James Voorhies - The Future is Now

The Future is Now.

James Voorhies

Cultural confinement takes place when a curator imposes his own limits on an art exhibition, rather than asking an artist to set his limits.

1. 2.

Question: To what extent

do you believe an exhibition can be the most suitable forum

for passing on to the public the impulses which you hope to

attain?

3. 4.

Dear Harald Szeemann:

5. 6.

More and more,

exhibitions are ceasing to be exhibitions of

artworks and exhibiting themselves as an artwork instead.

7. 8.

Dear Harald Szeemann: Who the hell are you calling a whore?

9. 10.

Szeemann established the

curator as author or auteur and the

exhibition as his work.

11. 12.

The Parisian site neatly illustrated the tension between narratives of historical progress embodied in the construction of the Centre Pompidou and the destruction of historical site that is a prerequisite for progress.

13. 14.

This is a movement

from expressionist art to an art of

implementation.

15. 16.

There they developed their work as curation, a heady mix of pointed even polemical political art mixed with popular and folk culture in clean, strongly styled exhibitions.

17. 18.

It was a November

day in 1985, and having just seen a

spectacular gallery made from a converted

factory building, he was driving by large

numbers of other factories. Suddenly,

he said, he thought of the huge abandoned

factories in his own neighborhood of North

Adams.

19. 20.

In his proposal he had explicitly explained that the caravan, which was positioned in a diff erent location each week, was meant as a metaphor for a city undergoing change.

21. 22.

It seemed

important, therefore, to take the opportunity

to challenge the paradigm of art production and

distribution that Dia in its earlier incarnation

had presupposed and which still clings to its exhibition practices, in step with most of the

art world.

23. 24.

The curator’s direction with the use of space is neither so arbitrary nor so conveniently thematic as it is appropriate to art today, since the issues of identity and culture that these sites raise are addressed by artist in their work.

25. 26.

Parting from the traditions of

object making, these artists have adopted a performative, process-based approach. They are context providers

rather than content providers.

27. 28.

In spite of the great international interest, it was closed a month ahead of the planned schedule”financial problems of the city” was announced as the official reason.

29. 30.

Widespread opposition to

the museum in its planning stages seems

to have given way to an acceptance of its

positive effect on the image of the city and

its contribution to urban regeneration.

31. 32.

The artist explored the effects of the building on the surrounding neighborhood as well as its everyday life.

33. 34.

The installation

offered visitors a place of calm and rest, the

opportunity to relax on a bench in the midst of

greenery.

35 36.

The artist integrated more or less purposely—assisted by agitation and instrumentation—a heterogeneous art public into an artistic form of expression.

37. 38.

Biennials don’t work, so why

start another?

39. 40.

Sputniks will be contributing to the shape and character of the Kunstverein with their questions, critiques, advice and ideas over the next three years.

41. 42.

The artist

proposed a work that would entail the

“moving” of a piece of land by ten centimeters

with an act of mass participation.

43. 44.

The work was the result of a six-month stay in Caracas, where we researched the informal city under the auspices of the Caracas Case Project.

45. 46.

A series of

publicly accessible bicycles designed

according to the desires of a group of

friends from the former capital region.

47. 48.

People gathered to collect bottles made out of the plastic type PET.

49. 50.

The tensions

between these two different social and cultural circles

reinvigorate the work, but somehow at its

own expense: themes get lost in logistics, and

the political stance of the artist always verges

on the patronizing.

51. 52.

Responding to this exhibition’s title and tenor, the artist collective, which mostly addresses social problems, decided to combine both a social and an ecological approach within its project.

53. 54.

The Ninth Havana

Biennial intended to draw attention to the culture which is produced in urban

territories and their suburbs.

55 56.

In just three days, inhabitants of Stuttgart were interviewed about their own city.

57. 58.

unitednationsplaza is exhibition as school. I realize that this sounds somewhat paradoxical, yet it’s the only way to

describe the project that was intended

to start as a biennial (Manifesta 6).

59. 60.

Performers play the role of passers-by, and passers-by become performers.

