/tagged/Venice/page/2

Norway

(part 1)

‘The State of Things’: Series of lectures at various institutes across Venice, programme available here:  http://www.oca.no/programme/norway-in-venice/venice-biennale-2011/the-state-of-things 

Lecturers: Judith Butler, Vandana Shiva, Franco Berardi, T.J. Clark, Jacques Ranciere, Eyal Weizman 

(part 2)

‘Beyond Death: Viral Discontents and Contemporary Notions about AIDS’ with artist Bjarne Melgaard 

Curator: Pablo Lafuente, Marta Kuzma and Peter Osborne 

Location: Various

Laura Stocks interviews curator Pablo Lafuente 

Laura Stocks: This year Norway is independent of the Nordic Pavilion. In what way does the absence of the pavilion affect Norway’s representation?

Pablo Lafuente: The temporary interruption of the collaboration with Finland and Sweden in the Nordic Pavilion in the Giardini, which is going to last for three editions of the Biennale, was for us an opportunity to try new models of national representation and new relationships to audiences in a context that does not often enough lend itself to it. By liberating us from having to organise an exhibition in the actual pavilion, it allowed us to explore what kind of relationships art could establish with other fields within the Biennale, with the urgencies affecting the world today, and with the local – institutional and individual – scene in the city. After a lot of discussion, we decided to organise two programmes – The State of Things and Beyond Death: Viral Discontents and Contemporary Notions about AIDS, the latter led by artist Bjarne Melgaard – that explored what we thought were key issues and did so in collaboration with local institutions such as Università Iuav di Venezia, the Fondazione Querini Stampalia or Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia, and through discursive and pedagogical programmes.

LS: ‘The State of Things’ is initially based on the concept of the Nansen passport, how does this reference or relate to contemporary nationalities?

PL: We thought that the figure of Nansen and his passport were extremely suggestive and we thought a productive image for our times – he professed a genuine internationalism that was put at the service of those minorities that were oppressed or not recognised by the established political and administrative structures.  In the current situation, when it is not easy to find such attitude, we thought invoking Nansen’s figure would serve as a wake up call and perhaps as a model for action.

LS: Current political, social and economic issues are global in scope; to what extent does this transcend the representation of individual national identity?

PL: Norway has traditionally adopted a role of international mediation, already from Nansen’s time. And this is something we wanted to reflect. But, as you say, urgent issues are very often, if not always, of international significance. The tensions and conflicts affecting one society are never exactly the same as another’s, but it is possible to find close parallels between different contexts, as exemplified by the recent public revolts and citizens’ movements in Tunisia, Chile, Egypt, Spain, Yemen, Israel or Greece, or the racist political discourse that certain parties and sectors of society of considerable size promote in France, the US, the Netherlands or Norway.

LS: What was the criterion for the chosen intellectual speakers? 

PL: We approached thinkers, activists, philosophers, writers… whom we respected, and whom we thought had a track record and a contemporary history of engagement with the situation of the world, be it as thinkers or agents/activists. We aimed to ask a diverse set, in geographical and professional terms. The specific issues were to be selected by them, and we wanted to make sure that there was, if not a comprehensive list of key issues, at least one that was diverse enough to offer a complex picture of the problems affecting the world today.

LS: How can art and large multinational events, such as the biennale, be used to take on a social responsibility?

PL: Discussion is always important, on every scale and context. Key issues and voices are often ignored in the world at large, or not given enough time and space. The contemporary art context has proved to be able to function as a good platform for discussion, although this hasn’t been always explored in full. This activity has been mostly absent from the Venice Biennale, and we thought there was no reason to continue that way. In fact, we thought that a platform with the visibility and profile of the Venice Biennale could not ignore this possibility (or, if you want, responsibility) to think about the world that surrounds it.

Once that is decided, each context will allow for and demand specific approaches. A look at the pedagogical activities of, for example, documenta 12 or the 1998 Bienal de São Paulo can show how social responsibility can be tackled.

LS: The series of lectures for ‘The State of Things’ are disseminated orally. What is the effect of this type of discourse and how does this differ from visual forms? 

PL: The lectures are given in different Venues in Venice throughout the duration of the Biennale. They are also broadcast live through OCA’s website, and the recordings archived there. Sections from the lectures have been posted on YouTube. A book will appear, upon the conclusion of the programme, with revised transcriptions of the lectures. All these formats aim to reach as wide an audience as possible – those who were in Venice during the opening, those who live or visit Venice subsequently, those who come to OCA’s website because they are already interested, and those who come across them by chance on the Internet. All these formats offer different types of access, experiences and agencies, but in general they allow for a displaced experience (in time and in space) that a conventional exhibition hardly ever achieves.

LS: Whom is the intended audience, considering the intellectual and complex content of the lectures?

 PL: The audiences are many: art audiences (those visiting Venice and those who become aware of the project through our marketing initiatives), academic audiences in Venice (university students, researchers and teachers, who we have targeted throughout), and individuals, worldwide, who might be interested in the work of Vandana Shiva, Judith Butler, Saskia Sassen, Eyal Weizman, T.J. Clark or any of the other speakers, and who, as I pointed out above, may come across the lectures by chance.

The content, as you say, is complex, but not targeted to academics. The lecturers have until now articulated those ideas with clarity, and there is no reason why anyone who speaks English could not engage with them.

LS: The programme ‘Beyond Death: viral discontents and contemporary notions about aids’ simultaneously forms part of Norway’s representation at the biennale. The four-month course involves participating students, how will a larger audience effectively receive the information?

PL: We have informed about the nature of this programme and its different levels of audiences through emails, through the catalogue, press releases… The immediate audience is the students, who have worked with Melgaard for four months. They have also worked on an exhibition, ‘Baton Sinister’, that was open to the public, and that offered a hint on the work done throughout the four months. So this audience is a second-level audience whom the project is not directed to, but who can engage with its ideas and formalisations regardless. Then there are discussions, such as this one, in which hopefully the format and the ideas of the project are reflected upon.

LS: The course relies on the engagement of its students. How heavily does involvement from the public make for a successful understanding to Norway’s representation this year?

PL: We had very clear in our heads that we were not interested in conventional relations to audiences, as is normally the case in Venice: very simply, perhaps too simply, these consist on putting together an exhibition among many, and hoping visitors to the city decide to visit it. We wanted to work with more specific audiences (students, Venice-based people) without forgetting about the usual Venice visitors and others who don’t go there. Discourse has a different set of channels of distribution from ‘physical’ art, and some shared problems as well as others, different ones. For us it is very important the discussions are accessed, at the time the lecture is given, but also subsequently. 

LS: Bjarne Melgaard, who leads ‘Beyond Death’, is a Norwegian artist - in what way (if at all) does the programme explicitly reference Norwegian society?

PL: Melgaard was invited to develop a programme for the students in relation to AIDS and its representations today. He devised the detail of the programme, and he taught it, together with guests he invited. The programme doesn’t make explicit reference to Norwegian society, although it reflects on an issue that seems to have been forgotten, although it is still important for those affected, directly or indirectly, within Norway and outside of Norway.

LS: What is Norway’s main aim by including such social and cultural issues? 

PL: As curators, Marta Kuzma, Peter Osborne and myself wanted to highlight the importance of placing art within the world at large. AIDS was a key issue for art and the artists in the 1980s and 90s, but it has now almost disappeared as a topic – while remaining a key emergency in the world, especially in parts of it. We thought it was important to address it.

LS: Would you say art has a responsibility to engage in politics?

PL: It’s difficult to talk in general. ‘Art’ is too abstract to have agency, and therefore responsibility. My colleagues and I, as curators of the Norwegian representation, felt a responsibility to use this opportunity to engage in social and political issues.

1 year ago  4 notes

Title: Glasstress (b)

Artist: Multiple Artists

Collateral Event

Venue: San Marco (b), Dorsoduro (a), Murano Island (c)

Collateral Event

Glasstress combines multiple leading and lesser-known artists using the material of glass. Held at three different locations across the Venice Biennale, the Dorsoduro, San Marco and the apt Murano Island - of which the notorious Venetian bright blue glass is home to - the professionally executed shows present an impressive and diverse range of work. Rather than catering to any specific theme the shows highlight the depth and wealth of possibilities glass as a medium can create, of which all are exquisite and to an extremely high standard.

The group of shows are comprehensive and enjoyable to walk around, the San Marco Glasstress situated in Venice’s grand Institution of Science, each different room and turn of a corner leading to new and exciting works ranging from ceiling hung installations to floor based sculptures. We witness highly detailed head bust portraits, carved moving mirrors, colourful glass beads radiating with the play of light and life-size animal sculptures formed through millions of tiny glass baubles, to name but a few.

Glasstress encapsulates glass as a material of the future. As a medium, perhaps often overlooked, the exhibitions work together to celebrate the endless potential of glass and its unique properties.

Laura Stocks

1 year ago  1 note

Title: Glasstress (a)

Artist: Multiple Artists

Venue: Dorsoduro, Collateral Event 

1 year ago 

Title: Ireland

Artist: Corban Walker

Curator: Eamonn Maxwell

Venue: Santa Maria della Pietà, Castello 3701

While literally composing three separate installations, Corban Walker’s productions for the Irish pavilion co-habit rather curiously. While all are concerned with both the nature of the site and Walker’s own artistic investigations into space and the built environment, the sensations emitted by the central sculpture are quite distinct from those suggested by the vinyl-clad windows of the Istituto Santa Maria Della Pietà.

The vinyl works are modular pieces, aesthetically minimalist but configured from rigid mathematical principles derived from Walker’s own height and perspective. Resembling the stained glass of churches, these windows are only partially obscured and remain see-through, a visual metaphor for the manners in which we engage with architecture: both occupying and transitioning through the spaces around us.

The central sculptural form, on the other hand, is formed from over one hundred stainless steel cubes which appear precariously stacked in a pile in the middle of the floor. Towering above the viewer, an obstacle in our path between the vinyl works, we must navigate around the object in a style the windows do not require. Yet this work is also transparent, allowing visitors both to appreciate the regularity of the forms, but also to consider how the structure fits these surroundings, occupying space – again alluding to our personal interactions with our environment.

1 year ago  3 notes

Title: Poland: And Europe will be stunned

Artist: Yael Bartana

Curator: Sebastian Cichocki e Galit Eilat

Venue: Gardini  

In many ways the Venice Biennale is more representative of the nineteenth century than the twenty-first; the neoclassical pavilions situated in the manicured parkland of the Giardini appear like colonial relics, a perpetual reminder of the power that individual European nations once wielded on the world stage. In this surreal environment, where national boundaries are still tightly drawn, the reality of globalisation seems almost entirely absent.

However, the 54th Venice Biennale saw at least one country opening up its borders in an attempt to engage critically with the concept of identity in our globalised age. Poland’s selection of the Israeli-born artist Yael Bartana is the first time a non-Polish national has represented Poland in the history of the Biennale. This daring decision made by the Polish government is intensified by the sensitive socio-political subject matter of the film trilogy Bartana is exhibiting, aptly titled ‘…and Europe will be stunned’. Bartana’s three films, Mary Kozmary (2007), Mur i Wieża (2009) and Zamach (2011) revolve around the activities of the ‘Jewish Renaissance Movement’ in Poland, a political group of the artist’s creation that calls for the return of 3,300,000 Jews to the land of their forefathers.

Unlike much of this year’s Biennale which consists of innocuous and self-indulgent art ‘…and Europe will be stunned’ is refreshing in its clear socio-political agenda. As an Israeli Bartana views Poland as an outsider and this gives her a more objective perspective allowing her the freedom to create an unsentimental and honest portrait of the country. Bartana says that for the average Israeli citizen ‘Poland = Holocaust and anti-Semitism’ but that she was once told that Poland and Israel are very similar societies and her project stems from the desire to find out what that means.

Bartana is motivated to create art by her firm belief that it can be a tool for social and political change and this is evident in her trilogy. Her films confront an array of complex issues including Zionism, anti-Semitism, the Holocaust and the Palestinian right of return all of which are seamlessly integrated into a compelling narrative which has at its heart an overt criticality of nationalism. The artist condemns conservative nationalism because of its tendency to provoke fear and hatred of the ‘Other’. She says that she is comfortable to present her work in the context of the Polish Pavilion precisely because she is not Polish, and that her project would not work if she were representing Israel.

The first film in the series entitled Mary Kozmary, opens with a young Polish activist played by Sławomir Sierakowski (a prominent leftwing figure in Poland) delivering a speech in the abandoned National Stadium in Warsaw in which he urges three million Jews to return to Poland. This deeply emotive appeal is an attempt at reconciliation with the Jews displaced or killed during the Holocaust as well as an admission that their absence has irreparably damaged Polish culture. Using the structure of a World War II propaganda film, the work addresses contemporary anti-Semitism and xenophobia in Poland, but there is also an unavoidable parallel with Israel’s relationship with its Palestinian neighbour. As Bartana says, ‘It speaks about Poland as well as about Israel. It can be read two ways, like in a mirror – there’s one side and the other side. And that’s how it was interpreted in Israel – as a plea for forgiveness, a call for the Palestinians to return.’

Bartana’s parents were both Israeli freedom fighters who fought in the War of Independence in 1948 and she was brought up in an environment in which your duty was to your country and Arabs were your enemy. It was after leaving Israel in 1996 and going to America that Bartana became critical of this conformist ideology and more specifically of the exclusive nature of Zionism which held that Jews were the chosen people. In Mur i Wieża the Zionist dream is brought to life but in an entirely different political and geographical configuration. We see the erection of a kibbutz (a Zionist defensive structure used to occupy foreign land) in the Warsaw district of Muranów built to the scale and architectural style of the 1930s. This alien construction reminiscent of a Concentration Camp creates a perverse reflection of the history of the location, which had been the Jewish residential area before the war, and then a part of the Warsaw Ghetto. Whilst Mur i Wieża is Zionist in spirit in that it shows a world based upon the socialist values that were characteristic of the early movement, it categorically denies the concept of Jewish supremacy and seeks instead to transcend both national and ethnic identity. In Bartana’s trilogy the term ‘Jew’ seems a symbol for all minorities who feel they don’t belong whether it is because of their skin colour, creed or sexual orientation.

In the final part of the trilogy, Zamach (Assassination) we witness the funeral ceremony of the leader of the Jewish Renaissance Movement who has been killed by an unidentified assassin. As Bartana says, ‘We don’t know who killed him…It could have been a Polish nationalist as well as an Israeli Zionist.’ In creating this martyr the artist is echoing the deaths of the many leaders of progressive movements throughout the twentieth century for example Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King and Benazir Bhutto. Bartana’s films are fictional but the issues are real and the martyrdom of the leader of the Polish Renaissance Movement is intended as a catalyst for change both onscreen and off. As Bartana says, ‘I was interested in creating a myth that would mobilise the masses to take to the streets’.

Bartana’s trilogy may focus on two specific nations but the narrative is universal and this is where its major strength lies. ‘…and Europe will be stunned’ lives up to its name confronting us with the reality of the fragmented world we live in and attempting to address the marginalisation of minority groups all over the world. Next year will be the first congress of the ‘Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland’ (JRMIP) which will be part of the 7th Berlin Biennial and take place at the Volksbuehne. As stated in the JRMIP manifesto ‘We accept into our ranks all those for whom there is no place in their homeland’.

Matthew Macaulay

1 year ago  1 note

Title: Iceland: Under Deconstruction

Artist: Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson

Curator: Ellen Blumenstein 

Venue: Dorsoduro

 Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson are the Spanish-Icelandic collaborative duo chosen to represent Iceland in this year’s biennale. Working together for almost fifteen years the pair have recently established themselves in the international art arena, and their original and witty show ‘Under Deconstruction’ assures to only heighten their success.

Housed in a barren and run down pavilion the pinnacle of the show is the first video performance we encounter, Your Country Doesn’t Exist. The work forms part of an on-going project, which began in Istanbul in 2003 as part of the anti-war protests. Since the idea has developed into somewhat of a campaign, taking on various forms and mediums, and even different languages. Castro and Ólafsson use the crusade in response to their environment; for Venice choosing to focus on the tourist phenomenon that the city now represents and to an extent is informed by. The inventive video features mezzo-soprano Ásgerður Júníusdóttir who sails around the canals of Venice in a gondola – the epitome and almost cliché of Venetian tourism - singing the following line in several different languages: “This is an announcement from Libia and Ólafur. Your country does not exist.” The footage is then projected in the pavilion, for present audiences to enjoy; mainly the tourists entertaining reactions to the attention grabbing first hand performance, which was shot prior to the biennale.

The political aspect to the message, which itself through the duo’s practice develops into a recurring slogan or gimmick, is undeniably present, yet it is complex and ambiguous. ‘Your country doesn’t exist’ can relate to nation states, in which individual countries have less power under the rule of ‘their’ state. Or if one focuses on the possessive noun in the sentence, ‘your’, it message becomes personal, and it is true we as ourselves cannot own the country we in habit or have much say over how it exists today.

It is significant that the line is read in numerous languages, not only as it is now staged at one of the largest international and multilingual art platforms, yet translation and language barriers remain a predominant feature throughout the collaborators work. The remaining audio pieces in the exhibition, Constitution of Republic of Iceland and Exorcising Ancient Ghosts exemplify further the play with language that can create and break barriers between different people and cultures.

Laura Stocks

1 year ago 

Title: Serbia: Light and darkness of symbols

Artist: Raša Todosijević

Curator: Sanja Kojić Mladenov

Venue: Giardini

Sanja Kojić Mladenov works at the Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina in Novi Sad and is curator of the Serbian Pavilion, which this year features the work of Belgrade-based artist Dragoljub Raša Todosijević (b.1945).

Elliott Goat: Hello, I would just like to start by thanking you for agreeing to conduct this interview and answer some questions.

In the symposium Networking the Bloc: UK Connections, partly held in Edinburgh in December last year, in which Dragoljub Raša Todosijević was involved, one of the discussion points was the suggestion that some of the legacies of pre-1989 socialism have returned to the forefront of Western thinking.  Do you believe, especially in light of the current economic climate, that there is emerging a ‘post-socialist aesthetics and politics within contemporary art’?

Sanja Kojić Mladenov: This is a highly sensitive and complex question whose answer depends very much on the observer’s perspective, i.e. the observer and their socio-political environment. The question is whether a “post-socialist aesthetics and politics” emerge in the works of artists belonging to the Western art practice who have a heightened critical awareness and through art express their resistance to the prevailing political and economic climate. Or is it a product of the artists coming from the post-socialist countries who are a growing presence on the international art scene, and whose art practice is often regarded by the West as post-socialist (which is related to the stereotypical perception of identity, social phenomena and relationships). Or finally is this a general philosophical attitude, with a cross-generational and trans-national perception of the legacy of communism seen as a new key factor in understanding and examination of global artistic phenomena.

For instance, looking back, in 1973 the Edinburgh Art Festival provided an opportunity for Eastern European artists to get familiar with the new trends in Western European contemporary art and culture, and for Raša Todosijević to stage his performance Decision as Art, together with several artist from Serbia, Marinela Koželj, Marina Abramović, Gergelj Urkom and Zoran Popović. The performance intended to condemn and destabilize foundations of socialist modernist art dominant in Serbia and its cultural institutions, using the language of new art practice that was closely related to Western conceptual art practice.  The most dominant and visible Western art practice had for a long time represented an ideal for the so-called Second and Third world. Today the situation is somewhat different. The free flow and exchange of information, prominent communicativity, critical awareness, as well as socio-political and economic context establish new foundations for interaction and forge new relationships between the East and West.      

EG: Can you discuss Raša Todosijević’s Edinburgh Statement: ‘Who is making profit on art and who is earning honestly’, and specifically its relation to the fetishization and commodification of ‘the concept’?

SKM: The Edinburgh Statement created in 1975 is a very precise and exhaustive list of all individuals, professions, institutions and trades that make a living and feed off the artist. It was inspired by Todosijević’s position that contemporary art is a field of endless, continuous conflict and intersecting interests of all those who look to gain something for themselves in the field. He points to the fact that no domain of human activity can elude the artist who must stay awake and act on all fronts. His Edinburgh Statement can be understood as the Eastern European artist’s ironic examination of economic determination of the Western art system, and, even more, as a cynical emphasis of the problems in the art system of the late real socialism in the environment that directly affected his standard of living. The Edinburgh Statement should be examined in close relation to his practical work and the social circumstances in which he created it, since they all contribute to the critical orientation of art behaviour. They point out that, apart from the written form, the problem of commodification of the “concept” is present in his other works as well, such as his performances “Decision as Art”, “Was ist Kunst”, “Elementary Paintings“, his art in public space and posters, in which he persistently insisted on the importance of individual strategy and the artist’s voice in the first person.

