Austria: Linz /Graz
The trip to Linz
The first trip has as target Graz, looking for the possibility of a better place to live, where my boyfriend and me will feel comfortable and have a place to study. We rented a car and got on the road. Some PhD meetings and arrangements for projects were ahead, always hoping for a better future, one not possible to talk about yet…and us, enjoying for the first time the experience of traveling together.
The differences between German highways and Venezuelan roads are unbelievable: there is not a single damaged structure here, not a single hole; if it exists, the traffic is very slight. The air can blow on your face at great speed; the speed limits allowances are higher. The landscape is seen in a special way, with a very particular sensation of homogeneity.
On the way to Austria to the city of RIED, my camera always aware, takes the picture: it is the same as the last name of one my best friends, another artist: Bernardita. I think about her and imagine for a second how everything might be on the other side of the world. Sometimes a terrible nostalgia invades me and I just want to go back. I think of my name: Nayarí, which comes from Nayarit, a state in Mexico. The only information I have from that place is that it is a strong indigenous culture conserved almost intact since the beginning of time. My second last name: Méndez, was a city in former Mesopotamia. I wonder if one day I may stand in front of that sign, in a far away world that happen to have my name.
The radio plays rhythms of experimental music, Hanns’s particular selection. We stop in Linz, first possibility of big city in Austria. There we discover a huge signal of Starsbucks cafe in front of a Church, with the slogan “coming soon”, the green box covering almost 60% of the façade. I remember the work of Andrea in the last project in Jena: the humongous white wall saying secretly that some information will arrive soon. My boyfriend protests against capitalism and big chains and I agree but deeply dream on a wonderful “Chai latte”. We go in to find out what is going on and discover it to be a work of public art.
The first trip has as target Graz, looking for the possibility of a better place to live, where my boyfriend and me will feel comfortable and have a place to study. We rented a car and got on the road. Some PhD meetings and arrangements for projects were ahead, always hoping for a better future, one not possible to talk about yet…and us, enjoying for the first time the experience of traveling together.
The differences between German highways and Venezuelan roads are unbelievable: there is not a single damaged structure here, not a single hole; if it exists, the traffic is very slight. The air can blow on your face at great speed; the speed limits allowances are higher. The landscape is seen in a special way, with a very particular sensation of homogeneity.
On the way to Austria to the city of RIED, my camera always aware, takes the picture: it is the same as the last name of one my best friends, another artist: Bernardita. I think about her and imagine for a second how everything might be on the other side of the world. Sometimes a terrible nostalgia invades me and I just want to go back. I think of my name: Nayarí, which comes from Nayarit, a state in Mexico. The only information I have from that place is that it is a strong indigenous culture conserved almost intact since the beginning of time. My second last name: Méndez, was a city in former Mesopotamia. I wonder if one day I may stand in front of that sign, in a far away world that happen to have my name.
The radio plays rhythms of experimental music, Hanns’s particular selection. We stop in Linz, first possibility of big city in Austria. There we discover a huge signal of Starsbucks cafe in front of a Church, with the slogan “coming soon”, the green box covering almost 60% of the façade. I remember the work of Andrea in the last project in Jena: the humongous white wall saying secretly that some information will arrive soon. My boyfriend protests against capitalism and big chains and I agree but deeply dream on a wonderful “Chai latte”. We go in to find out what is going on and discover it to be a work of public art.
Linz city
The Schau Rausch exhibition: Art in 50 Show-windows
The exhibition in the public space presents itself correctly, art of the mall, art of passage. Most of the works deal with very global and simple codes, information that needs to reach the public in a certain way, short statements, direct ideas that must be included in a day of shopping. The intention is to intervene the view of the normal passerby and catch his or her attention. No criticism, no theoretically heavy works, just simple enjoyable structures. Maybe this particular way of seeing art as an ornament, as a thing that must enrich the view of the city “estheticizing” the buildings, is the usual and not very contemporary way of seeing art in the public space; a more terrible view: art seems to be working as a gentrification element for the city authorities. Works of art acting as earrings of the structures. But is it not this one a huge dilemma? Is it a problem for the public? How to deal with what is an expression of mass media? How to present ideas that are strong enough but do not cause disruption of life? Sometimes I wonder if the field of the public art and its representation is not just a form of design, giving part of the soul of the artist in pro of politically correct ways of making things, determined by the dictatorship of public policies and not by the real spirit of creation.
Certainly it is impossible to forget the importance of the law in public setting of pieces, in this case, the artist is not only responsible for the creation of a work of art, but for the articulation of a new way of producing art. The artist is no more a naïve figure installed in a room where catharsis is the only possible output. Maybe public art shows at a glance the contemporary necessity of the artist to become a producer.
And the most important problem: the Public? That problem that seems always to be left alone in the field of the arts and to my concern is one of the most important reflections to have. The observer needs always to be taken into account, not only because he/she is the receptor of the ideas and concepts, but also because it is the only place, the brain of that one that looks deeply in a work of art, where the work is finished. The piece of art not only an expression tool, but an excuse or device to generate a response that will, in-between all responses to the same work, constitute a matrix of experience which is what really determines the work of art. So to say, the “performative” consequence of a piece is what makes it and structures it. Under these terms it is necessary, then, to analyze the behavior of a person that is going to buy something and, as in the case of this exhibition, is surprised by the work of art. The context and the background of this person maybe art related but the mental disposition is certainly in another place.