61. 62.

I went

to the site quite a few times, trying to

imagine this future High Palace of Culture.

63. 64.

My involvement in the critical space is a legacy of what happened when a semi-autonomous critical voice started to become weak, and one of the reasons that happened was that curating became a dynamic process.

65. 66.

Curators and curatorial practice

are now as visible as artists themselves.

67. 68.

It is the specifics of a location that are used here as the initial reference point for intervention.

69. 70.

The artist’s

idea to take the run-down lavatories as the

starting point of his artistic work can be

understood as a service to the public, one that

seeks to relieve the necessary use of a

toilet of its unpleasant sour note and turn it

into a normal thing to do.

71. 72.

These interventions manifest themselves as forms of direct action targeting specific deficits within the political, social and cultural economy.

73 74.

I am

very interested in the gardens as they

are such an integral part of the town’s life

and I would like to start a project that would

look at gardens in detail and document

the changes they undergo.

75. 76.

Public art was billed as a subtle way of reclaiming and “humanizing” the urban environment, immediately becoming symbol of the economic and cultural renaissance of our cities.

77. 78.

The projects aim

not only at aesthetic images, but also to improve the social

functionality of the city.

79. 80.

Of course artists have heavily influenced curators, not only through the work that they make when they curate but, more often, simply through their own artwork. Look at how much influence the practice of institutional critique and conceptual art have had on curators over the last forty years.

81. 82.

In fact, contemporary art

institutions no longer need an artist as a

traditional producer. Rather, today the artist is more often hired for

a certain period of time as a worker to realize

this or that institutional project.

83 84.

Rancière’s writings on the modern “aesthetic regime of art” have become almost suspiciously popular in the art world; Rancière’s statement that “Aesthetic art promises a political accomplishment that it cannot satisfy, and thrives on that ambiguity” seems to generate a pleasant vagueness.

85. 86.

They see

Manifesta as a tool in their own cultural marketing, and they

attempt to outbid the competition with

higher and higher starting budgets.

87. 88.

He brought in a team to “rebrand” the city.

89. 90.

This art is

autonomous because it creates its own institutional and economic space

apart from existing institutions.

91. 92.

The group appears to be establishing an autonomous institutional support system from the bottom up.

93. 94.

The content of

the work is procured from original research

and interviews with individuals who worked in the Sprague Electric Company, now the site

of MASS MoCA.

95. 96.

��

��

��

��

��

��

Indicatory of an exhibition venturing to pin down, stretch and animate the experience of time in standstill, motion and reverse the Reader parallels the multiple layers of presentation and expressions characterizing the exhibition.

97 98.

In 2015 art is

almost completely instrumentalized in

the economic sense, regardless of whether

financing is private or public. Art then

services either national or European interests that wish to construct a certain identity: it is

a desirable marketable commercial good for

private ownership and it contributes to

regional development and provides

society with new creative employment

opportunities.

99. 100.

In 1972 the Swiss curator Harald Szeemann made the exhibition Questioning Reality—Image Worlds Today for Documenta 5 in Kassel, Germany. It was a groundbreaking exhibition that elevated the role of the curator to a vital, creative producer and by extension lent more agency to the art institution. It was a pivotal moment when the curator acquired a greater level of input in the way artists produced work and how it was installed, rearticulating the form of the public exhibition.

This book is a brief narrative that deploys the 100-day framework of Documenta to trace an evolution of the instrumentalization of art by way of the exhibition, from Szeemann’s Documenta 5, Martha Rosler’s If you lived here and sculpture project Münster to Manifesta, Bilbao and the Frieze Art Fair. The Future is Now includes glimpses of alternatives, such as Anton Vidokle’s e-flux, to the exhibition as the only outlet for dissemination of an artist’s work.

1. Robert Smithson, 1972, quoted in Gabriele Mackert “At Home in Contradictions. Harald Szeemann’s Documenta” in archive in motion. 50 Years of Documenta 1955–2005 (Göttingen: Steidl, 2005), 258.

