Volume 2 Issu e 1

Deutsche Bank Collection The Pulitzer Foundation Nato Thompson Charles Esche Pablo Helguera and much more... Sindika Dokolo Foundation Fundación/Colección Jumex a publication dedicated to contemporary art Contributors Shannon Fitzgerald Seoidín O’Sullivan Tommy Lanigan Schmidt Guest contributor Guest contributor Guest contributor Interview with Collector, Sindika Dokolo A Contested Collection Amen Bitch St. Louis, MO, United States Dublin, Ireland New York, NY, United States

Shannon Fitzgerald is an independent Seoidín O’Sullivan is an artist who is Tommy Lanigan Schmidt teaches at the curator and writer based in St. Louis. currently living and working in Dublin, MFA program at the School of Visual Boot Print She recently curated the exhibition Our Ireland. She grew up in Zambia and South Arts in New York. His work has been Commodity: Juan William Chávez, Sarah Africa where she completed a degree in included in the American Century show A biannual publication dedicated Frost, Leslie Mutchler for the Regional Fine Art. In 2003 she completed a Post at the Whitney, the Venice Biennale, to contemporary art Arts Commission, St. Louis and is curat- Graduate Diploma in Development and the Whitney Biennial in 1991. He ing an upcoming exhibition, Brandon Studies through which she investigated is represented by Pavel Zubok Gallery June 2008 Anschultz; Transmission/Destination for models of thought that are based on a in NY, and is included in collections at VOL 2 / ISSUE 1 the Center for Creative Arts, St. Louis, concern for social and ecological justice. the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the 2008. She has published works in many In 2007 she completed her Masters in Whitney, the MOMA, and collections Georgia Kotretsos museum catalogs; most recently, she Fine Art study at The National College around the world. Athens, Greece contributed an essay in Karyn Olivier: A of Art and Design, Dublin. Her prac- Editor-in-chief Closer Look, a catalog accompanying the tice is largely project based. Seoidín’ s Dana Turkovic exhibition of the same title at Laumeier research investigates socio political and Guest contributor Timothy Ridlen Sculpture Park, St. Louis (2007). She was ecological narratives and presents them Amass Chicago, IL, United States Chief Curator at the Contemporary Art in critically engaged and poetical ways. St. Louis, MO, United States Museum St. Louis, where she worked She was artist in resident in Studio 468, Senior Editor from 2000-2007, where her exhibi- St Andrews Community Centre, Dublin Dana Turkovic teaches in the art depart- tion credits include the thematic group last year where she developed a com- ment at Webster University. She is a Juan William Chávez exhibitions Staging: Janieta Eyre, Julie munity food garden project. Her col- recent graduate of the Masters course St. Louis, MO, United States Moos, Zwelethu Mthethwa and the laborative film project ‘Trespass’ with at Goldsmiths College - University of Creative Advisor Contemporary’s inaugural and travel- Irish artist Aoife Desmond was recently London in curatorial studies. Though she ing exhibition A Fiction of Authenticity: awarded Irish Arts Council funding. She spent many years as the senior designer Contemporary Africa Abroad co-curat- will be traveling to The Land Foundation Elizabeth Wolfson for the UCLA Hammer Museum, she has St. Louis, MO, United States ed with Tumelo Mosaka. She has curated in Thailand in August and September turned her attention to creative curato- Editorial Assistant solo exhibitions of new work by interna- this year to develop further work for rial endeavors. She has organized exhibi- tional artists: Polly Apfelbaum, Michael ‘Trespass’ project. tions in Los Angeles, London and Oxford Paul Britto, Dzine, Yun-Fei Ji, Larry Krone, in the United Kingdom and in St. Louis at Juozas Cernius Michael Lin, Ruby Osorio, Keith Piper, Walid Sadek the Contemporary Art Museum, Boots New York, NY, United States and William Pope.L, among others. Prior Guest contributor Contemporary Art Space, Ellen Curlee Proof-reading to moving to St. Louis, Fitzgerald worked Ill with Home: on the autobiography of Gallery and White Flag Projects. She at the Institute of Visual Arts (inova), Moustafa Farroukh is also a regular contributor to Review Bryan Reckamp University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee. Beirut, Lebanon Magazine and St. Louis Magazine. She Fitzgerald has taught in the department Saint Louis, MO / San Franscisco, CA lives and works in St. Louis, Missouri. United States of Art and Art History at Webster Born in 1966, Walid Sadek is an art- Layout/Design University, St. Louis. ist and writer living in Beirut. His early work investigates the violent legacies Publisher Laura Fried of the Lebanese civil war partially and Boots Contemporary Art Space, Inc. Guest contributor inadequately experienced by a young Speech as Strategy Christian-born Lebanese: Home Play Copyright © 2008 St. Louis, MO, United States (1996); The Last Days of Summer Boots Contemporary Art Space, Inc. (1997). He later began to posit, mostly All rights reserved Laura Fried currently serves as the in theoretical texts, ways of under- Assistant Curator at Contemporary Art standing the complexity of lingering For submissions and ad opportunities civil strife in times of relative social and Museum St. Louis. In addition to col- contact Georgia Kotretsos at: economic stability: A Matter of Words laborating with Paul Ha and Anthony [email protected] Huberman in exhibition research and (2002); From Excavation to Dispersion: planning, and as a co-curator of the Configurations of Installation Art in Post-

