Artist: employee of the year

With the crisis expanding to more European countries, even to the most “stable” ones, the issue of the status of artists and the positioning of their practice in society is coming up over and over, drawing several lines of thinking. Words like visionary or technocrat, as opposites, are heard about the politicians who may (not) find a solution to our problems, but for the arts the main worry is the cut of state subsidies or the ways for marketing art products. It is true that artists are forced to live in poverty either by being accepted solely as craftsmen either by being confused about what they are “allowed” to do for earning money. The confusion is mainly based on excluding any other activity except of the practicing itself on the pretext of professionalism. In that way, the artists become employees of the same political status that threw education to the gutter of professional training, declared humanities studies as irrelevant to our era’s demands and exclaimed profit as only measure of success. Not to think in this frame is nowadays called utopian leftism; accompanied by a little grin. As I see it, the only utopia remains the call of other more revolutionary times for being realists. Maybe the biggest challenge for the artists at this moment is to break the tag (with definition and instructions) that any authority has put on them and redefine their position. Otherwise, those who once carried the light will soon be applying for employee of the year.

Detail from the work in progress "Arcadia letters", embroidery on felt

+1 reason for visiting Santorini island this summer

Deadline for submissions: 19 May 2012
Exhibition dates: 1 July – 30 September 2012
Theme: The Past – History, Time, Memory and Nostalgia
Website: http://www.santorinibiennale.gr/

I have no other information than what is published on their website, but the fact itself that an exhibition of high expectations will be held on the island-experience of Santorini is already attractive. The organizers are Greek but the curatorial team is mostly international; also international will hopefully be the exhibitors’ team. It is curious to me why they separate the art fields in such detail yet leave out textile art (for example) which  is actually booming. Also curious is the lateness of the call for artists. I wonder how they will select and collect in no time.

Despite all, here is why you should consider submitting work or just visiting the exhibition:

1) It is a project in its birth and – as with any birth – worth sharing.

2) The venues will be spread on the island but the main focus will not be on the highly touristic places (if that can be said for any corner of Santorini).

3) You have a chance to contribute in breaking the “sold and bought with pleasure” degenerate image “ouzo-souvlaki-sun tan lotion” that is far from what Greece is about, even in modern times.

4) This year, after 7 years of being closed, the archeological site of Akrotiri, Santorini’s prehistoric city, is again open. You must have seen in books or on the web the frescos discovered there; well, this is the place itself! The people had left, apparently nature had warned them well, so there are no bodies nor jewellery found like in Pompey. What you see in the site itself is a prehistoric town with houses and roads, practically saved by the lava.

5) Santorini is a place that you must have seen, point. There are hundreds of  islands in Greece, each one with its own character and beauty. But, the breath taking view of the caldera, the walk on the black sand of Kameni, the swim in the dark blue waters at the other side of the island, this volcano burnt theater that is called Thera (Santorini) is unique beyond commentary. Just imagine now being part of it as an artist!

P.S. September is the best month to visit; not terribly crowded, somewhat cooler air, sea warmed up by the summer.

Vivid conversations with antiquity

Art in Prague IV – Kafka

To conclude my impressions of the artistic sphere of Prague, I could not leave out Kafka. His icon is anyway present all around; a well salable product containing the necessary tragedy that provokes emotions but also reassures that we have it better. Coherent to this tragic context is the fact that the Czechs were the last to read his books, in their own language at least. I thought a lot about the use of coffee mugs with the face of this young man with the lost look; now I know it. We should each buy at least one mug and offer it to the most absurd or mean public servant that we have come across and who inevitably has tortured us. Maybe even better, each department should distribute them to the employees as bonuses, as an act of self-criticism and humourful self-awareness. I am sure that you don’t think that we do have it better and that Kafka’s writings refer to past realities.

With faith to the thinking of Kafka, the German artist Volker Marz set up the installation “Kafka in Israel”, a synthesis of works created from 2008 to 2012; a time when the artist traveled several times across Israel together with his Kafka figures documenting them in real setting. The main idea is the death of Kafka that occurs much later than history says, in Israel. He is executed as enemy of Israel but one year later the new government pronounces him hero and people pray for his soul. The result is that Kafka falls from his personal heaven to the void and then by mistake ends up in the personal heaven of the just departed dancer Pina Bausch where he gets trapped, once again an alien belonging nowhere, a ridiculed stranger with no escape. The absurdity of his existence continues in his death and drags along, while marking it, the place where he allegedly lived the most of his life, Israel.

