APT Insight - Vol. 4 - Fall 2008

8/14/2019 APT Insight - Vol. 4 - Fall 2008

1/56

Vol.4 Fall 2008 A quarterly publication of the Artist Pension Trust


2/56


3/56

In an effort to draw a broader viewpoint into the processof editing this publication, I invited APT Los AngelesDirector, Irene Tsatsos to take the lead on this issue.She proposed we consider how over the past 10 yearsrelational aesthetics has moved beyond the theoreticalinto community-based activism. Two writers, one fromLos Angeles and one from Istanbul, present distinctly

different viewpoints that reflect the cultural practices intheir extended regions. Four artists from different partsof the world have contributed brief responses about theirpractices that engage the idea of community asa prospect for individual and collective change.

Prospectan interesting word and apt title forinternational curator Dan Camerons new US biennial inNew Orleans, Prospect.1 New Orleans. With 81 artistsworking throughout the city, this exhibition takes a formof community activism as well, seeded by Cameronsprimary objective to draw attention to the plight andongoing struggles of the city following Hurricane Katrina.

A number of the works/installations were conceived inresponse to New Orleans and its heritage, culture, neglectand need.

Finally, this fall saw an unprecedented explosion ofbiennial/triennial exhibitions throughout East Asia. Ourdirectors report from China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan andSingapore on seven survey exhibitions including morethan 350 artists from around the world.

Pamela Auchincloss _ Editor, APT Insight

1

Ten years ago Nicolas Bourriaud, co-founder and formerco-director of the Palais de Tokyo, published Esthtiquerelationnelle, in which he defined the term relationalaesthetics. He continued to explore this idea in his2002 book Postproduction -- Culture as Screenplay: How

Art Reprograms the World, which describes EsthtiqueRelationnelle (Relational Aesthetics) as works that take

as their point of departure the changing mental spaceopened by the Internet.

Now, more than ten years since Bourriaud first introducedthis term, we would like to explore the trajectory of thisidea through the work of APT artists for whom socialengagement is an intrinsic part of the creative output, andin some cases even a direct part of the artistic practice;who, in the course of developing their practice, find waysto engage or involve others through diverse sites rangingfrom the street outside their studio to the Internet.

We are making a distinction between artists who are

involved with discrete creative projects outside of theirstudio practices, and those whose creative interests,hobbies, passions, etc., create a social phenomenon, theexistence of which results in a community activity that inturn fuels the artists practice.

We hope you enjoy this issue.

Irene Tsatsos _ Director, APT Los Angeles,Associate Editor


4/56

Man KnowsHimselfOnly In

ManBy Pelin Uran


5/56

3

A Constructed WorldSecond Chance2008, Video still from documentationPhoto courtesy of ACW


6/56

Relational Aesthetics, originallya collection of essays written by the curatorand writer Nicolas Bourriaud, is a termapplied to a category of art productionfrom the 1990s that brings forth momentsof sociability and/or objects proposingsociability.

Bourriaud defines relational art as: A set of artistic practices which take as their theoreticaland practical point of departure the whole of human relations and their social context, rather thanan independent and private symbolic place.

Indeed, the constitution of convivial relations has been an historical constant sincethe 1960s; the predecessors of relational aesthetics go back to Allan KaprowsHappenings and the Situationist International. In the former case, AllanKaprows Happenings in the late 1950s and 1960s were based onthe idea of viewing art as a vehicle for expanding our awarenessof life through unexpected interactions; of blurring thedistinction between audience and artist and thereforedecentralizing the authorship; and of seeing art asa participatory experience. In the latter case,Guy Debord, a founding member andleading force of Situationist

International, was manifestinghis theories on constructedsituations.


7/56

5

A Constructed WorldSecond Chance2008, Video still from documentationPhoto courtesy of ACW


8/56

Mario RizziDrafting Moods / Double Vision2002, One-screen video & photo installationSound, 55, Courtesy of the artist


9/56

The artists discussed here share a wide perspective, onethat requires dialogue, negotiations and collaborativerelationships in order to produce their art. JacquelineRiva and Geoff Lowe, a collaborative duo known as

A Constructed World (ACW) (APT London), constructworkshops by engaging with groups of people whodont usually have anything to do with contemporaryart. These workshops are inter-subjective encountersin which meaning is created collaboratively. Their workis a manifesto that everyone, regardless of backgroundor specialization, is capable of producing according totheir own interpretation. Throughout the workshopsACW use the states of not knowing, appropriated frompsychoanalysis, as a shared space on which to base thedialogue. Second Chance (2008), a day of workshopsrealized with the students of Maison Lafitte in Paris,explored the idea that the audience could work with the

same movable, flexible role as the contemporary artist. Inthese workshops they made works utilizing music, visualart and performance without expertise or preparation inany of these areas.

According to Debord, constructed situations wereparticipatory events that used experimental behavior

to break the spectacular bind of capitalism. Theconstructed situations aimed at producing new socialrelationships and new social realities.

Today, the difficulty of the concept of relational aestheticsis that the term relational art has become loosely appliedto almost any kind of work, from that which establishesrelationships in which meaning is elaborated collectively,to situations in which an artist creates a context andviewers create a so-called community; from work thatemphasizes the viewers active participation in orderto generate meaning, to an approach in which the artistremains the author and involves others in a more directed

manner. The term often functions as a designator referringto a type of outcome regardless of the conceptualunderpinnings of the production.

7


10/56


11/56

The works of Rizzi, ACW and ha za vu zu share an interestin psychology and psychoanalysis, which gives themthe necessary tools to be vigilant against the alreadyfetishized and divisive discourse around the other.

Pelin Uran is a freelance curator and writer currentlybased in Istanbul.

Mario RizziDrafting Moods / Double Vision2002, One-screen video & photo installationSound, 55, Courtesy of the artist

9


12/56

Mario Ybarra Jr.The Sweeney Tate: Chop Shop2007, Installation


13/56

By Jessica Rath

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY

11


14/56

If the medium is the message,is it not a one-on-onerelationship with the public,

with each other, our bestformal strategy for making art?

The ten-year trend toward relational aesthetics (a termcoined by French art critic Nicolas Bourriaud) is seen inart that presents actions, interventions and spectacles inwhich audience response is part of a works creation. The

term has most recently helped an affluent art world andattendant critics generate an aesthetic discourse aboutworks they have previously shunned as solely activist.

I was surprised that Artist Pension Trust (APT),which collects tangible objects to invest in its trust,includes many artists whose practices reflect relationalaesthetics, including Milena Bonilla (APT Mexico City),Carolina Caycedo (APT Mexico City), Jeff Cain (APT LosAngeles) and Mario Ybarra Jr. (APT Los Angeles).

On a bus outside San Juan, Puerto Rico passengers watcha young woman, needle in hand, stitching up slashed

bus seats, adding her flourished marks to this well-usedpublic space. Bogot-based Milena Bonilla admits thather interventions are often surreptitious because a little

bit of silence amid the large noise [of Bogot] is healthy.Bonilla marks place with thread, as with Transitory Map(2002-2004), in which the bus routes where she conductedrepair interventions is reflected on a sewn map of Bogot.