EG: You have commented on the changeability of meaning within Raša Todosijević’s work, relative to differing contexts of display and exhibition. How do you feel Raša Todosijević’s work has been re-interpreted in relation to Yugoslavia’s turbulent and volatile history over the past 30 years and to what extent do you feel it is still relevant in 2011?

SKM: The “turning off road”, call for action, critical intervention, revolt and an investigative approach to art and society have, in my opinion, been the distinct characteristics of Todosijević’s art practice in the last 30 years, as well as today. Moreover he does not seek to create the “new” and “original”, but to confront the old, traditional and predominant. For instance, during the 1990s, Raša Todosijević realized a series of installations Gott liebt die Serben that coincided with the dramatic and tragic developments taking place in the countries of the Former Yugoslavia immediately after the fall of the Berlin wall and resulting in full-scale war, the total collapse of the socialist state and social structure, rise of nationalism and destruction of moral and all other values. During that period, while his position in the domestic arena was becoming increasingly isolated both on the cultural and the economic front, he started to use the swastika symbol in his work, thus provoking a dialogue about the changeability of meaning of symbols and dependence of their interpretation on the given historical circumstances, and pointing to the paradoxes of the idealised national and class culture that surrounded him. Today, as is evident in his exhibition at the Venice Biennale, Light and Darkness of Symbols, he continues to oppose the traditional and ingrained thinking patterns and interpretations of symbols while engaging with the issues of Serbian socio-political, economic and cultural context, particularly those sensitive and still very much topical questions of mythology, religion, ideology and power.

EG: To what extent is Raša Todosijević’s ability to critique the institution dependent/undermined by his involvement within in it, especially as a national representative of his country at the Venice Biennial?

SKM: There is a big difference between how the artist’s work represents a country at the Venice Biennale and what the artist’s work represents inside the very country s/he comes from. Raša Todosijević and conceptual art in general had to come a very long way in the country’s socialist and post-socialist transitional society in order to achieve the degree of affirmation enabling them to represent Serbia at the Venice Biennale. Clearly, this still does not imply that this radical art and its representatives had altogether left behind their problematic culturological position within the national, political and contemporary art systems. Culture, and especially visual arts in Serbia still do not have enough media, economic and political support in order to gain social credibility or occupy a noteworthy position outside the critics’ and artists’ circles.

EG: Raša Todosijević s critique of both the institution and systems of ruling aesthetics seems to be linked with a desire to act as a voice of dissent. By constantly questioning “what is art?” how far, do you believe, does art have the power to act as vehicle for social change?

SKM: I see contemporary art practice as contextual, relational and gaseous, a practice in which information (communication) plays a significant role. Its diverse interdisciplinary and multimedia nature detaches it from the traditional art forms. Contemporary art develops under the influence of its socio-political, economic and cultural context, it is characteristic for its many different phenomena, localisms and trends, it establishes contacts and relations with science, technology and society, aiming to exchange numerous pieces of information – through mutual communication, dialogue and collaboration. Today the convergence of contemporary art, social reality and informational media is a growing presence, and communication in post-industrial capitalism, I believe, produces value. Consequently the role of art and media becomes critical in movements for social change.

EG: Lastly, do you feel a primary function of the work of Raša Todosijević is to provoke and, if so, therefore only successful if it elicits some sort of response?

SKM: Since the very start of his art practice, Todosijević has harshly and decisively criticised the ruling aesthetics, the ideology of moderate modernism, cultural institutions, their value systems and the long-established traditional understanding of the work of art, through unexpected inversions, various destructive, decentralising and ironical models of artistic and anti-artistic engagement and behaviour. He devised a motto “decision as art” and asked questions, “what is art?”, “who makes profit on art and who gains from it honestly?” thus openly disagreeing with the current state in art and society and initiating public dialogue. Provocation, I think, is an important aspect of his art practice. He provoked a problemization of the artist’s social status and the position of his product. However, his provocation has not demanded a direct reply from the society, but through his strategic resistance to traditionalism and prevailing attitudes of a closed environment, created a space for new communication and as a result gained many followers in the succeeding generations of artists.

Interview conducted by Elliott Goat

1 year ago  2 notes

Title: Venice in Venice: Glow and Reflection – Venice California Art from 1960 to the Present

Artists: Peter Alexander, John Baldessari, Larry Bell, Tony Berlant, Mary Corse, James Turrell, Judy Chicago, Doug Wheeler, Vija Celmins, Ron Cooper, John Altoon, Craig Kauffman, Ed Keinholz, Ed Moses, Andy Warhol, Wallace Berman, Robert Irwin, Kenneth Price, Llyn Foulkes, Bruce Conner, Dennis Hopper, Ed Ruscha, Billy Al Bengston, John Mccracken, George Herms, Bruce Nauman, Laddie John Dill, Jim Evans, C. R. Stecyk

Curators: Tim Nye and Jacqueline Miro

Venue: Palazzo Contarini dagli Scrigni, Dorsoduro

 

On the centennial of the naming of Venice, California, and the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy, curators Tim Nye and Jacqueline Miro have transported a group of artists whose ‘impossibly cool’ work sprang from the desolate shores of 1960s Venice, California to the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy. Los Angeles in the 60s saw artists draw inspiration from sunlight, the reflective surface of the ocean, car and surfboard cultures, and the influx of new technologies introduced by the local engineering and aerospace industries. Artists began experimenting with industrial materials in order to explore new possibilities for perception, light and illusion. Thus, an inevitable concern with water, and a subsequent shared unique luminosity, links the two cities of Venice. Either/or, in Goethe’s words: ‘Venice(s), like everything else which has a phenomenal existence, is subject to Time…’ to Light and Space. And Fetish.

 

The exhibiting artists are internationally renowned -   including James Turrell, Vija Celmins, Ed Ruscha, Robert Graham and Andy Warhol, to name a few. In total, there are 68 works, some of which are characteristic of their creators, such as James Turrell’s ‘Cross Corner Projection’ and George Herms’s various sculptural assemblages. Vija Celmins’s, however, breaks away from her monochrome drawings, and demonstrates her sculptural skill with the 1967 work Eraser. 

In essence, some of the works themselves are interesting, beautiful or spiritual and demonstrate a ‘cool’ use of the minimalist aesthetic. However, the difficulty comes with collectivity. Together, the works become a self-indulgent oeuvre, completely detached from reality. It immediately feels that everything is being taken too seriously, with ostentatious phrases spattered all over the information sheets: ‘the iris argon lights of Laddie John Dill will ooze from the baroque windows, the acoustic sounds of psychedelia [will] reverberate off the blackness of Venice’s waters.’ And it seems entirely devoid of irony - something which John Baldessari and David Hockey could have effectively contributed (although originally billed as participants, they are not actually present in the exhibition.)

 

It is important here to note that the majority of these works were created in the 60s. And although ‘Venice in Venice is not a re-creation, but an homage—an event that only the art, politics, and technical progress of the last 50 years can bring to life at a single event,’ it manifests like a redundant shrine to an outdated art fashion.  The reiteration of the minimalist aesthetic is tedious; Mary Corse’s ‘white inner band’ paintings, Larry Bell’s glass boxes, Peter Alexander’s resin panels. There can be no doubt of the importance of these works in the 60s, and the participants are so established it would probably be sacrilege to ruthlessly criticise their work individually. Indeed, James Turrell’s ‘The Ganzfeld Piece’ is an excellent contribution to Bice Curiger’s ILLUMInations exhibition, effectively challenging our notion of what is really present. However, in ‘Venice in Venice’, Turrell’s work becomes an exhausted repetition of an overused aesthetic and ideology. 

 

The ideology itself is summarised in a quotation from Billy Al Bengston: ‘it’s about artists in Venice, CA who made things based upon an entirely unique vision - art. Not based on your car, your house, your sky, your woman, your tears, your anguish, your angst, or any other reference to the human condition.’ Ergo, it is art about art - a postulation which once felt intelligent and serene, and still can in moderation, feels obsolete at the 2011 Venice Biennale. The nature of the Biennale incites an engagement with the socio-political discourses pertaining to representing countries - demonstrated by numerous participants this year, such as Iraq, Israel, Romania, Poland, Greece and Haiti. Thus, with artists such as Azad Nanakeli engaging with the threatening drought in his country in the Iraqi Pavilion, ‘Venice in Venice’ suddenly looks like a misplacement of responsibility. 

 

According to the curators, ‘once the event touches down in Venice, Italy, the art world will never be quite the same.’ This presumptuous statement is indicative of the ultimate pitfalls of the exhibition. It is self-indulgent, overly aware of its own (mis-placed) importance, and despite its aim to ‘link’ the two cities of Venice, it is too insular to have any relevance in 2011. 

Kathryn Lloyd

1 year ago 

Title: Finland: And all structures are unstable

Artist: Vesa-Pekka Rannikko

Curator: Laura Köönikkä

Venue: Giardini

1 year ago 

Title: Estonia: A Woman Takes Little Space

Artist: Liina Siib

Venue: San Marco

Sarah Hardie interview Liina Siib about her project, A Woman Takes Little Space

Sarah Hardie: Showing this work at the Biennale, in a place where you represent/are synonymous with Estonia, was it important to you to make work which had a political and socially responsible element to it? To make a difference? Do you think this sort of work can make a difference? And in a wider sense do you believe art can make a difference?

Liina Siib: I did not start this project having Venice biennale in my mind. I am interested in visual representations of social conditions and reflections of gendered spatial relationships in contemporary society. Submitting my project to the Estonian pavilion competition came later. Gaining this opportunity to present the project enabled more focused approach, a team work and production support. I could concentrate on certain topics and to interweave them with each other. To me it has been a way to communicate in society, to do my visual research on positions of femininity, to understand the limits and borders of female space. Art is just another language, a bridge between different parties. As a tool a of making visible underexposed areas it can make a difference. Some art does make a difference for me. It can give different points of views and through visual montage on social issues we can also learn something else than by purely theoretical approach.

SH: As an Estonian woman artist is it important to you that you speak about these issues of women’s work and place in society – is this where you feel the power of art lies

LS: I would not put that so directly – I happen to be a woman and an artist but if I do my works it does not cling in my head all the time. Sometimes these two together are an advantage, sometimes it is not. In a way I have felt enough sympathy to show women’s issues in my work. I use the images that somehow accord to the images that are floating in my head, consciously and unconsciously. Regarding these images I do not think that now I am making art. It is what I am interested in and to show it in the context of contemporary art is one possibility. It is articulating and addressing issues that I feel relevant to myself at the moment.

SH: Was it your intention to almost embarrass the person who wrote in the Estonian media that ‘women require less space for their everyday work (and less pay) than men’, in quoting this person in your feminist work, or did you want to embarrass, not just them, but the world, to say look at this: people still believe this?

LS: I am not sure this person is even aware about my project. I have no feedback from him and it was not my aim to embarrass him personally, then I would of sent him a personal letter. It was to deal with this statement about the ‘female space’, give it a visualisation from my point of view. This year we got the statistics that the gender pay gap is biggest in Estonia within the EU, Estonian women earn in average 30% less than Estonian men. I think this matter should embarass people here.    

SH: Space is very important to you in the films; did you want the six-room apartment installation to function as an uncanny home environment for the viewer, placing them in an imagined uncomfortable domestic sphere? Is it through the uncanny and the realizations that occur in this state you hope to create understanding and questioning of the norm.

LS: Exactly, space is important. It is not only important in my films but in other media too. I like to show my work as an installation that supports and enhances the idea that I would like to convey with the photographic records either in films or photos. With A Woman Takes Little Space I wanted to examine can a woman be defined by space.

SH: What sort of space do you feel a woman does and should occupy?

LS: Perhaps a woman should aim for a space of her own, she gives up too much to the demands of others and agrees with the conditions that are defined in advance. On the other hand women can domesticate any space to be able to work there. But they hardly fill up a space as men can do even unnoticed.

SH: Your work deals with ritual and the sense of going nowhere – do you feel repetition can have the power to make anew, to change (in the Deleuzian sense) or is repetition/ritual cyclic motion something your work actually speaks against?

LS: I personally don’t like repetition very much, I like to take new ways, risks and not to work in editions. Perhaps this dislike of repetition somehow appears in my works as a form of repetition. Repetition/ritual cycle can contain both potential – making anew or retain existing order, stagnation. Visually, repetition can be engaging, hypnotising, making uncanny; on the other hand, it is exhausting.

SH: What sort of space do you give men in your videos? Can you explain this for us? Is it the sort of space you would give them if it were down to you to create a new world order, or do you feel they already occupy this space in the world?

LS: In my three videos and a sound piece at the Palazzo Malipiero men are present less or more with their voice (singing or speaking) and by their statements. Thus they do not occupy much space visually but rather as sound waves their voices spread around. This is certainly not the model of the world I would like to create. It is a way of showing things in the context of the project. There might be a possibility for a viewer to experience conventionality of natural order we are living and status quo of gendered space.

SH: Your work speaks of women as things that are consumed – how then did you go about representing woman in your videos (available to consume visually again in this context)? Do you actively allow the consumer/viewer to visually consume them as long at it is self-consciously done? Are there any techniques you use or adopt in order to de-fetishise “the object on screen” (woman)?

LS: In a consumer society everything can become a thing to be consumed. I do not think that my work speaks only about consuming women or making them things. I try to show them as dignified subjects with self-esteem and dreams, they are women standing on their own feet. I am aware how making a photographic or video work about someone can objectify the subject, it happens both with male and female subjects. Sometimes I try to de-fetishise the object on the screen by using the fetishising methods, close ups, diverse viewpoints. To make it strange and oversaturated through humour and laughing at oneself.  In one video one can only hear the voices of interviewed women. Sometimes when a woman herself tries to pose consciously as an object of visual pleasure for a male gaze, I try to diminish it, to make the gaze unreturned. This project was done as an agreement between me and my ‘actors’. They are playing themselves, consciously.

1 year ago  1 note

Title: United Arab Emirates: Second Time Around

Artists: Reem Al Ghaith, Abdullah Al Saadi and Lateefa Bint Maktoum

Curator: Vasif Kortun

Venue: Arsenale 

The Price of Responsibility

Laura Stocks investigates the relationship between society, money and cultural production. 

The nature of international shows, such as the Venice Biennale, highlights economical and political shifts between participating countries. Even the one hundred plus nations not represented become implicated; their lower economic status suggested by their very absence. Fairly recent newcomers to the international art scene, the United Arab Emirates and Iceland, both make a successful impact at the Venice Biennale this year. The countries representative artists take the time to discuss their nations financial, global and political positions and how this ultimately effected their production in the Biennale. Most importantly there is a realisation for the responsibility of a countries generated wealth and the way in which this is distributed and handled has wider repercussions for the art world.  

The United Arab Emirates, particularly the capital Abu Dhabi and Dubai, has a reputation as a futuristic and wealthy country, internationally renowned for its high income. The UAE is being represented for the second time at the 54th International Venice Biennale and the commissioned works provide an extensive social critique of the rapid urbanisation the country has undergone in these recent years.

The work of artists’ Lateefa bint Maktoum, Reem Al Ghaith and Abdullah Al Saadi responds to the contemporary culture and developments in the Arab world, encompassing the impact urbanisation has had on their native land. This is most obvious in Maktoum’s photographic series, which shows skyscrapers set against the rural land, creating an unnatural paradox. This combination of natural and man-made constructions in such close proximity successfully highlights the complex visual culture that all Emirati are currently witnessing. Al Ghaith’s installation directly references the changes happening in Dubai. The area is under permanent modification, and the installation Dubai: What’s left of her land can be understood in accordance with the continuously shifting landscape.

However, all is not lost to a concrete jungle. Fully aware of the potential positivity urban progress can achieve, the artists’ state that, ‘it is exciting and fascinating to live through such a time of development.’ Despite the negative impact urbanisation has had on the natural land, this money and prosperity has also helped the UAE locate itself as a contemporary globalised art hub - demonstrated by their recent Biennale debut, The Art Dubai Fair and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. 

The UAE’s Ministry of Culture is concerned in nurturing creativity amongst younger Emirati generations, looking towards the future and many artists share this ethos. Maktoum recently opened a set of public studios, ‘Tashkeel’ claiming she ‘wanted to create a physical networking space for artists as well as a place where artists of different ages would learn from one another and grow, this way encouraging the artist community of the region to flourish.’ Such initiatives convey a positive outcome of urban development and utilising space within the UAE. However, more importantly, the artist realises a responsibility through direct involvement in the art world.

For the UAE an increase in generated wealth is productively distributed within the creative sector, highlighted by the fact the countries’ choose to send artists to international contemporary fairs such as the biennale. A large proportion of countries are not provided with the opportunity to represent their nation at international art forums, mainly due to monetary restraints.

Lebanon and Rwanda had to pull out of the Venice Biennale last minuet due to their nations financial situations within this sector; Northern Ireland was also denied a place. Even countries, which from the outset appear financial secure and stable, have had and continue to have difficulties in operating art shows and fairs.

This situation is close to home for Iceland we can discover after speaking to the countries representative artists, Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson at the biennale. The artist’s disclose that it was ‘50/50’ whether Iceland would be represented due to financial constraints. However, despite the major economic crash Iceland experienced in 2008, Ólaffson suggests that this ‘had little effect on arts and culture at the time which do not receive that much funding as a whole.’ Ólaffson proposes that, more significantly, Iceland is perhaps lacking a cultural middle or upper class to support art, in comparison to larger metropolises such as the UAE. This reinforces the notion that a country’s financial decisions have a subsequent impact on the way its culture is disseminated and received.

Nevertheless, Iceland did indeed manage to successfully send the collaborative duo to represent the country, and as their artistic reputation is establishing itself, it is hoped to improve the image of the nation itself. Clearly, when selecting representative artists for the Biennale, a strategic formula is adopted – taking into account censorship, reputability and required or available money. Ólaffson reiterates this stating their show is ‘resourceful for the duration of the event’ and thus economically viable. Their work for the show is made up of film footage, an audio piece and installation in a low maintenance concrete floored and rather basic pavilion, which Castro informs they choose because of its unique feel. While this was evidently a carefully considered factor in Ólaffson and Castro’s commission this may not be so much of an issue for wealthier countries participating. 

The UAE is currently endorsing vast amounts of money in the urbanisation of its cities and at a rapid pace. The control of money, although it can be environmentally destructive, has undeniably had a positive impact on the Emirati art community. The UAE pavilion effectively expresses an artistic perspective on the inherent responsibility to our next generation – not only visually through the content of the art but the support offered behind the scenes to local emerging artists. Rather, they have the choice to use potential funding and wealth in a positive way, especially during times of cultural change creating a more beneficial creative ecology for younger generations.

1 year ago 

Title: Neoludica. Art is a Game 2011-1966

Artist: The event intends to promote the scientific work of GameArtGallery project, connecting the mediums of videogames, visual arts, music and cinema.

Curator: Associazione culturale E-Ludo Lab, Collateral Event

Venue: Scuola dei Laneri, Sala Laneri, Santa Croce and Centro Culturale Candiani, Mestre

Throughout the world the video game phenomenon is continually growing, but the exhibition Neoludica Art is a Game: 2011-1966 aims to highlight the great artistic qualities of video gaming that are being produced in our contemporary technological society. Though this may be evident in most of the work shown, what becomes particularly poignant is the total addiction that video gaming can hold over us, and the detrimental effect it will eventually produce. The artistic qualities in producing such high quality games are evidently clear in the array of works shown, but it is through two works, Game Arthritis by Matteo Bittanti and IOCOSE, 2011 and My Generation, by Eva and Franco Mattes, aka 0100101110101101.ORG, 2010, that the negative effects of addiction to video games is clearly stated.

The six photographic panels of Game Arthritis display the effect that the continual use of video games have on the body, leading to gruesome outcomes. My Generation on the other hand shows secret filming of teenage boys and their reactions whilst ‘gaming’, emphasising the violent and sheer animalistic traits that continual video gaming highlight in the human psyche.

