Siesta Pinwheel.

Thinking in Layers.

On the 9th of november Stephanie Mann and Lewis den Hertog presented their exhibition Siesta Pinwheel at the eca project space. Curated by these two fine arts students of edinburgh college of art the show featured works by nine other students, presented in the eight drawers of one of these archive cabinets that tend to grow lonely in old office buildings during the digitalised 21st century. In art colleges they don`t. Art colleges take care of things. Especially when you find them to be bulky, heavy-weight and slightly overaged.

The upper drawer showed photos by Calvin Laing. The second one a piece of neon-yellow fabric folded into the drawer by Stuart Barnes. The third drawer showed a work by Christina Alvarez that read the words Take your Time which were painstakingly carefully carved into an A3 piece of paper. The removed paper was collected in a small porcelain tin. The fourth drawer (Georgia Murray) contained an iPod Nano and a miniture speakerbox, playing birds twitter. Alica Bradshaw & Bob Milners drawer showed the printed mail exchange between the two artists and the curators illustrating the preparation for Siesta Pinwheel aswell as their ideas running off into sand because of the artists absence and an apparent lack of communication. One of the drawers (Patricia Martin-Sanches) showed a screenshot of the google images search for “siesta pinwheel”, another one appeared to be a fold-out zoetrope (Patric Hurst) and the last drawer (Page Benkowski) was filled with “dry ice” (solid carbon dioxide) that would sublimate when the artist watered it.

If there is such thing as a dramaturgy between the drawers than it is a natural one. One that is determined by the beholder through opening and closing the drawers in whatever consciously or subconsciously chosen order. What spacially appears as one upon the other turns to a coexisting and staggered in time side by side experience resulting in a certain ease in perception. The tranquility of perceiving each artwork by itself despite the visually, and in the case of the sound-installation, acoustically manifested omnipresence of the artworks entity seems to be a universal truth.

As a wonderfully silent backlash to the approach of the simultaneity of everything at every point Siesta Pinwheel manifests a thankworthy unsophisticated way of not overproducing dialogue. Unlike the unfortunately still ubiquitous seeming white cube, the artworks are not given the maximum of space and neutrality but an almost poetic narrative structure. Just like we might gain knowledge stage by stage, during different times and in different places, every new layer of ken that we acquire seems to be in inevitable consideration of the congeries of the whole.

Why the exhibition cycle is actually called Siesta Pinwheel remains a secret until at least the next show in February, say the curators. If we can expect an only related amount of ease and beauty in the presentation of artworks with likewise filigree and swayed thoughts behind them - I`m looking forward.

http://community.thisiscentralstation.com/SIESTA_PINWHEEL

THE HANS ULRICH OBRIST WAY. LISTING ARTIST STATEMENTS. 

For the New York based web space on art Paddle8 Hans Ulrich Obrist and Marina Abramovic recorded a conversation on skype in which Obrist comes up with a list of artist statements on future. 

“Let’s talk more about the future! Obviously, because this notion of the future, a curator cannot predict the future of art. Artists have many antennas and curators can be close to artists and then see the future through the artists. I’ve ask a lot of artists to tell me about the future, and I have this long list, which is seen on this poster.

And it so starts with:

The future will be chrome
Rirkrit Tiravanija

The future will be curved
Olafur Eliasson

The future will be “in the name of the future”
Anri Sala

The future will be so subjective
Tino Sehgal

The future will be bouclette
Douglas Gordon

The future will be curious
Nico Dockx

The future will be obsolete
Tacita Dean

The future will be asymmetric
Pedro Reyes

The future will be a slap in the face
Cao Fei

The future will be delayed
Loris Greaud

The future does not exist but in snapshots
Philippe Parreno

The future will be tropical
Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster

Future? …you must be mistaken
Trisha Donnelly

The future will be overgrown and decayed
Simryn Gill

The future will be tense
John Baldessari

Zukunft ist lecker
Hans-Peter Feldmann

Zukunft ist wichtiger als Freizeit
Helmut Kohl (proposed by Carsten Höller)