These are thread drawings of routes that were previouslymarked for other intentions and speeds, alluding to adifferent pace set by our own mental maps of a city.

For her latest project in Spain, Our Hospitality(2007),Bonilla questions our relationship with consumerismand our assumptions about charity and identity throughdeconstructing and reworking an Yves Saint Laurent dresswith 25 pieces of charity shop clothes. This new line iscarefully displayed as art, selling for 100 to 200 euro;and as clothes, for 20 euro at the same shop, while theEACC museum in Castelln features images of this artproduction. Both venues display maps to the other and in

that way leave trails between the audiences.


15/56

Milena BonillaTransitory Map2002-2004, Performance

13


16/56

Carolina Caycedo

Daytoday(2000 present)Performance/Intervention


17/56

20/04/26 I moved Amys stuff from a

storage building in Brooklyn Navy Yard to hernew apt in El Barrio. She gave me a camera,books, clothes, plastic dishes, curtains, toysand 6 gm of fine herbs.

15

San Juan-based Carolina Caycedo (APT Mexico City) iswell known for Daytoday(2000 - Present), an ongoingproject in which she forgoes all daily money exchangeand instead barters her possessions out of a van to getlifes essentials. Featured at the 2006 Whitney Biennial,Daytodayis one project in over a decades worth of publicworks including itinerant hairdressing parlors, symbolicflag planting and how-to manuals on obtaining a Britishpassport. For Caycedo, the art world, like any hierarchy,is there to subvert by transferring to the audience thepower given to me by the art circuit.


18/56

How do we critically evaluate works defined by relationalaesthetics? Artist Jeff Cain (APT Los Angeles) asks ifthe aesthetic response [to a public work of art] issublime because it is revolutionary? Because of therelationships? During a pier festival in California, Cainprojected seductive aerial footage of the entire lengthof Los Angeles, planetarium style, above the audiences

heads, who then relaxed on the ground chatting togetherabout the scenery. Unlike a theater experience thatdemands we keep silent and focus on the given narrative,Cains film and style of presentation creates a spectacle,a space to share new narratives between audiencemembers. The city is suddenly a night sky on which toproject dreams again.

For his most recent work, Cain went on what he calleda fools quest for Constructivist artifacts. Setting up akiosk in the public square in the Ukraine, Cain sought outsurviving Constructivist artists using Tatlins definition:[an] initiative individual who acts to express thecreativity of a collective. The resulting website indexesresponses of the passersby. In all but a few cases,

artworks were social projects not authored by artistsbut by anonymous collectives, such as an entirely selforganized public outdoor gym of handmade machineswith no single author.

For TheSweeney Tate: Chop Shop (2007), Los Angeles-based Mario Ybarra Jr. (APT Los Angeles) recreated aLos Angeles barbershop where passersby sat down fora cut and chatted about their barbershop experienceswith strangers. Ybarra states that public works operateas more of an offensive space, where sometimes we,as artists, lose control of the ball for a minute to seehow far we can take an idea across the playing field. In

2006 Ybarra and his wife Karla Diaz created The PeacockDoesnt See Its Own Ass/Lets Twitch Again: Operation

Birdwatching (2006) for the Serpentine Gallery in London.Workshops with five young London artists evolved into aclubhouse style installation and the formation of a birdclub, with over 200 members of the general audiencejoining.

As Bonilla suggests, most of these artists opposeclassification, instead preferring that their practice moveas a virus, shifting, jumping and escaping stylizationand incorporating members as part of the work. Whilestylization affords the gallery system a commodity on

which to bank, the looming world recession might finallychange how we view aesthetic currency and these workswith and in the service of the public.

Jessica Rath is an artist and writer in Los Angeles.


19/56

Jeff CainSkyglow2008, Video projection

17


20/56

ASIA UPFRONT


21/56

On the eve of September 3rd I set out on a 10-dayjourney around the world bound for East Asia.

Following a quick stop-over in London,my destination was Guangzhou, China for the thirdGuangzhou Triennial. This was the beginning of awhirlwind trip that took me to Shanghai, Nanjing,Singapore, Taipei and finally Beijing. In all of thesecities, but for Beijing, I took in the ambitiousprogrammatic efforts of 24 curators dedicatedto making broad sweeping statements about thecondition of our diverse and complex world as seenthrough the eyes of more than 350 artists fromaround the globe. This extraordinary, first-time-ever,regionally-coordinated platform of contemporaryart biennials and triennials drew crowds from every

continent as artists, collectors, curators and galleristsmade the trek to as many as 6 countries (Korea, China,Singapore, Taiwan, Japan and Australiathree ofwhich I traveled to) in effort to become fully versed inthe international art scene centered around Asia.

The following reports are contributions from our Asiandirectors and myself, with brief overviews of theseexhibitions while highlighting the contributions of ourAPT artists. / P.A.

19


22/56

Heman ChongOne Hundred Years of Solitude

2008, Aluminum on outdoor wall fixture10 x 7 m, Courtesy of the artist and Vitamin Creative Space


23/56


24/56

The Singapore Biennaleis an international

contemporary art eventorganized by the National ArtsCouncil of Singapore.

By Sunyoung Oh

Launched in 2006, it saw the grand opening of its secondedition this year (September 11 November 16, 2008).Tokyos Mori Art Museum Director Fumio Nanjo, who wasthe Artistic Director of the 2006 Singapore Biennale,was reappointed to head the 2008 Curatorial Team,

which includes Joselina Cruz of Singapore/Malaysia andMatthew Ngui of Singapore. The 2008 Singapore Biennalehas received favorable reviews for staying faithful toits original objective of focusing on the works of Asianartists with few exceptions, thereby differentiating itselffrom other biennales. This year, the exhibition is dividedinto three main venues in an effort to highlight as well aspromote the understanding of the artworks and the sites.

The two main features that set the 2008 biennale apartfrom its inaugural event in 2006 are the theme andthe venues of the exhibition. The theme of this yearsexhibition is Wonder, which followed up the inauguralbiennales theme of Belief. Is wonder a feeling of

curiositycoming from belief? This years theme couldmean many different things. Through Wonder, the 2008Singapore Biennale invites us to ponder all the thingsin life that make us feel surprise, question and doubt.Its conceptual scope is the contemporary world. Andthrough the art of the contemporary world, the exhibitiontakes interest not in the apparent but rather the storiesunderneath that we may easily miss. It is Fumio Nanjossecond invitation for reflection, after having provokedthought on the many meanings of belief for the firstexhibition. On the exhibition theme, Fumio Nanjo explainsthat, This years exhibition and artworks that have beenselected or newly developed with artists will attempt

to eliminate all the obstacles that lead to perceptuallimitations, social structures and prejudices. The attemptin turn will make us wonder about what it is that actuallymakes us surprised, scared, anxious or daring.


