Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
etcetera
http://www.taipeibiennial.org/2008/TBArtists/ArtistContent.aspx?Language=iWtQXTY5yepbYP0ReEQvvxIHCRdaRaeW&cid=iWtQXTY5yepX4Hong2R7+6a42CI40IQh
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Wolfgang Tillmans
http://www.tillmans.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14&Itemid=11
Look, again
For 20 years Wolfgang Tillmans’ photography has been a sustained meditation on observation, perception and translation. His most recent major exhibition, ‘Lighter’, was held at the Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart, in Berlin. He talked to Dominic Eichler about intimacy, objects, community and politics, abstraction and representation
DOMINIC EICHLER Looking back over the last 20 years of your art-making, it is striking how you have circled and constantly returned to a diverse range of genres, modes of reproduction and printing techniques while exploring both figurative and abstract images, and that all of these approaches still find their place in your recent exhibitions and publications, such as Manual (2007). Do you think there is a particular kind of quality that makes for a ‘Tillmans’? WOLFGANG TILLMANS In terms of one repeated style, no, but there is an underlying approach that I hope gives everything I make a cohesion. I trust that, if I study something carefully enough, a greater essence or truth might be revealed without having a prescribed meaning. I’ve trusted in this approach from the start, and I have to find that trust again and again when I make pictures. Really looking and observing is hard, and you can’t do it by following a formula. What connects all my work is finding the right balance between intention and chance, doing as much as I can and knowing when to let go, allowing fluidity and avoiding anything being forced.
DE Years ago I was in a friend’s apartment where there was nothing on the white walls except a photograph of an autumn tree torn out of a magazine. I kept looking at it; it had a kind of aura about it, and in the end I couldn’t contain my curiosity any more and so I asked him who the picture was by. It was one of your images. And that’s the thing about many of your photographs – their subjects might be something seemingly really everyday, like a tree, friends or leftovers from a party, but there’s something singular about them, and it’s hard to say what it is exactly. WT I just think all images should be significant. They should be able to stand alone and say something about their particular subject matter. If they don’t do that, then why make them? The picture you mentioned is titled Calendar Leaves because it is so golden it could be in a calendar; I took it in upstate New York during the Indian summer of 1994. Trees have been photographed so many times. It’s always a question of: ‘Is this possible? Can I take a picture of this?’ DE So making images is partly about some kind of impossibility? WT Well, I wanted to capture my experience of this tree in the first degree. I wanted to photograph it knowing that it was really hard to do, but on the other hand I didn’t feel that I shouldn’t take a picture of, say, a sunset or the wing of an aeroplane or autumn foliage. I am knowing, but I try not to be cynical. At least some aspect of the picture has to be genuinely new; it can’t be a ‘me too’ picture. I feel things like these have been photographed or painted so often because they move people and I’m also moved in that moment, and in this I see myself in a long continuum of people making pictures of these larger subjects of life. Trees have interested artists for a long time. I guess they’re one of the most consistent things in life and on earth. DE Are you thinking about the translation of the experience into an image or work? WT Considering that translation or, metaphysically speaking, the process of transformation, is the central aspect of my work. The experience of something in real life doesn’t automatically make for a good work. I can only really photograph things that I understand in some way or another. It’s about whether you can look at something for 60 seconds; it’s very much about being able to bear reality. DE The golden melancholy of the autumn tree makes me think of the Douglas Sirk film Imitation of Life (1959). But I get the same mood from some of your abstract colour images, such as the streaky and stained, fleshy and azure ‘Silver’ pictures (mostly from 2006) or, for that matter, your photocopy-based works like photocopy (Barnaby) (1994), which involve so much longing for what is only partly there. WT Imitation of Life is a beautiful title but it’s not what I aim for because art is always different from life. You can try to get close to the feeling of what it’s like to be alive now, but the result of that is an art work, and that has its own reality. When I work on the non-figurative pictures in the darkroom or use photocopiers, it is a direct engagement with physical realities: the colour and intensity of my light sources or the electrostatic charge on the copier drums. I use them and play with them to make pictures possible. For instance, under the burden of all the clichés it’s not really possible to photograph Venice, but I still wanted to, so I made the photocopier-enlarged image Venice (2007), in which the details that indicate ‘Venice’ are reduced heavily. That makes them feel almost appropriated, but in fact all the photocopy pictures are based on photographs, which I took for this type of enlargement. DE The abstract colour works such as the ‘Silver’ group of pictures (1994–2008) and impossible colour V (2001) also involve signs of their making and process. WT impossible colour V is a large pink octagon placed on a larger white picture base. It’s actually a rectangle with the same proportions as 35 mm film that has been turned ever so slightly against a frame with the same proportions. Unlike my other abstract work, the ‘Silver’ images are mechanical pictures made by feeding them through a processing machine while it’s being cleaned, so they pick up traces of dirt and silver residue from the chemicals. Because they are only half fixed and the chemicals aren’t fresh, they slowly change hue over a few days. Sometimes I use this instability to create different shades and lines on them, before scanning and enlarging them to their final size. DE Then there are your three-dimensional pieces ‘Lighter’ (2005–8), which are physically creased and folded photographs. WT Some of them I expose to different coloured light sources in the darkroom after first folding them in the dark, and some are made in reverse order. Some are not folded at all – they only suggest the possibility of a fold – but they are all highly intricate. We are still blind to what it exactly is that makes a photograph so particular, so deeply psychological, even though it’s supposedly a mechanical medium. The ‘Lighter’ works are a continuation of the three-dimensional approach of the ‘paper drop’ pictures (2001–8) of hanging and flipped-over pieces of photographic paper. DE What would you say to people who interpret your later abstract work as a retreat into some kind of formalism? WT Look again. It’s not a retreat. If colour is a retreat, then I checked into that retreat early on. The video of the moving disco lights Lights (Body) (2002) or the astronomical pictures like Sternenhimmel (Starry Sky, 1995), are all about light and colour. I never separate that experience from a social one. David Wojnarowicz, one of the most socially engaged artists of recent history, repeatedly says in his video ITSOFOMO (1990): ‘Smell the flowers while you can.’ How can that be a retreat? You have to be pretty senseless not to allow artists the freedom to deal with the whole width of their experiences and explore their medium to the extreme. The abstracted picture of that golden tree you mentioned earlier on is from 1994, when I was in the midst of making the so-called realist work that I was first known for. I was then, as I am now, involved in seeing and transforming that into pictures. DE How much system or discipline and control is involved in getting what you want? WT It sounds a bit square, but I’ve found that the chances of getting a good result are just so much higher when you spend at least eight hours a day on your work. That work is, of course, all play [Laughing]. Seriously, the biggest challenge is not always to do the right thing but at times to do wrong things, to act irresponsibly in the light of constant demands. When artists start out, they all have some sort of alternative vision in mind, and then career and success, or equally the lack of it, grind most of them down to become bored and boring. It’s really the biggest challenge not to believe your own system, so the discipline is, strangely, to be undisciplined. DE You’ve mentioned before the fact that in learning about the world you also inherit certain kinds of images, and that every image you make is going to have a relationship to the image banks that you’ve inherited from your culture. That makes me think of your shots of men’s bum cracks. [Laughs] WT There is always something unsettling about fearless looking as opposed to coy allusion or shockingly flashing. To look without fear is a good subversive tool, undermining taboos. Study the soldier or riot policeman, make him an object of formal considerations, see him as wearing drag. Look at things the way they are. DE With your cultural baggage alongside? WT Yes, even though I feel that after 150 years or so, the subject matter of a woman’s exposed crotch isn’t owned by Gustave Courbet. I attribute these overlaps to certain pictures being in your milk from a young age, so to speak. But still, once a picture is in the world as an object, it’s impossible not to think about your relationship to it. Is it too ironic? Is it too referential? Not everything is strategy because, despite these considerations, what is uppermost in that moment is to be an awake, attentive being. DE People often think that there are too many images in the world and that we have become numb to them, but from what you’ve been saying it’s almost as though your practice is trying to prove the opposite – that we’re still alert, and that we’re still intelligent about images, and that there can be necessary pictures, ones which aren’t redundant from the start. WT Absolutely. There are people who have no joy in viewing – who have no joy in life, perhaps. I think people don’t observe enough. I’m a great believer in observation. My first passion in life was astronomy. DE I remember reading that, and also that you didn’t take photographs as a teenager. I suppose your photographs from 2004 of the planet Venus passing in front of the sun – like a blank face with a beauty spot – suggest that the idea of looking at something unattainable and distant, but which still can be experienced and understood, has stayed with you. WT The experience of relative perception is something that keeps turning me on. The photocopy works I made in the late 1980s, before I found my first direct photographic subject matter in nightclubs, were really about this dissolving of details, of zooming into pictures and information breaking down. What makes me happy is when people pick up on the nuances, when you don’t need ten years to realize that there is a composition behind the picture, or that not every elongated object is a phallus, or that questions of authenticity and the identity issues of the 1990s are embedded in the work as deliberate contradictions. DE I think that one of the great achievements of your work is the way you have navigated those contradictions. You have never shied away from presenting compelling pictures of the world at odds with the mainstream or from addressing major socio-political issues like privatization and AIDS education, to name recent examples. And you have done this with a radical subjective gaze and with a consciousness of the difficulties and limitations of that position and what you can achieve as an artist. I’m also curious about your Memorial for the Victims of Organized Religions (2006). It recalls a serial Minimalist grid: are you suggesting that there is a correlation between religious belief and belief in art? WT I showed this piece for the first time in Chicago, as part of a three-city US museum tour. It reflects the helplessness I felt at trying to tackle a subject of such magnitude in a country so held in the grip of the more unappealing sides of religion, but at the same time I wanted to explore faith as a subject. The absoluteness of the grid is disrupted by using creased and scratched photographs, but in a way that is only noticeable after a while, and at the intersection point between the pictures the eye creates a black dot, which is not actually there. A third element undermining the rigour of the grid is the inclusion of some not quite black but dark blue photographs interspersed in the piece. Being installed in the corner the grid is reflected in the shiny surfaces of the prints in a totally warped and distorted way. The piece doesn’t depict religion in the same way that a picture of, say, a mosque would, but it still tackles the idea that all religions have a claim to the absolute. DE In the 1990s you often talked about your interest in communal activities and club culture and the possibility of alternative forms of collectivity and togetherness. Do you still believe in these kind of Utopian moments as a viable alternative to ideological, economic or faith-based social constructions? WT Absolutely. However, it’s dodgy territory because so many ideologies were built on forcing people into a pit of togetherness, so it seems odd to go looking for that in subcultures. Still, I was always interested in the free, or at least non-branded, activities that functioned outside control and marketing. Those pockets of self-organization – free partying, free sex, free leisure time – are on the retreat. A less commercial spirit of togetherness is worth defending against the market realities, which are the result of the implementation of an atomized, privatized model of society, of ‘free workers and consumers’. At least it’s worth asking what choices you have if you don’t want to belong to the mainstream types of belonging in the privatized model of society – nation, sport, family values or religion.
