Global podering
Feb. 26th, 2007 10:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusThere was an Irishman and a Lithuanian. They were out hunting dick. The Irishman said "Pass the sugar."
"Are you crazy?" says the Lithuanian. "You know I don't take sugar."
"I'm not asking you to take it, just to pass it," said the Irishman.
"If I could pass it," said the Lithuanian, "I wouldn't be here".
That's a Bob NewArt joke, and I'm still waiting to learn whether I'll spend the month of November using material like that to make large question marks appear above the heads of visitors to the second Performa Biennial of performance art. Even if the invitation isn't forthcoming, though, I'm also in negotiation at the moment to appear as a speaker (not an avant garde stand-up comedian) at the AIGA Conference, which happens in October in Denver, Colorado, and is themed around the question "Where do we go from here?" (my theme is "The Future of Texture") and at the ICA Boston sometime in the Fall, where I've been sounded out to speak as part of its ongoing event "What New Is".
The near future isn't just talking about the future in America. Here in Europe we have some exciting biennials lining up, events I'm hoping to attend as a "large scale art spectacle consumer" rather than a producer. Because mingling with the international art crowd, and seeing what other artists are showing, is even more pleasurable than showing off and getting paid for generating my own content, I'm willing to save up and pay to attend these things. Here's a (partial) calendar.
June is the big month here in Europe. I'll be hurrying back from Tokyo to catch some or all of what's going on -- it's so close together that you could catch it all in a big round trip, sleeping, perhaps, in your rental car (hotels are hard to book when the art tribe descends).
We have the 2007 Venice Biennial, the 52nd of its ilk, opening on 10th June (no rush -- it's open until the end of November... but of course all the glamour happens up at the front). I had such a good time visiting the last Venice Biennial that this is, as far as I'm concerned, unmissable. Then, from 13th to 17th of June, it's Art Basel, the world's biggest commercial art fair. From 16th June to 23rd September there's Documenta 12 in Kassel. The last Documenta I attended was Documenta 9, back in 1992. Me and my friend Thomi Wroblewski hired a red VW Golf and drove to Kassel from London. The main thing I remember discovering there was the painting of Luc Tuymans -- small, tight, undemonstrative yet mysterious. Finally, opening the day after Documenta, there's Sculpture Projects Muenster 07. Perhaps I'll be able to drop into that on the way back to Berlin.
This Calendar of International Biennials and other regular art exhibitions can keep you up to speed on the extravaganzas being mounted in the art world. Reading down it I see that the Taipei Biennial (theme: Dirty Yoga) ended yesterday. There's still a month left in which to see the 1st Luanda Triennial, down in Angola (the Flash on their website refused to load or skip, so I can't tell you their theme, alas). The Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art runs in Brisbane, Australia until 27th May. In Moscow, the 2nd Moscow Biennial spans March. Curator Joseph Backstein is focusing on "Art in the Epoch of Social Darwinism". "The neo-liberal reality," he writes, "challenges the artist and forces him or her to develop new survival strategies. One of these strategies is in the creation of artworks fighting against the dominating pop culture and exploiting it for their specific purposes."
There's also the Third Auckland Triennial down there in New Zealand, the Biennial at the End of the World in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina (the very tip of the bottom of South America, and the most southerly point before you hit Antarctica). "Podering [sic] at end of world that other world is possible" is the theme of that one, according to the Flash sequence on the splash page. In the United Emirates, Ecuador, Montréal and Prague people will also be "podering" through the coming months, thanks to art, just as they are right now at the Armory Show, which ends this evening on Pier 94, jutting out into the Hudson there in New York City.
Not everybody is happy with the plethora of biennials. "There will be no Documenta in Kassel in 2007" is a proposal by Shanghai artist Shi Yong. "Today the world is filled with biennales... The global art events are every where. Curators, artists, art organizations, foundations, galleries, collectors and audience shuttle around the world to catch the scene. Is it time for “art” to take a rest? Could the Kassel Documenta, one of the most important regular art event in the world, act as an example to take a rest first? Let the artists relax. Let the curators relax. Let the critics relax. Let the audience relax. Let the art organizations relax. Let the art foundations relax. Let the sponsors relax. Let the galleries relax. Let the media relax."
Tellingly, though, Shi Yong himself does not intend to relax. "No Documenta" is a proposal for a project he hopes to carry out... at Documenta. While everybody else is, apparently, relaxing, Shi Yong will "use panels to wrap up venues like the museum, beer factory, cultural station stop and other newly added satellite venues. On the panel written "Sorry, there is no 2007 Documenta." He also hopes to "delete or hide all the information on 12th Documenta on the internet or magazines".
