conceive construct consume

developing approaches to curatorial practices

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www.nodecenter.org

with texts by

Lauren aLtmanLaura DevereuxracheL FoxWaFa Gabsimaria LankoWyatt niehausLauren reiDkristin threteWeyoLGa sureDa Guasch

on works by

anjaLi a-bmeLanie bonajoboris + nataschamanueL bürGerchris coLLinsFeLix experimentaL GroupassaF GruberaLevtina kakhiDzejustin kempmartin kohoutoLa LankomaLcom LevyDanieL micheLaDa van hoorebekejeremy rotsztainGreGor rozanskimarineLLa senatorenathanieL sternsantiaGo taccettithe teLepathy project

conceive construct consume

developing approaches to curatorial practices

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The following publication is a compilation of indi-

vidual research developed by the group of curators at

Node Center for Curatorial Studies during the Au-

tumn Residency, 2011.

One of the objectives of Node Center is to

widen the possibilities of curatorial practice. For this

publication, the resident curators were encouraged to

explore different methods within their own practice:

from the conception of a project, its actual construc-

tion or production, and the presentation of its out-

come to the wider audience.

Conceive, construct, consume: developing ap-

proaches to curatorial practices contains contributions

in different formats according to the focus of each

resident curator. It includes essays, interviews with

artists and curators, working discussion sessions,

conversations with a psychic, and legal contracts.

Those explorations also took the form of three group

exhibitions presented in Grimmuseum - Berlin, dur-

ing December 2011.

As experiments often are, this publication

doesn’t intend to have a varnished outcome but rather

aims to open entry points into the residents’ further

practice.

forewordPerla Montelongo

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conceive construct consume

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Wafa Gabsi

interview withmarinella senatore

_ 12Laura Devereux

in collaboration: the benefits of an artist/curator relationship

5

_ 17Lauren Reid

conversations with shadowsboris+natascha / the telepathy project

ada van hoorebeke

felix experimental group

_ 22Maria Lanko

materiality checkmelanie bonajo / alevtina kakhidze

ola lanko / gregor rozanski

Marinel la SenatoreSPEAK EASY2009 - MUSICAL on DVD España – HigH DE f in it ion ViDEo on DVD, color, stE rEo 15’proDucE D by 1200 c it izE ns of MaDriD

courtE sy gallE r ia uMbE rto Di Marino, napoli ( i )

6

Marinella Senatore, How Do U Kill The Chemist, 2009, video on iPod, color, sound, 8', courtesy Galleria Umberto Di Marino, Napoli ( I )

7

wg: Please introduce yourself and tell us about the main

focus of your work.

MS: In my projects, often developed in collabora-

tion with institutions such as museums and universi-

ties, I involve entire communities in the creative proc-

ess, for example a community of retired miners from

Sicily in 2010; a group of rappers from Harlem, NYC

in 2009. The viewer becomes the participant and the

hierarchy between the artist as author and the public

as recipient can be questioned and rewritten. The pub-

lic is involved as co-writer, actor, set designer, cam-

era operator, director, sharing time, experiences and

skills, acquiring new knowledges in an atmosphere of

ongoing laboratory, in contact with the contents they

find in their environment and according to the level

of involvement they want. The public is also involved

as producer of public projects through a micro-credit

system: with a contribution of one euro each, the lat-

est videos were entirely produced by thousands of

people – 1200 citizens of Madrid produced the musi-

cal, Speak Easy in 2009.

How do you approach your questions and themes in your

current work? Do you follow a defined process?

It is a whole which comes from a precise process

– planning, discussion, sharing, collective participation,

considering the film of photographic result as the ar-

rival point of a much more dynamic activity. My work

is not exactly just video or film in the classic sense: I

seek a wider base for co-operations, a dialectic that uses

different languages as a tool and not as an end. Working int

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with painting, video, film, performance, installation and design in a conscious but

free way, because what I’m really interested in is to embody a strong sense of reality,

using the line between objective and artificial constructions of vision.

Moreover, it is not a coincidence that in order to to investigate existential,

everyday experiences and social conflict, I also focus my attention on aesthetics

and contents usually far from my background. Connecting personal events with

collective processes, fact and fiction, history and chronicle, my work fosters the

construction of an archive of shared narratives that create a sense of community.

The result is always the culmination of an even more dynamic and large

scale effort – the result of cooperation with an audience that is involved as actor,

producer and even co-author, where the value of a shared experience is more sig-

nificant than a mere stylistic choice.

We are not talking about a very straight, finished product, but works that

give the viewer the possibility to contemplate, and the possibility of interpreting

the whole process as a political point of view, reconsidering the role of the artist

and the production system of the artwork itself.

What is your main interest as an artist? Where do you get the ideas for your work – is it an

experience, an inspiration, a representation of yourself, of the others in the world?

The sociopolitical dimension of my work has been strongly substantiated in

the last few years, especially in terms of practice. I am interested in the role of the

artist as an “activator” of processes, without coercion of any kind, or false moral

education. In these participatory projects, I see the artist as a director with a script

that any participant can negotiate, contest, or use in a different way. In this sense, I

try to implement an exchange of affection, passing from history to history, voice to

voice. The story becomes a place of exchange, and in a manner which will inevita-

bly change through the different contexts; very often it builds an open laboratory

situation, an ongoing open workshop where participants learn something and take

it with them together to remember their experience on set, so I am interested in

reversing the position of the viewer from passive participant.

I do not work only on the imaginary vision of the communities with which I

9

work, but rather with their different forms of storytelling. It is a political duty for me

that the work has to be carried out, and aesthetics and emotional aspects, which are

written in films, are proof that there is a way in which the film (or installation, or pho-

tographs or any other final work) can tell the human relations which produced it.

The goal is often to create a sense of community, where I believe the value

of sharing can be a significant factor. In 2009, for the project Speak Easy, citizens

of Madrid produced the movie by joining the fundraising campaign “1 euro to be

a producer”, which has characterized many of my projects in Spain in recent years

– through the donation of one euro, more than 1200 people entirely produced the

latest videos giving us the opportunity to interpret the whole process as a political

key, reconsidering the role of the artist and the production system of the artwork.

The video is the result of the cooperation of almost 1800 citizens, with over 94 stu-

dents from the Complutense University who learned all the roles of filmmaking

from costume to set design, to direction of photography, direction and production.

Women’s organizations made the costumes with students, groups of retired crafts-

men built the set – the musical is set in New York in the 50s. Three neighbouring

communities from three very different neighbourhoods in the outskirts of Madrid

wrote the original screenplay, with students being responsible for the role of writers.

Marinella Senatore, Speak Easy 2009 - MUSICAL on DVD España – High Definition video on DVD, color, stereo 15’ Produced by 1200 citizens of Madrid courtesy Galleria Umberto Di Marino, Napoli ( I )

10

All participated in an open laboratory, continuous, sharing time, experience, learn-

ing, dancing, writing the lyrics of original songs.

The students and citizens are involved in the creation – or are the protago-

nists – of some works; with such possibilities, the artist is able to bring authentic

collective practices to life, making it evident that the pedagogic activity has strong

confirmation in my poetic methodology.

What are the main mediums or techniques that you use?

I work with photography, drawing, video, painting and sound; my aesthetic

is characterized by light and its iconographic choice, accompanying sparse emo-

tional tonalities stories which appear to be both autobiographical and objective, a

mix of references (often by chance) in which formal precision and citation go from

Stan Douglas to Tacita Dean, even to Karen Cytter and Manon De Boer.

After two degrees in art, I wanted to study film just to understand light.

Among all the elements that build the film composition and the language itself, light

was always the one that attracted my attention and I admit I have a special relation-

ship with lighting that is very intuitive in the first phase. Undeniably, the figure

of Giuseppe Rotunno (cinematographer for Fellini, Visconti, Fosse films among

others) has been really important in my training, in particular in understanding

the evocative possibilities through the construction and translation of light itself;

important was also his particular point of view about the cinematographic role of

the photography, where “photography is more beautiful and has more value if it

helps and supports messages that already are in the story”.

The narrative dimension of illumination is a fundamental point of my work,

it can create a sense of expectation and a certain narrative tension. I find these

suggestions in the “verbal light” in David Cronenberg’s film practice for example.

Light, the language of film per se, has always been the eye through which I look at

the world, and the invention of narrative, even the fictional constructions, tell even

more and better about how reality is.

