Art and Memory: Reflecting on Recent Losses in the Creative World

On 4 October 2023, the arts community mourned Marijke De Roover, the Belgian artist whose theatrical explorations of pop culture and queer identity transformed performance art. Her exhibition, Live, Laugh, Limerence at Kunsthalle Wien (2020), showcased a unique blend of humour and vulnerability rooted in intimacy. De Roover’s karaoke performances, both communal and isolating, established her as a distinctive voice in the field. “She taught us to see ourselves, not as static beings, but as protagonists in an ongoing operatic drama,” remarked curator Elke Van Campenhout during a recent panel at deSingel in Antwerp.

Just days earlier, on 28 September 2023, Sliman Mansour passed away in Jerusalem. His five-decade career focused on visualising the Palestinian experience. Works like Camel of Hardship (1973) and Jamila (1976) became symbols of Palestinian resistance, crafted from local materials such as mud and straw. Mansour, a founding member of the League of Palestinian Artists, often described art as a means of preservation. “If we lose our culture, we lose ourselves,” he stated during a 2016 lecture at Birzeit University.

Though distinct in medium and message, De Roover and Mansour shared a dedication to storytelling that transcended traditional art forms. Their deaths raise critical questions: How will future audiences engage with their works? Will institutions archive and promote their legacies, or will grassroots efforts take on this responsibility?

De Roover’s work blurred the lines between fine art and popular entertainment, challenging the sanitisation of her themes. Her archives, primarily performance-based, require specialised preservation strategies, including video documentation and digital ephemera. According to the Flemish Institute for Archiving (VIAA), efforts are underway to collaborate with her estate to digitise key works. However, as critic Jan Verwoert noted in Afterall, “The live element of De Roover’s performances is irreplicable; what remains must ignite the imagination without flattening the sensuality of her practice.”

Mansour’s legacy presents different challenges. Many key works remain in private collections across the Middle East, Europe, and the United States. The Palestinian Museum in Birzeit plans a retrospective in 2025, coinciding with what would have been Mansour’s 80th birthday. However, museum director Adila Laïdi-Hanieh acknowledges logistical and political hurdles. “To transport Mansour’s works is to navigate borders both physical and ideological,” she stated in a recent interview. “But to not do so is to risk their erasure.”

Both artists prompt a broader conversation about memory in the art world. Institutions often canonise figures posthumously, risking the reduction of complex bodies of work to singular narratives. De Roover’s playful yet critical approach to societal norms might be reconstructed as queer didacticism, while Mansour’s personal engagement with Palestine’s struggles may be absorbed into monolithic representations of conflict art.

For younger artists, these complexities offer both caution and inspiration. Glasgow-based interdisciplinary artist Laila El Haddad reflects on Mansour’s influence, noting that his tactile materials encouraged her to explore her Palestinian heritage. Meanwhile, Berlin-based performance artist Theo Linders cites De Roover as pivotal in integrating karaoke into their work as a mode of queer resistance. “Marijke didn’t just perform; she created a vocabulary,” Linders stated during a talk at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin.

The stakes are high for audiences encountering these works anew and for institutions tasked with their stewardship. As Van Campenhout succinctly put it: “Legacy is not static. It is a conversation we must actively participate in, lest it calcify into mere eulogy.” Through retrospectives, digital archives, or direct inspiration, the art community has both an opportunity and an obligation to keep these conversations dynamic.

Yet, the unresolved question lingers: Who decides how we remember? For artists like De Roover and Mansour, whose works resist easy categorisation, the answer may not emerge in this generation. Their art demands that we engage with complexity, honouring their lives and the ongoing dialogue they initiated.