Tales of a Place Tales of a Place Words, Site-Specific, and Changes in Perceiving Visual Arts from the 1990S to Today
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Tales of a Place Tales of a Place Words, Site-specific, and Changes in Perceiving Visual Arts from the 1990s to Today project curated by Lorenzo Bruni Mel Bochner, Mario Airò, Nedko Solakov, Christian Jankowski, Suzanne Lacy, Cuoghi Corsello, Antonis Pittas, Maurizio Nannucci Contents Tales of a Place Words, Site-specific, and Changes in Perceiving Visual Arts from the 1990s to Today Lorenzo Bruni 25 Foreword 28 Image/Text 31 What Reality Are We Talking About? 33 Definitions 36 Works, Tales of a Place 37 Mel Bochner 42 Mario Airò 47 Nedko Solakov 54 Christian Jankowski 59 Suzanne Lacy 66 Cuoghi Corsello 72 Antonis Pittas 77 Maurizio Nannucci 85 The Exhibition Tales of a Place 86 Conclusions Tales of a Place Words, Site-specific, and Changes in Perceiving Visual Arts from the 1990s to Today Lorenzo Bruni 23 Foreword Changes in the way we perceive reality and art in the current state of globalization is the starting point that has given rise to the publica- tion/exhibition project Raccontare un luogo (Tales of a Place). Our being, that is, as a society, “in touch with everyone and everything”1 has become over the past decade a reality on equal footing with the awareness of enjoying the world in an “expanded present.”2 Fostered by Western models, this is a symptom of systematizing new things from electronic screens, from expanding communication as translated by Google Translate, with widespread knowledge thanks to Wikipe- dia and expanded memory through portable archives like video-tele- phones or the enveloping systems of iCloud. In short: all that is re- lated to the transition from an analogue-type reproduction system to digital-type diffusion.3 This condition leads us to consider all places as layers, in an unspecified and generic whole, and to enjoy the facts of history as being coexistent4 though also independent. This is the great freedom that a world bound to the Western model possesses with respect to rigid twentieth-century ideological structures. How- ever, all this must be followed by a new strategy with which a group may consider the place from which to observe the world and with which to give, this interaction, new concreteness.5 Identifying the nu- ances or the limits each person may occupy between physical space, 1. “. in touch with everyone and same as from the birth of humanity the notion of art. The fact is that art, everything, but present to nothing,” in to 2003.” Frédéric Martel, in Smart: as it has been intended by modernity, Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity. Enquête sur les internets, analyzes the is not enough on its own anymore. London: Polity, 2000. work of some businesses like Gawker The dynamics of enhancement and 2. This condition is the necessary to reveal that they do not create con- credibility no longer revolve around evolution of humans with respect to tents, but only systems of information this, but rather around personal or the “short century” we have just lived customization for each user, thus giv- group experiences of a social, moral, and which can be found, even though ing him or her the illusion of staying or philosophical kind.” as an hypothesis, in ideas like the in touch with the world online. 5. Naturally, this hypothetical new ones by Edward Said, Orientalism. 4. This dimension of coexistence strategy has nothing to do with the act New York: Vintage Books, 1988, and has led scholars of aesthetics to state on the part of ISIS to recruit young by Jack Goody, Representations and that there no longer exist parameters Europeans by giving them new param- Contradictions. Ambivalence Towards with which to judge art, or better, with eters of identity based on the oppo- Images, Theatre, Fiction, Relics and which to place it in a unilateral his- sitions of varying religions/cultures, Sexuality. London: Blackwell, 1997. torical/technical/artistic evolution, as which has replaced the one between 3. According to Deal, the creator also discussed by Mario Perniola in the capitalist and communist worlds of the Gawker gossip blog: “Every his latest book, L’arte espansa. Turin: during the Cold War. forty-eight hours, on the Internet, the Einaudi, 2015: “What is taking place is number of contents created is the an epistemological change concerning 25 perceived space, and expressed space seems to have now become the The choice in allowing these observations to come forth from an fundamental distinction to avoid losing oneself with Internet input. exhibition with artists like Mel Bochner, Mario Airò, Nedko Solakov, Christian Jankowski, Suzanne Lacy, Cuoghi Corsello, Antonis Pittas, Though radically reformulating the role and object of art, twen- and Maurizio Nannucci is due to the desire to observe these changes, tieth-century artistic research has always developed in an