curiosity to survive

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2012-01-18T10:50:00.000-08:00

the long nineties by lars bang larsen @ frieze

2012-01-12T09:43:00.000-08:00

The Long Nineties

Revisiting art’s social turn and the 1990s – the decade that has yet to end

Mocked and ridiculed, the 1980s met a pitiful end at the hands of a generation of artists who considered a market-friendly, object-based art their ideological nemesis, and punished it summarily for its false richness.

This is an exaggeration, of course, but ask around in my (Northern European) corner of the world, and I would guess that many of those who were working back then will confirm this picture of a generational showdown. By contrast, faded and forgotten as they may be, ‘the long nineties’ remain unsubverted.1 The symbolic revival of Félix Gonzáles-Torres at the 2011 Istanbul Biennial, for instance, echoed his status as a guiding star of curating and art theory of that decade.

However, during the last five years, as the historicization of the ’90s gains momentum, the jury has gradually reconvened. The case being weighed is that of art’s relationship to the social. In 2007, Ina Blom published On the Style Site: Art, Sociality and Media Culture, examining the practices of many of the prominent artists of the ’90s and after; a 2010 symposium at Tate Britain was entitled ‘Art and the Social: Exhibitions of Contemporary Art in the 1990s’; and Claire Bishop’s Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship will be published by Verso in 2012. The art-historical claim of the latter is that the ‘social turn’ should be ‘positioned more accurately as a return to the social, part of an ongoing history of attempts to rethink art collectively’.2 I will proceed more sceptically – or counter-socially – by revisiting the ’90s through the social as a problematic not only for art, but also in relation to the ‘governmentality’ of our time – Michel Foucault’s term for the economics and relations of power that shape a society as a field of possible action.

Unlike the slippery ’90s, which haven’t yet found their closure, there is some certainty to be found in the ’80s. The art of that decade took distinct forms – such as appropriation or neo-expressionism – whereas ’90s positions were summed up in a single term: ‘contemporary art’. Not a new term, exactly, but indicative of a new state of connectivity and synchronicity, in which contemporary art experienced a major upgrade (or was it a paradigm shift?). Art’s markets and modes of circulation changed, as did professional and political attitudes towards it. Art became animated by biennials, magazines and art fairs; by artists who strayed from the studio and integrated their mobility into their work; and by curators who shed the historical baggage of the museum’s archive. The general activity that surrounded art – its media, infrastructure and social activity – became as prominent and energetic as art itself.

Around the same time, art’s social turn occurred. This gave visual art a new lease of life at a point when it had otherwise been declared dead (along with the avant-garde, the novel, the human being, the author, etc.). The idea of the social contradicted the demonization of reality and presence of much of the work of the ’80s. No longer something remote, academic and monumental, art became a situation or a process. A work was now a club, a bar, a meal, a cinema, a hang-out, a dance floor, a game of football or a piece of furniture: think of Rirkrit Tiravanija’s soup kitchens, Angela Bulloch’s bean-bags or Apolonija Šušteršicˇ’s public structures. The sole author and the contemplative beholder were atomized in works that called for togetherness, and were often created by collectives or self-organized entities. The art institution started to reflect on itself as a critical space, and exhibition formats opened up in turn. Art took place anywhere – in front of a video camera, on an answering machine, in the urban space. Everyday life became meaningful again, even a refuge from late capitalism.

This is how artists escaped the melancholy slipstream of Modernist painting and sculpture, and no doubt a reason why the young art scene at the time greeted the reintroduction of art’s social dimension enthusiastically. Importantly, however, the affirmation of the social indicates an ambiguity with which social space, and history itself, had become imbued. On the one hand, the artist was no longer Postmodernism’s agent, hovering above the delta of history, selecting and copying styles from all times. The artist was now down in it. On the other hand, history had ended – a claim put forward by conservative thinkers vis-à-vis the end of the Cold War, but which was also argued from a different perspective by critical minds such as Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt, who saw no outside to the present order.

The ‘no outside’ predicament was an attempt at reality-checking the effects of ideological conflict cancelled by Tony Blair’s and Gerhard Schröder’s ‘Third Way’ paradigm. Left and right merged, state and economy were integrated in increasingly informal ways, and politics lost its fixed points. Foucault described neo-liberalism as sociological government: in this model, the realms of the social and cultural – rather than the economy – are mobilized for competition and commerce.³ During the 1990s, a new economy began brimming with imperatives to socialize through email, mobile phones and, later, social media, and as social and economic processes were pulled closer together, both art and power became ‘sociological’. The reification of the social form became almost indistinguishable from social content. In other words, the social can also be a simulacrum: an instrumentalization of models and tastes that are already received and working in the culture at large.

Management theory expanded into art, as Richard Florida’s notion of the ‘creative class’ (2002) and James H. Gilmore and B. Joseph Pine’s The Experience Economy (1999) submitted aesthetic concepts to socialization. In some cases – such as the UK’s New Labour government, who came to power in 1997 – cultural policies organized art around the economic centre of society in much the same terms. It wasn’t just a case of management theory colonizing aesthetic concepts, though: the art system was itself involved in rationalizing the idea of the artist as manager.

These factors contributed to art being pulled up from the underground, down from the ivory tower and in from the margins, making it part of governed reality in new ways. From the point of view of a ‘creative’ economy, aesthetic concept and artistic behaviour became models for productivity. This doesn’t turn the art that artists created into a passive symptom; but it was a development that placed high stakes on the cultural analysis inherent in the art work, if the work were to avoid melding with the manifest social needs and ends of the state, society or any other milieu.

In September 2011, the exhibition ‘Spectersof the Nineties’ opened at Marres Centre for Contemporary Culture in Maastricht. Curated by Lisette Smits, in collaboration with Matthieu Laurette, the project proposed a reading of critical artistic practices of the ’90s, but via a materialist analysis that took the technological revolution as the cause of the change not only of society but of artistic practice itself. The organizers presented these as cases to contest both the forgetting of artistic practices of the decade and the way some of these have been dismissed as ‘affirmative of the system’ and of neo-liberalism.4 Even if one shares this materialist analysis, it looks like Smits and Laurette don’t agree with my position that the ’90s are unsubverted. But I could counter that significant artistic positions of the decade have rarely been associated directly with power the way that the works of Jeff Koons, for instance, were read as unambiguous symptoms of Reaganism.

However, I do agree that a historical look at the ’90s is relevant in light of artistic practices that dealt (or deal) with social space through meta-strategies of semiotic playfulness or forms of structural critique, such as those of Renée Green, Jens Haaning, Pierre Huyghe and Aleksandra Mir. In 1996, Haaning relocated the entire production line of a Turkish-owned textile factory in Vlissingen in the Netherlands – including immigrant workers, goods and machinery – into De Vleeshall, a Kunsthalle in neighbouring Middelburg. Self-referentially titled Middelburg Summer 1996, the work showed art and the social to be ever-changing placeholders for each other that would never coincide: it was part of the social world where it was created, and at the same time its aesthetic content set it apart from what already existed.

One could also speculate that, without Postmodernism’s keen sense of historical repetition, the ’90s was also the long decade that forgot it was part of the 20th century. Let me quote works by some of the big names: Olafur Eliasson’s Green River (1998–2001) was, apart from its locations, identical to Nicolás García Uriburu’s Coloration du Grand Canal (Dyeing the Grand Canal, 1968) in Venice; Maurizio Cattelan’s sub-letting of his allotted space at the 1993 Venice Biennale to an advertising agency in principle repeated Poul Gernes’s 1970 collaboration with Citroën and Bang & Olufsen for the Louisiana Museum’s ‘Tabernakel’ exhibition; and Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno’s Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait (2006) echoes the film Fussball wie noch nie (Football as Never Before, 1970) by Hellmuth Costard, which followed George Best through an entire football match. When comparing these works, should one look for copies or coincidences? Were these artists in their own way creating a reception of postwar art that art historians had failed to write? Or did a global culture industry make it possible to reproduce the 1960s neo-avant-garde because art was now legitimated through powerful spheres of circulation (institutional, commercial and mediatic) that didn’t exist then?

One can only begin to answer these questions by acknowledging that the social signifies something fundamentally different at different historical times. The category of the social evades an understanding of historical continuity because it privileges space over time, presence over form. It is fundamentally contemporary, a concept without speed and virtuality – and this is how it may fail as a chronopolitics. At the same time, apparatuses inherent to the social sphere also synchronize by creating bubbles in time: the marketplace creates simultaneity in consumption, and because the spectacle wants art big and easy, it disregards the archive and its tedious historical perspectives. When synchronizing functions such as these pull things closer together around the existing moment, contemporary art may end up performing an eternal return to the present as a temporal effect of sociological government.

In Relational Aesthetics (1998), Nicolas Bourriaud fixed the monstrosity and megalomania of the historical avant-gardes by proposing the more flexible artistic ‘micro-Utopia’.5 This was a Utopianism that didn’t resonate with Modernism’s five-year plans and personal sacrifices, but was closer to the manageable time-spaces of Foucauldian micropolitics and Hakim Bey’s idea of temporary autonomous zones. Some 20 years earlier, Roland Barthes questioned the fantasy of privileged political orders, whether micro or macro in his Sade / Fourier / Loyala (1980): ‘Can a Utopia be otherwise than domestic?’ he asked, suggesting a measure of un-freedom in the very concept.

The social sculpture of the ’90s was never really a discussion about freedom. Emancipatory thinking figured as modestly on the agenda as it had in the post-Structuralist theory that informed so much ’80s art. In the preface to his 1983 anthology The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture, Hal Foster proposed a ‘Postmodernism of resistance’ informed by the ‘desire to change the object and its social context’, against neo-conservative attempts at severing the cultural from the social. Ironically, however, while it re-established the political on the agenda, Foster’s notion of an ‘oppositional Postmodernism’ can be seen to have helped pave the way for what also became a retro-Modernism (including the return of Utopia). His position prefigured a tendency to conflate the aesthetic with political conservatism, thereby turning aesthetic concepts into epiphenomena. This was the case for big categories of aesthetic collateral such as spirituality and metaphysics, but also staples of form, autonomy and pleasure (for instance, what Barthes had called le plaisir du texte, or ‘the pleasure of the text’), were ditched in the social turn.

At the same time (and somewhat counter-intuitively) former keywords of artistic and social critique – conformism, alienation, negation – were likewise ejected from the vocabulary. It is difficult to escape the feeling that the highs and lows of aesthetic experience were truncated, and art lost some of what Theodor Adorno called its infinite difficulty.6 Polemically speaking, where this was the case the social turn was neither a social critique that addressed misery, exploitation and inequality, nor was it an artistic critique of risks deriving from the dominance of utilitarian thinking.7 This lack was not necessarily indicative of the art as such – after all, a video of the artist dancing can be seductive; a living unit can be a negation – but of a critical vocabulary that revolved around concreteness, a can-do attitude and art on a human scale. Aesthetic experience is compromised when aesthetic problems, and the aesthetic as a problematic, are resolved in social space.

Today, the managerial rhetoric of creativity is fading quickly with yesteryear’s economic optimism. Still, the social is hardly a cold case. The 2012 Berlin Biennial will be curated by the artist Artur Zmijewski, author of the manifesto ‘The Applied Social Arts’ (2007). Here he encourages artists to strive for ‘social impact’, arguing that ‘since the 1990s, art has been growing increasingly institutionalized [and] anodyne’. However, it remains an open question whether one can cure art with the ‘radical forms of expression’ Zmijewski recommends, seeing that the social was a constitutive theme in the decade that, in his own analysis, turned the screw of institutionalization.

As the social persists as a theme in artistic practice and art history, as well as in the ‘social practice’ programmes of art schools, it seems urgent to articulate the limit of art’s integration into society. Perhaps it is time to re-conceptualize the aesthetic as a mode of thinking in order to articulate difference, new outsides and the transcendental, understood as the condition of historical practices and that which lies at the edge of social relations. The present cannot only be changed from its inside. To regain its futurity it must be reconfigured from afar, too.

1 Tom Morton talked about ‘the long 1990s’ in his review of the 8th Lyon Biennial in issue 95 of frieze (November–December 2005)
2 Claire Bishop, Artificial Hells, book manuscript, p.3 (to be published by Verso in 2012)
3 See Michael Senellart (ed.), Michel Foucault: The Birth of Biopolitics. Lectures at the Collège de France 1978–79, 2008, Macmillan, chapter six
4 Email conversation between the author and Lisette Smits, 13 September 2011
5 In addition to Bourriaud’s Relational Aesthetics and Peter Weibel’s Kontextkunst (Context Art, 1993), Nina Möntmann published Kunst als sozialer Raum (Art as Social Space, 2002), Sarah Lowndes published Social Sculpture: The Rise of the Glasgow Art Scene (2003), Craig Saper talked about ‘sociopoetic art’ (in Networked Art, 2001), and I wrote about ‘social aesthetics’ (in an eponymous essay in issue one of Afterall, 1999)
6 For Adorno, ‘Art is indeed infinitely difficult in that it must transcend its concept in order to fulfil it.’ (Theodor Adorno, Aesthetic Theory, 1970, p. 103)
7 Eve Chiapello distinguishes between social critique and artistic critique in ‘Die Kritik der Künstler am Management’, in Angewandte Sozialforschung (Applied Social Research), 2006, vol. 24, no. 1–2, pp. 19–24

Lars Bang Larsen

teaches at the Städelschule in Frankfurt, Germany, and at HEAD in Geneva, Switzerland, and works with Maria Lind on the exhibition project The New Model at Tensta Konsthall in Stockholm, Sweden. His book, Art is Norm, will be published by Sternberg Press in 2012.

new year's gift from curiosity to survive

2012-01-07T04:06:00.000-08:00

The sound recording of "Responding to Responding to the New Moon" between Anselm Franke and Adnan Yildiz that took place on 18/12/2011 at Kumpelnest Berlin:

http://soundcloud.com/respondingtothenewmoon/kumpelnest_18-12-2011

övül durmusoglu and asli cetinkaya on 'responding to the new moon' @ m-est.org

2011-12-19T15:53:00.000-08:00

Yeni Aya Cevaben / Responding to the New Moon / Antworten auf den Neumond: Prologue11 November 2011–7 January 2012

Galerie Tanja Wagner is hosting the exhibition titled Yeni Aya Cevaben/ Responding to the New Moon/ Antworten auf den Neumonds: Prologue curated by Övül Durmuşoğlu.

Övül has recently moved to Berlin after having lived in Malmö, Vienna, New York and Stuttgart for her educational and project commitments. The reason for her coming to Berlin was initially to organize and install the Berlin step of Another Country- Eine andere Welt in ifa Berlin, a collaborative project of the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (ifa), Stuttgart and the Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart which she produced with a Rave Scholarship..

The exhibition Yeni Aya Cevaben/Responding to the New Moon/ Antworten auf den Neumonds: Prologue includes works by Hasan Aksaygın, Natalie Czech (in coll.with Ashkan Sepahvand and Mara Genschel), Nilbar Güreş, Runo Lagomarsino, Johannes Paul Raether, Anca Munteanu Rimnic and Pilvi Takala. During a short visit to the exhibition, performance, collaborative acts and a certain unlocking humor seemed to be some of the common threads running through the works. In order to help me relate to the curatorial framework and motivations, Övül has kindly sent her replies to a number of comments and questions.—Aslı Çetinkaya

responding to responding to the new moon, a curatorial conversation between anselm franke and adnan yildiz moderated by övül durmusoglu

2011-12-19T15:39:00.000-08:00

Weekend Special #2: Responding to Responding to the New Moon

An open talk about our contemporary relationships with the old nature

Meeting at Galerie Tanja Wagner 19:00 followed by bar discussion at Kumpelnest 3000 19:30

The second step of Weekend Special program in the framework of Yeni Aya Cevaben/Responding to the New Moon/ Antworten auf den Neumond: Prologue hosts a curatorial conversation between Anselm Franke (Taipei Biennial 2012) and Adnan Yildiz (Künstlerhaus Stuttgart) moderated by Övül Durmusoglu (Independent curator, Berlin/Istanbul) under the title “Responding to Responding to the New Moon”. As a response to Durmusoglu's invitation, Yildiz has invited Franke to respond to the exhibition conceptualizing the unexpected as a creative force. The conversation partners will analyze familiar curatorial attitudes in this respect, especially Franke's past and continuing projects, with a focus on the conflictual zone between the geological reality that surrounds human thinking and the ontological orders of experiencing the limits as a mortal entity with the belief of an eternal universe. How critical practices deal with the unexpected nature of creativity in this context will be the common conceptual ground during the conversation.

Responding to Responding to the New Moon was a dense meditation mainly guided by Anselm Franke cutting across different references, reflecting his particular modernist way of thinking on modernity and its issues in the framing of contemporary art. During 2 hours of good conversation in the amazing bar of Kumpelnest, hosted by Reinhardt, we also learned what Anselm Franke and Adnan Yildiz have in common; both prefer Freud over Jung.

installation shots yeni aya cevaben/ responding to the new moon/ antworten auf den neumond: prologue

2011-11-28T16:57:00.001-08:00

Yeni Aya Cevaben/Responding to the New Moon/Antworten auf den Neumond: Prologue, Galerie Tanja Wagner, Berlin 11/11/11

2011-11-04T11:11:00.000-07:00

Yeni Aya Cevaben/Responding to the New Moon/Antworten auf den Neumond: Prologue

Hasan Aksaygin, Natalie Czech (in collaboration with Ashkan Sepahvand and Mara Genschell), Nilbar Güreş, Runo Lagomarsino, Johannes Paul Raether, Anca Munteanu Rimnic, Pilvi Takala

curated by Övül Durmusoglu

These days almost feel like an eclipse that is all about perception and changing our mind to meet the moment. A sort of new moon that marks an open invitation to find new terrains beyond repetitive mind circles. The student uprisings in England for free education rights, the major oil leak in Mexican Gulf, the resistance that grew around Stuttgart 21, the insisting demand of people against dictatorships in North Africa and Middle East, the nuclear disaster trigerred by tsunami in Japan and the occupation movement that spread around from Wall Street not to forget the people voicing up their complaints against the system's misgivings in Greece and Spain have all arrived in a raw , to call for a flexible attitude reacting to the unexpected, emphasizing how creative the unexpected may be.

Narrowing and sharpening our focus, the creativity of the unexpected can be connected to many exciting current artistic practices that respond to the new moon. Sources and methods vary but what stays in the center is the open ended relationship these artists develop with material, space and performance, never losing touch with emotions, sensations and personal experiences. Through suggesting or realizing radical performative methodologies of material and process, they propose different parallel narratives of now and then that come with freestyle juggling that allows for innovation, leaps of logic, learning from others and adapting to new information. They point into unknown fields of imagination and allow free movement among the variations of our time-space, our present.

In her timeless classic On Violence, Hannah Arendt starts her analysis with the uncontrollable nature of the event. She argues that the present can never be guessed by skillful political foreseers who, in the name of protecting integrity, try to frame it with doctrines shaped by the past. There is always something unforeseeable, unexpected in the nature of the event that challenges our pre-planned ways of thinking and makes any reading fixated by the past invalid. Arendt phrases this phenomenon as the creativity of the unexpected. In an artistic context, the creativity of the unexpected is one of the driving forces for the fluidity of contemporary art discourse searching for what is contemporary: A fluidity shaped by what happens at the moment, constructing unexpected juxtapositions and correlations of issues, materials and sensations.

'Responding to the New Moon' is the first step of a series of projects that will process a trigerring concept question 'new materiality' to research current artistic approaches towards formulating their new vocabularies in experience. It will mark the gallery initially as an exhibition space and a research field and will extend it via a supporting program in different locations.

www.tanjawagner.com

Bugünlerdeana ilişkin algımızı değiştiren tutulmalar tecrübe ediyoruz.Birbirini tekrar eden fikir döngülerinin ötesinde yeni alanlarbulmamıza açık davetiye çıkaran bir nevi yeni ay olarak daadlandırabiliriz bu durumu. İngiltere'de öğrencilerin serbesteğitim hakkı için başlattığı ayaklanmalar, Meksika Körfezi'ndeönlemi alınamayan büyük petrol sızıntısı, Stuttgart 21etrafında birleşen ve büyüyen direniş, Kuzey Afrika veOrtadoğu'da varolan diktatoryel rejimleri değiştirmek isteyenhalkların ısrarı, Japonya'da tsunaminin tetiklediği nükleerfelaket, Wall Street'te başlayıp hızla yayılan ilhak eylemleri,Yunanistan ve İspanya'da sistemin verdiği zararlara karşı sesiniyükseltenleri de unutmayalım, birbirinin ardısıra bizibeklenmedik olana karşı daha esnek davranmaya çağırarakgerçekleşmeye devam ediyorlar. Beklenmedik olanın ne kadaryaratıcı olabileceğini vurgulayarak.

Odağımızıdaha da netleştirirsek, beklenmedik olanın yaratıcılığınıiçinde bulunduğumuz yeni aya cevaben gelişen birçok yeni heyecanverici sanat pratiğine bağlayabiliriz. Kaynaklar ve yöntemlerdeğişse de merkezde kalan bu sanatçıların malzeme, mekan veperformansla, duygu, hissiyat ve kişisel deneyimlerden kopmadankurduğu açık ilişki. Şöyle de denilebilir; sözü geçen yenipratikler malzeme ve sürece ilişkin radikal performatifmetodolojiler icra ederek veya bunlara işaret ederken; yeniliğe,mantık sıçramalarına, başkalarından öğrenmeye ve yenibilgilere uyumlanmaya olanak veren serbest stil hokkabazlıklaryaparak bugüne ve ötesine ilişkin farklı paralel anlatılaröneriyorlar. Hayalgücünün bilinmeyen alanlarına işaret ederekbulunduğumuz zaman-mekanın çeşitlemelerinin arasında serbestçehareket etmemize olanak sağlıyorlar.

HannahArendt klasiği ŞiddetÜzerine'de analizine olayın kontrol edilemez doğasını vurgulayarakbaşlar. Bugünün bütünlüğü korumak adına geçmiş öğretileredayandırdıkları tahminler üreten birtakım politik öngörücülertarafından okunamayacağını belirtir. Olayın doğasında varolanöngörülemezlik ve beklenmediklik her zaman önceden planlanmışdüşünme biçimlerini geçersiz kılar. Arendt bu olguyubeklenmedik olanın yaratıcılığı olarak dillendirir. Sanatsalbir bağlamda beklenmedik olanın yaratıcılığı, güncel olanıarayan güncel sanat söylemine akışkanlığını veren iticigüçlerden biri olarak adlandırılabilir: Anda olanla şekillenen;meseleler, malzemeler ve hissiyatlar arasında beklenmedikyanyanalıklar ve ilişkiler kuran bir akışkanlık.

'YeniAya Cevaben' yeni maddecilik kavram sorusunu bir tetikleyici olarakortaya atarak bugünkü sanat yaklaşımlarının kendi deneyimleriüzerinden kendi söz dağarcıklarını bizzat geliştiripgeliştiremeyeceğini araştırmayı hedefleyen projelerden ilki.Sergi galeriyi öncelikle bir sergi mekanı ve araştırma alanıolarak işaretleyecek. Farklı mekanlarda gerçekleştireceğietkinlik programıyla da bu araştırma alanını genişletecek.