DE In your installation Truth Study Centre (2007) all of this takes a major battering from you through your own and collected images and newspaper clippings. It is at times totally harrowing to peer into all of those trestle-table vitrines full of conflict and extremism on the one hand and human tenderness on the other. In a way, some of your pictures from the 1990s, which rightly or wrongly were seen as fashionable or lifestyle-oriented by some, are more confrontational now than they were back then. WT Yes, a couple of friends and I went to see my show ‘Lighter’ at the Hamburger Bahnhof a day after the opening in May, and it was really interesting to observe how teenagers were looking at the depictions of bodies in, for example, the Turner Prize Room (2000). The sort of physicality I show in my photographs, which was always so important to me, hasn’t dissolved into harmlessness. It seems to have gone the other way, almost as if somehow it’s become more provocative. DE It strikes me that in all your images everyone looks as though they want to be loved. Even the guy doing what the title of one of your photographs says he’s doing in man pissing on chair (1997). WT What connects them, I think, is that, even though they are confident, one gets a sense of their awareness of their own vulnerability. The depiction of other people is terribly fascinating, and even more so if it’s a psychological undertaking or a lifelong focus on single people, like a few friends of mine who I have photographed for many years now. DE So intimacy is crucial too? WT Yes, because it connects us to the physical world, and there is, of course, a deep loneliness in us all. I find people interesting when they have a sense of their own fragility and loneliness, and that’s something that I feel alive in a lot of people, but many of them have problems embracing this or accepting it. DE Which is fair enough, don’t you think? WT Sure! The title of one of my first books is For When I’m Weak, I’m Strong (1996), and it’s not that I can always abide by that, or that I’m always living that. DE Your abstract works also reflect this fragility too. WT But, it’s a resilient fragility, I hope. Of course, a sheet of paper can be both an image of a person and a metaphor for a person. I truly appreciate the modest contemplation that completely gives in to the circumstances as they are. I don’t see anger as the only driving force for change – concentration can be an equally powerful state of being. DE How has your own view of yourself as an artist, and your practice, changed over the past 20 years? You have said that you’re an ambitious person. Do you ever get into any kind of conflict about your current status in, or have ethical issues with, the contemporary art world? Do you feel a different sense of responsibility to your audience, and other artists? I know, for instance, that you teach and have your own gallery space in London, Between Bridges. WT Even though I don’t think there’s free choice for everybody, there’s a lot of choices available for successful artists. You don’t have to disappear into your own super-high value systems, as some high-profile artists do. I try to use my voice as an amplifier for what I care about and stay out of gratuitous projects. Between Bridges is a way for me to engage in a different kind of communication, showing artists who I feel for some reason or other have been under-represented in London. It’s also a learning opportunity for myself. The next show is work by Wilhelm Leibl, a German realist painter from the 19th century who I came across and paid homage to in a photograph I made in 2002, and who I’ve wanted to find out more about ever since. DE How did you feel about your exhibition ‘Lighter’ being held in the Friedrich Christian Flick Collection wing of the Hamburger Bahnhof? I ask this considering that his family’s fortune was partially made through arms manufacturing during World War II, and given the public criticism he attracted for not having paid into compensation funds for forced labourers. He was also seen to be potentially enriching himself because initially he only loaned his collection to the city. WT I really didn’t understand why and had no sympathy for the fact that Flick didn’t want to pay the compensation at the time and instead used a similar amount of money to set up a foundation to fight xenophobia among youths in East Germany. He could have easily afforded to do both. At the same time I felt the witch hunt was unfair, because he never personally employed forced labour: it was his grandfather, and the lines drawn between clean and unclean money were drawn much too symbolically. I find it equally unsettling to think of collectors who actively in our lifetime earn their money with politically incorrect or destructive activities. But Flick did pay up eventually, and he’s also gifted 160 major works from his collection to the Hamburger Bahnhof, instead of building another private collector museum. Interestingly, these facts were hardly reported or acknowledged by his critics. DE There is an inherent contradiction in the fact that art is structurally implicated in money and power but at the same time ought to function like a cultural conscience. One interesting part of the debate around the Flick Collection is thinking about the extent to which an artist can or should control the distribution of their work. WT Yes, and I noticed that the least popular position to take on this is to acknowledge one’s own implication in it. It’s very attractive to be totally against the market, and it’s OK to not say anything at all and just get on with one’s work. I try to be as ethically involved in the distribution of my work as possible, but at the same time I acknowledge my inability to control everything. DE ‘Lighter’ was an overwhelming round-up of your work past and present. In particular it showed how the various types of abstract works and those that have to do with the basic condition of the image fit and relate to the more ‘traditional’ photographs. WT The exhibition was a new type of show for me. After ten museum survey exhibitions in the past seven years, this one was never meant to be a retrospective. In the first room there are six photocopy pictures from 1988, and in the last room there are another three, and in between is primarily work from the last five years. The Turner Prize Room from 2000 also featured but was a kind of show within a show. I made the exhibition completely irrespective of any retrospective duty. DE So the only duty was introspective? WT [Laughs] It was introspective, yes. No, not introspective, it was now-spective. It was what was going on. DE Even though a good quarter of the show was taken up by the mostly political and science-hugging Truth Study Centre installation from 2007, it seems that many of your concerns have become more abstract. WT I think it took shows such as ‘Freedom from the Known’ at PS1 in New York (2006) or ‘Lighter’ to bring this to the fore. I exhibited my first abstract and damaged, too dark and fucked-up pictures as a Parkett edition in 1998. From that time onwards I think that the abstract nature of earlier works like the drapery close-ups of clothing or the ‘Concorde’ pictures (1997) became more clear; an abstraction grounded in the real world. DE In some of the photogram abstract work I can’t help but make associations between body, fluid and cellular structures. There’s a kind of direct relationship with the body in the image. They’re abstract, but there are areas of physical and emotional stuff flowing around inside. Titles like it’s only love give it away (2005) or the big and bloody-looking Urgency III (2006) also suggest this to me. WT The human eye has a great desire to recognize things when it looks at a photographic print. I made use of this phenomenon and found I could speak about physicality in new pictures while the camera-based pictures could be seen in a new light as well. So they kind of inform each other, rather than being pitted against each other.
DE Is the key in the mix or the constellations; how one image sits next to another and how they influence each other? WT When I was working on the book Lighter earlier this year, which comprises some 200 installation views, I realized that this is actually the first book that shows what my work really looks like. You get an idea of how, in the constellations of pictures, I try to approximate the way I see the world, not in a linear order but as a multitude of parallel experiences – like now I look at you, seeing a portrait, now out of the window there is a landscape, here on the table the cups standing around, there my feet. It’s multiple singularities, simultaneously accessible as they share the same space or room.
Dominic Eichler is a musician, writer, artist and contributing editor of frieze.
Look, again
For 20 years Wolfgang Tillmans’ photography has been a sustained meditation on observation, perception and translation. His most recent major exhibition, ‘Lighter’, was held at the Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart, in Berlin. He talked to Dominic Eichler about intimacy, objects, community and politics, abstraction and representation
DOMINIC EICHLER Looking back over the last 20 years of your art-making, it is striking how you have circled and constantly returned to a diverse range of genres, modes of reproduction and printing techniques while exploring both figurative and abstract images, and that all of these approaches still find their place in your recent exhibitions and publications, such as Manual (2007). Do you think there is a particular kind of quality that makes for a ‘Tillmans’? WOLFGANG TILLMANS In terms of one repeated style, no, but there is an underlying approach that I hope gives everything I make a cohesion. I trust that, if I study something carefully enough, a greater essence or truth might be revealed without having a prescribed meaning. I’ve trusted in this approach from the start, and I have to find that trust again and again when I make pictures. Really looking and observing is hard, and you can’t do it by following a formula. What connects all my work is finding the right balance between intention and chance, doing as much as I can and knowing when to let go, allowing fluidity and avoiding anything being forced.
DE Years ago I was in a friend’s apartment where there was nothing on the white walls except a photograph of an autumn tree torn out of a magazine. I kept looking at it; it had a kind of aura about it, and in the end I couldn’t contain my curiosity any more and so I asked him who the picture was by. It was one of your images. And that’s the thing about many of your photographs – their subjects might be something seemingly really everyday, like a tree, friends or leftovers from a party, but there’s something singular about them, and it’s hard to say what it is exactly. WT I just think all images should be significant. They should be able to stand alone and say something about their particular subject matter. If they don’t do that, then why make them? The picture you mentioned is titled Calendar Leaves because it is so golden it could be in a calendar; I took it in upstate New York during the Indian summer of 1994. Trees have been photographed so many times. It’s always a question of: ‘Is this possible? Can I take a picture of this?’ DE So making images is partly about some kind of impossibility? WT Well, I wanted to capture my experience of this tree in the first degree. I wanted to photograph it knowing that it was really hard to do, but on the other hand I didn’t feel that I shouldn’t take a picture of, say, a sunset or the wing of an aeroplane or autumn foliage. I am knowing, but I try not to be cynical. At least some aspect of the picture has to be genuinely new; it can’t be a ‘me too’ picture. I feel things like these have been photographed or painted so often because they move people and I’m also moved in that moment, and in this I see myself in a long continuum of people making pictures of these larger subjects of life. Trees have interested artists for a long time. I guess they’re one of the most consistent things in life and on earth. DE Are you thinking about the translation of the experience into an image or work? WT Considering that translation or, metaphysically speaking, the process of transformation, is the central aspect of my work. The experience of something in real life doesn’t automatically make for a good work. I can only really photograph things that I understand in some way or another. It’s about whether you can look at something for 60 seconds; it’s very much about being able to bear reality. DE The golden melancholy of the autumn tree makes me think of the Douglas Sirk film Imitation of Life (1959). But I get the same mood from some of your abstract colour images, such as the streaky and stained, fleshy and azure ‘Silver’ pictures (mostly from 2006) or, for that matter, your photocopy-based works like photocopy (Barnaby) (1994), which involve so much longing for what is only partly there. WT Imitation of Life is a beautiful title but it’s not what I aim for because art is always different from life. You can try to get close to the feeling of what it’s like to be alive now, but the result of that is an art work, and that has its own reality. When I work on the non-figurative pictures in the darkroom or use photocopiers, it is a direct engagement with physical realities: the colour and intensity of my light sources or the electrostatic charge on the copier drums. I use them and play with them to make pictures possible. For instance, under the burden of all the clichés it’s not really possible to photograph Venice, but I still wanted to, so I made the photocopier-enlarged image Venice (2007), in which the details that indicate ‘Venice’ are reduced heavily. That makes them feel almost appropriated, but in fact all the photocopy pictures are based on photographs, which I took for this type of enlargement. DE The abstract colour works such as the ‘Silver’ group of pictures (1994–2008) and impossible colour V (2001) also involve signs of their making and process. WT impossible colour V is a large pink octagon placed on a larger white picture base. It’s actually a rectangle with the same proportions as 35 mm film that has been turned ever so slightly against a frame with the same proportions. Unlike my other abstract work, the ‘Silver’ images are mechanical pictures made by feeding them through a processing machine while it’s being cleaned, so they pick up traces of dirt and silver residue from the chemicals. Because they are only half fixed and the chemicals aren’t fresh, they slowly change hue over a few days. Sometimes I use this instability to create different shades and lines on them, before scanning and enlarging them to their final size. DE Then there are your three-dimensional pieces ‘Lighter’ (2005–8), which are physically creased and folded photographs. WT Some of them I expose to different coloured light sources in the darkroom after first folding them in the dark, and some are made in reverse order. Some are not folded at all – they only suggest the possibility of a fold – but they are all highly intricate. We are still blind to what it exactly is that makes a photograph so particular, so deeply psychological, even though it’s supposedly a mechanical medium. The ‘Lighter’ works are a continuation of the three-dimensional approach of the ‘paper drop’ pictures (2001–8) of hanging and flipped-over pieces of photographic paper. DE What would you say to people who interpret your later abstract work as a retreat into some kind of formalism? WT Look again. It’s not a retreat. If colour is a retreat, then I checked into that retreat early on. The video of the moving disco lights Lights (Body) (2002) or the astronomical pictures like Sternenhimmel (Starry Sky, 1995), are all about light and colour. I never separate that experience from a social one. David Wojnarowicz, one of the most socially engaged artists of recent history, repeatedly says in his video ITSOFOMO (1990): ‘Smell the flowers while you can.’ How can that be a retreat? You have to be pretty senseless not to allow artists the freedom to deal with the whole width of their experiences and explore their medium to the extreme. The abstracted picture of that golden tree you mentioned earlier on is from 1994, when I was in the midst of making the so-called realist work that I was first known for. I was then, as I am now, involved in seeing and transforming that into pictures. DE How much system or discipline and control is involved in getting what you want? WT It sounds a bit square, but I’ve found that the chances of getting a good result are just so much higher when you spend at least eight hours a day on your work. That work is, of course, all play [Laughing]. Seriously, the biggest challenge is not always to do the right thing but at times to do wrong things, to act irresponsibly in the light of constant demands. When artists start out, they all have some sort of alternative vision in mind, and then career and success, or equally the lack of it, grind most of them down to become bored and boring. It’s really the biggest challenge not to believe your own system, so the discipline is, strangely, to be undisciplined. DE You’ve mentioned before the fact that in learning about the world you also inherit certain kinds of images, and that every image you make is going to have a relationship to the image banks that you’ve inherited from your culture. That makes me think of your shots of men’s bum cracks. [Laughs] WT There is always something unsettling about fearless looking as opposed to coy allusion or shockingly flashing. To look without fear is a good subversive tool, undermining taboos. Study the soldier or riot policeman, make him an object of formal considerations, see him as wearing drag. Look at things the way they are. DE With your cultural baggage alongside? WT Yes, even though I feel that after 150 years or so, the subject matter of a woman’s exposed crotch isn’t owned by Gustave Courbet. I attribute these overlaps to certain pictures being in your milk from a young age, so to speak. But still, once a picture is in the world as an object, it’s impossible not to think about your relationship to it. Is it too ironic? Is it too referential? Not everything is strategy because, despite these considerations, what is uppermost in that moment is to be an awake, attentive being. DE People often think that there are too many images in the world and that we have become numb to them, but from what you’ve been saying it’s almost as though your practice is trying to prove the opposite – that we’re still alert, and that we’re still intelligent about images, and that there can be necessary pictures, ones which aren’t redundant from the start. WT Absolutely. There are people who have no joy in viewing – who have no joy in life, perhaps. I think people don’t observe enough. I’m a great believer in observation. My first passion in life was astronomy. DE I remember reading that, and also that you didn’t take photographs as a teenager. I suppose your photographs from 2004 of the planet Venus passing in front of the sun – like a blank face with a beauty spot – suggest that the idea of looking at something unattainable and distant, but which still can be experienced and understood, has stayed with you. WT The experience of relative perception is something that keeps turning me on. The photocopy works I made in the late 1980s, before I found my first direct photographic subject matter in nightclubs, were really about this dissolving of details, of zooming into pictures and information breaking down. What makes me happy is when people pick up on the nuances, when you don’t need ten years to realize that there is a composition behind the picture, or that not every elongated object is a phallus, or that questions of authenticity and the identity issues of the 1990s are embedded in the work as deliberate contradictions. DE I think that one of the great achievements of your work is the way you have navigated those contradictions. You have never shied away from presenting compelling pictures of the world at odds with the mainstream or from addressing major socio-political issues like privatization and AIDS education, to name recent examples. And you have done this with a radical subjective gaze and with a consciousness of the difficulties and limitations of that position and what you can achieve as an artist. I’m also curious about your Memorial for the Victims of Organized Religions (2006). It recalls a serial Minimalist grid: are you suggesting that there is a correlation between religious belief and belief in art? WT I showed this piece for the first time in Chicago, as part of a three-city US museum tour. It reflects the helplessness I felt at trying to tackle a subject of such magnitude in a country so held in the grip of the more unappealing sides of religion, but at the same time I wanted to explore faith as a subject. The absoluteness of the grid is disrupted by using creased and scratched photographs, but in a way that is only noticeable after a while, and at the intersection point between the pictures the eye creates a black dot, which is not actually there. A third element undermining the rigour of the grid is the inclusion of some not quite black but dark blue photographs interspersed in the piece. Being installed in the corner the grid is reflected in the shiny surfaces of the prints in a totally warped and distorted way. The piece doesn’t depict religion in the same way that a picture of, say, a mosque would, but it still tackles the idea that all religions have a claim to the absolute. DE In the 1990s you often talked about your interest in communal activities and club culture and the possibility of alternative forms of collectivity and togetherness. Do you still believe in these kind of Utopian moments as a viable alternative to ideological, economic or faith-based social constructions? WT Absolutely. However, it’s dodgy territory because so many ideologies were built on forcing people into a pit of togetherness, so it seems odd to go looking for that in subcultures. Still, I was always interested in the free, or at least non-branded, activities that functioned outside control and marketing. Those pockets of self-organization – free partying, free sex, free leisure time – are on the retreat. A less commercial spirit of togetherness is worth defending against the market realities, which are the result of the implementation of an atomized, privatized model of society, of ‘free workers and consumers’. At least it’s worth asking what choices you have if you don’t want to belong to the mainstream types of belonging in the privatized model of society – nation, sport, family values or religion.