What brought you back to the narrative as a mechanism that generates your work?

Is it because of your cinematographic approach?

11

The characters that appear in my stories are excuses to talk about something

else, useless heroes appearing fleetingly in the pages of a newspaper of the 50s or so.

Throughout time, the narrative plot are made by citizens as well, so I just suggested

to use very comfortable places, providing a platform for things to happen, instigat-

ing the beginning of a process that is always fluent and very democratic.

Through a mix of references, I’m very much inspired by the micro-narrative,

local news and all the emotional tones of scattered events that blend autobiography

and history. The narrative is certainly one of the fulcrums of my work; it is prob-

ably the mechanism that generates the vision, but the way in which we use it is

deliberately free, always hovering between the poles of reality and fiction, between

truth and invention.

For the video How Do U Kill the Chemist, for example, produced in 2009 in

New York, I worked with a group of rappers from Harlem who wrote the script

with me and performed the story with their peculiar slang. The construction of the

narrative in all its forms is really fascinating for me – the format of the musical and

the use of the song are part of my research on narrative modes. The story, in all

its forms, became the fuse that allows people to loosen around a series of images,

often centered on the tension, expectation and excitement, that the light (and its

sometimes hard cuts) strongly underlines.

In 2010, the video Nui Simu (That’s us), showed at the 54th Biennale of Ven-

ice, Illuminations, curated by B. Curiger, was written by a community of miners

from Sicily (Italy) and made by the entire city of Enna: any citizen could participate

according with his/her background, negotiating the level of involvement, sharing

skills, achieving new ones, in producing an intense perception of the reality. I always

maintain contact with all of the participants; through the years, people recall me,

asking me about new experiences, because money or economical systems are never

the place where we exchange anything. The miners told me that at the end of the

shooting, that the movie was like a monument of their dignity, without which they

wouldn’t able to reveal their memory and the visions of their stories to share with

the world.

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As an aspiring curator, I am intrigued by the rela-

tionship between artists and curators in 2011. How

can this relationship benefit the artist? What does an

artist require from a curator? How can a curator help

present an artist’s work in the best possible light?

I have interviewed artists and curators to ask their

perspectives on the subject.

All the curators interviewed were asked the same

question: As a curator, what are your greatest contribu-

tions when creating an exhibition for the work of an in-

dividual artist? All the artists interviewed were asked

two questions: Do you believe there is a benefit in work-

ing with a curator? How is this relationship beneficial to

you? The following are their responses, which have

naturally formed conversations, even though I posed

the questions to each artist and curator individually.

➜ Elena Veljanovska, Curator, Macedonia

My contribution is setting a frame-

work, reworking the structure of the exhibition, may-

be giving suggestion about it’s final format of display

and general communication of the work with the

audience. Content wise, I am always giving the lead

to the artist, but of course there are different kind of

collaborations. If it is a more collaborative situation,

and I have a greater insight or interest into it I am giv-

ing suggestions for the content as well, and it is up to

the artist whether she/he will accept it or not. Writing

of a text is something I see as important, since this is

the way that the curator mediates the content with the

13

audience. Of course, it is not necessarily important that the same curator writes

the text, but in my case I tend to do it, since this is how I can put the works, their

meaning and the reason why I am making this exhibition in a wider context.

➜ Hendrik Paul, Photographer, USA

My answer would be an instant yes, however with that quick

yes comes along a calculated response. The curator I would work with would have

to work with my vision (I know this is not always possible, but I am responding

with an “ideal situation”). We would have to have a clear vision of what we want to

present. I would not want to work with someone who does not have a clear under-

standing of my images or someone who does not believe/like what I photograph.

Sure, our visions will not completely gel, and that is healthy and will likely add

beneficial viewpoints. What I am against is a forced collaboration between an artist

and a gallery or museum curator. Do not get me wrong, I see and know that these

pairings happen all the time, but if I as the artist have a choice, it would be to work

with a curator that supports and believes in my work. For me the benefit of work-

ing with a curator would be the help it would provide me with selecting images for

the specific project, an additional pair of eyes. In the past I have overlooked some

of my now “better images“ only to have them “discovered” by professors (equiva-

lent of a curator). Simply put, a curator would help me sort through my images and

help me with the organization of my project.

➜ Song-Ming Ang, Artist, germany/Singapore

Yes, definitely. A good curator who is involved with my crea-

tive process can inspire me with ideas, and provide useful, alternative opinions

to my own perspectives. A good curator can help enhance the materialization or

presentation of my work, and tease out meaningful aspects that may be hidden.

More importantly, a good curator can instill confidence, encourage risk-taking,

and offer advice that contributes to my artistic and personal development.

➜ Pilar Cruz, Curator, Spain

I like and try to work directly and closely with the artist when

I’m making the project, if the work of the artist is an already made piece, my

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contribution is to give some points of view and interpretations about that work,

and if possible how this work fits in the rest of his/her production. I try to give

interpretations and an approach comparing their work with pieces made by other

artists, so perhaps the biggest contribution consists in the relationship that their

works create with each other and how the meaning and interpretation of the works

can change or be enriched when reading under the concept of an exhibition or

when reading after/before other artist’s works.

➜ François Martig, Sound & Video Installation Artist, Film and

Photography, France

I have had some different experiences with curators during the

past few years, as good as bad. The two last were great because the curator’s choices

gave my work an interesting relation (not necessarily esthetic proximity) with the

other artist’s artwork; the dialogue between the artworks and not in a big museum

with a lot of stuff. The curator doesn’t transform the artist’s work, it’s more to

create a common dialogue more than the sense of each art pieces.

➜ Juan Canela, Curator, Spain

My work as a curator is focused in propitiating critical thinking,

either through concept or formalization. My aim is to question established ideas

or concepts, suggesting or provoking moments of reflection not only for artists

but also for the public. I’m always trying to move forward to places of amaze-

ment or to be amazed. One of my main goals is to investigate the relationship

between different agents involved in an artistic project: curator, artist, designer...

even researchers from other disciplines: historians, psychologists, philosophers...

That is why I like your question. In that sense, I’m always interested in breaking

boundaries between different profiles and also to overstep borders, contaminating

each other. I look to work with artists in order to re-think their practice, trying

to transform their usual “making” or common places by proposing certain exer-

cises which produce this “estrangement” as a way of avoiding redundancy. When I

think of the process of working with an artist for a solo show, the most important

issue is to work really closely with him. Thinking together as a way of develop-

15

ing the project from the concept to final feedback of results. In the end, it’s about

building a complicit space in which the artist can crystallize a work process that

enables critical thinking of other’s and oneself, in order to contribute with differ-

ent perspectives.

➜ Daniel Palacios, Multimedia Installation Artist, Spain

Something I don’t accept is the character of artist-curator (or

curator-artist), at least when you are curating an exhibition and also showing your

work in it, I think they are two different professions and the border must be clear.

My approach is, if I don’t have the skill or don't have the time to do something,

I’m going to hire somebody to make it, but if I find somebody that is working

actually in the same subject and that work is very related with that portion of

mine where I need extra hands, then of course I’m going to ask for a collabora-

tion and include him/her in the project which is more interesting for both and the

project; but it’s different this way to cross points of views to create a work, than to

curate an exhibition. (...) A curator should have the same kind of interests, obses-

sions and passion for learning about the world that an artist has, they just simply

don’t produce, don’t collect, they generate events where they combine work from

different people that mix and share a point of view all together about a concept,

the curator’s concept.

➜ wyatt Niehaus, Curator & Visual Artist, USA

I think the most important aspect of this, for me, is to act as

a bridge between the artist and the audience. By this I mean adding appropriate

context to the work, and representing it in a way that illuminates the piece as best

I can (or the opposite of that, if that is the goal!). Context and background can be

a principle concern in showing a solo artist – because where in a group show, the

other artists exhibited are partly adding the context for you, a solo artist does not

have that safety net. It is important for the curator to act as a kind of liaison.