'Sanatsal Diyalog'da Ikinci Sayfa Acildi / 03.11.2011 Radikal Kultur Sanat

2011-11-03T13:19:00.000-07:00

Almanya’da tutarlılıkla sürdürdüğü farklı söylem çizgisiyle kendine özel bir yer edinmiş Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, 2011 yılıyla birlikte sanatsal yönetimi için tercihini Türkiye’nin önemli genç kuşak küratörlerinden Adnan Yıldız’dan yana yaparak gündemimize girdi. Açılış sergisi ‘Echt?’te yer alan Ahmet Öğüt’ten sonra, ‘Sanatsal Diyalog’ serisinin ilk kısmında Şener Özmen ve Nevin Aladağ’a birlikte solo sergi alanı açan kurum, bugünlerde serinin ikinci kısmını bu yıl Rampa Galeri’de açtığı solo sergisiyle adından söz ettiren Nilbar Güreş ve İngiliz sanatçı David Blandy’yle gerçekleştiriyor.

‘Sanatsal Diyalog 2’de ise Nilbar Güreş’in ‘Self-Defloration’ı (Kendi Kızlığını Kendi Bozmak) ve David Blandy’nin ‘Child of Atom’u sanatçıların üretim anlayışlarını ve süreçlerini, yeni işlerini de ön plana çıkararak mekâna yerleşen sergiler olarak dikkat çekiyor. ‘Self-Defloration’, Güreş’in bugüne kadar Avrupa’daki en kapsamlı solo sergisi. Adı sanatçının üretiminde önemli bir dönüşüme işaret eden ‘Self Defloration’ işinden geliyor. Sergi, 2006’dan 2011’e sanatçının işleri üzerinden kendine ilişkin kurduğu toplumsal cinsiyet formatlarının nasıl farklı şekillerde kurulabileceğini araştıran çok katmanlı anlatıyı eksen alıyor. ‘Undressing’ (2006) ve ‘Bilinmeyen Sporlar, Eviçi Egzersizleri’ (2009) videolarına kamusallaştırıldığı için yıkılmak üzere olan bir mahallede kadınların farklı bir arada yaşama ütopyaları sahneledikleri ‘Çırçır’ serisi (2010) ve taze çizim kolajlar eşlik ediyor. Güreş’in önemli kişisel referansları ve temel malzemesi olan kumaşı kullandığı ilk işlerinin de yer aldığı sergi, hem çizim kolajlarda, fotoğraflarda ve videolarda farklı noktalarda karşımıza çıkan jestleri ve temaları daha süreçsel olarak yeniden görmemizi sağlıyor hem de malzemeyi ele alış biçiminin nasıl evrildiğine dikkat çekiyor.

Serginin sürprizi
Yerleştirmesine emek harcanmış bu serginin özellikle Nilbar Güreş hayranları için sürpriziyse ilk kez gösterilen ‘Kurt ve Kuzu’ (2011). Güreş, daha önceki işlerinde oyunculuğu bir jest olarak kurgularken bu kez daha derin bir içgüdüyü takip ederek oyunun kendisine yönelmiş. Gece vakti bir ormanda yüzüne kurt maskesi takmış bir erkek çocuk, kuzu maskesi takmış bir kız çocuğunu kovalayarak oynarken iki çocuk da bu arketip oyunu oynamaktan mesut kıkırdayarak hayvan seslerini tekrar ediyor. Bu oyun Güreş tarafından bir film setinin arkaplanındaymışız ya da bir rüyanın içindeymişiz gibi yeniden soyutlanarak hayal dünyamıza servis ediliyor.

Bu noktada Güreş’in kendi dünyasından gelen gözlem referanslarıyla şekillenen anlatı stratejileri, David Blandy’nin çizgi romanlardan Tarantino, Wenders ve Lynch referanslarına kendi büyüme hikâyesini yeniden anlatılaştırırken takip ettiği popüler imgelemden dönüşen izlekle ilginç bir karşılaşma da yaşıyor. Her iki sanatçı da bu karşılaşmadan kendi üretimleri için nasıl sorular üretecek? Kısa vadeli cevaplar vermeye acele etmemek gerek. Zira Künstlerhaus Stuttgart için ‘Sanatsal Diyalog’ gibi bir formatı ortaya atan Yıldız, bu karşılaşma alanlarını bizzat tasarlayarak pratiğine ilişkin daha uzun soluklu, sürece kıymet veren sorularla ilgilendiğini gösteriyor. Sergi, 13 Kasım’a kadar görülebilir.

jozi notes 01 (july 2011)

2011-10-25T04:23:00.000-07:00

8115 numbered house in orlando soweto

2011-10-11T08:36:00.000-07:00

cape town july 2011

2011-10-11T08:25:00.001-07:00

truth or dare: the dangers of reducing everything to the text by vivian rehberg published at frieze august 11

2011-10-11T07:23:00.000-07:00

James Frey, 1992

Throughout the late 20th century, the migration and consolidation of post-structuralist theory into cultural production dealt a decisive blow to notions of authenticity and universal truth, challenging the authoritative voices that upheld such ideals and the empirical realities they claimed to represent. This was a long time coming. In his 1873 essay ‘On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense’, Friedrich Nietzsche had already described truth as nothing more than ‘illusions which we have forgotten are illusions’. Truth, he asserted, is ‘a moveable host of metaphors, metonymies and anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical and binding.’ In the late 20th century, aesthetic appropriations and historical recontextualizations, identity politics and institutional critique all worked to slacken those bonds, while responding to specific, historically grounded, cultural and political urgencies. Their initial impulses and frameworks were as diverse as their legacies, but one thing they arguably shared was a drive to chip steadily away at ‘regimes of truth’, defined by Michel Foucault as the mechanisms of power that produce, regulate and sustain discourse within a particular society.

This revelation of a multiplicity of truths (now considered relative) and the critique of their representations (now perceived as constructs) have inspired several generations of artists, thinkers and writers to question truth, but did not unfold without a backlash and a share of scandals. These occurred mainly outside of the art world, where the phrase ‘blurring of boundaries between fact and fiction’ gets my vote for the most hackneyed of the early 21st century. In 1996, the ‘Sokal hoax’ reverberated in the hallowed halls of academia when respected American professor Alan Sokal published his article ‘Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity’ in the cultural studies journal Social Text, only to subsequently reveal that the entire thing was a fabrication. Sokal wrote his article in order demonstrate the absurd lengths to which one could take Postmodern critiques of scientific knowledge, and the dangers that lie therein. The hoax suggested that distinctions between true and false collapse when everything is reduced to a text or to discourse, and raised ethical issues around authorial and institutional integrity and credibility, Sokal claimed, in order to shift focus to the more important social and political questions surrounding scientific discoveries.

In the literary realm, a spate of faux-memoirs, including those written by Margaret B. Jones, James Frey and Herman Rosenblat about, respectively, their experiences as a foster child and gang member in South Los Angeles, an alcoholic and drug addict, and a Holocaust survivor, have more recently spurred controversy. Like Sokal, these authors presented their accounts as unembellished, though based on moving true-to-life experience rather than academic evidence, and they successfully duped their American publishers and the public of readers, at least for a time. Once their deceptions were exposed (Random House, which had previously refused Frey’s manuscript when it was submitted as fiction, offered readers a refund; the film adaptation of Rosenblat’s story was scrapped), the media that had been previously taken in by the drama of the lives depicted, without checking the facts, granted equal credence to the authors’ displays of contrition. It’s easy to adopt a moralistic or cynical attitude about the motivations behind a deception that so occupies an individual’s life, and the authors’ justifications for their lies can be difficult to take at face value. (Personally, I’m more fascinated by the amount of energy and time one would need to mobilize to maintain the façade.) These defences range from a benevolent desire to adopt the position of the witness and speak for others, in order to inspire hope, to that of the lie as an effect of trauma or addiction.

One of the outcomes of these scandals has been the market consecration of the literary genre of the semi-fictional memoir, or autobiographical fiction, both of which have always existed. Recognizing this makes it easier for everyone: questions of trust are suspended, verification is no longer necessary, publishers, marketers and critics risk less embarrassment if they are fooled. If truth is reduced to an autobiographical construction, how does one actually measure it? Does the author really even need to be the author? Should we evaluate this genre according to its creative merits, such as its capacity to render factual information vivid through the use of literary tropes and experiments with narrative? Does the veracity of a story matter more when a personal narrative is explicitly linked to historical events, such as the Holocaust, or war, or revolution, than when it concerns the life of one person, a family and friends?

While we can pretty much agree that it doesn’t matter whether Lady Gaga and Slavoj Žižek are best friends or not, we are somehow much more offended that the Syrian blogger ‘Gay Girl in Damascus’ turned out to be a married American man named Tom MacMaster. While the latter claims he was only trying to reveal what it would be like to be a lesbian in Syria (because he would know what that’s like, right?), the maintenance of his female character ‘Amina’ spun out of control when revolts began to surge earlier this year in Damascus. Confronted with real, live, geo-political conflict and the imperative to report the facts, MacMaster had to invent an exit strategy, which involved his alter-ego being abducted by the armed forces. His imposture quickly unravelled to the dismay of those who had followed and corresponded with a person they thought was Amina.

Common sense used to dictate that if you could not trust the source you could not trust the information. Have those tables turned? I wonder how our cultural predisposition to believe in these semi-fictions or wholesale inventions – let’s call them misrepresentations – might affect our capacity, for example, to believe in the factual trustworthiness of the politically sensitive documents leaked anonymously via WikiLeaks? In 2005, Stephen Colbert, the American comic who poses as a conservative broadcaster of a popular television programme called The Colbert Report (and as arch-rival of Jon Stewart, who presides over his own left-leaning spoof news programme, The Daily Show), produced a regular segment, ‘The Word’, which he devoted to the neologism ‘truthiness’. Colbert began by mocking dictionaries and encyclopaedias as ‘elitist’ and as ‘all fact and no heart’, but his main targets were US politicians whose double-speak and capacity for invention emblematizes the real divide between ‘those who think with their head and those who feel with their heart’.

Regimes of ‘truthiness’, which are invested in maintaining power via ignorance, seem to have fully encroached on ‘regimes of truth’. Perhaps the creative interest over the past decade in archival practices, documentary and realistic modes of representation, and the revitalization of historical narratives is a symptom of that. This state of affairs may inspire a crisis of belief that results in greater differentiation between fact and fiction, or not. In the aesthetic realm, self-reflexive explorations of identities, styles, genres, history and memory are absolutely authorized and encouraged, as is the shuttling play between subjective (feeling) and objective (thinking) points of view. So, when it comes to the renewal of critiques of misrepresentation, for the next 20 years I’ll be holding out for the artists to keep us vigilant.

Vivian Sky Rehberg

is a contributing editor of frieze based in Paris, France.

http://damascusgaygirl.blogspot.com blogger amina is missing

2011-06-06T14:37:00.000-07:00

Amina

Dear friends of Amina,

I am Amina Abdallah Araf al Omari’s cousin and have the following information to share.

Earlier today, at approximately 6:00 pm Damascus time, Amina was walking in the area of the Abbasid bus station, near Fares al Khouri Street. She had gone to meet a person involved with the Local Coordinating Committee and was accompanied by a friend.

Amina told the friend that she would go ahead and they were separated.Amina had, apparently, identified the person she was to meet. However, while her companion was still close by, Amina was seized by three men in their early 20’s. According to the witness (who does not want her identity known), the men were armed. Amina hit one of them and told the friend to go find her father.

One of the men then put his hand over Amina’s mouth and they hustled her into a red Dacia Logan with a window sticker of Basel Assad. The witness did not get the tag number. She promptly went and found Amina’s father.

The men are assumed to be members of one of the security services or the Baath Party militia. Amina’s present location is unknown and it is unclear if she is in a jail or being held elsewhere in Damascus.

I have just spoken with her father who is trying to locate her. He has asked me to share this information with her contacts in the hope that someone may know her whereabouts and so that she might be shortly released.

If she is now in custody, he is not worried about being in hiding and says he will do anything he can to free her. If anyone knows anything as to her whereabouts, please contact Abdallah al Omari at his home or please email me, Rania Ismail, at onepathtogod at gmail dot com.

We are hoping she is simply in jail and nothing worse has happened to her.Amina had previously sent me several texts to post should something happen to her and we will wait until we have definite word before doing so.

Salamat,

Rania O. Ismail

zümrüdü anka/ simurg/ phoenix

2011-05-23T07:56:00.000-07:00

The ancient Greek historian Herodotus gave the following account of the phoenix in the fifth century BC while describing the animals of Egypt:

Another sacred bird is the one called the phoenix. Now, I have not actually seen a phoenix, except in a painting, because they are quite infrequent visitors to the country; in fact, I was told in Heliopolis that they appear only at 500-year intervals. They say that it is the death of a phoenix's father which prompts its visit to Egypt. Anyway, if the painting was reliable, I can tell you something about the phoenix's size and qualities, namely that its feathers are partly gold but mostly red, and that in appearance and size it is most like an eagle. There is a particular feat they say the phoenix performs; I do not believe it myself, but they say that the bird sets out from its homeland in Arabia on a journey to the sanctuary of the sun, bringing its father sealed in myrrh, and buries its father there.

The Roman poet Ovid wrote the following about the phoenix:

Most beings spring from other individuals; but there is a certain kind which reproduces itself. The Assyrians call it the Phoenix. It does not live on fruit or flowers, but on frankincense and odoriferous gums. When it has lived five hundred years, it builds itself a nest in the branches of an oak, or on the top of a palm tree. In this it collects cinnamon, and spikenard, and myrrh, and of these materials builds a pile on which it deposits itself, and dying, breathes out its last breath amidst odors. From the body of the parent bird, a young Phoenix issues forth, destined to live as long a life as its predecessor. When this has grown up and gained sufficient strength, it lifts its nest from the tree (its own cradle and its parent's sepulchre), and carries it to the city of Heliopolis in Egypt, and deposits it in the temple of the Sun.

French author Voltaire thus described the phoenix:

It was of the size of an eagle, but its eyes were as mild and tender as those of the eagle are fierce and threatening. Its beak was the color of a rose, and seemed to resemble, in some measure, the beautiful mouth of Formosante. Its neck resembled all the colors of the rainbow, but more brilliant and lively. A thousand shades of gold glistened on its plumage. Its feet seemed a mixture of purple and silver; and the tail of those beautiful birds which were afterwards fixed to the car of Juno, did not come near the beauty of its tail.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rivayet olunur ki, kuşların hükümdarı olan Simurg ( Zümrüd-ü Anka ya da batıda bilinen adıyla Phoenix ),Bilgi Ağacı'nın dallarında yaşar ve her şeyi bilirmiş.Bu kuşun özelliği gözyaşlarının şifalı olması ve yanarak kül olmak suretiyle ölmesi, sonra kendi küllerinden yeniden dirilmesidir.....

Kuşlar Simurg'a inanır ve onun kendilerini kurtaracağını düşünürmüş. Kuşlar dünyasında her şey ters gittikçe onlar da Simurg'u bekler dururlarmış. Ne var ki, Simurg ortada görünmedikçe kuşkulanır olmuşlar ve sonunda umudu kesmişler.
Derken bir gün uzak bir ülkede bir kuş sürüsüSimurg'un kanadından bir tüy bulmuş. Simurg'un var olduğunu anlayan dünyadaki tüm kuşlar toplanmışlar ve hep birlikte Simurg'un huzuruna gidip yardım istemeye karar vermişler.

Ancak Simurg'un yuvası, etekleri bulutların üzerinde olan Kaf Dağı'nın tepesindeymiş. Oraya varmak için ise yedi dipsiz vadiyi aşmak gerekirmiş, hepsi birbirinden çetin yedi vadi... İstek, aşk, marifet, istisna, tevhid, hayret ve yokluk vadileri...

Kuşlar, hep birlikte göğe doğru uçmaya başlamışlar. İsteği ve sebatı az olanlar, dünyevi şeylere takılanlar yolda birer birer dökülmüşler. Yorulanlar ve düşenler olmuş...

"Aşk denizi"nden geçmişler önce...". "Ayrılık vadisi"nden uçmuşlar...". "Hırs ovası"nı aşıp, "kıskançlık gölü"ne sapmışlar... Kuşların kimi "Aşk denizi"ne dalmış, kimi "Ayrılık vadisi"nde kopmuş sürüden... Kimi hırslanıp düşmüş ovaya, kimi kıskanıp batmış göle...

Önce Bülbül geri dönmüş, güle olan aşkını hatırlayıp;
Papağan o güzelim tüylerini bahane etmiş (oysa tüyleri yüzünden kafese kapatılırmış);
Kartal, yükseklerdeki krallığını bırakamamış;
Baykuş yıkıntılarını özlemiş;
Balıkçıl kuşu bataklığını.

Yedi vadi üzerinden uçtukça sayıları gittikçe azalmış. Ve nihayet beş vadiden geçtikten sonra gelen Altıncı Vadi "şaşkınlık" ve sonuncusu Yedinci Vadi "yokoluş"ta bütün kuşlar umutlarını yitirmiş... Kaf Dağı'na vardıklarında geriye otuz kuş kalmış.

Sonunda sırrı, sözcükler çözmüş: Farsça "si", "otuz" demektir... murg" ise "kuş"...
Simurg'un yuvasını bulunca ögrenmişler ki; "Simurg - otuz kuş" demekmiş.Onların hepsi Simurg'muş. Her biri de Simurg'muş. 30 kuş, anlar ki, aradıkları sultan, kendileridir ve gerçek yolculuk, kendine yapılan yolculuktur.

towards unknown fields of imagination: nilbar güres for universes in universe

2011-05-23T07:48:00.000-07:00

http://universes-in-universe.org/eng/nafas/articles/2011/nilbar_gures

TOWARDS UNKNOWN FIELDS OF IMAGINATION: Nilbar Güres

After many years, the Turkish contemporary art scene has been developing another strong woman artists generation, as evident from the exhibitions opened in young galleries during recent years showing more and more women artists. The issue of visibility is still relevant not only in Turkey but in many centers of international contemporary art scene. And this was again made clear in WHW curated 11^th Istanbul Biennial where maybe for the first time such a large number of local women artists participated, among them Istanbul and Vienna based Nilbar Güres. Actually Istanbul's first serious encounter with her work was a group exhibition at Outlet Istanbul called 'Emergency Exit' in 2008. Following, her Unknown Sports (2009) series presentation in staged photographs and mixed media collages during the Biennial proved the local presentations she had before constituted only a small part of her big promise: The wise, humorous and taboo breaching way she translates what she has experienced and witnessed in her body as a woman and in her life around women into an oeuvre that has a strong base in the will to struggle and survive. Her individually queer tone of imagining and scripting alternative scenarios for the daily that makes open ended identifications possible. Her potential to expose and transform vulnerabilities experienced under the societal norms into nodes of strength.

Nilbar Güreş' first solo presentation in Turkey opened at Rampa Istanbul last April. The well designed and informative exhibition covers not only her recent production ÇırÇır (2010) commissioned and first shown by Berlin Biennial, the first time appearing TrabZONE (2010) and the freshly finished collage Yüz (2011) but also two earlier and fundamental works she produced in 2006; Undressing performance video and Self-Defloration collage.The invitation card; a camp wedding invitation selected by the artist which displays two androgynous figures as bride and groom inside a pink glittery heart can obviously be counted as part of the exhibition. It is an exemplary gesture of the gallery to support Nilbar Güres' flourishing production with a solo exhibition at this point. On the whole this solo statement is a great opportunity to see where the artist's strongly sensitive practice towards pressure and violence inserted by patriarchal, authoritarian and heteronormative societal codes to subordinate what is different has arrived from and is going towards. Güres' main issues always interconnect among each other taking different forms of performance, photography, drawing, collage and video. Each character appearing as part of her open ended narratives acts as herself. Each series works with a strong desire to deterritorialize and re-code the spaces and locations they took place, the artist believes in unexpected performances of the body may alter its surroundings.

2011-05-02T07:21:00.000-07:00

http://foucaultdayargilansin.blogspot.com/

some lyrics for kay walkowiak's work - refer back to the wigs @ sweet anticipation

2011-05-01T13:05:00.000-07:00

May the Circle Remain Unbroken

Change your heart

Look around you

Who do you wanna be now ?

Where do you wanna go ?

Until when the spirits of dead philosophers will guide you ?

It’s the easiest to accept the authority of tradition

Challenge yourself

Take the challenge

Dig down baby dig down dig down

To the roots

To see of our lived experience of this world

Hold it, yeah, keep it do not let it fall

There it is, how it feels, just above my head

Can someone please teach me how to remember my dreams?

Let us imagine in the dark and of its spaces

Tickle me humour me make me dream

It’s the easiest to accept the authority of tradition

Challenge yourself

Take the challenge

Dig down baby dig down

To the roots of experience

To feel how deep is the sphere of imagination

new text for susanne kriemann's book 'reading'

2011-05-01T12:54:00.000-07:00

http://www.sternberg-press.com/index.php?pageId=1315&l=en&bookId=210&sort=year&PHPSESSID=cecdf51182c42cdac79f39943e809d5a

Hans Dickel and Lisa Puyplat (Eds.)Reading Susanne Kriemann

Texts by Hans Dickel, Övül Durmuşoğlu, Matts Leiderstam & Susanne Kriemann, Vanessa Joan Müller, Lisa Puyplat, Dieter Roelstraete, Monika Szewczyk, Mirjam Varadinis, Axel John Wieder

The essence of Susanne Kriemann’s intermedial and intertextual work is expressed in her photographic installations and corresponding artist books whose formats reflect their particular contents that revolve around historically definable objects. Kriemann’s exhibitions in particular reveal the process-oriented nature of her works, where the elements are constantly rearranged and undergo conceptual transformation. Throughout this process the book takes on a decisive role in her work, with its structure, its history, its contents and its form.

The book is comprised of texts on Susanne Kriemann’s practice and its relation to the concept of Reading in a wider sense: reading photographs, archives, and texts and transforming these into new compositions with photography, urban space, and historiography. Nine authors have approached intertextuality’s various manifestations and meanings and in doing so, confront the notion of reading (of text, image, object, context). The authors trace the permeation of the intermedial in Susanne Kriemann’s work in various ways. Quotes from writers, scientists and journalists dispersed throughout the book touch on themes present in the Susanne Kriemann’s work, both deepening as well as linking it to the current discourse of art in general.

Design by NODE Berlin Oslo

April 2011, English/German
12.5 x 20.5 cm, 216 pages, hardcover
ISBN 978-1-934105-49-8
$24.95 | €19.00

History --in the making

“…the archive […] determines that all these things said do not accumulate endlessly in an amorphous mass, nor are they inscribed in an unbroken linearity, nor do they disappear at the mercy of chance external accidents; but they are grouped together in distinct figures, composed together in accordance with multiple relations, maintained or blurred in accordance with specific regularities.”

- Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge, 1972, London: Tavistock, and New York: Pantheon, 128.

“History is hysterical: it is constituted only if we consider it, only if we look at it – and in order to look at it, we must be excluded from it.”

- Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, 1981, New York: Hill and Wang, 65.

“Nothing Is.” - Sun Ra

We were able to experience cinematic spectacle in the cinemas that hadn’t yet been tucked inside shopping malls. I remember taking in the catchy iconography of the science fiction comedy Back to the Future (1985) starring Michael J. Fox in a popular cinema in Ankara where I grew up. A crazy professor named Doc Brown transforms a DeLorean DMC-12 into a time machine. The main protagonist Marty McFly finds himself instantaneously transported from 1985 to 1955 shortly after being introduced to the time machine by his friend. Marty spends his time in 1955 to better his family history – ultimately, in order to better his present. No wonder it was a favorite of the US president at the time, Ronald Reagan: the film’s message is typical of 1980s Hollywood, espousing a good, happy American family and the preservation of social values based on that good family.