DE In your installation Truth Study Centre (2007) all of this takes a major battering from you through your own and collected images and newspaper clippings. It is at times totally harrowing to peer into all of those trestle-table vitrines full of conflict and extremism on the one hand and human tenderness on the other. In a way, some of your pictures from the 1990s, which rightly or wrongly were seen as fashionable or lifestyle-oriented by some, are more confrontational now than they were back then. WT Yes, a couple of friends and I went to see my show ‘Lighter’ at the Hamburger Bahnhof a day after the opening in May, and it was really interesting to observe how teenagers were looking at the depictions of bodies in, for example, the Turner Prize Room (2000). The sort of physicality I show in my photographs, which was always so important to me, hasn’t dissolved into harmlessness. It seems to have gone the other way, almost as if somehow it’s become more provocative. DE It strikes me that in all your images everyone looks as though they want to be loved. Even the guy doing what the title of one of your photographs says he’s doing in man pissing on chair (1997). WT What connects them, I think, is that, even though they are confident, one gets a sense of their awareness of their own vulnerability. The depiction of other people is terribly fascinating, and even more so if it’s a psychological undertaking or a lifelong focus on single people, like a few friends of mine who I have photographed for many years now. DE So intimacy is crucial too? WT Yes, because it connects us to the physical world, and there is, of course, a deep loneliness in us all. I find people interesting when they have a sense of their own fragility and loneliness, and that’s something that I feel alive in a lot of people, but many of them have problems embracing this or accepting it. DE Which is fair enough, don’t you think? WT Sure! The title of one of my first books is For When I’m Weak, I’m Strong (1996), and it’s not that I can always abide by that, or that I’m always living that. DE Your abstract works also reflect this fragility too. WT But, it’s a resilient fragility, I hope. Of course, a sheet of paper can be both an image of a person and a metaphor for a person. I truly appreciate the modest contemplation that completely gives in to the circumstances as they are. I don’t see anger as the only driving force for change – concentration can be an equally powerful state of being. DE How has your own view of yourself as an artist, and your practice, changed over the past 20 years? You have said that you’re an ambitious person. Do you ever get into any kind of conflict about your current status in, or have ethical issues with, the contemporary art world? Do you feel a different sense of responsibility to your audience, and other artists? I know, for instance, that you teach and have your own gallery space in London, Between Bridges. WT Even though I don’t think there’s free choice for everybody, there’s a lot of choices available for successful artists. You don’t have to disappear into your own super-high value systems, as some high-profile artists do. I try to use my voice as an amplifier for what I care about and stay out of gratuitous projects. Between Bridges is a way for me to engage in a different kind of communication, showing artists who I feel for some reason or other have been under-represented in London. It’s also a learning opportunity for myself. The next show is work by Wilhelm Leibl, a German realist painter from the 19th century who I came across and paid homage to in a photograph I made in 2002, and who I’ve wanted to find out more about ever since. DE How did you feel about your exhibition ‘Lighter’ being held in the Friedrich Christian Flick Collection wing of the Hamburger Bahnhof? I ask this considering that his family’s fortune was partially made through arms manufacturing during World War II, and given the public criticism he attracted for not having paid into compensation funds for forced labourers. He was also seen to be potentially enriching himself because initially he only loaned his collection to the city. WT I really didn’t understand why and had no sympathy for the fact that Flick didn’t want to pay the compensation at the time and instead used a similar amount of money to set up a foundation to fight xenophobia among youths in East Germany. He could have easily afforded to do both. At the same time I felt the witch hunt was unfair, because he never personally employed forced labour: it was his grandfather, and the lines drawn between clean and unclean money were drawn much too symbolically. I find it equally unsettling to think of collectors who actively in our lifetime earn their money with politically incorrect or destructive activities. But Flick did pay up eventually, and he’s also gifted 160 major works from his collection to the Hamburger Bahnhof, instead of building another private collector museum. Interestingly, these facts were hardly reported or acknowledged by his critics. DE There is an inherent contradiction in the fact that art is structurally implicated in money and power but at the same time ought to function like a cultural conscience. One interesting part of the debate around the Flick Collection is thinking about the extent to which an artist can or should control the distribution of their work. WT Yes, and I noticed that the least popular position to take on this is to acknowledge one’s own implication in it. It’s very attractive to be totally against the market, and it’s OK to not say anything at all and just get on with one’s work. I try to be as ethically involved in the distribution of my work as possible, but at the same time I acknowledge my inability to control everything. DE ‘Lighter’ was an overwhelming round-up of your work past and present. In particular it showed how the various types of abstract works and those that have to do with the basic condition of the image fit and relate to the more ‘traditional’ photographs. WT The exhibition was a new type of show for me. After ten museum survey exhibitions in the past seven years, this one was never meant to be a retrospective. In the first room there are six photocopy pictures from 1988, and in the last room there are another three, and in between is primarily work from the last five years. The Turner Prize Room from 2000 also featured but was a kind of show within a show. I made the exhibition completely irrespective of any retrospective duty. DE So the only duty was introspective? WT [Laughs] It was introspective, yes. No, not introspective, it was now-spective. It was what was going on. DE Even though a good quarter of the show was taken up by the mostly political and science-hugging Truth Study Centre installation from 2007, it seems that many of your concerns have become more abstract. WT I think it took shows such as ‘Freedom from the Known’ at PS1 in New York (2006) or ‘Lighter’ to bring this to the fore. I exhibited my first abstract and damaged, too dark and fucked-up pictures as a Parkett edition in 1998. From that time onwards I think that the abstract nature of earlier works like the drapery close-ups of clothing or the ‘Concorde’ pictures (1997) became more clear; an abstraction grounded in the real world. DE In some of the photogram abstract work I can’t help but make associations between body, fluid and cellular structures. There’s a kind of direct relationship with the body in the image. They’re abstract, but there are areas of physical and emotional stuff flowing around inside. Titles like it’s only love give it away (2005) or the big and bloody-looking Urgency III (2006) also suggest this to me. WT The human eye has a great desire to recognize things when it looks at a photographic print. I made use of this phenomenon and found I could speak about physicality in new pictures while the camera-based pictures could be seen in a new light as well. So they kind of inform each other, rather than being pitted against each other.
DE Is the key in the mix or the constellations; how one image sits next to another and how they influence each other? WT When I was working on the book Lighter earlier this year, which comprises some 200 installation views, I realized that this is actually the first book that shows what my work really looks like. You get an idea of how, in the constellations of pictures, I try to approximate the way I see the world, not in a linear order but as a multitude of parallel experiences – like now I look at you, seeing a portrait, now out of the window there is a landscape, here on the table the cups standing around, there my feet. It’s multiple singularities, simultaneously accessible as they share the same space or room.
Dominic Eichler is a musician, writer, artist and contributing editor of frieze.