On the contrary a person that is going direct to the art exhibition and encounters interventions that are related to commercial habits has a completely other view of the process. It is there, in these differences of approach that the reading of every work enters in correlation with an interesting process of creating meaning in the field of public art. This is the strength of an exhibition like “Schau Rausch”. Sadly this possibility is dissolved in superficial works of art, which barely confront the public awareness and go from telephone-mini-screens with videos, passing by white simple speakers, to painting and theatrical arrangements on the windows.
From this exhibit, it is necessary to highlight two works. On one hand, Rainer Nöbauer’s “Greifhandschue”, in spite of its esthetic approach, which I do not share, works in a realm of interactivity with very simple methods and very attractive strategies. The work consists on a shopping window that has a hole with super-big gloves that the observer can use to arrange to its pleasure the vitrine. This gives a possibility of creation for the viewer of his own display and brings a very subtle criticism in who decides what fashion is. And how the relationship media and consumer are established. Also this work talks of a very particular idea of contrasting inside and outside, giving a notion of control and dialogue from the street to the content of the shopping mall.
On the other hand, we have the impressive work of Alicia Martin, “Biografías”, where a 12 meters tall waterfall of books descends from the window of the Thalia Bookstore. Giving the idea of cascade of knowledge this piece confronts the viewer with the disproportion of assassinated books, fragments that belong now to a dead collection of wisdom. A portion that is certainly critical and at the same time paradoxical of the distribution of education in the world and how the general knowledge is a problem of quantity but not necessarily of quality of ideas. The problem, as quoted by the artist, is that these books are not more important because of their content; but because of the structural power that they represent, they have the property of emulating a particular image of the Babel tower.
The exhibition in the public space presents itself correctly, art of the mall, art of passage. Most of the works deal with very global and simple codes, information that needs to reach the public in a certain way, short statements, direct ideas that must be included in a day of shopping. The intention is to intervene the view of the normal passerby and catch his or her attention. No criticism, no theoretically heavy works, just simple enjoyable structures. Maybe this particular way of seeing art as an ornament, as a thing that must enrich the view of the city “estheticizing” the buildings, is the usual and not very contemporary way of seeing art in the public space; a more terrible view: art seems to be working as a gentrification element for the city authorities. Works of art acting as earrings of the structures. But is it not this one a huge dilemma? Is it a problem for the public? How to deal with what is an expression of mass media? How to present ideas that are strong enough but do not cause disruption of life? Sometimes I wonder if the field of the public art and its representation is not just a form of design, giving part of the soul of the artist in pro of politically correct ways of making things, determined by the dictatorship of public policies and not by the real spirit of creation.
Certainly it is impossible to forget the importance of the law in public setting of pieces, in this case, the artist is not only responsible for the creation of a work of art, but for the articulation of a new way of producing art. The artist is no more a naïve figure installed in a room where catharsis is the only possible output. Maybe public art shows at a glance the contemporary necessity of the artist to become a producer.
And the most important problem: the Public? That problem that seems always to be left alone in the field of the arts and to my concern is one of the most important reflections to have. The observer needs always to be taken into account, not only because he/she is the receptor of the ideas and concepts, but also because it is the only place, the brain of that one that looks deeply in a work of art, where the work is finished. The piece of art not only an expression tool, but an excuse or device to generate a response that will, in-between all responses to the same work, constitute a matrix of experience which is what really determines the work of art. So to say, the “performative” consequence of a piece is what makes it and structures it. Under these terms it is necessary, then, to analyze the behavior of a person that is going to buy something and, as in the case of this exhibition, is surprised by the work of art. The context and the background of this person maybe art related but the mental disposition is certainly in another place.
On the contrary a person that is going direct to the art exhibition and encounters interventions that are related to commercial habits has a completely other view of the process. It is there, in these differences of approach that the reading of every work enters in correlation with an interesting process of creating meaning in the field of public art. This is the strength of an exhibition like “Schau Rausch”. Sadly this possibility is dissolved in superficial works of art, which barely confront the public awareness and go from telephone-mini-screens with videos, passing by white simple speakers, to painting and theatrical arrangements on the windows.
From this exhibit, it is necessary to highlight two works. On one hand, Rainer Nöbauer’s “Greifhandschue”, in spite of its esthetic approach, which I do not share, works in a realm of interactivity with very simple methods and very attractive strategies. The work consists on a shopping window that has a hole with super-big gloves that the observer can use to arrange to its pleasure the vitrine. This gives a possibility of creation for the viewer of his own display and brings a very subtle criticism in who decides what fashion is. And how the relationship media and consumer are established. Also this work talks of a very particular idea of contrasting inside and outside, giving a notion of control and dialogue from the street to the content of the shopping mall.
On the other hand, we have the impressive work of Alicia Martin, “Biografías”, where a 12 meters tall waterfall of books descends from the window of the Thalia Bookstore. Giving the idea of cascade of knowledge this piece confronts the viewer with the disproportion of assassinated books, fragments that belong now to a dead collection of wisdom. A portion that is certainly critical and at the same time paradoxical of the distribution of education in the world and how the general knowledge is a problem of quantity but not necessarily of quality of ideas. The problem, as quoted by the artist, is that these books are not more important because of their content; but because of the structural power that they represent, they have the property of emulating a particular image of the Babel tower.