Back then, following the adventures of Marty McFly and Doc Brown (the box office success was expanded into a trilogy), I was mesmerized by the film’s exciting drama of intervention in the flux of time and its notion of changing the course of things. In the first film, Doc Brown mentions the existence of parallel universes. With the archive of images and newspaper clippings at his laboratory, he shows how Marty is disappearing since he involuntarily intervened in his parents’ meeting each other. Marty must take action to secure his own existence in the present. As the film evolves, we see photographic material changing in a state of appearances and disappearances according to the results of the actions committed by the protagonists.

Viewing these films today, one might begin to question such neo-liberal efforts to maintain the time continuum and the keen interest in preserving a society with its lineage of certain morals in the past, present and future, back and forth. But let us read between the lines. How do we fit reality into a constructed projection of the future? Back to the Future is about a history in the making, a future being performed. The film suggests that we question our attachment to archives: accumulating, cataloguing, representing the traces, the past. Doesn’t this remind us of a similar phenomenon from the censorship mechanisms of Stalinist times; how a figure might suddenly disappear from a photographic document according to the decisions of high ranking officials, thanks to a simple action of montage?

II.

I came across a remarkable cross-referential text by Peter Friedl, in which he examines the essential relationship between the documentary image and what is called history.^¹ To do this, he compares the image material of the “Twitter Revolution” against the Iranian presidential elections in 2009 with that against the Paris Commune in 1871. Questioning photography’s role as the eye of history from an insightful and humorous perspective, Friedl demonstrates how the creation and dissemination of a certain image creates its own agenda and performs the moment creating a history, rather than the history it is supposed to document and stand for.

As we might recall, the world started hearing about the protests against the Iranian elections after the dissemination of Neda Agha-Soltani’s filmed death through e-mails, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Friedl directs our attention to the moment when a hysterical mass media found a photo of a woman with a similar name, Neda Soltani, on Facebook (probably thanks to the Google search engine) and how it was impossible to stop the found image of a still-living person from being used as the symbol of martyrdom in the name of democracy – even after the authentic photographs were provided. Fragments used over and over again without external validation demonstrate the uncontrollable desire for image consumption to prove reality. The performed agenda becomes another sort of aura in the contemporary sense that is shaped by the filters of dissemination – not how it is said but how it is heard. Again, it is a history in the making that images perform.

“Photography’s melancholy is based on the fact that it shows something that once was and has meanwhile elapsed. By the power of its existence, it confirms that what one sees was actually there; to this extent, it is the epitome of standstill and enchantment,” writes Friedl and asks, “What else is capable of stopping time?”^² Friedl shatters assumptions surrounding documentation, subjectivity and reality when he reflects upon the existing image documentation of the Commune in 1871, such as the fact that the Commune did not have its own photographers per se, or that photographers like Eugène Appert profited from the photo montages he compiled to discredit the Commune. Similar moves and mentalities worked in terms of documenting a scene, spreading the information, creating the agenda and gripping the masses. The issue of what kind of images were decided to be produced, by whom and under what circumstances turn out to be the equivalents of our present condition consumed by a hysteria of fragments.

III.

In his book Militant Modernism (2009), prolific writer Owen Hatherley takes the 1960s architectural vernacular of his hometown Southampton as a starting point and in the course of four interconnected chapters on brutalism in Britain, Soviet cinema theory and Bertolt Brecht, challenges our well-known rants about Modernism as being alienated, unsexed and totalitarian and points us instead towards a reading of Modernism as a counter-culture and important aspect of Leftist thought. In his chapter on the Brechtian Verfremdungseffekt [English: alienation effect], he notes its origin in the theater’s need to debate with cinema and radio with their ability to reach greater audience; that it is “nothing but a retranslation of the methods of montage – so crucial in radio and film – from a technological process to a human one. It is enough to point out that the principle of Epic Theatre, like that of montage, is based on interruption.”^³

This comment on the alienation effect took me back to theories of montage: alienation and engagement processed through editing. It was Sergei Eisenstein who posited that montage was the essence of cinema, re-positioning it as a symbolically loaded action of engagement. He proposed a new editing form, the "montage of attractions" – in which arbitrarily chosen images, independent from the action, would be presented not in chronological sequence but in whatever way would create the maximum psychological impact. For Eisenstein, editing involved the audience more than the passive reception of information from static and lengthy shots and could drive the audience into a frenzy through the dynamism of the rhythm of images.

“DON’T STARE SO ROMANTICALLY” challenged an early play of Bertolt Brecht, demanding critical engagement of its audience. The power of montage comes from the superimposed element that disrupts the context into which it is inserted. Taken a step further, montage can be read as a gesture that engages through performing the context. In Susanne Kriemann’s publications, montage resurfaces as an artistic method, presenting archived materials and allowing an open end to the relationship between historical objects and their various interpretations. One such “open” example is her artist book 12 650 000, in which her combination of archival images with her own photographs allows for a critical view of the object and sets the rhythm of its narration. The book, which was printed in a limited edition of 100 + 10, opens with historical photographs documenting the construction of the 12,650,000 kilogram-heavy Schwerbelastungskörpers [English: heavy load body] in Berlin-Tempelhof, which was built to test the resilience of the ground for the gargantuan “Germania” project that Adolf Hitler and Albert Speer planned for the capital city, and which stands intact to this day. Kriemann cinematographically repeats one archival image showing the completed object 380 times on each page. At the end of the book, one of her own photographs depicts the object obscured by scaffolding during its renovation in 2007.

Such gestures clearly fracture linearity, questioning the multiple relationships that arise from the images grouped together. They motivate readers to think in terms of fragments, pushing them to imagine possible re-connections between those fragments. Their rhythm of appearance, as well, should not be ignored, but rather intrigue the reader further. Do such gestures fill in the gaps intentionally left open by the archiving state of mind? Or do they create an exclusive layer of a narrative “in-the-making” that proposes another sort of relation altogether with time and its documents? In both cases, an encounter with 12 650 000 invites the curious to participate and perform the references and fragments proposed by the artist. No thing is complete.

Övül Durmuşoğlu

1 Peter Friedl, “History in the Making,” e-flux journal #18, September 2010.

2 ibid.

3 Owen Hatherley, Militant Modernism, London: Zero Books, 2008, 101.

April 21, 2011 - May 29, 2011 ARTISTIC DIALOGUES I Şener Özmen: The Story of Şener Özmen Nevin Aladağ: Back to First Position

2011-04-19T05:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.kuenstlerhaus.de/en/current

nilbar gures @ rampa istanbul

2011-04-19T05:22:00.000-07:00

http://www.rampaistanbul.com/exhibitions/current/nilbar-gures/

closing talk of bettina lockemann's undocumented at loris berlin

2011-03-16T18:37:00.000-07:00

Bettina Lockemann:
undocumented
Opening: Friday, 18 February 2011, 7 p.m.Exhibition: 19 February - 19 March 2011Artist Talk with curator Övül Durmuşoğlu (Istanbul/Berlin):
Thursday, 17 March 2011, 7 p.m. (in English)Opening Hours: Wed - Fri 2 p.m. - 7 p.m. | Sat 12 p.m. - 5 p.m.

We are very pleased to invite you to Bettina Lockemann’s third solo exhibition at the Loris Gallery.

Undocumented migrants – frequently labelled »illegals« – are an invisible element of German society. Although they clean our flats, take care of our ailing parents or grandparents and have become in many respects indispensable, they have neither residence permits nor work permits; for this reason they make every effort to remain hidden and live unnoticed.

In her new work, Bettina Lockemann deals with these forms of living. It focuses on people’s daily instability and their struggle to remain invisible and take nothing for granted. In the course of this daily routine, crossing the street when the traffic light is red can pose a threat. On the other hand, waiting patiently in a deserted street for the light to go green is likewise suspicious.

Bettina Lockemann explores the rules and paths of this invisibility. Centre stage is the relationship between »illegals« and the city. The danger of being discovered lurks everywhere. The image of the urban environment is altered. Constantly scanned for signals and risks, it loses its sense of being home – which it is to many »legals«. But the city also provides an element of security. Undocumented migrants are not immediately obvious among the many other foreigners. It is here that »illegals« hope most to find support, this is where they can make use of networks.

Cologne is the object of Bettina Lockemann’s investigation. Immigrants are invisible here; the city becomes a homeless place in Lockemann’s images. The area around the main railway station, for example: the international bus terminal constitutes a point of arrival for migrants. At the same time the station itself is a danger zone, since ad hoc police checks are common occurrences, making it necessary to avoid the area whenever possible; the mere presence of security personnel produces flight reflexes.

This aspect likewise represents a loss for city and society: the photographed places remain unspecific, unstable. The current exhibition at the Loris Gallery documents an intermediate stage of »work in progress«.

Loris GbR

Gallery for Contemporary Art

Gartenstr. 114
D 10115 Berlin
Germany
phone +49 30 27 59 55 79mail@lorisberlin.de
Opening Hours:
Wed-Fri 2 p.m. - 7 p.m. | Sat 12 p.m. - 5 p.m. and by appointment

Nathan Peter "Before Old Glory" // 12.03.-16.04.2011 @ soy capitan

2011-03-16T17:30:00.000-07:00

accompanied by untitled (after paul auster)

1.
It is 10:45, legible over the 11th platform of the train station. Waiting under the time table, a person looks closely at the photo in his hands. He looks with pure attention, focused on one point. He looks in the eyes of the person in the photo. How can he know the only thing that doesn’t change on a human face are the eyes. He looks awkward and embarrassed, like the trainers who work with magnificent animals, finding themselves at a moment of reckoning summed up in those deep and difficult eyes. Will he recognize who he’s waiting for after all these years by looking into his eyes? Maybe he has never met him before. A moment of getting together. It may also be the beginning of a detective’s interrogation.

He looks at the photo desperately; those deep and difficult eyes have been frozen for all time. There is an unyielding mystery, a long-forgotten clue from the past that belongs to the person arriving on this train.

2.
Although he is not aware of my presence, I got into the habit of taking a picture of this street at exactly 10:45 everyday. This one is fresh from my minilab. That trash bin has become the guardian of that corner. Here it is in this photograph as well; not surprising me anymore. I feel the gaze of a pair of eyes under its lid. It caught my attention one week ago; he always closes the lid on the same side so that some fresh air may get in. He tries to hide away in vain. There must be a human hand placing the lid compulsively the same way everyday. He must be following something very important since he has been there all this time, patiently. Now that he is there, I also started to look at the exact part of the building that must be visible from that measured gap. My gut feeling says this cannot be solely coincidence.

3.
There, a woman sits across her; I can read her face on the other. She may be crying at this moment. But why?

Obviously she will leave the table very soon. Without a further word or goodbye.

Good guess. Her eyes are moist; discernible in the second photo. Here the other one is standing now. She stares indifferently, looking a bit arrogant and mysterious.

Returning back to New York streets may heal her. The bistro she was working at was just a breathing moment. She will let the city take her over in spite of everything. Tired of the fight. She looks a bit lost yet transformed.

Here is another pic. She turns towards the backside of the street. New York was always stalking her.

The last pic. She is not there anymore.

4.
Taking a picture of time; don’t ask where I got the idea from. You don’t need to be master of the universe to picture time. Just spare five minutes of your day and reclaim that point you have always known; and shoot. Everyday. You will be surprised to see how time takes up its space in the frame.

It’s been 4 years since I started this business. For you I chose 30th November. 10:45.

Crossroads. Brickstone buildings. Small shops; here a second hand record store, there a bakery, the rest is desolate for the moment. I am Serge by the way, I have a 24/7 cornershop at my back.

It is 10:45. An elderly woman leaves the building with the second hand shop, holding a bag, lost in thoughts.

Across, a young woman passing the street is lost in the song she is listening to on her headphones. They don’t acknowledge each other.

One year gone, the elderly woman always passing at the same time is not there anymore. The record store is still there, but a newspaper kiosk appears. The same young woman shops at the kiosk. Winter seems to have arrived earlier, the trees lining the street readied for the approaching cold.

It is 10:45 again. The store opening at 10:00 is still closed. A teenager is trying to squirm into the store. Who knows which precious record he is after before anybody else today. It is still autumn. Some dudes are collecting leaves. The same young woman crosses the same street rolling a big trolley. People may not recognize her in their daily indifference but I see how her eyes shine from the point I am standing.

In fact, we are no more moved by a past we are busy inventing, than by a present we are busy denying.

OD

sweet anticipation @ salzburger kunstverein exhibition official documentation

2011-03-16T16:47:00.000-07:00

documentation by andrew phelps

uzun zaman sonra/ so we are back

2011-03-16T16:29:00.000-07:00

post thursday in london

2010-12-14T07:51:00.000-08:00

(by peter hallward)

Shortly after Thursday’s vote, a policeman hit one of my current MA students on the head with his truncheon. He said it felt like he was struck by a solid metal bar. After being bandaged by other students and released from the kettle on account of his obvious injuries, police medics took a quick look at him, and checked that his eyes were still responding to light. According to my student, they recommended that he make his own way to his local hospital in North London, where he received stitches.

At least a dozen of the students I work with didn’t escape the kettle so quickly, and were among the thousand or so people who were eventually forced back on to Westminster Bridge shortly after 9pm, without water or toilets, without information or explanation, in the freezing cold and wind, long after the media had gone home. They were then crowded together for a couple of hours between solid lines of baton-wielding riot police. Many students say they were beaten with truncheons as they held their open hands high in the air, in the hope of calming their attackers.

“I was standing at the front of the group with nowhere to go,” Johann Hoiby, a Middlesex philosophy student, told me. “My hands were open and visible, when a riot police officer, without provocation, hit me in the face with his shield, screaming ‘get back’ when I clearly couldn’t move. The most terrifying thing was the fact that everyone was screaming that people were getting crushed, yet the police kept pushing us backwards when we had nowhere to go.”

Around the same time, one of Johann’s classmates, Zain Ahsan, was “hit in the abdominal area with a baton; I shouted back at the officer that my hands were in the air and I was being pushed by the people behind me.”

My Kingston students say they saw people having panic attacks, people seized up with asthma, people who fell under the feet of the crowd.

“The fact that there were no deaths on that bridge”, one says, “is a true miracle.”

Some students claim that they were then kicked by police as they were slowly released, single file, through a narrow police corridor. Everyone was forcibly photographed, and many of the people detained on the bridge were then taken away for questioning.

The story of one Middlesex undergraduate who used to sit in on my MA classes, Alfie Meadows, is already notorious. He received a full-on blow to the side of his skull. My partner and I found him wandering in Parliament Square a little after 6pm, pale and distraught, looking for a way to go home. He had a large lump on the right side of his head. He said he’d been hit by the police and didn’t feel well. We took one look at him and walked him towards the nearest barricaded exit as quickly as possible. It took a few minutes to reach and then convince the taciturn wall of police blocking Great George Street to let him through their shields, but they refused to let me, my partner or anyone else accompany him in search of medical help. We assumed that he would receive immediate and appropriate treatment on the other side of the police wall as a matter of course, but in fact he was left to wander off on his own, towards Victoria.

As it turns out, Alfie’s subsequent survival depended on three chance events. If his mother (a lecturer at Roehampton, who was also “contained” in Parliament Square) hadn’t received his phone call and caught up with him shortly afterwards, the odds are that he’d have passed out on the street. If they hadn’t then stumbled upon an ambulance waiting nearby, his diagnosis could have been fatally delayed. And if the driver of this ambulance hadn’t overruled an initial refusal of the A&E department of the Chelsea and Westminster hospital to look at Alfie, his transfer to the Charing Cross neurological unit for emergency brain surgery might well have come too late.

just published!

2010-12-14T07:48:00.000-08:00

http://www.clipstampfold.com/

kulturprojekte berlin discussed last night

2010-12-14T07:46:00.000-08:00

I wasn't there last night for health reasons but are things heating up in Berlin?

An open discussion on the projected “Leistungsschau junger Kunst aus Berlin” (achievement show of young artists from Berlin)

Until December 17, all Berlin based artists are requested to submit their portfolios in order to apply for the “achievement show of young artists from Berlin”, scheduled for summer 2011. 600.000 Euros from the state budget will be spent for research, curators and a catalogue – more money for the production of the show and the construction of a mobile exhibition hall in the area of Humboldthafen still has to be raised by Kulturprojekte Berlin GmbH.

The idea of an “achievement show” suggests an understanding of art which is based on efficiency and effectiveness and uses the innovative potential of current artistic production for political interests. It seems that Mayor Klaus Wowereit tries to obtain arguments for the realization of “his” Kunsthalle by the sheer mass of submissions and the curatorial star-assembly for this “inventory” project – just on time for the elections in 2011.

We want to take this cultural-political maneuver as an occasion to openly discuss what we have learned from two years of Temporäre Kunsthalle, how artists react on this and other “open calls”, what it is that marks the contemporary art scene in the city – institutionally as well as on other levels –, what it is missing and how it can be supported sustainably.

With, amongst others: Ulf Aminde, Stéphane Bauer, Arno Brandlhuber, Helmut Draxler, Matthias Einhoff, Katharina Fichtner, Jörg Franzbecker, Marc Glöde, Cristina Gomez Barrio, Erik Göngrich, Elín Hansdóttir, Gabriele Horn, Philip Horst, Susanne Husse, Annette Maechtel, Doreen Mende, Wolfgang Meyer, Lise Nellemann, Anh-Linh Ngo, Marie-José Ourtilane, Katia Reich, Natascha Sadr-Haghigian, Ines Schaber, Florian Schmidt, Tanja Schomaker, Marina Sorbello, Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, Olaf Stüber, Felix Vogel, Scott Weaver, Antje Weitzel, Thomas Wulffen, Lena Ziese.

Initiated and moderated by Ellen Blumenstein and Florian Wüst.

Press release Kulturprojekte Berlin GmbH from October 26, 2010:

www.kulturprojekte-berlin.de/pre...

New version of the Artists Open Call from November 25, 2010:

www.kulturprojekte-berlin.de/ope...

sweet anticipation @ salzburger kunstverein

2010-12-12T17:39:00.000-08:00

We all love the anticipation of looking forward to something special. And, in the same way, we love a story that makes us hang on every word until we find out what happens. What if we think of an exhibition as a gesture of inventing a story or stories composed of different works, images, objects and references? And what if we think of an exhibition space as the narrative basis to create a multilayered experience generating anticipation, imagination, and mystery?

“Sweet Anticipation” sets out to explore how to play with the idea of narrative in the form of exhibition making, may it be a thriller, fantasy, or love story. Formed around layers of incomplete narratives and fragments of anticipation, the exhibition wonders about the collective and personal imaginaries at work when we devise our own follow ups, actively taking part in shaping the flow of narratives. As a supplement to the exhibition, a reading space of favorite narratives selected by the members who applied to take part in “Sweet Anticipation,” the staff, and the curator will take place to mark the sphere for the collective imagination of the Salzburger Kunstverein. (Övül Durmusoglu)

Artists: Cäcilia Brown, Katharina Gruzei,

Elisabeth Junger / Severin Weiser, Matthias Klos /

Dagmar Buhr, Marianne Lang, Sina Moser /

Joyce Rohrmoser, Katherina Olschbaur,

Bernd Oppl,Petra Polli, Markus Proschek,

Anja Ronacher / Robert Gruber, Elisabeth Schmirl, Andy Scholz, Christopher Steinweber, Beate Terfloth, Kay Walkowiak

http://www.workerspunkartschool.blogspot.com/

2010-12-01T06:31:00.000-08:00

From the Old School of Capitalism to the New School of Capitalism: December at Workerspunk Art School! 13-15.12!!!

In addition to the events with Zelimir Zilnik on 13.+14.12, we will coorganize a presentation on 15.12 of a book edited by Gal Kirn of the original Workers Punk University in Ljubljana (of which we are a proud Chinese fake rip).

Full announcement below.

This means there will be 3 days of activities in a row from Dec 13th to Dec 15th.

13.12 Screening of "OLD SCHOOL OF CAPITALISM", Sputnik Südstern with Zelimir Zilnik and Q+A, 19h.

The Old School of Capitalism is rooted in the first wave of workers revolts to hit Serbia since the advent of capitalism. Desperate workers bulldoze through factory gates and are devastated to discover the site looted by the bosses. Eccentrically escalating confrontations, including a melee with workers in football shoulder-pads and helmets and boss and his security force in bulletproof vests, prove fruitless. Committed young anarchists offer solidarity, take the bosses hostage. A Russian tycoon, a Wall Street trader and US VP Biden's visit to Belgrade unexpectedly complicate events that lead toward a final shock. Along the way, the film produces an increasingly complex and yet unfailingly lively account of present-day, in fact, up-to-the-minute struggles under the misery-inducing effects of both local and global capital.

clip

14.12 DRAMA-DOCU-DRAMA - workshop on docudrama with Zelimir from 18-21h at West Germany, Büro für postpostmoderne Kommunikation- Skalitzer Straße 133 - Zentrum Kreuzberg - Berlin. We´ll screen "Crni film" and clips from "Kenedi comes home" and other works to talk about Zilniks unique form of having protagonists improvise characters based on themselves.

15.12 "NEW SCHOOL OF CAPITALISM" - discussion and book presentation on postfordism (which is the New School of Capitalism, arguably) at 19h. venue tba shortly.

Babysitting provided. (Volunteers are definitely welcome!)

Workers Punk Art School and b_books kindly invite you to the discussion *NEW SCHOOL OF CAPITALISM*, which will take place on Wednesday, 15th December, at 19h Berlin. The discussion will focus and elaborate on some theoretical and practico-political moments from the recently released book Post-Fordism and its discontents, edited by Gal Kirn and designed by Žiga Testen and Nina Støttrup Larsen, financially supported by Jan van Eyck Academy (Maastricht), Peace Institute (Ljubljana) and b_books (Berlin). *Simultaneously, baby-sitting will be organized for all precarious workers (upstairs in the bar*) that want to join the event.

Program:

Part I

19.10-19.25: Introduction: political lessons from post-fordist analysis by Gal Kirn (fellow at ICI-Berlin)

19.25-19.40

The analysis of design process of the book and reflections of fordist and post-fordist moments of the design-publication process by Žiga Testen, Nina Støttrup Larsen and Cornelia Durka.

> Part II

20.00-20.15

Shock workers as "refuse of all classes"

20.15-20.30

Exhausted and organised. Is there a politics of precarious labor? by Katja Diefenbach (b_books)

venue tba

> The event will be moderated by Boris Buden (cultural theorist)

The events with Zelimir Zilnik are coproduced with interflugs and eipcp.

'Why are we here?' - Attempt #1

2010-12-01T05:59:00.000-08:00

I have come to this city regularly since 2005. And I have always had good reasons to come; exhibitions, workshops, studio visits, good friends and easy moods. A good friend always underlines that Berlin is an artists' city. Now that I “officially” live here, I am questioning what it does mean to live here as a curator; how to analyze what is going on in this city where many contemporary art related people reside and work from. So I decided to take some occasional short notes about the things happening and perform some writing exercises of my readings to formulate better how I am thinking and feeling about the ‘current’s of contemporary art here, and also trying to understand why we are all here.

Absalon retrospective opened in KW last Saturday. Most of the works he made are there, exhibited on all floors. Making a retrospective is always a hardcore business. An in this case the question is how to retrospectively curate an oeuvre that started to develop itself around radical transformations of dwelling, aiming to intensify the private space of living mentally and spiritually? The exhibition feels more like an inventory or an attempt of collecting together. The radicalness of Absalon’s designs, hanging between monadic and nomadic, becomes repetitive, loses its almost disturbing feeling of plainness. Wouldn’t it be great for example that the cellules were distributed over a couple of locations inside and preferably outside KW? Then people would be able to experience the sense of solitary dwelling in different surroundings, just like the artist himself who started to model and spread these cellules to six cities to be able live in his idealized, personal space when he travels?