➜ Mark Soo, Multimedia Installation Artist, Canada

Absolutely, and it often depends on the nature of the working

relationship. But rather than building the relationship around ideas of “benefits”

16

and values, I think a more descriptive notion for me would be that a curator is

a participant in the artistic process. Nonetheless, a curator to me occupies and

participates in many roles. And this depends largely in what capacity and what

context you are both engaged in. It’s difficult to pinpoint, but I think among the

myriad ways a curator participates is in the conception of exhibitions; helping to

facilitate an artists vision; helping to give an artistic, cultural, and historical context

to the work and ideas; collaborating in envisioning new possibilities for the work;

guiding readings of the work; creating new relationships between other works and

ideas; promoting the work; mediating between audience, institution/gallery, and

artist; finding new ways to imagine what the work can be; and so on... It really de-

pends, because everyone has different intentions, methodologies, and backgrounds.

Working with a curator in the context of the Venice Biennial is going to be very dif-

ferent than working with a curator who is fulfilling an acquisitions mandate for X

National Gallery, which is going to be very different than working with a curator

programming a festival of outdoor performance art.

➜ Lauren Reid, Curator, Australia

As a curator I think that the greatest contribution that I can pro-

vide to an individual artist is a specific context for which to view the artist’s work

and to form a dialogue around the artist’s practice and particular pieces. Curating

a considered exhibition of work can create a framework or platform to develop

and draw out threads of thoughts that exist within an artist’s practice. This in turn,

creates the opportunity for the artist’s work to connect with different audiences in

potentially new and layered ways.

➜ Cortright Devereux, Painter, USA

My opinion is that curators know perhaps more than artists do,

the current happenings of the world and the arts so they have a greater understand-

ing of the context in which art takes place. I think a curator is a bridge between

an artist or a piece of art and a greater number of people in the community at

large. So, a curator can be a useful tool for ‘packaging’ art for public use.

17

Dear Lauren, my name is Natasha and I have perfor-

med your reading for you. I hope that you will find your

reading to be helpful. Love and Blessings.

Hello. My name is Lauren Reid. I am a curator from Sydney,

Australia and am putting together an exhibition for the first time

in Berlin. I am working with artists who are exploring the inex-

plicable through conversations: with immortals, with the subcon-

scious, with materials, with the dead who were, in turn, contact-

ing the dead. The aim is not to prove or disprove the existence of

these dialogues but instead to examine the desire to transcend our

measurable reality and question the different connections that

we might have to the intangible forces in our world.

I would like to be able to understand the exhibition more clear-

ly and ask you about the artists who I am working with. These

artists are: Ada van Hoorebeke, The Felix Experimental Group

and two different collaborative duos: BoRIS+NATAScHA

and The Telepathy Project, Sean Peoples and Veronica Kent.

What can you tell me about the connections between the artists

and the works?

I felt that it is fate that all of these artists are present

at this exhibition. I felt that each one has been lead to the

exhibition for a very important reason. I felt that each art-

ist has a gift to give others and in time their work will

bring about positive spiritual change–a positive awaken-

ing to the spiritual realm. I felt that each artist is fulfilling

their life purposes by doing the work that they do. New

doors are being opened for the future of spiritualism.

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BoRIS+NATAScHA facilitate mes-

sages from the famous dead by creat-

ing frottages or ‘grave rubbings’ using

the letters of the name on their tomb-

stone. They visit the graves of artists,

philosophers, musicians and writers

whose work continues to impact us to-

day. During the act of physically creat-

ing the frottage, they feel that they are

communicating directly with the dead

and experience at times surprising internal conversations. This particular piece has been

formed from two gravesites: W.A. Mozart and his rival composer and rumoured murderer,

Antonio Salieri. The resulting oracle is ‘lisTen:’. What do you think the message means and

who is it for? What can you tell me about BoRIS+NATAScHA’s connection to the dead and

to each other?

The first thing that came to me Lauren was that both Natascha and Boris are

mediums, but instead of performing readings they pass on messages through the

art they do. I feel that Natascha is very passionate about the work she does and

truly does connect with the dead. I am not sure why I am receiving this but I

felt a different feeling with Boris

though, that he does connect

but is not always as truthful as

Natascha and there is something

about him that cannot be trust-

ed. I felt that Natascha and Boris

are very close and that their re-

lationship is or has gone further

than just work.

BORIS+NATASCHA Making of 'Oracle: W.A. Mozart, St Marx Cemetery, Vienna, 2010, still from video, courtesy the artists & Yasha Young Gallery

BORIS+NATASCHA Making of 'Oracle': Antonio Salieri, Zentral Cemetery, Vienna2010, still from video, courtesy the artists & Yasha Young Gallery

19

Perhaps you might have some insight into the other artists that I am working with,

The Telepathy Project, Sean Peoples and Veronica Kent. They have been investigating

the possibilities of telepathic communication in their art for the last five years. Earlier

this year on a residency in Spain, they attempted 20 days of Dream Telepathy. Each eve-

ning they would choose something to place in an envelope and put it under the other’s

pillow in their separate beds. The next morning they would write down and recount

that night’s remembered dreams with each other, then open the envelope to see if the

image or object had impacted on their dream. Do you think that they will be able to

achieve telepathy and how?

The Telepathy Project, Sean Peoples and Veronica Kent, 20 days of Dream Telepathy, 2011, Dream #2, photograph, post-its, tape, Dimensions variable, courtesy the artists

The first thing that came to me was that yes they will be able to achieve telepa-

thy in the future. Their guides tell me that they have done a great deal of research

and studies but they are looking in the wrong places. They both just need to look

at simpler methods of doing things to find the answers. The number 3 stands out

strongly and so does the month of August. I feel that both of these are significant

to your question.

20

Ada van Hoorebeke works in

a very intuitive way where

each piece builds upon its

past, changing with each ex-

hibition depending on the site

that it’s installed in. The work

that she will be exhibiting has

already been shown in the

same building but this time

it will take a different form.

I wonder if the memory and the history of the piece is somehow imbued within it and

whether it matters if it was never seen before. What can you tell me about her spiritual

connection with objects and space?

The first thing that came to me was that Ada has a beautiful spirit. She has many

wonderful spiritual gifts and her energy is positive and vibrant. I felt that she works

so very hard and puts so much energy into everything she does. I felt that her spir-

itual connection to objects and space is very strong. Her guide also tells me that

she can see energy fields around people, objects and nature. She also astral travels

at night when she is asleep. I felt that out of all the artists you mentioned, she has

the strongest vibra-

tion and her gifts are

most developed.

Ada van HoorebekeUntitled, Spirits and Landscapes II, 2010Grimmuseum Berlin, installationDimensions variable Courtesy the artist

Ada van Hoorebeke, Spirits and Landscapes/ Traces, 2011, O Tannenbaum Berlin, Installation, dimensions variable, courtesy the artist

21

I strongly felt that the reason Nielsen was trying to communicate with the

Felix Experimental Group and Marion in particular is because he is one of her

spirit guides. Nielsen can see a great deal of potential around Marion and is trying

to guide her in the right direction on a daily basis. She does not even realise that

this is happening. The guidance that Nielsen passes onto Marion comes through

in her dreams, feelings, instincts, songs being repeated in her mind, thoughts and

ideas.

Felix Experimental Group, Apported Letter from Einer Nielsen ( front and reverse) , received 2010, Pen on paper, dimensions variable, courtesy Felix Experimental Group

My questions continue to relate to the exhibition that I am curating. The Felix Experi-

mental Group is a group of sitters, based near Frankfurt, Germany who experiment with

‘Séance Room Phenomena, Physical Mediumship and Spirit contact’. During one séance,

they received a letter from Einer Nielsen (1894–1965), a Danish medium. The letter had

written on it what translates to: ‘once again a gathering, It’s like a homecoming Marion,

Monday – Greetings Regards Einer Nielsen’. It seems strange to me that a group of medi-

ums are in contact with a dead medium who in turn was in contact with the dead. Why

do you think that Einer Nielsen is trying to communicate with the Felix Experimental

Group in particular?

22

Following the century-long discussion on (im-)ma-

teriality of an art object we have constructed this

exhibition around Jacob Lillemose argument that

dematerialization is not merely dismissal of material

body itself, but rather “a transformation of art from

being formally constituted as an object to be working

conceptually with materiality”. Yet the participating

artists go beyond just thematizing art objecthood in

its institutional, economic or social aspects–they also

make statements on the system of contemporary art

production as an integral part of late capitalist soci-

ety, subtly undermining the later.