Wolfgang Tillmans
http://www.tillmans.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=73&Itemid=25
Images from venice biennale
Images from venice biennale
Tobias Rehberger
http://www.gms.be/index.php?content=artist_detail&id_artist=35
Often playing with 1960s and '70s design styles, Tobias Rehberger's environments, furniture, sculptures and ceiling installations have made him a focus of interest for art criticism stressing contextual approaches and cross-over aspirations.Tobias Rehberger operates within these fields of critical definition without considering them to be particularly meaningful for his work. At the point where design not only produces the "utility" of commodity articles but also supplements usefulness with an immaterial surplus value, Tobias Rehberger concentrates on transferring to the field of art these questions of functionality and added value. In doing so, he deftly puts out of action the entire policy underlying art-critical interpretations.By giving the visitors the possibility to co-determine the furnishing and design of the exhibition space, by translating the proposals or specifications submitted by friends and acquaintances into artistic environments, furniture or portraits that then bear the signature of both the proposer and the artist, and by making the function of his installations and objects dependent on the willingness of others to use them, Rehberger always discusses one basic question: What is actually a work of art, and how much of it is conditioned by notions, perceptions and external influences?In this way, the artist shows possibilities, and at the same time makes proposals that depend on the viewer's notions and expectations in order to become "legible" in the first place. Thus, everything could be done differently, if one only knew how. To this extent, the typical fashion phenomena of "ambient music" and "ambient space" are, in Rehberger's work, only apparently conditions of an "ambient art" that shows how easily one can move away from the centre ground of a clear statement or never come close to that centre to begin with.Interview by Leontine CoelewijCurator Leontine Coelewij talked with Tobias Rehberger about the first major survey of his work in the Netherlands at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam: the chicken-and-egg-no-problem wall-painting, which travelled to the Museum Ludwig in Cologne.First of all, please explain the title?Of course, but first I should talk about what I want to do in the show. I am playing with the idea of what a “work” actually is: where does it come from and where is it going? If you’re not entirely into the idea of the romantic genius, then it is quite an interesting question to pose to yourself: where do the works come from and how do they develop? That is the “chicken and the egg problem”. The wall painting from the title also relates to the structure of the show. I will use three-dimensional objects to produce a two-dimensional image on the wall. That’s also “the chicken and the egg”, where the existing works are used as the material for a new production. But it also relates to how a work is always material for future work. All the sculptures in the space are lit from different angles, so they produce shadows on the wall. There is also a sketchy wall painting, roughly based on the shadows, which I made on the spot. I like the idea that something elaborate and solid could be the starting point for something vague and sketchy. And on the other hand a wall painting is in a way the most solid way of doing a painting because it is fixed. I think that all these discrepancies create a very nice confusion about how work is produced. This issue has a wider relevance than just my own work: how aware are we as artists about how the things we do come together? This has to do with the fact that I am highly sceptical about this idea of the genius artist, which remains a very big issue…Do you think that this idea of the romantic genius is also at the basis of today’s art market?Yes, I think so very much, especially in relation to the concept of “authenticity”. The market is based on these romantic nineteenth-century ideas. It’s not that my work is a statement against that; I just think that it’s not such an interesting concept anymore. And I am trying to ask myself what other concepts are possible in this exhibition. I continually question the perspective.In your work you’re looking for alternatives to this idea of the solitary genius, such as shared authorship. You have worked together with other people, such as the craftsmen from Cameroon who made the design “classics” Breuer andRietveld chairs based on your sketches …That’s right, but it also exists in a lot of my other works. But I think it’s not so much about shared authorship as about realising how absurd the idea of control is in our concept of production. But you can also find it in the idea of the “model” with which I am very busy: Mutter 93% an almost life-size model for a garage. If you buy the model, you have the right to build the garage according to your own interpretation of the model. You can also see our show from this perspective: on the one hand the sculptures stand for themselves, and on the other hand they represent something else.Some of your works such as “Mutter 93% or Cutting, preparing, without missing anything and being happy about what comes next” suggest a kind of use …Well, the works actually have a use. Often an art work is defined as a “useless” object, but this is actually a myth just like the myth of the neutral white space of the gallery or the museum. Art is used as a tool for cultural definition or as a tool in the art market or as a “happy-maker” on the wall above your sofa. There is always some kind of function. I always play with this question of function, of what defines function and the range of clichés about the “non-functionality” of an artwork. My work has often been misunderstood as some kind of social interference. For me it’s always more a struggle with the definition of what an art work is or could be. For example, I could use a bronze Giacometti sculpture to hammer a nail into a wall. However, an artwork is often more successful as a tool to develop your ideas than as a hammer. It all depends on the perspective from which you view the work. Another misunderstanding is that my work is close to design. For me that is not an interesting question. I am not particularly interested in design as design. There are design strategies that raise interesting questions about how I think about art. And that’s why I use it. My work is more about differentiating between art and design, trying to define the differences rather than merging the two fields.I also had the impression that you use different strategies from design to introduce the element of time. Such as the work “Cutting, preparing, without missing anything and being happy about what comes next”, which is an installation based on asking your friends how they would define an ideal place to relax.The first edition of the work was made in 1996, the second one in 1999, both in the design styles of those years … One very interesting phenomenon in relation to time is fashion. The idea of fashion relates to the definition of something in time. The work you just mentioned poses the question: what happens if the visual appearance of a work changes in time without the content having changed? To what extent is the surface of the work the actual “work”? Or is the surface completely irrelevant? There is this very general question for artists which is about the “understandability” of the work they make … And that is a rather weird idea … Of course we, as artists, communicate structures, but how far does this “understanding” go and what are the processes of making things understandable? Just as photography took on some of the “duties” of art in the nineteenth century, so advertising did this in the last century: the controllability of the message. Advertising tries to be “scientific” about the effect it has on people. And advertising does this well, so that is something we artists need not concern ourselves with, just like we no longer need to concern ourselves with an exact naturalistic representation in a portrait.What do you see as the role for art now?I believe that art is a completely open field where questions can be raised that can’t be raised in other fields. But I think in the end it’s a theoretical game. Art is mostly about the possibility of making art, about its circumstances and its conditions. And in this respect it is an example to other fields just like mathematics is. It’s a field where you can discuss things that are not of any direct, practical use. I also think of mathematics like this because in a way it runs parallel to the production of beauty.Light plays an important role in your work; sometimes you use it to make connections with different parts of the world – like the village Arroyo Grande – or moments in history – like the day Nancy Spungen was killed in a hotel room in New York in 1978; but also in the exhibition you are working on now …The use of light in my work is not about “branding”, it’s simply a material that I use, like you use a piece of wood to make chair, to repair a ceiling or as fuel to cook with. For me it’s just a material like wood or metal. It’s not the content of the work. But it is an extremely interesting material to work with because it can be used in so many different ways. And it is also the essential material of communication. It’s the first thing a baby sees, it’s crucial for the visual arts, and it conveys a large amount of knowledge. I can use it in different ways as a strategy to change perspectives: literally and metaphorically.Can you tell me something about the choice of works for this exhibition? You explained to me already a while ago that, “this is not going to be a retrospective.” What did you mean by that?Since we said from the beginning that it should be an exhibition of existing works, I thought about what that means. I thought about the classic way of dealing with this – which is the retrospective. But I was not interested in the more “historical” approach to the overview of existing work. Therefore I asked myself what, from my own point of view, could be interesting about an exhibition of existing works. For me it was how this presentation could produce “non-existing” works. That was the initial idea. The question was how could I make all this into an interesting visual product which could give other people a certain understanding of the work, but could also give me a new understanding of the work. And at the same time I am not completely fulfilling the museum’s demand, because I am producing a new work.I like the idea that the show has a slight retrospective touch because it brings together a couple of important works, but then I am disrupting that with works that might be less important for me – which is sometimes not so obvious – which appear less understandable. Then a technical aspect came in: how to create this new “sketch” on the wall of the museum space. I tried to combine objects that work very well and objects that do not work at all, in this structure with light and shadow.By using your sculptures as raw material in a new installation they will also acquire a different meaning. What happens to works such as your Videolibraries – sculptures used as an archive for film fragments which are visible only as flickering lights because the TV sets are placed facing towards the wall – when they are placed in the middle of the space as an object to create a shadow on a wall?It’s again this question of a change in perspective. In this case the object is normally positioned in front of the wall to produce a reflection of the light from film clips. Now it’s placed in the middle of the space. First of all, you encounter it from the front and it looks more or less the same as before; only the reflection is less obvious than it normally is. So it’s rather close to what the work usally is. But then you go around and it’s just like a Madonna from the fourteenth century, which is three-dimensional from one side and hollow from the other side. So now you see the mechanism of the work itself – which is almost like a pathological perspective on the work. Suddenly it lays bare its organs. I could only do this in this situation where the sculpture is used as raw material for the wall painting. It is comparable to the role of the model. On the one hand it is one thing, but then when you look at it in a larger,smaller or broader sense it could be something different. It’s all about the ambiguity of things, the ambiguity of reading the art work as a final product.Does this position also come from a dissatisfaction with the role art has nowadays?No not dissatisfaction, but more doubts or uncertainty about what seems to be so clear and easily understandable. Perhaps I would be happier if I simply made “nice” art; but my work is more about the uncertainty about what you call art. And in the end it’s very satisfying. It’s great fun posing all these questions. I am always grateful for all these “problems” I have. For me it’s fun to deal with them.Are you inspired by the way other artists in the past have dealt with these questions?Of course. I don’t know how far back it goes. I have a great appreciation for “old” art, but the work of the last hundred years has more relevance to my way of seeing art. Contemporary art is closer to the “confusion” I am in.Do you mean the work of artists of your own generation such as Olafur Eliasson and Rirkrit Tiravanija?Yes, but also an artist like Donald Judd, whom I admire very much but also have problems with. He dealt with a lot of the problems I deal with as well, like the idea of the genius artist or the “artist’s hand”. But then I have difficulties with the idea of production; that an industrial-looking object or a spray-painted metal box has nothing to do with the fight the person who made it had with his wife the night before. It’s almost an inhuman attitude towards the object, at least from my point of view. It’s not about good or bad. It’s more a matter of whether it really makes sense.
Often playing with 1960s and '70s design styles, Tobias Rehberger's environments, furniture, sculptures and ceiling installations have made him a focus of interest for art criticism stressing contextual approaches and cross-over aspirations.Tobias Rehberger operates within these fields of critical definition without considering them to be particularly meaningful for his work. At the point where design not only produces the "utility" of commodity articles but also supplements usefulness with an immaterial surplus value, Tobias Rehberger concentrates on transferring to the field of art these questions of functionality and added value. In doing so, he deftly puts out of action the entire policy underlying art-critical interpretations.By giving the visitors the possibility to co-determine the furnishing and design of the exhibition space, by translating the proposals or specifications submitted by friends and acquaintances into artistic environments, furniture or portraits that then bear the signature of both the proposer and the artist, and by making the function of his installations and objects dependent on the willingness of others to use them, Rehberger always discusses one basic question: What is actually a work of art, and how much of it is conditioned by notions, perceptions and external influences?In this way, the artist shows possibilities, and at the same time makes proposals that depend on the viewer's notions and expectations in order to become "legible" in the first place. Thus, everything could be done differently, if one only knew how. To this extent, the typical fashion phenomena of "ambient music" and "ambient space" are, in Rehberger's work, only apparently conditions of an "ambient art" that shows how easily one can move away from the centre ground of a clear statement or never come close to that centre to begin with.Interview by Leontine CoelewijCurator Leontine Coelewij talked with Tobias Rehberger about the first major survey of his work in the Netherlands at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam: the chicken-and-egg-no-problem wall-painting, which travelled to the Museum Ludwig in Cologne.First of all, please explain the title?Of course, but first I should talk about what I want to do in the show. I am playing with the idea of what a “work” actually is: where does it come from and where is it going? If you’re not entirely into the idea of the romantic genius, then it is quite an interesting question to pose to yourself: where do the works come from and how do they develop? That is the “chicken and the egg problem”. The wall painting from the title also relates to the structure of the show. I will use three-dimensional objects to produce a two-dimensional image on the wall. That’s also “the chicken and the egg”, where the existing works are used as the material for a new production. But it also relates to how a work is always material for future work. All the sculptures in the space are lit from different angles, so they produce shadows on the wall. There is also a sketchy wall painting, roughly based on the shadows, which I made on the spot. I like the idea that something elaborate and solid could be the starting point for something vague and sketchy. And on the other hand a wall painting is in a way the most solid way of doing a painting because it is fixed. I think that all these discrepancies create a very nice confusion about how work is produced. This issue has a wider relevance than just my own work: how aware are we as artists about how the things we do come together? This has to do with the fact that I am highly sceptical about this idea of the genius artist, which remains a very big issue…Do you think that this idea of the romantic genius is also at the basis of today’s art market?Yes, I think so very much, especially in relation to the concept of “authenticity”. The market is based on these romantic nineteenth-century ideas. It’s not that my work is a statement against that; I just think that it’s not such an interesting concept anymore. And I am trying to ask myself what other concepts are possible in this exhibition. I continually question the perspective.In your work you’re looking for alternatives to this idea of the solitary genius, such as shared