Learning to Hate Masterpieces

Over a one week period of screenings, lectures and panel discussions, Towards a Double Consciousness: NSK Passport Project will take as its point of departure, NSK’s artistic intervention State in Time and its increasing significance in Africa especially within the context of Nigeria. State in Time, one of the most (in)famous projects produced by NSK, evolved out of their earlier activities, finding formation as a ’state’ at the collapse of Yugoslavia and the coming into existence of the Republic of Slovenia in 1991. NSK’s State in Time transcends a physical geographical location or a defined statehood within a prescribed ethnic, cultural or religious belief, providing what IRWIN collaborator and writer Alexei Monroe describes as “a conceptual form of identification for individuals from diverse nationalities.”

Since the initial presentations around the world in the 1990s of State in Time the project is currently receiving a substantial number of requests for citizenship of the NSK ‘State’ from Africa especially from Nigeria. This has resulted in many Nigerians assuming a dual identity as holders of NSK and Nigerian passports. In view of these new developments IRWIN conducted interviews with African/NSK citizens living in London, to ascertain their reasons for applying. Could it be in support of the initial artistic purpose of NSK? Do they see it as an avenue with which to move from one territory to another? Or is it for other socio-political reasons? Towards a Double Consciousness: NSK Passport project will allow further debate on both the artistic and political implications of the NSK State in Time action, offering an examination of their original artistic interventions within the Nigerian context.

This project forms part of CCA, Lagos’ year long programme On Independence and The Ambivalence of Promise celebrating 50 years of independence by seventeen African countries including Nigeria on the 1st October 2010. It provides an avenue to interrogate notions of nationhood at a time when our ideas of citizenship is continuously being challenged by state policies such as Nigeria’s contentious ‘federal character’ system or through religious and ethnic disturbances such as the recent unrest in the city of Jos, as well as the perennial civic unrest of the oil rich Niger Delta. Towards a Double Consciousness attempts to interrogate the way in which artists propose and individuals search for alternative – real or fictional – possibilities that goes beyond notions of a fixed identity or geography.

IRWIN is a collective of artists Dušan Mandič (b. 1954), Miran Mohar (b. 1958), Andrej Savski (b. 1961), Roman Uranjek (b. 1961) and Borut Vogelnik (b. 1959), which comprises one of the core groups within the artists’ collective Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK). IRWIN was founded in 1983 in Slovenia. Recent exhibitions include: The Promises of the Past, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2010; The Eye of the State, The Israel Center for Digital Art, Holon, Israel, 2010; Third New Old Cold War, Moscow Biennial, Red October; Modernities, Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA), Barcelona; State in Time, Kunsthalle Krems, 2009. The members of the group live and work in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

www.ccalagos.org

Hace unos días le platicaba a un editor, sobre un extraño ejercicio que realizaron hace cosa de cinco años algunos amigos: enlistaron año por año, desde su nacimiento hasta ese momento, sus discos favoritos editados exclusivamente durante ese periodo.

Por bocón, me pidió el mismo ejercicio, acompañado de una explicación por cada album. Por ahora, va la lista.

1980 / The Fall – Grotesque

1981 / This Heat – Deceit

1982 / Miles Davis – The man with the horn

1983 / New Order - Power, Corruption and Lies

1984 / John Zorn – The Big Gundown

1985 / Jesus and Mary Chain – Psychocandy

1986 / Slayer – Reign in Blood

1987 / The Lounge Lizards – No pain for cakes

1988 / Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation

1989 / Astor Piazzolla – La Camorra

1990 / Hector Zazou – Zazou/Bikaye/CYI Noir & Blanc

1991 / Primal Scream – Screamadelica

1992 / Beastie Boys – Check your head

1993 / Medeski, Martin and Wood – Notes from the underground

1994 / Pavement – Crooked rain, Crooked rain

1995 / The Make up - Destination: Love

1996 / Derek Bailey – Guitar, Drum ‘n’ Bass

1997 / Spiritualized – Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space

1998 / Pulp – This is hardcore

1999 / Bonnie Prince Billy – I see a Darkness

2000 / Arvo Pärt – I Am The True Vine

2001 / Morton Feldman – String Quartet

2002 / Murcof – Martes

2003 / Garage a Trois – Emphasizer

2004 / Los Dorados – Vientos del Norte

2005 / MIA – Arular

2006 / György Ligeti – Complete Piano Music Bis

2007 / Burial – Untrue

2008 / Sao Paulo Underground – The Principle Of Intrusive Relationships

2009 / Borah Bergman Trio – Luminescence

2010 / John Zorn / In the search of the miraculous

Con este video, mi amigo Rubén Gutiérrez participa en la Bienal de las Américas, en Denver.

http://www.biennialoftheamericas.org

Un texto de mi amigo Eduardo Ramírez

Siguiendo un link, donde me enviaron un artículo sobre Slim, me topé con un texto sobre arte: Ud. puede ser artista de Avelina Lésper.