Another fact I am still questioning is that all the models brought together were painted the same hue of white of the exhibition spaces. And it seems like they have been recently painted over. I don’t know if there was a set of instructions left by Absalon for the display of these pieces. But something felt wrong, all around surrounding white made me lose my point of reflection. The space has memory and institutions can perform that memory, not only archive it, such as learning from the artists they show, the exhibitions they make. I am thinking of Renata Lucas’ subtle and puzzling gestures in and out KW just shown recently (the way she used the material of the building, the way she connected inside and outside) and of Ahmet Ogut’s unforgettable gesture performed for 5^th Berlin Biennial, a completely asphalted ground floor. Such gestures make us question the nature of the surrounding we are in and imagine their and our further possibilities. In this respect, the retrospective, though having the merit of bringing most of the produced work, small models and sketches together, unfortunately tames and domesticates Absalon’s phenomenologically devised challenges to use and function in everyday living.

#2 "Why thinking in Turkish can be a good catalyzer in Berlin?" soon

Natascha Sadr Haghighian and Ashkan Sepahvand's project at casco

2010-11-25T04:24:00.000-08:00

"Unlike a work of literature, translation does not find itself in the centre of the language forest but on the outside facing the wooded ridge; it calls into it without entering it, aiming at that single spot where the echo is able to give, in its own language, the reverberation of the work of the alien one."

- Walter Benjamin, The Task of the Translator

Casco is pleased to present 'seeing studies', a long-term project by the institute for incongruous translation, . The institute for incongruous translation was founded in order to support discord and negotiation in translation. The institute sees translation as a polyphonic reverberation of voices that cannot be set into accordance, yet still speak to one other by means of reflection. An incongruous translation starts not from the centre of meaning, but from the margins of association.

This project, developed by Natascha Sadr Haghighian and Ashkan Sepahvand for the institute for incongruous translation, engages with formations that constitute how we perceive, read, draw and depict the world in order to investigate the ways we learn 'to see'. Departing from a schoolbook – a textbook published by the Iranian Ministry of Education used to teach art in the first year of Iranian public middle school – the project takes shape in three overlapping chapters.

A facsimile reproduction of the schoolbook is the basis for a bilingual publication (Farsi/English) that researches 'schools of seeing', from Ibn Al-Haytham's 'Book of Optics', the 'period eye' of the Italian Renaissance to mechanical drawing in late-19th century France and photography in Qajar Iran. Operating as editors of the book, Sadr Haghighian and Sepahvand will also give shape to a spatial arrangement at Casco's project space, involving a series of overhead projectors and selected material from the publication. The material is applied to the overhead projectors in various ways resulting in partial projection. This method creates a simultaneity of perspectives, restricts visibility and sets viewpoints into motion. Addressing conventions as well as boundaries of perception and depiction, the arrangement varies three times over the course of two months. In the third chapter, the space will serve as a setting for a four-day workshop session. These sessions offer opportunity to discuss the propositions in 'seeing studies' together with some of the collaborators and contributors to the institute's activities.

This investigation moves beyond art instruction and takes a polyphonic look at the existing interpretations and depictions of the world in its globalised state, questioning the ways in which we perceive. It further explores approaches for us to destabilise presumably fixed viewpoints and weave an open history that 'sees' knowledge re-circulating, re-interpreting or re-applying. The audience is welcomed as study companions, fellow readers and interpreters to set up a temporary study room at the Casco space.

Spatial

4 December 2010-13 February 2011

Printed

Book release: 19-22 January 2011

The book is designed by Farhad Fozouni and image-shift and co-published by Hatje Cantz Verlag, dOCUMENTA (13) and Casco.

The publication contributors include: Nazgol Ansarinia, Homayoun Askari Sirizi, Mehraneh Atashi, Mahmoud Bakhshi, Daniel Berndt, Binna Choi, Media Farzin, Shahab Fotouhi, Farhad Fozouni, Reza Haeri, Zoya Honarmand, image-shift, Hatem Imam, Mehdi Navid, Molly Nesbit, Oya Pancaroglu, Tina Rahimi, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Ashkan Sepahvand, Setareh Shahbazi, Zeinab Shahidi + Reza Abedini, Jana Traboulsi and William Wheeler. The publication is made possible with additional financial support of Fonds BKVB for electric palm tree, Hessische Kulturstiftung and Extra City Kunsthal Antwerpen.

Spoken

Workshop sessions: 19-22 January 2011

You are warmly invited to join a four-day workshop with some of the contributors to the publication. The detailed programme will be available on our website (www.cascoprojects.org) from mid-December 2010. The workshop is organised in partnership with Extra City.

Open Call

2010-11-22T04:57:00.000-08:00

Within the framework of the 7th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art in 2012, curated by Artur Żmijewski, artists from all over the world are requested to send in their artist material for a research investigation, following the conditions below.

We accept artistic material in hard copy formats not bigger than A3 (297 x 420 mm or 11.69 x 16.54 in.), printed images, digital data, as well as DVDs.
PDFs in A4 (297 mm x 210 mm or 11.7 x 8.3 in.) or fax will also be accepted.
Please do not send any original artworks.
We welcome all possible languages of your artistic comments and explanations. However there should equally be an English version.

As the research also focuses on the question whether artists consider themselves to be political, please inform us about your political inclination (e.g. rightist, leftist, liberal, nationalist, anarchist, feminist, masculinist, or whatever you identify yourself with) or whether you are not interested in politics at all.

Please send your artistic statement or presentation as a hardcopy via regular mail, via e-mail or fax to the following address or number before January 15, 2011:

Berlin Biennale
– Open Call –
KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Auguststraße 69
10117 Berlin/Germany

e-mail: call@berlinbiennale.de
fax: +49. 30. 24 34 59 88

This open call is not guarantying that you will be invited to take part in the 7th Berlin Biennale. Please be aware that your submission might be used and published within its framework. Please also consider that the 7th Berlin Biennale is not able to send back any received material, but that everything will be integrated into the public research archive of the Berlin Biennale.

The open call is available for download in various languages (Arab, Chinese, English, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish) on the website www.berlinbiennale.de.

“Usually, artists are not asked to identify their political positions. But this time it's different. In my opinion, all artists represent particular political standpoints, even if they don't want to identify them clearly. There is this invisible rule for artists to produce so-called “political art” from an unidentified political position and to keep neutrality, even if it is obvious that they are not neutral.

Our reality is structured by politics; this means that art is also structured by them. Let's present this invisible/hidden structure, this obscene background of art. Politics are not, as politicians would like to convince us, fights for power or dirty games. They are the language of our collective needs which people share.

We are not only human beings, we are also political beings, as Hannah Arendt said. Let's describe what we are doing as artists also in pure political terms. That's why I ask about this “secret” and “private” information. Let's give it a public body.

It doesn't mean that the curatorial choice will be based on preferred political identity—no, it will be based as always on intuition and ambiguity. But this time intuition and ambiguity will be a little deformed by this over-obvious political element. So, we will see what happens.”

Artur Żmijewski

some images from another country @ ifa berlin, more will come soon

2010-11-17T11:42:00.000-08:00

photos by dubravka sekulic

soon in berlin, texte zur kunst discussing art criticism

2010-11-17T11:21:00.000-08:00

Where do you stand, colleague?

Art criticism and social critique

www.textezurkunst.de

Symposium on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Texte zur Kunst
December 11, 2010, Hebbel-Theater am Ufer (HAU 1), Stresemannstrasse 29, Berlin

Conference organizers: Isabelle Graw & André Rottmann
Conference language: English
Tickets available at: www.reservix.de

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the renowned Berlin-based journal for contemporary art, this symposium investigates art criticism's potential to become social critique. When the journal was founded in Cologne in 1990, returning to the methods of social art history promised to link current artistic production to larger economic and ideological frameworks. Even if this approach has remained an important touchstone in the critical work of the journal and its most frequent contributors, new models have emerged: discussions around biopolitics and immaterial labor under post-Fordist conditions have radically questioned long-held methodological assumptions about the visual arts' potentially antagonistic role in the capitalist societies of the West. Moreover, the notion of the aesthetic, which had for many years been utterly dismissed due to its association with idealist concepts of autonomy, has returned in unforeseen ways—by way of a recourse, for instance, to an emphatic and ethically motivated defense of aesthetic experience and an immersive attention to formal detail.
The symposium takes this situation as a point of departure in order to reflect on the role and potential of art criticism as social critique today.

Program, Saturday, December 11, 2010

4 pm:
Official Welcome
by Arend Oetker, Berlin

Introduction
by Isabelle Graw, Frankfurt am Main/ Berlin & André Rottmann, Berlin

4:15 pm:
Opening Statement
by Diedrich Diederichsen, Vienna/ Berlin

4:30 pm:
Panel I: New Spirit of Criticism? The Biopolitical Turn in Perspective
Like no other field of theoretical investigation, studies of biopolitics and related discourses around immaterial forms of labor in post-Fordism have come to inform recent art criticism and history. This sort of approach to art allows us to revisit historic as well as contemporary artistic practices in terms of their complicity with an economic and political regime that seeks to produce social life and to control subjectivity by way of internalized notions of productivity, creativity, and individual freedom. These notions, still so dear to art-historical discourse, appear more problematic in a perspective informed by the discourse of biopolitics than repressive structures of authoritative interpellation. Yet the urgent question arises and needs to be addressed: does not this new master trope of (art) criticism itself amount to a totalizing gesture that subsumes all aesthetic phenomena to the insurmountable grasp of an omnipresent but elusive regime of power? Is the recourse to biopolitical thought maybe even part and parcel of the notion of life it wishes to analyze critically?
with
Franco Berardi, Milan
Luc Boltanski, Paris
Sabeth Buchmann, Vienna/ Berlin
André Rottmann, Berlin
chaired by Martin Saar, Frankfurt am Main/ Berlin

6:30 pm:
Panel II: Between Specificity and Context. Social Art History Revisited
Social Art History, as it had been rediscovered and expanded as a methodology in Anglo-American art history in the early seventies, once provided the privileged critical model of how to align supposedly autonomous aesthetic phenomena with the specific historical, discursive, ideological, and economic conditions that shaped their production and the subjectivity of both artist and beholder. However, this approach was deservedly contested for its tendency to interpret works of art in a rather schematic fashion as mere illustrations of social conditions, ultimately neglecting the genuine logic of artistic phenomena. Are there theoretical models today that, while staying true to Social Art History's methodological insights, can lead a way out of this theoretical impasse? Is there a way to reconcile formalist or phenomenological approaches with an attention to social and historical factors? And how can we write a contemporary social history in a non-reductive way, given recent shifts in media culture and forms of immaterial labor?
with
Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Cambridge, Mass./ New York
Andrea Fraser, Los Angeles
Gertrud Koch, Berlin
Isabelle Graw, Frankfurt am Main/ Berlin
chaired by Sven Lütticken, Amsterdam/ Utrecht

8:30 pm:
Break

9:30 pm:
Panel III: From the Anti-Aesthetic to Aesthetic Experience?
In recent years, art criticism has witnessed a complete re-evaluation of the validity and reach of the notion of the aesthetic. Whereas postmodern theories of artistic production of the 1980s were largely determined by an anti-aesthetic impulse in their attempt to contest idealist tenets of the bourgeois appreciation of art, today's debates are shaped by a return of the aesthetic in terms of a new valuation and conceptualization of the beholder's experience of artworks, even if the latter defy modernist ideals of autonomy and self-sufficiency. This panel sets out to explore the implications and repercussions of this paradigm shift: Is the notion of aesthetic experience inadvertently championing an individualistic idea of the beholder? To what extent can it provide a model that would do justice to the specificity of a work in terms of its form and content as well as its social context, rather than explicating a universal mode of perception? Might the aesthetic be reliant on an emphatic idea of "Art" that, for many good reasons, had been challenged—if not utterly shattered—by critical art practices ever since the avant-gardes and the new spirit of capitalism, which is to a certain degree based on the recuperation of artistic critique?
with
T.J. Clark, London
Helmut Draxler, Stuttgart/ Berlin
Jutta Koether, Hamburg/ New York
Juliane Rebentisch, Frankfurt am Main/ Berlin
chaired by Christoph Menke, Frankfurt am Main/ Berlin

learning zulu

2010-11-17T11:12:00.000-08:00

image: mary sibande

text from kristinpalitza.wordpress.com

The plane hits the tarmac with a brief thud. I have landed in South Africa, for the first time. As I exit through the sliding doors of the baggage claim area, an elderly woman is waving at me. She works with Amnesty International, one of the organisations I have come to volunteer for, and she has kindly offered to host me for the first couple of weeks of my stay, until I find a place of my own.

She is talkative. On the way from the airport to C.’s home, I am told a variety of colourful and impressive stories about her life. I presume they are meant to give me a) an introduction to my host and b) an insight into the recent political history of the country. C. is not shy to talk about her achievements as a liberal white in the anti-apartheid struggle. And she has every reason not to be. She was a member of the Black Sash and had many black friends, who she didn’t hesitate to drop off in townships after curfew, when demonstrations ran late, even though her husband thought it too dangerous. To defy segregation and unfair apartheid laws, she also went swimming with black friends on a whites-only beach, risking arrest. According to her husband J., the apartheid regime soon took such a strong interest in C.’s political activities that its spies rented the house opposite their home to be able to watch her every step.

As we pull into the driveway of their simple face-brick single storey in an upper middleclass neighbourhood, I am made aware that C.’s house is the only one in the area that is not surrounded by a fence. One can walk straight up to the front door. C. and her husband make a point not to be one of those post-apartheid whites who lock themselves in … and others out.

Needless to say, I am impressed and feel blessed to have found a host with such an impressive life story. These first weeks as C.’s guest will be an incredible opportunity to get to know South African life from a critical, politically aware point of view, I think to myself.

C. shows me to my room and after I have dropped off my luggage gives me a quick tour of the house so that I can make myself comfortable. Room by room, she explains where I can find what and about the daily routines of her household. I quickly gather that C.’s life is organised down to the tee, according to a well thought out system and schedule. And I am expected to quickly catch on so that I can make sure to fit in. From 12h00 to 13h00 every day, for example, is J.’s “sacrosanct hour”, I am told, and during this time, no-one is allowed to speak to him. Not the domestic worker, not me, the guest, and not even his wife. It begins to dawn on me that this stay will be an interesting one from more than just a political perspective.

We proceed to the kitchen, where I am shown how to find my way around. C. explains based on what system the fridge and the scullery are stocked. She also shows me where to find glasses, plates, cutlery and so on. Then, she opens the cupboard underneath the sink. Next to neatly stacked cleaning paraphernalia is placed a lonely, chipped set consisting of a plate, a mug, a fork and a teaspoon. The teaspoon is important because ‘they’ like to drink their tea with lots of sugar. C. is speaking about her domestic worker, who, she explains, does not eat from the same crockery and cutlery than the rest of us. I am a little shocked but say nothing, only too aware of my role as a guest, who has come from another continent, who knows nothing about how life is lived in the New South Africa and who better be grateful for the generous hospitality offered. How dare I question or criticise?

I go to my room and lie down on the bed to rest from the long flight. My first impressions and experiences of this country so different from anything I know float through my head until I fall into a deep, exhausted sleep.

I am awoken two hours later by a gentle knock on the door. “Dinner is ready,” says C., popping her head into the room. When I walk into the dining room, I am introduced to J., an elderly gentleman with refined features and a welcoming smile. A black woman is carrying bowls of food from the kitchen and places them onto the elegantly laid-out dining table. I am briefly introduced to S., the domestic worker. Then, we sit down to eat, while S. retreats to the kitchen. I imagine her sitting all by herself on a wooden chair with her chipped plate on her lap.

After we have dished up, J. notices that salt and pepper are missing. He opens a little drawer next to his place at the table and takes out a silver bell. Ding, ding, ding it goes and a few seconds later, S. emerges from the kitchen to inquire what is needed. Apologetically she scurries back into the kitchen, to re-enter the dining room with a set of salt and pepper shakers. For the second time in the day I am flabbergasted. For the second time, I don’t say anything. Is this really the house of the liberal anti-apartheid activist who risked arrest by protesting discriminatory apartheid law?

The next morning, I am awoken by the warm rays of the sun that shine through my bedroom window. Even though it is winter in South Africa, it is nice and warm. T-shirt weather. When I step out onto the veranda to breathe in the fresh morning air, I come upon J. who is reading the newspaper in a wicker chair in the shade. We get to talk about this and that, the news of the day, the quality of South African newspapers and how I am planning to spend my time in this country. “If you truly want to understand this country and its people, you should learn isiZulu,” J. suggests. That’s a good idea, I nod. J. gets up to search for an English-Zulu phrasebook he would like to lend me. Five minutes later, he is back, holding a thin book in his hand. “Here you go,” he says as he hands it to me.

I only get to sit down for my first isiZulu ‘lesson’ in the evening, after a day of taking in the sights of the city and familiarising myself with my new surroundings. I open the cover page of the book and see that it is divided into several chapters around the home: the kitchen, the garden, the garage and so on. I turn to the first chapter: the garden. “Fetch the watering can” the first sentence reads. “Don’t dig here” the next follows. “Clean your boots” reads the next one. I can see where this going. It suddenly dawns on me that what I am reading is not a Zulu phrasebook to understand a culture and a people but rather a tool for a white baas to give orders to his staff.

With a sigh, I close the book, realising how many shades of grey there are between black and white.

Former West in Istanbul: Art and Political Imagination

2010-09-29T08:47:00.000-07:00

Art and Political Imagination, the second in the series of FORMER WEST Research Congresses, takes place on 4–6 November 2010 at Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul. The Congress revolves around the theoretical notion of the “horizon” and its place within artistic production and political imagination today.

If, as it is commonly assumed, the global political and cultural changes of 1989 left the world bereft of a sense of politics as striving towards a future—a horizon as it were—then we are left with the perpetual caretaking of the existing state of things. Given this apparent endgame of liberal democracy, how can we insist that it is possible to imagine and to realize another world, to posit the horizon anew?

In this context, the project FORMER WEST is a proposition for speculating—in the field of contemporary art—about a possible horizon. For, can it not be argued that art works, exhibitions, and their discourses inherently set up a horizon, offering a proposal of what can and cannot be imagined? This horizon links aesthetics with politics, creates an image of possible futures, yet also marks a limit that cannot be surpassed as it recedes with each move toward it, offering a sense of both possibility and that which remains out of reach.

Venue: Istanbul Technical University, Taşkışla Campus, Room 109.

Language: English (simultaneous translation into Turkish is provided).

Admission: free (registration is required).

Deadline for registration: 3 October 2010 (Registration is closed, all available seats have been reserved).

PROGRAM

THURSDAY, 4 NOVEMBER 2010

Positing the Horizon in Art, Philosophy, and Politics

On its first day, the Congress explores the notion of the horizon in contemporary art and critical theory. Taking as our starting point the idea that the horizon is what frames our sense of direction of possibility and impossibility, the contributors speculate along two lines of orientation. On the one hand, the question of how and where the horizon must be situated in order to be effectual is considered. On the other, the issue of the horizon as an image is explored, in order to connect political imaginaries and artistic production. In this sense, the horizon is produced in the intersection between aesthetics and politics.

Moderator:

Boris Buden (cultural critic and writer, Berlin)

13.00–13.15

Welcome by Maria Hlavajova (artistic director, BAK, Utrecht and FORMER WEST) and Fulya Erdemci (director, SKOR, Amsterdam)

13.15–13.45

Opening Remarks by Maria Hlavajova

13.45–14.00

Introduction to the day by Boris Buden

14.00–14.40

Expecting the Unexpected: Once more on the “Horizon of Expectations”

Lecture by Peter Osborne (philosopher and writer, London)

14.40–14.50 Questions

14.50–15.15 Coffee Break

15.15–15.55

Projects in the Absence of Signposts

Lecture by Çağlar Keyder (sociologist, Istanbul/Binghamton, NY)

15.55–16.05 Questions

16.05–16.45

Rear view Vision: History Enthusiasm and History Anxiety

Lecture by Julie Ault (artist and writer, New York)

16.45–16.55 Questions

16.55–17.15 Coffee Break

17.15–17.55

Vectors of the Possible: Art between Spaces of Experience and Horizons of Expectation

Lecture by Simon Sheikh (curator and critic, Copenhagen/Berlin)

17.55–18.05 Questions

18.05–19.30

Discussion with Julie Ault, Çağlar Keyder, Peter Osborne, and Simon Sheikh

Reviewer: Erden Kosova (art critic, Istanbul)

PROGRAM

FRIDAY, 5 NOVEMBER 2010

Horizontality Enacted

Whereas the metaphor of a horizon suggests an expansive outlook and a field of possibilities, the notion of horizontality is associated with being on a single plane with little sense of orientation. Is horizontality a form of spatial production driven by the principle of radical equality? How might this shift our understanding of the public and the commons? Contributors examine how various geographies of horizontality, both conceptually and in practice, are played out in urban forms, exhibition making, institutions and social organization. The enactment of horizontality is seen as the link between the “space of experience” and the “horizon of expectation.”

Moderator:

Vivian Rehberg (art historian and critic, FORMER WEST research curator, Paris/Utrecht)

10.00–10.15

Introduction to the day by Fulya Erdemci (director SKOR, Amsterdam)

10.15–10.55

The Exhibition as an Archive

Lecture by Beatriz Colomina (architecture historian and theorist, New York)

10.55–11.05

Questions

11.05–11.45

Practicing Art. Imagining Politics

Lecture by Shuddhabrata Sengupta (artist and writer, member of Raqs Media Collective, Delhi)

11.45–11.55

Questions

11.55–12.15

Coffee Break

12.15–12.55

The Communist Horizon

Lecture by Jodi Dean (political theorist and writer, Geneva, NY)

12.55–13.05

Questions

13.05–14.30

Discussion with Beatriz Colomina, Jodi Dean, and Shuddhabrata Sengupta

14.30–16.00

Lunch Break

16.00–17.30

Conversation between Bülent Diken (social theorist, Lancaster) and Wouter Vanstiphout (architectural historian, Rotterdam)

17.30–19.00

Conversation between Vasif Kortun (curator and writer, director of Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul) and Lisette Lagnado (curator and writer, São Paulo)

Reviewer: Övül Durmuşoğlu (curator and writer, Istanbul/Berlin)

PROGRAM

SATURDAY, 6 NOVEMBER 2010

Reclaiming a Horizon—Art as Political Imagination

How are new horizons imagined, speculated upon, visualized, and materialized through contemporary art? This question concerns not just the historical and conceptual connections (and divisions) that have long existed between aesthetics and politics, but also the political tendencies that can be found in artistic production after 1989. How is a particular kind of politics of representation and representation of politics articulated in contemporary artistic production, art theory, curatorial work, and through the production and dissemination of cultural discourses more generally? And how does this connect to the aesthetic dimension of contemporary politics? The task is not only to look at the relationship between art and politics, but to see art as political imagination.