authorship. You have worked together with other people, such as the craftsmen from Cameroon who made the design “classics” Breuer andRietveld chairs based on your sketches …That’s right, but it also exists in a lot of my other works. But I think it’s not so much about shared authorship as about realising how absurd the idea of control is in our concept of production. But you can also find it in the idea of the “model” with which I am very busy: Mutter 93% an almost life-size model for a garage. If you buy the model, you have the right to build the garage according to your own interpretation of the model. You can also see our show from this perspective: on the one hand the sculptures stand for themselves, and on the other hand they represent something else.Some of your works such as “Mutter 93% or Cutting, preparing, without missing anything and being happy about what comes next” suggest a kind of use …Well, the works actually have a use. Often an art work is defined as a “useless” object, but this is actually a myth just like the myth of the neutral white space of the gallery or the museum. Art is used as a tool for cultural definition or as a tool in the art market or as a “happy-maker” on the wall above your sofa. There is always some kind of function. I always play with this question of function, of what defines function and the range of clichés about the “non-functionality” of an artwork. My work has often been misunderstood as some kind of social interference. For me it’s always more a struggle with the definition of what an art work is or could be. For example, I could use a bronze Giacometti sculpture to hammer a nail into a wall. However, an artwork is often more successful as a tool to develop your ideas than as a hammer. It all depends on the perspective from which you view the work. Another misunderstanding is that my work is close to design. For me that is not an interesting question. I am not particularly interested in design as design. There are design strategies that raise interesting questions about how I think about art. And that’s why I use it. My work is more about differentiating between art and design, trying to define the differences rather than merging the two fields.I also had the impression that you use different strategies from design to introduce the element of time. Such as the work “Cutting, preparing, without missing anything and being happy about what comes next”, which is an installation based on asking your friends how they would define an ideal place to relax.The first edition of the work was made in 1996, the second one in 1999, both in the design styles of those years … One very interesting phenomenon in relation to time is fashion. The idea of fashion relates to the definition of something in time. The work you just mentioned poses the question: what happens if the visual appearance of a work changes in time without the content having changed? To what extent is the surface of the work the actual “work”? Or is the surface completely irrelevant? There is this very general question for artists which is about the “understandability” of the work they make … And that is a rather weird idea … Of course we, as artists, communicate structures, but how far does this “understanding” go and what are the processes of making things understandable? Just as photography took on some of the “duties” of art in the nineteenth century, so advertising did this in the last century: the controllability of the message. Advertising tries to be “scientific” about the effect it has on people. And advertising does this well, so that is something we artists need not concern ourselves with, just like we no longer need to concern ourselves with an exact naturalistic representation in a portrait.What do you see as the role for art now?I believe that art is a completely open field where questions can be raised that can’t be raised in other fields. But I think in the end it’s a theoretical game. Art is mostly about the possibility of making art, about its circumstances and its conditions. And in this respect it is an example to other fields just like mathematics is. It’s a field where you can discuss things that are not of any direct, practical use. I also think of mathematics like this because in a way it runs parallel to the production of beauty.Light plays an important role in your work; sometimes you use it to make connections with different parts of the world – like the village Arroyo Grande – or moments in history – like the day Nancy Spungen was killed in a hotel room in New York in 1978; but also in the exhibition you are working on now …The use of light in my work is not about “branding”, it’s simply a material that I use, like you use a piece of wood to make chair, to repair a ceiling or as fuel to cook with. For me it’s just a material like wood or metal. It’s not the content of the work. But it is an extremely interesting material to work with because it can be used in so many different ways. And it is also the essential material of communication. It’s the first thing a baby sees, it’s crucial for the visual arts, and it conveys a large amount of knowledge. I can use it in different ways as a strategy to change perspectives: literally and metaphorically.Can you tell me something about the choice of works for this exhibition? You explained to me already a while ago that, “this is not going to be a retrospective.” What did you mean by that?Since we said from the beginning that it should be an exhibition of existing works, I thought about what that means. I thought about the classic way of dealing with this – which is the retrospective. But I was not interested in the more “historical” approach to the overview of existing work. Therefore I asked myself what, from my own point of view, could be interesting about an exhibition of existing works. For me it was how this presentation could produce “non-existing” works. That was the initial idea. The question was how could I make all this into an interesting visual product which could give other people a certain understanding of the work, but could also give me a new understanding of the work. And at the same time I am not completely fulfilling the museum’s demand, because I am producing a new work.I like the idea that the show has a slight retrospective touch because it brings together a couple of important works, but then I am disrupting that with works that might be less important for me – which is sometimes not so obvious – which appear less understandable. Then a technical aspect came in: how to create this new “sketch” on the wall of the museum space. I tried to combine objects that work very well and objects that do not work at all, in this structure with light and shadow.By using your sculptures as raw material in a new installation they will also acquire a different meaning. What happens to works such as your Videolibraries – sculptures used as an archive for film fragments which are visible only as flickering lights because the TV sets are placed facing towards the wall – when they are placed in the middle of the space as an object to create a shadow on a wall?It’s again this question of a change in perspective. In this case the object is normally positioned in front of the wall to produce a reflection of the light from film clips. Now it’s placed in the middle of the space. First of all, you encounter it from the front and it looks more or less the same as before; only the reflection is less obvious than it normally is. So it’s rather close to what the work usally is. But then you go around and it’s just like a Madonna from the fourteenth century, which is three-dimensional from one side and hollow from the other side. So now you see the mechanism of the work itself – which is almost like a pathological perspective on the work. Suddenly it lays bare its organs. I could only do this in this situation where the sculpture is used as raw material for the wall painting. It is comparable to the role of the model. On the one hand it is one thing, but then when you look at it in a larger,smaller or broader sense it could be something different. It’s all about the ambiguity of things, the ambiguity of reading the art work as a final product.Does this position also come from a dissatisfaction with the role art has nowadays?No not dissatisfaction, but more doubts or uncertainty about what seems to be so clear and easily understandable. Perhaps I would be happier if I simply made “nice” art; but my work is more about the uncertainty about what you call art. And in the end it’s very satisfying. It’s great fun posing all these questions. I am always grateful for all these “problems” I have. For me it’s fun to deal with them.Are you inspired by the way other artists in the past have dealt with these questions?Of course. I don’t know how far back it goes. I have a great appreciation for “old” art, but the work of the last hundred years has more relevance to my way of seeing art. Contemporary art is closer to the “confusion” I am in.Do you mean the work of artists of your own generation such as Olafur Eliasson and Rirkrit Tiravanija?Yes, but also an artist like Donald Judd, whom I admire very much but also have problems with. He dealt with a lot of the problems I deal with as well, like the idea of the genius artist or the “artist’s hand”. But then I have difficulties with the idea of production; that an industrial-looking object or a spray-painted metal box has nothing to do with the fight the person who made it had with his wife the night before. It’s almost an inhuman attitude towards the object, at least from my point of view. It’s not about good or bad. It’s more a matter of whether it really makes sense.
tobias rehberger
http://www.daserste.de/ttt/beitrag_dyn~uid,btw9xp5274fqw04y~cm.asp
On the day of the opening reported " ttt" from Venice: of the largest international Kunstshow the world. " Far Mondi" - " Weltenmachen" , so the slogan of the 53. Biennale. Over 77 countries and over 100 artists issue. And for the first time the creative process of the artists is located in the center. In addition, the Biennale is a competition: Who wins the golden lion? Who is the new star of the international art scene? Before the Palazzo Dieter moorland meets Biennale director Daniel pear tree. " Making Worlds" , " Weltenmachen" , " Far Mondi". In each language that sounds a little differently - which wanted to communicate pear tree with this slogan to the world? " We want to stress that the Biennale is not a place, where one zeigt" finished works of art; , the chief curator explains his concept. " Separate rather a place for experimental, new productions. Everything is new. But everything is shown here in the dialogue with the place, with the premises, with architecture, with the city. I believe, that am the typical for the Biennale. And we would like that betonen."
Proudly Daniel pear tree presents us its personal favorites. For instance the enormous installation " Galaxy" the Argentine artist of Toma Saraceno. In the largest and most central area of the Biennale Palazzo this developed an enormous and complex spider net with innumerable compressions and variations. " I so which in small in a gallery in Chelsea had gesehen" , pear tree swarms. " And I imagined: How would it be, if we make a large version of it? " Just as proudly pear tree is " also on; Paradiesgarten" of Nathalie Djurberg. A film installation - likewise built for the Biennale. " With their everything is possible. Also the most terrible Themen" , pear tree says. " Their films are very aggressively and sexually loaded. And it makes the dolls in its films from this material, which one knows rather from a child world. This mixture is very much merkwürdig." Djurberg was invited to arrange the second large area in the Biennale Palazzo. Their films are merciless. Here everything is permitted, here everything is shown. For its installation she received the silver lion as a best new generation artist. " Normally I work with completely small Figuren" , Djurberg says. " Here however I worked for the first time in a new dimension. The technology is the same. But I went through completely beautiful disasters. Now, I make everything all alone - only like that it is really vorstelle." my work like I her me;
There were some surprises in this year. Thus for the first time an artist won the golden lion with a bar. Is it the furniture - or is it the beverages? The German Tobias Rehberger makes the everyday life the art. Moved mirror. Irritations. Spielereien with its and now. And the whole functions as genuine bar. " It became exactly the same, as I it me meant habe" , says Rehberger, which one can often find in these days in its bar. " I look now, as I on my mechanism react and try out for me a little. I am my first customer. Therefore am I here, in order to probe whether it to some extent funktioniert." Its furniture arouses the impression, as if they would flow into the environment. Everything, only no Kuschel Wohlfühlraum. " I wanted to create a place, which one enters and imagines, one a pill would before have eingeworfen" , Rehberger schmunzelt.
How well its bar arrives, one sees to the fact that one can find even the president of the Biennale here. " The Biennale is not only a place, where you find art, but above all a place, at which one meets humans - and that already actually already fascinatingly ist" , Paolo Baratta says. " But we are nevertheless times honest: Here gibt' s surely a great many people, which hate modern art. But nevertheless they come, because it zählt." simply to the most marvelous events of the yearly;
And still another Englishman, equivalent next door: in German pavilion. Liam Gillick gives an operating instruction to everyone to the hand. Before one enters the pavilion, one should read this text: " Liam Gillick its daily work surrounding field, its kitchen, which he uses as improvised studio, into which to German pavilion transferred. After months-long working in the kitchen, of umschlichen of the cat its son, he concerned himself with the question: Who speaks? Who speaks with whom? And with which authorization? While the cat always tried, its work to interrupt… " That sounds somehow after poet they - or is that the truth? " No, that is the Wahrheit" , Gillick schmunzelt. " Even if it sounds after poet they. But I thought so for a long time about this German pavilion the fact that I had already a button in the head - and has the cat, those constantly around me crept somehow me shown, to stop as krampfig think as a Idiot."
From the operating instruction we had already experienced that it concerns a kitchen here - and not around any, but around the Ur-Einbauküche: the Frankfurt kitchen. Here send in jaws held. And the Mietzi sits also thereby. " Look, somehow are privileged I. I can say simply, what I möchte" , so Gillick. " And in such a way I imagined: Perhaps it is the cat, which must take the thing into the hand. Nevertheless participated always already also. With Mussolini. As a Hitler to walk here went. As Haacke broke the ground. The cat is simply a timeless Figur."
On the day of the opening reported " ttt" from Venice: of the largest international Kunstshow the world. " Far Mondi" - " Weltenmachen" , so the slogan of the 53. Biennale. Over 77 countries and over 100 artists issue. And for the first time the creative process of the artists is located in the center. In addition, the Biennale is a competition: Who wins the golden lion? Who is the new star of the international art scene? Before the Palazzo Dieter moorland meets Biennale director Daniel pear tree. " Making Worlds" , " Weltenmachen" , " Far Mondi". In each language that sounds a little differently - which wanted to communicate pear tree with this slogan to the world? " We want to stress that the Biennale is not a place, where one zeigt" finished works of art; , the chief curator explains his concept. " Separate rather a place for experimental, new productions. Everything is new. But everything is shown here in the dialogue with the place, with the premises, with architecture, with the city. I believe, that am the typical for the Biennale. And we would like that betonen."
Proudly Daniel pear tree presents us its personal favorites. For instance the enormous installation " Galaxy" the Argentine artist of Toma Saraceno. In the largest and most central area of the Biennale Palazzo this developed an enormous and complex spider net with innumerable compressions and variations. " I so which in small in a gallery in Chelsea had gesehen" , pear tree swarms. " And I imagined: How would it be, if we make a large version of it? " Just as proudly pear tree is " also on; Paradiesgarten" of Nathalie Djurberg. A film installation - likewise built for the Biennale. " With their everything is possible. Also the most terrible Themen" , pear tree says. " Their films are very aggressively and sexually loaded. And it makes the dolls in its films from this material, which one knows rather from a child world. This mixture is very much merkwürdig." Djurberg was invited to arrange the second large area in the Biennale Palazzo. Their films are merciless. Here everything is permitted, here everything is shown. For its installation she received the silver lion as a best new generation artist. " Normally I work with completely small Figuren" , Djurberg says. " Here however I worked for the first time in a new dimension. The technology is the same. But I went through completely beautiful disasters. Now, I make everything all alone - only like that it is really vorstelle." my work like I her me;
There were some surprises in this year. Thus for the first time an artist won the golden lion with a bar. Is it the furniture - or is it the beverages? The German Tobias Rehberger makes the everyday life the art. Moved mirror. Irritations. Spielereien with its and now. And the whole functions as genuine bar. " It became exactly the same, as I it me meant habe" , says Rehberger, which one can often find in these days in its bar. " I look now, as I on my mechanism react and try out for me a little. I am my first customer. Therefore am I here, in order to probe whether it to some extent funktioniert." Its furniture arouses the impression, as if they would flow into the environment. Everything, only no Kuschel Wohlfühlraum. " I wanted to create a place, which one enters and imagines, one a pill would before have eingeworfen" , Rehberger schmunzelt.