A future fuelled by human waste
Matthew Barney

The future is going nowhere without us.
Paul Chan

The future is now – the future is it
Doug Aitken

The future is one night, just look up
Tomas Saraceno

The future will be a remake…
Didier Fiuza Faustino

The future is what we construct from what we remember of the past – the present is the time of instantaneous revelation
Lawrence Weiner

The future is this place at a different time.
Bruce Sterling

The future will be widely reproduced and distributed
Cory Doctorow

The future will be whatever we make it
Jacque Fresco

The future will involve splendour and poverty
Arto Lindsay

The future is uncertain because it will be what we make it
Immanuel Wallerstein

The future is waiting – the future will be self-organized
Raqs Media Collective

Dum Spero/ While I breathe, I hope
Nancy Spero

This is not the future
Jordan Wolfson

The future is a dog/ l’avenir c’est la femme
Jacques Herzog & Pierre de Meuron

On its way; it was here yesterday
Hreinn Friðfinnsson

The future will be an armchair strategist, the future will be like no snow on the broken bridge
Yang Fudong

The future always flies in under the radar
Martha Rosler

Suture that future
Peter Doig

‘To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow’ (Shakespeare)
Richard Hamilton

The future is overrated
Cerith Wyn Evans

futuro = $B!g(B
Hector Zamorra

The future is a large pharmacy with a memory deficit
David Askevold

The future will be bamboo
Tay Kheng Soon

The future will be ousss
Koo Jeong-A

The future will be…grains, particles & bits.
The future will be…ripples, waves & flow.
The future will be…mix, swarms, multitudes.
The future will be…the future we deserve but with some surprises, if only some of us take notice.
Vito Acconci

In the future…the earth as a weapon…
Allora & Calzadilla

The future is our excuse.
Joseph Grigely and Amy Vogel

The future will be repeated.
Marlene Dumas

Ok, ok I’ll tell you about the future; but I am very busy right now; give me a couple of days more to finish some things and I’ll get back to you.
Jimmie Durham

Future is instant
Yung Ho Chang

‘The future is not.’
Zaha Hadid

The future is private
Anton Vidokle

The future will be layered and inconsistent
Liam Gillick

The future is a piano wire in a pussy powering something important
Matthew Ronay

In the future perhaps there will be no past
Daniel Birnbaum

The future was
Julieta Aranda

The future is menace
Carolee Schneemann

The future is a forget-me-not
Molly Nesbit

The future is an knowing exchange of glances
Sarah Morris

The future: Scratching on things I could disavow.
Walid Raad

The future is our own wishful thinking.
Liu Ding

Le futur est un étoilement
Edouard Glissant

The future is now
Maurizio Cattelan

The future has a silver lining
Thomas Demand

The future is now and here
Yona Friedman

THE FUTURE? SEE YOU THERE!
AS ARTISTS WE WANT TO HELP TO FORM OUR TOMORROWS.
WE HAVE ALWAYS BELIEVED IN THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE.
ITS GOING TO BE MARVELOUS.
LONG LIVE THE FUTURE WITH LOTS OF LOVE
ALWAYS AND ALWAYS
Gilbert&George

The future is without you
Damien Hirst

The future is a season.
Pierre Huyghe

The future is a poster
M/M

We have repeated the future out of existence
Tom McCarthy

The future has two large beautiful eyes
Jonas Mekas

less, few tours in my future
Stefano Boeri

Future is what it is.
Huang Yong Ping

The future is the very few years we have remaining before all time becomes one time.
Grant Morrison

FUTURE MUST BE HERE TODAY
Jan Kaplicky

Future is more freedom
Jia Zhangke

My art is very free, I don’t know what to do in the future. But I am positive.
Xu Zhen

The future is inside.
Shumon Basar, Markus Miessen, Åbäke

NO FUTURE – PUNK IS NOT DEATH !
Thomas Hirschhorn

The future will be grim if we don’t do something about it.
Morgan Fisher

The future is reflexive and coming together
Olafur Eliasson

The future is listening
Shilpa Gupta

The future lies in the unknown
Ann Lislegaard

What the future is, you only know next morning
Die Zukunft kann man nur ueber Nacht definieren
Peter Sloterdijk