En un tono netamente sarcástico, en su colaboración a El Semanario sin Límite, Lésper se dedica a descalificar todo el arte contemporáneo, sin excepciones (incluidos Duchamp y Warhol). El tema de esta colaboración (nombrarla línea argumental sería decir mucho) es que el arte contemporáneo es tan simple, a nivel manufactura e incluso a nivel conceptual, que cualquiera –Ud. mismo– podrían hacerlo… y cobrarlo igual que se hace en el mercado internacional.

Este comentario recuerda el cometario descalificatorio, hoy clásico, en reacción a las pinturas de Picasso o a cualquier manifestación de las vanguardias históricas: “eso lo puede hacer mi hermanito”.

No quise generalizar o tomar sólo esta colaboración para mi comentario. Busqué entonces otras. Al leerlas me di cuenta que la descalificación del arte contemporáneo por parte de Lésper, en base a adjetivos u ocurrencias retóricas, era un recurso permanente.

Van algunos ejemplos: Abraham Cruzvillegas es “el imitador oficial de Gabriel Orozco”; todo el trabajo de Gabriel Orozco es “basura: tapas de yogurt, cajas de cartón, zapatos, cochecitos de juguete, dibujos que en realidad son ejercicios escolares, no obras terminadas. La locación es irrelevante, que se encuentren en un museo como el MoMA o la Tate no cambia su situación de objetos sin valor.”
Todo el arte basado en técnicas tradicionales –óleo, escultura–, sin importar nada más es “arte real” (las comillas son de cita no de cuestionamiento o ironía). En comparación, todo el arte contemporáneo es irreal, basura: “que el Estado lo haga artista [a Gabriel Orozco] por decreto no significa que los objetos sean arte por decreto. Una caja es basura como lo es un par de zapatos viejos, por eso en la entrada de la sala de la exposición requerían de un guardia que alertara de no patear la caja, porque no es arte, es basura.”

“Si sus sobrinos rayan las paredes de su casa cuando van de visita[,] reprima sus instintos asesinos y entrégueles varios botes de pintura de espray, además el chemo los va a poner inspirados, porque una pintura de Peter Soriano de un cochecito pintado en la pared de su casa podría valer 19,000 dólares, y es una ganga, si usted quiere que el asistente de Tracy Emin le pinte en su pared la palabra Fuck, le cuesta 90,000 euros. Ya sabe, póngase creativo y ahorre.”

Avelina Lésper, que se firma como “crítica de arte, entre sus líneas de investigación están la pintura europea y el mercado del arte” cae en la tentación de lo mismo que critica: la burla fácil, la descalificación especulativa y espectacular (ha desarrollado una serie de seguidores o fans que no necesariamente le dan la razón, sino que simplemente reaccionan emotivamente igual que ella). Mientras sus textos caigan en la tentación de ironizar como argumento, de descalificar por adjetivos, “cualquiera puede hacer sus críticas”.

Que conste que a veces coincido en sus críticas en lo que corresponde al circuito del arte contemporáneo. En lo que no coincido es en la manera en la que públicamente asume la crítica, la banaliza. No puedo respetar sus argumentos, porque no los veo. La formación que presume, no le llevan más allá de una reacción afectiva. Opina públicamente como lo hacía mi abuelita.

Y eso, como yo lo entiendo, como ella dice hacerlo, nada tiene que ver con la crítica del arte.

ObjectNotFound.org is a collaborative project by Ruben Gutierrez, it started during an artist in residence program at ISCP/NYC in 2003. ONF adopted the form of a non profit organization with the mission to promote the knowledge and appreciation of contemporary culture. Since 2004 ONF has a semi nomadic project room in the city of Monterrey, Mexico.

A downloadable pdf with our history is available now!

An essay and interviews by José Jiménez Ortiz

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A number of alternate, informal approaches to art and economy that arose in the Berlin of the 90s created a great deal of space and potential for rethinking relations between people, as well as possible roles for art in society. Today, however, much of this hope has since been obscured by the commercial activity and dysfunctional official art institutions most visible in the city’s art scene, and though many of the ways of living and working that were formulated in the 90s are still in practice today (not just in Berlin), many of their proponents acknowledge a feeling that the resistant, emancipatory capacities inherent to their project have since been foreclosed upon. Our interest in inviting Marion von Osten to guest-edit e-flux journal’s issue 17 had to do precisely with this widespread, prevailing sense of rapidly diminishing possibilities in the face of capitalist economy, and her extensive issue offers a broad and ambitious reformulation of how we might still rethink resistance and emancipation both within, and without capitalism—even at a time when alternate economies move ever nearer to everyday capitalist production, and vice-versa.

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For the first time, an international meeting highlights documentary practices across disciplines, with a special emphasis on inquiry into the means of producing images. BERLIN DOCUMENTARY FORUM demonstrates the increasingly significant role of the documentary in the visual arts, performance, literature and cinema.