25/56

This years exhibition showcases artworks that proposediverse interpretations and layers of wonder. Mostnoteworthy works include those by artists from Asia,Middle East, Europe and the Americas such as Ilyaand Emilia Kabakov, Deborah Kelly, Isak Berbic, HansOp de Beeck, Anthony McCall, Isaac Montoya, FaisalSamra, Fujiko Nakaya, Ko-bong Rhee and Felice Varini,

to Southeast Asia and Singapore such as Alfredo andIsabel Aquilizan, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, HemanChong (APT Beijing), Shubigi Rao, Tang Ling Nah, Willy Kohand Sherman Ong. While the fog-like disappearing andreappearing work of Fujiko Nakaya surprises its viewers,the sublimely beautiful and serene white snowscapeof Hans Op de Beeck offers deep tranquility in anotherexhibition area. The paintings and drawings of FeliceVarini and Tang Ling Nah conjure up new spaces, thusquestioning the relationship between real space andcreated spaces. As such, the participating artworks offerus a chance to reflect so that we may understand the wayeach artist works and shows his/her creations.

Art and Site

Another feature of the 2008 Singapore Biennale is thatthe artworks are installed in sites that are not traditionalexhibition spaces. That does not mean that all theartworks in the biennale are site-specific or highlight thesites. However, by being installed in new, non-exhibitionvenues, the content of the artwork itself combined withthe sites own image give rise to new stories that theviewers can feel for themselves. This also is a possibilitythat this years exhibition intentionally sought.

In contrast to the 2006 Singapore Biennale, which washeld in multiple venues spread across 19 different cities,this years biennale is generally divided into the threemain sites of the old City Hall, the Marina Bay and SouthBeach. 137 artworks by 66 artists invited from a total of36 countries are shown. South Beach presents the worksof 25 artists including the Singaporean artist HemanChongs One Hundred Years of Solitude. In Marina Bay,Japanese artist Shigeru Bans gigantic pavilion, madefrom containers for his Eco Project campaign to conserveenergy and fight against environmental pollution, servesas the exhibition venue.

The old City Hall building, which was built in 1929, is ahistorical site representing public power in its heyday. Itwas closed in 2005, reopened in 2006 to house the firstSingapore Biennale and opened its doors once again forthe 2008 edition. The many office rooms as well as hallsthat used to be tribunals in the past are left as found forthe artwork installations. The building will reopen as theNational Art Gallery in 2013, a visual arts exhibitionspace which will focus on showcasing the works ofSoutheast Asian artists.

23

South Beach is also being used temporarily to exhibitthe artworks of the biennale. As a cluster of Art Decobuildings dating from the 1930s, South Beach was theseat of the Singaporean Army headquarters after WorldWar II, and even served as a camp for the SingaporeVolunteer Corps for some time.

In Heman Chongs new series of wall and floorinstallations for Singapore Biennale 2008, the artist optsto explore a working process in which the work wrappeditself around the existing architecture of a given spacewith the application of self-adhesive stickers and 250,000black offset prints each measuring 9 x 4.5 cm that carpetthe floor. The floor work, Monument To The People WeveConveniently Forgotten (I Hate You) (2008), is a somber andpoignantly political work in a show that drifts toward thesublime.

From the beginning of biennales until present, biennaleexhibitions have been critically acclaimed as a platform

for showing the currents of contemporary art where andas they were happening. However, with the onslaught ofbiennales, they have recently lost some of their luster.Despite the situation, one common point among allthe biennales is that they have a penchant for largescales and evaluate their success on how many artistsparticipated from how many countries. As a result, thelist of participating artists end up resembling one anotherbetween the many biennales, and these artists continueto show similar works over many exhibitions. So-calledbiennale artists have become a trend. One cannot helpbut question why the Singapore Biennale was created atsuch a time in such a context, what they will be able to

show that will set them apart from other biennales andwhat meaning the Singapore Biennale holds today.

Sunyoung Oh is the Co-Director of APT Beijing.She is based in Seoul.


26/56


27/56

Jina ParkMoontan 032007, Oil on canvas, 130.3 x 180 cmCourtesy of the artist

25


28/56

The Gwangju Biennalepresented its seventh edition

this year, with the 66 day-longevent starting on September5th under the title ofAnnualReport: A Year in Exhibitions

(September 5 November 9, 2008).By Sunyoung Oh


29/56

27

Under the direction of Okwui Enwezor, Dean of AcademicAffairs and Senior Vice President of the San FranciscoArt Institute, who was also at the helm of the KasselDocumenta in 2002, the 7th Gwangju Biennale was co-

curated by independent curator Hyunjin Kim and theIndian-born curator Ranjit Hoskote.

The most distinctive feature of the Gwangju Biennalethis year is that a foreign curator was appointed as itsArtistic Director for the first time since its inauguration.Moreover, also noteworthy was that this years exhibitionwas based on the enormous research conducted by theArtistic Director and the curators, who selected andedited works from the major exhibitions and activitiesthat were held between 2007 and 2008 in Korea andabroad. Like the Artistic Directors comment that Theabsence of a special theme is the theme of this event,the background of the Biennale, similar to that of the lastBerlin Biennale, was that it reflected the recent trend ofshowing the overall flow of contemporary art in its variousforms, and did not follow one clear thematic direction orparticular predominant current. For this years event, thekey was to examine the trends of contemporary art todayand explore its future directions by gathering the chosenworks in one place under the title of Annual Report.

A total of 127 artists from 36 countries participated inthis years exhibition, whose works flowed in an organiccomposition featuring no clear division between thevenues, which included the Gwangju Museum of Art,the Biennale Hall, Uijae Museum of Korean Art, DaeinTraditional Market and Cinema Gwangju. The exhibitionwas designed around three main components titledOn the Road, Position Papers and Insertions.

Thirty-six exhibits were shown in the first part,On the Road, which represented the major internationalexhibitions held during the past year. In particular, theinstallation work of Hans Haacke, which featured visual

image effects that contrasted reality and the ideal, aswell as the retrospective of the conceptual artist GordonMatta-Clark, which showcased his post avant-gardeinstallation and architectural works from the end-1960sto early-1970s, were worth viewing. Meanwhile, theperformance and installation work titled Sediments,Sentiments by Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadillawho, lying down in a large-scale sculptural tunnel made ofwhite plaster resembling a gigantic crystal, sang excerptsfrom George W. Bushs and the Dalai Lamas speeches inthe opera format, which provided an experience that wasat once spatial and sensory.


30/56

MAP Office

The Final Battle2008, Procession of 9 wagons(bamboo, paper, firecrackers, mixed media)carried by 2 people each, sound2 hours in duration, Dimensions variableCourtesy of the artists


31/56

The second part of the exhibition, Position Paper,proposed by the five curators Jang Un Kim, Sung-HyenPark, Abdellah Karroum, Claire Tancons, and PatrickD. Flores, featured small group exhibitions or on-site

workshops by four to six artists (or artist teams) of eachof the curators choosing. In particular, curator Sung-Hyen Parks Real Estate Agency Project attracted muchattention as a public art project that helped to revitalizethe citys traditional market through its open studioprogram, which involved the opening of the participatingartists residence studios in the five commercial blocks ofGwangjus Daein Traditional Market.