The installation is part of the exhibition “Middle East Europe” presented at DOX. The exhibition is a remarkably dispassionate presentation of the problematic coexistence of peoples in the area of Israel and Palestine. Far from the usual self-centered curatorial tricks, the two creators of the project, Tamara Moyzes and Zuzana Štefková, set up a mostly visual though not less commentating source for thinking. Their path of questioning describes the content perfectly: “Can an artist comment on problems with which he/she has no personal experience? How does the reception of a work of art change when it is moved from the country of its origin to the place it is concerned with and how does this transfer change its meaning? Is there a fundamental difference between art and activism? Does art have an effect on the events it describes? And is anyone actually interested?“

Kafka at DOX

view of installation "Kafka in Israel" by Volker Marz at DOX

detail of installation "Kafka in Israel"

view of the wall surrounding the installation "Kafka in Israel"

Art in Prague III – interactive

Blessed are the days when wandering in cities; even more when under a warm sun; when invited to see behind the front walls and sometimes being allowed to touch. Touching art is a standard no-go; the so-called interactive shows don’t really break this rule. When pushing a button or standing in front of a sensor is still considered highlight of interactivity, Prague offers a sculptor who invites us to move his sculptures; touch and spin without fear. Jiri Vasica makes his marble dreams as rotating stone objects. Copying from his catalog: ” Rotated stone turns into a little cloud of amorphous substance. Only with gradual deceleration it gains particular contour and a firm shape, a shape that the stone obtained by the sculptor’s hand. Right in front of us, in a moment, a spectacle has taken place, a spectacle that happens in the universe constantly in time that is beyond our sensual perception”.

An even more interactive, in fact a do exhibition, is on at the Art Gallery for Children. The gallery is at the very center of the city, right next to the house of Kafka (one of them) and the homonymous café. With recycling as incentive idea, a  number of artists create environments where children and their company can add to the developing work. In the photograph below,  an impression of the forest of butterflies and flowers made of plastic bottles. More photos of the exhibition and an interesting article about it can be viewed here: hands-museum-kids-get-grips-recycling

For a good final dosage of Czech contemporary art, the Golden Ring House, in the old town, hosts the exhibition After Velvet, with works made after 1989 obviously. I did laugh a lot with the ready packs of life-size standard figures (in the photograph, the curator) by David Černý.

P.S. All exhibitions in Prague have a ticket, even if it is only a few crowns. It is remarkable that the majority of the audience are Czechs, for whom any ticket is not a neglectable amount.

September dream by Jiri Vasica

Forest of Monarch (butterfly) by Veronica Richterová

Knitting at the Golden Ring House

Curator by David Černý

the Golden Ring House

Art in Prague II – DOX

Prague is a city, a real one, where you can get lost. It offers the normal city contrasts and sometimes even mind leaps beyond the expected. Tram number 12 rides from the old city to Prague 7, a semi industrial area with working class buildings and wide roads; amongst all this sits a brand new box of art: DOX, the city’s centre for contemporary art mentioning in its motto the  “art´s capacity to suspend, even for a moment, our habitual ways of seeing”. The building is vast; once inside you are somehow swallowed; the daily whatever is anyway suspended.

The two interior photographs are from the exhibition “Anastomosis” (αναστόμωση: η εγχειρητική συνένωση δύο κοίλων οργάνων) an obviously Greek word meaning the surgical joining of two hollow organs. It is a project-research  on architectural solutions for joining  parts of the city of Prague. The detailed analysis of the proposals and their visualisation were just fantastic! Well done, really!