Graz city: The impossibility to rest
The city is full of tourists, people walking and taking pictures of their surroundings. Everywhere there are traces of Graz as the cultural capital of Europe. It is curious that in terms of a city this seems to be the big prize of the arts. Every city becomes part of the selection. The cities guide the cultural behavior of the entire continent; transform themselves in crucial space where the show-off of the cultural scene takes place. On one hand this contrast that the new structures represent to the city due to the overwhelming input of money, is an interesting path, not only because of the amount dedicated to culture during that period, but, due to the view of culture that every city has. This broad view of what the consumer represents.
In general terms, observing myself and regretting of my general condition as a cultural consumer, I am an “art-tourist”. Most of the precious spare time is devoted to art, visiting museums, art shops, artist places, galleries and so on. But what is more incredible for me as witness of my own behavior is that, no matter the place or the interest, my body asks naturally, to go to cultural events. In a certain disproportionate view of the world, there is no place for movement without being conscious of the movement of the arts. That is the part of the artist that travels around; he/she is not only looking for information and possible images in order to enrich the next project, but also following cultural experiences. This definitely is a non-vacation life.
In general terms, observing myself and regretting of my general condition as a cultural consumer, I am an “art-tourist”. Most of the precious spare time is devoted to art, visiting museums, art shops, artist places, galleries and so on. But what is more incredible for me as witness of my own behavior is that, no matter the place or the interest, my body asks naturally, to go to cultural events. In a certain disproportionate view of the world, there is no place for movement without being conscious of the movement of the arts. That is the part of the artist that travels around; he/she is not only looking for information and possible images in order to enrich the next project, but also following cultural experiences. This definitely is a non-vacation life.
This certainty reminds me of a procession of a Christian figure where the devoted carry around the saint. This is the story of every artist and it is the history of art itself, always carrying around it’s own weight. This idea reminds me of the beautiful work of Francys Alÿs for the MOMA in New York, where in the necessity of moving the Museum of Modern Art temporarily to Long Island City in Queens he developed a march of works of art. It reminds me also of the image of Kiki Smith leading the procession as an artist and at the same time as a work of art.
Neue Galerie Graz:
"bit international" and the eternal problematic of not having a real home.
This exhibition shows an important collection of computer and modern art of the Museum of Contemporary Arts of Zagreb, Croatia. Especially the constructivist and op art periods are reflected within the collection. In between the pieces, as part of the history of tendencies in art, stands the work of Jesús Rafael Soto, a Venezuelan artist that lived in Paris most of his life and is one of the most important figures of the contemporary arts of my country. The influence of this artist in other tendencies is remarkable and spread throughout the geography of the Latin-American world.
The collection has at least two pieces of the artist. These works by Soto are a perfect representation of his importance. Nevertheless a curious situation came to my eyes, an exception that changed my day and my way of seeing the exhibition producing mixed feelings in my persona: there was a small piece of plastic, wood and metal that I immediately recognized as one of the Soto’s models for a bigger sculpture, that has a huge relation to another piece of the collection and that to my surprise was named after another artist. Confused I went to the hotel to look for information about Jean Pierre Yvaral, another artist I knew from my studies of history of art and that I was sure did very different and parallel work to Soto.
Yvaral
Instabilité, 1963
After the certainty that the work was misnamed and not correctly archived, I decided to communicate with the curator of the exhibition in Zagreb. This adventure of course was not that simple and was unfruitful. Then my feelings started to bug me and a small nostalgia for my country arose. It would be so simple to talk about this with the correct person inside a museum in Caracas, not because of my person, or my visibility over there, but because of the small world and connected structure that exists in the world of art of my country. There everybody is capable of saying with certitude who might be the right person to solve a problem like that one. Probably the person would be Ariel Jimenez, curator of the collection Cisneros for Latin-American art and who has a personal interest in Soto’s work or maybe even, Luis Henrique Pérez Oramas, curator for Latin-American art in the MOMA of New York, probably with the Soto Atelier in Paris or other institution, but there, in Graz no possibility existed.
Therefore a strange sensation of void entered my horizon, a huge sadness and a greater necessity of having interlocutors for the problems. There in this terrible sentiment, I revisited my eternal dilemma of not having, for a long period, a real home. A fragile terrain of the “in-between”.
Kunsthalle Graz:
Or the emptiness in between exhibitions
I got to Graz and tried to go straight to the Kunsthalle that seems to have “the most interesting offer” in art in the city. Due to numerous appointments and working obligations I could not get to the museum on time and all exhibitions were already shot down. The museum was in the middle of in-between to exhibitions. I asked permission for going around and took pictures of the space in the void, the space in the particular situation of setting up of an exhibition, one of the moments that as an artist I enjoy the most, those minutes of high discussion with the museographer to set up in a particular way. Those instances where the workers of the museum are creating new spaces and boundaries for the next exhibition.
The museum is never an empty space, it is always a collection; always a future exhibition is hiding behind its walls. The museum, configured in the idea of space mutability, is a flexible structure that moves and reconstructs in an organic way. Even in the most classical exhibitions, where objects seem to be hanged without concern on the walls, there is a delicate and accurate study of the coherence of the exhibition. This linear structure of information given by the curator in alliance with the museographer, is to my concern, a system generated in that emptiness of space, a solution for the next step that can only exist in the void of the first.
This reminded me of an experience in Bremen, where an artist was invited to curate and “musealize” the collection of the Kunsthalle and the result was an exhibit of the internal structure that held the works of art inside the museum.