Moderator:

TJ Demos (art historian and critic, London)

10.00–10.15

Introduction to the day by TJ Demos

10.15–10.55

In Free Fall: A Thought Experiment

Lecture by Hito Steyerl (filmmaker and writer, Berlin)

10.55–11.05

Questions

11.05–11.45

Aesthetic Horizons

Lecture by Gerald Raunig (philosopher and art theorist, Zürich)

11.45– 11.55

Questions

11.55–12.15

Coffee Break

12.15–12.55

On Horizons and Discourse

Lecture by Ernesto Laclau (political theorist, Buenos Aires/London)

12.55–13.05

Questions

13.05–14.30

Discussion with Ernesto Laclau, Gerald Raunig, and Hito Steyerl

14.30–16.00

Lunch Break

16.30–18.00

Conversation between Ultra-red, New York">Robert Sember (artist and activist, member of Ultra-red, New York) and Dmitry Vilensky (artist and activist, member of Chto Delat?/What is to be done?, St. Petersburg)

18.00–18.30

Wrap up and Conclusions by Maria Hlavajova and Simon Sheikh

18.30

Closing Reception

20.00

Congress concludes

Reviewer: Pelin Tan (sociologist and art historian, Istanbul)

ORGANIZED BY

The 2nd FORMER WEST Research Congress is developed by BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht and SKOR, Foundation Art and Public Space, Amsterdam, and is co-curated by Simon Sheikh, FORMER WEST Researcher. The Research Congress is realized in collaboration with İKSV, Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts, Istanbul and is hosted by Istanbul Technical University.

the potosi principle, coming soon @ hkw berlin

2010-09-26T09:16:00.000-07:00

THE POTOSÍ-PRINCIPLE

08.10.-02.01.2011 | Opening 07.10.2010 19:00h

WED - MON and on holidays 11:00 - 19:00h, TUE closed

Guided tours 10.10. - 19.12. SAT + SUN 15:00h

During the Workshop days on October 8 + 9

the exhibition will be opened until 22:00h

At the beginning of the 17th Century, Potosí was one of the largest cities in the world - comparable to London or Paris. During the Spanish colonial rule, enormous quantities of silver were shipped from Potosí to Europe, thus giving the early capitalist system a tremendous push, and initiating the start of the modern era.

During the Counter-Reformation, this dynamic triggered a mass production of images, not only in Spain, but also in the Viceroyalty of Peru.

The exhibition “The Potosí Principle” traces the circulation of money and art, which developed during that period. A selection of images from the “Andean Baroque”, seen for the first time in Germany, enters into dialogue with contemporary works of art which make reference to the present: whether it is the migrant workers in China who made the economic miracle there possible, or the economic power Dubai, which - with the help of cultural managers from Europe - seeks to reinvent itself as an art metropolis.The tour of the exhibition projects a kaleidoscope of a globalized society in which the principle of exploitation is still as prevalent as it was in the early days of modernity.

Curators: Alice Creischer (Berlin), Max Jorge Hinderer (Berlin / Santa Cruz de la Sierra), Andreas Siekmann (Berlin)

With works and contributions by:

Sonia Abián (Barcelona/Posadas)

Anna Artaker (Vienna)

Monika Baer (Berlin)

Quirin Bäumler (Berlin)

Christian von Borries (Berlin)

Matthijs de Bruijne (Amsterdam/Beijing)

Chto delat (Moscow/St. Petersburg)

Culture and Arts Museum of Migrant Workers (Beijing)

CVA/TIPPA (London)

Stephan Dillemuth (München)/Konstanze Schmitt (Berlin)

Ines Doujak (Vienna)

Elvira Espejo (La Paz)

Marcelo Expósito (Barcelona/Buenos Aires)

Harun Farocki (Berlin)

León Ferrari (Buenos Aires)

María Galindo/Mujeres Creando (La Paz)

Isaías Griñolo (Huelva)

Luis Guaraní (La Paz)

Sally Gutiérrez Dewar (Madrid)

Zhao Liang (Beijing)

Rogelio López Cuenca (Barcelona)

Eduardo Molinari (Buenos Aires)

PRPC (Plataforma de Reflexión sobre Políticas Culturales, Sevilla)

David Riff/Dmitry Gutov (Moscow)

Territorio Doméstico (Madrid)

The Long Memory of Cocaine research group (La Paz/London/Berlin)

Artur Żmijewski appointed as bb7 curator

2010-09-26T09:15:00.000-07:00

7th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, 2012

Artur Żmijewski appointed curator

KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin is pleased to announce that Artur Żmijewski has been appointed curator of the 7th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art.

The 7th Berlin Biennale will take place in early 2012.

Visual artist Artur Żmijewski, born in 1966 in Warsaw (Poland), works almost exclusively with the media of photography and film. He is particularly interested in the power of art and its relation to politics. From an almost anthropological viewpoint he investigates social norms, morality and representations of power in today’s society and the effects that art have on it. Żmijewski studied in the sculpture class of Professor Grzegorz Kowalski at the Warsaw Art Academy from 1990 to 1995 as well as at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam in 1999. His work has been internationally shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions. In 2005 he represented Poland at the 51st Art Biennale in Venice. He is member of the Polish political movement "Krytyka Polityczna" and the art director of the magazine of the same name. Żmijewski lives and works in Warsaw.

The selection committee for the curatorship of the 7th Berlin Biennale consisted of Jacob Fabricius, Malmö Konsthall; Bartomeu Mari, MACBA – Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona; Matthias Mühling, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München, Munich; Joanna Mytkowska, The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw; and Hoor Al Qasimi, Sharjah Biennial.

sense and sense- emily roysdon @ konsthall c

2010-09-26T09:07:00.000-07:00

SENSE AND SENSE

Emily Roysdon with MPA

15.9—24.10 2010

The New York based artist Emily Roysdon will present her first solo exhibition at Konsthall C in Stockholm. Sense and Sense is a project developed on site in Stockholm over the last six weeks. Emily Roysdon invited performance artist MPA (New York) to collaborate on a series of photographs and a video for the exhibition. For Sense and Sense Roysdon has worked with the relationship between use and regulation of public space.

–Through the years I have been exploring how political movements are represented, and it is because of this that I was attracted by Sergels torg as a place. In recent projects I have been connecting that to a wider understanding of choreography – choreography as organized movement in an aesthetic and political sense.

–What is so fascinating for me with Sergels torg is that it is a planned site for political protest. At the same time; when you approach the actual place and look down on it from the railing above, Sergels Torg turns into a panoptic place and an abstraction.

A second part of the exhibition is a wallpaper project installed in a number of different places in Stockholm, for instance the City Library.

This is Emily Roysdon’s first exhibition project in Sweden. In 2008 she was a resident at the International Artists Studio Program in Sweden (IASPIS), when she also presented the performance Work, Why, Why not at Weld, Stockholm.

Emily Roysdon (1977) is a New York and Stockholm based artist and writer. Her working method is interdisciplinary and recent projects take the form of choreography, photographic installations, printmaking, text, video, curating and collaborating. Roysdon recently developed the concept “ecstatic resistance” to talk about the impossible and imaginary in politics. The concept debuted with simultaneous shows at Grand Arts in Kansas City, and X Initiative in New York.

She is editor and co-founder of the queer feminist journal and artist collective, LTTR and she is a contributing member with the band MEN. In 2010 Roysdon’s work has been shown at the 2010 Whitney Biennial, Greater NY at PS1, Mixed Use: Manhattan at the Reina Sofia in Madrid and Bucharest Biennial 4. She is participating in Manifesta 8 and in December she will have her first solo show in the USA at Matrix, Berkeley Art Museum.

the jerusalem show

2010-09-26T09:05:00.000-07:00

The Jerusalem Show (‘Ala Abwab Al Janna) is a novel and socially significant visual art event that is headed and organized by Al-Mamal Foundation for Contemporary Art and this year is featuring its fourth edition. The Show encompasses an exhibition of contemporary art works for Palestinian and international artists. Art projects and interventions are presented in indoor and outdoor venues and reflect on the spiritual, political, historical and cultural import of the city of Jerusalem. The Show is a unique action, promoting a re-reading of the city in creatively open, accessible and interactive manner.

The theme for the Jerusalem Show IV-2010 is Exhaustion. It is inspired by the prevailing state of apathy which is fuelled by Exhaustion, anger, helplessness, docility and alienation in one’s own town. Exhaustion describes best the widespread feeling amongst the majority of the inhabitants of the city. Be it the closure, the lack of any viable solution or even a political horizon, the crumbling economic conditions, the closing in of Palestinian residents through an orchestrated policy of confiscation, demolition, fines and taxation, all contribute to a state of insecurity and fear of the future. Nothing is offered, given or provided hence people revert to snatch, grab, jump the line, and most importantly break the atrocious laws, any laws even those that govern human relations. All this calls for some investigation, some probing and possibly uncovering and betrayal.

For the Jerusalem Show IV, 18 Palestinian and international artists were invited by Al-Mamal Foundation to think through the theme of Exhaustion in the context of the city and its environment, and to produce works that explore issues involved in the condition and feeling of Exhaustion which afflicts the whole of Palestinian society and is palpable in Jerusalem particularly. In addition, 11 young Palestinian artists were commissioned by al Hoash to produce new artworks to be presented in the framework of the Jerusalem Show.

Jerusalem Show Participating artists: Anonymous, Karim Abu Shakra, Moayed Amleh, Asad Azi, Mirna Bamieh, Taysir Batniji, Bahar Behbahani, Youmna Chlala and Jeannette Gaussi, Mohamad Fadel, Sarah Faruki, Issa Freij, Mohamad Hawajiri, Dima Hourani, Khaled Jarrar, Yazan Khalili, Martin Lebioda, Randa Madah, F. Zahir Mibineh, Ariane Michel, Nissrin Najjar, Michael Rakowitz, Rigo 23, Raeda Saadeh, Salama Safadi, Inass Yassin

Jerusalem Show performance events: Uriel Barthélémi, Vlatka Horvat, and Sabreen band (a Michael Rakowitz project).

TOPHANE SALDIRISI İÇİN BASIN AÇIKLAMASI/PRESS RELEASE FOR THE ATTACKS ON TOPHANE ART GALLERIES IN ISTANBUL

2010-09-22T11:52:00.000-07:00

TOPHANE SALDIRISI İÇİN BASIN AÇIKLAMASI

Dün akşam Tophane sanat galerilerinin ortak açılışı sırasında düzenlenen örgütlü saldırıda, sergi açılışına katılan sanat izleyicileri 40-50 kişilik bir grup tarafından tartaklandı, yaralandı, galeriler tahrip edildi. Aralarında sanatçılar, akademisyenler, öğrenciler, yazarlar, Türkiye ve yurtdışından gazeteciler, yabancı ülkelerin kültür ataşeleri olan sanatseverler üzerinde tam bir terör ortamı yaratıldı. Saldırıda, gaz spreyi, bıçak, kırık şişeler, demir sopalar ve coplar kullanıldı. Polonya, Hollanda, Alman, İngiliz uyruklu sanatseverler de hastanelere kaldırıldı. Saldırının daha vahim sonuçlar yaratmaması büyük şanstı.

Bir süreden beri, Tophane’de bir grubun sanat galerilerinin açılışını ve calışmalarını engellemeye yönelik şiddet unsuru içeren eylemlerine şahit olduk. Çesitli defalar galerilerimiz, sanatçılar, ve izleyiciler taciz ve tehdit edildi. Bu eylemlerin, internet üzerinden ve mahalledeki mekanları kullanarak örgütlenen bir grup tarafından gerçekleştirildiğini biliyoruz.

Taşındığımız ilk günden beri, komşularımızla, çocuklarla, anne ve babalarla, esnafla iletişim içerisinde olduk, beraber projeler gerçekleştirdik. Biz Tophane’deki kültürel çeşitliliğin ve dokunun kalıcı bir parçası olduğumuza inanıyoruz. Bu örgütlü saldırılar, Tophane ahalisine mal edilemez. Bu saldırganlar, mahallemizin güvenliği açısından ciddi bir tehdit oluşturmaktadır.

İstanbul’un merkezinde, bir kültür başkentinde yaşanması hiçbir şekilde kabul edilemez bu örgütlü saldırı, aynı zamanda tüm sanat kurumları için de ciddi bir uyarıdır. Bu eylemin nasıl örgütlendiğiyle ilgili ciddi bir soruşturma yapılması ve sorumluların bulunması kentimizin güvenliği açısından zorunludur.

Daha önce Tophane’de İMF protestolarına katılanlara karşı yaşanan linç girişimi de bu oranda bir şiddet gösterisi olmuş ve basına yansımıştı. Ancak bu olaylar sonrasında saldırganların cezasız kalması, bu tür şiddet eylemleri yapan gruplar için cesaretlendirici bir örnek olmuştur.

Valilik, emniyet ve siyasi partiler bu konuya gereken duyarlılıkla yaklaşırlarsa, bu gibi saldırıların önünün kesileceğine inanıyoruz. Aksi takdirde bu tür eylemler, daha vahim boyutlar kazanabilir ve kentimizin sosyal ve kültürel hayatı için bir tehdit haline gelebilir.

Olayın tekrar etmesine fırsat vermemek üzere dün gece yaşananlara tanık tüm dostlarımızı Beyoğlu Karakolu’na ifade vermeye çağırıyoruz.

Tophane galerileri, sanatçılar ve sanatseverler

------------------------------------------------

PRESS RELEASE FOR THE ATTACKS ON TOPHANE ART GALLERIES IN ISTANBUL

In an organized attack on art galleries in the Tophane neighbourhood of Istanbul, guests attending exhibition openings were physically assaulted in a lynch attempt by a gang of 40-50 people. The audience subjected to this atmosphere of total terror featured artists, academicians, students, writers, local and international journalists and cultural attaches from consulates. The attackers used knives, batons, broken bottles and pepper spray. The injured include Polish, Dutch, German and English guests.

We have witnessed for a time now the actions of a certain group to disrupt the openings, exhibitions and events of art galleries in Tophane and to create an atmosphere of intimidation. Galleries, artists and guests have been harassed and threatened numerous times. We know that these actions are carried out by a group organized via certain web sites and around certain localities in the neighbourhood.

We have always had a strong bond of communication with all our neighbours, with children, parents and other commercial enterprises in the neighbourhood, and carried out community projects. We believe we are a part of the cultural and social scene in Tophane. These organized attacks cannot be attributed to the Tophane community. These assailants constitute a serious threat to the security of our neighbourhood.

This organized attack in the centre of Istanbul, a cultural capital, is in no manner acceptable. This attack spells a clear and genuine warning to all art institutions. A serious investigation into the organizers and perpetrators of this attack is necessary for the safety of our neighbourhood and city.

Participants in protests against the IMF had previously been attacked in a similar manner in what can only be described as a lynching attempt. However, this attack remained uninvestigated, providing an instance of encouragement for the groups carrying out such violent attacks.

We believe these attacks can be prevented if the governor’s office, the police forces and political parties treat this incident with appropriate sensitivity. Failing that, such incidents will take on more perilous proportions and form a grave threat for the social and cultural life of our city.

Tophane galleries, artists and art audience

dun gece orada olanlara gecmis olsun

2010-09-22T11:50:00.000-07:00

elmas'in blogundan:

"Bu gün malüm açılışlara gitmek için evden çıkıldı. Ama bu gün diğerlerinden farklıymış meğer...

Outlet'de Jacob Ferry sergisi vardı, vidoların yanında pek çok resim ve çizimin sergilendiği insanca pek kalabalık bir sergiydi. Arkasından hemen aşağıda Non galeri'de Extrastruggle sergisine geçildi. Sergi pek sert, evet kemalistlerin kanını donduracak sertlikteydi, ama iyiydi, bir derdi vardı.

Sergide bir işin başında bir arkadaşla konuşurken aniden sesler duyduk, camlara vuruluyordu. Birden gözlerimiz yanmaya başladı biber gazı, panikle arkadaş çıkalım " madımak" dedi, dışarı kaçalım içerde kalmayalım.

Ben dışarı çıkamadım içerde bulmam gereken bir arkadaşım vardi. Onu buldum, biber gazından gözleri yaş içinde dolanan... kalabalık galeri içinde yukarıya doğru yöneldi. Camları ilk etapta açamadık, bekledik. Madımak kafamda, ben aslında baya korktum hatta çok korktum... Derya ile Haldun konuşuyordu sakin ol diyordu Haldun geçecek, sen üstesinden gelirsin. Aşağıdan temkinsiz sesler geliyordu.

Neyse kapi açılabildi dışarı çıktım. O anda orada durmanın daha problemli olacağını düşünüp anayola indim biraz yürüdükten sonra ilk taksiye aynı yoldan galeri Non önünden yukarı çıkamadık. Yol tam savaş alanına dönüşmüştü. O an korkum katlandı birilerine bir zarar gelmesinden çok korktum.

Birileri daha gelir diye Urban'a geçtim. Merak ettim mesele, extramücadele mi? Ne? Dert nedir?
Zaten ağır şok devam ediyor. Arada sırada uyanarak "ya bize saldırdılar ya" deme hali,,,

Sonra haberler geldi, Urbana gitmek iyi fikirmiş, eve gitsem başka düşünecektim. Meğer Outlet'e de saldırmışlar, orda da içerde mahsur kalınmış. Inci Furni kaşındaki yarayı gösterdi adamlar saldirmişlar resmen, Nazım' ın kafası yarılmış. Taksim ilkyardımda başkaları da var dediler.

Meğer biz içerideyken Non galeride kilitliyken dışarıda kalanlara şişe fırlatmişlar Maria cihangire kadar koşturmuş.

Ben Harfiyattaki olayı hatırlıyorum, bir iki yıl önce Polisin de ağır taraf tuttuğu bir olaydı.

Ama bu gün hepimiz için ağırşok oldu. Ağır bir şok.

Fikirlerin yer edinemediği bir ülke insanlara nasıl vatan olsundu.

Fikir sahibi olmanın ölüm sebebi olduğu bir ülke nasıkl yaşanılası olsundu?

Madımak olmadı belki ama Madımak hatırlandı bu gün hatırlatıldı.

Felaket."

discoveries in berlin: pop'africana

2010-09-16T07:11:00.000-07:00

http://www.popafricana.com/

ming wong kontakthope opening at nbk soon

2010-09-16T07:07:00.000-07:00

Gruppenbild

4: Ming Wong

28. September – 5. November 2010

Showroom (1. Stock)

Eröffnung: Freitag, 24. September, 19 Uhr

Kuratorinnen: Kathrin Becker, Sophie Goltz

Gruppenbild ist eine fünfteilige Ausstellungsserie im Showroom des Neuen Berliner Kunstvereins. Die beteiligten KünstlerInnen arbeiten mit Performance und Rauminstallation und gestalten über die Dauer eines Jahres das als Experiment angelegte Projekt. Mit jeder künstlerischen Intervention werden bestehende Installationen variiert und neue Elemente hinzugefügt. Aus den einzelnen Beiträgen entsteht so ein kollektives Denkbild. Den Anfang bildete

die Videoinstallation Timing and Consistency (2010) von Karolin Meunier, ein performativer Monolog über die Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der Selbstauskunft. Im zweiten Teil folgte Discoteca Flaming Star mit der Videoarbeit El valor del gallo negro (Buthe – Turm – Börse)(2010), einer Performance für die Kamera, die sich mit der An- und Abwesenheit des Körpers im Abstraktionsprozess befasst. Azin Feizabadi nahm die gemeinsamen Gespräche von Gruppenbild zum Ausgang seiner Installation Felix, what will remain after all this? (2010), um diese mit Beispielen kollektiven Widerstands zu verknüpfen. Ausgehend von dem gemeinsamen Prozess bei Gruppenbild lud Ming Wong internationale KünstlerInnen und KuratorInnen, die in Berlin leben und mit denen er zusammenarbeitet, zu einem Tanzworkshop mit Verena Krajewski ein. Die daraus resultierende neue Videoarbeit Kontakthope (2010) untersucht Alltagsgesten in der Begegnung zwischen KünstlerInnen und KuratorInnen, um allgemeiner zu fragen: Was geht in uns vor, wenn wir einander begegnen; auf welche Geschichte beziehen wir uns? Gleichzeitig greift er mit den entlehnten Gesten aus dem Tanzstück Kontakthof (1978) von Pina Bausch deutsche Kultur- und Tanzgeschichte auf. Die Musik wurde in den 1930er Jahren von dem emigrierten russisch-jüdischen Musikstar Leo Monosson auf Deutsch gesungen, der im späteren US-amerikanischen Exil nie eine musikalische Heimat finden sollte. Während die Tanzsprache Bauschs universell lesbar ist, filmt Wong das Spezifische in den Mikrobegegnungen, um sie in der Postproduktion mit dem visuellen Diskurs um kulturelle Globalität zu Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts zu verschränken.

Biografie

Ming Wong (*1971 in Singapur) lebt und arbeitet in Berlin. Er studierte Chinese Art an der Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapur und Fine Art Media an der Slade School of Art, University College London. In Wongs künstlerischer Praxis fügen sich Sprache und Identität zu einem eigenen „World Cinema“. In seinen Performance-Videos wird dieses Kino des Alltags zu einer Bühne queerer Politik der Repräsentation und verbindet sich mit der Geschichte des Melodramas eines Rainer Werner Fassbinders oder P. Ramlees wie des modernen Tanzes.

Einzelausstellungen (Auswahl): Singapore Art Museum (2010); Singapur Pavillon, 53. Venedig Biennale (2009); Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2008).

Gruppenausstellungen (Auswahl): Gwangju Biennale, Sydney Biennale, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography (alle 2010); Centro Cultural Montehermoso, Vitoria-Gasteiz (2009); ZKM|Zentrum für Kunst- und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe (2008).

running in berlin now. check out!

2010-09-16T07:06:00.000-07:00

correctmeifimcritical.org

another country: james baldwin's flight from america by claudia roth pierpont @ new yorker feb'09

2010-08-30T10:23:00.000-07:00

Feeling more than usually restless, James Baldwin flew from New York to Paris in the late summer of 1961, and from there to Israel. Then, rather than proceed as he had planned to Africa—a part of the world he was not ready to confront—he decided to visit a friend in Istanbul. Baldwin’s arrival at his Turkish friend’s door, in the midst of a party, was, as the friend recalled, a great surprise: two rings of the bell, and there stood a small and bedraggled black man with a battered suitcase and enormous eyes. Engin Cezzar was a Turkish actor who had worked with Baldwin in New York, and he excitedly introduced “Jimmy Baldwin, of literary fame, the famous black American novelist” to the roomful of intellectuals and artists. Baldwin, in his element, eventually fell asleep in an actress’s lap.

It soon became clear that Baldwin was in terrible shape: exhausted, in poor health, worried that he was losing sight of his aims both as a writer and as a man. He desperately needed to be taken care of, Cezzar said; or, in the more dramatic terms that Baldwin used throughout his life, to be saved. His suitcase contained the manuscript of a long and ambitious novel that he had been working on for years, and that had already brought him to the brink of suicide. Of the many things that the wandering writer hoped to find—friends, rest, peace of mind—his single overwhelming need, his only real hope of salvation, was to finish the book.

Baldwin had been fleeing from place to place for much of his adult life. He was barely out of his teens when he left his Harlem home for Greenwich Village, in the early forties, and he had escaped altogether at twenty-four, in 1948, buying a one-way ticket to Paris, with no intention of coming back. His father was dead by then, and his mother had eight younger children whom it tortured him to be deserting; he didn’t have the courage to tell her he was going until the afternoon he left. There was, of course, no shortage of reasons for a young black man to leave the country in 1948. Devastation was all around: his contemporaries, out on Lenox Avenue, were steadily going to jail or else were on “the needle.” His father, a factory worker and a preacher—“he was righteous in the pulpit,” Baldwin said, “and a monster in the house”—had died insane, poisoned with racial bitterness. Baldwin had also sought refuge in the church, becoming a boy preacher when he was fourteen, but had soon realized that he was hiding from everything he wanted and feared he could never achieve. He began his first novel, about himself and his father, around the time he left the church, at seventeen. Within a few years, he was publishing regularly in magazines; book reviews, mostly, but finally an essay and even a short story. Still, who really believed that he could make it as a writer? In America?