The exhibition aims to promote, advertise and pursue the scientific work undertaken by the Italian institution Musea_Game Art Gallery, but one is instead left with the clear feeling that this powerful medium, though indeed artistic, will eventually be damaging to our society.

Emily Burke

1 year ago  13 notes

Title: Personal Structures

Artists: Marina Abramović, Carl Andre, Herman de Vries, Toshikatsu Endo, Johannes Girardoni, Peter Halley, Joseph Kosuth, Melissa Kretschmer, Lee Ufan, Ma Jun, Tony Matelli, Judy Millar, Tatsuo Miyajima, François Morellet, Hermann Nitsch, Roman Opalka, Thomas Pihl, Miriam Prantl, Andrew Putter, Arnulf Rainer, Rene Rietmeyer, Yuko Sakurai, Sasaki, SEO, Lawrence Weiner, Maik Wolf, Xing Xin, Zou Cao

Curators: Karlyn De Jongh, Sarah Gold

Venue: Palazzo Bembo

‘“Here is the blood,” he said. When I heard him say it, I thought, “Oh fuck!” I had feared this moment from the very beginning, and now I would be served my blood. I opened my mouth, slowly. My lips and tongue, the whole inside of my mouth and actually my entire body, I felt everything longing for this taste. I opened my mouth. The blood…, what a fantastic fluid! It was a little cold, but it was this thick, really nice tasting, wonderful liquid. My mouth was anxious, as if the complete surface of the inside of my mouth was full of desire to get all the taste. My tongue reached inside this stream of blood that was flowing into my mouth. It was filling my cheeks and I let as much of this blood inside my mouth as possible, to taste it as intense as I could, everywhere in my mouth. This was such a fantastic experience. This was so erotic. This was so unlike anything I had ever tasted. This was wonderful.’  - Karlyn de Jongh

‘“Now, you will be given the blood”, Nitsch’s son told me. Finally I would find out how this would be. I had been a little nervous about the blood; its taste and the smell. “Open up your mouth”; I obeyed. For the sensation I was about to feel, I could not have been prepared for. I never had even thought about this possibility at all. The feeling of getting blood poured into my mouth was more than surprising, the cool substance felt fantastic. This creamy liquid, filling the cavity of my mouth, running down along the side of my face onto my neck, this felt highly erotic. Immediately I wanted more, but I could not ask for it, I had to wait. Having the taste of blood still in my mouth, I was trying to think what it reminded me of; it tasted like the smell of raw meat, and there was this saltiness to it. I cannot remember how often exactly I was given blood whilst lying on my table, but it must have been several times. I felt at peace. This sensation was every time so strong, I could have laid there forever while being fed with blood.’  - Sarah Gold

 

Proposed as an exhibition dedicated to the ‘concepts of Time, Space and Existence,’ ‘Personal Structures’ boasts an impressive list of participating artists: Marina Abramović, Carl Andre, Joseph Kosuth, Hermann Nitsch and Lawrence Weiner amongst the 28. Each room of the Palazzo Bembo is dedicated to one artist, creating strong divisions between the various evaluations, aesthetics and atmospheres. 
 

Marina Abramović presents Confession, a 60 minute video-loop in which the artist stares at a motorised donkey, while her ‘confession’ text scrolls along the bottom of the screen. The film is captivating in its slow, progressive revealing of Abramović’s intimate family secrets. The majority of the artists produced new artworks for ‘Personal Structures’, such as Joseph Kosuth’s site-specific work which features quotations from Samuel Beckett, Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Ruskin. The fact that these works are entirely contemporary and presented in such a segregate manner results in an engaging exhibition which, in fact, manifests as a series of ‘mini-exhibitions.’
 

Specifically, the room dedicated to the work of Hermann Nitsch presents such a self-fulfilled environment, that the exhibition is momentarily forgotten as a collaborative effort. Nitsch presents his 130th Aktion, which involves the two Dutch curators of ‘Personal Structures’, Karlyn de Jongh and Sarah Gold. As ‘passive actors’ the two women were led through one Nitsch’s famous crucifixion re-enactments - blindfolded, naked and bound to separate crosses. 

The elaborate performance requires hundreds of helpers, dead squid, pigs, octopi and 300 litres of blood - which the women drink, while erected on their crosses. Accompanying the photographic and film documentation of the event itself, are two written accounts of the day: one by Sarah Gold and one by Karlyn de Jongh. Both women savour the experience, claiming it as ‘erotic’; the blood as a ‘wonderful liquid’ which they became extremely aroused by. Their accounts are intensely personal - possibly uncomfortably so, revealing every intimate, sordid thought reflected on over the course of the day-long performance. 

As ‘passive’ actors, de Jongh and Gold were required to be as neutral as possible, just ‘Being, and being used.’ The ‘active’ actors swarmed around the blindfolded women, in what looks like a frantic, irrational manner, but every ‘active’ detail was ordered by Nitsch. Intestines, livers, kidneys,  pigs, octopi, tomatoes, grapes and strawberries were thrown onto the bodies of the women, and they describe the feelings of each substance with fervour. The pig is a vast carcass, slowly and deliberately lowered onto the naked bodies, which at the end of the ‘Aktion’ the performers were instructed to cook and eat.

While Nitsch plans his ‘active’ movements, he cannot plan the ‘passive’ reaction, and this was the first time that two women had sex during one of his ‘Aktions.’  Lying amidst a pool of blood, with hundreds of people watching, urging and filming, Gold and De Jongh gradually found themselves having sex. In their written accounts of this event, they both seem strong willed, so aroused by ‘the blood, sliding,’ that this felt like an inevitability. Although, watching the two blindfolded women on the film, their actions looks hesitant, less self-assured, and awkward. This results in a paralleled awkwardness in the viewer. It becomes difficult to understand the true nature of ‘passivity’, and Nitsch’s activity. 

Watching Nitsch’s ‘Aktion’ feels like an intrusion. It is the epitome of voyeurism; seeing the two central characters blindfolded and guided through controversial procedures. However, this intimate observation is displaced by the hundreds of people who are also present in the film, dressed in bright white but soaked in red blood, sponging the skin of the women, gently goading them into various positions. It is a complex confusion of pornography, masochism, perversion, contrivance, freedom and sub-ordinance. These elements become more disconcerting when one learns that these two women are the curators of the exhibition; knowing their specific presence makes the ‘Aktion’ resonate on a new level, understanding them as people rather than ‘passive actors.’ 

Each room in the Palazzo Bembo offers its own engaging exhibition, with eminent artist appearing after eminent artist. Nitsch’s presentation is just one of various utterly absorbing presentations - whether one finds themselves absorbed through admiration, consternation, or a combination of both. That the exhibition is dedicated to ‘Time, Space and Existence’ is, inevitably, unclear throughout. However, with such a broad concept that can be examined in numerous ways, and extended to limitless subjects and possibilities, this does not feel like so much of a downfall. 

 

Interview with Curators Sarah Gold and Karlyn de Jongh

Kathryn Lloyd: Could you explain why you were so interested in curating an exhibition which deals with the ambiguous concepts Time, Space and Existence, and how you selected artists who specifically explore these ideas? 

Sarah Gold & Karlyn de Jongh: The concepts Time, Space and Existence are important for human beings in general. With our project ‘’Personal Structures’’ we address these themes in contemporary art, trying to heighten people’s awareness of their own personal Existence as human beings within a specific Space and Time.

For ‘Personal Structures’, we selected artists on the basis of them being very dedicated and sincerely working with either Time Space or Existence for a number of years. In this exhibition we present different perspectives towards these concepts, by artists from different parts of the world and from different generations. This means that it is not relevant if the artworks we present are aesthetically pleasing to us or not. Rather, it is the ideas and the sincerity in the execution of the artworks which convinced us.

KL: You have produced an extremely impressive exhibition in terms of the participating artists: Marina Abramovic, Carl Andre, Joseph Kosuth etc., and you have curated the exhibition so that each room of the Palazzo Bembo is dedicated to a singular artist. Why did you make this decision to create such a separated exhibition environment?

SG & KDJ: ‘Personal Structures’ is an open platform with which we attempt to give artists the opportunity to present their work. Our exhibition is therefore a group-presentation of single statements. We gave each artist their own space and the freedom to do with that space what they wanted. The artist has the control over their own space and can focus on what they wants to say. Most of the artists took this opportunity to make a work especially for that specific space and some – Joseph Kosuth and Rene Rietmeyer, for example – even created their work within the exhibition space itself. In this way, it was possible to create strong site-specific statements. Having 24 rooms, Palazzo Bembo is a perfect location for our exhibition. Walking through the exhibition, the visitor gets a new impression each time he enters a room, a different perspective towards Time, Space and Existence. The viewer can concentrate on the individual artists, without any interference between the different works. 

KL: As well as curating ‘Personal Structures’, you also participated in Hermann Nitsch’s 130th Aktion. Watching this performance, and reading your accounts of the day in question, it appears to be an extremely intense experience. How has your perception of the piece changed through seeing it in a gallery environment? 

SG & KDJ: During the Aktion we were blindfolded. We did not see anything of what was happening around us. Instead, we felt, heard, tasted and smelled what was going on. The photos and film that were made of Nitsch’s Aktion allowed us to also see the artwork of which we were part ourselves. Seeing it here in the photos and video shows how aesthetically impressive and intense Nitsch’s performance is. 

KL: Do you find it difficult to witness the piece in this context, after the event itself?

SG & KDJ: To us it is not difficult to see the 130th Aktion in the context of this exhibition. On the contrary: it is a delight. Although the performance took place more than a year ago and it feels to us far away, seeing it in the exhibition space reminds us every day of what Nitsch wants to say. It reminds us to live our life more consciously, to experience it to the maximum with all our senses and to share life together with others. 

KL: Do you find any difficulties in participating in the exhibition as well as curating it? Even though you are not participating artists, you provide a crucial role in Hermann Nitsch’s piece. Additionally, do you think that the fact you are curators of the exhibition, changes the way in which viewers regard that particular work?

SG & KDJ: In the exhibition we show Nitsch’s 130th Aktion in a series of photos, a video and two texts we wrote very honestly and openly about our experience of being part of this event. It is a unique, personal presentation of Nitsch’s work. Even though Nitsch has been creating his “Orgien Mysterien Theater” for more than 40 years, we noticed that for several visitors it is still quite shocking to witness and there is still quite a lot of misunderstanding surrounding it. By having spent time with Nitsch for our project “Hermann Nitsch: Under My Skin”, we gained more knowledge about his thoughts and work. Being in Palazzo Bembo every day ourselves, we speak with many visitors and try to explain to them very directly from our own personal experience about his work, which then often encourages them to look closer into what Nitsch is actually about.

Kathryn Lloyd

 

 

 

1 year ago  3 notes

Title: Le Festin de Chun-te

Artist: Hsieh Chun-te

Curator: Museum of Contemporary Art of Taipei, Collateral Event

Venue: Scoletta dei Battioro e Tiraoro, Campo San Stae

Emily Burke interviews Hsieh Chun-te

Emily Burke: As the largest Biennale, and one of the world’s most important platforms for the dissemination of contemporary international artwork, do you think that the Biennale participants have a social obligation to represent their various countries in a certain way?

Hsieh Chun-te: From the aspect of astronomy, we all know how to calculate the age and the distance of the universe. The farthest planet is 15 billion light years away from the earth. However, the universe without light doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist because its light doesn’t reach the earth yet. This implies to the limitation of human beings. When we stand on the ground, we are unable to the see the world beyond horizon. In brief, what we can not see doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.

Through the eyes of artists and their representations, we have multiple aspects to understand that the lives of the people from different areas. Therefore, the Venice Biennale of Art becomes the platform that we could realise what those artists from different countries have observed, and tried to say. With no doubt, I am one of them because I also expect that we could be seen and have the chance to communicate with the people around the world.

EB: How important do you feel it is to present the work of Taiwanese artists on an international stage?

HC: In order to answer this question, I would like to provide one example from the novel “The General in his Labyrinth “ by Gabriel García Márquez. When the general met the British officer who helped him constantly, he said, “Sir, although we walk side by side now, you have to know the cultural difference between us at least for two or three hundred years. In this moment, we are forced to walk together, but the cultural difference still exists.”

EB: Are there particular aspects of Taiwan culture that you feel need to be expressed through art?

HC: For many years, there was only one major political party in Taiwan, the Kuomintang (KMT). Until the day that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won the election in 2000, President Chen Shui-bian invited one famous American economist to visit Taiwan for one week. When he finished his journey, he gave ten suggestions to Taiwan government and I want to underline two of them.

Firstly, Taiwanese society should regard the creativity as the social property. Secondly, we should encourage the young generation to bravely try and fail. The value system in Taiwan has changed a lot in recently years. All the medias, educational institutions, everything is talking about how to be successful, including how to succeed in love relationships, how to have successful business, how to succeed in the stock market. Nobody teaches the young generation how to face the failures. People forget that most of the successes are based on the accumulation of frustrations and failures.  This is the problem in Taiwan because our value system has been changed. That is the reason why our former president is in the prison because of the corruption sentences.

We have to solve this essential question: what is the value of human existence? In the recent twenty or thirty years, Taiwan is so called “the island of economy miracle”, or “the island of technology OEM”. I try to express what I have observed in order to provide a caution and a reflection.

EB: Do you think that artists in general have a certain social responsibility to represent their country, or in the modern culture that we live in do individual art practices take precedent over ties to our culture?

HC: My personality is to seek for those unseen, or to speak out for those unspoken. During those years when there was only one major political party (the Kuomintang, KMT) in Taiwan, I have participated in the opposition party and join the demonstrations in the street. At that time, we aimed to voice for the civilians in these activities. I hope to change the society. For an artist, I believe that he/she should express the dissatisfactions and precede the improvements for this world. Consequently, I make use of the tools that I am good at to express my opinions.

EB: How do you expect the audience at the Venice Biennale, being such a wide and diverse range of people from all areas of the world, to react to your work?

HC: The series of photos “Raw” is a project that commenced in 1987 and finished in 2011.

In the summer of 1987, I closed the workshop in Taipei city and moved to Sanchong city, which is located on the other side of Tamsui River. Most of the residents of Sanchong city are from the central or the southern part of Taiwan. Before they stepped into Taipei city, they stopped by the suburban city and waited for chances. Therefore, they had a processing factory of hardware on the first floor of their apartment. You might ask them, “Where do you come from?” Although they have lived here for around 20 years, they would still answer that they are from Changhua, Chiayi or Kaohsiung. (Note: Those are the name of the cities in central and southern Taiwan.)

I asked him, “Why don’t you say that you are the people coming from Sanchong?” They said, “Here is dirty and messy. I don’t want to be someone coming from here.”

Yes, each residence here was locked up. If you go to the streets and alleys, you would see trash everywhere.

Those residents in Sanchong city didn’t regard it as their hometown so they were not willing to devote themselves to this city. As for the place where they were born, it becomes the nostalgia in their minds. Therefore, I moved to Sanchong in order to hide the primitive desire in people’s dark inner minds so I started everything by myself.

Hopefully, I could make more people know our living circumstances in Taiwan since home is the most important thing in the world.

EB: Could you give us an insight into the work that is being presented?

HC: I would like to provide one particular point of view. About 20 years ago, there was TV news report that two policemen caught a stowaway from China. The policemen asked him the reason why to be a stowaway. He said to the camera, “I just arrived in this land later than you did!”

It is the universal problem for all the countries. The nationalism is to occupy the land first and announce their legal ownership. But, we all say that the civilians have the right to migrate. However, the fact is that you could move out, but nobody allows you to move in. So, how about the ownership of the earth? If we believe that land should not be regarded as private property, how could we tolerate the government to occupy the land from other people? How do we face this problem? At the same time, how to find an insight into my works?

If you take off the coloured glasses, I believe that you would see my works insightfully

EB: How integral is performance to your work?

HC: In the very beginning, I didn’t consider how to integrate the performance to my photography works. I believe that any art work should not be limited in any fixed space. It could be everywhere and anywhere. If so, space is supposed to be open to all kinds of art creations. Therefore, I attempted to put a performing artwork, such as my Cooking Theatre, in a still space. If you are willing to do so, the integration will come out naturally. 

EB: Do you aim to bring artist and audience closer together through food?

HC: Enjoy the performance, by being part of it!

When food becomes part of the art, the dish is not the only performer, and the dining table is not the only stage. There is no differentiation between audience and performer. Everyone will join and be part of the performance, and in the end, finish the act by eating it!

All the sensations towards this performance will occur instantly, and no one can ever predict the ending of each performance. When the scene of a food banquet is concluded, it will be a calling, a touching, a journey of true art.

EB: Some of the images you are displaying are quite harrowing. What is the aim of these photographs?

HC: The aim of these photographs is certainly not to scare anyone. There are two purposes in my works. From my experiences in stage and theatre photography over the years, I have learned that when I take a picture, the photograph itself becomes dissociated from the original space and process, and transforms into a different stage of images, engaged with the stage in a dialogue.

So when I express my childhood dreamscapes and growing-up experiences as photographs, using Sanchong as the stage on which they are acted out, these photos in themselves are no longer manifestations, of either reality or imagination, but opinions on the environment in which I live.

EB: Is there a story throughout your images?

HC: It is a story about the homecoming of the prodigal son.

EB: What is the link between the images you are exhibiting in the Raw exhibition, and the live cooking performance?

HC: I plan to present one sacrifice ceremony through Cooking Theatre. I saw a documentary where Eskimos would grab some snow and melt it in their mouths and pray for when they are going to eat small seals. Also, I have even been to the boundary between Russia and China in order to interview Oronchon people who are also called the last hunters in the world. They led me to the hunt and they also repent after they shoot animals. In brief, for the natural lives which are sacrificed to become human food, the aboriginal people often treat them with the feelings of appreciation and apology.

Let’s think about your own situation. It is the same that rice, vegetable, chicken, duck, beef and lamb are scarified for human food. How about us? This is what we should think about carefully. Now we are facing the crisis of lacking water resource and food. Through Cooking Theatre, I want to express my point of view that we should return to the beginning of everything to do the serious introspection.

Through the link between the images in the Raw exhibition and the live cooking performance, I hope to “explore” these question.

The Playful Cruelty of Hsieh Chun-te

An essay by Dominique Pai ni

When I first saw Hsieh Chun‐Te’s photographs I was struck by the sense of the
imminent storm that permeated many of them. It was as if Hsieh was representing a postlapsarian world. Some of the compositions clearly indicate the performance of a violent action condemned by both propriety and the rules of human society. His works almost always contain a form of punishment; a body cast down on a symbolic field of thorns, hanged bodies, bodies abandoned by the indifference of our modern deafness, bodies drawn and quartered, sexually punished bodies, or bodies that seem to be held up to public disgrace. From Giorgione’s The Tempest to the prints of Gustave Doré, the storm is representative of divine wrath.

The artist who dares to portray such scenes of sacrifice is a visionary, haunted by the disquiet arising from the complicity between Eros and Thanatos. Never before had I come across a scene of capital execution culminating in the sexual act. In his work, Chun‐Te incorporates the sexual act into a depiction of this terrible ceremony that legally ends lives and one which is observed by a group of grim on‐lookers (The Romance on the Stele, Sanchong series). What audacity, what derision on behalf of the artist to fuse this legalised transgression that consists in coldly taking away human life with that most beautiful of all human actions! It is indeed a ceremony, here, and throughout all of Hsieh Chun‐Te’s work. I will elaborate more on this later.

In order to describe Hsieh Chun‐Te’s works more precisely one would have to view the other images that form an ensemble, like the caprichos that go beyond a single caricature to describe the disasters of the world. The allusion to Goya here is quite deliberate. These large photographic compositions make me think of the famous title that Goya gave to one of his works: The sleep of reason breeds monsters in which black and white, ugliness and beauty, purity and vice clash with each other. Hsieh offers a kind of photographic equivalent to these visions of the decline of a decadent and corrupt humanity, visions traversed by winds which threaten to sweep away the ruins of a post‐cataclysmal world.

Several aspects of Hsieh’s work also evoke the poetics of Georges Bataille. Pierre Klossowski describes the cataclysmal character of Bataille’s work that is troublingly echoed in Hsieh’s images: “[in Bataille] the ontological catastrophe of thought is merely the reverse of an apogee attained through what he calls sovereign moments: drunkenness, laughter, erotic and sacrificial outpouring, experiences that characterise expenditure without compensation, an unlimited extravagance, a meaningless, useless and purposeless waste”1 Klossowski was speaking here of “simulacra” in Bataille’s work.