I got to Graz and tried to go straight to the Kunsthalle that seems to have “the most interesting offer” in art in the city. Due to numerous appointments and working obligations I could not get to the museum on time and all exhibitions were already shot down. The museum was in the middle of in-between to exhibitions. I asked permission for going around and took pictures of the space in the void, the space in the particular situation of setting up of an exhibition, one of the moments that as an artist I enjoy the most, those minutes of high discussion with the museographer to set up in a particular way. Those instances where the workers of the museum are creating new spaces and boundaries for the next exhibition.
The museum is never an empty space, it is always a collection; always a future exhibition is hiding behind its walls. The museum, configured in the idea of space mutability, is a flexible structure that moves and reconstructs in an organic way. Even in the most classical exhibitions, where objects seem to be hanged without concern on the walls, there is a delicate and accurate study of the coherence of the exhibition. This linear structure of information given by the curator in alliance with the museographer, is to my concern, a system generated in that emptiness of space, a solution for the next step that can only exist in the void of the first.
This reminded me of an experience in Bremen, where an artist was invited to curate and “musealize” the collection of the Kunsthalle and the result was an exhibit of the internal structure that held the works of art inside the museum.
Rethinking Bremen
Terra incognita
Since November 2006 I had been taking part of a project in the city of Worspwede. Due to the small distance that separates this place from Bremen and the frequency of visits I needed to do in order to fulfill the project, I went to the Kunsthalle in Bremen several times. On one occasion around February 2007, I saw a very well done intervention of an artist, who working as curator within the collection of the museum developed a systematic strategy to show not only the pieces in the collection and the relation between them, but at the same time, the intimate constitution of the museum itself. Instead of covering and protecting the places like deposits and wall structures; or working with the white cube nor simply hanging the classical pictures in the wall, Wolfang Hainke’s terra incognita/Topsy-Turvy Topography showed the inside of the museum as a “museographic dispositive”.
Hainke offered an interesting view of the contents of the museum by studying every work in relationship to the other pieces inside the collection, to the point that it was easy to understand the reason and the moment when the acquisition of the work had been made. On the other hand with very black humor and in a satirical cadence, he established absurd but firm relationships between different pieces, giving the collection a fresh air and making attractive a collection otherwise not frequently visited by the population of the surrounding area.
In between the strategies used by this artist to express his ideas around curatorial affairs were:
• He used an immaculate “museography” with a very strong emphasis in alternative use of pedestals and structures. For example, by showing the classical sculptures of the collection as a contemporary installation that were observed through a hole in the wall, giving the opportunity to see the layers of the drywall. To my concern this installation introduced a very strong position in terms of the inside-outside of the museum, expressed from a very structural and physical discourse.
• He used very anarchic way of setting up technical information by showing structures used only in the deposits of the museum to preserve the work of art and implementing a series of maps of information similar to the ones used to find the pieces in the deposits, almost technical drawings of distribution.
• He used montage structures like ladders and scaffoldings to separate spaces, demystifying the severe aura of the museum and transforming the place in a constant mutable space.
To my concern this was a very well done exhibition with a profound reflection of the role of the contemporary museum and with a systematic study of the structure of a collection, a source for rebuilding a procedure of the construction of ideas inside the wide structure of the museum.
Since November 2006 I had been taking part of a project in the city of Worspwede. Due to the small distance that separates this place from Bremen and the frequency of visits I needed to do in order to fulfill the project, I went to the Kunsthalle in Bremen several times. On one occasion around February 2007, I saw a very well done intervention of an artist, who working as curator within the collection of the museum developed a systematic strategy to show not only the pieces in the collection and the relation between them, but at the same time, the intimate constitution of the museum itself. Instead of covering and protecting the places like deposits and wall structures; or working with the white cube nor simply hanging the classical pictures in the wall, Wolfang Hainke’s terra incognita/Topsy-Turvy Topography showed the inside of the museum as a “museographic dispositive”.
Hainke offered an interesting view of the contents of the museum by studying every work in relationship to the other pieces inside the collection, to the point that it was easy to understand the reason and the moment when the acquisition of the work had been made. On the other hand with very black humor and in a satirical cadence, he established absurd but firm relationships between different pieces, giving the collection a fresh air and making attractive a collection otherwise not frequently visited by the population of the surrounding area.
In between the strategies used by this artist to express his ideas around curatorial affairs were:
• He used an immaculate “museography” with a very strong emphasis in alternative use of pedestals and structures. For example, by showing the classical sculptures of the collection as a contemporary installation that were observed through a hole in the wall, giving the opportunity to see the layers of the drywall. To my concern this installation introduced a very strong position in terms of the inside-outside of the museum, expressed from a very structural and physical discourse.
• He used very anarchic way of setting up technical information by showing structures used only in the deposits of the museum to preserve the work of art and implementing a series of maps of information similar to the ones used to find the pieces in the deposits, almost technical drawings of distribution.
• He used montage structures like ladders and scaffoldings to separate spaces, demystifying the severe aura of the museum and transforming the place in a constant mutable space.
To my concern this was a very well done exhibition with a profound reflection of the role of the contemporary museum and with a systematic study of the structure of a collection, a source for rebuilding a procedure of the construction of ideas inside the wide structure of the museum.