The answer to both questions came from Richard Wright. Although Baldwin seemed a natural heir to the Harlem Renaissance—he was born right there, in 1924, and Countee Cullen was one of his schoolteachers—the bittersweet poetry of writers like Cullen and Langston Hughes held no appeal for him. It was Wright’s unabating fury that hit him hard. Reading “Native Son,” Wright’s novel about a Negro rapist and murderer, Baldwin was stunned to recognize the world that he saw around him. He knew those far from bittersweet tenements, he knew the rats inside the walls. Equally striking for a young writer, it would seem, was Wright’s success: “Native Son,” published in 1940, had been greeted as a revelation about the cruelties of a racist culture and its vicious human costs. In the swell of national self-congratulation over the fact that such a book could be published, it became a big best-seller. Wright was the most successful black author in history when Baldwin—twenty years old, hungry and scared—got himself invited to Wright’s Brooklyn home, where, over a generously proffered bottle of bourbon, he explained the novel that he was trying to write. Wright, sixteen years Baldwin’s senior, was more than sympathetic; he read Baldwin’s pages, found him a publisher, and got him a fellowship to give him time to write. Although the publisher ultimately turned the book down, Wright gave Baldwin the confidence to continue, and the wisdom to do it somewhere else.

Wright moved to Paris in 1947 and, the following year, greeted Baldwin at the café Les Deux Magots on the day that he arrived, introducing him to editors of a new publication, called Zero, who were eager for his contributions. Baldwin had forty dollars, spoke no French, and knew hardly anyone else. Wright helped him find a room, and while it is true that the two writers were not close friends—Baldwin later noted the difference in their ages, and the fact that he had never even visited the brutal American South where Wright was formed—one can appreciate Wright’s shock when Baldwin’s first article for Zero was an attack on “the protest novel,” and, in particular, on “Native Son.” The central problem with the book, as Baldwin saw it, was that Wright’s criminal hero was “defined by his hatred and his fear,” and represented not a man but a social category; as a literary figure, he was no better than Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom. And he was more dangerous, perpetuating the “monstrous legend” of the black killer which Wright had meant to destroy. Wright blew up at Baldwin when they ran into each other at the Brasserie Lipp, but Baldwin did not back down. His article, reprinted later that year in Partisan Review, marked the start of his reputation in New York. He went on to publish even harsher attacks—arguing that Wright’s work was gratuitously violent, that it ignored the traditions of Negro life, that Wright had become a spokesman rather than an artist—as he struggled to formulate everything that he wanted his own work to be.

Baldwin knew very well the hatred and fear that Wright described. Crucial to his development, he said, was the notion that he was a “bastard of the West,” without any natural claim to “Shakespeare, Bach, Rembrandt, to the stones of Paris, to the cathedral at Chartres”: to all the things that, as a budding artist and a Western citizen, he treasured most. As a result, he was forced to admit, “I hated and feared white people,” which did not mean that he loved blacks: “On the contrary, I despised them, possibly because they failed to produce Rembrandt.” He had been encouraged by white teachers, though, and was surrounded by white high-school friends, so that this cultural hatred seemed to remain a fairly abstract notion, and he had assumed that he would never feel his father’s rage. Then one day, not long out of school, he was turned away from a New Jersey diner and, in a kind of trance, deliberately entered a glittering, obviously whites-only restaurant, and sat down. This time, when the waitress refused to serve him, he pretended not to hear in order to draw her closer—“I wanted her to come close enough for me to get her neck between my hands”—and finally hurled a mug of water at her and ran, realizing only when he had come to himself that he had been ready to murder another human being. In some ways, “Native Son” may have hit too hard.

The terrifying experience in the restaurant—terrifying not because of the evil done to him but because of the evil he suddenly felt able to do—helped to give Baldwin his first real understanding of his father, who had grown up in the South, the son of a slave, and who had, like Wright, been witness to unnameable horrors before escaping to the mundane humiliations of the North. Baldwin knew by then that the man whom he called his father was actually his stepfather, having married his mother when James was two years old; but, if this seemed to explain the extra measure of harshness that had been meted out to him, the greater tragedy of the man’s embittered life and death remained. On the day of his funeral, in 1943, Baldwin recognized the need to fight this dreadful legacy, if he, too, were not to be consumed. More than a decade before the earliest stirrings of the civil-rights movement, the only way to conceive this fight was from within. “It now had been laid to my charge,” he wrote, “to keep my own heart free of hatred and despair.”

t takes a fire-breathing religion to blunt the hatred and despair in “Go Tell It on the Mountain” (1953), the autobiographical coming-of-age novel that Baldwin wrote and rewrote for a decade, centering on the battle for the soul of young John Grimes, on the occasion of his fourteenth birthday, in a shouting and swaying Harlem storefront church. For the boy, being saved is a way of winning the love of his preacher father—an impossible task. Still, part of the nobility of this remarkable book derives from Baldwin’s reluctance to stain religious faith with too much psychological knowingness. More of the nobility lies in its language, which is touched with the grandeur of the sermons that Baldwin had heard so often in his youth. Then, too, after arriving in Paris, he had become immersed in the works of Henry James and, reading Joyce’s “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” had strongly identified with its self-creating hero. “He would not be like his father or his father’s fathers,” John Grimes swears. “He would have another life.” Baldwin, led by these supreme authorial guides, to whom he felt a perfectly natural claim, set out to turn his shabby Harlem streets and churches into world-class literature. The book’s moral and linguistic victories are seamless. Although Baldwin’s people speak a simple and irregular “black” grammar, their loosely uttered “ain’t”s and “I reckon”s flow without strain into prose of Jamesian complexity, of Biblical richness, as he penetrates their minds.

Baldwin wrote about the strictures of Harlem piety while living the bohemian life in Paris, hanging out in cafés and jazz clubs and gay bars; after having affairs with both men and women in New York, he had slowly come to accept that his desires were exclusively for men. His often frantic social schedule was one reason that the writing of “Go Tell It on the Mountain” dragged on and on. It also began to seem as though he somehow used places up and had to move to others, at least temporarily, in order to write. In the winter of 1951, he had packed the unruly manuscript and gone to stay with his current lover in a small Swiss village, where he completed it in three months, listening to Bessie Smith records to get the native sounds back in his ears. Published two years later, the book was a critical success; Baldwin claimed to have missed out on the National Book Award only because Ralph Ellison had won for “Invisible Man” the year before, and two Negroes in a row was just too much.

But it was Wright whom he still took for the monster he had to slay—or, perhaps, as he sometimes worried, for his father—and the book of essays that Baldwin published in 1955, which included two that were vehemently anti-Wright, was titled, in direct challenge, “Notes of a Native Son.” It was not, by intent, a political book. In its first few pages, Baldwin explained that race was something he had to address in order to be free to write about other subjects: the writer’s only real task was “to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art.” The best of these essays are indeed closely personal, but invariably open to a political awareness that endows them with both order and weight. Baldwin’s greatest strength, in fact, is the way the personal and the political intertwine, so that it becomes impossible to distinguish between these aspects of a life. The story of his father’s funeral is also the story of a riot that broke out in Harlem that day, in the summer of 1943, when a white policeman shot a black soldier and set off a rampage in which white businesses were looted and smashed. “For Harlem had needed something to smash,” Baldwin writes. If it had not been so late in the evening and the stores had not been closed, he warned, a lot more blood might have been shed.

In 1955, the injustice of the black experience was no longer news, and if Baldwin’s warning drew attention it was overshadowed by the gentler yet more startling statements that made his work unique. In this newly politicized context, there was a larger lesson to be drawn from the hard-won wisdom, offered from his father’s grave, that hatred “never failed to destroy the man who hated and this was an immutable law.” Addressing a predominantly white audience—many of these essays were originally published in white liberal magazines—he sounds a tone very much like sympathy. Living abroad, he explained, had made him realize how irrevocably he was an American; he confessed that he felt a closer kinship with the white Americans he saw in Paris than with the African blacks, whose culture and experiences he had never shared. The races’ mutual obsession, in America, and their long if hidden history of physical commingling had finally made them something like a family. For these reasons, Baldwin revoked the threat of violence with an astonishingly broad reassurance: American Negroes, he claimed, have no desire for vengeance. The relationship of blacks and whites is, after all, “a blood relationship, perhaps the most profound reality of the American experience,” and cannot be understood until we recognize how much it contains of “the force and anguish and terror of love.”

When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery bus, in December, 1955, Baldwin was absorbed with the publication of his second novel, “Giovanni’s Room”; he watched from Paris as the civil-rights movement got under way, that spring. His new book had a Paris setting, no black characters, and not a word about race. Even more boldly, it was about homosexual love—or, rather, about the inability of a privileged young American man to come to terms with his sexuality and ultimately to feel any love at all. Brief and intense, the novel is brilliant in its exploration of emotional cowardice but marred by a portentous tone that at times feels cheaply secondhand—more “Bonjour Tristesse” than Gide or Genet. Although Baldwin had been cautioned about the prospects of a book with such a controversial subject, it received good reviews and went into a second printing in six weeks. As a writer, he had won the freedom he desired, and the decision to live abroad seemed fully vindicated. By late 1956, however, the atmosphere in Paris was changing. The Algerian war had made it difficult to ignore France’s own racial problems, and newspaper headlines in the kiosks outside the cafés made it even harder to forget the troubles back home. And so the following summer Baldwin embarked on his most adventurous trip, to the land that some in Harlem still called the Old Country: the American South.

He was genuinely afraid. Looking down from the plane as it circled the red earth of Georgia, he could not help thinking that it “had acquired its color from the blood that had dripped down from these trees.” It was September, 1957, and he was arriving just as the small number of black children who were entering all-white schools were being harassed by jeering mobs, spat upon, and threatened with much worse. In Charlotte, North Carolina, he interviewed one of these children—a proudly stoic straight-A student—and his mother. (“I wonder sometimes,” she says, “what makes white folks so mean.”) He also spoke with the principal of the boy’s new school, a white man who had dutifully escorted the boy past a blockade of students but announced that he did not believe in racial integration, because it was “contrary to everything he had ever seen or believed.” Baldwin, who is elsewhere stingingly eloquent about the effects of segregation, confronts this individual with the scope of his sympathies intact. Seeing him as the victim of a sorry heritage, he does not argue but instead commiserates, with a kind of higher moral cunning, about the difficulty of having to mistreat an innocent child. And at these words, Baldwin reports, “a veil fell, and I found myself staring at a man in anguish.”

This evidence of dawning white conscience, as it appeared to Baldwin, accorded with the optimistic faith that he found in Atlanta, where he met the twenty-eight-year-old Martin Luther King, Jr., and heard him preach. Baldwin was struck by King’s description of bigotry as a disease most harmful to the bigots, and by his solution that, in Baldwin’s words, “these people could only be saved by love.” This idealistic notion, shared by the two preachers’ sons, was a basic tenet, and a basic strength, of the early civil-rights movement. Baldwin went on to visit Birmingham (“a doomed city”), Little Rock, Tuskegee, Montgomery, and Nashville; in 1960, he covered the sit-in movement in Tallahassee. His second volume of essays, “Nobody Knows My Name,” published in 1961, was welcomed by white readers as something of a guidebook to the uncharted racial landscape. Although Baldwin laid the so-called “Negro problem” squarely at white America’s door, viewing racism as a species of pathology, he nevertheless offered the consoling possibility of redemption through mutual love—no other writer would have described the historic relation of the races in America as “a wedding.” And he avowed an enduring belief in “the vitality of the so transgressed Western ideals.” The book was on the best-seller list for six months, and Baldwin was suddenly, as much as Richard Wright had ever been, a spokesman for his race.

The role was a great temptation and a greater danger. Given his ambitions, this was not the sort of success that he most wanted, and the previous few years had been plagued with disappointment at failing to achieve the successes he craved. A play he had adapted from “Giovanni’s Room,” for the Actors Studio, in New York, had yielded nothing except a friendship with the young Turkish actor, Engin Cezzar, whom Baldwin had chosen to play Giovanni; the play, which Baldwin hoped would go to Broadway, never made it past the workshop level. His new novel, “Another Country,” was hopelessly stalled; the characters, he said, refused to talk to him, and the “unpublishable” manuscript was ruining his life. He was drinking too much, getting hardly any sleep, and his love affairs had all gone sour. He wrote about having reached “the point at which many artists lose their minds, or commit suicide, or throw themselves into good works, or try to enter politics.” To fend off all these possibilities, it seems, he accepted a magazine assignment to travel to Israel and Africa, then, out of weariness and fear, took up Cezzar’s long-standing invitation, and found himself at the party in Istanbul. It was a wise move. In this distant city, no one wanted to interview him, no one was pressing him for social prophecy. He knew few people. He couldn’t speak the language. There was time to work. He stayed for two months, and he was at another party—Baldwin would always find another party—calmly writing at a kitchen counter covered with glasses and papers and hors d’oeuvres, when he put down the final words of “Another Country.” The book was dated, with a flourish, “Istanbul, Dec. 10, 1961.”

t is an incongruous image, the black American writer in Istanbul, but Baldwin returned to the city many times during the next ten years, making it a second or third not-quite-home. In “James Baldwin’s Turkish Decade” (Duke; $24.95), Magdalena J. Zaborowska, a professor of immigrant and African-American literature, sets out to explain not only the enduring attraction the city had for Baldwin but its importance for the rest of his career. For Zaborowska, “Istanbul, Dec. 10, 1961” is not merely a literary sigh of relief and wonderment—Baldwin’s earlier books have no such endnote—but an affirmation of “the centrality of the city and date to the final shape of ‘Another Country’ ”; she insists on Istanbul as “a location and lens through which we should reassess his work today.” Divided between Europe and Asia, with a Muslim yet highly cosmopolitan population, Istanbul was unlike any place Baldwin had been before and, more to the point, unlike the places that had defined both the color of his skin and his sexuality as shameful problems. Whatever Turkey’s history of prejudice, divisions there did not have an automatic black/white racial cast. And, on the sexual front, Istanbul had long been so notorious that Zaborowska is on the defensive against Americans who snidely assume that Baldwin went there for the baths. In fact, during his first days in the city, he was nearly giddy at the sight of men in the street openly holding hands, and could not accept Cezzar’s explanation that this was a custom without sexual import. At the heart of the matter is the question of racial and sexual freedom—the city’s, the writer’s—and its effect on Baldwin’s ability to reflect and to experiment in ways that he had not been able to do elsewhere.

But was this freedom real? How much of it can be found in Baldwin’s work? Despite a tendency toward jargon—Academia is another country—Zaborowska is a charming companion as she follows Baldwin’s steps through Turkey, brimming with enthusiasm at the sights and at the warmth of her reception by his friends. The Polish-born professor, a blithe exemplar of the “transnational” tradition in which she places Baldwin, is too idealistic and far too honest—the tender air of Henry James’s Maisie hangs about her—to refrain from reporting her shock at some of those friends’ remarks. “Jimmy was not a typical ‘gay,’ ” one explains, “he was a real human being.” In the matter of race, she informs us that she is omitting “Cezzar’s use of the n-word, which he employed a couple of times but then abandoned, perhaps seeing my discomfort.” As she admits, her own evidence refutes the hypothesis that Baldwin’s Istanbul was untainted by the usual prejudice. And then there is the problem that Baldwin never wrote anything about Istanbul. Zaborowska labors to soften this hard fact through elaborate inferences and suggestions of symbolism, and by calling on various authorities for disquisitions on “the experience of place,” or “Cold War Orientalism.” (This is where the jargon really thickens.) But if she ultimately fails to make the case that Istanbul was anything for Baldwin but what he claimed—a refuge in which to write—she makes us feel how necessary such a refuge was as the sixties wore on.

“Another Country” turned out to be a best-seller in the most conventional sense. A sprawling book that brought together Baldwin’s concerns with race and sex, its daring themes—black rage, interracial sex, homosexuality, white guilt, urban malaise—make an imposing backdrop for characters who refuse to come to life. A black jazz musician who plummets into madness because of an affair with a white woman; a white bisexual saint who cures both men and women in his bed—the social agenda shines through these figures like light through glass. More than anything else, the book reveals Baldwin’s immense will and professionalism; like the contemporary best-sellers “Ship of Fools” and “The Group,” it suggests a delicate and fine-tuned talent pushed past its narrative limits in pursuit of the “big” work. Baldwin claimed to be going after the sound of jazz musicians in his prose, but aside from some lingo on the order of “Some cat turned her on, and then he split,” the language is stale compared with his earlier works—or compared with the burnished eloquence of his next book, which shook the American rafters when it was published, in early 1963.

“The Fire Next Time,” Baldwin’s most celebrated work, is a pair of essays, totalling little more than a hundred pages. Some of these pages were written in Istanbul, but more significant is the fact that Baldwin had finally gone to Africa. And, after years of worry that the Africans would look down on him, or, worse, that he would look down on them, he had been accepted and impressed. The book also reveals a renewed closeness with his family, whose support now counterbalanced both his public performances and his private loneliness. Eagerly making up for his desertion, Baldwin was a munificent son and brother and a doting uncle, glorying in the role of paterfamilias: his brother David was his closest friend and aide; his sister Gloria managed his money; he bought a large house in Manhattan, well outside Harlem, for his mother and the rest of the clan to share. To hear him tell it, this is what he had intended ever since he’d left. A new and protective pride is evident in the brief introductory “Letter to My Nephew,” in which he assures the boy, his brother Wilmer’s son James, that he descends from “some of the greatest poets since Homer,” and quotes the words of a Negro spiritual; and in the longer essay, “Down at the Cross,” when he portrays the black children who had faced down mobs as “the only genuine aristocrats this country has produced.” Although Baldwin writes once again of his childhood, his father, and his church, his central subject is the Black Muslim movement then terrifying white America.

With the fire of the title blazing ever nearer, Baldwin praised the truthfulness of Malcolm X but rejected the separatism and violence of the Muslim movement. He offered pity rather than hatred—pity in order to avoid hatred—to the racists who, he firmly believed, despised in blacks the very things they feared in themselves. And, seeking dignity as much as freedom, he counselled black people to desist from doing to others as had been done to them. Most important, Baldwin once again promised a way out: “If we—and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of the others—do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world.”

When did he stop believing it? No matter how many months he hid away in Istanbul or Paris, the sixties were inescapably Baldwin’s American decade. In the spring of 1963, thanks to his most recent and entirely unconventional best-seller, he appeared on the cover of Time. Although he insisted that he was a writer and not a public spokesman, he had nonetheless undertaken a lecture tour of the South for CORE and soon held a meeting with Attorney General Robert Kennedy; in August, he took part in the March on Washington. It was with the bombing of a Birmingham church barely two weeks later, and the death of four schoolgirls, that he began to voice doubt about the efficacy of nonviolence. The murder of his friend Medgar Evers, and the dangers and humiliations involved in working on a voter-registration drive in Selma, brought a new toughness to his writing: a new willingness to deal in white stereotypes, and a new regard for hate. (“You’re going to make yourself sick with hatred,” someone warns a young man in Baldwin’s 1964 play, “Blues for Mister Charlie.” “No, I’m not,” he replies, “I’m going to make myself well.”) It is ironic that Baldwin was dismissed by the new radical activists and attacked by Eldridge Cleaver as this change was taking place: in an essay titled “Notes on a Native Son,” in 1966, Cleaver did to Baldwin something like what Baldwin had done to Richard Wright, attacking him as a sycophant to whites and a traitor to his people. The new macho militants derided Baldwin’s homosexuality, even referring to him as Martin Luther Queen. But the end point for Baldwin was the murder of King, in 1968; after that, he confessed, “something has altered in me, something has gone away.”

In the era of the Black Panthers, he was politically obsolete. By the early seventies, when Henry Louis Gates, Jr., suggested an article about Baldwin for Time, he found the magazine no longer interested. Far worse for Baldwin, he was also seen as artistically exhausted. On this, Zaborowska disagrees. In championing the “Turkish decade,” she attempts to defend some of Baldwin’s later, nearly forgotten works. She is right to speak up for “No Name in the Street,” a deeply troubled but erratically brilliant book-length essay, published in 1972 and described by Baldwin as being about “the life and death of what we call the civil rights movement.” (And which, during these years, he preferred to call a “slave rebellion.”) Unable to believe anymore that he or anyone else could “reach the conscience of a nation,” he embraced the Panthers as folk heroes, while resignedly turning the other cheek to Cleaver, whom he mildly excused for confusing him with “all those faggots, punks, and sissies, the sight and sound of whom, in prison, must have made him vomit.” As Baldwin knew, hatred unleashed is not easy to control, and here he demonstrates the dire results of giving up the fight.

“No Name in the Street” is a disorderly book, both chronologically and emotionally chaotic; Zaborowska sees its lack of structure as deliberately “experimental,” and she may be right. At its core, Baldwin details his long and fruitless attempt to get a falsely accused friend out of prison; he looks back at the Southern experiences that he had reported on so coolly years before, and exposes the agony that he had felt. At the same time, he wants us to know how far he has come: there is ample mention of the Cadillac limousine and the cook-chauffeur and the private pool; he assures us that the sufferings of the world make even the Beverly Hills Hotel, for him, “another circle of Hell.” And he is undoubtedly suffering. He does his best to denounce Western culture in the terms of the day, as a “mask for power,” and insists that to be rid of Texaco and Coca-Cola one should be prepared to jettison Balzac and Shakespeare. Then, as though he had finally gone too far, he adds, “later, of course, one may welcome them back,” a loss of nerve that he immediately feels he has to justify: “Whoever is part of whatever civilization helplessly loves some aspects of it and some of the people in it.” Struggling to finish the book, Baldwin left Istanbul behind in 1971—the city was now as overfilled with distractions as Paris or New York—and bought a house in the South of France. The book’s concluding dateline, a glaring mixture of restlessness and pride, reads “New York, San Francisco, Hollywood, London, Istanbul, St. Paul de Vence, 1967-1971.”

t is difficult for even the most fervent advocate to defend “Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone,” an oddly depthless novel about a famous black actor, which, on its publication, in 1968, appeared to finish Baldwin as a novelist in the minds of everyone but Baldwin, whose ambitions seemed only to grow. His next two novels, largely about family love, are mixed achievements: “If Beale Street Could Talk” (1974), the brief and affecting story of an unjustly imprisoned Harlem youth, is told from the surprising perspective of his pregnant teen-age girlfriend (who only occasionally sounds like James Baldwin); “Just Above My Head” (1979), a multi-generational melodrama, contains one unforgettable segment, nearly four hundred pages in, about a trio of young black men travelling through the South. There were still signs of the exceptional gift. But the intensity, the coruscating language, the tight coherence of that first novel—where had they gone? The answers to this often asked question have varied: he had stayed away too long, and become detached from his essential subject; he had been corrupted by fame, and the booze didn’t help; or, maybe, he could only really write about himself. Baldwin’s biographer and close friend David Leeming suggested to Baldwin, in the mid-sixties, that “the anarchic aspect” of his daily existence was interfering with his work. But the most widely credited accusation is that his political commitments had deprived him of the necessary concentration, and cost him his creative life.

The case is presented by another of Baldwin’s biographers, James Campbell, who states that in 1963 Baldwin “exchanged art for politics, the patient scrutiny for the hasty judgment, le mot juste for le mot fort,” and that as a result he “died a little death.” But isn’t it as likely that Baldwin’s dedication to the movement, starting back in the late fifties, allowed him to accomplish as much as he did? That the hope it occasioned helped him to push back a lifetime’s hatred and despair and, no less than the retreat to Paris or Istanbul, made it possible for him to write at all? It is important to note that the flaws of the later books are evident in “Another Country,” and even in “Giovanni’s Room,” both completed before he had marched a step. As for the roads not taken, among black writers who had similar choices: Richard Wright did not return to the United States and continued writing novels, in France, until his death, in 1960, yet his later books have been dismissed as major disappointments; Ralph Ellison took no part in the civil-rights movement, yet did not publish another novel after “Invisible Man.” Every talent has its terms, and, while Baldwin was in no ordinary sense a political writer, something in him required that he rise above himself. “How, indeed, would I be able to keep on working,” he worried, “if I could never be released from the prison of my egocentricity?” As Baldwin noted about his childhood, it may be that the things that helped him and the things that hurt him cannot be divorced.