How well its bar arrives, one sees to the fact that one can find even the president of the Biennale here. " The Biennale is not only a place, where you find art, but above all a place, at which one meets humans - and that already actually already fascinatingly ist" , Paolo Baratta says. " But we are nevertheless times honest: Here gibt' s surely a great many people, which hate modern art. But nevertheless they come, because it zählt." simply to the most marvelous events of the yearly;
And still another Englishman, equivalent next door: in German pavilion. Liam Gillick gives an operating instruction to everyone to the hand. Before one enters the pavilion, one should read this text: " Liam Gillick its daily work surrounding field, its kitchen, which he uses as improvised studio, into which to German pavilion transferred. After months-long working in the kitchen, of umschlichen of the cat its son, he concerned himself with the question: Who speaks? Who speaks with whom? And with which authorization? While the cat always tried, its work to interrupt… " That sounds somehow after poet they - or is that the truth? " No, that is the Wahrheit" , Gillick schmunzelt. " Even if it sounds after poet they. But I thought so for a long time about this German pavilion the fact that I had already a button in the head - and has the cat, those constantly around me crept somehow me shown, to stop as krampfig think as a Idiot."
From the operating instruction we had already experienced that it concerns a kitchen here - and not around any, but around the Ur-Einbauküche: the Frankfurt kitchen. Here send in jaws held. And the Mietzi sits also thereby. " Look, somehow are privileged I. I can say simply, what I möchte" , so Gillick. " And in such a way I imagined: Perhaps it is the cat, which must take the thing into the hand. Nevertheless participated always already also. With Mussolini. As a Hitler to walk here went. As Haacke broke the ground. The cat is simply a timeless Figur."
tobias rehberger
http://www.br-online.de/mittagsmagazin/8_6biennale.shtml
Goldener Löwe für Tobias Rehberger
Für rund fünfeinhalb Monate steht Venedig ganz im Zeichen der Kunst. Unter dem Motto „Making Worlds “ hat die 53. Kunstbiennale ihre Pforten ab heute für Besucher geöffnet. Am Canale Grande sind die Werke von 90 Künstlern aus 77 Ländern zu bewundern - so viele wie niemals zuvor. Das Motto soll dabei sowohl für Kunst aus aller Welt als auch für die Welten der Kunstschaffenden stehen. „Es geht darum, Kunst zu machen, und die macht jeder Künstler anders“, so Direktor Daniel Birnbaum zu seinem Konzept.
Die Biennale präsentiert sich also alles andere als einheitlich - mit bisher durchaus positiven Kritiken. Den Deutschen Pavillon gestaltete in diesem Jahr der britische Künstler Liam Gillick. Kurator des deutschen Beitrags ist erneut der in Düsseldorf geborene Nicolaus Schafhausen.
Bei der Eröffnungsfeier hatte es Standing Ovations für die Japanerin Yoko Ono gegeben, die wie der Amerikaner John Baldessari mit dem Goldenen Löwen für das Lebenswerk geehrt wurde. Die Auszeichnung als bester nationaler Beitrag ging an den USA-Pavillon. Der Deutsche Tobias Rehberger, Professor der Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, wurde als bester Künstler geehrt. Der Silberne Löwe für den besten Nachwuchskünstler ging an Nathalie Djurberg aus Schweden. Die Kunstbiennale dauert bis zum 22. November.
Golden lion for Tobias Rehberger For approximately five one half months stands Venice completely in the indication of the art. Under the slogan „Making Worlds “has the 53. Kunstbiennale their gates from today on for visitors opened. At the Canale Grande are the works of 90 artists from 77 countries to admire - as many as never before. The slogan is to stand thereby both for art from all over the world and for the worlds of the art-creative. „It concerns to make art and each artist makes differently “, thus director Daniel pear tree his concept. The Biennale presents itself thus everything else as uniform - with so far quite positive criticisms. The British artist Liam Gillick arranged the German pavilion in this year. Curator of the German contribution is again the Nicolaus sheep living born in Duesseldorf. With the opening celebration it had given Ovations for the Japanese Yoko Ono, which like the American John Baldessari with the golden lion for the life's work was honoured to standing. The honor as the best national contribution went to the USA pavilion. The German Tobias Rehberger, professor of the Städelschule in Frankfurt/Main, was honoured as best artists. The silver lion for the best new generation artist went at Nathalie Djurberg out of Sweden. The Kunstbiennale lasts by 22 November.
Goldener Löwe für Tobias Rehberger
Für rund fünfeinhalb Monate steht Venedig ganz im Zeichen der Kunst. Unter dem Motto „Making Worlds “ hat die 53. Kunstbiennale ihre Pforten ab heute für Besucher geöffnet. Am Canale Grande sind die Werke von 90 Künstlern aus 77 Ländern zu bewundern - so viele wie niemals zuvor. Das Motto soll dabei sowohl für Kunst aus aller Welt als auch für die Welten der Kunstschaffenden stehen. „Es geht darum, Kunst zu machen, und die macht jeder Künstler anders“, so Direktor Daniel Birnbaum zu seinem Konzept.
Die Biennale präsentiert sich also alles andere als einheitlich - mit bisher durchaus positiven Kritiken. Den Deutschen Pavillon gestaltete in diesem Jahr der britische Künstler Liam Gillick. Kurator des deutschen Beitrags ist erneut der in Düsseldorf geborene Nicolaus Schafhausen.
Bei der Eröffnungsfeier hatte es Standing Ovations für die Japanerin Yoko Ono gegeben, die wie der Amerikaner John Baldessari mit dem Goldenen Löwen für das Lebenswerk geehrt wurde. Die Auszeichnung als bester nationaler Beitrag ging an den USA-Pavillon. Der Deutsche Tobias Rehberger, Professor der Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, wurde als bester Künstler geehrt. Der Silberne Löwe für den besten Nachwuchskünstler ging an Nathalie Djurberg aus Schweden. Die Kunstbiennale dauert bis zum 22. November.
Golden lion for Tobias Rehberger For approximately five one half months stands Venice completely in the indication of the art. Under the slogan „Making Worlds “has the 53. Kunstbiennale their gates from today on for visitors opened. At the Canale Grande are the works of 90 artists from 77 countries to admire - as many as never before. The slogan is to stand thereby both for art from all over the world and for the worlds of the art-creative. „It concerns to make art and each artist makes differently “, thus director Daniel pear tree his concept. The Biennale presents itself thus everything else as uniform - with so far quite positive criticisms. The British artist Liam Gillick arranged the German pavilion in this year. Curator of the German contribution is again the Nicolaus sheep living born in Duesseldorf. With the opening celebration it had given Ovations for the Japanese Yoko Ono, which like the American John Baldessari with the golden lion for the life's work was honoured to standing. The honor as the best national contribution went to the USA pavilion. The German Tobias Rehberger, professor of the Städelschule in Frankfurt/Main, was honoured as best artists. The silver lion for the best new generation artist went at Nathalie Djurberg out of Sweden. The Kunstbiennale lasts by 22 November.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
pop-mitic
Massacres begin at home
Serbian artist Darinka Pop-Mitic’s installation at the 11th International Istanbul Biennial questions the relationship between peaceful homes and the sites of massacres during the war in Yugoslavia
Entering Serbian artist Darinka Pop-Mitic’s installation, one finds the artist relaxing on an armchair in what looks like a living room decorated with ornate wallpaper and landscape paintings. This seemingly peaceful environment is used by Pop-Mitic to reveal how these spaces served as the incubators of massacres committed during the war in Yugoslavia.
"The newspaper clippings, chairs, wallpapers – you need to see them as a whole," said Pop-Mitic. She explained that the landscapes were of places where massacres had occurred during the war that tore apart the former Yugoslavia. "Ordinary landscapes contrast with the subtitles below the paintings," she said.
Pop-Mitic had worked for a newspaper that published readers’ love letters. "Newspapers reuse images," she said, adding, "I used these landscapes of places where massacres had occurred, like Srebrenica, to illustrate those love letters." Srebrenica saw the July, 1995 massacre of more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys, as well as the ethnic cleansing of more than 25,000 refugees in that region of Bosnia and Herzegovina by units of the Bosnian Serb Army, or VRS, during the Bosnian War.
"We say that the war in Yugoslavia was constructed from ‘little lies at home.’ And this is a reconstruction of a petit-bourgeois salon," Pop-Mitic said. She added that the installation looked like a generic "grandma’s living room," a space where people would feel comfortable enough to voice opinions that they would not say outside the home, as they would be considered racist. "People would meet and discuss politics. In this environment, you can hear these kinds of [racist] things," she said.
Pop-Mitic said the pressure in Yugoslavia, due to this closeted racism, had started building up in the 1980s "and it exploded in the 1990s." "So the installation is about the ‘home lies’ that started the war," she said.
Although Pop-Mitic handles the subject of massacres, her method does not involve the exhibition of blood and gore. Doing otherwise, she believes, would be an irresponsible exploitation of the subject. "After the fall of Slobodan Milošević, things settled down but they are still not very calm," she said. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia charged former Yugoslavian President Milošević with crimes against humanity and alleged genocide for his role during the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. He died of a heart attack during his lengthy trial at the Hague in 2006.
"Artists use images from the massacres, the blood and gore," Pop-Mitic said. "But they should be more responsible. I wanted to avoid the anesthetization of death."
"I wanted to investigate the relationship between home and crime," she said, explaining that if images are taken out of context, then meaning is conceived differently. Added Pop-Mitic, "This is what the visual arts are about."
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=the-contrast-between-home-and-crime-2009-09-11
pop-mitic
More than 400 journalists from 35 countries attended the press launch where guest speakers were the curators of WHW, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Koç Holding Mustafa Koç, Chairman of the Execution Board of Directors of European Culture Agency Şekib Avdagiç, IKSV General Director Görgün Taner and the Director of the International Istanbul Biennial Bige Örer.
A more optimistic Biennial to kick off Saturday
The 11th International Istanbul Biennial kicks off Saturday. The two-month-long event is much more optimistic than previous editions, as the participating artists not only reflect on war, stereotyping and prejudice but also suggest ways to overcome them Istanbul will shake off the last lazy days of summer when the 11th International Istanbul Biennial begins Saturday.The international art fair, which lasts until Nov. 8, showcases works by more than 70 artists and art groups at three venues. The biennial is accompanied by parallel events including workshops, exhibitions and panels.
The three main venues are the Antrepo 3 in Karaköy, the nearby Tobacco Warehouse, and the old Greek High School in Feriköy. Venues are open from Tuesday to Sunday, between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. and closed on Mondays, except Monday, Sept. 14.
The biennial’s guest curator, What, How & for Whom, or WHW, is comprised of four women based out of Zagreb, Croatia. For the biennial’s central concept, WHW selected the song "What Keeps Mankind Alive?" from Bertolt Brecht’s "Threepenny Opera," and posed the question to the invited artists. It appears that what keeps mankind alive is optimism and joy, as the works on display express these feelings even when the subjects they explore are very political.
The relationship between truth and media seems to be on the agenda of many artists participating in this year’s biennial. One case in point is the work of Georgian artist Vladimer (Lado) Darakhvelidze, who has turned his "classroom" at the Feriköy Greek High School into a reading room for newspaper articles. In an interview with the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review, Darakhvelidze said people appraise politicians through the media. "The media is the teaching tool of today. It is more aggressive; no one can compete with the media," he said. "I am very interested in the visual appearance of political leaders – how they appear to us. We wait, they appear like magicians. The media creates this illusion; we only know what the media shows us."
Work by the Buenos Aires-based art group Etcetera also questions the role of the media in shaping perceptions of reality and forming stereotypes. "We saw in the news Palestinian-looking men demonstrating. We were being given a fake image about that part of the world," said Federico Zukerfeld of Etcetera, referring to the stereotypical representation of angry Palestinians in the media.
One notable aspect of this year’s biennial is the relative youth of its participants – most are in their early 20s to early 30s. It seems that the artists’ youth is reflected in their work as energy, bursts of color and optimism.
The young artists have also been questioning what causes wars and how to avoid them. In a performance that is part of the exhibition, Darakhvelidze suggests that children should destroy war toys given to them by their elders.
Members of Etcetera believe that if stereotypes can be undone, then the world will become a more peaceful place where innovative ideas can flourish. In his idealistic representation of the Qalandia Refugee Camp in the year 2087, Palestinian artist Wafa Hourani eliminates the checkpoint that severs the camp’s ties to the outside world and converts the Israeli military airbase into a civilian airport. He also suggests giving each Palestinian a mirror so that they can reflect on themselves and take action to change their situations, pursue an education and communicate with the rest of the world.
In her installation work at the Tobacco Warehouse, Serbian artist Darinka Pop-Mitic comments on the contrast between the peaceful appearance of a typical home with landscape paintings of towns where massacres have taken place. "The war in Yugoslavia was based on ‘little house lies.’ At home, families would feel free to voice opinions that might have been considered racist outside," said Pop-Mitic, adding that this phenomenon turned living rooms into breeding grounds for stereotypes.