 

Anastomosis exhibition at DOX

detail of model

DOX, outside wall

Art in Prague I – Kintera

Apparently one of the main representatives of “accumulative” art, or the movement “all out of the dusty cupboard” art of the Eastern European countries, Kristof Kintera, just 38 years of age, is presenting a comprehensive show of his work. Already from the entrance, on the second floor of a Prague municipal building that mainly houses the municipal library, we are received in a candy and snack shop run by old ladies-attendants. Similar attendants guard the whole exhibition. I am not sure whether they belong to the set-up or they are just public servants fulfilling any role within the municipality; I now tend to think that they are explicitly chosen to fit the atmosphere of the show. The first work of the itinerary (again an obligatory path, falling under one more category as mentioned in my article about the Venice Biennale) says it all: “I am sick of it all”. The exhibition runs in the sphere of distraction, deterioration, angst, aggressiveness, a general feeling of inevitable dead-end. However, it felt rather amusing and not because of the talking shopping bag who is sick of it all (I am sick of it all, 2003) nor of the bad taste Satan (Bad News, 2011) and other similar visualizations of criticism on modern reality. The air of amusement came from the fact that this artist actually dirties his hands to make something; this is the positive smile. In addition to this, he transfers the forms imposed by the world art trends to the atmosphere (maybe only the historical one?) of his country. The negative smile comes from the compiled presentation of absolute cliches. From the broken double wall hiding something/ someone, to the collection of old lamps, to the melting figures, to the child anti-hero banging its head against the wall (Revolution, 2005), to the devil banging the drum on the news of world pollution, etc. It is all so manifestly average, as thoughts, that it becomes almost shocking. So much average disgust becomes politically correct, to say it in other words. Still, this man makes things and he makes them with care and humour; a basic, yet forgotten, prerequisite for being an artist. I am sure that he also made the plan of the show, an appreciative piece by itself.

P.S. 1 Photographs of all the shown works can be viewed curently on the artist’s website.

P.S. 2 My favourites were the office-chair-throne and the Xmas-tree-balls melted and assembled into something awful.

exhibition plan - Kristof Kintera/Analysis Results

Talkman

Throne

exit

elevator

Art from Asia and the Venice Biennale 2011

Not to miss: Future Pass at the Wereldmuseum in Rotterdam, until 11 March 2012.

First day Giardini, second day Arsenale; that is the usual plan at the Venice Art Biennale. Satisfaction varies per time, with the Arsenale offering fresher works including works of not established artists making the whole thing more interesting. Of course there are all the other exhibition spots spread in Venice; this we leave for last as best part but also as a random search for something remarkable.

The presentations easily fall into categories: the guided path (see Greece, Netherlands, Austria), the accumulation of things (everything out of the closet  of the former Communist block), the outspoken constructions meant to support a usually banal idea (France), the curator’s dream executed by an artist-tool (Belgium/ in this case the curator is also an artist), the very personal vision of an artist or group of artists that had the luck to be shared with the curator’s vision and of course the wide spread no-object art, the big basket where we can throw nearly everything unless the artist(s) make a significant effort other-way.  Most interesting pavilions: the Japanese pavilion, the Korean pavilion with the impressive high tech flowers-hiding-soldiers and just across, the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic pavilion with an atmospheric presentation of traditional sculptures attached to cold-war-movie furniture, mostly cupboards, tables and chairs.

"The Love is gone but the Scar will heal", Republic of Korea

"The Sleeping City", Czech and Slovak pavilion

The Arsenale is an endless path by itself. It takes a lot of courage to walk through it. These photographs are just an indication of the space.

inside

outside

across the water (only by boat), the last bit of Arsenale

Once the main show is consumed we are free to wander in the city of Venice and discover more intriguing things; always faithful to the official Biennale map though. I don’t know if it is the mind that is more limited or the physical strength to walk up and down, in and out buildings, vaporettos, stairs and bridges.  Sometimes luck helps to find something so contenting that you don’t need to see anything else; mission accomplished. This is what happened with us three that unanimously ended our tour at the exhibition Future Pass- from Asia to the world. Of the texts that accompany the exhibits, I keep phrases as “curated from an Asian perspective”, “presenting not only an artistic ‘nation’”, “a meeting of different cultures, ages and personalities”, “works employ a variety of media- from painting, interactive installation, animation and video to sculpture, live performance and body art-, defying any attempt to classify them”. Next to these there are many statements that could start big discussions; provoke skepticism. However, Future Pass has at least one of the characteristics of the avant-guarde. It works liberating on our European-Western perspective and our established ideas about what is art or even more good art. It mixes without any reservation brilliant painters with questionable ones; it allows them to use (god forbid) oil paint on canvas and throws in the garbage all the rules of high aesthetics carefully cultivated during the 20th century and still holding on in our side of the world. It respects equally high-tech and hand made works, new materials and traditional techniques; it shows them all together in a real browsing through nowadays art. Of course it proposes its own aesthetic types; arty souls beware!