2. Robert Smithson, “Cultural Confinement,” 1972; statement was published originally in the Documenta 5 catalogue as Smithson’s contribution to the exhibition.

3. Joseph Beuys, Office for Direct Democracy through Referenda at Documenta, 1972

4. Joseph Beuys and Dirk Schwarze, “Report on a Day’s Proceedings at the Bureau for Direct Democracy, 1972” in Participation. Documents of Contemporary Art, ed. Claire Bishop (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, 2006), 122.

5. Robert Morris, Letter to Harald Szeemann, 1972

6. reproduced in Individual Methodology, ed. Florence Derieux (Zurich: JRP Ringier, 2007), 144.

7. Daniel Buren, works for When Attitudes Become Form, 1969, Kunsthalle Bern

8. Daniel Buren in 1972, quoted in Gabriele Mackert “At Home in Contradictions. Harald Szeemann’s Documenta” in archive in motion. 50 Years of Documenta 1955–2005 (Göttingen: Steidl, 2005), 259.

9. Lucy Lippard, July 3, 1972, letter by Lucy Lippard to Harald Szeemann, reprinted in Harald Szeemann. With by through because towards despite. Catalogue of Exhibitions 1975–2005, eds. Tobia Bezzala and Roman Kurzmeyer (Zurich: Voldemeer, 2007), 365.

10. Lucy Lippard, July 3, 1972, letter by Lucy Lippard to Harald Szeemann

11. Last night of Documenta 5, 1972, Harald Szeemann giving interviews

12. Gabriele Mackert “At Home in Contradictions. Harald Szeemann’s Documenta” in archive in motion. 50 Years of Documenta 1955–2005 (Göttingen: Steidl, 2005), 253.

13. Pamela Lee, Object to be Destroyed. The Work of Gordon Matta-Clark (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, 2000), 171.

14. Gordon Matta-Clark, Conical Intersect, 1975

15. Artists Placement Group, “Kunst als Soziale Strategie,” 1977

16. Grant Kester, Conversation Pieces. Community and Communication in Modern Art (Berkeley: University of California, 2004), 62.

17. Alan W. Moore, “Artists Collectives Mostly in New York” in Collectivism After Modernism. The Art of Social Imagination, eds. Blake Stimson and Gregory Sholette (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2007), 204.

18. Group Material, The People’s Choice (Arroz con Mango), 1981

19. MASS MoCA, North Adam, Massachusetts, founded 1999

20. Rosalind Krauss, “The Cultural Logic of the Late Capitalist Museum” in October (Vol. 54, Autumn, 1990, 7.

21. Kasper König, quoted in “The Snowman. Interview

with Kasper König,” in “Art as Public Issue,” OPEN Cahier on Art and the Public Domain (Amsterdam: SKOR/NAi, Vol. 7, No. 14, 2008), 86.

22. Michael Asher, Installation Münster (Caravan), 1987

23. Martha Rosler, If you lived here, 1989

24. Martha Rosler, “Fragments of a Metropolitan Viewpoint” in If you lived here. The City in art, theory and social activism, ed. Brian Wallis (New York: Dia Art Foundation, 1991), 40.

25. Mary Jane Jacob, “Places with a Past,” (originally 1991) in Situation. Documents of Contemporary Art, ed. Claire Doherty (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, 2009), 199.

26. Michael Brenson, “Visual Arts Join Spoleto Festival U.S.A.” in New York Times Arts, May 27, 1991.

27. WochenKlausur, Intervention to Aid Drug-Addicted Women, Shedhalle, Zurich, 1994

28. Grant Kester, Conversation Pieces. Community and Communication in Modern Art (Berkeley: University of California 2004), 1.

29. Johannesburg Biennale, Universes in universe (http://www.universes-in-universe.de/car/africus/english.htm)

30. Second Johannesburg Biennale, 1997

31. Frank Gehry, The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, 1997

32. Andrea Fraser, Museum Highlights. The Writings of Andrea Fraser (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, 2005), 249.