A similar extravagance fascinates the viewer in Hsieh’s work. He creates a mise‐en‐scene of elements that are at once atrocious and delectable, marked by an erotic excess. Drunkenness, sacrifice and sometimes cruel humour are amongst the features that make these images so disconcerting. In Homecoming Day the pose and attitude of the three women depicted in the Shueigin street scene (Shueigin is located in the county of Kohu, in the southern part of Taiwan), obviously evoke lingshi, that mythical form of Chinese torture known as “death by a thousand cuts”. Bataille wrote about this in his Tears of Eros – “that ecstatic and intolerable pain, whose representation combines religiosity and eroticism.” Indeed, it is the photographic focus that selects and highlights what must be looked at in this derelict urban theatre. The viewer’s eye is drawn to the body parts of these three vestal virgins that block the access to the street and in particular to one of their breasts, as if this optical adjustment was itself an incision.

The iconography of Hsieh Chu‐Te reveals multiple borrowings and in turn borrows
from several periods of art. The first thing that strikes us is this anachronism.

If we nevertheless set out to contradict this loss of bearings that Hsieh very deliberately engages in, or in other words, if we go back in time, the family group (Family Portrait) taken in front of a house in the same town, Shueigin, a place that obsesses the artist, is inspired by a tradition in Chinese art, and can also be compared to certain images from the twentieth century. At the Museum of Fine Arts in Taipei there is a plaque by Huang Tu‐Shui which, in my opinion, belongs to a tradition of rural representation of Ancient China. This plaque is a kind of iconographic predecessor to Hsieh’s visions. The peaceful nature of the relationship between the children and the buffalo is expressed by Huang through the gentle relief of this gypsum plaque which can be compared the velvety black‐and‐white of Hsieh’s photographs. Hsieh has a very particular way of combining the zones of clarity and soft focus in his prints so that the contrast between the bright, sunny foreground and the shadow of the house creates a similar depth to that conveyed by the delicate low relief of Huang’s work.

However the strangeness of Hsieh’s work does not come from the unease provoked by a certain erotic cruelty. It comes rather from the great diversity of his references, his extensive visual culture.

It would be easy, and verging almost on intellectual laziness, to speak of the surreality of these images, if not their surrealism. The word is overworked and hackneyed. And yet there is a kind of obviousness in the way the entwined couple so irresistibly evoke certain Surrealist motifs such as René Magritte’s The Lovers. Still, this echo is no ordinary quotation. Is it deliberate on the part of the artist? I doubt it. The entwined lovers could also originate – that is, if we absolutely need to find the source of Hsieh’s inspiration and imagination – in Goya, as I have already suggested. Indeed, Georges Bataille used an engraving in The Tears of Eros, mentioned above, that could be considered the infernal version of this twisted fusion of bodies. Without a doubt, Hsieh Chun‐Te knew of the work of Bataille and Surrealist inspiration. I was reminded of Hans Bellmer’s photograph of a disjointed doll on a bed of straw when I saw the disturbing image of the young woman suffering with wounds and exposed to the harsh vegetation in Hsieh’s The Tears of Tamsui River. Here the vegetation is as unnatural as Bellmer’s straw bedding or Marcel Duchamp’s landscape in Etant donné (Given).

Goya’s influence reaches deep into Hsieh Chun‐Te’s visual culture. At the start of this essay I spoke of the Caprichos and the Disasters. In Goya’s latter series, the Great deeds against the dead engraving offers a model for Hsieh’s Sanchong (Bitches) series with its recurring images of tortured bodies left hanging by the feet and the head fated to be buried forever. In Hsieh Chun‐Te’s apocalyptic vision bodies are hanged. Nevertheless his images combine terror with a macabre irony.

Another element that characterises Hsieh Chun‐Te’s photographic theatre is the
scope of their mise‐en‐scene. As with Joel‐Peter Witkin, who is a few years younger than Hsieh, each photograph is the culmination of a lengthy period of preparation. The choice of location, a sizeable team of assistants, the sets, objects and furniture, complex lighting, the costumes, the attention to the poses (or the performance), liken Hsieh’s artistic procedure to the cinematic mise‐en‐scene . If I had to place this Taiwanese artist within a tradition and a culture in order to greater understand his work, I would situate him in terms of cinema, and in particular Japanese New Wave Cinema from the 1960s. This movement had an important influence on artists in the “region,” including Taiwanese artists, due to the imprint of Japanese culture on the country.

Beyond the simple yet significant title of the works presented here: Ceremony – I was greatly impressed by the distant echoes between the films of the master of modern Japanese cinema, Nagisa Oshima, and Hsieh’s mises‐en‐scene. I was reminded of the slow, tragic conclusion of Oshima’s The Ceremony (1971) when I first saw the work of this Taiwanese artist who places such an emphasis on social ritual and cruelty.

Erotic Japanese cinema was also very fashionable in the 1970s and was produced by the Nikkatsu company, responsible for the Perverse Housewives (Danchi Zuma) series. These films offered the viewer some very intense images of female submission. In a scene from one of the most famous films in the series, The Woman with Pierced Nipples by Shogoro Nishimura, the lead actress rolls around on a carpet of roses, wounding her back on their thorns.

At this time, Koji Wakamatsu was the master of pinku eiga, this specifically Japanese cinematic genre that was considered erotic but shared the aesthetic of New Japanese Cinema. Wakamatsu’s work is disconcertingly similar to Hsieh’s. I am thinking here of his remarkable film The Embryo Hunts in Secret, which despite its inoffensive title, was still given an X rating on its release in Europe in 2007. In one sequence, where a woman stands in a doorway and offers herself to a man, the light projected around her suggests a second image, an image within the image or a subliminal image of another body inscribed within this image. A parallel can be drawn with Hsieh’s photograph Flight in the Night. Furthermore, Wakamatsu’s work exhibits the body in a way that brings to mind Hsieh’s Mirror.

In other words, Hsieh’s originality resides in his varied use of several cultural
references: classical Western painting, Surrealist ecstasy and modern Japanese cinema. This assemblage may seem extravagant and incoherent to those who know nothing about Taiwan, its debate on identity and the collage of cultural components that forms the island as it is today. All of these aspects have given birth to a work whose main concern is to construct a coherent assemblage which does not exclude humour in its juxtapositions. One of the most impressive photographs is the astounding image of the hanging bodies of young women (Bitches, Sanchong series). The shocking eroticism aside, what also comes across here, in an untimely and provocative way, is Hsieh’s second passion: gastronomy. This installation inevitably brings to mind window displays of glossy Peking duck and glazed pigs, hanging by their legs in the windows of traditional Chinese restaurants, ready to be eaten. Once again, this extraordinary image refers to cinema, but this time to the Chinese cinema of Hong Kong. I have a vivid memory of a film by Fruit Chan from 2001, Hollywood Hong Kong, set in the professional world of food markets. It includes a sequence which confirms my feeling that the various effects in each of Hsieh Chu‐Te’s works offer a synthesis of cruelty and beauty, humour and tragedy: a playful cruelty.

1 year ago  1 note

Title: Denmark: Speech Matters

Artists: Agency, Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri, Robert Crumb, Zhang Dali, Stelios Faitakis, FOS, Sharon Hayes, Han Hoogerbrugge, Mikhail Karikis, Thomas Kilpper, Runo Lagomarsino, Tala Madani, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, Lilibeth Cuenca Rasmussen, Taryn Simon, Jan Švankmajer, Johannes af Tavasheden, Tilman Wendland

Curator: Katerina Gregos

Venue: Giardini

The Illuminated Artist’s New Creative Role. 

Augustus Veinoglou in conversation with Katerina Gregos, curator of the Danish Pavilion at the 54th International Venice Biennale. 

AV: Many people would consider freedom of speech and freedom of expression as a given within democratic society, but your work for the Danish Pavilion presents such freedom as a precarious issue. Do you believe freedom of speech often gets overseen?

 

KG: I don’t agree that the subject of freedom of speech and freedom of expression has been well analysed, especially in the field of visual arts and culture, but also within the public debate, and especially in the media. The question of freedom of speech is one that is being increasingly contested in light of transformations taking place globally, both in authoritarian regimes and in liberal democracies.

We live in a time in which censorship is on the rise and civil liberties seem, increasingly, to be under threat. There is a tendency towards greater governmental control served under the pretext of “security issues” as well as social order. All this is happening under our noses, without much reaction or resistance. In many ways, it would appear we have entered a counter-enlightenment period and we are witness to increasingly politically correct or conservative values.

Unfortunately the question of freedom of speech is an issue that seems, recently, to be increasingly used as an empty political slogan, and often subjected to a very simplified, biased and populist debate. In reality, it is an extremely complex and often ambivalent issue that is contingent on subjective political, social, cultural, religious, and personal views. The discussion around free speech is therefore highly relative and open. In that sense it is the complexities surrounding freedom of speech that often get overseen.

In the art world, censorship or self-censorship takes place – often not overtly but latently - but we don’t discuss it because it’s one of the things no one wants to admit happens, since we like to think of ourselves as belonging to a freer more liberal realm. The question of freedom of speech and freedom of expression thus also touches on the essence of visual artistic practice per se, which fundamentally entails and depends on conditions of freedom. Contemporary artists in a so-called free society operate under the de facto assumption that they can work in conditions of freedom – but to what extent? In an era in which corporate, private and occasionally, institutional interests increasingly compromise artistic autonomy, what about the nature of artistic freedom itself?  This is one of the big questions that I don’t see many artists addressing head-on.

My choice for the exhibition has to do with the fact that I wanted to address an issue of local significance for the Danish context, and a hugely important international issue, which is impacting so many levels of politics, society, art, and thought. Speech Matters aims to complicate the discussion around this issue, emphasising the fact that one cannot talk about freedom of speech in terms of categorical definitions, as there is no one way of exercising it, and it is difficult to draw the boundaries around it. As to the role of art today, I can have an opinion on its role, but I am not making art. It’s the artists in the first place who have to have an idea about the role of art. But as a curator I am interested in art that dares to ask tough questions about our society and the pretty complicated problems in it. I think artists should take a position, not only aesthetically, but also ethically, which comes, in my opinion, to taking a political position.

AV: How much does Denmark’s identity influence the project?

KG: Denmark has a longstanding reputation for freedom of speech and the freedom of the press. It has repeatedly ranked in the top ten in the Worldwide Press Freedom Index and has always been at the forefront of the public debate on a number of progressive issues in relation to free speech. But it has also suffered the so-called “trauma of free speech” in the wake of the Danish cartoons scandal, making it even more appropriate to use the Danish Pavilion as a springboard from which to discuss these issues.

So yes, the Danish context did influence the choice of the subject but I wanted to shift the discussion away from the cartoons scandal because freedom of speech has so many other important parameters; social, political and cultural: it relates not only to artistic and literary expression, but also to how we inhabit and occupy public space, how we exercise our political rights, the freedom of the media and much more. The internet adds yet another dimension to the discourse in regard to the ownership, control and dissemination of information. The exhibition in the Danish Pavilion focuses on several areas of enquiry such as questions of intellectual property and copyright; language, speech and subjectivity; the relationship between free speech and history, politics, and memory; the silenced speech of voiceless or marginalized communities or persons; censorship, the suppression of information and the fabrication of memory; self-censorship and personal free speech dilemmas; and free or revolutionary speech and the public sphere. 

AV: Do you think that territorial and financial segregation becomes more apparent through an event such as the Venice Biennale where national carriers appear as the solitary counsellors of the current voice?

KG: Of course this is extremely apparent in the Venice Biennale, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. The current voice is not heard because some exercise the most power or bring in the most money. Showing your muscles is a rather puerile performance. The huge noisy upside down tank from the Korean War in front of the US pavilion is a good example of occupying territory and of course a confirmation that you have a lot of money to bring in a real tank.

On the other side of the spectrum I cannot but think of the Luxemburg “Pavilion”, quite a few Biennales ago where the artist Bert Theis ‘squatted’ a spot between the Belgian and Dutch pavilions, and created a mock-pavilion which he fenced off. When one entered, there were just a couple of comfortable deck chairs to sit in, relax and watch the wind going through the foliage of the trees.  A very strong statement which made one think of the futility of competing pavilions. Or the intervention of Roman Ondak within in the Czech/Slovak Pavilon in 2009, where he simply extended the greenery and foliage of the Giardini into and beyond the pavilion, leaving an entirely open green space. There are thus always ways of challenging what you call the “solitary counsellors of the current voice” and of circumventing the spectacular or market-driven politics of the national representation in Venice.

AV: Are there any proposed alternative strategies for these voices to be heard, perhaps initiatives that can happen locally? 

KG: Of course, there always are, if artists have an imaginative mind and the initiative and willpower, these alternatives can no doubt become visible. Inventive and adventurous curators can have a decisive role here too, of course. But as long as artists desire to or are unquestioningly willing to become part of the commercial art market, as long as they think that they need more money to make their ideas visible and as long as the market is willing to grant these wishes, there will obviously be less alternatives. Wherever you look nowadays, there is a lot of art made for the market, however there are also counter-voices to that. And that’s the direction I am mostly looking in, although - on the other hand - it would be inaccurate to say that artists who are also active in the commercial world might not be producing engaging, thought-provoking work.

What makes me cringe, however, is that which is blatantly commercial; i.e. art fair art – art made specifically for art fairs, for example. Nevertheless we should forget that the “art world” is not only constituted of the gallery system and the market, though those are indeed powerful machines.

AV: Do you feel we are living in conservative times?

KG: Unfortunately yes, and increasingly so. Also in the art world, where there is a tendency to the safe and the politically correct and a reluctance to take risks and speak out.

Life in the west seems somewhat fortified with paradoxical artifices and new social tools that in one hand promote freedom of expression, freedom of choice and speech, but also mask freedom and induce a constant recycling of the same material. A simple assumption is humans become exchangeable units of some sort. I am obviously talking about a lot of the social electronic platforms and of the intensified presence of pornography on the Internet.

AV: Do you believe that is more urgent to deal with what we produce and what is at close proximity?

KG: I agree completely with what you imply about the futility of social networking. When one visits social network sites one cannot help drawing the conclusion that we have very little to say to one another, or that what is exchanged is overwhelmingly trivial, banal and uninteresting. Nevertheless it seems to fulfil some of our deeper desires, when one thinks of the massive success of Facebook or Twitter. Like all new media or new inventions, the internet has both its up and its down sides. But in general: what’s the use of freedom of speech when one has nothing to say? The great thing about the Internet is that the tools are there. And they are amazing, and some people are using them (think of the recent events in North Africa and the Arab world). What we should be more concerned about is the fact that the free space of the internet is increasingly being privatised and commercialised.

AV: Do you believe the crisis of Capitalism is linked to the rise of affordable, popular technology?

KG: The human species is greedy, as most animals are. We cannot just get rid of our limbic system. Capitalism is an economic system that seems to enhance and even reward greediness. But, as resources are always limited, when I have more, you will have less. The capitalist system is rewarding that state of affairs. It is called the free market. Financial institutions, such as banks and insurance companies, have become greedy too, instead of just helping their clients with good financial advice. As electronic computing has become extremely fast and is able to compute even beyond human comprehension, the financial products that resulted from it were not even understood any more by the people who conceived them.  And so the whole system collapsed because it went out of control. The crisis of capitalism has to do with the fact that so many resources are concentrated in the hands of so few people.

AV: Artists are often victims of a corporate philosophy, as shown by the explicit presence of funding bodies and sponsorship at the Biennale. As a system that has shown its weaknesses, what would you recommend to emerging practitioners operating within its field?

KG: Artists are not victims, or in any case don’t have to be victims of any philosophy whatsoever, if they don’t want to. Nobody is putting a gun to their heads. But they are human and they want to make a living too. The problem is that art, and especially one aspect of contemporary art has become a toy for the very rich. Art, in this case, has become a commercial commodity; status can be bought, artists can be sold. Some – very few we tend to forget – have become stars. Reputations of artists are fabricated by powerful galleries and collectors and the relation between value and price has gone completely awry. The only thing I can recommend to emerging practitioners is turning your back to the prevailing system and trying to do it your own way. Try to find like-minded artists, off-mainstream galleries, uncompromising curators and wayward collectors. Set up your own system and devise your own alternatives. Maybe make it even your art to subvert the existing art world and create your own. It has been done before and it can be done again.

AV: You are a Greek born curator with experience in Greece and in Europe. Greece is a place of social and economic turmoil but, I believe it is also a place where people express their opinion openly. What is your relationship with Greece now? Has it in anyway inspired your choice for the exhibition’s theme?

KG: My contact with Greece is minimal because I have become very disheartened with the abysmal political situation there, even before the economic crisis broke out, though I do follow current affairs there. I do not have professional ties with Greece since I left, and I only go back to see the people and places that are dear to me. However, one thing that may be related to my Greek roots is the fact that I come from a rather outspoken culture: people are not afraid to voice opinion, and to engage in heated debate. And this is something that I guess is very Greek and something that I very much identify with. My Greek roots, however, have nothing to do with the choice of the exhibition theme; that is part of a long terms interest I have in social and political issues, and human rights in general.

AV: Is the notion of periphery and marginalized economy a mending notion associated with ideas of freedom not only of expression but also, freedom to believe in improvement and change?

KG: In the analysis of the periphery and its marginalized economies it is an objective to “mainstream” these economies (think of Asia, Africa and especially India). Meaning that the periphery will become the centre and the margin will become part of the global economy. One can observe that empowering local initiatives might work (think of the micro credits) which allows some groups to participate in market activities. There are however also non-economic causes, for example discrimination by gender, race, religion, or ethnicity. It is exactly here that freedom of expression in the wider sense, as well as the belief in self-empowerment and social change, gets a proper meaning.

AV: Do you think that art should place interest in socio-economic affairs? Should it advocate change this actively within arts?  Do you think that the role of art is to revolt in some sense or to discover righteousness and engage with a wider audience?

KG: I am not advocating a specific type of art practice. Artists should do what they think or feel they have to do. But I am primarily interested in art that is socially or politically propelled. Art has no fixed or determined role in society, nor should it. When it would have a definite role, it would have to comply with a certain set of rules and it would lose its liberty to respond freely to what is going on in the world. But as I said, I engage with art that engages with society and tries to comment on its deficiencies and complexities. I trust that all art will in the end find its own audience, be it large or small. Artists can engage with socio-economic affairs, but lets not also forget that artists make art and not politics. And that what they do might be interesting precisely because it is mediated through an artistic filter, meaning that there is always a process of filtering, translation, interpretation which provides another point of view or angle on what we assume to know or might not know at all.

AV: Where is the boundary between art and politics?

KG: We are living together in a society of people who all might  - and actually mostly do - want different things. Politics is the art of trying to find a way of matching all these different needs and desires in such a way that people are willing to give and take and live together without smashing each others skulls. Politics is about finding a way to share the rare. Art on the other hand is the politics of commenting on everything we think is fixed and secured and showing us that we might be wrong about that by showing how it could be otherwise or different from what we think. They are so far apart from each other that they almost seem to touch again. There is a big difference between political art, political praxis and political efficacy. There is – and should be – a clear boundary between art and politics, as both have entirely different goals and functions.

AV: I believe there’s a great educational turn around freedom of expression. Do you believe that art besides anything else should first be able to make the viewer able to imagine and be creative? 

KG: Yes. I do believe that art should enable and empower people to think differently, to act differently and maybe even to feel differently from what they have been taught. Only when you step out of the trodden path you are able to see where you came from, where you are standing now and where you might want to go. I know that many things that I have said may sound very Platonic (apart from the fact that Plato rejected art because of it being representational), but I think we might want to re-consider the Platonic trinity of truth, goodness, and beauty.

1 year ago 

Norway

(part 1)

‘The State of Things’: Series of lectures at various institutes across Venice, programme available here:  http://www.oca.no/programme/norway-in-venice/venice-biennale-2011/the-state-of-things 

Lecturers: Judith Butler, Vandana Shiva, Franco Berardi, T.J. Clark, Jacques Ranciere, Eyal Weizman 

(part 2)

‘Beyond Death: Viral Discontents and Contemporary Notions about AIDS’ with artist Bjarne Melgaard 

Curator: Pablo Lafuente, Marta Kuzma and Peter Osborne 

Location: Various

Laura Stocks interviews curator Pablo Lafuente 

Laura Stocks: This year Norway is independent of the Nordic Pavilion. In what way does the absence of the pavilion affect Norway’s representation?