In her Most Commercial Project that has been run-

ning since 2004, Alevtina Kakhidze makes small-

scale drawings of things that she sees in shop’s win-

dows and counters. She only draws objects that she

herself likes and would like to buy, thus subliming

her own consumer desires. But Kakhidze as well goes

further–attributing the prices for the things depicted

to the drawings themselves, she gives an unambigu-

ous comment on an artwork’s symbolic and economic

value. The project has been running for seven years

already but had its logical culmination when the artist

presented it in the context of art market. In May 2011

she exhibited 5 drawings priced from 3 to 3000 euros

at Vienna Art Fair. On introducing them with a talk

at the V.I.P.-preview days Kakhidze witnessed an al-

most physical fight between well-dressed respectable

collectors losing their faces so easily in order to buy

the cheapest drawing. In the end, she only sold two

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23

pieces –for 3.49 and 14 euros correspondingly– no one was ready to pay even 300

for a small drawing.

Melanie Bonajo who mostly works in the medium of photography undermines

the photograph-as-an-object approach in her exhibition practice by adhering to

take-away policy and promoting principles of gift economies. A conceptual climax

of this artistic strategy came into being at the 86 Details of Paradise exhibition

when Melanie presented to the audience 86 objects that she had owned for more

than ten years and been attached to, yet which hadn’t been of any practical use to

her. This collection constituted of such personal treasures as paper cups collected

from the artist’s first visit to NYC or plastic text from the hood of her first car

was exhibited at the gallery suggesting visitors to take away one thing they liked.

Deconstructing her personal life through explicit comments to the objects, the artist

also contextualized the notion of value in the existential as well as artistic sense.

In the Restoration project Amsterdam-based artist Ola Lanko investigates the

layers of an artwork introduced by its institutionalization and market appropria-

tion. Studying video records of auction bidding, the artist uses transcripts of the

auctionist’s speech to create textual compositions, thus commenting on the art-

work’s decontextualization and alienation from both its subject matter and artist.

The project is constituted of several parts. Lanko started with reinterpreting the

sold works: while keeping their formal characteristics (medium – oil on canvas and

measurements) she painted the bidding transcripts that fill the whole canvas surface

appropriating the subject of the work. The prints and books presented in the exhi-

bition space are project’s layer No 2. Working with transcripts, the artist extracted

from them simple words (grouped semantically and spatially) that demonstrate the

relations between buyers and artworks as well as dynamics of the auction process.

In his conceptual tribute to Seth Sieglaub, Berlin-based artist Gregor Rozanski

becomes a millionaire (conceptually) in the process of selling/purchasing his own

artwork. The project is made up of two legal agreements between artist, collector

and other collector, all played by the artist himself. In the first agreement of Origi-

nal Transfer of Work of Art Rozanski-artist sells the work (which is the agreement

24

itself) to Rozanski-collector for 1 us dollar. In the Transfer Agreement and Record

Rozanski-collector transfers the work to Rozanski-second-collector for 1 000

001 us dollars, who has to render 1 000 000 us dollars to Rozanski-artist on the

base of earlier accepted rule about 100% participation of artist in the amount of

Value Appreciation. In this process Rozanski almost simultaneously gets and looses

1 000 000 us dollars, just for a moment becoming a millionaire.

And finally, materiality manifests itself in the exhibition’s spatial delivery: exposi-

tion-wise, the focus is shifted from the artworks to the artists themselves with an

audio record of the interviews revealing artists’ personal economic strategies being

central to the show.

➜ Melanie Bonajo (Born 1978 in Heerlen, Netherlands. Lives and

works in Berlin and Amsterdam)

In your exhibition practice you try to avoid photograph-as-an-object approach

distributing your works in affordable publications or even take-away materials.

What are the grounds for this policy?

When I started to make exhibitions a couple of years ago I real-

ized that there was a big gap between people who acknowledge the work, support

it, love it and desire to have it and those who can actually afford it. It was then

that I decided to always accompany the exhibition with a publication or a poster,

which would be affordable for everyone who wants it as something you can put

on the wall, look at and enjoy; something that belongs to a certain time and will

eventually disappear. Also it is of course absurd that a medium like photography

works with limited editions because one of the qualities of the medium is the fact

that it is reproducible. The construction is based on a need for uniqueness on some

historical agreements, which is probably an ok desire to long for uniqueness, but

personally I don’t experience this desire, I prefer to live light. So it’s also very hard

for me to relate to this desire of others.

If not selling works, how do you ideally see making living with your artistic practice?

I am not per se against selling works, but I do think it is impor-

25

tant to question the system, in which we move ourselves as artists. I believe that

two centuries of capitalism, technological development and market capitalism have

produced the most extreme alienation from ourselves, from others and from our

environment. It has also increased the feeling of helplessness and frustration. Now

we are in the West being challenged by counter-cultures to return to a simple living

because we are confronted with the consequences of our behaviour. I am interested

in the ways to change the contemporary material-organized system of economics by

questioning it. I cannot solely agree with the value system surrounding art fetish-

ism because it implies an artificial system of value often based on status and greed.

I stand for development of an alternative system based on a more simple and honest

Melanie Bonajo

86 Details of Paradise, 2011

Courtesy the artist

26

intention/meaning/reference (what I mean is another source of origin in which you

relate yourself to the a system, opposing the one based on a personal gain and indi-

vidual benefits, by relating to your community or interest in preservation etc) like

the system of donation or exchange of goods, as in natural economic societies.

Do you consider artist’s work to be a particular kind of labour. How do you see a “fair”

mechanism of compensation for artistic work?

I am pro a massive experimentation with new economic arrange-

ments – to ultimately diverge from our material artistic dystopia and reconnect

people again with each other and their environment. What allows people to care

and love each other is also what makes them lovable. Why nothing ever gets old

again like it used to be? We are progressing ourselves to death. And that is maybe

a good thing, so all the other species will have a deep sigh of relief if we won’t have

already taken them and their habitats down with us in the abyss. Economy is not

neutral, it’s a moral code placed in the social structure and it’s a state of mind. For

generations we have been disciplined, pacified and made into subjects productive

by nature and content to consume, but now in this economic crisis with so many

natural disasters what we were compel to forget is revealed –that economy is po-

litical. As an artist I always work for myself and my motivation is totally my own

responsibility. Everything is connected –there are no real time schedules, I am my

own organization, I represent every part of it. The responsibility is in my hands.

As a rule, nobody is waiting for my goods, so doing an economic act in my situa-

tion is already so different from a standard transaction. My drive is beyond money,

also because money as main motivation would be an unrealistic goal. However,

I am a supporter of unrealism to a certain extent. Money comes from the strangers’

corners in the most unexpected moments. I am interested in the question when you

start asking money for something you do and when you reject to receive money.

In case of rejection it is always something bigger than just personal gain implied –

it is for the benefit of the other or the community or if something comes from an

impersonal pledge unable to be compensated or in any need of that. In my opinion,

you start to ask money for something you do not really want to do –the money

27

Alevtina Kakhidze, from The Most Commercial Project, 2004-now

Gel ink pen on paper, 15x11 cm, courtesy the artist

compensates for the restrain and after the deal you are free again –you belong to

yourself. It’s all about the intention– you sell your time and energy in order to get

high status, iphones and so on or you contribute to something you believe in or are

connected to and devote your time to it in a mutual act of support.

➜ Alevtina Kakhidze (Born 1973 in Zhdanovka, Donetsk region,

Ukraine. Lives and works in Muzychi, Kyiv region, Ukraine)

In your Most Commercial Project you ironically attribute price for the thing (subject)

depicted in the drawing to the drawing (artwork) itself. In your opinion, what would be a

fair way of price formation for an art work?

Would be a fair to sell a drawing of art work by Jeff Koons for

a price of the art work by Jeff Koons? Would be a fair to sell a drawing of a spoon

for a price of the spoon? The work of Jeff Koons can cost 1,024,000 us dollars, the

spoon you can hang on a glass can cost 3,48 euro. Those questions are connected

to the Most Commercial Project. You

may answer “yes” or “no”. Sure, “yes”

are to both questions. Or “no” are to

both questions. Those two questions

have the same variation. Why? In

our world something is wrong with

the ways of price formations for all:

for goods, for art works… The way

of price formation becomes art. That

is why The Most Commercial Project

exists –the drawn price in the project

looks more absurd then in reality.