33. “The Manifesta Archive” in The Manifesta Decade. Debates on Contemporary Art Exhibitions and

Biennials in Post-Wall Europe (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, 2005), 268.

34. Apolonija Šušteršic, Juice Bar, 1998

35. Tobias Rehberger, Within View of Seeing (Perspectives and the Prouvé), 1998

36. The Manifesta Decade. Debates on Contemporary Art Exhibitions and Biennials in Post-Wall Europe (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, 2005), 267.

37. Susanne Altmann, “The Disruptive Factor,” in City Index. Research in Urban Space (Dresden: Kunsthaus, 2000), 132-133.

38. Jozef Legrand, Dresden-Demo, 2000

39. Pubic protest action Demolish Neoliberalism, Multiculturalist Art-system by Russian artists Aleksanr Brener and Barbara Schurz at opening of Manifesta 3, Ljubljana, June 2000.

40. Camiel van Winkel, “The Rhetorics of Manifesta” in The Manifesta Decade. Debates on Contemporary Art Exhibitions and Biennials in Post-Wall Europe (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, 2005), 219.

41. Kunstverein München, “Sputniks: Whichever Way the Journey Goes,” 2002 (http://www.kunstverein-muenchen.de/01_programm_programme/sputniks/00_en_sputniks_idea.pdf).

42. Carey Young, Everything You’ve Heard Is Wrong, 1999

43. Francis Alÿs, When Faith Moves Mountains, 2002

44. Andrea Phillips, “The Politics of Informal Production” in Informal Architectures. Space and Contemporary Culture, ed. Anthony Kiendl

(London: Black Dog, 2008), 145.

45. Marjetica Potrč, “Temporary Territories” in Informal Architectures. Space and Contemporary Culture, ed. Anthony Kiendl (London: Black Dog, 2008), 161.

46. Marjetica Potrč, Dry Toilet, 2003

47. Patrick Tuttofuoco, BMX-Y, 2004

48. “The Manifesta Archive” in The Manifesta Decade. Debates on Contemporary Art Exhibitions and Biennials in Post-Wall Europe (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, 2005), 322.

49. Learning Site, [Collecting Systems]: [Learning Book #001] (Chicago: WhiteWalls, 2005), 36.

50. Learning Site, [Collected Material Dwelling #002], 2004

51. Thomas Hirschhorn, Bataille Monument, 2002

52. Pablo Lafuente, “Thomas Hirschhorn” in Frieze (April 2005).

53. Stephanie Snyder, Beyond Green. Toward a Sustainable Art (Chicago: University of Chicago Smart Museum, 2005), 141.

54. WochenKlausur, Intervention to Upcycle Waste and Museum Byproducts, 2005

55. Tercerunquinto, Public Lighting, 2006

56. Ibis Hernandez Abascal, “Public Lighting” in Tercerunquinto. Institutional Empowerment (Los Reyes Coyoacán: Ediciones Corunda, 2008), 17.

57. Katrin Ströbel, City Spectacle (Stuttgart: Kunstverein Stuttgart, 2006), 74.

58. Salla Rautianien, Seven People of Stuttgart and swabian clichés, 2006

59. unitednationsplaza, Berlin, 2006-07

60. Anton Vidokle, “Exhibition as School as Work of Art” in Art Lies (no. 59, Fall 2008), 70.

61. Clemens von Wedemeyer in sculpture projects münster 07 (Cologne: Walter König, 2007), 265.

62. Clemens von Wedemeyer, [From the Opposite Side], Metropolis Cinema, Berliner Platz 39, 2007

63. Luca Frei, The so-called utopia of the centre beaubourg. An interpretation, 2007

64. Luca Frei, The so-called utopia of the centre beaubourg. An interpretation (London: Book Works and Utrecht: Casco, Office for Art, Design and Theory, 2007), 14.

65. Liam Gillick quoted in Mick Wilson, “Curatorial Moments and Discursive Turns” in Curating Subjects, ed. Paul O’Neill (London: Open Editions, 2007), 207.