Pablo Lafuente: The temporary interruption of the collaboration with Finland and Sweden in the Nordic Pavilion in the Giardini, which is going to last for three editions of the Biennale, was for us an opportunity to try new models of national representation and new relationships to audiences in a context that does not often enough lend itself to it. By liberating us from having to organise an exhibition in the actual pavilion, it allowed us to explore what kind of relationships art could establish with other fields within the Biennale, with the urgencies affecting the world today, and with the local – institutional and individual – scene in the city. After a lot of discussion, we decided to organise two programmes – The State of Things and Beyond Death: Viral Discontents and Contemporary Notions about AIDS, the latter led by artist Bjarne Melgaard – that explored what we thought were key issues and did so in collaboration with local institutions such as Università Iuav di Venezia, the Fondazione Querini Stampalia or Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia, and through discursive and pedagogical programmes.

LS: ‘The State of Things’ is initially based on the concept of the Nansen passport, how does this reference or relate to contemporary nationalities?

PL: We thought that the figure of Nansen and his passport were extremely suggestive and we thought a productive image for our times – he professed a genuine internationalism that was put at the service of those minorities that were oppressed or not recognised by the established political and administrative structures.  In the current situation, when it is not easy to find such attitude, we thought invoking Nansen’s figure would serve as a wake up call and perhaps as a model for action.

LS: Current political, social and economic issues are global in scope; to what extent does this transcend the representation of individual national identity?

PL: Norway has traditionally adopted a role of international mediation, already from Nansen’s time. And this is something we wanted to reflect. But, as you say, urgent issues are very often, if not always, of international significance. The tensions and conflicts affecting one society are never exactly the same as another’s, but it is possible to find close parallels between different contexts, as exemplified by the recent public revolts and citizens’ movements in Tunisia, Chile, Egypt, Spain, Yemen, Israel or Greece, or the racist political discourse that certain parties and sectors of society of considerable size promote in France, the US, the Netherlands or Norway.

LS: What was the criterion for the chosen intellectual speakers? 

PL: We approached thinkers, activists, philosophers, writers… whom we respected, and whom we thought had a track record and a contemporary history of engagement with the situation of the world, be it as thinkers or agents/activists. We aimed to ask a diverse set, in geographical and professional terms. The specific issues were to be selected by them, and we wanted to make sure that there was, if not a comprehensive list of key issues, at least one that was diverse enough to offer a complex picture of the problems affecting the world today.

LS: How can art and large multinational events, such as the biennale, be used to take on a social responsibility?

PL: Discussion is always important, on every scale and context. Key issues and voices are often ignored in the world at large, or not given enough time and space. The contemporary art context has proved to be able to function as a good platform for discussion, although this hasn’t been always explored in full. This activity has been mostly absent from the Venice Biennale, and we thought there was no reason to continue that way. In fact, we thought that a platform with the visibility and profile of the Venice Biennale could not ignore this possibility (or, if you want, responsibility) to think about the world that surrounds it.

Once that is decided, each context will allow for and demand specific approaches. A look at the pedagogical activities of, for example, documenta 12 or the 1998 Bienal de São Paulo can show how social responsibility can be tackled.

LS: The series of lectures for ‘The State of Things’ are disseminated orally. What is the effect of this type of discourse and how does this differ from visual forms? 

PL: The lectures are given in different Venues in Venice throughout the duration of the Biennale. They are also broadcast live through OCA’s website, and the recordings archived there. Sections from the lectures have been posted on YouTube. A book will appear, upon the conclusion of the programme, with revised transcriptions of the lectures. All these formats aim to reach as wide an audience as possible – those who were in Venice during the opening, those who live or visit Venice subsequently, those who come to OCA’s website because they are already interested, and those who come across them by chance on the Internet. All these formats offer different types of access, experiences and agencies, but in general they allow for a displaced experience (in time and in space) that a conventional exhibition hardly ever achieves.

LS: Whom is the intended audience, considering the intellectual and complex content of the lectures?

 PL: The audiences are many: art audiences (those visiting Venice and those who become aware of the project through our marketing initiatives), academic audiences in Venice (university students, researchers and teachers, who we have targeted throughout), and individuals, worldwide, who might be interested in the work of Vandana Shiva, Judith Butler, Saskia Sassen, Eyal Weizman, T.J. Clark or any of the other speakers, and who, as I pointed out above, may come across the lectures by chance.

The content, as you say, is complex, but not targeted to academics. The lecturers have until now articulated those ideas with clarity, and there is no reason why anyone who speaks English could not engage with them.

LS: The programme ‘Beyond Death: viral discontents and contemporary notions about aids’ simultaneously forms part of Norway’s representation at the biennale. The four-month course involves participating students, how will a larger audience effectively receive the information?

PL: We have informed about the nature of this programme and its different levels of audiences through emails, through the catalogue, press releases… The immediate audience is the students, who have worked with Melgaard for four months. They have also worked on an exhibition, ‘Baton Sinister’, that was open to the public, and that offered a hint on the work done throughout the four months. So this audience is a second-level audience whom the project is not directed to, but who can engage with its ideas and formalisations regardless. Then there are discussions, such as this one, in which hopefully the format and the ideas of the project are reflected upon.

LS: The course relies on the engagement of its students. How heavily does involvement from the public make for a successful understanding to Norway’s representation this year?

PL: We had very clear in our heads that we were not interested in conventional relations to audiences, as is normally the case in Venice: very simply, perhaps too simply, these consist on putting together an exhibition among many, and hoping visitors to the city decide to visit it. We wanted to work with more specific audiences (students, Venice-based people) without forgetting about the usual Venice visitors and others who don’t go there. Discourse has a different set of channels of distribution from ‘physical’ art, and some shared problems as well as others, different ones. For us it is very important the discussions are accessed, at the time the lecture is given, but also subsequently. 

LS: Bjarne Melgaard, who leads ‘Beyond Death’, is a Norwegian artist - in what way (if at all) does the programme explicitly reference Norwegian society?

PL: Melgaard was invited to develop a programme for the students in relation to AIDS and its representations today. He devised the detail of the programme, and he taught it, together with guests he invited. The programme doesn’t make explicit reference to Norwegian society, although it reflects on an issue that seems to have been forgotten, although it is still important for those affected, directly or indirectly, within Norway and outside of Norway.

LS: What is Norway’s main aim by including such social and cultural issues? 

PL: As curators, Marta Kuzma, Peter Osborne and myself wanted to highlight the importance of placing art within the world at large. AIDS was a key issue for art and the artists in the 1980s and 90s, but it has now almost disappeared as a topic – while remaining a key emergency in the world, especially in parts of it. We thought it was important to address it.

LS: Would you say art has a responsibility to engage in politics?

PL: It’s difficult to talk in general. ‘Art’ is too abstract to have agency, and therefore responsibility. My colleagues and I, as curators of the Norwegian representation, felt a responsibility to use this opportunity to engage in social and political issues.

Title: Glasstress (b)

Artist: Multiple Artists

Collateral Event

Venue: San Marco (b), Dorsoduro (a), Murano Island (c)

Collateral Event

Glasstress combines multiple leading and lesser-known artists using the material of glass. Held at three different locations across the Venice Biennale, the Dorsoduro, San Marco and the apt Murano Island - of which the notorious Venetian bright blue glass is home to - the professionally executed shows present an impressive and diverse range of work. Rather than catering to any specific theme the shows highlight the depth and wealth of possibilities glass as a medium can create, of which all are exquisite and to an extremely high standard.

The group of shows are comprehensive and enjoyable to walk around, the San Marco Glasstress situated in Venice’s grand Institution of Science, each different room and turn of a corner leading to new and exciting works ranging from ceiling hung installations to floor based sculptures. We witness highly detailed head bust portraits, carved moving mirrors, colourful glass beads radiating with the play of light and life-size animal sculptures formed through millions of tiny glass baubles, to name but a few.

Glasstress encapsulates glass as a material of the future. As a medium, perhaps often overlooked, the exhibitions work together to celebrate the endless potential of glass and its unique properties.

Laura Stocks

Title: Glasstress (a)

Artist: Multiple Artists

Venue: Dorsoduro, Collateral Event 

Title: Ireland

Artist: Corban Walker

Curator: Eamonn Maxwell

Venue: Santa Maria della Pietà, Castello 3701

While literally composing three separate installations, Corban Walker’s productions for the Irish pavilion co-habit rather curiously. While all are concerned with both the nature of the site and Walker’s own artistic investigations into space and the built environment, the sensations emitted by the central sculpture are quite distinct from those suggested by the vinyl-clad windows of the Istituto Santa Maria Della Pietà.

The vinyl works are modular pieces, aesthetically minimalist but configured from rigid mathematical principles derived from Walker’s own height and perspective. Resembling the stained glass of churches, these windows are only partially obscured and remain see-through, a visual metaphor for the manners in which we engage with architecture: both occupying and transitioning through the spaces around us.

The central sculptural form, on the other hand, is formed from over one hundred stainless steel cubes which appear precariously stacked in a pile in the middle of the floor. Towering above the viewer, an obstacle in our path between the vinyl works, we must navigate around the object in a style the windows do not require. Yet this work is also transparent, allowing visitors both to appreciate the regularity of the forms, but also to consider how the structure fits these surroundings, occupying space – again alluding to our personal interactions with our environment.

Title: Poland: And Europe will be stunned

Artist: Yael Bartana

Curator: Sebastian Cichocki e Galit Eilat

Venue: Gardini  

In many ways the Venice Biennale is more representative of the nineteenth century than the twenty-first; the neoclassical pavilions situated in the manicured parkland of the Giardini appear like colonial relics, a perpetual reminder of the power that individual European nations once wielded on the world stage. In this surreal environment, where national boundaries are still tightly drawn, the reality of globalisation seems almost entirely absent.

However, the 54th Venice Biennale saw at least one country opening up its borders in an attempt to engage critically with the concept of identity in our globalised age. Poland’s selection of the Israeli-born artist Yael Bartana is the first time a non-Polish national has represented Poland in the history of the Biennale. This daring decision made by the Polish government is intensified by the sensitive socio-political subject matter of the film trilogy Bartana is exhibiting, aptly titled ‘…and Europe will be stunned’. Bartana’s three films, Mary Kozmary (2007), Mur i Wieża (2009) and Zamach (2011) revolve around the activities of the ‘Jewish Renaissance Movement’ in Poland, a political group of the artist’s creation that calls for the return of 3,300,000 Jews to the land of their forefathers.

Unlike much of this year’s Biennale which consists of innocuous and self-indulgent art ‘…and Europe will be stunned’ is refreshing in its clear socio-political agenda. As an Israeli Bartana views Poland as an outsider and this gives her a more objective perspective allowing her the freedom to create an unsentimental and honest portrait of the country. Bartana says that for the average Israeli citizen ‘Poland = Holocaust and anti-Semitism’ but that she was once told that Poland and Israel are very similar societies and her project stems from the desire to find out what that means.

Bartana is motivated to create art by her firm belief that it can be a tool for social and political change and this is evident in her trilogy. Her films confront an array of complex issues including Zionism, anti-Semitism, the Holocaust and the Palestinian right of return all of which are seamlessly integrated into a compelling narrative which has at its heart an overt criticality of nationalism. The artist condemns conservative nationalism because of its tendency to provoke fear and hatred of the ‘Other’. She says that she is comfortable to present her work in the context of the Polish Pavilion precisely because she is not Polish, and that her project would not work if she were representing Israel.

The first film in the series entitled Mary Kozmary, opens with a young Polish activist played by Sławomir Sierakowski (a prominent leftwing figure in Poland) delivering a speech in the abandoned National Stadium in Warsaw in which he urges three million Jews to return to Poland. This deeply emotive appeal is an attempt at reconciliation with the Jews displaced or killed during the Holocaust as well as an admission that their absence has irreparably damaged Polish culture. Using the structure of a World War II propaganda film, the work addresses contemporary anti-Semitism and xenophobia in Poland, but there is also an unavoidable parallel with Israel’s relationship with its Palestinian neighbour. As Bartana says, ‘It speaks about Poland as well as about Israel. It can be read two ways, like in a mirror – there’s one side and the other side. And that’s how it was interpreted in Israel – as a plea for forgiveness, a call for the Palestinians to return.’

Bartana’s parents were both Israeli freedom fighters who fought in the War of Independence in 1948 and she was brought up in an environment in which your duty was to your country and Arabs were your enemy. It was after leaving Israel in 1996 and going to America that Bartana became critical of this conformist ideology and more specifically of the exclusive nature of Zionism which held that Jews were the chosen people. In Mur i Wieża the Zionist dream is brought to life but in an entirely different political and geographical configuration. We see the erection of a kibbutz (a Zionist defensive structure used to occupy foreign land) in the Warsaw district of Muranów built to the scale and architectural style of the 1930s. This alien construction reminiscent of a Concentration Camp creates a perverse reflection of the history of the location, which had been the Jewish residential area before the war, and then a part of the Warsaw Ghetto. Whilst Mur i Wieża is Zionist in spirit in that it shows a world based upon the socialist values that were characteristic of the early movement, it categorically denies the concept of Jewish supremacy and seeks instead to transcend both national and ethnic identity. In Bartana’s trilogy the term ‘Jew’ seems a symbol for all minorities who feel they don’t belong whether it is because of their skin colour, creed or sexual orientation.

In the final part of the trilogy, Zamach (Assassination) we witness the funeral ceremony of the leader of the Jewish Renaissance Movement who has been killed by an unidentified assassin. As Bartana says, ‘We don’t know who killed him…It could have been a Polish nationalist as well as an Israeli Zionist.’ In creating this martyr the artist is echoing the deaths of the many leaders of progressive movements throughout the twentieth century for example Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King and Benazir Bhutto. Bartana’s films are fictional but the issues are real and the martyrdom of the leader of the Polish Renaissance Movement is intended as a catalyst for change both onscreen and off. As Bartana says, ‘I was interested in creating a myth that would mobilise the masses to take to the streets’.

Bartana’s trilogy may focus on two specific nations but the narrative is universal and this is where its major strength lies. ‘…and Europe will be stunned’ lives up to its name confronting us with the reality of the fragmented world we live in and attempting to address the marginalisation of minority groups all over the world. Next year will be the first congress of the ‘Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland’ (JRMIP) which will be part of the 7th Berlin Biennial and take place at the Volksbuehne. As stated in the JRMIP manifesto ‘We accept into our ranks all those for whom there is no place in their homeland’.

Matthew Macaulay

Title: Iceland: Under Deconstruction

Artist: Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson

Curator: Ellen Blumenstein 

Venue: Dorsoduro

 Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson are the Spanish-Icelandic collaborative duo chosen to represent Iceland in this year’s biennale. Working together for almost fifteen years the pair have recently established themselves in the international art arena, and their original and witty show ‘Under Deconstruction’ assures to only heighten their success.

Housed in a barren and run down pavilion the pinnacle of the show is the first video performance we encounter, Your Country Doesn’t Exist. The work forms part of an on-going project, which began in Istanbul in 2003 as part of the anti-war protests. Since the idea has developed into somewhat of a campaign, taking on various forms and mediums, and even different languages. Castro and Ólafsson use the crusade in response to their environment; for Venice choosing to focus on the tourist phenomenon that the city now represents and to an extent is informed by. The inventive video features mezzo-soprano Ásgerður Júníusdóttir who sails around the canals of Venice in a gondola – the epitome and almost cliché of Venetian tourism - singing the following line in several different languages: “This is an announcement from Libia and Ólafur. Your country does not exist.” The footage is then projected in the pavilion, for present audiences to enjoy; mainly the tourists entertaining reactions to the attention grabbing first hand performance, which was shot prior to the biennale.

The political aspect to the message, which itself through the duo’s practice develops into a recurring slogan or gimmick, is undeniably present, yet it is complex and ambiguous. ‘Your country doesn’t exist’ can relate to nation states, in which individual countries have less power under the rule of ‘their’ state. Or if one focuses on the possessive noun in the sentence, ‘your’, it message becomes personal, and it is true we as ourselves cannot own the country we in habit or have much say over how it exists today.

It is significant that the line is read in numerous languages, not only as it is now staged at one of the largest international and multilingual art platforms, yet translation and language barriers remain a predominant feature throughout the collaborators work. The remaining audio pieces in the exhibition, Constitution of Republic of Iceland and Exorcising Ancient Ghosts exemplify further the play with language that can create and break barriers between different people and cultures.

Laura Stocks

Title: Serbia: Light and darkness of symbols

Artist: Raša Todosijević

Curator: Sanja Kojić Mladenov

Venue: Giardini

Sanja Kojić Mladenov works at the Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina in Novi Sad and is curator of the Serbian Pavilion, which this year features the work of Belgrade-based artist Dragoljub Raša Todosijević (b.1945).

Elliott Goat: Hello, I would just like to start by thanking you for agreeing to conduct this interview and answer some questions.

In the symposium Networking the Bloc: UK Connections, partly held in Edinburgh in December last year, in which Dragoljub Raša Todosijević was involved, one of the discussion points was the suggestion that some of the legacies of pre-1989 socialism have returned to the forefront of Western thinking.  Do you believe, especially in light of the current economic climate, that there is emerging a ‘post-socialist aesthetics and politics within contemporary art’?

Sanja Kojić Mladenov: This is a highly sensitive and complex question whose answer depends very much on the observer’s perspective, i.e. the observer and their socio-political environment. The question is whether a “post-socialist aesthetics and politics” emerge in the works of artists belonging to the Western art practice who have a heightened critical awareness and through art express their resistance to the prevailing political and economic climate. Or is it a product of the artists coming from the post-socialist countries who are a growing presence on the international art scene, and whose art practice is often regarded by the West as post-socialist (which is related to the stereotypical perception of identity, social phenomena and relationships). Or finally is this a general philosophical attitude, with a cross-generational and trans-national perception of the legacy of communism seen as a new key factor in understanding and examination of global artistic phenomena.

For instance, looking back, in 1973 the Edinburgh Art Festival provided an opportunity for Eastern European artists to get familiar with the new trends in Western European contemporary art and culture, and for Raša Todosijević to stage his performance Decision as Art, together with several artist from Serbia, Marinela Koželj, Marina Abramović, Gergelj Urkom and Zoran Popović. The performance intended to condemn and destabilize foundations of socialist modernist art dominant in Serbia and its cultural institutions, using the language of new art practice that was closely related to Western conceptual art practice.  The most dominant and visible Western art practice had for a long time represented an ideal for the so-called Second and Third world. Today the situation is somewhat different. The free flow and exchange of information, prominent communicativity, critical awareness, as well as socio-political and economic context establish new foundations for interaction and forge new relationships between the East and West.      

EG: Can you discuss Raša Todosijević’s Edinburgh Statement: ‘Who is making profit on art and who is earning honestly’, and specifically its relation to the fetishization and commodification of ‘the concept’?

SKM: The Edinburgh Statement created in 1975 is a very precise and exhaustive list of all individuals, professions, institutions and trades that make a living and feed off the artist. It was inspired by Todosijević’s position that contemporary art is a field of endless, continuous conflict and intersecting interests of all those who look to gain something for themselves in the field. He points to the fact that no domain of human activity can elude the artist who must stay awake and act on all fronts. His Edinburgh Statement can be understood as the Eastern European artist’s ironic examination of economic determination of the Western art system, and, even more, as a cynical emphasis of the problems in the art system of the late real socialism in the environment that directly affected his standard of living. The Edinburgh Statement should be examined in close relation to his practical work and the social circumstances in which he created it, since they all contribute to the critical orientation of art behaviour. They point out that, apart from the written form, the problem of commodification of the “concept” is present in his other works as well, such as his performances “Decision as Art”, “Was ist Kunst”, “Elementary Paintings“, his art in public space and posters, in which he persistently insisted on the importance of individual strategy and the artist’s voice in the first person.

EG: You have commented on the changeability of meaning within Raša Todosijević’s work, relative to differing contexts of display and exhibition. How do you feel Raša Todosijević’s work has been re-interpreted in relation to Yugoslavia’s turbulent and volatile history over the past 30 years and to what extent do you feel it is still relevant in 2011?