The final years were often bitter. Campbell recalls Baldwin, in 1984, reading aloud from an essay about Harlem that he’d written in the forties, crying out after every catalogued indignity, “Nothing has changed!” He was already in failing health, and tremendously overworked. He had begun to teach—the conviviality and uplift seem to have filled the place of politics—while keeping to his usual hectic schedule; he saw no need to cut back on alcohol or cigarettes. Baldwin was only sixty-three when he died, of cancer, in 1987, at his house in France. He was in the midst of several projects: a novel that would have been, in part, about Istanbul; a triple biography of “Medgar, Malcolm, and Martin”; and, of all things, introductions to paperback editions of two novels by Richard Wright. But Baldwin’s final book was “The Price of the Ticket,” a thick volume of his collected essays, summing up nearly forty years, in which his faith in human possibility burns like a candle in the historical dark. The concluding essay, about the myths of masculinity, offers a plea for the recognition that “each of us, helplessly and forever, contains the other—male in female, female in male, white in black and black in white.”

It is shocking to realize that as early as 1951, and based on no evidence whatever, Baldwin saw that our “fantastic racial history” might ultimately be for the good. “Out of what has been our greatest shame,” he wrote in an essay, “we may be able to create one day our greatest opportunity.” He would have been eighty-four had he lived to see Barack Obama elected President. It is an event that he might have imagined more easily in his youth than in his age, but an event to which he surely contributed, through his essays and novels, his teaching and preaching, the outsized faith and energy that he spent so freely in so many ways. During his wanderings, Baldwin warned a friend who had urged him to settle down that “the place in which I’ll fit will not exist until I make it.” It was, of course, impossible to make such a place alone. But, by the grace of those who have kept on working, as he put it, “to make the kingdom new, to make it honorable and worthy of life,” we have at last the beginnings of a country to which James Baldwin could come home.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/02/09/090209crbo_books_pierpont?currentPage=all#ixzz0y6vG1O8J

look back: from frieze's feminism issue in 2007

2010-08-28T06:49:00.000-07:00

Feminism: Three Views

From Mexico to Egypt, Senegal to Columbia - examining approaches to feminist art-making

Jennifer Doyle

Author of Sex Objects: Art and the Dialectics of Desire (Minnesota, 2006). She lives in Los Angeles, teaches at the University of California, Riverside, and, with Raquel Guttierez, is curating ‘Aqui No Hay Virgenes: Queer Latina Visibility’ for the Los Angeles Lesbian and Gay Center’s Advocate Gallery.

It’s a gorgeous day in December as I walk through the Plaza de la Conchita in Mexico City with the novelist Sarah Miller, the artist Niña Yhared (1814), and her partner, journalist Jorge Luis Berdeja. We pause before La Malinche’s home to talk about this over-determined figure in Mexican history. She was Hernán Cortés’ translator, the mother of his child and, over the centuries, has evolved into an ambivalent allegory for indigenous Mexico: a woman – a slave or a queen – who collaborated and conspired, infiltrated and undermined, or was raped and victimized, depending on the story one wants to tell. The direction of our conversation mirrors our meandering tour of their neighbourhood, the four of us talking about art and life, about economic pressures and impossible loves. Our stories about crazy affairs that leap across borders of class and country, about rosy years when rent is cheap and anything feels possible, intertwine.

Yhared (1814) – the date marks the death of the Marquis de Sade and is part of her name – runs an alternative, lo-fi performance venue, Casa de la Niña, from her home in the Coyoacán. For three years, she has played host to dozens of artists and their fans. Her performance work is quixotic and bittersweet – she dresses up as a mermaid and frolics in city fountains, she wanders into all-male cantinas and coaxes men to wear lipstick and dance with her. She has won awards for her erotic poetry and for her strange and sexy female nudes. Her work belongs to a particular genre of feminist art – a strain that reconfigures denigrated forms of popular culture (in her case the telenovela, the ballad, the sentimental, the soft-core erotic). Angela Carter once described this approach as ‘putting new wine into old bottles, so that the old bottles will explode’. It is a strategy that conspires, that seduces its audience with the opening lines of stories we know all too well, only to lead us into new territory – to expose and strip us of our expectations.

Listening to her talk, I am high with that feeling you get from meeting a new friend. Even as we stumble over our words (me in my halting and awkward Spanish, she in an alternately elegant and elementary English), we hum with the pleasure of feeling understood. When Yhared (1814) talks about her work organizing Casa de la Niña, her vocabulary is not that of a curator, but of a host. Running Casa de la Niña is, for her, an extension of her hospitality, a radicalization of what it means to be a host, to keep house.

There is a difference between curating Feminism, and being a feminist curator, and I wonder if Yhared (1814)’s sensibility draws the line between the two. A museum might put on a big show about feminist art, but that doesn’t necessarily make it a feminist museum, just as a magazine might commission a series of feminist essays without becoming a feminist publication. One can make Feminism the object of one’s work (as a scholar for example), and still not be much of a feminist in the world. The feminist curator, scholar or artist attempts to create a productive context within which we encounter art – a space to which one feels not invited, but welcome, a space to which one needs no invitation, that expands our sense of what art can do, rather than organizes art into discrete categories whose boundaries authorized experts then debate.

I land upon these thoughts as I struggle with the difficulty of writing about Feminism, as a feminist. My overwhelming urge at the start was negative – to tell stories about the eternal forgetting of Feminism – to address my own instinctive suspicion of institutional gestures in Feminism’s direction. Suddenly, when large museums give physical space to feminist art, everybody wants to talk about this thing which has been so much a part of some of our lives since the 1960s, but which, in the bigger picture, huge numbers of people merely tolerate.

While I’m glad the impetus is there for people to want to hear from feminists like me, the honest truth is this: a museum proudly trumpeting itself as the first institution to commit itself to Feminism by way of an exhibition raises more suspicion than excitement. This is why, I think, the opening of ‘WACK!: Art and the Feminist Revolution’ has sparked more cross-programming in Los Angeles than anyone can remember relative to any past exhibition. There are a lot of people who don’t trust LA MOCA, however good its intentions might be, to get things right. This is aggravated by the museum’s publicity stressing that this is the first show of its kind – which it isn’t. It is certainly the largest, and it has its own shape, but ‘WACK!’ is hardly the first survey of the feminist art movement in its variety. Such claims – ‘it’s the first! it’s the best! it’s the biggest!’ – are, of course, integral to the press release as a form, but the demands of that form (the demands of the market) unfortunately replicates the history of the erasure of feminist work by sidestepping over the fact that ten years ago, in 1996, the Hammer Museum – also in Los Angeles – hosted a major exhibit of feminist art, curated by Amelia Jones, called ‘Sexual Politics: Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party in Feminist Art History’, the terrific catalogue for which is all too predictably out of print. Feminists, though, are used to this sort of thing.

The mixed feelings provoked by ‘WACK!’ are likely to be true of any major public event around the subject. The women’s movement in the US and the feminist art movement itself have an intertwined and fraught history of exclusion – of racism, classism, homophobia. From many perspectives, large-scale interest in the feminist art movement is made possible by the whiteness of the women’s movement, the whiteness of much feminist art and even the whiteness of much feminist art history. The Feminism that wends its way up the food chain is usually pretty washed out – middle-class ‘corporate’ Feminism, ivy league Feminism, the Feminism of Naomi Wolf – consciousness-raising as self-empowerment – and not the Feminism of, say, Audre Lorde – who called for a Feminism grounded in noticing who’s been invited to the table, and who hasn’t; a Feminism of intervention, interruption; a Feminism of conspiracy – a revolutionary Feminism that works in collaboration with diverse revolutionary projects.

Events about Feminism are not often where we find the most interesting expressions of Feminism. My favourite feminist curator is probably the film-programmer Shari Frilot. In 2001 and 2002, Frilot coaxed the notoriously mainstream Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Outfest, into hosting a parallel program of experimental film and video, capped off by an 18-hour durational performance art event. Frilot drafted Ron Athey and Vaginal Davis to curate the latter. ‘Platinum Oasis’, as it was called, married the wacky ethos of a happening to the lazy sensuality of a bathhouse. Badass punk goddesses Kembra Pfhaler and Ann Magnuson headlined. People like Frilot inhabit institutional structures like Trojan horses, sneaking small armies of rebels into the city walls in the hope that they might wreak good havoc from within. (Another warrior: Lia Gangitano at Participant Inc. in New York.) People like this work everywhere – out of their houses, in the back of bars, and even with high profile museums (see, for example, Lois Keidan, Daniel Brine and Adrian Heathfield’s work on live art in the UK). They work like guerilla warriors – their productions are usually highly focused, lo-fi and mobile.

These are the feminists who, once they get a foot in the door, are likely to force it open and then hold it open so that others get through. They want to pull that door off its hinges. And then tear down the house. Radical hospitality in action.

Gilane Tawadros

An independent curator and writer. She was the founding Director of the Institute of International Visual Arts (inIVA) in London. Last year, she curated the Brighton Photo Biennial 2006 and co-curated Alien Nation (ICA, London). She is the author of several books including Changing States: Contemporary Art and Ideas in an Era of Globalisation (inIVA, 2004). She lives and works in London.

‘I am an artist first and Indian second.’ These were the words of a celebrated British artist, quoted by a national newspaper some years ago. Whether or not the artist was quoted accurately, the article set out to distinguish between those artists for whom personal identity was paramount and those who privileged their professional identity as artists over any considerations of race, nationality or gender. It highlighted the dilemma faced by artists who resist having their work viewed, written about and contextualized purely in terms of their ethnic, national or sexual identity (or, in some instances, all three). The Faustian pact seemed to be: either deny that your identity informs your work in any way, or let your work be categorized uniquely in terms of your identity. For women artists, and particularly for those from non-Western or culturally diverse backgrounds, the urge to ‘fix’ their practice and view it through one particular lens has meant that their work is sometimes seen as being specific rather than universal, political as opposed to poetic. In reality, very few artists (if any) can separate their artistic practice from their identity – by which I mean their experiences, perceptions and values. The idea that an individual’s identity can be unravelled into a number of separate strands that can then be organized into a hierarchy of sub-identities is far removed from actual experience. Does Damien Hirst wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and decide that he is first of all male, secondly white and thirdly an artist?

In conversation with a British art critic, the artist Doris Salcedo was invited to identify the essential Colombian characteristics of her works. How could her works be ascribed to specific events in Colombia that she had witnessed? Which specific experiences had inspired particular pieces? The artist, as eloquent and economic with her words as she is with her sculptures, shifted uncomfortably in her seat and politely refused to confine discussion of her work to a particular geographical location or national experience. Had her interlocutor not been a woman, one could easily imagine her being asked to describe the essential feminine qualities of her practice. In 1996 Salcedo was invited to make a new piece of work as part of the exhibition ‘The Visible and the Invisible’ in St Pancras’ Church, London, curated by Zoe Shearman and Tom Trevor.1 While Louise Bourgeois populated the belfry with disturbing, decapitated bodies suspended from the ceiling, Salcedo selected a number of unassuming small alcoves, in which she placed a variety of single, discarded shoes, each one isolated in its space and veiled behind a screen of animal skin, stretched across the opening and stitched roughly around the aperture. The starting-point for Salcedo’s disturbing yet poetic installation may have been the countless individuals ‘disappeared’ in Colombia’s unofficial civil war, but the work movingly invoked the difficult and painful experience of bereavement and loss – at once personal and unique yet also anonymous and everyday.

Just as it would be simplistic and facile to attribute masculine characteristics to the heavy, metal sculpture of Anthony Caro, so it would be superficial to describe the work of women artists purely in terms of their feminine qualities. Some artists have, however, invoked the realm of the feminine or the domestic only to subvert their traditional associations: Ghada Amer in her pornographic images drawn and stitched on canvas; Mona Hatoum with her sinister domestic utensils magnified to gigantic proportions, as in La Grande Broyeuse (Mouli-Julienne x 21) (The Large Grinder Mouli-Julienne x 21, 2000), or wired with live electric current, as in Homebound (2000), buzzing and shimmering as the charge ripples through the assemblage of household furniture and objects.

Re-examining the everyday and familiar in order to challenge our conventional understanding of the world has been an integral feature of Hatoum’s artistic practice. The passage through time and space from one location to another is frequently a precarious and dangerous one, whether in Hatoum’s solo performance piece Roadworks (1985), in which the artist walks painfully slowly one step at a time, her Dr. Martens boots tied together with string that impedes her every step, or The Light at the End (1989), an installation in which the viewer enters a darkened space and gropes unaided towards a light source in the distance and then recoils when the light source turns out to be a source of heat and possible danger, or Map (1999), in which a map of the world is laid out on the floor of the gallery space, the contours of each continent and land mass constructed from transparent glass marbles that together make up an unstable and dangerous topography.

The works of Salcedo, Amer and Hatoum are fitting altarpieces for our secular world. They evoke the equivocal and precarious times in which we live, poised delicately between the specific and the universal, the political and the poetic. As the artist Anne Tallentire recently observed, it is increasingly difficult to contemplate art works that make grand, definitive statements in a shifting world where ‘questions about the specifics of history and the present are so problematized… almost unthinkable’.2 Instead, Tallentire’s recent works have focused on the ‘small gestures of everyday life’ evoked so poignantly in ‘Drift: Diagram VII’ (2005), a series of video works filmed in the early hours of the morning in the square mile of London’s financial district and capturing everyday but largely unseen actions or ‘performances’ within the City: a man painting the lines along the kerb of the pavement; a woman polishing a corporate meeting table; a window-cleaner suspended high above the street and moving across the glass face of a building; a piece of paper that blows into the frame of the camera and blows away again. As the artist observes: ‘Incorporated into these small gestures of everyday life are other questions which are to do with what it means to move from one side of a space to another at a particular time, in a particular way, in a particular place. And so the questions about place and about how we navigate our way through the world, and the ethical position that we take […] are really urgent.’3

N’Goné Fall

A Senegalese architect, independent curator and consultant in cultural engineering. She was the editorial director of the Paris-based contemporary African art magazine Revue Noire from 1994 to 2001. Fall lives between Paris and Dakar.

At the fourth Dakar Biennale in Senegal in 2000, Tunisian artist Fatma Charfi and South African artist Berni Searle respectively won the Prize of the President and the Revelation Prize. The fact that two female artists were being rewarded for the first time at the dawn of the third millennium was seen as a sign of progress. But when the Congolese artist Michèle Magema received the Prize of the President with her video installation Oyé Oyé (2002) at the Dakar Biennale four years later, it was clear that times had changed: female artists from Africa were no longer onlookers producing decorative art for the bourgeoisie, but were probing and challenging contemporary society with a wide range of media and viewpoints. By the conceptual and aesthetic charge of their works they are questioning the masculine dominance of the visual arts. The message is clear: the silent African housewife is a myth.

Zimbabwean Berry Bickle belongs to the generation of artists who emerged in the stirring days of the early 1990s, when theoretical discourses about post-colonialism, cross-cultural identities and globalization began to question the western artistic monopoly. In her installations, videos and photographs, Bickle dissects the memory of mobility and how it impacts upon societies. Because of natural disasters, destitution, conquests and wars, the world’s populations have become more mobile than ever, depositing their loves, hates, doubts, fantasies and fears around the globe. As a result, concepts and ideas, received and transferred technologies, socio-cultural traditions and spiritual beliefs are in a constant state of flux. Hybridism, a consequence of migration, is an ongoing process shaping cultures. Technological advances have increased physical and virtual displacement, leading to a radical shift in our perceptions of time and space, thus questioning the borders of territories, where we belong to and who we are. The question implicit in Bickle’s work is whether human beings are a community of nomad aliens, a gathering of small personal stories building history. From the United Kingdom to Mozambique via Zimbabwe and South Africa, Bickle draws on her cultural heritage to transform mobility into a multi-faceted concept interconnecting communities. In Cidadão (Citizens, 2002), for instance, four large panels consisting of 48 photographs of silhouettes and feet in movement evoke an infinitude of physical and mental journeys.

There is a land between alienation and salvation, a silent grey zone where disturbing ghosts hunt down people’s hope and faith. Welcome to a country where corpses do not putrefy under the sun but are devoured by hordes of starving dogs. Welcome to a region long forgotten by tourist guides, a place that pops out of the dark to cynically declare: civil war, dead, genocide, dead, displaced, dead, camp for exiles, dead. The work of Congolese artist Bill Kouelany explores the absurd story of a war without a beginning and without an end, a war where official figures for collateral damages have been so underestimated that it is impossible to account for the human loss. In her paintings and installations, she explores the ruins of an exhausted country where the impact of bullets and houses smashed by shells have turned the capital, Brazzaville, into a sinister theatre. However, although she does not see herself as an activist, Kouelany has decided not to leave the city in order to document the unspeakable atrocities she has witnessed. The artist’s untitled 2005 installation, which was shown at the 2006 Dakar Biennale, reconstitutes the remains of a charred house – a metaphor for a devastated country, a devastated body, a devastated mind. The bricks fall apart like tattered skin and are covered by words that spew out frustration and disarray, denouncing the dramatic impact of personal decisions on a nation; words declaring how individuals are trapped in an uncontrollable mass hysteria. Kouelany clings onto words to avoid sinking into madness. In this regard, she is following in the footsteps of the Congolese writer, Tchicaya U Tam’si, who deconstructed the French language in order to talk about a hallucinated world. From literature to visual arts, a recurring question remains unanswered: who will pay for the countless childhoods immolated in broad daylight? Nobody. But Kouelany’s work and words remain to tell the story.

How do individuals deal with decisions beyond their control that have unpredictable and uncontrollable consequences on their existence? We might not be able to transform the world, but we can attempt to stay away from an insane context. One can be a female artist in a so-called Muslim country without being seen as a victim hugging the walls or hiding behind a veil. In her work, Egyptian artist Amal Kenawy often employs a female body as a vehicle leading to an inner journey, a receptacle that keeps alive memories and dreams. She explores the essence of memory as a guide, a container keeping its own track of experiences of life. In her video animation Tomorrow you will be killed (2006), an image of a female face is gradually covered with notes, drawings (including walls, a mouse, a pig, a hanging) and red ink, to a background accompaniment of electronic music that sounds like a warning. Kenawy probes the territory of time; time as a space preceding, during and following an act of violence. She expresses the feeling of a physical and psychological violence without referring to a specific event, leaving the viewer with the discomfort of a danger hovering overhead. This universe exists as a suspended land in which time has its own rhythm, independent of any external pressure – an unavoidable and uncanny rite of passage.

In Africa, the current generation of female artists is redefining the rules and codes of gender balance by shifting from the margins to the centre of the art scene with art works that do not aim to necessarily please the viewer. Their capacity to subvert our expectations forces the art community at large to rethink the way it looks at art produced by African women. If Bickle, Kouelany and Kenawy do not describe themselves as feminists – a western concept – they are guided by the simple principles of faith, self-confidence and commitment.

1 ‘The Visible and the Invisible: Re-presenting the Body in Contemporary Art and Society’ was a large-scale contemporary art project comprising a series of satellite exhibitions, installations and events occurring simultaneously in sites across Euston in central London. It was curated by Zoe Shearman and Tom Trevor and produced by the Institute of International Visual Art (inIVA).

2 Interview with Anne Tallentire (unpublished),

July 2006.

3 Ibid.

Jennifer Doyle, Gilane Tawadros and N’Goné Fall

Repay historic debt to Haiti: An open letter to French President Nicolas Sarkozy

2010-08-24T01:16:00.000-07:00

CRIME activists fool the media with a fake announcement that France would finally pay its 17 billion euro historic debt.

By Derrick O'Keefe

August 16, 2010 -- rabble.ca -- A Bastille Day hoax on the French government helped to expose the long history of extortion, betrayal and structural injustice that left Haiti so impoverished and vulnerable to devastation by the earthquake that claimed over a quarter of a million lives earlier this year.

Yes Men-inspired activists calling themselves the Committee for the Reimbursement of the Indemnity Money Extorted from Haiti (CRIME) pulled off a fake announcement indicating that France would finally pay its historic debt. France was forced to deny that it was doing any such thing and threatened legal action against the activists. The action brought media attention, reminding journalists and the public of the historical context behind Haiti's immiseration.

On August 16, Libération published an open letter from social activists, politicians and academics from around the world making the point that the demand for France to pay restitution to Haiti is "unassailable". I hope this letter will circulate widely, keeping this story in the news and raising awareness of the real causes of Haiti's plight.

An open letter to French President Nicolas Sarkozy

The French government has indicated that it is pursuing possible legal action against the Committee for the Reimbursement of the Indemnity Money Extorted from Haiti (CRIME) over a Yes Men-inspired announcement last Bastille Day pledging that France would pay Haiti restitution.

We believe the ideals of equality, fraternity and liberty would be far better served if, instead of pouring public resources into the prosecution of these pranksters, France were to start paying Haiti back for the 90 million gold francs that were extorted following Haitian independence.

This “independence debt,” which is today valued at well over the 17 billion euros pledged in the fake announcement last July 14, illegitimately forced a people who had won their independence in a successful slave revolt, to pay again for their freedom. Imposed under threat of military invasion and the restoration of slavery by French King Charles X, to compensate former colonial slave-owners for lost “property” (including the slaves who had won their freedom and independence when they defeated Napoleon’s armies), this indemnity burdened generations of Haitians with an illegitimate debt, which they were still paying right up until 1947.

France is not the only country that owes a debt to Haiti. After 1947, Haiti incurred debt to commercial banks and international financial institutions under the Duvalier dictatorships, who stole billions from the public treasury. The basic needs and development aspirations of generations of Haitians were sacrificed to pay back these debts. Granting Haiti the status of Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) and canceling part of the current debt only begins to reverse the financial damage done by these recent debts. More recently, in 2000, Inter-American Development Bank loans of $150 million for basic infrastructure were illegally blocked by the US government as a means of political pressure. This also did measurable economic and human damage. Each of these institutions and governments should be responsible for the harm they did to Haiti's society and economy.

In 2003, when the Haitian government demanded repayment of the money France had extorted from Haiti, the French government responded by helping to overthrow that government. Today, the French government responds to the same demand by CRIME by threatening legal action. These are inappropriate responses to a demand that is morally, economically, and legally unassailable. In light of the urgent financial need in the country in the wake of the devastating earthquake of January 12, 2010, we urge you to pay Haiti, the world’s first black republic, the restitution it is due.

comic art propaganda

2010-08-16T14:02:00.000-07:00

Fredrik Stromberg’s Comic Art Propaganda: A Graphic History examines the manipulative power of a medium all too often dismissed as mere superficial entertainment.

From WWII-era Batman and Superman raising war bonds to girl-power oriented manga and rare, Christianity-heavy Archie strips, the book’s collected images feature ideology-charged visual narratives that show a different platform for the art form. Though featured comics vary in subject from racism and religion to sex and drugs, the range of underlying messages is far more nuanced — and absurd — than the obvious “us versus them” subtext.