attempt starting with the specific cases of each work of theirs. In fact, even to eliminate the distance between the space of life and the space though these eight artists come from different generations and coun- of culture,6 and to re-establish the rules of society. From the 1990s tries and use varying mediums, their works derive from the same con- onwards, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dawn of globaliza- frontation with words, in so far as they evoke thoughts, and the desire tion, this need to salvage direct contact with reality led artists to see to create not an image of the world, but a tool with which to measure in the “site-specific” approach (which, subsequently, also contained it from both a physical and a conceptual point of view. This approach so-called “relational” and then “social” and “political” art) the possi- stems from the fact that they relate with reality and art history, aware bility to manifest above all the dialogue between the work, the artist/ they know not the truth, but instead they place themselves alongside enjoyer, and the context of manifestation. So the matter of being able viewers to open a debate on what role art plays and what is meant by and having to select a location that is specific and ideal with which shared reality, also from a planning point of view and not just as in- to observe the world now became an excellent fil rouge with which formation. But these inclinations have been practiced by other artists, to examine those great changes that took place in the enjoyment, too. So why should we start with these eight in particular? Because production, and spreading of art over the past thirty years. All this is each personal story allows us to identify and explore eight macro ar- intermingled with the grand novelty of the “printed word” (and not eas (cultural, contextual, historical) with which to reconsider how the the handwritten one) in possessing a unique presence in the every- relationship between image and text, between specific place and the day lives of people through text messages and the enjoyment of im- world, between national and immaterial confines, between art history material communication. This, at the same time, has also influenced and “histories of the arts,” has changed in the past decades. The sin- the statute of images, which are perceived more like an informative gling-out of these macro areas, treated here in the sections dedicated message than the representation of reality, precisely because their to the works of each single artist, will allow us to face a meditation existence is confirmed the moment they are shared rather than the on the different nuances the use of words has acquired in art practice second in which they are “made.” The title Tales of a Place, therefore, from the 1960s to today. From this point of view we can face and re- refers to the viewing point the subject may single out to interact with write a history that from the work One and Three Chairs by Joseph the world and, as a result, to understand what to narrate through Kosuth, 1965, reaches up to Less Oil, More Courage, 2003, by Rirkrit what means and for what purpose. Tiravanija. That is, a history in which the tautological reflection shifts from the practice of dematerializing the art object to the one devoted to analyzing the dematerialization of society. It is in this perspec- 6. The spread of art from the 1990s, with salvaging hidden political crime tive that we may cover the evolution of site-specific art with which on a global scale, across various in- stories that were covered up. For the artist/spectator has highlighted the need for the “here and now.”7 formation channels has led the public more information, see Roberto Pinto, at large to become more and more Nuove geografie artistiche: Le mostre connected to new artistic investiga- al tempo della globalizzazione. Milan: tions, and for artists to interact in a postmedia books, 2012; Boris Groys, 7. This expression was later used by ity. New York: Belknap Press, 2008 to a linear historical trajectory, also direct way, increasingly raising sensi- Going Public. New York: Sternberg Walter Benjamin in his famous collec- (1939), and it lies at the base of all including the one proposed by Gillo tive questions from a political, social Press, 2010. tion of essays, The Work of Art in the later research regarding art techniques Dorfles, inIl divenire della arti. Mi- and cultural point of view, along Age of Its Technological Reproducibil- and their systematization according lan: Bompiani, 2002. 26 27 Such a need has always been re-elaborated by artists, who here will significance point of view, we cannot make a comparison with the be taken into consideration through varying possibilities of render- former, but only take stock of the new mechanisms we have to deal ing relations concrete, both on the physical experience plane and on with in so far as being makers/enjoyers of images.