Its first edition features five days of thematic programmes. A key component is the critical re-evaluation of historical processes in the light of the contemporary moment. Also at stake is the role that images and strategies of representation, subsumed under the term “documentary”, have acquired in present-day politics.

This new biannual encounter at Haus der Kulturen der Welt was conceived by curator Hila Peleg. BERLIN DOCUMENTARY FORUM 1 is structured around six unique programmes developed and realised by commissioned curators, artists, filmmakers and theoreticians.

DOCUMENTARY MOMENTS: RENAISSANCE — a programme of screenings and talks by filmmaker Eyal Sivan with Ayreen Anastas, Stella Bruzzi, François Bucher, Rene Gabri, Chris Marker, Marie-José Mondzain, Edgar Morin, Marcel Ophuls, Alain Resnais and Frederick Wiseman.

RULES OF EVIDENCE: TEXT, VOICE, SIGHT — an interdisciplinary programme by curator Okwui Enwezor including readings and art installations with and by Emily Apter, Ecke Bonk, Eduardo Cadava, Tony Cokes, Philip Gourevitch, Thomas Keenan, Antjie Krog, Jacques Rancière, Walid Sadek, W. G. Sebald and Zinny / Maidagan.

MISSING IMAGE: MICHAEL MRAKITSCH — a programme of screenings and talks by filmmaker Florian Schneider with contributions by Michael Mrakitsch and Rick Prelinger.

MÖGLICHKEITSRAUM (The Blast of the Possible) — three screen-performances by video artist Angela Melitopoulos with Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, Brian Holmes and Bettina Knaup.

AUTHORSHIP, AUTHORITY, AUTHENTICITY. RECENT DOCUMENTARIES FROM ELSEWHERE — a programme of screenings and talks by curator Eduardo Thomas with João Moreira Salles, Uruphong Raksasad, Ben Russell, Lee Anne Schmitt and Eileen Simpson & Ben White.

A BLIND SPOT — a prologue to an exhibition by curator Catherine David and artist Joachim Koester.

The programme is further accompanied by a range of special performances and conversations by cultural historians Ariella Azoulay and Issam Nassar, theatre director Rabih Mroué, choreographer Xavier Le Roy and video artist Omer Fast.

View the full programme at: www.hkw.de/berlin.doc.forum

Watch BDF-Online TV: www.hkw.de/bdf.tv

An essay of Chon A. Noriega

In the shadow of a doubt, and in its vicinity, we find selected pieces from a collection that ordinarily resists the discrete charms of display. These recently acquired works are the reason why the institution has ceased to function as a place of consecration in order to transform into a space of experimentation, a ground open to all kinds of critical maneuvers and operations.

The works belonging to the FRAC Lorraine collection assume the form of deambulation across imaginary spheres which divide the world into material and immaterial, into reality and its fictional representation. Following a skillfully orchestrated scenario, the visit underscores complex relationships between the body, works of art, and the museum space (the play of attraction, fear, and seduction), and dissolves the ambiguous boundaries between discourse and its beliefs. By detecting psychological mechanisms of reception and assimilation tied to the intensity of real and imagined bodily sensations (Décosterd & Rahm, M. Bonvicini or A.V. Janssens), these works provoke auto-performative experiences in the visitor who has become an actor in this ephemeral story.

Alongside those intense experiences, the works of K. Sander, E. Dekyndt, and C. McCorkle, with their subtle visibility, mark out an autonomous, infinite territory, a sort of cartography of desire, in Deleuzian sense of the word. Then come strictly oral interventions (I. Wilson, Beier & Lund, Dector & Dupuy) which raise the historical question of transmission of knowledge and its validity in visual and performance arts.

Finally, the return of the repressed, of the concealed, constitutes another pivotal point of reflection, tied to the notion of intimacy endangered by our society (M. de Boer). Several artists (D. García, arT errOriste, T. Mouraud) come to question the connection between seeing (video surveillance) and power, and the implications of this omnipresent gaze. Voyeuristic gaze and the exhibitionist temptation, along with an incitation to perversion, are close at hand.

Designed as a sort of manifesto of the impossibility to materialize a thought in an object, In the shadow of a doubt treats the exhibition as a protocol for experiences, making it possible to encounter works of art in action and in “re-action”. The life-force of the works has been restored.

ARTISTS (collection / Production Frac Lorraine) :
Ignasi Aballí, arT errOriste, Nina Beier & Marie Lund, Manon de Boer, Monica Bonvicini, Décosterd & Rahm, Dector & Dupuy, Edith Dekyndt, Susanna Fritscher, Dora García, Thierry Hesse, Ann Veronica Janssens, Jirí Kovanda, Isabelle Krieg, Corey McCorkle, Liliana Motta, Tania Mouraud, Nik Thoenen et Maia Gusberti, Mario Garcia Torres, Karin Sander, Ian Wilson

http://www.fraclorraine.org/

If you’ve got nothing to do – do it on stage!
- Jack Smith

An essay by Jan Verwoert