SKM: The “turning off road”, call for action, critical intervention, revolt and an investigative approach to art and society have, in my opinion, been the distinct characteristics of Todosijević’s art practice in the last 30 years, as well as today. Moreover he does not seek to create the “new” and “original”, but to confront the old, traditional and predominant. For instance, during the 1990s, Raša Todosijević realized a series of installations Gott liebt die Serben that coincided with the dramatic and tragic developments taking place in the countries of the Former Yugoslavia immediately after the fall of the Berlin wall and resulting in full-scale war, the total collapse of the socialist state and social structure, rise of nationalism and destruction of moral and all other values. During that period, while his position in the domestic arena was becoming increasingly isolated both on the cultural and the economic front, he started to use the swastika symbol in his work, thus provoking a dialogue about the changeability of meaning of symbols and dependence of their interpretation on the given historical circumstances, and pointing to the paradoxes of the idealised national and class culture that surrounded him. Today, as is evident in his exhibition at the Venice Biennale, Light and Darkness of Symbols, he continues to oppose the traditional and ingrained thinking patterns and interpretations of symbols while engaging with the issues of Serbian socio-political, economic and cultural context, particularly those sensitive and still very much topical questions of mythology, religion, ideology and power.

EG: To what extent is Raša Todosijević’s ability to critique the institution dependent/undermined by his involvement within in it, especially as a national representative of his country at the Venice Biennial?

SKM: There is a big difference between how the artist’s work represents a country at the Venice Biennale and what the artist’s work represents inside the very country s/he comes from. Raša Todosijević and conceptual art in general had to come a very long way in the country’s socialist and post-socialist transitional society in order to achieve the degree of affirmation enabling them to represent Serbia at the Venice Biennale. Clearly, this still does not imply that this radical art and its representatives had altogether left behind their problematic culturological position within the national, political and contemporary art systems. Culture, and especially visual arts in Serbia still do not have enough media, economic and political support in order to gain social credibility or occupy a noteworthy position outside the critics’ and artists’ circles.

EG: Raša Todosijević s critique of both the institution and systems of ruling aesthetics seems to be linked with a desire to act as a voice of dissent. By constantly questioning “what is art?” how far, do you believe, does art have the power to act as vehicle for social change?

SKM: I see contemporary art practice as contextual, relational and gaseous, a practice in which information (communication) plays a significant role. Its diverse interdisciplinary and multimedia nature detaches it from the traditional art forms. Contemporary art develops under the influence of its socio-political, economic and cultural context, it is characteristic for its many different phenomena, localisms and trends, it establishes contacts and relations with science, technology and society, aiming to exchange numerous pieces of information – through mutual communication, dialogue and collaboration. Today the convergence of contemporary art, social reality and informational media is a growing presence, and communication in post-industrial capitalism, I believe, produces value. Consequently the role of art and media becomes critical in movements for social change.

EG: Lastly, do you feel a primary function of the work of Raša Todosijević is to provoke and, if so, therefore only successful if it elicits some sort of response?

SKM: Since the very start of his art practice, Todosijević has harshly and decisively criticised the ruling aesthetics, the ideology of moderate modernism, cultural institutions, their value systems and the long-established traditional understanding of the work of art, through unexpected inversions, various destructive, decentralising and ironical models of artistic and anti-artistic engagement and behaviour. He devised a motto “decision as art” and asked questions, “what is art?”, “who makes profit on art and who gains from it honestly?” thus openly disagreeing with the current state in art and society and initiating public dialogue. Provocation, I think, is an important aspect of his art practice. He provoked a problemization of the artist’s social status and the position of his product. However, his provocation has not demanded a direct reply from the society, but through his strategic resistance to traditionalism and prevailing attitudes of a closed environment, created a space for new communication and as a result gained many followers in the succeeding generations of artists.

Interview conducted by Elliott Goat

Title: Venice in Venice: Glow and Reflection – Venice California Art from 1960 to the Present

Artists: Peter Alexander, John Baldessari, Larry Bell, Tony Berlant, Mary Corse, James Turrell, Judy Chicago, Doug Wheeler, Vija Celmins, Ron Cooper, John Altoon, Craig Kauffman, Ed Keinholz, Ed Moses, Andy Warhol, Wallace Berman, Robert Irwin, Kenneth Price, Llyn Foulkes, Bruce Conner, Dennis Hopper, Ed Ruscha, Billy Al Bengston, John Mccracken, George Herms, Bruce Nauman, Laddie John Dill, Jim Evans, C. R. Stecyk

Curators: Tim Nye and Jacqueline Miro

Venue: Palazzo Contarini dagli Scrigni, Dorsoduro

 

On the centennial of the naming of Venice, California, and the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy, curators Tim Nye and Jacqueline Miro have transported a group of artists whose ‘impossibly cool’ work sprang from the desolate shores of 1960s Venice, California to the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy. Los Angeles in the 60s saw artists draw inspiration from sunlight, the reflective surface of the ocean, car and surfboard cultures, and the influx of new technologies introduced by the local engineering and aerospace industries. Artists began experimenting with industrial materials in order to explore new possibilities for perception, light and illusion. Thus, an inevitable concern with water, and a subsequent shared unique luminosity, links the two cities of Venice. Either/or, in Goethe’s words: ‘Venice(s), like everything else which has a phenomenal existence, is subject to Time…’ to Light and Space. And Fetish.

 

The exhibiting artists are internationally renowned -   including James Turrell, Vija Celmins, Ed Ruscha, Robert Graham and Andy Warhol, to name a few. In total, there are 68 works, some of which are characteristic of their creators, such as James Turrell’s ‘Cross Corner Projection’ and George Herms’s various sculptural assemblages. Vija Celmins’s, however, breaks away from her monochrome drawings, and demonstrates her sculptural skill with the 1967 work Eraser. 

In essence, some of the works themselves are interesting, beautiful or spiritual and demonstrate a ‘cool’ use of the minimalist aesthetic. However, the difficulty comes with collectivity. Together, the works become a self-indulgent oeuvre, completely detached from reality. It immediately feels that everything is being taken too seriously, with ostentatious phrases spattered all over the information sheets: ‘the iris argon lights of Laddie John Dill will ooze from the baroque windows, the acoustic sounds of psychedelia [will] reverberate off the blackness of Venice’s waters.’ And it seems entirely devoid of irony - something which John Baldessari and David Hockey could have effectively contributed (although originally billed as participants, they are not actually present in the exhibition.)

 

It is important here to note that the majority of these works were created in the 60s. And although ‘Venice in Venice is not a re-creation, but an homage—an event that only the art, politics, and technical progress of the last 50 years can bring to life at a single event,’ it manifests like a redundant shrine to an outdated art fashion.  The reiteration of the minimalist aesthetic is tedious; Mary Corse’s ‘white inner band’ paintings, Larry Bell’s glass boxes, Peter Alexander’s resin panels. There can be no doubt of the importance of these works in the 60s, and the participants are so established it would probably be sacrilege to ruthlessly criticise their work individually. Indeed, James Turrell’s ‘The Ganzfeld Piece’ is an excellent contribution to Bice Curiger’s ILLUMInations exhibition, effectively challenging our notion of what is really present. However, in ‘Venice in Venice’, Turrell’s work becomes an exhausted repetition of an overused aesthetic and ideology. 

 

The ideology itself is summarised in a quotation from Billy Al Bengston: ‘it’s about artists in Venice, CA who made things based upon an entirely unique vision - art. Not based on your car, your house, your sky, your woman, your tears, your anguish, your angst, or any other reference to the human condition.’ Ergo, it is art about art - a postulation which once felt intelligent and serene, and still can in moderation, feels obsolete at the 2011 Venice Biennale. The nature of the Biennale incites an engagement with the socio-political discourses pertaining to representing countries - demonstrated by numerous participants this year, such as Iraq, Israel, Romania, Poland, Greece and Haiti. Thus, with artists such as Azad Nanakeli engaging with the threatening drought in his country in the Iraqi Pavilion, ‘Venice in Venice’ suddenly looks like a misplacement of responsibility. 

 

According to the curators, ‘once the event touches down in Venice, Italy, the art world will never be quite the same.’ This presumptuous statement is indicative of the ultimate pitfalls of the exhibition. It is self-indulgent, overly aware of its own (mis-placed) importance, and despite its aim to ‘link’ the two cities of Venice, it is too insular to have any relevance in 2011. 

Kathryn Lloyd

Title: Finland: And all structures are unstable

Artist: Vesa-Pekka Rannikko

Curator: Laura Köönikkä

Venue: Giardini

Title: Estonia: A Woman Takes Little Space

Artist: Liina Siib

Venue: San Marco

Sarah Hardie interview Liina Siib about her project, A Woman Takes Little Space

Sarah Hardie: Showing this work at the Biennale, in a place where you represent/are synonymous with Estonia, was it important to you to make work which had a political and socially responsible element to it? To make a difference? Do you think this sort of work can make a difference? And in a wider sense do you believe art can make a difference?

Liina Siib: I did not start this project having Venice biennale in my mind. I am interested in visual representations of social conditions and reflections of gendered spatial relationships in contemporary society. Submitting my project to the Estonian pavilion competition came later. Gaining this opportunity to present the project enabled more focused approach, a team work and production support. I could concentrate on certain topics and to interweave them with each other. To me it has been a way to communicate in society, to do my visual research on positions of femininity, to understand the limits and borders of female space. Art is just another language, a bridge between different parties. As a tool a of making visible underexposed areas it can make a difference. Some art does make a difference for me. It can give different points of views and through visual montage on social issues we can also learn something else than by purely theoretical approach.

SH: As an Estonian woman artist is it important to you that you speak about these issues of women’s work and place in society – is this where you feel the power of art lies

LS: I would not put that so directly – I happen to be a woman and an artist but if I do my works it does not cling in my head all the time. Sometimes these two together are an advantage, sometimes it is not. In a way I have felt enough sympathy to show women’s issues in my work. I use the images that somehow accord to the images that are floating in my head, consciously and unconsciously. Regarding these images I do not think that now I am making art. It is what I am interested in and to show it in the context of contemporary art is one possibility. It is articulating and addressing issues that I feel relevant to myself at the moment.

SH: Was it your intention to almost embarrass the person who wrote in the Estonian media that ‘women require less space for their everyday work (and less pay) than men’, in quoting this person in your feminist work, or did you want to embarrass, not just them, but the world, to say look at this: people still believe this?

LS: I am not sure this person is even aware about my project. I have no feedback from him and it was not my aim to embarrass him personally, then I would of sent him a personal letter. It was to deal with this statement about the ‘female space’, give it a visualisation from my point of view. This year we got the statistics that the gender pay gap is biggest in Estonia within the EU, Estonian women earn in average 30% less than Estonian men. I think this matter should embarass people here.    

SH: Space is very important to you in the films; did you want the six-room apartment installation to function as an uncanny home environment for the viewer, placing them in an imagined uncomfortable domestic sphere? Is it through the uncanny and the realizations that occur in this state you hope to create understanding and questioning of the norm.

LS: Exactly, space is important. It is not only important in my films but in other media too. I like to show my work as an installation that supports and enhances the idea that I would like to convey with the photographic records either in films or photos. With A Woman Takes Little Space I wanted to examine can a woman be defined by space.

SH: What sort of space do you feel a woman does and should occupy?

LS: Perhaps a woman should aim for a space of her own, she gives up too much to the demands of others and agrees with the conditions that are defined in advance. On the other hand women can domesticate any space to be able to work there. But they hardly fill up a space as men can do even unnoticed.

SH: Your work deals with ritual and the sense of going nowhere – do you feel repetition can have the power to make anew, to change (in the Deleuzian sense) or is repetition/ritual cyclic motion something your work actually speaks against?

LS: I personally don’t like repetition very much, I like to take new ways, risks and not to work in editions. Perhaps this dislike of repetition somehow appears in my works as a form of repetition. Repetition/ritual cycle can contain both potential – making anew or retain existing order, stagnation. Visually, repetition can be engaging, hypnotising, making uncanny; on the other hand, it is exhausting.

SH: What sort of space do you give men in your videos? Can you explain this for us? Is it the sort of space you would give them if it were down to you to create a new world order, or do you feel they already occupy this space in the world?

LS: In my three videos and a sound piece at the Palazzo Malipiero men are present less or more with their voice (singing or speaking) and by their statements. Thus they do not occupy much space visually but rather as sound waves their voices spread around. This is certainly not the model of the world I would like to create. It is a way of showing things in the context of the project. There might be a possibility for a viewer to experience conventionality of natural order we are living and status quo of gendered space.

SH: Your work speaks of women as things that are consumed – how then did you go about representing woman in your videos (available to consume visually again in this context)? Do you actively allow the consumer/viewer to visually consume them as long at it is self-consciously done? Are there any techniques you use or adopt in order to de-fetishise “the object on screen” (woman)?

LS: In a consumer society everything can become a thing to be consumed. I do not think that my work speaks only about consuming women or making them things. I try to show them as dignified subjects with self-esteem and dreams, they are women standing on their own feet. I am aware how making a photographic or video work about someone can objectify the subject, it happens both with male and female subjects. Sometimes I try to de-fetishise the object on the screen by using the fetishising methods, close ups, diverse viewpoints. To make it strange and oversaturated through humour and laughing at oneself.  In one video one can only hear the voices of interviewed women. Sometimes when a woman herself tries to pose consciously as an object of visual pleasure for a male gaze, I try to diminish it, to make the gaze unreturned. This project was done as an agreement between me and my ‘actors’. They are playing themselves, consciously.

Title: United Arab Emirates: Second Time Around

Artists: Reem Al Ghaith, Abdullah Al Saadi and Lateefa Bint Maktoum

Curator: Vasif Kortun

Venue: Arsenale 

The Price of Responsibility

Laura Stocks investigates the relationship between society, money and cultural production. 

The nature of international shows, such as the Venice Biennale, highlights economical and political shifts between participating countries. Even the one hundred plus nations not represented become implicated; their lower economic status suggested by their very absence. Fairly recent newcomers to the international art scene, the United Arab Emirates and Iceland, both make a successful impact at the Venice Biennale this year. The countries representative artists take the time to discuss their nations financial, global and political positions and how this ultimately effected their production in the Biennale. Most importantly there is a realisation for the responsibility of a countries generated wealth and the way in which this is distributed and handled has wider repercussions for the art world.  

The United Arab Emirates, particularly the capital Abu Dhabi and Dubai, has a reputation as a futuristic and wealthy country, internationally renowned for its high income. The UAE is being represented for the second time at the 54th International Venice Biennale and the commissioned works provide an extensive social critique of the rapid urbanisation the country has undergone in these recent years.

The work of artists’ Lateefa bint Maktoum, Reem Al Ghaith and Abdullah Al Saadi responds to the contemporary culture and developments in the Arab world, encompassing the impact urbanisation has had on their native land. This is most obvious in Maktoum’s photographic series, which shows skyscrapers set against the rural land, creating an unnatural paradox. This combination of natural and man-made constructions in such close proximity successfully highlights the complex visual culture that all Emirati are currently witnessing. Al Ghaith’s installation directly references the changes happening in Dubai. The area is under permanent modification, and the installation Dubai: What’s left of her land can be understood in accordance with the continuously shifting landscape.

However, all is not lost to a concrete jungle. Fully aware of the potential positivity urban progress can achieve, the artists’ state that, ‘it is exciting and fascinating to live through such a time of development.’ Despite the negative impact urbanisation has had on the natural land, this money and prosperity has also helped the UAE locate itself as a contemporary globalised art hub - demonstrated by their recent Biennale debut, The Art Dubai Fair and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. 

The UAE’s Ministry of Culture is concerned in nurturing creativity amongst younger Emirati generations, looking towards the future and many artists share this ethos. Maktoum recently opened a set of public studios, ‘Tashkeel’ claiming she ‘wanted to create a physical networking space for artists as well as a place where artists of different ages would learn from one another and grow, this way encouraging the artist community of the region to flourish.’ Such initiatives convey a positive outcome of urban development and utilising space within the UAE. However, more importantly, the artist realises a responsibility through direct involvement in the art world.

For the UAE an increase in generated wealth is productively distributed within the creative sector, highlighted by the fact the countries’ choose to send artists to international contemporary fairs such as the biennale. A large proportion of countries are not provided with the opportunity to represent their nation at international art forums, mainly due to monetary restraints.

Lebanon and Rwanda had to pull out of the Venice Biennale last minuet due to their nations financial situations within this sector; Northern Ireland was also denied a place. Even countries, which from the outset appear financial secure and stable, have had and continue to have difficulties in operating art shows and fairs.

This situation is close to home for Iceland we can discover after speaking to the countries representative artists, Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson at the biennale. The artist’s disclose that it was ‘50/50’ whether Iceland would be represented due to financial constraints. However, despite the major economic crash Iceland experienced in 2008, Ólaffson suggests that this ‘had little effect on arts and culture at the time which do not receive that much funding as a whole.’ Ólaffson proposes that, more significantly, Iceland is perhaps lacking a cultural middle or upper class to support art, in comparison to larger metropolises such as the UAE. This reinforces the notion that a country’s financial decisions have a subsequent impact on the way its culture is disseminated and received.

Nevertheless, Iceland did indeed manage to successfully send the collaborative duo to represent the country, and as their artistic reputation is establishing itself, it is hoped to improve the image of the nation itself. Clearly, when selecting representative artists for the Biennale, a strategic formula is adopted – taking into account censorship, reputability and required or available money. Ólaffson reiterates this stating their show is ‘resourceful for the duration of the event’ and thus economically viable. Their work for the show is made up of film footage, an audio piece and installation in a low maintenance concrete floored and rather basic pavilion, which Castro informs they choose because of its unique feel. While this was evidently a carefully considered factor in Ólaffson and Castro’s commission this may not be so much of an issue for wealthier countries participating. 

The UAE is currently endorsing vast amounts of money in the urbanisation of its cities and at a rapid pace. The control of money, although it can be environmentally destructive, has undeniably had a positive impact on the Emirati art community. The UAE pavilion effectively expresses an artistic perspective on the inherent responsibility to our next generation – not only visually through the content of the art but the support offered behind the scenes to local emerging artists. Rather, they have the choice to use potential funding and wealth in a positive way, especially during times of cultural change creating a more beneficial creative ecology for younger generations.

Title: Neoludica. Art is a Game 2011-1966

Artist: The event intends to promote the scientific work of GameArtGallery project, connecting the mediums of videogames, visual arts, music and cinema.

Curator: Associazione culturale E-Ludo Lab, Collateral Event

Venue: Scuola dei Laneri, Sala Laneri, Santa Croce and Centro Culturale Candiani, Mestre

Throughout the world the video game phenomenon is continually growing, but the exhibition Neoludica Art is a Game: 2011-1966 aims to highlight the great artistic qualities of video gaming that are being produced in our contemporary technological society. Though this may be evident in most of the work shown, what becomes particularly poignant is the total addiction that video gaming can hold over us, and the detrimental effect it will eventually produce. The artistic qualities in producing such high quality games are evidently clear in the array of works shown, but it is through two works, Game Arthritis by Matteo Bittanti and IOCOSE, 2011 and My Generation, by Eva and Franco Mattes, aka 0100101110101101.ORG, 2010, that the negative effects of addiction to video games is clearly stated.

The six photographic panels of Game Arthritis display the effect that the continual use of video games have on the body, leading to gruesome outcomes. My Generation on the other hand shows secret filming of teenage boys and their reactions whilst ‘gaming’, emphasising the violent and sheer animalistic traits that continual video gaming highlight in the human psyche.

The exhibition aims to promote, advertise and pursue the scientific work undertaken by the Italian institution Musea_Game Art Gallery, but one is instead left with the clear feeling that this powerful medium, though indeed artistic, will eventually be damaging to our society.