The future is a disease
Peter Weibel

future >< past
Susan Hefuna

Since the origin’s origin, life precedes death, wherefrom the future.
Etel Adnan

The future is a record on skip
Taryn Simon

The future is 10k years long. In that context “seize the century” sort of makes sense.
Stuart Brand

The future is unthinkable
Sharon Hayes”

Later on Marina Abramovics following statement on the future is being added to list: 

“Okay, this is what I think. Future is already here. And is completely out of our control.”

http://www.paddle8.com/blog/2011/11/29/behind-the-scenes-marina-abramovic-hans-ulrich-obrist-interview-part-1/

http://www.paddle8.com/blog/2011/11/29/behind-the-scenes-marina-abramovic-hans-ulrich-obrist-interview-part-2/

In the recent Berlin Biennial Newsletter (monday 11:24 pm) director Arthur Zmijewski presents the russian artist group Voina aswell as the polish Joanna Warsza as the associate curators for the Berlin Biennale. 

Voina is a group of activist artists opposed to the russian authorities. Their credo says: “An artist rejecting political consciousness, is but a designer.”

Just today I read gallerist Friedrich Petzels article “Infantilism: Something like an internal view of the New York art market” from TEXTE ZUR KUNST No. 54 (2004) in which he says “Or, as a curator friend of mine recently put it, the Berlin Biennale has a lot of ideas and no art, while in New York you can see all sort of art, but make out no ideas.” 

I am looking forward to seeing the (changes in) Berlin Biennale next year together with all Master of Contemporary Art. 

David Graeber appears to me to be among the most keen thinkers regarding his antropological approaches on direct democracy and the accelerated history on the one hand and his theories on value and debt on the other hand. Especially due to applying his theories to pratical actions (Graeber is one of the leading figures of the current occupy wall street movement) he can very well be considered creditably influential. 

I am not willing to acknowledge any of Salvador Dalis work as good art. Neither art nor the perception of art shall ever be unpolitical.

VENICE 2011: THE 54th INTERNATIONAL ART EXHIBTION

Since some of our master students are in venice to see the biennial this next week and I wouldnt come because Ive been there in the late summer, this is a very brief summary of some of my central impressions:

The titel of the 54th art biennial ILLUMInazioni obviously refers to both light and nation which curator Bice Curiger probably applies most evidently in the Central Pavilion. And that is where I started my tour: With the Giardini, so the Central Pavillion and the countries Pavillions. 

The Central Pavillion shows an exhibition featuring artists such as Maurizio Cattelan, Philippe Parreno, Sigmar Polke, Seth Price, Monika Sosnowska and Cyprien Gaillard (who recently and unsurprisingly won the Preis der Nationalgalerie). Among the group exibition three paintings of the venetian and renaissance painter Jacopo Tintoretto were shown. Tintoretto was student of Tizian and is well known for his outstandig execution of light. Showing historical paintings like Tintorettos among a selection of young works if contentwise self-evident can be of great value for a contemporary art exhibition, in my eyes. Put into a more extensive context like that, contemporary art works will always be eyed in a different and maybe more critical manner concerning craft and interpretability since such a situation inevitably implies the question of the art term in comparative regards.   

The countries Pavillions: I was indeed deeply moved by Christoph Schlingensiefs Eine Kirche der Angst vor dem Fremden in mir  (A church of fear of the foreigner in me) from 2008, presented in the German Pavillion. Although Schlingensief himself did not plan to show this installation for the biennial and so neither the final decision nor the actual installation was done on his own behalf the aim of the work did not seem to experience any disprofit. Eine Kirche der Angst vor dem Fremden in mir is most privately dealing with the artist suffering of lung cancer. The funeral ceremony alike stage-installation empathises with the replica of the apsis of the oberhausen church in which Schlingensief was altar server when he was a boy. A video shows him as a boy playing a dying cowboy, the artist voice-over is saying “Nicht berühren, bitte nicht berühren, jetzt” - “Don`t touch me, please don`t touch me, now”. The workes grievous emotionality together with its spacial dimension felt like it was of great honesty in its handling with the most basic human values and fears. Christoph Schlingensief was one of the radical revolutionarys of german film and especially theatre. He died of cancer in august 2010. 