28

Do you make money enough to support yourself/family with your artistic practice? If not,

how do you manage it?

During 2011 I have earned 1550 euro by writing texts about art

for a fashion magazine, giving lectures about art for mainstream audience, excur-

sions about art for children, fees for my performances and installations. So, doing

all mentioned I have 141 euro per month. At first I need to pay electricity (25 euro),

gas (23 euro), internet (10 euro)*, telephone (40 euro). Paying this as first I have

only 43 euro per month for the rest. I am lucky that I don’t have to pay rent for my

accommodation. I live in a house with my husband, which he, a businessman and

a developer, has built. The house is nice, it is around 250 m2, there is also a medium

size lawn around. I do clean the house and cut the grass on the lawn. I have never

thought: how much would it cost? Until I got neighbours who moved in an abso-

lutely similar house as we do live. I notice a cleaner coming there on Mondays, also

a man to care after the garden once in two weeks. I asked my neighbours: “How

much do you pay for this service a month?” They said: 142 euro. After I informed

my husband that half of this sum can be counted as my income. So, actually I

have 212 euro per month. Paying electricity, gas, internet, telephone as first I have

actually 115 euro per month for the rest… It is more than the subsistence mini-

mum in Ukraine. But if my husband cleaned the house and cut grass during this

year together with me I would not have this amount of money.

Do you feel that you wouldn’t be involved in artistic practice if you couldn’t afford it?

When I decided to be involved in artistic practice I actually

was 4 years old –I believe having a wish is pretty enough. Since then I seriously

wanted to stop artistic practice only once. And many times I have had this deci-

sion just flirting with myself.

How do you ideally see the system of compensation for artistic labour?

Once I got perfumes as compensation for my artistic labour.

I liked it. Many times I got fame and attention. I loved it. I got also money, food,

materials, memory sticks, lipstick “Lancôme”. I accepted all those things. Sure,

I am talking about my feelings and human needs and not about the ideal system

29

of compensation for artistic labour. It doesn’t exist because an artistic labour gives

a lot of fun, even meaning in life… Should I find an ideal system of compensation

for me having a fun, feeling a meaning in life? But I have needs as a human being…

a contradiction is here!

➜ Ola Lanko (Born 1985 in Chernigov, Ukraine. Lives and works in

Amsterdam)

In your project Restoration you define the artwork through the sum of money it was

bargained for, thus commenting on the way how is it inevitably treated by the market.

In your view, what is the ideal fate of the work as an object. Does its material body have

a chance to escape this transformation into a commodity?

I think that the situation you described is unavoidable for a

particular type of artworks. Looking at the top 10 of most expensive paintings

ever sold, we can notice that there is something that unites them. I am simply

talking about their formal qualities. All of them definitely have a decorative ad-

vantage. So I think for this sort of artworks a transformation into commodity

would be unavoidable. But of course in contemporary art practice evaluation of

an artwork has become a problematic issue. That’s why I think there is a way

to get beyond just commercial value and find a final realization of the work on

other levels. In my work I am looking at different layers of meaning, which ac-

cure in the artwork after it is made. I am interested in the relation between the

sacral area of art, which we are trying to preserve, and the non-romantic and

very artificial act of selling it. I don’t want to criticize it in such a way that I

think it is wrong, I would like to change the perspective of looking at art and

realize that there are more layers in it than we can comprehend. I am exploring

different ways of how we can look at and interpret things around us. For me, the

ideal fate of the work is when impression that work makes on the viewer stays

with him and he can never get rid of this feeling, can never be the same again. In

this case the question of material value is totally vanished, because there is no

way you can estimate it, neither hang it on your wall. So in my opinion, an object

30

of art should transform into a non-material kick that will shake the audience on

different levels of perception.

Does your artistic practice have an economic basis under it? In other words, do you expect

to make your living being an artist? If so, what are desirable ways of doing so– through fees

or grants or sales or anything else?

Oh yes! I hope my practice would have an economic basis un-

der it! I think that it is possible to make a living being an artist. There are lots of

opportunities, but you have to know the rules of the game. If you want to receive

financial support from the government or other sources, I think it is extremely

important to be able to address them in “their” language. You should be aware of

whom you are asking, what and how. It is possible to describe the same project in

many different ways, but the actual realization of the work will remain unchanged.

There are of course different ways to make money being an artist. I really would

like to teach. I think it can really work well together with artistic practice. I am not

sure about sales. Recently I’ve got some contradictory feelings about them.

Do you consider the artist’s work to be a particular kind of labour– how do you see

a “fair” mechanism of compensation for artistic work?

Nice question, it has some kind of Orson Welles’ tone. Well, of

course art has a clear social function. That’s why we can place the artist’s labour

in the same system as other types of labour. We shouldn’t underestimate the influ-

Ola Lanko

Lichtenstein "Ohhh... Alright..."

from Restoration project, 2011

Courtesy the artist

31

ence art has on cultural development in general and on the level of one particular

individual. It is simply impossible to see the consequences of removing art from

the social structure and treating it as something independent. So that is why I

guess there should be a clear system of compensation as for any kind work. It is

difficult to say how it should function, because thinking about it we are meeting

the problem of evaluation of art, which continues to be problematic. I think such

a system will be developed together with the general shift in social development

where the desire to enrich will be replaced by the idea of common extend. But up

till now that is an ideal situation, so the ways of compensation remain the artist’s

own responsibility.

➜ gregor Rozanski (Born 1988 in wroclaw, Poland. Lives and works

in Berlin)

Artistically using the tool of a legal agreement, you managed to become a millionaire in

the process of selling/purchasing an artwork –at least on paper. Is earning a real million

among your lifetime goals?

This contract was prepared to show flexibility and uncertainty

of values –the same contemporary art faced during infamous “art market bubble”,

pumped up irrational prices, high risk investments and expectations, art market

was like insane stock exchange. To earn a million is not my lifetime goal, vision of

being the richest dead conceptual artist in cemetery doesn’t make me happier. But

seriously, it wouldn’t be bad to achieve such amount of money or bigger. Money

isn’t bad in itself, pecunia non olet, only the use of money could be sometimes

senseless or trouble-making.

If an institution/collector wanted to purchase your Conceptual Million, how would you

negotiate the price for it?

Commercial galleries use sometimes very simplified formula to

estimate price of an artwork, for example: width x height x X (which “X” means

something like “general value level” of an artist, like from 1 to 10). Such evalua-

tions can be crazy and super-relative like: These are six A4 sheets so let’s sell this

32

work for 21cm x 29 cm x 6 x 23 (my age and favourite number) then its around

14.000 euros or lets say 2012 because someone said world will end in this year.

My prices depend on complexity of offer, not only money but

also perspectives, what will potential buyer do with my work –hide in archive or

support its circulation and future presentations.

Do you make money enough to support yourself with your artistic practice? If not, how

do you manage it?

Being wealthy and from Central Europe sounds like a contra-

diction for many Westerners, but I can take care of myself as an artist. In taking

opportunities I’m not picky, but also I’m not a slut.

I’m well supported by S.p.e.c.t.r.e. organization to finally destroy James Bond and

by vicious corporations to annihilate natural environment, and in meanwhile I do

some art stuff.

Do you consider artist’s work to be a particular kind of labour. How do you see a “fair”

mechanism of compensation for artistic work?

It is creative work (or at least should be), sometimes immaterial

and intellectual, loaded by stereotypes and funny overrated public image, and I

don’t find it generally particular or special. But to be honest, for me there’s noth-

ing better or more interesting to do in my life.

I like this specific nature of artistic labour to be on the moving border between

theory and practice, between concept and production, and nothing is strictly de-

fined –it gives a lot of freedom.

And I know many people have a problem how to regulate art economy, set firm

principles or structure. Fair mechanism works when both sides of this economi-

cal relation are “mutually satisfied and agreed” – any more complicated “dream

solution” can be too subjective and discriminating for one of the sides. There is no

ideal form of such mechanism as there is no ideal form of definition of art. I believe

in freedom of agreements, not in oppressive regulations or laws on artist’s wages.

The art must flow.