Sun Ra lectures at UC Berkeley

2010-08-14T08:43:00.000-07:00

http://rapidshare.com/files/303277531/3rdClass.mp3.zip
@320kbps

source: http://freedefendu.blogspot.com/

taze taze/ ulus baker'in tezi

2010-08-10T01:53:00.001-07:00

Bu inceleme toplumsal bilimlerle belgesel filmcilik arasında mümkün bir birleşmenin boyutlarını tartışıyor. Bunun ön şartlarından birinin hâlihazırdaki “kanaatler sosyolojisinin” bir eleştirisi olması gerektiğine inanıyoruz. Bu yalnızca sıradan toplumsal araştırma pratiğine yönelik bir eleştiri değil, yorumcu-epistemolojik tarza ve toplumbilimsel yaklaşımların “metin” ve “kanaat” etrafındaki epistemolojik düğümlenişine yönelik bir eleştiridir. Spinoza’nın “duygular öğretisi” bu noktada bizim için merkezi bir öneme sahip: duygular sosyolojisi kendi başına bir epistemik alan olmaktan çok, adanmış olduğu alanda bir praksis oluşturmaya çabalamalı. Bu praksisi nihai olarak Dziga Vertov’un sine-göz ve sine-hakikat yaklaşımında,çağdaş video alanında ise Jean-Luc Godard’ın videoyu bir “düşünme cihazına”dönüştürmeyi amaçlayan yaklaşımlarında görüyoruz.

ULUS BAKER

tasi topragi altin

2010-08-08T13:11:00.000-07:00

EKUMENOPOLIS

Sinopsis:

1980’lerde dünya ekonomisinde yaşanan neoliberal değişim ve buna paralel olarak hız kazanan küreselleşme süreci, bütün dünya kentlerinde köklü bir değişimi beraberinde getirdi. Finans merkezli bu yeni ekonomik yapılanmanın kentsel alanları bir sermaye üretim aracı olarak görmesi sonucu gelişmekte olan ülkelerin kentleri bu süreçten derinlemesine etkilenmekte. Köklü bir planlama geleneğinin zaten olmadığı İstanbul’da, neoliberalizmin insan yerine kentsel rantı ön plana çıkartan yaklaşımı maalesef yöneticilerimiz tarafından şuursuzca uygulandı, herkes bu yağmada kendine bir pay kapma peşine düştü ve sonuçta ortaya insan yaşamını tehdit eden sorunlar yumağıyla debelenen 15 milyonluk bir megakondu çıktı.
Özellikle son 10 yılda, Dünya Bankası’nın raporlarında öngördüğü gibi İstanbul’un kimliği sanayi kentinden finans ve hizmet kentine dönüşüyor ve İstanbul diğer dünya kentleri ile bir yarışa soyunuyor. Bu yarış yabancı sermayeyi çekme yarışı. “Yatırım için en karlı kent burası” diye pazarlanıyor İstanbul. Bu “çekicilik” bir yandan sermayenin önünü açmayı, kentsel mekanların inşaasında kamusal yararı gözeten hukuksal denetimleri ortadan kaldırmayı hedeflerken, aynı zamanda buna paralel olarak kentin kullanıcılarında da bir değişimi öngörmekte. Kentin inşaasında ve bir sanayi merkezi olmasında alın teri olan emekçi kesimin, tüketici odaklı yeni finans ve hizmet kentinde yerleri yok. Peki nedir bu insanlar için öngörülen?
İşte “kentsel dönüşüm” denen olgu da tam burada devreye giriyor. Yeni kanunlarla eskiden tasavvur bile edilemeyecek yetkilerle donatılan TOKİ ve belediyeler, özel yatırımcılarla işbirliği içinde kentsel toprağı bu yeni “vizyona” doğru dönüştürmeye çabalıyorlar. Arkalarında ellerini kavuşturan uluslararası sermaye, ellerinde paftalar, kafalarında metrekareler, kat emsalleri, mahalleleri yıkıyorlar, gökdelenler dikiyorlar, otoyollar yapıyorlar, alışveriş merkezleri açıyorlar. Peki kime hizmet ediyor bu yeni mekanlar?
İstanbul’da gelir dağılımındaki uçurum gitgide mekana da yansıyor, mekansal ayrışmadan besleniyor. Bir tarafta varsıllar kendilerini güvenlikli sitelere, rezidanslara, plazalara kapatırken, diğer yandan kentin çeperlerinde insan deposu olarak tasarlanmış TOKİ konutlarında yeni yoksulluk döngüleri insanları çaresizliğe umutsuzluğa sürüklüyor. Peki gelecek kuşaklara bırakılan bu toplumsal mirasın sorumlusu kim?
Her yapılan otoyolun giderek kendi trafiğini yarattığı bilimsel gerçeğini görmezden gelerek yapılan tünellere, kavşaklara, viyadüklere milyarlarca lira çarçur edilirken, İstanbul 2010’da hala tek hatlı, topu topu 8 duraklı bir metro “ağı” ile yetinmek zorunda kalıyor. Toplu ulaşıma ve raylı ve alternatif ulaşım sistemlerine yeteri kadar kaynak ayrılmadığından, insanlar saatlerce trafikte eziyet çekiyor, milyarlarca liralık “zaman” egzoz dumanında uçup gidiyor. Peki yöneticilerimiz çözüm için ne yapıyorlar? Evet bildiniz: daha çok yol!
15 milyonluk bu kentte her şey o kadar hızlı değişiyor ki, plan yapmak için kentin bir fotoğrafını çekmek dahi mümkün olmuyor. Planlar daha yapılırken eskiyor. Tam bir kronik plansızlık hali. Bütün bunlar olurken nüfus artmaya devam ediyor, ve kent gelişigüzel bir şekilde yayılıp batıda Tekirdağ’a doğuda Kocaeli’ne dayanıyor. Peki İstanbul’un gerçekten bir planı var mı?
1980’de ilk metropolitan ölçekli İstanbul planı yapıldı. Plan raporunda kentin coğrafyasının en fazla 5 milyon nüfusu kaldırabileceği yazıyor. O zaman nüfus 3.5 milyon. Bugün İstanbul’un nüfusu 15 milyon. 15 sene sonra 23 milyon olacak. Yani coğrafyasının kaldırabileceğinin neredeyse 5 katı. İstanbul bugün Bolu’dan su çekiyor, öteki taraftan bütün Trakya’nın suyunu çekiyor. Kuzey ormanları gözle görünür bir şekilde tahrip olurken, 3. köprü projesi İstanbul’un kalan orman ve su havzalarını tehdit ediyor. İki yakayı birleştiren köprüler, yarattıkları rant alanları ile kentlileri birbirinden koparıyor. Peki ya İstanbullular olarak biz bu yağmaya karşı ne yapıyoruz? Kentler toplumun aynası ise, İstanbul’a bakarak kendi toplumumuz için ne diyebiliriz? Gelecek nesillere nasıl bir İstanbul bırakacağız?
Ekolojik eşikler aşılmış. Ekonomik eşikler aşılmış. Nüfus eşikleri aşılmış. Sosyal ahenk bozulmuş. İşte neoliberal kentleşmenin fotoğrafı: Ekümenopolis.
Ekümenopolis İstanbul’a bütüncül bir yaklaşımı amaçlıyor, değişim kadar, değişimin altındaki dinamikleri de sorguluyor. Bizi yıkılmış gecekondu mahallelerinden gökdelenlerin tepelerine, Marmaray’ın derinliklerinden 3. köprünün güzergahına, gayrimenkul yatırımcılarından kentsel muhalefete, bu uçsuz bucaksız kentte uzun bir yolculuğa çıkartıyor. Uzmanlar, akademisyenler, yazarlar, mahalleliler, yatırımcılar, kentliler ile konuşacak, kente makro ölçekte bir bakışı grafiklerle izleyeceksiniz. Belki de yaşadığınız İstanbul’u yeniden keşfedeceksiniz ve umarız ki değişime seyirci kalmayacak, onu sorgulayacaksınız. Sonuçta demokrasi bunu gerektirir.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Synopsis:

The neoliberal transformation that swept through the world economy during the 1980’s, and along with it the globalization process that picked up speed, brought with it a deep transformation in cities all over the world. For this new finance-centered economic structure, urban land became a tool for capital accumulation, which had deep effects on major cities of developing countries. In Istanbul, which already lacked a tradition of principled planning, the administrators of the city blindly adopted the neoliberal approach that put financial gain ahead of people’s needs; everyone fought to get a piece of the loot; and the result is a megashantytown of 15 million struggling with mesh of life-threatening problems.
Especially in the past 10 years, as the World Bank foresaw in its reports, Istanbul has been changing from an industrial city to a finance and service-centered city, competing with other world cities for investment. Making Istanbul attractive for investors requires not only the abolishment of legal controls that look out for the public good, but also a parallel transformation of the users of the city. This means that the working class who actually built the city as an industrial center no longer have a place in the new consumption-centered finance and service city. So what is planned for these people?
This is where the “urban renewal” projects come into play. Armed with new powers never before imagined, TOKI (State Housing Administration), together with the municipalities and private investors, are trying to reshape the urban landscape in this new vision. With international capital behind them, land plans in their hands, square meters and building coefficients in their minds, they are demolishing neighborhoods, and instead building skyscrapers, highways and shopping malls. But who do these new spaces serve?
The huge gap between the rich and the poor in Istanbul is reflected more and more in the urban landscape, and at the same time feeds on the spatial segregation. While the rich isolate themselves in gated communities, residences and plazas; new poverty cycles born in social housing communities on the prifery of the city designed as human depots continue to push millions to desperation and hopelessness. So who is responsible for this social legacy that we are leaving for future generations?
While billions of dollars are wasted on new road tunnels, junctions, and viaducts with a complete disregard for the scientific fact that all new roads eventually create their own traffic, Istanbul in 2010 has to contend with a single-line eight-station metro “system”. Due to insufficient budget allocations for mass public transportation, rail and other alternative transport systems, millions of people are tormented in traffic, and billions of dollars worth of time go out the exhaust pipe. What do our administrators do? You guessed right: more roads!
Everything changes so fast in this city of 15 million that it is impossible to even take a snap-shot for planning. Plans are outdated even as they are being made. A chronic case of planlessness. Meanwhile, the population keeps increasing and the city expands uncontrollably pushing up against Tekirdağ in the east and Kocaeli in the west. But does Istanbul really have a plan?
In 1980 the first plan for Istanbul on a metropolitan scale was produced. In that plan report, it is noted that the topography and the geographic nature of the city would only support a maximum population of 5 million. At the time, Istanbul had 3.5 million people living in it. Now we are 15 million, and in 15 years we will be 23 million. Almost 5 times the sustainable size. Today we bring water to Istanbul from as far away as Bolu, and suck-up the entire water in Thrace, destroying the natural environment there. The northern forest areas disappear at a rapid pace, and the project for a 3rd bridge over the Bosphorous is threatening the remaining forests and water reservoirs giving life to Istanbul. The bridges that connect the two continents are segregating our society through the urban land speculation that they trigger. So what are we, the people of Istanbul, doing against this pillage? If cities are a reflection of the society, what can we say about ourselves by looking at Istanbul? What kind of city are we leaving behind for future generations?
Ecological limits have been surpassed. Economic limits have been surpassed. Population limits have been surpassed. Social cohesion has been lost. Here is the picture of neoliberal urbanism: Ecumenopolis.
Ecumenopolis aims for a holistic approach to Istanbul, questioning not only the transformation, but the dynamics behind it as well. From demolished shantytowns to the tops of skyscrapers, from the depths of Marmaray to the alternative routes of the 3rd bridge, from real estate investors to urban opposition, the film will take us on a long journey in this city without limits. We will speak with experts, academics, writers, investors, city-dwellers, and community leaders; and we will take a look at the city on a macro level through animated maps and graphics. Perhaps you will rediscover the city that you live in and we hope that you will not sit back and watch this transformation but question it. In the end this is what democracy requires of us.

reading CAROL again by my dearest pat

2010-07-29T12:56:00.000-07:00

"But there was not a moment when she did not see Carol in her mind, and all she saw, she seemed to see through Carol. That evening, the dark flat streets of New York, the tomorrow of work, the milk bottle dropped and broken in her sink, became unimportant. She flung herself on her bed and drew a line with a pencil on a piece of paper. And another line, carefully, and another. A world was born around her, like a bright forest with a million shimmering leaves."

art is mirage: happy 113th birthday monsieur duchamp

2010-07-29T11:59:00.000-07:00

http://www.ubu.com/film/duchamp_chess.html

50s

2010-07-29T00:55:00.000-07:00

accepting is a way of finding peace

2010-07-28T15:13:00.000-07:00

jack kerouac/ allen ginsberg: letters

2010-07-22T10:14:00.000-07:00

“Realize, Allen, that if all the world were green, there would be no such thing as the color green. Similarly, men cannot know what it is to be together without otherwise knowing what it is to be apart. If all the world were love, then, how could love exist? This is why we turn away from each other on moments of great happiness and closeness. How can we know happiness and closeness without contrasting them, like lights?”
— Kerouac to Ginsberg, September, 1948

“The point is that all thought is inexistence and unreality, the only reality is green, love. Don’t you see that it is just the whole point of life not to be self conscious? That it must all be green? All love? Would the world then seem incomprehensible? That is an error. The world would seem incomprehensible to the rational faculty which keeps trying to keep us from the living in green, which fragments and makes every thing seem ambiguous and mysterious and many colors. The world and we are green. We are inexistent until we make an absolute decision to close the circle of individual thought entirely and begin to exist in god with absolute unqualified and unconscious understanding of green, love and nothing but love, until a car, money, people, work, things are love, motion is love, thought is love, sex is love. Everything is love. That is what the phrase ‘God is Love’ means.”
— Ginsberg to Kerouac, October, 1948

17 Temmuz @ AMARGI Kadin Akademisi

2010-07-22T09:14:00.000-07:00

Aşk her şeyi affeder mi ya da güncel pratiğimizi değiştirebilir mi?

AH OH sergisinin kapanış konuşmasının konuğu bağımsız küratör Övül Durmuşoğlu.
Övül ğ'den Adnan ile birlikte izleyicileri sergi sürecindeki eleştirel ve queer istasyonlarda tekrar durup düşünmeye davet ediyor. Bir sergi formunun arayabileceği ve kurabileceği queer kimliğin kapsamını merak eden iki eski arkadaş, çalışmalarını ve daha önceki işbirliklerini harmanlayarak oluşturacakları görsel havuzu eşliğinde hem günah çıkaracaklar hem de ironik bir sorunun peşine düşecekler: Aşk, -bizi değiştiriyorsa- güncel sanat pratiğimizi de değiştirebilir mi?
---------------------------------------------------
May love forgive all aka may love transform our contemporary art practices?
The guest of AH OH's closing talk is Ovul Durmusoglu, independent curator.

Ovul invites the audience to pause again on critical and queer stations of the exhibition with Adnan from ğ
The old friends in conversation wonder about the scope of queer identity that can be researched and constructed by an exhibition form.

With the background of image pool formed of their old collaborations and recent projects, they will not only make confessions but also chase after an ironic question:
May love- if it changes us- transform our contemporary art practices?

Bize comertce evsahipligi yapan, emegi gecen tum AMARGI Kadin Akademisi'nden arkadaslara tekrar tesekkur ederiz.

http://www.amargi.org.tr/

lindsay lohan hearing her 90 days imprisonment

2010-07-22T09:13:00.000-07:00

Há sempre um copo de mar para um homem navegar/There is always a cup of sea to sail in

2010-07-22T09:07:00.000-07:00

September 25th - December 12th 2010

29th Bienal de São Paulo

The 29th Bienal de São Paulo is anchored on the notion that it is impossible to separate art from politics. Such impossibility is expressed in the fact that art, through ways of its own, is capable of blocking the sensorial coordinates through which we understand and inhabit the world by bringing into it themes and attitudes that did not previously fit in, thus making it different and wider.

The choice of this organizing principle for the 29th Bienal de São Paulo curatorial project rests on two major reasons. Firstly, because we live in a world of diverse conflicts, where sociability paradigms are being constantly challenged and on which art stands as a privileged means of understanding and, at the same time, reinventing reality. Secondly, the movement towards bringing art and politics closer together has been so intense in the past two decades that again emphasis should be placed on the uniqueness of the former over the latter, as they are very often confounded to the point of indistinctness.

In this sense, the title chosen for the 29th Bienal de São Paulo “There is always a cup of sea to sail in” - a quote borrowed from the Brazilian poet Jorge de Lima’s major work Invenção de Orfeu (1952) – singularly epitomizes what the forthcoming Bienal de São Paulo edition seeks to achieve: to assert that the utopian dimension of art is contained within itself, not without it or beyond it. It is in the “cup of sea” – or in this near infinite where artists insist on producing their works in – that in fact lies the power to move forward, despite everything else. As Jorge de Lima’s poem goes “the power to sail on even without ships / even without waves and sand.”

As a space where this commitment resonates in many different ways, the 29th Bienal exhibition will put visitors in touch with ways of thinking and inhabiting the world that go beyond the consensus building that organizes it and make it a small place to live, where not everything or everyone fits in. The 29th Bienal will bring visitors in touch with the politics of art.

Therefore, it is the 29th Bienal de São Paulo’s intention to be at once a celebration of art making and an assertion of its responsibility before life; a moment of disconcerting the senses while generating knowledge that is nowhere else. For this reason, it intends to instill its audience with the sensitive experience that emerges from the mesh of displayed works and their ability to critically reflect the world in which they are inscribed. In short, to provide examples of how art weaves a politics that is deeply entrenched into it.

The 29th São Paulo Biennial is being curated by Moacir dos Anjos and Agnaldo Farias and a team of guest curators from various backgrounds: Fernando Alvim, Rina Carvajal, Yuko Hasegawa, Sarat Maharaj, and Chus Martinez .

For artists' list and other details:

http://www.fbsp.org.br/29_bienal-en.html

http://universes-in-universe.org/eng/bien/sao_paulo_biennial/2010

Askin Yedi Gunu/ The Seven Days of Love

2010-07-05T06:23:00.000-07:00

Sali: maske

Soylenenle acin yeterli olur yenilemek icin

suretimiz icinde olan maskeyi, ruhun lezzeti icin

bedeninin ruhundan dogar...

yangin bu ruhun bedeninde ne basladi

nefsiyle ona, ne ruhun ciceklendigi bedende

basladi sonsuzluga gizlenerek

yandigimizda, ne de bilenen seylerle!

Carsamba: nergis

Yasi on besinde. Istedigi

gibi dogmus...suretinin etrafinda yurur

suda degisen son gibi: beni eksiltiyor

gece...nefsine cokerek. Beni eksiltiyor

askiyla atlarin burclarin uzerinden...uzaklasir

golgesinden, simsek aralarindan gecer

garip kasidesinden gectigi gibi...

Persembe: olusum

Benligimdeki benligimi buldum ve

sen aynasindan ciktin...

yasattigi suslerle toprak seni ziyaret eder,

gereksiz duslerle yukselenle.

Ama ben, dun beni biraktigin gibi

genisligimde, yakin su, yer ve goge

bolunmus. Ah...onlar nerede?

Cuma: son kis

Eger uzaga gidersen, dusumu senden olusmus

anilarin hazinesine as, veya benden olusan

anilarin. Son kisini getirir, sandalyemin

ustunde iki kumru gordum, sonra gordugum

Hint kasabin yaptigi ne: dilimle

guzel seccadenin ustundeki sutu sordu,

eger gidersen, kis mevsimini de al, eger!

Cumartesi: cift guvercin

Bedenimi dinliyorum: ilahi ariyi ve

sayisiz atin dirligini,

ben bulut, sen toprak, sonsuz mucadelenin

iniltisine dayandirilmis

bedenimi dinliyorum: meyvelerin olumu

canli yasam yenileyemez

bedenini...dinledigi bedeni

Pazar: memelerin makami

Seni seviyor, bulut gibi yakina gel...yakina

benden korkan gurbetteki pencereden:

Onu seviyorum. Yildizlar gibi bulun...bulun

yolcuyla yolda kalmasi icin:

seni seviyorum. Karanlik gibi beni ser...ser

kirmizi ask gullerine, kurul

cadir gibi, kurul, kovulan meleklerde...

Pazartesi: vahset

Adinla aci duyuyorum, nefsimde tatlilasan

Endulus'le acilasan Dimask gibi.

Burayi sana aydinlatiyorum kanimin tuzlu limonuyla.

Iste burada, attan dustu ruzgar.

Adinla aci duyuyorum, beni ne ordu kusatir

ne sehir. Benim son hirsim gibi

veya bedenimde yuruyen caddeler...

Mahmud Dervis / Mahmoud Darwish

summer reading

2010-07-01T08:39:00.000-07:00

http://www.thegentlewoman.com/

at last some photos from another country @ ifa stuttgart

2010-06-17T08:00:00.001-07:00

entrance world map by ashley hunt, the boxes on the pedestals are cevdet erek's rulers.

the opposite is a great video researcj on eurovision by dubravka sekulic. across are javier hinojosa's sketch photos and drawings. faced by jumana manna's song of ascents. the book on pink pedestal is one of the outlets of matilde cassani's architectural research on survival mechanisms of "the different". the exhibition closes by koken ergun's joyful video installation WEDDING.

monsanto'dan haiti'ye sevgilerle

2010-06-09T05:48:00.000-07:00

what d'you know? a great blog from sean jacobs

2010-06-09T04:51:00.000-07:00

africa is a country

J.G. Ballard-Shanghai Jim

2010-06-08T09:21:00.000-07:00

Following J.G. Ballard from Shepperton to Shanghai and back, looking at the scenes of his life which inspired his autobiographical novels. This is a BBC original production which aired in 1991, directed by James Runcie. It chronicles J.G. Ballard's first trip to Shanghai after he first left it in 1946. He discusses his ilfe and his work especially his two autobiographical novels, _Empire of the Sun_ and _The Kindness of Women_. There are also bits there about _Crash_ and _Vermilion Sands_. A must for any J.G. Ballard fan.

tmr in istanbul AH OH

2010-06-07T13:16:00.000-07:00

Ming Wong, Angst Essen / Eat Fear, video still, 2008

June 8 – July 10, 2010

Artists: Hasan Aksaygın, Sevim Burak & Elfe Uluç, Patty Chang, iç-mihrak, Oktay İnce (from Karahaber Video Collective), Aykan Safoğlu, Rinus Van de Velde, Ming Wong

curated by

Indicating the binding power of treaties, the Latin phrase Pacta Sunt Servanda* (“Agreements must be kept”or “Contracts must be honored”) provides a discussion ground for the exhibition AH OH that aims to interrogate contemporary forms of social constructions such as promises, loyalty, faith, family, privacy, sexuality and morality. As an exhibition, AH OH brings together a selection of art works that deal with the politics of love, rituals of pleasure, crises of morality as well as the psychoanalytic dynamics of human existence. AH OH seeks to confront visitors with the impossibility of keeping promises, but also the indispensability of having them in our social and moral contracts. On a personal level, the exhibition asks the critical question: “When do we promise, and when do we break promises into pieces in order to reconstruct ourselves?”

A discussion (You should love Zeki Müren!) organized by and the organizers of the 18^th Istanbul LGBT Pride Week as a part of this year’s program aspires to create a queer critical base for further questions and discussions related to the public and private channels of promises, transgressions and alternative forms of social morality.

*Guido Westerwelle, who serves as the German Foreign Minister for Chancellor Merkel’s cabinet visited Turkey in January 2010. During his visit Westerwelle promised Ahde Vefa, the Turkish translation ofPacta Sunt Servanda and, symbolically, the first ‘thing’ Westerwelle learned in Turkish. This political gesture was intended to demonstrate his ongoing support for Turkey’s candidacy for EU membership – a gesture that remains highly opportunistic – but also highlights the irony of his visit given.

is a Berlin/Istanbul based collaboration that works with the performative forms of critical curating and queer politics. The name comes from the Turkish letter “ğ” as yumuşak ge ’soft g’ – the ninth letter of the Turkish alphabet.