The third part, Insertions, invited into the Biennalea series of specifically commissioned new projects thathad been realized to maximize the organic flow of theexhibition. Of particular interest were Dolores Zinny and

Juan Maidagans installation Model for Gwangju,a three-dimensional structure made of Plexiglas boards,linoleum, fabric, etc. that invited viewers to approach itand experience the multi-dimensional illusion that existsbetween surface and depth, and Eunji Chos MudPoem_Exodus, a performance involving throwing against thewalls mud dug up from the surrounding newly developedcities, an act which suggests lifes new beginnings.The paintings of Jina Park (APT Beijing), the collaborativeworks of artist Hae Jun Jo (APT Beijing) and his father,the video works of Jooyeon Park, and the works of JewyoRhii (APT Beijing) were also worth noting.

Sunyoung Oh is the Co-Director of APT Beijing.She is based in Seoul.

29


32/56

September saw the openingof three major art festivals in

China, all serving (on the surfaceor subconsciously) to cementthe Chinese presence on theinternational stage.

By Kyongfa Che and Shi Li-Sanderson


33/56

The Guangzhou Triennial, the Shanghai Biennale and theNanjing Triennial each presented large groups of artistsembodying their various curatorial ideas: Guangzhouincluded 210 artists organized around the title Farewell

to Post-Colonialism; Shanghai, with 60 artists, coinedthe phrase Trans Local Motion; while Nanjing settled onReflective Asia to frame its 106 artists.

Many of the works in these survey exhibitions manageto reflect arts progress as an expression of business,economy and technologyelements in our improvingenvironmentpressing at the front line of opening mindsas China merges into the global forum. S.Li-S.

31


34/56

GuangzhouFarewell to Post-Colonialism, under the direction ofcurators Gao Shiming (China), Sarat Maharaj (London/India) and Chang Tsong-zung (Hong Kong), offersa compelling proposition framed by the cultural andpolitical colonialism two of the curators have personallyexperienced. This is particularly evident in their choice ofartists including, among others: Doa Aly (Cairo/APT Dubai);Sarnath Banerjee (New Delhi/APT Mumbai); Amy Cheung(Hong Kong/APT Beijing); Archana Hande (Mumbai/APTMumbai); Gulsun Karamustafa (London/APT Mumbai);Jeuno Kim (Seoul/APT Beijing); Leung Chi-Wo (Hong Kong/APT Beijing); Ahmet gt (Istanbul/APT Dubai); Qui Zhijie

(Hangzhou/APT Beijing); Masahiro Wada (Tokyo/APTBeijing); Wang Yuyang (Beijing/APT Beijing); Haegue Yang(Berlin/APT Beijing); Zhang Hui (Shanghai/APT Beijing).

Amy CheungAshes Unto Pearl2008, Sound InstallationCourtesy of Guangzhou Triennial

Amy Cheungs remarkable sculptural installationtitledAshes Unto Pearl (2008) is one of several newlycommissioned works on view. Inspired by a short poem byRabindranath Tagore that tells the story of a pearl diver insearch of the perfect pearl of the formless and ends with,And now I am eager to die into the deathless. Cheunginterviewed more than 100 people about their idea of aformless pearl. The responses, largely existential, emitas soft murmurs from small mirrored speakers embeddedin the charcoal coated surface of this imposing 2.8 metersphere. For those willing to take a closer look, discreteviewing portals reveal a slow burning figure (a self-

portrait) made from incense slowly disappearing insidethis universe fallen from the sky. There is an unmistakablesense of the ritual in this work but the ambiguity keepsthis reading safe from doctrine. S.Li-S.


35/56

33

ShanghaiIn Shanghai, the center of the banking industry of China,the curatorial team of Zhang Qing (Artistic Director/China), Henk Slager (Curator/The Netherlands) and JulianHeynan (Curator/Germany) consider migration as anoverriding influence in how cultures evolve.

Of the artists included in Trans Local Motion Koreanartist Sanggil Kims (APT Beijing) photographs ofbuilding facades clearly capture a sort of hybridizationof architecture. Not one could be distinguish as nativeor regional. Turkish-born Inci Eviners (APT Dubai) room

installation of stylized black and white ink drawings andwall paintings weave a timeless mythology that is difficultto ascribe to any one country or history. Also from Koreaand a current resident of Amsterdam, Yang Ah Hams(APT Beijing) photographs and video works can be seenas prosaic or as fantastic dreamscapes. In DreamIn Life(2004), her three-channel video projection, the popularand hallmark attraction for the New York City touristthe Central Park horse-drawn carriageis, in onerespect, about how the magic of dreams, fantasy andfairy tales will not translate into life experience. But itmight also be about the migrant population that bringstheir stories, their lives and their dreams to the American

continent. S.Li-S.

Sanggil KimMode_20012006, ed. 6, C-print220 180 cmCourtesy PKM GALLERY


36/56

NanjingThe Nanjing Triennial, formerly the Triennial of ChineseContemporary Art, broadened the scope to Asia;Reflective Asia considers artists critical examinationand responses to the dynamic economic, culturaland social change happening throughout Asia, whileembracing the complexity and notion of Asia asan imagined and conceptualized entity and community.In doing so, the Triennial further attempts to show andanalyze the development and status quo of the Asian

contemporary art scene.

The chief curator Huang Du is an independent curator andart critic based in Beijing and was one of the curators forthe sixth Shanghai Biennale in 2006. He teamed up withthree curatorsFumihiko Sumitomo from Japan, KangJaeyoung from Korea and Li Zhenhua from Chinato select over 100 artists to show their works withinthe traditional Chinese architecture of the NanjingMuseum and RCM The Museum of Modern Art.

The range of works embodies the wide spectrum ofsocial and cultural development in Asia. Included in

the exhibition are Jiang Zhi (APT Beijing), Kira Kim (APTBeijing), Meiro Koizumi (APT Beijing), Tsuyoshi Ozawa(APT Beijing), Gimhongsok (APT Beijing), Chen Shaoxiong

Yang Ah HamDreamin Life2004, 3 channel video installation withview from Insa Art Space, Seoul


37/56

35

(APT Beijing), Wang Yuyang (APT Beijing) and Zon Ito(APT Beijing). Among them, Ozawa, Gim and Chen, whohave been collaborating as a collective named XichingMen, created Xiching Olympics and organized a series ofperformances during the opening period of the Triennial.Koizumi presented his new video work titled CraftNight,in which a man is confined in an absurd setting where heis asked to perform as a mad man, make a sculpture andtalk about his private life at the same time. The footage

is ridiculous, funny, eerie and unsettling, as it shows hisagitation and frustration being piled up while it remainsever ambiguous whether it is performed or coming fromhis personal feelings. K.C.