Worpswede
Notes on a failure:
In the case of this project I am going to make very few commentaries, having the so-called reserved opinion!!!!!!!!! As a cultural visitor I should have heard the signals of the “feature presentation” made by the artist Wolfang Hainke in the extraordinary exhibition Terra incognita where he used sarcasm in order to promote the upcoming "Paula Modersohn-Becker und die Kunst in Paris um 1900 " by leaving a complete empty hall painted in strident colors frequently used by the artist in her work and with one and only painting representing the artist collection, a very small donkey with a huge frame that with sarcasm diminished the content of the work.
In my case I must confess that my naivety led me to the thought that a public intervention would have been a great opportunity to diminish the importance of a non interesting theme that summed up to a very bad curatorial strategy developed in a natural disaster with a total output: 50% of art pieces that did not function, 20% of pieces that will not last in the public sphere because of the liability of the material used for them and 10% that never got to be in the public realm. I see critically details of the works that contributed to a general depression and to little discussion on real concepts and interests for the artists who participated. All of this led to very superficial outcomes.
Here I include some pictures of the videos of my intervention on the information center of Worpswede. Of course they were never subjected to group analysis, so comments around the video-making process are always welcome. For those to whom “reflection” is a concern, my personal advice is to think about the extension of the word.
In the case of this project I am going to make very few commentaries, having the so-called reserved opinion!!!!!!!!! As a cultural visitor I should have heard the signals of the “feature presentation” made by the artist Wolfang Hainke in the extraordinary exhibition Terra incognita where he used sarcasm in order to promote the upcoming "Paula Modersohn-Becker und die Kunst in Paris um 1900 " by leaving a complete empty hall painted in strident colors frequently used by the artist in her work and with one and only painting representing the artist collection, a very small donkey with a huge frame that with sarcasm diminished the content of the work.
In my case I must confess that my naivety led me to the thought that a public intervention would have been a great opportunity to diminish the importance of a non interesting theme that summed up to a very bad curatorial strategy developed in a natural disaster with a total output: 50% of art pieces that did not function, 20% of pieces that will not last in the public sphere because of the liability of the material used for them and 10% that never got to be in the public realm. I see critically details of the works that contributed to a general depression and to little discussion on real concepts and interests for the artists who participated. All of this led to very superficial outcomes.
Here I include some pictures of the videos of my intervention on the information center of Worpswede. Of course they were never subjected to group analysis, so comments around the video-making process are always welcome. For those to whom “reflection” is a concern, my personal advice is to think about the extension of the word.
Wolfsburg
There is hope in the realm of the arts
After the inaugural day of the Worpswede project, full of frustration and loneliness inside my solipsistic thoughts, I went with a couple of friends to the Douglas Gordon retrospective “Between Darkness and Light” in the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg. I forgot my glasses in the car and since we had just 45 minutes to see the exhibition. I went in to the wonderful obscure first corridor with my correction sunglasses and laughing at the crazy situation became silent in front of the beautiful first piece, there was a monitor of 3 by 4 cms with the video of the dying fly. It was an impressive sensation to see this retrospective once again. I had seen most of these works in another exhibition in Spain at the Fundación Miró, a couple of years ago; but I must confess that the construction of this space, the display and an amazing position and use of media and resources, led this time to a different exhibition. It came to my mind while enjoying this montage, how important is the context and the “museography” for a work of art. In this case, big screens were floating simultaneously in a humongous hall that nevertheless left space and room for every piece to be read.
The importance of good usage of space and the site-specific comprehension in terms of dimensions and adequate screens surprised me. In the complete darkness of the space, big mirrors were used to generate an extension of the room and a multiplicity of the screens, producing over all, an ineffable sense of vast immensities. Consisting on mainly 5 spaces, each of them was treated as a complex installation within itself, producing incredible results.
The whole exhibition gave me hope on the field of the arts, not only because of the quality of the work and the use of the consumables and media to produce a good exhibition, but because it led me to other reflections that for long I had missed in my observation of art. For example, as in the analysis of Wolfsburg as place for an exhibition of these proportions.
Despite the income that the city has due to the industry and Wolkswagen, Wolfsburg seems to be a very isolated place to have such an amazing museum. This thought developed in considerations about the public: Who visits this exhibition? Is there a strange “elitesque” atmosphere surrounding places like this one? Who is able to understand and read the work? What difference does the necessity of mobility make for a work of art? How important is that the viewer does a huge sacrifice to assist to the exhibition in terms of displacement? Are these not the same considerations that involve public behavior in big biennials and art ferias? The answer to all these questions seem to reside in the public, in the actions of reading and in the multiple backgrounds that are in contact, in terms of minds and understandings, in relation to a main stream exhibition.
After the inaugural day of the Worpswede project, full of frustration and loneliness inside my solipsistic thoughts, I went with a couple of friends to the Douglas Gordon retrospective “Between Darkness and Light” in the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg. I forgot my glasses in the car and since we had just 45 minutes to see the exhibition. I went in to the wonderful obscure first corridor with my correction sunglasses and laughing at the crazy situation became silent in front of the beautiful first piece, there was a monitor of 3 by 4 cms with the video of the dying fly. It was an impressive sensation to see this retrospective once again. I had seen most of these works in another exhibition in Spain at the Fundación Miró, a couple of years ago; but I must confess that the construction of this space, the display and an amazing position and use of media and resources, led this time to a different exhibition. It came to my mind while enjoying this montage, how important is the context and the “museography” for a work of art. In this case, big screens were floating simultaneously in a humongous hall that nevertheless left space and room for every piece to be read.