The exhibit, adjusted to fit the space of the Wereldmuseum, will be in Holland until 11 March. These are photographs of the Venice show seconded by the current Dutch version. Keep in mind that the first was in semi open space though the second is a total interior.

"Eggs" by Zhao Guanghui

"Little carefree, the chicken girl" by Chiho Aoshima

general view in Venice (left)/ in Rotterdam (right)

The Year of the Dragon

The Dragon passing through Wagenstraat, in The Hague.

Photos by Mickey van den Beukel

The importance of being Five

In many traditions around the world the fifth birthday is considered an achievement. I guess it can be in real something to be congratulated for (that you made it up to here; a concept that stays attached to each birthday, especially to the later ones, or the latest ones) involving all related persons, as they still do in Holland. “Congratulations for your son’s, aunts, grandmother’s, sister’s, cousin’s birthday”. It belongs to the “crown” years; you are supposed to get an extra big present and an extra loud cheer (Hoera!).

As I see it, the fifth birthday is the celebration of the awakening of the intellect; this including mind and soul. Children who have the luck growing up in an encouraging environment, around this age  become happier; their brightness is daily and intense as a spurting star. Those  unhappy or difficult as babies find their place in the things their mind and hand create.  Their talks, screams and cries take form and clear content, thus become communicable.

At the same time, these little people become active socially; they have their friends with whom they share things of their own era, already. I remember a fellow artist, years ago, who was almost mourning when his daughter went to school and her “socialization” began. I agree that it is a shocking moment for the parents; their baby is not in their hands anymore. At a seminar for parents of toddlers that I followed in desperate times when Mickey was two,  an interesting moment of mind reset occured when together with another mother I had to put in order of importance qualities or capabilities. I was about to put creativity or independence at the top, when she put with certainty sociability as first. Other teams did the same without thinking twice. I kept that in mind gurgling it through the stages of a sudden encounter with a truth that is hard to digest: denial, anger, acceptance. Away with the lonesome poets of our youth. Hurray to the socially well-adjusted.

My wish to Mickey is borrowed from a poet who envied the luck of the socially involved; a confusing act, as it proved to be.

‘I wish you to be madly loved ‘ αγάπη μου.

P.S. ‘Je vous souhaite d’être follement aimée’  is the closing line of a letter  written by Andre Breton addressed to his daughter for when she would become 16; it was published in the book L’Amour Fou (Mad Love), 1937.  I totally agree with him that some things should better be said when thought; better earlier than later.

2012: on track

The new year means battle in the streets of The Hague which starts in the morning of 31 December with junior crackers and ends late in the night after the year change with major noise and flame attacks. Smoke and  dust pass by the windows and fire residues cover all the flat surfaces. There are also casualties; eye injuries mostly, but sometimes arms and ears also fall. Half of the population can’t wait to fire up the year, the other half tries to ignore it.

For the new year, apart from the essentials, only one wish: to reset course, to avoid deviations more and more.

This concerns me personally but applies to all the new years of the last 20 years at least, more generally. I remember discussing with friends in the small studio at Erressou street in Athens, year 1995, how much our world had lost connection to its basis wandering off course and in purposeless bliss (or was it agony); maybe just an imprinted image from the science fiction series ‘Space 1999′, maybe just a clear look. Nevertheless, now with the financial crisis, many voices are heard describing the same, as a situation to reverse towards a solution. That brings to mind the anti-consumerism exercises, a game that amused me for years; very simply long visits to the market without buying anything at all. Later, the more my time was eaten up by irrelevant to my course duties, the more I felt the need to consume; mind in blur, strength shut down, submission. Never in excess though and quite reversible, believe me.

For our health’s sake let it be a reset year; 2012 on track.

Help someone, 2010, embroidery