One work that seems prescient of Chinas future as aworld power in business and technology is Wang YuyangsTonight I Will Consider Who I Am (2004). The relationship ofart with technology comes out strongly in this work, withits stranded astronaut. This piece shows where art canhave a direct relationship with reality and world events.Initially we have Wangs piece, pre-empting Chinas latestforay into space by weeksart does not represent reality

but predicts. The progress of time is reversed: the artworkcame first, then reality develops out of it.

Wang YuyangTonight I Will Consider Who I Am2008, InstallationCourtesy of the Nanjing Triennial

The astronaut survives in the fragile sliver of earth-likeatmosphere in his suit. This biosphere could be likenedto the Chinese identity, an ordinary situation but perilous.Contrast this with outside the suitthe internationalidentity to which we aim, the public, shared space. Insideis local, outside is beyond our present thinking, but oncewe get there, it confers a hidden power on us. As thespace race boosts national prestige and influence, just tocross our border and reach this space is an act and makes

us something.

So, considering this piece, perhaps an appropriatequestion to ask those of us who are part of theinternational art environment would be Who are wetonight? S.Li-S.

Kyongfa Che is the Co-Director of APT Beijing. She isbased in Tokyo. / Shi Li-Sanderson is an APT CuratorialAssociate and Curator at the Beijing Art Museum ofImperial City (BAMIC). She is based in Beijing.


38/56

By Pamela Auchincloss

TaipeiBiennial

2008Seated outside the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, with onlya tarpaulin roof structure separating guests from thegrowing ferocity of typhoon Sinaklu, the opening night of2008 Taipei Biennial, curated by Vasif Kortun and ManrayHsu, got underway with Nevin Aladags (APT Berlin)performance work Raise the Roof. From stage-left aroundeight girls each climbed onto an individual platform

and proceeded to dance to music played from theirown personal headphones without acknowledging theiraudience and in a world of their own. With only the noiseof shuffling and stomping high-heels beating out differentrhythms and on this occasion with the sound of heavy rainin the background, the performance allowed a moment forpersonal contemplation on individual action.

Taipei 08s main themes are all connected to the effectsof neo-liberal capitalist globalization and includesworks that suggest the potential for achievable forms ofactivism, self-organization and D.I.Y. intervention. Manyincluded commissions have already put an idea into

action and these include Lara Almarceguis (APT Berlin)officially endorsed conservation of the empty terrain ofan island in the Danshui river, as well as Superflexs (APTLondon) Freebeerproject, in which they collaboratedwith a local brewery to produce a beer that has an openlicense for anyone to copy. Other artists offered theaudience a chance to intervene in the public domainthemselves, such as Nasan Tur (APT Berlin) with his workBackpacks. His individualized backpacks are available foranyone to borrow from the museum and each contains adifferent set of materials and props that can be used fora particular street action. They include backpacks withmaterials for forming a demonstration, making a public

announcement, cooking on the side-walk etc,.

Also commissioned to produce work for the Biennale,Mario Rizzi (APT Dubai) focused on a local issue andproduced The Chicken Soup a film that explores theexperience of two foreign women who began their livesin Taiwan as bought brides. Other artists looked to theirown contexts: Christodoulos Panayiotous (APT Dubai)slide installation Wonderland presents a series of imagesfound in the Municipal archives of Limassol that depictthe strangely out-of-place, but globally orientated, annualDisney Carnival, and Yochai Avrahami (APT Dubai) focuseson two sites located between Jerusalem and Ramallah

to present a no-mans land of abandoned potential,inhabited in his videos by his own animated creations.

With projects also taking place in other venues andopen spaces within the city, the curators ambitionswere spread into the public arena. These ranged fromanother project by Almarcegui that required the officialpermission to remove a wall visually blocking anabandoned Japanese house to expose to the publicsconsciousness the state these houses have remained insince the post-war period and before coming plannedrenovation; to the more manageable invitation of MaliWus crop gardens that can be realised at the smallestscale on any spare piece of land, on a balcony or in a

container anywhere in the urban fabric.

Pamela Auchincloss is Interim Co-Director APT Beijing


39/56

By Kyongfa Che

YokohamaTriennale

2008

37

Falke PisanoObject and Disintegration:The Object of Three2008, Courtesy Ellen de BruijneProjects / BaliceHertling

The 3rd edition of Yokohama Triennale (September 13 November 30, 2008) is directed by Tsutomu Mizusawa, thechief curator of the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura andHayama, with a team of five curatorsDaniel Birnbaum,

Hu Fang, Miyake Akiko, Hans Ulrich Obrist and BeatrixRuf. It features 72 artists from 25 nations, including KerenCytter (APT London), Douglas Gordon (APT London), JorgeMacchi (APT Mexico City), Falke Pisano (APT Berlin) andSUPERFLEX (APT London), whose works have been spreadinto seven different venues in the city of Yokohama.

The theme Time Crevasse signifies the abyss created bythe linear and standardized notion of time and the unifiedvalue system that constitute the current digital andglobal world. The Triennale attempts to introduce the kindof artistic practice that allows ones eye to glimpse theabyss, or multiple axis of time, which potentially bridges

chasms between different nations, races, cultures andreligions.

Participating on the curatorial team Ruf, who curatedthe Tate Triennial 2006 at Tate Britain, and Obrist, whorecently curated Il Tempo Del Postino with PhilippeParreno for Manchester International Festival, it isnot surprising that the Triennale includes a numberof performance works, such as Joan Jonas, PhilippeParreno and Tino Sehgal. In addition, there are severaltime-based works and programs such as contemporarydance, experimental sound programs and film screenings.According to the curatorial statement, the strategy

does not merely aim to attract the public to the site; itprovides an unmediated experience of art to the viewer,and affirms the artistic space and production in which theglobal art market does not produce or accommodate.

Kyongfa Che is Co-Director of APT Beijing.

She is based in Tokyo.


40/56

Anne DeleporteEditorial Blue2008, Newsprint and paint(installation view at the Louisiana StateMuseum U.S. Mint; also installed at the L9Center for the Arts, Lower Ninth Ward)Photo credit: John dAddario

Prospect.1


41/56

By Pamela Auchincloss

When Dan Cameron shared with me and our APT New YorkCuratorial Committee, of which he is a standing member,his early-on vision for a biennial exhibition in New Orleansthat would shine a light on the devastation left behind byHurricane Katrina, we all applauded the intention but couldnot envision the form. On October 30th and 31st, curators,collectors and artists from around the world descended uponthis unique and colorful cultural city to take in the outcome.

In these charged political times when governments and

financial institutions have all but failed every moralobligation to lead, protect and provide, New Orleans providesan apt venue for artists to consider and comment onaccountability, not only of our institutions but of ourselves. Ofthe 81 participating artists more than 20 created new worksthat respond directly to New Orleans and its community,resulting in an exhibition that carries a thoughtful andaffective message.