Sorry, Shi!
"Are you crazy?" says the Lithuanian. "You know I don't take sugar."
"I'm not asking you to take it, just to pass it," said the Irishman.
"If I could pass it," said the Lithuanian, "I wouldn't be here".
That's a Bob NewArt joke, and I'm still waiting to learn whether I'll spend the month of November using material like that to make large question marks appear above the heads of visitors to the second Performa Biennial of performance art. Even if the invitation isn't forthcoming, though, I'm also in negotiation at the moment to appear as a speaker (not an avant garde stand-up comedian) at the AIGA Conference, which happens in October in Denver, Colorado, and is themed around the question "Where do we go from here?" (my theme is "The Future of Texture") and at the ICA Boston sometime in the Fall, where I've been sounded out to speak as part of its ongoing event "What New Is".
The near future isn't just talking about the future in America. Here in Europe we have some exciting biennials lining up, events I'm hoping to attend as a "large scale art spectacle consumer" rather than a producer. Because mingling with the international art crowd, and seeing what other artists are showing, is even more pleasurable than showing off and getting paid for generating my own content, I'm willing to save up and pay to attend these things. Here's a (partial) calendar.
June is the big month here in Europe. I'll be hurrying back from Tokyo to catch some or all of what's going on -- it's so close together that you could catch it all in a big round trip, sleeping, perhaps, in your rental car (hotels are hard to book when the art tribe descends).
We have the 2007 Venice Biennial, the 52nd of its ilk, opening on 10th June (no rush -- it's open until the end of November... but of course all the glamour happens up at the front). I had such a good time visiting the last Venice Biennial that this is, as far as I'm concerned, unmissable. Then, from 13th to 17th of June, it's Art Basel, the world's biggest commercial art fair. From 16th June to 23rd September there's Documenta 12 in Kassel. The last Documenta I attended was Documenta 9, back in 1992. Me and my friend Thomi Wroblewski hired a red VW Golf and drove to Kassel from London. The main thing I remember discovering there was the painting of Luc Tuymans -- small, tight, undemonstrative yet mysterious. Finally, opening the day after Documenta, there's Sculpture Projects Muenster 07. Perhaps I'll be able to drop into that on the way back to Berlin.
This Calendar of International Biennials and other regular art exhibitions can keep you up to speed on the extravaganzas being mounted in the art world. Reading down it I see that the Taipei Biennial (theme: Dirty Yoga) ended yesterday. There's still a month left in which to see the 1st Luanda Triennial, down in Angola (the Flash on their website refused to load or skip, so I can't tell you their theme, alas). The Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art runs in Brisbane, Australia until 27th May. In Moscow, the 2nd Moscow Biennial spans March. Curator Joseph Backstein is focusing on "Art in the Epoch of Social Darwinism". "The neo-liberal reality," he writes, "challenges the artist and forces him or her to develop new survival strategies. One of these strategies is in the creation of artworks fighting against the dominating pop culture and exploiting it for their specific purposes."There's also the Third Auckland Triennial down there in New Zealand, the Biennial at the End of the World in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina (the very tip of the bottom of South America, and the most southerly point before you hit Antarctica). "Podering [sic] at end of world that other world is possible" is the theme of that one, according to the Flash sequence on the splash page. In the United Emirates, Ecuador, Montréal and Prague people will also be "podering" through the coming months, thanks to art, just as they are right now at the Armory Show, which ends this evening on Pier 94, jutting out into the Hudson there in New York City.
Not everybody is happy with the plethora of biennials. "There will be no Documenta in Kassel in 2007" is a proposal by Shanghai artist Shi Yong. "Today the world is filled with biennales... The global art events are every where. Curators, artists, art organizations, foundations, galleries, collectors and audience shuttle around the world to catch the scene. Is it time for “art” to take a rest? Could the Kassel Documenta, one of the most important regular art event in the world, act as an example to take a rest first? Let the artists relax. Let the curators relax. Let the critics relax. Let the audience relax. Let the art organizations relax. Let the art foundations relax. Let the sponsors relax. Let the galleries relax. Let the media relax."