The importance of good usage of space and the site-specific comprehension in terms of dimensions and adequate screens surprised me. In the complete darkness of the space, big mirrors were used to generate an extension of the room and a multiplicity of the screens, producing over all, an ineffable sense of vast immensities. Consisting on mainly 5 spaces, each of them was treated as a complex installation within itself, producing incredible results.
The whole exhibition gave me hope on the field of the arts, not only because of the quality of the work and the use of the consumables and media to produce a good exhibition, but because it led me to other reflections that for long I had missed in my observation of art. For example, as in the analysis of Wolfsburg as place for an exhibition of these proportions.
Despite the income that the city has due to the industry and Wolkswagen, Wolfsburg seems to be a very isolated place to have such an amazing museum. This thought developed in considerations about the public: Who visits this exhibition? Is there a strange “elitesque” atmosphere surrounding places like this one? Who is able to understand and read the work? What difference does the necessity of mobility make for a work of art? How important is that the viewer does a huge sacrifice to assist to the exhibition in terms of displacement? Are these not the same considerations that involve public behavior in big biennials and art ferias? The answer to all these questions seem to reside in the public, in the actions of reading and in the multiple backgrounds that are in contact, in terms of minds and understandings, in relation to a main stream exhibition.
Berlin
New Version of "The Word/ The Silence
After the production and practical montage of the work in the music school Franz Liszt, the installation “Das Wort / Die Stille” had dramatically changed and has been transformed in a documentation piece that was shown in the context of the “Festival der Sprache” in the Kunstakademie in Berlin. In this particular environment the work had another reading and of course another shape. The exhibition was held in a big hall where plastic standing walls were erected. In those walls of 2 x 1,5 mts, with divisions between fake plaques which consisted of metallic bands, were supposed to be located the work. The difference between a show room for an art festival and a site-specific location is immense. Nevertheless, the difference between a piece in its initial location and a documentation of that same piece in another location is also extremely different. The public that assists to a conference program and an art festival relates to the language, but of course differs to the one that meets in a library of a music school. For me there is always the question on why the official or institutional output of a piece is generally a diffused situation, where the artist and not the institution is completely satisfied with the work?
In this case I must say, that my relationship with Goethe Institute are pretty good and the standards of behavior and humanity are high. This puts the work in another realm; since I have been in Germany I seem to have lost the contact with the human being that is behind the montage and display of a work. I gladly say that even if the final constitution of this exhibition is for me not related to the sensibility of art pieces, working in a place where the people are interested in what they are doing and use their heart to sustain things, is a big reward. This situation makes me think on the necessity of Think Tanks and multidisciplinary teams that will solve esthetical problems and who together can find a better solution for the paradigmatical, of course, never reachable, art exhibition. The problem is still a romantic idea of what an educational display should contain and the type of information that is possible to handle.
The Word / The Silence
As part of the project “Day to Day in Weimar” in the context of the program Master of Public Art and New Artistic Strategies of the Bauhaus Universität and supported by the sponsorship of the Goethe Institut Caracas in the environment of the project “der Macht des Sprache”, the artist Nayari Castillo presented a video-intervention that relates the daily and difficult condition of the immigrant with the surrounding world of meanings, with the new and complete faraway experience of the “other” trough verbs. This fuzzy state of loosing the self in translation transforms the reflection about the sign and the meaning into a bodily-related state of the mind. The word that before was a complex nostalgia of the past environment is now a new and particular corporal sensation related to the images that its touch reveals. The video consists of a game between word and image, where the poetic relationship is translated into contemplation. These series of video relate also with the silent, and the powerful instance in which the mind recreates it self in meditative situations. The word as an open door to understand the meaning of the soul, the word as silent witness of the agitate life of the brain, the word as presence and absence and as an excuse to be silent to listen to the internal fluids and, in terms of John Cage, understand the personal music.
The intervention “Das Wort/Die Stille” has been conceptualized as an almost invisible installation in the index-card shelves of the library of the school of music Franz Liszt in Weimar. Videos about the word and its significance as poetic discourse, in term of its impact in the comprehension of the language of silence, were projected in tiny screens that replaced for a period of a week the usual box of the index. This small installation is meant to create awareness on image and video as possible media to describe the word, as a translation dialogging between the world of the images and the power of the language; and over all, to talk to the users of the library, by whispering about the human condition of contemplation, about the ideal status of the word, that is the always silent and deep companion in the travel of the mind. In practical terms the spectator, the normal user of the index-cards, will observe a small change in its environment, a subtle discourse about silence and the real and abstract meaning of words.
After the production and practical montage of the work in the music school Franz Liszt, the installation “Das Wort / Die Stille” had dramatically changed and has been transformed in a documentation piece that was shown in the context of the “Festival der Sprache” in the Kunstakademie in Berlin. In this particular environment the work had another reading and of course another shape. The exhibition was held in a big hall where plastic standing walls were erected. In those walls of 2 x 1,5 mts, with divisions between fake plaques which consisted of metallic bands, were supposed to be located the work. The difference between a show room for an art festival and a site-specific location is immense. Nevertheless, the difference between a piece in its initial location and a documentation of that same piece in another location is also extremely different. The public that assists to a conference program and an art festival relates to the language, but of course differs to the one that meets in a library of a music school. For me there is always the question on why the official or institutional output of a piece is generally a diffused situation, where the artist and not the institution is completely satisfied with the work?