66. Liam Gillick, BIG CONFERENCE CENTER LIMITATION SCREEN, 1998, in What If: Art on the Verge of Architecture and Design, 2000

67. Center for Curatorial Studies and Art in Contemporary Culture, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York

68. J.J. Charlesworth, “Curating Doubt,” in Issues in Curating Contemporary Art and Performance, eds. Judith Rugg and Michèle Sedgwick (Chicago: Intellect Books, University of Chicago, 2007), 91.

69. Roger M. Buergel and Ruth Noack. Documenta 12

catalogue (Cologne: TASCHEN, 2007), 264.

70. Jorge Mario Jáuregui, Pedestrian path in Salguerio, 2007

71. Hans-Peter Feldmann, WC Facilities on the Domplatz, 2007

72. Peter Reech “Hans-Peter Feldmann” in sculpture projects münster 07 (Cologne: Walter König, 2007), 89.

73. Onkwui Enwezor, “The Production of Social Space as Artwork” in Collectivism After Modernism. The Art of Social Imagination, eds. Blake Stimson and Gregory Sholette (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2007), 241.

74. Le Groupe Amos, Campagné à la démocratie, ca. 2002

75. Jeremy Deller, Speak to the earth and it will tell you, 2007

76. Jeremy Deller, sculpture projects münster 07 (Cologne: Walter König, 2007), 68.

77. Paloma Blanco, “Use, Abuse and Disuse of Public Space” Islands+Ghettos (Heidelberger: Heidelberger Kunstverein, 2008), 46.

78. Installation view Islands+Ghettos, Heidelberger Kunstverein, 2008

79. Urban Think Tank, Urban Connectors, 2008

80. Islands+Ghettos (Heidelberger: Heidelberger Kunstverein, 2008), 134.

81. Jens Hoffmann, “Art as Curating ≠ Curating as Art” in Art Lies (no. 59, Fall 2008), 34.

82. Jens Hoffmann, Passengers, 2008

83. Rirkrit Tiravanija, Palazzo delle Esposizioni bookstore, 53rd Venice Biennale, 2009

84. Boris Groys, “Marx after Duchamp or The Artist’s Two Bodies” in Going Public (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2010, 127.

85. Sven Lütticken, “Once More on Publicness. A Postscript to Secret Publicity” in Fillip (No. 12, Fall 2010), 91.

86. Jacques Rancière, The Politics of Aesthetics, 2000

87. Manifesta 8 Brunch, June 2010

88. Hedwig Fijen, “How a European Biennial of Contemporary Art Began” in The Manifesta Decade. Debates on Contemporary Art Exhibitions and Biennials in Post-Wall Europe (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, 2005), 196.

89. Finn-Olaf Jones, “A Bilbao on Siberia’s Edge?” in The New York Times Travel, July 22, 2011.

90. Dubossarsky Vinogradov, Underwater, 2011

91. Anton Vidokle, e-flux, July 29, 2011

92. Boris Groys, “An Autonomous Artist” in Anton Vidokle. Produce, Distribute, Discuss, Repeat (New York: Sternberg, 2009), 73.

93. Gregory Sholette, Dark Matter. Art and Politics in the Age of Enterprise Culture (New York: Pluto, 2011), 100.

94. Temporary Services, 2011

95. Bureau for Open Culture, On Symptoms of Cultural

Industry, 2011

96. Bureau for Open Culture, On Symptoms of Cultural Industry, 2011 (www.bureauforopenculture.org)

97. Imagine Being Here Now. 6th Momentum Biennial, 2011 (http://www.momentum.no/about.189486.en.html)

98. Theodor Ringborg, To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Told by an idiot, signifying nothing, 2011

99. Frieze Art Fair. Main Sponsor Deutsche Bank

100. Maria Lind, “European Cultural Policies 2015. A Report with Scenarios on the Future of Public Funding for Contemporary Art in Europe” in European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies, August 2005. (http://eipcp.net/policies/2015/lind/en).

James Voorhies - The Future is Now

Documents

Transcript of James Voorhies - The Future is Now