A Thousand Miles Away(2008), John Pilsons (APT New York)15 11 video projection, presents eight vignettes shot ina semi-documentary style and merged into a seamlessportrait of New Orleans. Installed in one of the more unlikely

Prospect.1 venues spread throughout the citythe chapel ofthe Gaskin-Southall Mortuary that was recently purchasedby the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundationviewerssit in pews and are forced to reconcile the setting and thesubject. Pilson distinctively crafts each narrative as thoughone were reading through a collection of short storiesaplayful picnic of young lovers, a dread-locked rapper singingon his back steps, a family portrait taking session, a boxerworking out in a community center, a taxi dispatch office,a bookstore scene, and a walk down by the river with dogsin toware stitched together by viewpoint. By shifting theframe from close up to telescopic, the experience movesfrom the intimately personal to the more distilled angle of

photojournalism.

McCallum/TarryThe Evidence ofThings Not Seen2008, Oil on canvaswith china silkDimensions variableInstallation viewat the New OrleansAfrican AmericanMuseum as part ofProspect.1New OrleansPhoto credit:John dAddario

39

For aChanged

World


42/56

Perhaps the greatest achievement of Camerons visionis the city-wide reach of the participating venues. Theinfamous Lower Ninth Ward alone has 14 projectsthroughout the region. Anne Deleporte (APT New York) inEditorial Blue (2008), and Adam Cvijanovic (APT New York)worked directly on the wall creating environments withinthe modestly scaled rooms of a traditional New Orleans

bungalow. Deleporte papers the walls with newspaperscollected from around the world, spanning more than adecade of journalism and consumerism. It is her editingeye that then reduces these daily journals into a magicaland mythical room of images. Cvijanovic created a sitespecific installation of the Louisiana landscape broughtfrom the outside into the upstairs living quarters of amerchants shop. An eccentric and enigmatic selection ofobjects are discretely arranged around the room makingoblique references to history, literature and a momentpresent and past that only the observant visitor willconsider.

The Evidence of Things Not Seen (2008), BradleyMcCallums and Jacqueline Tarrys (APT New York)politically charged installation of 104 portraits that arebased on the police mug shots of those individuals whoparticipated in Martin Luther Kings first large-scaleact of civil disobedience during the Montgomery BusBoycott, is installed in the New Orleans African American

Museuma late 19th century landmark in the Tremeneighborhood of New Orleans, considered to be theoldest surviving black community in the United States.Hung salon style on a deep burgundy red wall, thesemodestly-scaled paintings each covered with a thin scrimof china silk carrying a photographic screen of an originalphotograph, are powerful reminders of the inimitablevalue of collective action.

In a neighboring building on the museum grounds, RicoGatsons (APT New York) multi-channel video installationSpirit, Myth, Ritual and Liberation (2008) is inspired bythe murder of Meredith Hunter as documented in the film

Gimme Shelter (1970), a pivotal event that effectivelymarked the close of a decade of idealism. Gatson re-worked scenes from the film, added a scene from JeanLuc Goddards film Sympathy for the Devil (1968) anda soundtrack that includes music by Mahalia Jackson,who is from New Orleans, and Sonhouse to create a visualcomposite of flowing images that, in Gatsons words,represent a symbolic liberation of a spirit in conflict, aswell as a way to view tragedy and pain as a process thatoften is only resolved through time.

Rico GatsonSpirit, Myth, Ritual and Liberation

2008, Video Installation with 3 color DVDs

Courtesy of the artist and Ronald FeldmanFine Arts, New York


43/56

Also in the Ninth Ward, Mark Bradford (APT Los Angeles)has built an ark using the shell of a destroyed andabandoned home. Sanford Biggers (APT New York)hangsor wrapsa grand piano around the trunkof a life-size oak. Rigged as a player piano, it plays amelancholy tune of the American Jazz standard StrangeFruit. There are several ways to read this image: the pianocould have been thrown up into this tree in a ravagingstorm (Katrina?) or, an equally weighted indictment ofa different shade, we are looking at a hanging tree fromwhich the vestiges of black American culture hang.

There are so many reasons to see Prospect.1, not leastof which is the quality of the art and the curating. Butperhaps the most compelling reason is activismtodo something for New Orleans, to appreciate thisextraordinary city rich with more than just beauty andcultural heritage. It is rich with people who believe inand care deeply about where they have chosen to livedespite the odds and the inaction of local and federalgovernments. Go. Do something for your countryand foryourself.

Pamela Auchincloss is CEO and Director of APT New York.

John PilsonA Thousand Miles Away2008, Single channel videoprojection with soundCourtesy of Nicole KlagsbrunGallery, New York

41


44/56

Edgar ArceneauxWatts House ProjectSeptember 27-28, 2008, Photo byAimee Chang, Director of Academic andResidency Programs, Hammer MuseumCourtesy of Watts House Project


45/56

Edgar Arceneaux

Watts House Project and the Science of Complexity

Extending from the lineage of conceptualism and activist

practices, Watts House Project (WHP) is an ongoingcollaborative artwork in the shape of a neighborhoodredevelopment project, centered around the historicWatts Towers in Watts, California. Using interdisciplinaryapproaches, WHP engages art and architecture as acatalyst for expanding community. In collaboration withartists, architects, museums, corporations, students,community leaders, social policy makers and residents,the Watts House Project works to realize, as short termgoals, physical enhancements of the neighborhoodsuchas the remodeling of homes, artistic lighting, fencing andsignage. Equally important are social improvements ineducation, community organizing and street maintenance,

for example. The long term goals include purchasingproperties for new green architectural projects that willprovide housing, as well as contribute to community lifewith a caf, communal house, office space, an artist-in-residency program and exhibition spaces.

Understanding that basic ecological problems stemfrom social problems, WHP is an ecological movementthat fuses art, design and creative problem solving withcommunity action enabling the physical and socialrevitalization of the area surrounding the Watts Towers.

The organizing principles of the WHP are grounded in

the science of Complexity. We view the neighborhoodof 107th Street, our redevelopment zone, as a dynamicsocial system, meaning a system capable of change overtime. The law of emergence describes the way patternsarise in complex systems out of a multiplicity of relativelysimple interactions. Societal changes within a city aslarge as Los Angeles are never designed by one personand often not through collaboration (direct coordination),but rather with many individuals working in co-operation(often unknowing of others doing the same). Emergenceof patterns and trends in the social sphere can bespontaneous and self-organizing.

We recognize these dynamics in the microcosm ofour neighborhood and are attempting to form anorganizational model that is flexible and open tospontaneous and chance events as well as opportunities.This force we are describing is insufficiently explainedby reductive reasoning. Reductionism is at the basisof traditional organizational models which strive toincorporate goal formation, environmental analysis,strategy formulation and implementation of strategiccontrol. All of these goals are based on a stabilizedenvironment. Watts possesses both social and ecologicalimbalances, so what if the background in which you workis based in instability and disequilibrium?