33

conceive construct consume

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t_ 37Lauren Altman

an adaptable structure for connectivity: a working discussion and exhibition

_ 42Wyatt Niehaus

place crisismartin kohout / manuel bürger

justin kemp / daniel michel

chris collins / anjali a-b

Manuel Bürger

TEnDEnCY TowArDS CoMPLExITY

(BoYS KnoTS) , DIgITAL PrInT, 2010

35

_ 47Kristin Trethewey

the digital gesturenathaniel stern / jeremy rotsztain

malcolm levy / santiago taccetti

_ 52Rachel Fox

traces of utopia

36

37

Monuments have been a means to reflect a singular, unified cultural and national

identity for centuries. Sculptures and monuments have been erected in public

squares in honor of victory and sovereignty while snuffing out tainted periods

of history. Symbolizing power in size and control by position, monuments are

established from a top-to-bottom mentality, that dictates movement through

public space. With the rapid spread of information technology, cities have

become outposts of hyper-connectivity through which multiple publics pass

both physically and virtually. Cities now have the capacity to be local and global

an adaptable structure for connectivity: a working discussion and exhibitionL auren A l t man

38

platforms for multicultural exchange through integrated hybrid space. The

reflection of a singular cultural identity has become irrelevant as online social

media forums provide new spaces for a plurality of dialogs across geographic and

cultural borders. The integration of these communication platforms into society

calls for a new model of representation that flattens the hierarchical monument

and provides a fluid structure that is shaped by multiple publics.

Public space need no longer be transformed to reflect the concerns voiced by a

homogenous group, but rather those of multiple entities. Multicultural national

identity requires a structure that facilitates a dialogue between peoples to under-

stand multiple and different value systems. Hannah Ardent, a significant theorist

of ‘publicness’ of her time, believed that ‘each of us only ultimately comes to know

‘who I am’ in the process of political discourse with peers-or, for that matter,

with adversaries-as each of us makes attempts to persuade them of the rightness

of the views we are expressing’.1 Culture is ideas, language, thought, food- all of

the senses. One’s physical location doesn’t necessarily reflect one’s culture. The

dynamic between people, space, and geography is in constant flux. The meaning of

culture and identity shapes the relations between people, between both ideological

and geographical entities. Now, similar people coexist within different spaces at

the same time that different people coexist within the same space. Theorist Claude

Lefort once said that public space is actually multiple spaces, oscillating between

both the political and the non-political.

He states: “…A space which is so constituted that everyone is encouraged to speak

and to listen without being subject to the authority of another, that everyone is

urged to will the power he has been given. This space, which is always indetermi-

nate, has the virtue of belonging to no one, of being large enough only to accom-

modate those who recognize one another within it and who give it a meaning, and

allowing the questioning of right to spread.”2

Lefort’s assertion is relevant now more than ever, as physical and virtual space cur-

rently runs parallel to one another. The role of the body as generator and receiver

of digital information has changed the way we live and interact. The phenome-

39

nological engagement with real space is changing quickly to adapt to the virtual

world. There is a need for a structure that can transform public space to reflect the

social make-up of a particular city, and to promote intercultural exchange to help

people collectively adapt to the changing urban environment. The structure needs

to reflect the needs of different cultural groups during this continual process of

adaptation, as well as utilize public space to promote exchange between coexisting

cultural entities. It would transform public space into a common ground between

peoples in a ‘new hybrid space’. This structure, that defines and provides a ‘new

hybrid space’, changes depending on its context.

A multicity public structure, called An Adaptable Structure for Connectivity,

develops the concept of a mobile, transformative structure that can adapt to the

ever-changing structure of cities. Traveling from one city to another, the structure

visualizes the themes of adaptability and connectivity on two scales: through both

individual and collective interaction. The structure visually transforms with the

40

changing dynamic of connectivity between people and cultures both physically

and virtually, as it adapts to different spatial contexts. While cultural entities shape

the city they inhabit, they also have to adapt to the changing context of the city.

What do these different layers of cultural entities look like? How are they con-

nected to one another? What does the dynamic between people and public space

reveal about the physical and social framework of the city? How can urban space

be more utilized and integrated into these layers of hyper-connectivity? There are

two goals for this adaptable structure for connectivity: To transform public space

to reflect the social make-up of a particular city, and to promote intercultural ex-

change to help people collectively adapt to the changing urban environment.

During a working discussion, a curator, an architect collective, and an urban map-

ping specialist analyzed different approaches to this concept starting from a series

of four key words: adapt, interact, connect, and exchange.3 Through rigorous ex-

amination of these working components, the group searched to define what inte-

grated hybrid space was, and how a structure of this capacity could take form. The

group found that this structure, which sought to break barriers of communica-

tion networks while defining social connections, could manifest in very different

physical and abstract formations as it moved from city to city. By formulating a

bottom-up rather than top-down formation in public, decentralized space, while

blurring physical and virtual connectedness, people could potentially shape the

space they are in by the way they communicate with one another, rather than

through a singular, overarching, defining identity. To examine how the present can

be visually defined, local, foreign, national, cultural, and regional groups must be

taken into account. The way people communicate, and to whom, reflects multiple

and conflicting value systems built by multiple constructed cultural identities in-

habiting one space.

Communal activity and participation can provide a means to disintegrate and

disassemble both tangible and intangible constructed barriers between coexist-

ing groups by facilitating hybrid exchange. A maze is a puzzle-like structure

that consists of a series of complex, branching passageways that requires a solver

41

find a route through to exit. A maze provides a space for multiple and different

choreographed activities. It creates a space for individual and collective experiences

facilitated by participation. The group developed the concept of an abstract struc-

tural maze that can be placed within any urban plan. Within this juxtaposition of

walls, barriers, and entryways, individuals can connect to others within the maze

within a constructed network that integrates physical and virtual communica-

tion. Themes of displacement, alienation, and disorientation are all shared feelings

between coexisting cultural entities within a city. Having to overcome obstacles is

the very foundation of how a city is formed. While the maze creates these feelings

for an individual, it also provides a communal, unifying experience by facilitating

communication to break barriers as a means to achieve a communal goal – find-

ing the exit. Analyzing how cultural entities communicate within a shared space

informs how a city is shaped. Placing an abstract maze within different cities,

and observing how users communicate and alter the maze to find a way out from

place to place, visualizes multiple identities through different approaches to hybrid

interconnectedness.

From this working discussion, an exhibition documented the collaborative process

of exploring the possibilities for an integrated hybrid space as a means to facilitate

exchange and de-hierarchize existing models of singular national and cultural iden-

tity. A visual recording of the discussion documented the ideation process of de-

fining how to integrate hybrid connectivity into public space, that which resulted

in realized renderings of the imagined new model of An Adaptable Structure for

Connectivity, by Hither Yon, in response to the initial proposal.

1. George Baird, Public Space: Cultural/Political Theory; Street Photography (Amsterdam: sun Architecture

Publishers and George Baird, 2011), 29.

2. Baird, Public Space: Cultural/Political Theory; Street Photography, 42.

3. Exchange refers to hybrid exchange, both physical and virtual.

42

Place Crisis focuses on the material shift in space and

objecthood in the advent of new media– taking into

account virtual exhibition models, hybrid-objects,

dual sites, and other emerging concepts regarding the

visual display of new media objects. This exhibition

addresses the crisis of redefinition regarding

materiality and immateriality. To define materiality

post-internet is to define objects and spaces which,

simply put, have the capability to affect and interact

with other objects and spaces. This denotation is

necessarily broad in order to deliver accurately all

that we must consider “real”, in contemporary image-

making. To parse these terms in the 21st century is to

redefine virtuality and physicality as being two pieces

of the same experience. Assigning this criteria to the

production of contemporary art allows us to radically

redefine the ways in which we group and disseminate

art and media, and under which standards pieces are

gathered and contextualized. In this circumstance,

a shift has occurred, and data (in the form of actions,

objects, situations, and spaces) flows in between

physicality and virtuality with little to no distinction.

Our goal is a kind of trend analysis and forecasting–

taking into account the brief history of this exchange

and exploring old options, new options and current

manifestations of net-spaces, physical spaces, and

textual spaces.

place crisisWyatt Niehaus

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Manuel Bürger, Tendency Towards Complexity (Gilrs Water, Boys Knots, Face Metal, Bricks), Digital print , 2010

44

Daniel Michel, Google Vase, Ceramic powder and printer ink, stabilized with cyanoacrylate, 2011

45

Justin Kemp, Adding to the Internet: Hot Dog Under a Pillow, 2011

Justin Kemp, Adding to the Internet: Coexist bumper sticker wrapped

in a Livestrong bracelet, 2011

46

Martin Kohout, Robert with Handrail, Photograph, 2011

Anjali A-B, Pony Response, Looping video w/ sound, 2011

Chris Collins, Pony, Looping video w/ sound, 2009

47

“Our time is a time for crossing barriers, for era-

sing old categories – for probing around. when

two seemingly disparate elements are imaginati-

vely poised, put in apposition in new and unique

ways, startling discoveries often result.”