Albeit the natural and constant pressure to get the greatest amount of input possible, moving within the Giardini felt like promenading, like a downtime. That (in its best sense) in-between vacuity provided the ability to conclude ones on-site deliberation on one complex of thoughts on the one hand and on the other hand allow room for further gathering in a second step. 

Christian Marclays work The Clock displayed another becalming instant. The Clock is a 24 hour long film composed of sequences from existing movies interacting with the current time of the day. Placed at the vertex of the corridor-like and L-shaped Arsenale venue the work was presented in a darkened space providing sofas. Through the ability to comfortably rest whilst watching the video art work The Clock does not only constitute a highlight in content but also a climax within the dramaturgy of the Arsenale. 

I want to end that very brief insight in my views on the Venice art biennial with the young Jackson Pollock painting Eyes in the Heat that I saw at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice and that seems to enduringly intrigue me as both obviously logic in Pollocks work and outstandingly beautifully manual and fleshy on the other hand. With its bodacious liveliness despite the retentive structuralism the work does seem to not only be an icon of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection but also of the swirl Venice appears to go under during the Biennial, every second year. 

ON THE CURATOR: EXCERPT FROM A ZEIT INTERVIEW WITH GERMAN ARTIST DANIEL RICHTER 

Richter: … Because that is what most artists do: They bore me and take me for a fool. They are a lot less interested in the choice of media than in what their art pretends to illustrate. And they`re interested in catalogue essays, of course, providing everything from Agamben to Žižek that could possibly impress. That is what especially the curators get exited about.

ZEIT: How do you mean?

Richter: Curators are always searching for dissertation guides to art. For them artists perspectives are only an expression of theses. I`m not interested in these curator-exhibitions. I don`t attend biennials, triannials or manifestas, either.

ZEIT: But aren`t these the exact places of the presence that you are searching for?

Richter: I prefer seeing exhibitions for whom the artist really worked. Just like I prefer reading a novel instead of a collection of short stories.

ZEIT: And how about current political issues, that are debated on biennilas – wouldn`t these interest you?

Richter: That is a question of time, maybe. If I´m interested in the history of the 20^th century, I have to decide whether I should read Eric Hobsbawm, John Keegan or Alain Badiou or whether I should see an exhibition dispraising Tschadors. I prefer reading books by people who are substantially engaged in a topic. An exhibition cannot achieve what a good book can achieve. (laughing)

http:www.zeit.de/2011/39/Interview-Richter Translated from the german. 

Roy Ascott is a british artist and theorist. In the 1960s he established the radical Groundcourse, a highly innovative and rather unorthodox teaching method at Ealing Art College in London. The groundcourse aimed to expand its students conciousness through challenges, games and excercises based on cybernatic theory in order to disrupt their creative preconceptions on art. Ascott himself is working in interactive electronic and telematic art. Studying quantum physics and holonomic brain theory he came up with the term moist media to describe the emerging science of biomechatronics. Predicting the combination of biological and thechnological systems for the future he proclaims the end to arts preoccupation with the body. In an interview with Keith Stuart he says about his current practical projects: My central interest has been in biophotonic processes, concerning the quantum coherence of organisms. Within my field of specualtive research, theory is practice. 

http://blog.frieze.com/roy_ascott/

Susannah Thompsons lecture on Form and Field in week 5 made me think of this video a friend of mine posted recently. Via Rosalind Krauss and her rather complex diagramm from Sculpture in the expanded field published in the great October magazine in 1979 she called for accessibility aswell as novel creativity in art writing. Thats a DO. 

Manifesto: ALLES FUER DIE KUNST [Alles für die Kunst] is german for “All for the Arts”. This phrase has over the last few years been the expression of my motivation to work in and for visual arts. 

ALLES FUER DIE KUNST emenates from my belief in a great importance and relevanace of art. Its grand intellectual and influential potential is the historys and the humans indispensable escort. In almost any kind and manner it will alsways dispose the ability to provoke or to condemn conviction. Besides every approach of interpretation and analysis ALLES FUER DIE KUNST is driven by the belief in a residual and devout momentum of art that remains inexplicable.