Emily Burke

Title: Personal Structures

Artists: Marina Abramović, Carl Andre, Herman de Vries, Toshikatsu Endo, Johannes Girardoni, Peter Halley, Joseph Kosuth, Melissa Kretschmer, Lee Ufan, Ma Jun, Tony Matelli, Judy Millar, Tatsuo Miyajima, François Morellet, Hermann Nitsch, Roman Opalka, Thomas Pihl, Miriam Prantl, Andrew Putter, Arnulf Rainer, Rene Rietmeyer, Yuko Sakurai, Sasaki, SEO, Lawrence Weiner, Maik Wolf, Xing Xin, Zou Cao

Curators: Karlyn De Jongh, Sarah Gold

Venue: Palazzo Bembo

‘“Here is the blood,” he said. When I heard him say it, I thought, “Oh fuck!” I had feared this moment from the very beginning, and now I would be served my blood. I opened my mouth, slowly. My lips and tongue, the whole inside of my mouth and actually my entire body, I felt everything longing for this taste. I opened my mouth. The blood…, what a fantastic fluid! It was a little cold, but it was this thick, really nice tasting, wonderful liquid. My mouth was anxious, as if the complete surface of the inside of my mouth was full of desire to get all the taste. My tongue reached inside this stream of blood that was flowing into my mouth. It was filling my cheeks and I let as much of this blood inside my mouth as possible, to taste it as intense as I could, everywhere in my mouth. This was such a fantastic experience. This was so erotic. This was so unlike anything I had ever tasted. This was wonderful.’  - Karlyn de Jongh

‘“Now, you will be given the blood”, Nitsch’s son told me. Finally I would find out how this would be. I had been a little nervous about the blood; its taste and the smell. “Open up your mouth”; I obeyed. For the sensation I was about to feel, I could not have been prepared for. I never had even thought about this possibility at all. The feeling of getting blood poured into my mouth was more than surprising, the cool substance felt fantastic. This creamy liquid, filling the cavity of my mouth, running down along the side of my face onto my neck, this felt highly erotic. Immediately I wanted more, but I could not ask for it, I had to wait. Having the taste of blood still in my mouth, I was trying to think what it reminded me of; it tasted like the smell of raw meat, and there was this saltiness to it. I cannot remember how often exactly I was given blood whilst lying on my table, but it must have been several times. I felt at peace. This sensation was every time so strong, I could have laid there forever while being fed with blood.’  - Sarah Gold

 

Proposed as an exhibition dedicated to the ‘concepts of Time, Space and Existence,’ ‘Personal Structures’ boasts an impressive list of participating artists: Marina Abramović, Carl Andre, Joseph Kosuth, Hermann Nitsch and Lawrence Weiner amongst the 28. Each room of the Palazzo Bembo is dedicated to one artist, creating strong divisions between the various evaluations, aesthetics and atmospheres. 
 

Marina Abramović presents Confession, a 60 minute video-loop in which the artist stares at a motorised donkey, while her ‘confession’ text scrolls along the bottom of the screen. The film is captivating in its slow, progressive revealing of Abramović’s intimate family secrets. The majority of the artists produced new artworks for ‘Personal Structures’, such as Joseph Kosuth’s site-specific work which features quotations from Samuel Beckett, Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Ruskin. The fact that these works are entirely contemporary and presented in such a segregate manner results in an engaging exhibition which, in fact, manifests as a series of ‘mini-exhibitions.’
 

Specifically, the room dedicated to the work of Hermann Nitsch presents such a self-fulfilled environment, that the exhibition is momentarily forgotten as a collaborative effort. Nitsch presents his 130th Aktion, which involves the two Dutch curators of ‘Personal Structures’, Karlyn de Jongh and Sarah Gold. As ‘passive actors’ the two women were led through one Nitsch’s famous crucifixion re-enactments - blindfolded, naked and bound to separate crosses. 

The elaborate performance requires hundreds of helpers, dead squid, pigs, octopi and 300 litres of blood - which the women drink, while erected on their crosses. Accompanying the photographic and film documentation of the event itself, are two written accounts of the day: one by Sarah Gold and one by Karlyn de Jongh. Both women savour the experience, claiming it as ‘erotic’; the blood as a ‘wonderful liquid’ which they became extremely aroused by. Their accounts are intensely personal - possibly uncomfortably so, revealing every intimate, sordid thought reflected on over the course of the day-long performance. 

As ‘passive’ actors, de Jongh and Gold were required to be as neutral as possible, just ‘Being, and being used.’ The ‘active’ actors swarmed around the blindfolded women, in what looks like a frantic, irrational manner, but every ‘active’ detail was ordered by Nitsch. Intestines, livers, kidneys,  pigs, octopi, tomatoes, grapes and strawberries were thrown onto the bodies of the women, and they describe the feelings of each substance with fervour. The pig is a vast carcass, slowly and deliberately lowered onto the naked bodies, which at the end of the ‘Aktion’ the performers were instructed to cook and eat.

While Nitsch plans his ‘active’ movements, he cannot plan the ‘passive’ reaction, and this was the first time that two women had sex during one of his ‘Aktions.’  Lying amidst a pool of blood, with hundreds of people watching, urging and filming, Gold and De Jongh gradually found themselves having sex. In their written accounts of this event, they both seem strong willed, so aroused by ‘the blood, sliding,’ that this felt like an inevitability. Although, watching the two blindfolded women on the film, their actions looks hesitant, less self-assured, and awkward. This results in a paralleled awkwardness in the viewer. It becomes difficult to understand the true nature of ‘passivity’, and Nitsch’s activity. 

Watching Nitsch’s ‘Aktion’ feels like an intrusion. It is the epitome of voyeurism; seeing the two central characters blindfolded and guided through controversial procedures. However, this intimate observation is displaced by the hundreds of people who are also present in the film, dressed in bright white but soaked in red blood, sponging the skin of the women, gently goading them into various positions. It is a complex confusion of pornography, masochism, perversion, contrivance, freedom and sub-ordinance. These elements become more disconcerting when one learns that these two women are the curators of the exhibition; knowing their specific presence makes the ‘Aktion’ resonate on a new level, understanding them as people rather than ‘passive actors.’ 

Each room in the Palazzo Bembo offers its own engaging exhibition, with eminent artist appearing after eminent artist. Nitsch’s presentation is just one of various utterly absorbing presentations - whether one finds themselves absorbed through admiration, consternation, or a combination of both. That the exhibition is dedicated to ‘Time, Space and Existence’ is, inevitably, unclear throughout. However, with such a broad concept that can be examined in numerous ways, and extended to limitless subjects and possibilities, this does not feel like so much of a downfall. 

 

Interview with Curators Sarah Gold and Karlyn de Jongh

Kathryn Lloyd: Could you explain why you were so interested in curating an exhibition which deals with the ambiguous concepts Time, Space and Existence, and how you selected artists who specifically explore these ideas? 

Sarah Gold & Karlyn de Jongh: The concepts Time, Space and Existence are important for human beings in general. With our project ‘’Personal Structures’’ we address these themes in contemporary art, trying to heighten people’s awareness of their own personal Existence as human beings within a specific Space and Time.

For ‘Personal Structures’, we selected artists on the basis of them being very dedicated and sincerely working with either Time Space or Existence for a number of years. In this exhibition we present different perspectives towards these concepts, by artists from different parts of the world and from different generations. This means that it is not relevant if the artworks we present are aesthetically pleasing to us or not. Rather, it is the ideas and the sincerity in the execution of the artworks which convinced us.

KL: You have produced an extremely impressive exhibition in terms of the participating artists: Marina Abramovic, Carl Andre, Joseph Kosuth etc., and you have curated the exhibition so that each room of the Palazzo Bembo is dedicated to a singular artist. Why did you make this decision to create such a separated exhibition environment?

SG & KDJ: ‘Personal Structures’ is an open platform with which we attempt to give artists the opportunity to present their work. Our exhibition is therefore a group-presentation of single statements. We gave each artist their own space and the freedom to do with that space what they wanted. The artist has the control over their own space and can focus on what they wants to say. Most of the artists took this opportunity to make a work especially for that specific space and some – Joseph Kosuth and Rene Rietmeyer, for example – even created their work within the exhibition space itself. In this way, it was possible to create strong site-specific statements. Having 24 rooms, Palazzo Bembo is a perfect location for our exhibition. Walking through the exhibition, the visitor gets a new impression each time he enters a room, a different perspective towards Time, Space and Existence. The viewer can concentrate on the individual artists, without any interference between the different works. 

KL: As well as curating ‘Personal Structures’, you also participated in Hermann Nitsch’s 130th Aktion. Watching this performance, and reading your accounts of the day in question, it appears to be an extremely intense experience. How has your perception of the piece changed through seeing it in a gallery environment? 

SG & KDJ: During the Aktion we were blindfolded. We did not see anything of what was happening around us. Instead, we felt, heard, tasted and smelled what was going on. The photos and film that were made of Nitsch’s Aktion allowed us to also see the artwork of which we were part ourselves. Seeing it here in the photos and video shows how aesthetically impressive and intense Nitsch’s performance is. 

KL: Do you find it difficult to witness the piece in this context, after the event itself?

SG & KDJ: To us it is not difficult to see the 130th Aktion in the context of this exhibition. On the contrary: it is a delight. Although the performance took place more than a year ago and it feels to us far away, seeing it in the exhibition space reminds us every day of what Nitsch wants to say. It reminds us to live our life more consciously, to experience it to the maximum with all our senses and to share life together with others. 

KL: Do you find any difficulties in participating in the exhibition as well as curating it? Even though you are not participating artists, you provide a crucial role in Hermann Nitsch’s piece. Additionally, do you think that the fact you are curators of the exhibition, changes the way in which viewers regard that particular work?

SG & KDJ: In the exhibition we show Nitsch’s 130th Aktion in a series of photos, a video and two texts we wrote very honestly and openly about our experience of being part of this event. It is a unique, personal presentation of Nitsch’s work. Even though Nitsch has been creating his “Orgien Mysterien Theater” for more than 40 years, we noticed that for several visitors it is still quite shocking to witness and there is still quite a lot of misunderstanding surrounding it. By having spent time with Nitsch for our project “Hermann Nitsch: Under My Skin”, we gained more knowledge about his thoughts and work. Being in Palazzo Bembo every day ourselves, we speak with many visitors and try to explain to them very directly from our own personal experience about his work, which then often encourages them to look closer into what Nitsch is actually about.

Kathryn Lloyd

 

 

 

Title: Le Festin de Chun-te

Artist: Hsieh Chun-te

Curator: Museum of Contemporary Art of Taipei, Collateral Event

Venue: Scoletta dei Battioro e Tiraoro, Campo San Stae

Emily Burke interviews Hsieh Chun-te

Emily Burke: As the largest Biennale, and one of the world’s most important platforms for the dissemination of contemporary international artwork, do you think that the Biennale participants have a social obligation to represent their various countries in a certain way?

Hsieh Chun-te: From the aspect of astronomy, we all know how to calculate the age and the distance of the universe. The farthest planet is 15 billion light years away from the earth. However, the universe without light doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist because its light doesn’t reach the earth yet. This implies to the limitation of human beings. When we stand on the ground, we are unable to the see the world beyond horizon. In brief, what we can not see doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.

Through the eyes of artists and their representations, we have multiple aspects to understand that the lives of the people from different areas. Therefore, the Venice Biennale of Art becomes the platform that we could realise what those artists from different countries have observed, and tried to say. With no doubt, I am one of them because I also expect that we could be seen and have the chance to communicate with the people around the world.

EB: How important do you feel it is to present the work of Taiwanese artists on an international stage?

HC: In order to answer this question, I would like to provide one example from the novel “The General in his Labyrinth “ by Gabriel García Márquez. When the general met the British officer who helped him constantly, he said, “Sir, although we walk side by side now, you have to know the cultural difference between us at least for two or three hundred years. In this moment, we are forced to walk together, but the cultural difference still exists.”

EB: Are there particular aspects of Taiwan culture that you feel need to be expressed through art?

HC: For many years, there was only one major political party in Taiwan, the Kuomintang (KMT). Until the day that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won the election in 2000, President Chen Shui-bian invited one famous American economist to visit Taiwan for one week. When he finished his journey, he gave ten suggestions to Taiwan government and I want to underline two of them.

Firstly, Taiwanese society should regard the creativity as the social property. Secondly, we should encourage the young generation to bravely try and fail. The value system in Taiwan has changed a lot in recently years. All the medias, educational institutions, everything is talking about how to be successful, including how to succeed in love relationships, how to have successful business, how to succeed in the stock market. Nobody teaches the young generation how to face the failures. People forget that most of the successes are based on the accumulation of frustrations and failures.  This is the problem in Taiwan because our value system has been changed. That is the reason why our former president is in the prison because of the corruption sentences.

We have to solve this essential question: what is the value of human existence? In the recent twenty or thirty years, Taiwan is so called “the island of economy miracle”, or “the island of technology OEM”. I try to express what I have observed in order to provide a caution and a reflection.

EB: Do you think that artists in general have a certain social responsibility to represent their country, or in the modern culture that we live in do individual art practices take precedent over ties to our culture?

HC: My personality is to seek for those unseen, or to speak out for those unspoken. During those years when there was only one major political party (the Kuomintang, KMT) in Taiwan, I have participated in the opposition party and join the demonstrations in the street. At that time, we aimed to voice for the civilians in these activities. I hope to change the society. For an artist, I believe that he/she should express the dissatisfactions and precede the improvements for this world. Consequently, I make use of the tools that I am good at to express my opinions.

EB: How do you expect the audience at the Venice Biennale, being such a wide and diverse range of people from all areas of the world, to react to your work?

HC: The series of photos “Raw” is a project that commenced in 1987 and finished in 2011.

In the summer of 1987, I closed the workshop in Taipei city and moved to Sanchong city, which is located on the other side of Tamsui River. Most of the residents of Sanchong city are from the central or the southern part of Taiwan. Before they stepped into Taipei city, they stopped by the suburban city and waited for chances. Therefore, they had a processing factory of hardware on the first floor of their apartment. You might ask them, “Where do you come from?” Although they have lived here for around 20 years, they would still answer that they are from Changhua, Chiayi or Kaohsiung. (Note: Those are the name of the cities in central and southern Taiwan.)

I asked him, “Why don’t you say that you are the people coming from Sanchong?” They said, “Here is dirty and messy. I don’t want to be someone coming from here.”

Yes, each residence here was locked up. If you go to the streets and alleys, you would see trash everywhere.

Those residents in Sanchong city didn’t regard it as their hometown so they were not willing to devote themselves to this city. As for the place where they were born, it becomes the nostalgia in their minds. Therefore, I moved to Sanchong in order to hide the primitive desire in people’s dark inner minds so I started everything by myself.

Hopefully, I could make more people know our living circumstances in Taiwan since home is the most important thing in the world.

EB: Could you give us an insight into the work that is being presented?

HC: I would like to provide one particular point of view. About 20 years ago, there was TV news report that two policemen caught a stowaway from China. The policemen asked him the reason why to be a stowaway. He said to the camera, “I just arrived in this land later than you did!”

It is the universal problem for all the countries. The nationalism is to occupy the land first and announce their legal ownership. But, we all say that the civilians have the right to migrate. However, the fact is that you could move out, but nobody allows you to move in. So, how about the ownership of the earth? If we believe that land should not be regarded as private property, how could we tolerate the government to occupy the land from other people? How do we face this problem? At the same time, how to find an insight into my works?

If you take off the coloured glasses, I believe that you would see my works insightfully

EB: How integral is performance to your work?

HC: In the very beginning, I didn’t consider how to integrate the performance to my photography works. I believe that any art work should not be limited in any fixed space. It could be everywhere and anywhere. If so, space is supposed to be open to all kinds of art creations. Therefore, I attempted to put a performing artwork, such as my Cooking Theatre, in a still space. If you are willing to do so, the integration will come out naturally. 

EB: Do you aim to bring artist and audience closer together through food?

HC: Enjoy the performance, by being part of it!

When food becomes part of the art, the dish is not the only performer, and the dining table is not the only stage. There is no differentiation between audience and performer. Everyone will join and be part of the performance, and in the end, finish the act by eating it!

All the sensations towards this performance will occur instantly, and no one can ever predict the ending of each performance. When the scene of a food banquet is concluded, it will be a calling, a touching, a journey of true art.

EB: Some of the images you are displaying are quite harrowing. What is the aim of these photographs?

HC: The aim of these photographs is certainly not to scare anyone. There are two purposes in my works. From my experiences in stage and theatre photography over the years, I have learned that when I take a picture, the photograph itself becomes dissociated from the original space and process, and transforms into a different stage of images, engaged with the stage in a dialogue.

So when I express my childhood dreamscapes and growing-up experiences as photographs, using Sanchong as the stage on which they are acted out, these photos in themselves are no longer manifestations, of either reality or imagination, but opinions on the environment in which I live.

EB: Is there a story throughout your images?

HC: It is a story about the homecoming of the prodigal son.

EB: What is the link between the images you are exhibiting in the Raw exhibition, and the live cooking performance?

HC: I plan to present one sacrifice ceremony through Cooking Theatre. I saw a documentary where Eskimos would grab some snow and melt it in their mouths and pray for when they are going to eat small seals. Also, I have even been to the boundary between Russia and China in order to interview Oronchon people who are also called the last hunters in the world. They led me to the hunt and they also repent after they shoot animals. In brief, for the natural lives which are sacrificed to become human food, the aboriginal people often treat them with the feelings of appreciation and apology.

Let’s think about your own situation. It is the same that rice, vegetable, chicken, duck, beef and lamb are scarified for human food. How about us? This is what we should think about carefully. Now we are facing the crisis of lacking water resource and food. Through Cooking Theatre, I want to express my point of view that we should return to the beginning of everything to do the serious introspection.

Through the link between the images in the Raw exhibition and the live cooking performance, I hope to “explore” these question.

The Playful Cruelty of Hsieh Chun-te

An essay by Dominique Pai ni

When I first saw Hsieh Chun‐Te’s photographs I was struck by the sense of the
imminent storm that permeated many of them. It was as if Hsieh was representing a postlapsarian world. Some of the compositions clearly indicate the performance of a violent action condemned by both propriety and the rules of human society. His works almost always contain a form of punishment; a body cast down on a symbolic field of thorns, hanged bodies, bodies abandoned by the indifference of our modern deafness, bodies drawn and quartered, sexually punished bodies, or bodies that seem to be held up to public disgrace. From Giorgione’s The Tempest to the prints of Gustave Doré, the storm is representative of divine wrath.

The artist who dares to portray such scenes of sacrifice is a visionary, haunted by the disquiet arising from the complicity between Eros and Thanatos. Never before had I come across a scene of capital execution culminating in the sexual act. In his work, Chun‐Te incorporates the sexual act into a depiction of this terrible ceremony that legally ends lives and one which is observed by a group of grim on‐lookers (The Romance on the Stele, Sanchong series). What audacity, what derision on behalf of the artist to fuse this legalised transgression that consists in coldly taking away human life with that most beautiful of all human actions! It is indeed a ceremony, here, and throughout all of Hsieh Chun‐Te’s work. I will elaborate more on this later.

In order to describe Hsieh Chun‐Te’s works more precisely one would have to view the other images that form an ensemble, like the caprichos that go beyond a single caricature to describe the disasters of the world. The allusion to Goya here is quite deliberate. These large photographic compositions make me think of the famous title that Goya gave to one of his works: The sleep of reason breeds monsters in which black and white, ugliness and beauty, purity and vice clash with each other. Hsieh offers a kind of photographic equivalent to these visions of the decline of a decadent and corrupt humanity, visions traversed by winds which threaten to sweep away the ruins of a post‐cataclysmal world.

Several aspects of Hsieh’s work also evoke the poetics of Georges Bataille. Pierre Klossowski describes the cataclysmal character of Bataille’s work that is troublingly echoed in Hsieh’s images: “[in Bataille] the ontological catastrophe of thought is merely the reverse of an apogee attained through what he calls sovereign moments: drunkenness, laughter, erotic and sacrificial outpouring, experiences that characterise expenditure without compensation, an unlimited extravagance, a meaningless, useless and purposeless waste”1 Klossowski was speaking here of “simulacra” in Bataille’s work.

A similar extravagance fascinates the viewer in Hsieh’s work. He creates a mise‐en‐scene of elements that are at once atrocious and delectable, marked by an erotic excess. Drunkenness, sacrifice and sometimes cruel humour are amongst the features that make these images so disconcerting. In Homecoming Day the pose and attitude of the three women depicted in the Shueigin street scene (Shueigin is located in the county of Kohu, in the southern part of Taiwan), obviously evoke lingshi, that mythical form of Chinese torture known as “death by a thousand cuts”. Bataille wrote about this in his Tears of Eros – “that ecstatic and intolerable pain, whose representation combines religiosity and eroticism.” Indeed, it is the photographic focus that selects and highlights what must be looked at in this derelict urban theatre. The viewer’s eye is drawn to the body parts of these three vestal virgins that block the access to the street and in particular to one of their breasts, as if this optical adjustment was itself an incision.