Paris-based Société Realiste also closely examines the reasons behind war. The group questioned the existence of the state from angles such as language and geography, concluding that the borders between countries exist with complete disregard for language and ethnicity.
It is neither the first nor the last time that artists participating in the International Istanbul Biennial will question war, peace and politics. However, compared to previous biennials, this year’s event not only condemns war, censorship and stereotyping but also presents ways to overcome them. This alone is enough to leave visitors to this year’s biennial feeling optimistic about the future.
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=a-much-happier-optimistic-biennial-kicks-off-2009-09-10
Monday, September 21, 2009
Nam June Paik
Mr. Hakuta,
My name is Phillip Baumer. I am a 2nd MFA grad student in sculpture within the School of Art & Design at
1.) In your opinion, how does the setting for the Istanbul Biennial affect how Nam June Paik’s work will be viewed or perceived?
2.) How does Nam June Paik’s art fit into the thematic concerns or curatorial statement of the Istanbul Biennial?
3.) Given the history of the biennial as an international venue; how do you think that Nam June Paik would consider the global significance of its future? I would also appreciate your answer to the same question.
4.) While Nam June Paik’s art is internationally prolific, how important is the Istanbul Biennial to his artistic legacy?
5.) Nam June Paik is considered the first video artist; in your opinion—how has video art changed since he first introduced it as an art medium?
I am presenting Mr. Paik’s work next Monday to our class and any help that you could give in answering these questions would be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
Phillip Baumer
Graduate Student
Nam June Paik
Nam June Paik manipulates colour and black and white televisions to portray his theme. His objective through using the television is to make the TV set itself, not just by using what is shown on the screen but by using the screen and the box as a sculpture. In one exhibition, the main attraction was the thirteen part video sculpture My Faust(1989-1991). He used thirteen stations to correspond to the thirteen New York cable TV channels. The represented stations represented subjects of the world, such as education and agriculture. Each station grouped the screens ornamented neo-Gothic construction, which was inspired by the thirteen Stations of the Cross. All thirteen stations have its own subject but at the same time shows a part of his biography. He uses objects to show parts of his personality, such as a rumpled shirt, which symbolizes how little he is concerned with his personal appearance. Not only does he include his own personality into his theme but he also includes how he sees global subject matter. He uses art to show people how the world changes and transforms, and how to understand the changes.
In Eagle Eye, the spirit of Zen and the changing dynamics of American society inspired Paik. He has integrated new technology into an expressive style of art. This assemblage is made up of nine computers and keyboards, forming the wings and feathers. An eye chart, projector and obsolete technologies are used for the body. The blue neon light shows the atmospheric space of the eagle. The video is a collage of images flashing onto the screen. The images include the earth, a solar eclipse, and American missiles.
TV Garden is scene or assemblage that represents nature and technology. It is the first large art piece, which uses state-of-the-art equipment. Monitors are placed lying on their backs with tropical plants surrounding the monitors. On every screen a scene from a tape called " Global Groove" is played. Global Groove is a collage of different kinds of material. The voice-over in the introduction by Russel Connor explains the message. It states "This is a view of a new world, in which it will be possible to switch on any television program on the planet, and in which TV-program guides will be thicker than the Manhattan telephone book." The message of TV Garden is about the future of worldwide communication and how it will be used by all nations.
The collection of eighteen televisions is called "TV Clock". Paik used the eighteen television sets to show the hours of the day. Each television has hands that show the division of the clock face into twelve daytime hours and twelve nighttime hours. Paik's message is the fact of measuring time with a static measurement tool. The ability to measure time is a great accomplishment because time is a natural phenomenon. By using the televisions to show time, it shows the worlds changing ways of measuring this phenomenon.
In Eagle Eye, the spirit of Zen and the changing dynamics of American society inspired Paik. He has integrated new technology into an expressive style of art. This assemblage is made up of nine computers and keyboards, forming the wings and feathers. An eye chart, projector and obsolete technologies are used for the body. The blue neon light shows the atmospheric space of the eagle. The video is a collage of images flashing onto the screen. The images include the earth, a solar eclipse, and American missiles.
TV Garden is scene or assemblage that represents nature and technology. It is the first large art piece, which uses state-of-the-art equipment. Monitors are placed lying on their backs with tropical plants surrounding the monitors. On every screen a scene from a tape called " Global Groove" is played. Global Groove is a collage of different kinds of material. The voice-over in the introduction by Russel Connor explains the message. It states "This is a view of a new world, in which it will be possible to switch on any television program on the planet, and in which TV-program guides will be thicker than the Manhattan telephone book." The message of TV Garden is about the future of worldwide communication and how it will be used by all nations.
The collection of eighteen televisions is called "TV Clock". Paik used the eighteen television sets to show the hours of the day. Each television has hands that show the division of the clock face into twelve daytime hours and twelve nighttime hours. Paik's message is the fact of measuring time with a static measurement tool. The ability to measure time is a great accomplishment because time is a natural phenomenon. By using the televisions to show time, it shows the worlds changing ways of measuring this phenomenon.
Nam June Paik
Nam June Paik was born on July 20, 193s, in Seoul Korea. Paik studied music history, art history, and philosophy at the University of Tokyo, where he graduated with a dissertation on Arnold Schoenberg. He then went to Germany in 1956 to continue the study of music history at the University of Munich. In Germany he met Karlheinz Stockhausen and John Cage who inspired Paik into electronic art. Both composers, Stockhausen and Cage influenced Paik through their ideas of composition and performance. Paik worked with Stockhausen in a studio for Electronic Music. He then got involved with the post neo-Dada art movement, fluxus. Fluxus was founded by George Maciunas.George invited Paik to join his group of artists and he accepted. Then he returned to Japan to conduct experiments with electromagnets and colour television, alongside electronic engineer Shuya Abe. The rise of new technology led him to use the video image. Today he is known as the father of video art and influences the younger generation of artists
Nam June Paik Video
Nam June Paik: Venus / Galerie Hans Mayer / Art Cologne 2009
http://a23.video2.blip.tv/2470001130178/Henrichy0205blip-NamJunePaikVenus218.mp4?bri=9.5&brs=2196At Art Cologne 2009 Hans Mayer Gallery showed a piece by Nam June Paik, a painted aluminium infrastructure with a multi painted satellite dish, 24 color TV sets and laser disc player. In this video, Hans Mayer gives us a short introduction to the work.
Nam June Paik (1932-2006) worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the first video artist. He was trained as a classical pianist. Nam June Paik and his family had to flee from their home in Korea in 1950. They fled to Hong Kong, and later moved to Japan and then to Germany. While studying in Germany, Nam June Paik met the composers Karlheinz Stockhausen and John Cage and the artists Joseph Beuys and Wolf Vostell. Wolf Vostell inspired him to work in the field of electronic art.
The Hans Mayer Gallery was established in 1965 in Esslingen, Germany. Because of exhibitions on Op Art, Contemporary Contstructivism, and Kinetic Art, the gallery became very well known in the 1960s. In 1967 he co-founded the world’s first art fair in Cologne, the Kunstmarkt Köln, now Art Cologne. Since 1971 Hans Mayer is based in Düsseldorf. In 2008, Hans Mayer received the European Gallery Award of the Federation of European Art Galleries Association. In the 1970s, 80s, and 90s the gallery programme expanded continuously. In 1969 Hans Mayer was the first to show Andy Warhol in Düsseldorf. In 1989 Nam June Paik joined the gallery. The gallery then added American artists such as Frank Stella, Ellsworth Kelly, Sol LeWitt, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, and Tom Wesselmann and representatives of a younger generation, including Keith Haring, Michael Basquiat, Kenny Scharf, Robert Longo, Bill Beckley and Tony Oursler to its programme. European painting is represented by C.O. Paeffgen, Gia Edzgveradze, and Markus Oehlen. Apart from gallery exhibitions, Hans Mayer deals in European and American art after 1945. The gallery is also specialized in large outdoor sculptures.
Istanbul Biennale
A Croatian Collective Takes Charge at Istanbul’s Biennial
By Susanne Fowler
Arzu Yayıntaş The members of the Croatian collective WHW. The group, who are curating this year’s Istanbul Biennial, are pictured in the Feriköy Greek School, one of the festival’s venues.ISTANBUL | For WHW, the Croatian collective that is curating the 11th International Istanbul Biennial, which opens today, one of the biggest challenges was how to stay true to its creative philosophy of the past decade without being seduced by being in the global spotlight.
And then there were the lures of Istanbul itself.
“It’s hard not to be mesmerized by Istanbul,” said Sabina Sabolovic, one of the members of WHW — or What, How and For Whom — which also includes Ivet Curlin, Ana Devic and Natasha Ilic. “But because this moment in history is so crucial for the whole world, we wanted to get away from being Istanbul-obsessed and ask a question that absolutely has global resonance.”
That question — “What Keeps Mankind Alive?” — became the title theme of the festival, which runs from Sept. 11 through Nov. 8 and features more than 120 works by artists from 40 countries, including Sanja Iveković of Croatia, Nam June Paik and Sharon Hayes of the United States, Hans-Peter Feldmann of Germany and Canan Senol and Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin of Turkey.
The title comes from a much-covered song from Bertolt Brecht’s “The Threepenny Opera” which examines conventional definitions of wealth and poverty. Such questions of identity and economics have been central to the works of the Zagreb-based WHW.
The artists that the group has brought together will be examining globalization and the effects of the economic meltdown.
Courtesy of the artist Jinoos Taghizadeh’s “Paper, Rock, Scissors” (2009), one of the works included in this year’s Istanbul Biennial.“A lot of our work and even this biennial are very much about the struggles and questions of what is a European identity,’’ Sabolovic said. “Look at our own country, Croatia. Our work is very much criticizing the blind obsession with being European that is shaping daily politics and the daily reality of people, the idea that the road to EU membership and liberal capitalism is the only path and a complete amnesia about any sort of socialist path.’’
“Our collective,’’ she added, “always tries to deal with the social and political topics which we feel are swept under the carpet.”
To help find the range of works, the members of the collective traveled for a year and a half through Eastern Europe, the Caucuses, Central Asia and the Middle East. Many of the included pieces grew out of this journey of discovery while others came from artists and groups who have influenced and shaped the collective for the past 10 years.
Although WHW was catapulted into prime time when it was selected to curate the biennial, its members have tried to resist putting on a show that might be more market-oriented and less faithful to its core values of solidarity and collaboration.
“We really tried to resist reinventing ourselves,” Sabolovic said. “We are not doing a loud, big, shiny overview of recent projects, but more really building of a thematic exhibition bringing together different generations of work by artists ranging in age from 27 to 76 and showing works from a very large time span, from 1965 to new works created for this show.’’
“This is the most high-key, visible thing we’ve done and the pressure was on to produce something new,” she said, “but it was really important for us at the same time to remain stubborn.”
The biennial, organized by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts under the sponsorship of the Koç Group, takes place at three venues on the European side of the city: Antrepo, or warehouse, No. 3 in Tophane; the Tobacco Warehouse, also in Tophane; and the Feriköy Greek School, in Şişli.
Nam June Paik
The İstanbul Biennial will be hosting the work “Life” by Nam June Paik, who is celebrated as the world’s first video-artist. Born in South Korea in 1932, this great master left behind countless works produced by a multitude of methods before his death in the USA, in 2006. In this piece, Nam June Paik displays his subjective manipulations of the covers of the famous “Life” magazine. The project will be displayed at Antrepo No. 3 throughout the Biennial.
Info from Eriberto on Gyatso/ Sereceno
The Shambala of Modern Time
from: http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/10/view/6653/tomas-saraceno-at-venice-art-biennale-09.html
An interview with him about his artwork, categorization, cross disciplinaries, and etc. http://www.pinksummer.com/pink2/exb/sar/exb001en.htm
Exhibition description at USC- Berkeley:
http://www.e-flux.com/shows/view/4864
My questions: 1. Do you find the Venice Biennale structure a "utopia" for art?