McLuhan

Gesture, a physical expression of human emotion, signals a personal perspective and

intention through action. The term “artistic gesture” usually refers to a painter and

the production of pictorial art. It describes the combined effort between the internal

and external human faculties. There is a flow between the physical process and the

internal conscious and/or subconscious. This gears the actions and defines the art

object’s meaning. The Digital Gesture explores the comparison between this tradi-

tional artistic notion via digital born processes and its artistic presentation. At a time

when the cultural influence of digital production and the internet are ubiquitous,

the works in The Digital Gesture reference earlier periods of art history, aligning

digital imagery and tools within the broader and somewhat distant world of art and

the digital gestureKristin Trethewey

Nathaniel Stern, Tattered Gorse, Archival print on watercolor paper, 2007

Chris Collins, Pony, Looping video w/ sound, 2009

48

its history. Negotiating the connections between past and present, these works make

digital gestures towards a more complete and current notion of art.

As the first quote by McLuhan suggests, startling discoveries can be made when

the canons of art history are juxtaposed with digital art practice. The discoveries

provide insight into the past revealing that we are still debating similar ideas of

gender and identity. They also find aesthetic relationships within the tools of today

and yesterday and realize that perhaps the history of painting can speak to code.

Jeremy Rotsztain uses Google search results for violent films linking the cultural

representation of masculine violence to the destructive art legend, Jackson Pollock.

Parsing out images of explosions and gunfire he reveals strikingly similar bursts

of colorful expression to the famous abstract painter. The connection draws some

common links between the popularity and economic success of masculine expres-

sion in both art history as well as popular culture.

In Malcolm Levy, Nathaniel Stern and Santiago Taccetti’s work misusing digital

tools becomes the focus for artistic inquiry. Building unique processes with digital

scanner beds and video cameras the emergence of new aesthetics occurs while the

machine attempts to perform under duress.

Jeremy Rotsztain, Pitter Patter Splatter, Action Painting, 2008-2010

49

Malcolm Levy, Istanbul Series, Three channel video

50

Santiago Taccet ti, Presets (photoshop CS5) series II, 100cm x 75 cm, C-Print, 2011

51

Nathaniel SternComa in Composition, Archival print on Watercolor paper, 2007

Bella And Bloom, Lambda print, 2007 Tag And Capture, Lambda print, 2007

52

1

The Greenhouse is a temporary territorial space

erected by Rachel Fox within the private space of

the Grimmuseum and with their permission.

2

Upon entering the Greenhouse, and until they leave,

visitors agree that the normal rules of behavior

expected of a visitor in a space for exhibiting art no

longer apply. Visitors are free to interpret the phrase

‘normal rules of behavior expected for a visitor in a

space for exhibiting art’ as they see fit, but examples

might include: being quiet, not touching the art,

not sitting on the floor.

Not one square inch of earth goes un-policed

or untaxed… In theory.

Hakim Bey

traces of utopiaRachel Fox

53

3

Any information found by visitors in the Greenhouse

is freely accessible, both in terms of money and

liberty i.e. there is no charge for using it and you

can do whatever you like with it, including sharing it

with others.

not one square inch of earth goes un-policed

or untaxed… In theory.

h a k i m b e y

t r a c e s o f u t o p i ar a c h e l f o x

54

4

Normal hierarchical systems, for example that

of an employer and employee, cannot be continued

upon entering the Greenhouse. Social hierarchy is

not permitted in the Greenhouse territory.

5

All of the above is invalid once you have left the

Greenhouse.

55

conceive construct consume

ap

pro

ach

es to

cu

rato

rial p

rac

tice

s

56

in

de

x

th

re

e_

co

ns

um

e_ 59Olga Sureda Guasch

{register}{co-creation}{reception}santiago taccetti

assaf gruber

_ 62white Opinions

57

_ 60

Assaf gruber

gETTIng EVEn, 2008

courtE sy tHE artist

Smoke & Mirrors Re-blogged

58

Santiago Taccet ti, Smoke & Mirrors Re-blogged ,4 c-prints 50cm x 70cm, 2011Courtesy the artist

59

Artists have started to interfere in the perception process itself by anticipating the

audience’s movement, and slowly this practice is gaining ground and artists have to

decide to what level they want to keep control over their work or in what way they

wish to present it. Even though the audience is left as free as possible to engage in

this interpretive process, the artwork is still the creation of the artist. It is a consid-

ered space of engagement into which the artist invites the audience, not an entirely

free domain of action and interpretation in which participants have an influence on

the works final form and meaning.

Artist condense production and reception into the same space constructing flex-

ible mechanisms of participation and creating different interpretations and options

according to the dialogue between the art work and the public.

The work of art is entwined with its documentation and registration, which are a way

of making the work of art visible and remain in the time and our memories. Can in-

clude photos, video, audio, transcribed conversations, interpretations, provocations,

and theories. Documents are not simply recordings of what happened but iconic art-

works in themselves, and their interpretation depends not only on the own image but

where and how are exhibit.

The registration tackled specific questions around originality, authorship, the bound-

ary of the artwork, and the role of art itself.

We have now entered a phase in which artists’ distance themselves further from the

object in order to develop zones of interpretation. The audience is invited to view

the development of an art project or participate in it outside of obvious art contexts;

in their homes, workspaces, or in public space.

The models by Assaf Gruber shown in this exhibition comment on the idea of

a keepsake, what happened and what was exhibited but does not exist anymore,

{register} {co-creation} {reception} Olga Sureda Guasch

60

a memory and a trace of the old work, asking about the nature of the piece itself.

His works can be understood as a sort of “performative sculpture”.

From the documentation that the artist took from the pieces Gettin even, We don’t

want White opinions and Avgossepère, he proposes a new way of being, a new condi-

tion of site-specificity that, beyond the immanent and the autonomous – the object,

the intention of the artist – is expanded to a wide range of questions including its in-

teractive dimension, making space for a new role of the spectator’s figure.The collages

and the video by Santiago Taccetti shown in this exhibition are a wink to the digital

and on-line culture. From the documentation of Smoke & Mirrors, the artist proposes

a new review throughout the unlimited universe of the Internet, paying attention to

the choices and decisions of the public that is invited to decide to use and reinterpret

these images or to leave them as they are. The reaction experienced by the spectator in

relation to the work is essentially relative and open to new interpretations.

Through the actual experience of running a gallery, I

learned that if a work of art wasn’t written about and

reproduced in a magazine it would have difficulty re-

taining the status of ‘art’. It seemed that in order to

be defined as having value, that is as ‘art’, a work had

only to be exhibited in a gallery and then to be written

about and reproduced as a photograph in an art maga-

zine. Then this record of the no longer extant installa-

tion, along with more accretions of information after

the fact, became the basis for its fame, and to a large

extent its economic value.

Dan Graham: “My Works for Magazine Pages. A

History of Conceptual Art.” In: Dan Graham: Exhi-

bition Catalogue, Art Gallery of Western Australia,

Perth, 1985. [Reprinted in: Kunst en Museumjour-

naal, 1993.]

The installation Smoke & Mirrors was exhibited dur-

ing the month of March 2009, in the vitrine space at

the Centro Cultural San Martin in the city of Buenos

Aires. The piece worked with the participation of

the passer-by walking in the public space. From the

street, the viewer could get a glimpse of something

occurring on the inside of the gallery space, but if

they did not have enough interest to actually enter

the building they would just catch a partial image or

only the blurred sensation that the painted windows

filtered through. The action of either entering the

space or finally remaining outside was the essential

unpredictable part of the piece that was left entirely

to the public’s decision. The installation inside was

a hoax, a kind of bait intended to catch the public’s

eye, what in the end made some people come inside

and some stay out was the real focus of the work. If

cultural systems are open to everyone, why do they

make some people feel free to participate while man-

aging to alienate others?

