Sam Clague

Under Heaven’s Heel

Toi Pōneke, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, New Zealand

25 March - 21 April 2023

Under Heaven’s Heel is an eclectic survey of the oppressive economic and social practices of capitalism dating back at least 500 years. Albrecht Dürer’s 1525 plan for the Monument to the Vanquished Peasants presents a symbolic historical moment about which the exhibition is organised. The design for this monument appeared in Dürer’s Painter’s Manual, and depicts a monument constructed of the fruits of the peasant’s labour, stacked with mathematical precision, and crowned by the figure of a seated peasant with a sword protruding from his back.

Dürer’s design refers to the recently concluded German Peasants War of 1524-25, in which peasant uprisings plagued the political and religious elite of Central Europe, leading to mass slaughter of the peasantry with what we might now call (in hollywood-military parlance) ‘extreme prejudice’. These conflicts had been historically framed as the product of moral deficiency in the working class, but were reevaluated by Friedrich Engels in the wake of the revolutionary European uprisings of 1848-49, as a proto-communist movement. In this design we see an early testament to the binary struggle between capitalist and socialist/communist ideologies, and the motif of the betrayed peasant, sword jutting from his back, recurs throughout the exhibition.

The basic plot of this historical drama has reverbated down through the centuries. Particularly fresh in contemporary memory is the United States’ campaign of imperial terrorism, enacted throughout the last century upon countries who attempted to implement socialist policies to the disadvantage of multinational corporations. The German Peasants war, too, was ignited by an attempt to improve material conditions for the masses. A document entitled ‘The Twelve Articles’ laid out the demands of the peasantry upon their masters, attempting to relieve the oppressive policies enacted upon the serfs. The demands were by no means egregious, and for the most part sought to regain liberties lost within living memory, such as access to the resources in the communal lands and forests that had been requisitioned by the ruling classes.

Under Heaven’s Heel begins with a series of paintings depicting a giant hand gesturing, directing, and interceding in the affairs of small grotesque humanoid figures who gather below. These paintings take inspiration from Philip Guston’s 1978 painting The Line in which a large hand emerges from a cloud, scoring a line upon the Earth’s surface, invoking the otherwise invisible presence of the organisational power of the ruling class, or perhaps some divine malevolence.

Accompanying the paintings are sculptural renditions of ‘Fasces,’ ancient symbols of state power believed to date to the Etruscan civilisation, but heavily utilised throughout Roman civilisation. The ‘Fasces’ was a bundle of sticks bound together with an axe, and acted as a mobile toolkit for corporal punishment and executions. It is also the origin of the term Fascist and was widely used by the Fascist governments of WW2, particularly the Italians who coined the term fascist after the fasces. Unlike the swastika, this symbol lives on and can be found throughout the decorations and designs of modern western nations. Most notably, two Fasces are are displayed either side of the speaker’s rostrum in the House Chamber of the US Capitol Building, as well as one above the door leading out of the Oval Office. Constructed from more modern materials, these sculptures refer to the petty tyrants and bureaucratic functionaries who enforce the status quo of globalised oppression.

Although over 500 years old, this subject matter remains as vital and relevant as ever, and will continue to so long as the majority of the global population remains under the yoke of insane, plundering oligarchies.