Tellingly, though, Shi Yong himself does not intend to relax. "No Documenta" is a proposal for a project he hopes to carry out... at Documenta. While everybody else is, apparently, relaxing, Shi Yong will "use panels to wrap up venues like the museum, beer factory, cultural station stop and other newly added satellite venues. On the panel written "Sorry, there is no 2007 Documenta." He also hopes to "delete or hide all the information on 12th Documenta on the internet or magazines".
Sorry, Shi!
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-26 09:44 am (UTC)For regular art listings, check Tokyo Art Beat (http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/).
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-26 10:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-26 11:07 am (UTC)Bob NewArt is a development of the shaman character I was playing in the Zach Feuer Gallery in 2005.
There, the idea was to sit in an empty gallery every day for several hours and speak or sing, with nothing prepared. So it was about the moment when nothing turns into something. Stripping everything back to the first, scariest and most determinant moment in any creative act, the moment when we commit something to that blank sheet of paper. So, imagine a comedian with nothing prepared, an improv comedian who takes that blank sheet of paper out onto the stage.
But also imagine a comedian who uses the freedom the art world gives him to stop making sense. If the first theme is creativity itself -- the mystery of where ideas come from -- the second is freedom, and how the art world is a place where you can be free. Art gives you license to go just that little bit further. No real comedian would dare risk not making people laugh, but in the art world you can develop new types of comedy by being that bit more intuitive and unconstrained. Listening to your "primitive prompter", your unconscious. But within a well-known format, with well-established templates. So, liberty within restriction.
Thirdly, Bob NewArt comes out of my Whitney Biennial performance, where I found myself becoming an art world comedian. And while lots of artists use humour in their work -- Richard Prince springs to mind, or Mike Kelley -- I don't see many actual art world comedians. So there's room in the world for one.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-26 11:42 am (UTC)A: 'Cause they believe that proper tea is theft.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-26 11:47 am (UTC)A: Pilkington glass.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-26 06:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-26 06:18 pm (UTC)either
1. they're too busy building edifices for real art
2. they can't be bothered to stage
events(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-26 06:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-26 06:36 pm (UTC)as far as i know, Stalin-like architects of a people aside, the architect is supposed to stand on the political leader's side , like Albert Speer, like Kurokawa so far.
At the most they can become equals (like the one-eyed and one-armed gods Deleuze speaks of). what might happen if they're the same person ?
i don't think he has that much of the chance but i was quite surprised hearing the news.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-26 07:01 pm (UTC)More power to his campaign. I think the old Metabolist has a chance.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-26 07:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-26 07:14 pm (UTC)Uh oh, I'm not sure Boston can handle Momus right now. The officials might mistake Curly Carl for a terrorist. Or that might be fun. Hey Momus get yourself an Easy Bake Oven and take it on stage and see if it makes anyone in Boston uneasy.
relax? the artworld?
Date: 2007-02-26 08:15 pm (UTC)I have a grandiose favor to ask.... I have to be in London as of March26th until April 1st, What do you suggest I do?
I'm Iranian(American) I'm not sure which more, well I suppose I'm more American, American influenced, American raised, etc. etc.
What's of interest in or about London, should I fly to Berlin? (if i can afford the price of course).
I'd appreciate if you would point me in the right or wrong directions.
Re: relax? the artworld?
Date: 2007-02-26 08:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-26 11:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-26 11:53 pm (UTC)High Plains Lodgings
Date: 2007-02-27 01:01 am (UTC)I hope your negotiations are successful in bringing you to Denver. I've been trying for a while to get the AIGA people I know to have you guest speak at other events. Hopefully, they are ready for you.
If you come, I can put you up for a couple of days. Certainly a lunch can be had.
Bill
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-27 03:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-27 03:38 am (UTC)Also, I knd of disturbed myself from that last post. I'm a self-hating ectomorph.
Re: relax? the artworld?
Date: 2007-02-27 04:53 am (UTC)if you think of anything else let me know it's my first visit to london.
xo
Re: relax? the artworld?
Date: 2007-02-27 08:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-27 04:50 pm (UTC)absolutely.
it's likely he'd fix the capsule tower - it wouldn't be a self-serving gesture if he did. maybe do something about those train stations where although you're 10meters from the tracks you have to walk a labyrinthine mile to actually get there and hopefully don't plant any more upside down truncated cones around the city.
related article from New York magazine
Date: 2007-06-27 03:58 pm (UTC)Biennials are boring and bloated—yet we trudge from one to the next. There must be a better way to see art. (http://nymag.com/arts/art/reviews/33952/)