2. Can there ever be an ideal venue for art over many disciplines and cultures?
Gonkar Gyatso was born in 1961 in Lhasa and studied Fine Art in Beijing and London.He is the founder of the contemporary Tibetan art gallery The Sweet Tea House and is currently based and working in London. He has been selected to take a part in the 53th Venice Biennial 2009.His work has been internationally published and exhibited in galleries and museums including The Chinese National Art Gallery (Beijing), The Kangra Museum (India), The Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art (Scotland), the Courtauld Institute of Art (London), the Wereld museum Rotterdam (Netherlands) and Colorado University Art Museum and Collections (USA). Works by Gyatso are now held in the Newark Museum (USA), the Pitt Rivers Museum (Oxford), Queensland Gallery of Modern Art (Australia), Burger Collection (Switzerland), Rossi&Rossi (London), Red Gate Gallery (Beijing), The Newark Museum (New York), and numerous private collections. Having lived in Tibet, China, India and the West, Gyatso's art proposes insightful statements on cultural hybridity of globalization as well as the sea change of the world yet to come. From:gonkargyatso.com
Disney Plus
A brief interview with the artist at this year's Venice Biennale:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8I6Mdm0hhQc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8I6Mdm0hhQc
An interview on Tibet Art Now:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vitN0uGtM4c
My Questions: 1.When do you consider that cultural hybridity to become a culture on its own terms?
2. Does the Venice Biennale's title "Making Worlds" support or stifle your artist statement?
My Questions: 1.When do you consider that cultural hybridity to become a culture on its own terms?
2. Does the Venice Biennale's title "Making Worlds" support or stifle your artist statement?
Tomas Sareceno
Bio/CV
Tomas Saraceno
Born 1973, Tucuman, Argentina Currently lives & works in Frankfurt am Main Education 2001-2003 Postgraduate in Art & Architecture, Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Kunst, Frankfurt 1999-2000 Postgraduate in Art & Architecture, Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes Ernesto de la Carcova, Buenos Aires 1992-1999 Licenciado en Architectura en la Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires Selected Solo Exhibitions 2009 Tomas Saraceno, Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis, MN 2008 Artists-in-Residence: Tomás Saraceno, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis Tomas Saraceno, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York On Clouds (Air-port-city), Towada Art Center, Towada, Japan (permanent installation) We have a Dream (with Marjetica Potrc), Spazio Gerra, Reggio Emilia, Italy 2007 Tomas Saraceno, Biosphere MW32, Pinksummer, Genoa, Italy Tomas Saraceno, Matrix 224, University of California at Berkeley Tomas Saraceno, Opening, AEREA, Stockholm Unlimited, Art Basel 38 Air-Port-City, De Vleeshal, Netherlands 2006 Tomas Saraceno, Centre d’Art Santa Monica, Barcelona, Spain Air-Port-City, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York Tomas Saraceno, The Curve, Barbican Art Gallery, London Personal States/Infinite Actives, Portikus, Frankfurt (with Marjetica Potrc) 2004 On-Air, Pinksummer, Genoa, Italy 2003 in-migration, Universität Kaiserslautern, Germany 2000 612 Planetas, Parque Planetario, Buenos Aires 1998 Luces de estrellas, Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes Ernesto de la Carcova, Buenos Aires Selected Group Exhibitions 2008-2009 Seeing the Light, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York 2008 Psycho Buildings: Architecture by Artists, the Hayward Gallery, London Greenwashing - Environment: Perils, Promises and Perplexities, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy Grandeur: Sonsbeek 2008, Arnhem, The Netherlands The Liverpool Biennial 2008, Liverpool Within the Big Structure: Megastructure Reloaded, European Arts Project, Berlin Multiverse: Directions for the World, A.L.I.,Rome 50 Moons of Saturn: T2 Torino Triennale, Turin, Italy, curated by Daniel Birnbaum 48 Degrees Celcius Public. Art. Ecology, Delhi, India 2007 Brave New Worlds, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis The History of a Decade that Has Not Yet Been Named, Lyon Biennial, France Cloud, (Air Show) Gunpowder Park, London, UK Still Life. Art, Ecology, and the Politics of Change, Sharjah Biennial 8, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates Megastructure Reloaded, Berlin Mitte entrada al presente, El Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Monterrey, Mexico In cima alle stelle. Alla scoperta della volta celeste, Forte di Bard, Aosta, Italy 2006 Reconstruction 1, Sudeley Castle, Winchcombe, Gloucestershire Presented by, Galerie Andreas Huber, Vienna 2006 Buenos días Santiago - an exhibition as expedition, Museum of Contemporary Art, Santiago de Chile São Paulo Biennale 2005 I still believe in miracles, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris Longing Balloons Are Floating Around the World, Green Light Pavilion, Berlin The Opening, Andersen_S Contemporary Art, Copenhagen Luna Park – Fantastic Art, Villa Manin Center for Contemporary Art, Italy Project Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans van Bueningen, Rotterdam Pursuit of Happiness, Leidsche Rijn, Netherlands on mobility, Büro Friedrich, Berlin Dialectic of Hope, Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Moscow 2004 What is in my apartment when I’m not there, Berlin Duende Open, Duende, Rotterdam Universal Outstretch, Flaca Gallery, London Common Property, Werkleitz Biennale, Halle, Germany Do-It, www.e-flux.com/projects/do_it 2003 Utopia Station, Dreams and Conflicts: The dictatorship of the Viewer, Biennale di Venezia ArtGentina, Buena Vista Building, Art Basel Miami Here we come, Kunst und Austellungen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn Un-build cities, Kunstverein, Bonn 2002 Dreams and Conflicts: The Dictatorship of the Viewer, 50th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia Xposition, Archtekturzentrum, Vienna; Berlague Institute, Rotterdam Peace and Love, Palazzo Buonauguro, Bassano, Italy Next, 8th International Architectural Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia Mobile HIV/AIDS Health Clinic for Africa, with N. Miodragovic and K. Bollingur 2001 Rundgang, Staedelschule, Frankfurt El Suelo en Renuncio, Ministerio de fomento Arqueria de los Nuevos Ministerios, Madrid Real Presence, Tito Museum, Belgrade Neue Welt, Kunstverein, Frankfurt 1999 City Editing, Fundación Proa, Buenos Aires Siglo XX Arte y Cultura en la Argentina, Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires 1998 Objetos de Jóvenes Artistas, Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires
Born 1973, Tucuman, Argentina Currently lives & works in Frankfurt am Main Education 2001-2003 Postgraduate in Art & Architecture, Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Kunst, Frankfurt 1999-2000 Postgraduate in Art & Architecture, Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes Ernesto de la Carcova, Buenos Aires 1992-1999 Licenciado en Architectura en la Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires Selected Solo Exhibitions 2009 Tomas Saraceno, Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis, MN 2008 Artists-in-Residence: Tomás Saraceno, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis Tomas Saraceno, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York On Clouds (Air-port-city), Towada Art Center, Towada, Japan (permanent installation) We have a Dream (with Marjetica Potrc), Spazio Gerra, Reggio Emilia, Italy 2007 Tomas Saraceno, Biosphere MW32, Pinksummer, Genoa, Italy Tomas Saraceno, Matrix 224, University of California at Berkeley Tomas Saraceno, Opening, AEREA, Stockholm Unlimited, Art Basel 38 Air-Port-City, De Vleeshal, Netherlands 2006 Tomas Saraceno, Centre d’Art Santa Monica, Barcelona, Spain Air-Port-City, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York Tomas Saraceno, The Curve, Barbican Art Gallery, London Personal States/Infinite Actives, Portikus, Frankfurt (with Marjetica Potrc) 2004 On-Air, Pinksummer, Genoa, Italy 2003 in-migration, Universität Kaiserslautern, Germany 2000 612 Planetas, Parque Planetario, Buenos Aires 1998 Luces de estrellas, Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes Ernesto de la Carcova, Buenos Aires Selected Group Exhibitions 2008-2009 Seeing the Light, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York 2008 Psycho Buildings: Architecture by Artists, the Hayward Gallery, London Greenwashing - Environment: Perils, Promises and Perplexities, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy Grandeur: Sonsbeek 2008, Arnhem, The Netherlands The Liverpool Biennial 2008, Liverpool Within the Big Structure: Megastructure Reloaded, European Arts Project, Berlin Multiverse: Directions for the World, A.L.I.,Rome 50 Moons of Saturn: T2 Torino Triennale, Turin, Italy, curated by Daniel Birnbaum 48 Degrees Celcius Public. Art. Ecology, Delhi, India 2007 Brave New Worlds, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis The History of a Decade that Has Not Yet Been Named, Lyon Biennial, France Cloud, (Air Show) Gunpowder Park, London, UK Still Life. Art, Ecology, and the Politics of Change, Sharjah Biennial 8, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates Megastructure Reloaded, Berlin Mitte entrada al presente, El Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Monterrey, Mexico In cima alle stelle. Alla scoperta della volta celeste, Forte di Bard, Aosta, Italy 2006 Reconstruction 1, Sudeley Castle, Winchcombe, Gloucestershire Presented by, Galerie Andreas Huber, Vienna 2006 Buenos días Santiago - an exhibition as expedition, Museum of Contemporary Art, Santiago de Chile São Paulo Biennale 2005 I still believe in miracles, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris Longing Balloons Are Floating Around the World, Green Light Pavilion, Berlin The Opening, Andersen_S Contemporary Art, Copenhagen Luna Park – Fantastic Art, Villa Manin Center for Contemporary Art, Italy Project Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans van Bueningen, Rotterdam Pursuit of Happiness, Leidsche Rijn, Netherlands on mobility, Büro Friedrich, Berlin Dialectic of Hope, Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Moscow 2004 What is in my apartment when I’m not there, Berlin Duende Open, Duende, Rotterdam Universal Outstretch, Flaca Gallery, London Common Property, Werkleitz Biennale, Halle, Germany Do-It, www.e-flux.com/projects/do_it 2003 Utopia Station, Dreams and Conflicts: The dictatorship of the Viewer, Biennale di Venezia ArtGentina, Buena Vista Building, Art Basel Miami Here we come, Kunst und Austellungen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn Un-build cities, Kunstverein, Bonn 2002 Dreams and Conflicts: The Dictatorship of the Viewer, 50th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia Xposition, Archtekturzentrum, Vienna; Berlague Institute, Rotterdam Peace and Love, Palazzo Buonauguro, Bassano, Italy Next, 8th International Architectural Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia Mobile HIV/AIDS Health Clinic for Africa, with N. Miodragovic and K. Bollingur 2001 Rundgang, Staedelschule, Frankfurt El Suelo en Renuncio, Ministerio de fomento Arqueria de los Nuevos Ministerios, Madrid Real Presence, Tito Museum, Belgrade Neue Welt, Kunstverein, Frankfurt 1999 City Editing, Fundación Proa, Buenos Aires Siglo XX Arte y Cultura en la Argentina, Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires 1998 Objetos de Jóvenes Artistas, Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires
Air-port-city pictures and setup:
http://picasaweb.google.com/solar.flying.city/MuseoAeroSolar
Brief description of his work in Venice Biennale:
'galaxies forming along filaments, like droplets along the strands of a spider's web' 2009 by tomas saracenomade of elastic ropes image © designboomargentinian artist tomas saraceno is exhibiting his work 'galaxies forming along filaments, like droplets along the strands of a spider's web' as part of the 'fare mondi' / making worlds / bantin duniyan / 制造世界 / weltenmachen / construire des mondes/fazer mundos...exhibition.saraceno's interest in architectural projects is part of the artist's ongoing fascination with utopian theories and astronomical constellations. his conception of what constitutesan architectural structure is admirably broad, and his new installation examines how the black widow's gossamer filaments are able to suspend extreme weights through the use of complex geometry.
Brief description of his work in Venice Biennale:
'galaxies forming along filaments, like droplets along the strands of a spider's web' 2009 by tomas saracenomade of elastic ropes image © designboomargentinian artist tomas saraceno is exhibiting his work 'galaxies forming along filaments, like droplets along the strands of a spider's web' as part of the 'fare mondi' / making worlds / bantin duniyan / 制造世界 / weltenmachen / construire des mondes/fazer mundos...exhibition.saraceno's interest in architectural projects is part of the artist's ongoing fascination with utopian theories and astronomical constellations. his conception of what constitutesan architectural structure is admirably broad, and his new installation examines how the black widow's gossamer filaments are able to suspend extreme weights through the use of complex geometry.
Videos of Venice Installation:
long video
short video
from: http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/10/view/6653/tomas-saraceno-at-venice-art-biennale-09.html
An interview with him about his artwork, categorization, cross disciplinaries, and etc. http://www.pinksummer.com/pink2/exb/sar/exb001en.htm
Exhibition description at USC- Berkeley:
http://www.e-flux.com/shows/view/4864
My questions: 1. Do you find the Venice Biennale structure a "utopia" for art?
2. Can there ever be an ideal venue for art over many disciplines and cultures?
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