In this case I must say, that my relationship with Goethe Institute are pretty good and the standards of behavior and humanity are high. This puts the work in another realm; since I have been in Germany I seem to have lost the contact with the human being that is behind the montage and display of a work. I gladly say that even if the final constitution of this exhibition is for me not related to the sensibility of art pieces, working in a place where the people are interested in what they are doing and use their heart to sustain things, is a big reward. This situation makes me think on the necessity of Think Tanks and multidisciplinary teams that will solve esthetical problems and who together can find a better solution for the paradigmatical, of course, never reachable, art exhibition. The problem is still a romantic idea of what an educational display should contain and the type of information that is possible to handle.
The Word / The Silence
As part of the project “Day to Day in Weimar” in the context of the program Master of Public Art and New Artistic Strategies of the Bauhaus Universität and supported by the sponsorship of the Goethe Institut Caracas in the environment of the project “der Macht des Sprache”, the artist Nayari Castillo presented a video-intervention that relates the daily and difficult condition of the immigrant with the surrounding world of meanings, with the new and complete faraway experience of the “other” trough verbs. This fuzzy state of loosing the self in translation transforms the reflection about the sign and the meaning into a bodily-related state of the mind. The word that before was a complex nostalgia of the past environment is now a new and particular corporal sensation related to the images that its touch reveals. The video consists of a game between word and image, where the poetic relationship is translated into contemplation. These series of video relate also with the silent, and the powerful instance in which the mind recreates it self in meditative situations. The word as an open door to understand the meaning of the soul, the word as silent witness of the agitate life of the brain, the word as presence and absence and as an excuse to be silent to listen to the internal fluids and, in terms of John Cage, understand the personal music.
The intervention “Das Wort/Die Stille” has been conceptualized as an almost invisible installation in the index-card shelves of the library of the school of music Franz Liszt in Weimar. Videos about the word and its significance as poetic discourse, in term of its impact in the comprehension of the language of silence, were projected in tiny screens that replaced for a period of a week the usual box of the index. This small installation is meant to create awareness on image and video as possible media to describe the word, as a translation dialogging between the world of the images and the power of the language; and over all, to talk to the users of the library, by whispering about the human condition of contemplation, about the ideal status of the word, that is the always silent and deep companion in the travel of the mind. In practical terms the spectator, the normal user of the index-cards, will observe a small change in its environment, a subtle discourse about silence and the real and abstract meaning of words.
Venice I
Apology of the misconception
The idea of going to Venice is still on my head. At the beginning I was invited to take part of a committee that will help in the Venezuelan Pavilion, but due to financial setbacks and lack of time it has been very difficult to go and be a part of the opening ceremonies. Now I have reports and ideas, questions and inquire about the trip and the works of art. I will go to this exhibition probably around August.
I just want to post here some ideas around a problem that is arising in the American Pavilion with the work of Felix González-Torres to whom I promulgate a devote admiration. The case is interesting in terms of the behavior of the spectators; the public and its reactions are one of the main topics to analyze in the exhibition.
The absurd misuse of González-Torres material, that after being taken from the exhibition hall end up in trashcans around Venice, is without doubt an expression of the misunderstanding on the concepts of the artist. This attitude can be related to two conditions, on one hand an excessive information given by crew or guides that go around the exhibition saying to people how to behave, and not letting the experience to be lived properly, in which case the public will immediately react by trashing the strange material that anyway was not obtained by free will.
On the other hand, there may also exist a misconception of the work, not understanding that the idea resides in the infinity of the piece, in the constant renewal of every work of art, in the social target and the deep contemporary achievement of giving a part of a work to be completed by the receiver and used as a personal art souvenir. The sad part of this last reason is that it is grounded on a profound failure of the work, a realm of reactions that was probably not in the awareness of González-Torres, but that in any case, gives us idea of the proportions of big biennials and the type of public that goes to these mega events, following the paths of art as if they were tourist attractions or games in a thematic park. In any case, the indolence towards the piece of work is understandable, after all, how many people keep the entrance of the cinema as a souvenir after seeing a movie?
The idea of going to Venice is still on my head. At the beginning I was invited to take part of a committee that will help in the Venezuelan Pavilion, but due to financial setbacks and lack of time it has been very difficult to go and be a part of the opening ceremonies. Now I have reports and ideas, questions and inquire about the trip and the works of art. I will go to this exhibition probably around August.
I just want to post here some ideas around a problem that is arising in the American Pavilion with the work of Felix González-Torres to whom I promulgate a devote admiration. The case is interesting in terms of the behavior of the spectators; the public and its reactions are one of the main topics to analyze in the exhibition.
The absurd misuse of González-Torres material, that after being taken from the exhibition hall end up in trashcans around Venice, is without doubt an expression of the misunderstanding on the concepts of the artist. This attitude can be related to two conditions, on one hand an excessive information given by crew or guides that go around the exhibition saying to people how to behave, and not letting the experience to be lived properly, in which case the public will immediately react by trashing the strange material that anyway was not obtained by free will.
On the other hand, there may also exist a misconception of the work, not understanding that the idea resides in the infinity of the piece, in the constant renewal of every work of art, in the social target and the deep contemporary achievement of giving a part of a work to be completed by the receiver and used as a personal art souvenir. The sad part of this last reason is that it is grounded on a profound failure of the work, a realm of reactions that was probably not in the awareness of González-Torres, but that in any case, gives us idea of the proportions of big biennials and the type of public that goes to these mega events, following the paths of art as if they were tourist attractions or games in a thematic park. In any case, the indolence towards the piece of work is understandable, after all, how many people keep the entrance of the cinema as a souvenir after seeing a movie?
