why, then, do the products of industrial society fill them with such alarm? Do they sense their own inadequacy in front of objects they cannot understand or control? At a basic level Masi’s installations are about power. Those who have access to knowledge also gain power, while those kept in ignorance are vulnerable to exploitation.

Animals have good reason to regard man’s achievements with caution – many species are in danger of extinction as a result of them. ‘During the twentieth century’, writes Berger ‘the internal combustion engine displaced draught animals in streets and factories. Cities, growing at an ever increasing rate, transformed the surrounding countryside into suburbs where field animals, or wild or domesticated, became rare. The commercial exploitation of certain species (bison, tigers, reindeer) has rendered them almost extinct. Such wild life as remains is increasingly confined to parks and game reserves. To the same degree as man has raised himself above the state of nature, animals have fallen below it: conquered and turned into slaves, or treated as rebels and scattered by force, their societies have faded away.’ Is technology taking us in a direction we wish to follow, or can we, like monkeys, only watch with dismay as it runs away with us? In other installations the animals’ fear is directed towards an unseen manipulator - the powerful ‘human understood’ - but in ‘Barrier’ there is nothing to indicate that anyone is in command of the situation. Does this reflect an even more serious state as outlined by Alvin Toffler in Future Shock? “today we face an even more dangerous reality : many social ills are less the consequence of oppressive control than of lack of control. The horrifying truth is that, so far as much technology is concerned, no one is in charge... We are aboard a train which is gathering speed, racing down a track on which there are an unknown number of switches leading to unknown destinations. Those destinations may not be in our interests. We have seen technology replace animals by machines. The silicon chip makes it possible to replace people with robots and computers - en masse, we have become as marginal to the economy as animals. The monkeys’ suspicion of the achievements of industry parallels our own dismay at the social implications of advanced technology’ .

In Denis Masi’s installations time has been suspended so the narrative unfolds through one’s dialogue with the work - through engagement with the issue raised. As a result there can be no satisfactory solution or catharsis - the spectator carries the problems home, the arguments continue. Like Mediaeval mystery plays, these theatrical tableaux are analogues of actual experience in which a moral dilemma is outlined, but not resolved. What, then, is the artist’s position in relation to the work and to his audience - is he merely a catalyst proposing and framing the discussion?

In his most recent work ‘Hidden Sign’ (1978 - 82) the artist appears himself, dressed in black. He enacts a number of destructive rituals - biting an eel to death and encasing a seagull, already bound in mummifying bandages, inside a coffin of black wood. Nature is destroyed - the artist reminds us of the dangers but offers no solutions. As in Brechtian theatre, responsibility is thrown into the audience’s lap.

Artists have come to be regarded as individuals with special powers like those of the shaman or healer, in touch with the well-springs of creativity and spontaneity lost to the rest of us. Masi rejects this mystification and its religious overtones, ironically preferring identification with evil and the will to power.

Morse Peckham’s analysis of the function of art within contemporary society affords a more useful parallel with Masi’s work. In Man’s Rage For Chaos he argues that art is a means towards biological adaption, a rehearsal that prepares us for the recognition and solution of actual problems: ‘Art is the exposure to the tensions and problems of a false world so that man may endure exposing himself to the tensions and problems of the real world. Of all men’s burdens, art is one of the most terrible and certainly the most necessary.’

Denis Masi’s work directs attention towards issues one may prefer to overlook or ignore. Their subject matter - the exercise of control over other lives, power, and conflicts of interest - are particular without being specific. Concern is the motivating force, a sense of responsibility its companions.

Sarah Kent

1982