One of the many ongoing objectives of the WHP is to

look at other models towards creating principles of ourown that move beyond the inside/outside dialectic ofcommunity-based art as well as the many unquestionedassumptions found in many public art projects. Modelsthat are invested in:

EMERGENCE

SPONTANEITY

INSTABILITY AND DISEQUILIBRIUM

NON-LINEARITY

TRANSITIVE STATES

IRREGULARITY AND PATTERN

SELF-ORGANIZING DYNAMICS

METONYMYCONTINGENCY AND CHANCE

UNKNOWABILITY OF THE FUTURE

NON-REDUCTIONIST THINKING

We are looking within the fields of linguistics (metonymy),philosophy (phenomenology) and science (complexity andchaos theory) to create a set of axioms that can changethe way one describes the socially-based practice of theembedded in the WHP. If you are interested in joining thisdiscussion, want to come for a visit or volunteer, contactme at [email protected].

Edgar Arceneaux (APT Los Angeles) lives and works in Los

Angeles.

43Insight/Community as Medium


46/56

Interaculty? It is a question! It is neithera static object, nor an innite concept buta responsive architecture generatinga program o rst intentions, movingorward fuidly. It has the great capacity tolink thereby creating a place o possibilitiesthat is not a aculty itsel but a temporal

and experimental studio. Its input/ outputrequencies can be unpredictable takingyou to a location not yet experienced1.

Interaculty cannot be dened by whatit is, but by what it is not. Its the letovero denitions, the undened junctionsomewhere in the galaxy, any placeanytime, no place now. Above all it residesinside the interrelational capacities ohuman kind. An attitude allowing or things

to change and interact, interact andchange2.

1Nico Dockx 2Jan Mast 2006/2007


47/56


Every time somebody else comes into the kitchen and helps you or eats with you, the workchanges... the conversation is different. (Rirkrit Tiravanija, 1999)

I would like to underline this notion o an artistic practice as a potential territory or the randomdevelopment o works aimed at stimulating indeterminate events rather than creating art objects,hereby generating dierent levels o community not drawing any fxed conclusions but ratherbringing orward temporary moments o learning. Today, too many things are planned andspeculated upon, so it is perhaps a question o growing very personal methods o research andcreating an o-beat ambience based on reciprocity and generosity. I am always already looking orpeople and social processes because I do not see art as a fnished product but as a curious sequenceo collective eorts and energies adding things to other things in search or another color,

another view, another name. I eel that our responsibility is that things can be changed and I liketo see things change depending on the interaction o others who are using and sharing this situation/invitation in which both our learning environment and knowledge production becomeinterdependent. The intention o the work is not to deend a thesis but to make a contribution tolie rereshing its many dierent sensibilities through playul actions o criticality. To practicallydisappear rom the stage, eacing yoursel, leaving its spatial conditions entirely to the public andallowing or a polyphonic subjectivity to resonate. It connects with my belie not in hierarchies but inthe intensity o qualities o interconnection opening up rather than occupying authorship. So morethan designing a new kind o art, such an experiment tries to design a new kind o artist droppingout o time or moments, repairing to a dierent place and moving in between times. To be invitedto do a project, or to write a text here and now and to decide what to do, to place something in agiven situation and to say this is what I do and now you can all listen to it. I am not sure. This idea odoubting, o irregular structures I fnd very interesting not only because o the richness o shapes

they produce but also their ever exceptional tolerance to imperection (.ex. cooking admits, evenimposes, this very notion o imperection and improvisation). It is about building a coalition ounderstanding, acceptance and dierence not to have a perect body but a unctional body whichcould be a philosophy o interaculties setting up various conditions necessary or creative production,collaboration and social engagement in order to develop ideas or which you may not have ananswer, or will not need to provide any kind o legitimate, fnal product but where you movetowards discovery, going beyond established programs o research.

Nico Dockx designJean-Michel Meyers


48/56

Seed Stage

In Corin Hewitts Seed Stage on view at the WhitneyMuseum of American Art this fall (October 3 January

4th) the artist has taken up residency in the lobby galleryof the museum in a self-contained theatrical spacethat invites the audience to partake in his daily practicethrough narrow vertical viewing slots at each corner. Weasked Hewitt a few questions in effort to learn more aboutthis unusual and unique engagement of the museumaudience and here is what we learned.

First, Corin, will you tell us a bit about the processand the outcomes of this part of your practice?

In the case of this Whitney show, I am working on andin the set, making things and photographing them for

a minimum of three days a week for the duration ofthe show. My time in the room shifts between a varietyof processes including cooking, sculpting, casting,composting and maintaining the systems of the set. Thishappens alongside the ongoing process of composing,taking, and printing photographs.

The space is about 13 feet wide by 23 feet long. The frontten feet is a densely packed kitchen/workshop with mostof the tools on the walls. It has a ziggurat shaped stairwellthat contains box molds for casting and seed starters forgrowing whatever sprouts out of the compost. The stageextends from the kitchen counter for about ten more feet.

On the stage I have large rolling shelving units containingcanned and dried goods. Underneath the stage is the rootcellar and the water system. The last three feet behind

the stage is an area that I consider the historic storage.In that area there is access to the back end of the shelving

units that contain much of the preserved material as wellas a selection of images that are of art historic interest tome hung adjacent to older photographs of mine.

I am thinking about the performative process in terms ofsystemssystems to reproduce, preserve, and createinformation. I am thinking more about the mediumas a verb, an action that changes the state or form ofmaterial over time. I consider this whole process as beingone where I create and steward a series of systems thatproduce new ways of looking at things. The systemsrange from ones that heat and cool (stove, panini press,and hotplates, refrigerator and freezer) to sculpting

reproductions from 3d color wheel made of Plasticine, aswell as a worm composting system that processes bothvegetable debris and photographs that I later remove andthen incorporate into other photos. I like thinking aboutmedium as a conduit or tool to produce and reproduceform.

How are your laboratories and what do you do inthem that is different from your studio?

The most important difference is that in studio practicethere is a building of material anticipating a finality ofrelease. In this case there is no finality of product.

Do you see this as a solitary studio practice or insome way interacting with your audience by making apublic spectator event of your working process?


49/56

Corin Hewitt

47

It is more of a theatrical practice of process and record. Itis a theatrical space where observation is its foundation.

Theatre has historically required an audience, but inthis case a large portion of the theatrical observation isdone by me with cameras. I wanted to create a spacewhere both the viewers and I can have a real timerelationship with an image of making and material intransitional states. As the viewers only can observethe interior through narrow slits in the corners of theroom, they are not physically engaged with the materialthat is being worked. We are both involved in images ofactions being played out in time. Throughout the courseof the exhibition, photographs I have created withinthe space are posted on the exterior, in a way makingthe viewers part of this process. This is also part of the

process of lookingthe location and dislocation of thesephotographs.

Is the audience an integralor perhaps essentialpart of your creative practice in these orchestratedsettings?

As there is little to no overt engagement with theaudience, the audience may have more subtle affecton the work due to the intensity or duration of theirobservation. Although it feels impossible to quantify, Iwould say that there is a certain psychological affect inboth the visual pressures and inspiration resulting from

sense of interest that I feel from the looking. And yet theaudience is also as integral as it is for viewing a painting,a sculpture or a photograph.