Karlsruhe
ZKM an incredible journey
The Center of Media of the city is an incredible big building where most of the cultural activities of Karlsruhe take place. This impressive center of studies and exhibition hall is the locus for the biggest research in media done in Germany, with sculptures and interventions all over. The place completely encourages the visitor to dive deep in the ocean of new media, including two museums and a school for the arts and related activities amaze by the number of technological devices.
In the Museum of Medien Technology an exhibition caught my attention. “Between two deaths” shows different works in a collective representation of the idea of death. Curated by Felix Ensslin it is a careful homage to the other side in an atmosphere that lets you meditate profoundly in the hypothetical experience of being six feet under. Ensslin exposed the information about this exhibition and its preparation a year ago on of our Monday's night lectures. It is incredible to see how a wonderful project was crystallized.
Wonderful pieces can be seen. “Sisters, Saints and Sibyls” is a piece of Nan Golding that surprises because of the strength and cruelty of an autobiographical series of pictures of decadent scenes, where Golding presents her friends and family, including a strong succession of images that show herself inside the hospital with ulcers and wounds perpetrated by burning herself on her right arm.
Another piece that surprised me and left me a wonderful taste on the mouth was “La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (Rozelie Hospital,Sydney)” where the Venezuelan artist that lives in New York, Javier Tellez shows in an incredible video-installation two videos that successfully establish a dialog between craziness and nostalgia, between law and medicine, between a contemporary intervention in an old movie about Jeanne d’Arc and the stories of different female patients of a psychiatric institution in Australia, all of them with antecedents of intentions of committing suicide.
The work is incredible strong. It produces a void in the stomach, a nostalgia and anguish for the patients, that seem to live, and that is the best part of the installation, during the time of the Inquisition, relating the contemporary mishandling of the different patients with the abuse and misuse of humanity during that time. The methods of psychology seem to be very similar to former times.
This installation deeply touched my heart, not only because of the thematic and the paradigmatic way of posting information, but because of Javier, because of the human side of this artist. I must confess that it is incredible to see a person that comes from a similar environment to mine, from the same city, knowing the same people and with a similar background, growing so much in his praxis. Javier was always full of potential and skills. I was overwhelmed by emotion and proud of this piece. Now I can say without any doubt that from the magnificent "Caracas Lion" to this piece exists an evident change, a step forward, that puts him into the position of one of the most interesting artist of my country. A toast for Tellez!!!!!!!!!!!
In the Museum of Medien Technology an exhibition caught my attention. “Between two deaths” shows different works in a collective representation of the idea of death. Curated by Felix Ensslin it is a careful homage to the other side in an atmosphere that lets you meditate profoundly in the hypothetical experience of being six feet under. Ensslin exposed the information about this exhibition and its preparation a year ago on of our Monday's night lectures. It is incredible to see how a wonderful project was crystallized.
Wonderful pieces can be seen. “Sisters, Saints and Sibyls” is a piece of Nan Golding that surprises because of the strength and cruelty of an autobiographical series of pictures of decadent scenes, where Golding presents her friends and family, including a strong succession of images that show herself inside the hospital with ulcers and wounds perpetrated by burning herself on her right arm.
Another piece that surprised me and left me a wonderful taste on the mouth was “La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (Rozelie Hospital,Sydney)” where the Venezuelan artist that lives in New York, Javier Tellez shows in an incredible video-installation two videos that successfully establish a dialog between craziness and nostalgia, between law and medicine, between a contemporary intervention in an old movie about Jeanne d’Arc and the stories of different female patients of a psychiatric institution in Australia, all of them with antecedents of intentions of committing suicide.
The work is incredible strong. It produces a void in the stomach, a nostalgia and anguish for the patients, that seem to live, and that is the best part of the installation, during the time of the Inquisition, relating the contemporary mishandling of the different patients with the abuse and misuse of humanity during that time. The methods of psychology seem to be very similar to former times.
This installation deeply touched my heart, not only because of the thematic and the paradigmatic way of posting information, but because of Javier, because of the human side of this artist. I must confess that it is incredible to see a person that comes from a similar environment to mine, from the same city, knowing the same people and with a similar background, growing so much in his praxis. Javier was always full of potential and skills. I was overwhelmed by emotion and proud of this piece. Now I can say without any doubt that from the magnificent "Caracas Lion" to this piece exists an evident change, a step forward, that puts him into the position of one of the most interesting artist of my country. A toast for Tellez!!!!!!!!!!!
Upcoming Exhibition Reviews
• Karlsruhe: ZKM / Thermocline of Art/ New Asian Waves
• Berlin II: Remembering Reverón…or the embassy experience
• Berlin III:Vice-versa. Sound installation.
• Berlin IV: Schmerz / Pain and the biographical relation with science
• Berlin V: On walking
• Hannover: Made in Germany
• Munster: the sculptoric path
• Kassel: Documenta 12 / About the discourse of contemporary art
•Amsterdam-Zuiderzee: 2MOVE migration + video
• Berlin II: Remembering Reverón…or the embassy experience
• Berlin III:Vice-versa. Sound installation.
• Berlin IV: Schmerz / Pain and the biographical relation with science
• Berlin V: On walking
• Hannover: Made in Germany
• Munster: the sculptoric path
• Kassel: Documenta 12 / About the discourse of contemporary art
•Amsterdam-Zuiderzee: 2MOVE migration + video
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