The work was documented via common formats

of documentation; videos and photographs of the

piece were taken with the intent of communicating

the sensation of having actually been there. These

images, like the piece itself, exist in the public do-

Smoke & Mirrors Re-blogged

Santiago Taccetti

61

main, therefore maintaining the essential dynamic of

choice proposed by the original installation.

This new piece, Smoke & Mirrors Re-blogged, is

based on the idea of retracing the path of the images

used for documenting the piece – Smoke & Mirrors

through the vast universe of the Internet, drawing

attention to how the individual people who post and

use these images do this on behalf on their own in-

terpretation.

Presented are four collages made from screen

grabs of different blogs where the information refer-

ring to the image shown is distorted and sometimes

completely reinterpreted.

Santiago Taccetti

Everyday objects and commonplace materials

combine with human interactivity to create

unexpected poetic juxtapositions that revolve around

the ideas of art creation. Aspects of daily life such as

production and communication processes, both in

the real world and virtual worlds, are transformed to

become the working foundation for pieces that make

a precise comment on contemporary culture.

The presence of the relational and performing factors,

evident in the interaction with the public, the detritus

of these events and the actual piece that undergoes

a certain mutation during its lifespan, are all parts

that function as a whole, they complete a sequence

between the artist, the public and the art.

The work thrives on the tension between the

planned and random factors, errors and accidents

omnipresent in our everyday life, essential ideas

in our current social structures while establishing

a subtle but sharp statement on the contemporary

concept of authorship.

Santiago Taccetti lives and works in Berlin. He

has exhibited work in contemporary art centers and

galleries such as Centre d’art Santa Monica, cccb

Centre de Cultura Contemporanea Barcelona, Kultur

Buro Barcelona, Istituto Italo Latinomericano in

Rome, La Panaderia in Mexico City, Centro Cultural

San Martin and Centro Cultural Recoleta in Buenos

Aires as well as .hbc and leap in Berlin. He has

recently participated in the Fabra i Coats Residency

2010, the 2010 Proyectos Ultravioleta Residency

in Guatemala, the cia Centro de Investigaciones

Artisticas Residency 2010 in Buenos Aires and the

2011 Watermill Center Summer Residency in New

York. In 2009, Santiago Taccetti founded Twain, a

collective project that is open to collaborations with

various artists from around the world. The Twain

project received the Generaciones 2011 Art Prize by

Caja Madrid.

Santiago Taccet ti, Smoke & Mirrors Re-bloggedSingle channel video, color, stereo.Duration 5 :59 :00, 2011Courtesy the artist

62

In Spring 2011, I was invited by Adam Budak to take

part in the exhibition Passion of an Ornithologist

–about Myth Making in the Sokól Gallery of Nowy

Sacz. In this unique “Orchestra” led by Adam, four-

teen artists exhibited new and pre-made artworks

revolving around two main topics: the first was the

historical and social context of the Galicia region,

now torn between the states of Poland and Ukraine.

The unique and intimate literary universe of the

Polish writer and artist Bruno Schulz, by whom draw-

ings were exhibited, was the second.

The three principal works that I showed were:

• The Avgossepère video from 2009, in which my fa-

ther plays the main character: a person who decides

to take action and change his landscapes by marking

his territory and building personal monuments. He

is totally dedicated to these activities, he is his own

would-be Savior, driven by preposterous motives.

• The site-specific installation entitled Getting Even,

composed of several dozen cut and whole bowling

balls scattered throughout a space, already present-

ed in various venues. The work and its title invoke

the equivocal absurdity inherent in Getting Even –an

idiom that designates an act of revenge while imply-

ing arithmetic evenness.

• The third was We Don’t Want White Opinions, an

outdoor sculpture made specially for the exhibition:

a wide rectangular wooden form (400 cm x 1200 cm)

painted with shiny white acrylic paint. Two anecdotal

objects were placed in the right corner: the cd cover

of Zeev Tene greatest hits (a relatively unknown Is-

raeli singer) with an image of his face covered in mud

from the Dead Sea, and a dvd cover of the film Pierrot

le Fou by Jean Luc Godard (1965) with the iconic print

of Jean Paul Belmondo faces covered in blue paint.

The two identical images appear to be small blue

points of dirt upon the vast slick pedestal. The three

obstinate elements are subverted to suggest a dis-

cussion about cultural prejudices and identity, as the

installation was intentionally set right in front of the

main entrance of the museum as an unwanted obsta-

cle “welcoming” passersby coming for the show.

In our correspondence for the exhibition, Adam

suggested that I try to challenge my practice with an

interactive “happening” with the public: “Your work,

your form of speech is as sculptural as it is performa-

tive – why won’t don’t you try to engage people to put

on a project of a participatory nature?” He wrote me.

I acceded to his intriguing proposition and continued

to follow the “absurd road” in between Schulz’s im-

aginary world and the charged history of the Galicia

region.

For the opening day I composed an arbitrary

arrangement of Getting Even seemed like a labyrinth of

ammunition left after the battle upon the vast

totemic rectangle of We Don’t Want White Opinions.

That evening we invited my father to reprise his

role from Avgossepère : he wandered, naive but

determined, around the maze of balls seeking help.

In his broken Polish (a language he used to speak

during his childhood with my grandparents) he then

kindly asked the children in the audience to assist

him in “disarming” and disposing Getting Even out

of the “white opinions”. He explained that inside the

white Opinions

Assaf Gruber

63

museum they would find his son, who was awaiting the

delivery of balls in order to reinstall the piece inside.

This event released a burst of energy: I could barely

handle the whole museum space alone. The children

and the other artists joined me and we transformed

the show almost without speaking. This time, next to

the other artworks, the balls looked like colorful fruit

waiting to be touched, or broken eggshells after the

chicks had already hatched.

While father pored over his large ornithological

textbooks and studied their colored plates, these

feathery phantasms seemed to rise from the pages

and fill the rooms with colors, with splashes of crim-

son, strips of sapphire, verdigris, and silver. (From

the short story Birds by Bruno Schulz, Street of Croc-

odiles p. 21)

For the exhibition Wunderblock: Traces of proc-

ess, document and memory we selected to show the

first model I made in my studio for We don’t want

White opinions, a segment of one cut ball from the

final installation of Getting even and a video docu-

mentation of the ‘happening’ during the opening day.

Assaf Gruber

Exploring materiality through the tension be-

tween the mythic and the epic, the subjective and the

universal, Assaf Gruber’s spatial configurations de-

construct a diversity of formal vocabularies. Through

his sculptures, installations, photography and video,

he has developed an individual approach to aesthet-

ics and production values of intercultural commu-

nication. His works are an analysis of the conflicts

of modern civilization, an attempt to understand the

sense of the absurd, which is located in the flesh and

intensity of human activities.

Assaf Gruber was born in 1980 in Jerusalem. He

lives and works in Berlin, a graduate of the École

Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris. Assaf

won the 2008 ‘Les amis des Beaux–Arts’ Prize in Paris

and is a Laureate of the hisk (Higher Institute of Fine

Arts of Ghent) . His work is included in number collec-

tions in Europe and has been shown in numerous venues

in Buenos Aires, New York, Paris, Dublin, Lyon, Berlin,

Vienna, Istanbul, Tel-Aviv, Amsterdam, Verona, Dres-

den, Ghent and Sarajevo among other cities. During

2011 Gruber participated in the aims Residency in

Saint-Ouen, a social project that aimed to connect

children with the contemporary art culture. He is cur-

rently resident at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin.

pag. 62Assaf Gruber, We don’t want white opinions, Wooden form, CD and DVD Covers, 400 cm x 1200 cm, 2008 Courtesy the artist

pag. 63Assaf Gruber, Getting EvenCut and whole bowling balls, 2008Courtesy the artist

64

This publication is ini t iat ive of Node Center for Curatorial Studies, Berlin.

w w w.nodecenter.org

Graphic design + cover image: w w w.andreanicolo.com

Print : PinguinDruck: ht tp : / /pinguindruck.de /

Printed in Berlin, January 2013

© 2013 The authors for the tex ts and images

Thanks to :

All the ar t is t who contributed to this publication

Alan Cunnigham

Sven Kruger - V isual recording

Urszula Lewicka

Grimmuseum : w w w.grimmuseum.com

Künstlerhaus Bethanien : w w w.bethanien.de