What becomes of the photographs? Do you seethem as visual representations of more than the

performative process?

I select a group of these photographs that go on tofunction in a variety of ways. We are currently workingon a book of the photographs from Perfomance #2(in Portland) that will be completed for the spring toaccompany an exhibition at the Seattle Museum ofArt of these same photographs. I will also keep onecomplete group of photographs together as a singlecollection so that they can function as an interrelatedconversation from each performance period and a morelimited selection of photographs from each group thatare sold as individual editions. I also continue to use the

reproductions of the photographs as material in futureperformances.

Finally, what is your stepping off point for this work?Are there certain practices, artists or works youreflect upon while making this work?

I find connected thought in work ranging from CasperDavid Friedrichs painting to Kurt Schwitters Merzbau. Iam very interested in the formal theatre at the Bauhaus,particularly the work of Oscar Schlemmer and AndreasWeineger. Other influences range from the Light-SpaceModulator of Moholy Nagy to the still lives of Cotan,

Zuberan and Morandi.

Corin Hewitt (APT New York) lives and works in Brooklyn.

Insight/Community as Medium

Corin HewittCorin Hewitt: Seed StageOctober 3, 2008 January 4, 2009Installation view at the WhitneyMuseum of American Art, New YorkPhoto credit: Sheldan C. Collins


50/56

Salon Aleman

Salon Aleman is a gathering place, an experimentationfield for contemporary visual artists creating aninnovative connection between their work and a largeaudience. The projects premise examines the notion ofremoving the spectatorship of the traditional viewing

experience by inviting an audience that is perhapsunaware of the artistic intentions of the salon. Theproject first premiered in Berlin, in the basement ofunitednationsplaza, a project by Anton Vidokle structuredas a seminar/residency program. Salon Aleman has sincetraveled to venues in cities all over the world, recentlyincluding the Whitney Museum of American Art as part ofthe 2008 Whitney Biennial, the New Museum in New YorkCity and the 21c Museum in Louisville, Kentucky.

Fueled by Tequila Sarabia, a central aspect of the projectis audience participation that need not be limited to theSalon Aleman event location but may be transferred toprivate spaces (via complimentary bottles of tequila).This allows the audience to continue the project in self-

created, uninhibited environments and actively interactwithin a special context that stresses the notion of thetranslatability of visual, social and spiritual languageswhile building a departure point for further culturalinvestigations that explore the global, the popular and theacademic.

Furthering this idea of engaging non-art audiences inmy practice, in March 2009, I will create a site-specificproject at the U.S. Consulate in Guadalajara, Mexico,which receives 390,000 visitors per year. Mixing humorand absurdity, this project will make light of politicalmessages and reinforce the importance of understanding

the human consequences in relation to internationalnecessities and generosities.

Eduardo Sarabia (APT Los Angeles) lives and works in

Los Angeles, Berlin and Guadalajara, Mexico.

Eduardo SarabiaSalon AlemanCourtesy of the Artist


51/56

Eduardo Sarabia



52/56


53/56

Ahmet gtLooking After the Hitchhiking General

Last summer I was invited to participate in a projectcurated by Jacob Fabricius. The project was calledAutostop, which means hitchhiking in Spanish. During

this project in June 2008, members of the staff at MalmKonsthall hitchhiked with artists works, performed artistinstructions, handed out texts or simply hitchhiked in thesouthern region of Sweden. Including Jacob, every personworking at the Malm Konsthall hitchhiked for two dayson behalf of an artist working on the project.

When Jacob approached me with this very intriguingidea, I immediately told him my memories of the periodwhen I hitchhiked almost everyday while I was studyingfor a B.A. at Hacettepe University in Ankara. The funniestencounter I had on one of these occasions was when adriver stopped to pick me up and then told me that he

knew me. I asked how so, and he said that a year ago hehad taken me from the same location. Another time Iexperienced the scariest encounter during my hitchhikingadventures: I was trying to gain a lift for three hours andnobody had stopped. It was already very late when a carfinally pulled over. I looked inside the car and saw fourreally scary and uncanny looking guys. I wasnt sure if Icould trust them, but it was late and so I got in anyway.While we were on the road they found out that we camefrom the same village. So I was fortunate enough andarrived home safely. Lastly I would like to mention mymost interesting encounter: One fine day, years ago, I washitchhiking with three of my friends. We were trying to

get to the city center from our university campus. All of asudden an official-looking black car stopped and offeredus a lift. Inside was a driver and a very good looking manwearing a suit sitting in the back seat. He told us that hewas the head of the local municipality. We were surprised,and even more so when he told us we should visit him.We took him up on his offer and he gave each of us a freetravel card that was valid for three months using any formof public transportation.

I took this last event as the inspiration for my projectfor Auto-stop, which was called Hitchhiking General.Hitchhiking General was performed by Olof Olsson, who

was one of the participating hitchhiking Malm Konsthallmembers in June 2008. For two days Olof wore a standardSwedish general suit and hitchhiked with two car flagsin his hands. Whenever someone stopped to offer hima ride, he would suggest that they place the two smallflags on the front bonnet of the car, just like the flags onofficial cars. The flags would remain in place throughoutthe journey until the General got out of the car. I usedHitchhiking General as an absurd metaphor in terms ofpower structure. This orchestrated situation displacesthe position of power and demands participation. Ina Generals costume, the hitchhiker is no longer just astranger who needs to be transported from one place to

anotherhe becomes a strategic symbol that is hard torefuse or ignore by passersby.

For me one of the most interesting outcomes from thisidea is that the audience who on those days drove theircar past the Hitchhiking General did not have much timeto think about whether he/she should stop upon seeing aGeneral hitchhiking on the road. The visual encounter isso short that the driver has only a few moments to decidewhat to do and if the driver doesnt stop, they wouldnever find out if the General is real or not. This momentof fleeting potential is the art action. The memory of nothaving stopped to find out the reality will stay in these

drivers minds as a question to contemplate forever.

Ahmet gt (APT Dubai) lives and works in Istanbul andAmsterdam.

Ahmet gtHitchhiking GeneralCourtesy of the Artist

Insight/Community as Medium 51


54/56


55/56

Artist PensionTrust (APT) is

the first investment

planning product,dedicated and tailoredto the needs of emerging

and mid-career artists- a group whose career

trajectories and employmentpatterns make existing long-

term investment programsinaccessible. The program, which

is globally patented, is centered onthe collective long-term investment of

the participating artists works therebyproviding artists with the opportunity to

invest in their financial future as well asthat of other selected artists.

Artist Pension Trust

298 Fifth Avenue, 4th floor, New York, NY 10001212-871-1011 t 212-871-1015 f [email protected]

www.aptglobal.org


56/56

APT Insight - Vol. 4 - Fall 2008

Documents

Transcript of APT Insight - Vol. 4 - Fall 2008