The iconography of Hsieh Chu‐Te reveals multiple borrowings and in turn borrows
from several periods of art. The first thing that strikes us is this anachronism.

If we nevertheless set out to contradict this loss of bearings that Hsieh very deliberately engages in, or in other words, if we go back in time, the family group (Family Portrait) taken in front of a house in the same town, Shueigin, a place that obsesses the artist, is inspired by a tradition in Chinese art, and can also be compared to certain images from the twentieth century. At the Museum of Fine Arts in Taipei there is a plaque by Huang Tu‐Shui which, in my opinion, belongs to a tradition of rural representation of Ancient China. This plaque is a kind of iconographic predecessor to Hsieh’s visions. The peaceful nature of the relationship between the children and the buffalo is expressed by Huang through the gentle relief of this gypsum plaque which can be compared the velvety black‐and‐white of Hsieh’s photographs. Hsieh has a very particular way of combining the zones of clarity and soft focus in his prints so that the contrast between the bright, sunny foreground and the shadow of the house creates a similar depth to that conveyed by the delicate low relief of Huang’s work.

However the strangeness of Hsieh’s work does not come from the unease provoked by a certain erotic cruelty. It comes rather from the great diversity of his references, his extensive visual culture.

It would be easy, and verging almost on intellectual laziness, to speak of the surreality of these images, if not their surrealism. The word is overworked and hackneyed. And yet there is a kind of obviousness in the way the entwined couple so irresistibly evoke certain Surrealist motifs such as René Magritte’s The Lovers. Still, this echo is no ordinary quotation. Is it deliberate on the part of the artist? I doubt it. The entwined lovers could also originate – that is, if we absolutely need to find the source of Hsieh’s inspiration and imagination – in Goya, as I have already suggested. Indeed, Georges Bataille used an engraving in The Tears of Eros, mentioned above, that could be considered the infernal version of this twisted fusion of bodies. Without a doubt, Hsieh Chun‐Te knew of the work of Bataille and Surrealist inspiration. I was reminded of Hans Bellmer’s photograph of a disjointed doll on a bed of straw when I saw the disturbing image of the young woman suffering with wounds and exposed to the harsh vegetation in Hsieh’s The Tears of Tamsui River. Here the vegetation is as unnatural as Bellmer’s straw bedding or Marcel Duchamp’s landscape in Etant donné (Given).

Goya’s influence reaches deep into Hsieh Chun‐Te’s visual culture. At the start of this essay I spoke of the Caprichos and the Disasters. In Goya’s latter series, the Great deeds against the dead engraving offers a model for Hsieh’s Sanchong (Bitches) series with its recurring images of tortured bodies left hanging by the feet and the head fated to be buried forever. In Hsieh Chun‐Te’s apocalyptic vision bodies are hanged. Nevertheless his images combine terror with a macabre irony.

Another element that characterises Hsieh Chun‐Te’s photographic theatre is the
scope of their mise‐en‐scene. As with Joel‐Peter Witkin, who is a few years younger than Hsieh, each photograph is the culmination of a lengthy period of preparation. The choice of location, a sizeable team of assistants, the sets, objects and furniture, complex lighting, the costumes, the attention to the poses (or the performance), liken Hsieh’s artistic procedure to the cinematic mise‐en‐scene . If I had to place this Taiwanese artist within a tradition and a culture in order to greater understand his work, I would situate him in terms of cinema, and in particular Japanese New Wave Cinema from the 1960s. This movement had an important influence on artists in the “region,” including Taiwanese artists, due to the imprint of Japanese culture on the country.

Beyond the simple yet significant title of the works presented here: Ceremony – I was greatly impressed by the distant echoes between the films of the master of modern Japanese cinema, Nagisa Oshima, and Hsieh’s mises‐en‐scene. I was reminded of the slow, tragic conclusion of Oshima’s The Ceremony (1971) when I first saw the work of this Taiwanese artist who places such an emphasis on social ritual and cruelty.

Erotic Japanese cinema was also very fashionable in the 1970s and was produced by the Nikkatsu company, responsible for the Perverse Housewives (Danchi Zuma) series. These films offered the viewer some very intense images of female submission. In a scene from one of the most famous films in the series, The Woman with Pierced Nipples by Shogoro Nishimura, the lead actress rolls around on a carpet of roses, wounding her back on their thorns.

At this time, Koji Wakamatsu was the master of pinku eiga, this specifically Japanese cinematic genre that was considered erotic but shared the aesthetic of New Japanese Cinema. Wakamatsu’s work is disconcertingly similar to Hsieh’s. I am thinking here of his remarkable film The Embryo Hunts in Secret, which despite its inoffensive title, was still given an X rating on its release in Europe in 2007. In one sequence, where a woman stands in a doorway and offers herself to a man, the light projected around her suggests a second image, an image within the image or a subliminal image of another body inscribed within this image. A parallel can be drawn with Hsieh’s photograph Flight in the Night. Furthermore, Wakamatsu’s work exhibits the body in a way that brings to mind Hsieh’s Mirror.

In other words, Hsieh’s originality resides in his varied use of several cultural
references: classical Western painting, Surrealist ecstasy and modern Japanese cinema. This assemblage may seem extravagant and incoherent to those who know nothing about Taiwan, its debate on identity and the collage of cultural components that forms the island as it is today. All of these aspects have given birth to a work whose main concern is to construct a coherent assemblage which does not exclude humour in its juxtapositions. One of the most impressive photographs is the astounding image of the hanging bodies of young women (Bitches, Sanchong series). The shocking eroticism aside, what also comes across here, in an untimely and provocative way, is Hsieh’s second passion: gastronomy. This installation inevitably brings to mind window displays of glossy Peking duck and glazed pigs, hanging by their legs in the windows of traditional Chinese restaurants, ready to be eaten. Once again, this extraordinary image refers to cinema, but this time to the Chinese cinema of Hong Kong. I have a vivid memory of a film by Fruit Chan from 2001, Hollywood Hong Kong, set in the professional world of food markets. It includes a sequence which confirms my feeling that the various effects in each of Hsieh Chu‐Te’s works offer a synthesis of cruelty and beauty, humour and tragedy: a playful cruelty.

Title: Denmark: Speech Matters

Artists: Agency, Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri, Robert Crumb, Zhang Dali, Stelios Faitakis, FOS, Sharon Hayes, Han Hoogerbrugge, Mikhail Karikis, Thomas Kilpper, Runo Lagomarsino, Tala Madani, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, Lilibeth Cuenca Rasmussen, Taryn Simon, Jan Švankmajer, Johannes af Tavasheden, Tilman Wendland

Curator: Katerina Gregos

Venue: Giardini

The Illuminated Artist’s New Creative Role. 

Augustus Veinoglou in conversation with Katerina Gregos, curator of the Danish Pavilion at the 54th International Venice Biennale. 

AV: Many people would consider freedom of speech and freedom of expression as a given within democratic society, but your work for the Danish Pavilion presents such freedom as a precarious issue. Do you believe freedom of speech often gets overseen?

 

KG: I don’t agree that the subject of freedom of speech and freedom of expression has been well analysed, especially in the field of visual arts and culture, but also within the public debate, and especially in the media. The question of freedom of speech is one that is being increasingly contested in light of transformations taking place globally, both in authoritarian regimes and in liberal democracies.

We live in a time in which censorship is on the rise and civil liberties seem, increasingly, to be under threat. There is a tendency towards greater governmental control served under the pretext of “security issues” as well as social order. All this is happening under our noses, without much reaction or resistance. In many ways, it would appear we have entered a counter-enlightenment period and we are witness to increasingly politically correct or conservative values.

Unfortunately the question of freedom of speech is an issue that seems, recently, to be increasingly used as an empty political slogan, and often subjected to a very simplified, biased and populist debate. In reality, it is an extremely complex and often ambivalent issue that is contingent on subjective political, social, cultural, religious, and personal views. The discussion around free speech is therefore highly relative and open. In that sense it is the complexities surrounding freedom of speech that often get overseen.

In the art world, censorship or self-censorship takes place – often not overtly but latently - but we don’t discuss it because it’s one of the things no one wants to admit happens, since we like to think of ourselves as belonging to a freer more liberal realm. The question of freedom of speech and freedom of expression thus also touches on the essence of visual artistic practice per se, which fundamentally entails and depends on conditions of freedom. Contemporary artists in a so-called free society operate under the de facto assumption that they can work in conditions of freedom – but to what extent? In an era in which corporate, private and occasionally, institutional interests increasingly compromise artistic autonomy, what about the nature of artistic freedom itself?  This is one of the big questions that I don’t see many artists addressing head-on.

My choice for the exhibition has to do with the fact that I wanted to address an issue of local significance for the Danish context, and a hugely important international issue, which is impacting so many levels of politics, society, art, and thought. Speech Matters aims to complicate the discussion around this issue, emphasising the fact that one cannot talk about freedom of speech in terms of categorical definitions, as there is no one way of exercising it, and it is difficult to draw the boundaries around it. As to the role of art today, I can have an opinion on its role, but I am not making art. It’s the artists in the first place who have to have an idea about the role of art. But as a curator I am interested in art that dares to ask tough questions about our society and the pretty complicated problems in it. I think artists should take a position, not only aesthetically, but also ethically, which comes, in my opinion, to taking a political position.

AV: How much does Denmark’s identity influence the project?

KG: Denmark has a longstanding reputation for freedom of speech and the freedom of the press. It has repeatedly ranked in the top ten in the Worldwide Press Freedom Index and has always been at the forefront of the public debate on a number of progressive issues in relation to free speech. But it has also suffered the so-called “trauma of free speech” in the wake of the Danish cartoons scandal, making it even more appropriate to use the Danish Pavilion as a springboard from which to discuss these issues.

So yes, the Danish context did influence the choice of the subject but I wanted to shift the discussion away from the cartoons scandal because freedom of speech has so many other important parameters; social, political and cultural: it relates not only to artistic and literary expression, but also to how we inhabit and occupy public space, how we exercise our political rights, the freedom of the media and much more. The internet adds yet another dimension to the discourse in regard to the ownership, control and dissemination of information. The exhibition in the Danish Pavilion focuses on several areas of enquiry such as questions of intellectual property and copyright; language, speech and subjectivity; the relationship between free speech and history, politics, and memory; the silenced speech of voiceless or marginalized communities or persons; censorship, the suppression of information and the fabrication of memory; self-censorship and personal free speech dilemmas; and free or revolutionary speech and the public sphere. 

AV: Do you think that territorial and financial segregation becomes more apparent through an event such as the Venice Biennale where national carriers appear as the solitary counsellors of the current voice?

KG: Of course this is extremely apparent in the Venice Biennale, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. The current voice is not heard because some exercise the most power or bring in the most money. Showing your muscles is a rather puerile performance. The huge noisy upside down tank from the Korean War in front of the US pavilion is a good example of occupying territory and of course a confirmation that you have a lot of money to bring in a real tank.

On the other side of the spectrum I cannot but think of the Luxemburg “Pavilion”, quite a few Biennales ago where the artist Bert Theis ‘squatted’ a spot between the Belgian and Dutch pavilions, and created a mock-pavilion which he fenced off. When one entered, there were just a couple of comfortable deck chairs to sit in, relax and watch the wind going through the foliage of the trees.  A very strong statement which made one think of the futility of competing pavilions. Or the intervention of Roman Ondak within in the Czech/Slovak Pavilon in 2009, where he simply extended the greenery and foliage of the Giardini into and beyond the pavilion, leaving an entirely open green space. There are thus always ways of challenging what you call the “solitary counsellors of the current voice” and of circumventing the spectacular or market-driven politics of the national representation in Venice.

AV: Are there any proposed alternative strategies for these voices to be heard, perhaps initiatives that can happen locally? 

KG: Of course, there always are, if artists have an imaginative mind and the initiative and willpower, these alternatives can no doubt become visible. Inventive and adventurous curators can have a decisive role here too, of course. But as long as artists desire to or are unquestioningly willing to become part of the commercial art market, as long as they think that they need more money to make their ideas visible and as long as the market is willing to grant these wishes, there will obviously be less alternatives. Wherever you look nowadays, there is a lot of art made for the market, however there are also counter-voices to that. And that’s the direction I am mostly looking in, although - on the other hand - it would be inaccurate to say that artists who are also active in the commercial world might not be producing engaging, thought-provoking work.

What makes me cringe, however, is that which is blatantly commercial; i.e. art fair art – art made specifically for art fairs, for example. Nevertheless we should forget that the “art world” is not only constituted of the gallery system and the market, though those are indeed powerful machines.

AV: Do you feel we are living in conservative times?

KG: Unfortunately yes, and increasingly so. Also in the art world, where there is a tendency to the safe and the politically correct and a reluctance to take risks and speak out.

Life in the west seems somewhat fortified with paradoxical artifices and new social tools that in one hand promote freedom of expression, freedom of choice and speech, but also mask freedom and induce a constant recycling of the same material. A simple assumption is humans become exchangeable units of some sort. I am obviously talking about a lot of the social electronic platforms and of the intensified presence of pornography on the Internet.

AV: Do you believe that is more urgent to deal with what we produce and what is at close proximity?

KG: I agree completely with what you imply about the futility of social networking. When one visits social network sites one cannot help drawing the conclusion that we have very little to say to one another, or that what is exchanged is overwhelmingly trivial, banal and uninteresting. Nevertheless it seems to fulfil some of our deeper desires, when one thinks of the massive success of Facebook or Twitter. Like all new media or new inventions, the internet has both its up and its down sides. But in general: what’s the use of freedom of speech when one has nothing to say? The great thing about the Internet is that the tools are there. And they are amazing, and some people are using them (think of the recent events in North Africa and the Arab world). What we should be more concerned about is the fact that the free space of the internet is increasingly being privatised and commercialised.

AV: Do you believe the crisis of Capitalism is linked to the rise of affordable, popular technology?

KG: The human species is greedy, as most animals are. We cannot just get rid of our limbic system. Capitalism is an economic system that seems to enhance and even reward greediness. But, as resources are always limited, when I have more, you will have less. The capitalist system is rewarding that state of affairs. It is called the free market. Financial institutions, such as banks and insurance companies, have become greedy too, instead of just helping their clients with good financial advice. As electronic computing has become extremely fast and is able to compute even beyond human comprehension, the financial products that resulted from it were not even understood any more by the people who conceived them.  And so the whole system collapsed because it went out of control. The crisis of capitalism has to do with the fact that so many resources are concentrated in the hands of so few people.

AV: Artists are often victims of a corporate philosophy, as shown by the explicit presence of funding bodies and sponsorship at the Biennale. As a system that has shown its weaknesses, what would you recommend to emerging practitioners operating within its field?

KG: Artists are not victims, or in any case don’t have to be victims of any philosophy whatsoever, if they don’t want to. Nobody is putting a gun to their heads. But they are human and they want to make a living too. The problem is that art, and especially one aspect of contemporary art has become a toy for the very rich. Art, in this case, has become a commercial commodity; status can be bought, artists can be sold. Some – very few we tend to forget – have become stars. Reputations of artists are fabricated by powerful galleries and collectors and the relation between value and price has gone completely awry. The only thing I can recommend to emerging practitioners is turning your back to the prevailing system and trying to do it your own way. Try to find like-minded artists, off-mainstream galleries, uncompromising curators and wayward collectors. Set up your own system and devise your own alternatives. Maybe make it even your art to subvert the existing art world and create your own. It has been done before and it can be done again.

AV: You are a Greek born curator with experience in Greece and in Europe. Greece is a place of social and economic turmoil but, I believe it is also a place where people express their opinion openly. What is your relationship with Greece now? Has it in anyway inspired your choice for the exhibition’s theme?

KG: My contact with Greece is minimal because I have become very disheartened with the abysmal political situation there, even before the economic crisis broke out, though I do follow current affairs there. I do not have professional ties with Greece since I left, and I only go back to see the people and places that are dear to me. However, one thing that may be related to my Greek roots is the fact that I come from a rather outspoken culture: people are not afraid to voice opinion, and to engage in heated debate. And this is something that I guess is very Greek and something that I very much identify with. My Greek roots, however, have nothing to do with the choice of the exhibition theme; that is part of a long terms interest I have in social and political issues, and human rights in general.

AV: Is the notion of periphery and marginalized economy a mending notion associated with ideas of freedom not only of expression but also, freedom to believe in improvement and change?

KG: In the analysis of the periphery and its marginalized economies it is an objective to “mainstream” these economies (think of Asia, Africa and especially India). Meaning that the periphery will become the centre and the margin will become part of the global economy. One can observe that empowering local initiatives might work (think of the micro credits) which allows some groups to participate in market activities. There are however also non-economic causes, for example discrimination by gender, race, religion, or ethnicity. It is exactly here that freedom of expression in the wider sense, as well as the belief in self-empowerment and social change, gets a proper meaning.

AV: Do you think that art should place interest in socio-economic affairs? Should it advocate change this actively within arts?  Do you think that the role of art is to revolt in some sense or to discover righteousness and engage with a wider audience?

KG: I am not advocating a specific type of art practice. Artists should do what they think or feel they have to do. But I am primarily interested in art that is socially or politically propelled. Art has no fixed or determined role in society, nor should it. When it would have a definite role, it would have to comply with a certain set of rules and it would lose its liberty to respond freely to what is going on in the world. But as I said, I engage with art that engages with society and tries to comment on its deficiencies and complexities. I trust that all art will in the end find its own audience, be it large or small. Artists can engage with socio-economic affairs, but lets not also forget that artists make art and not politics. And that what they do might be interesting precisely because it is mediated through an artistic filter, meaning that there is always a process of filtering, translation, interpretation which provides another point of view or angle on what we assume to know or might not know at all.

AV: Where is the boundary between art and politics?

KG: We are living together in a society of people who all might  - and actually mostly do - want different things. Politics is the art of trying to find a way of matching all these different needs and desires in such a way that people are willing to give and take and live together without smashing each others skulls. Politics is about finding a way to share the rare. Art on the other hand is the politics of commenting on everything we think is fixed and secured and showing us that we might be wrong about that by showing how it could be otherwise or different from what we think. They are so far apart from each other that they almost seem to touch again. There is a big difference between political art, political praxis and political efficacy. There is – and should be – a clear boundary between art and politics, as both have entirely different goals and functions.

AV: I believe there’s a great educational turn around freedom of expression. Do you believe that art besides anything else should first be able to make the viewer able to imagine and be creative? 

KG: Yes. I do believe that art should enable and empower people to think differently, to act differently and maybe even to feel differently from what they have been taught. Only when you step out of the trodden path you are able to see where you came from, where you are standing now and where you might want to go. I know that many things that I have said may sound very Platonic (apart from the fact that Plato rejected art because of it being representational), but I think we might want to re-consider the Platonic trinity of truth, goodness, and beauty.

About:

A Virtual Biennale is a project produced by the LINE Magazine collective.

It seeks to document the Biennale through a coherent online format, where hierarchies are significantly flattened and the work exists purely in images. By transferring the physical to the virtual, the online Biennale emphasises the Fair's existence as a spectacle, which much like Venice, exists primarily in our imaginations and through the frame of the lens.

2011's Venice Biennale is titled 'Illuminations' and is curated by Bice Curriger. It seeks to 'unveil hidden truths.' Taking this idea as our lead, we hope to elucidate the truths that remain implicit within the Biennale and shed light on them through this webpage and a forthcoming edition of Line Magazine titled 'The Illuminated Artist'.

Over the next few weeks a series of interviews, reviews and critical essays will be added alongside these images. The texts will question the function and purpose of the Biennale in the age of globalisation, the social and political nature of some art showcased and the responsibility of its makers, curators and audience. It will also expose and question the corruption of funding, prizes and sponsorships at the Fair.

Members of the LINE collective:
Rachael Cloughton, Emily Burke, Kathryn Lloyd, Joao Abbott-Gribben, Jemma Craig, Jennifer Owen, Laura Stocks, Matthew Macaulay

Line Magazine was founded in 2010 by Rachael Cloughton and Thomas Carlile: linemagazine.tumblr.com / www.linemagazine.co.uk

© Rachael Cloughton 2011

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