Contemporary Front Room, Laura Fried War Lebanon (2003); The Acquisition is also responsible for overseeing a num- of Death: the Ends of Art and Dwelling Boots Contemporary Art Space ber of ongoing exhibition programs at the in Lebanon (2004). His recent written 2307 Cherokee St. Contemporary, including Great Rivers work endeavors to structure a theory St Louis, MO 63118 Biennial, Flat Files, and the Emerson for a post-war society incapable of, or at United States Visiting Critics and Curator series. Fried least reluctant to, resume normative liv- joins the Contemporary from MASS ing: From Image to Corpse (2006); Place at Last (2007); Seeing Rude and Erudite Juan William Chávez MoCA as a two-year curatorial fellow, St. Louis, MO, United States where during her tenure she orga- (2007). Concomitantly, a number of Director nized two exhibitions, including Adam art installations propose a poetics for a Cvijanovic and Peter Garfield: Unhinged. social experience governed by uneasy In collaboration with MASS MoCA, contiguity with the remnants and conse- Bryan Reckamp the Williams College Museum of Art, quences of violence: Love is Blind (2006); Saint Louis, MO / San Franscisco, CA, and the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Knowledge of the Expelled (2007); and United States Institute, Fried acted as a coordinator of Mourning in the Presence of the Corpse Agent the 2007 Berkshire Conference, a forum (2007). Walid Sadek is assistant profes- that brings together international leaders sor at the Department of Architecture and Design at the American University Georgia Kotretsos in the arts and business communities to Athens, Greece address issues facing the current cultural of Beirut. Agent landscape. Prior to her graduate work and tenure at MASS MoCA, Fried man- aged an art gallery in the Chelsea neigh- Jon Peck borhood of New York. Fried received Miami, FL, United States her Bachelor’s degree in English and Art Agent History with Distinction from Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts, and www.bootsart.com she holds a Master of Arts in the History [email protected] of Art from Williams College and the 314.772.BOOT (2668) Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts. www.bootsartnews.blogspot.com Join Facebook and Myspace groups: Boots Contemporary Art Space Table of Contents

Pedestrian Project by Juan Wlliam Chávez 5 Amen Bitch: Light-Love-Life...BLING! by Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt 6 Amass by Dana Turkovic 7 The Power of 4: St. Louis by Boots Contemporary Art Space questions by Juan William Chavez, Georgia Kotretsos and Tim Ridlen 8 Creating Public & Private Art Collections: Interview with Helene Zucker-Seeman by Georgia Kotretsos 12 The Fair View: Interview with Christos Savvidis by Georgia Kotretsos 13 Between the Bosporus and Madison Avenue: A Conversation with Orhan Taner by Juozas Cernius 13 A Collector’s Carte Blanche: An Interview with Barbara Steiner of Leipzig’s Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst by Tim Ridlen 14 A Collection at Work: An Interview with Friedhelm Hütte of the Deutsche Bank Collection by Tim Ridlen 16 In the Spirit of Mutual Funds: Interview with Collector Rik Reinking by Georgia Kotretsos 17 Taking Matters Into One’s Own Hands: Interview with Collector Eugenio López Alonso by Georgia Kotretsos 18 Building a Collection of Contemporary Art in Africa: Interview with Collector Sindika Dokolo by Shannon Fitzgerald 20 A Contested Collection by Seoidín O’Sullivan 22 The Artist Who Told on the Art World: Pablo Helguera by Georgia Kotretsos 24 Speech as Strategy: Laura Fried IMs Nato Thompson on Discursive Space and Democracy in America by Laura Fried 25 Expedition into the Heartland: Interview with Charles Esche, Kerstin Niemann and Stephanie Smith by Juan William Chavez 26 Ill with Home: on the autobiography of Moustafa Farroukh by Walid Sadek 28 Each dart is attentively placed on a map that guides the focus of every issue. A diverse body of invited contributors discuss various proj ects and ideas with an eclecticIssue 1assembly is the manifestation of Boot Print of participants. six hustling months.

At the same time, the members of the Boot Print team, who are all practic - ing artists, are teaching themselves to meet creative needsBoot and Print aspirations Volume 2 on a personal level as well. It’s a healthy collaboration, a moderated exchange of ideas between Juan, Tim, and myself – their input, perspective and clarity of thought adds to - the critical conversation we are sharing with you. At this point I would like to introduce you to Elizabeth Wolfson, the latest member of the Boot Print team, and welcome her In thinking about the third issue— still of Boot someone as the Editorial Assistant. Liz is joining us from St. Louis where she will begin her MA at St. - Print, I made it a point to think like some Louis University in the American Studies Department where her main area of interest will “young col be post-Minimalist American art. Also, on behalf of the entire crew, Congratulations to Tim one who might actually be interested in for his acceptance at the Bard College MFA studio program. May the Art Gods be with him. - building an art collection - like me, a young twenty-something with lim For this issue, Boots as an entity interviewed four established art institutions in St. Louis. Focusing ited resources, but with the ambition to collect. on the mission and programming of the institution – The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, - Reading” groups, books and I found searching it not out much easier than The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, Laumeier Sculpture Park, and the Mildred Lane Kemper Art ’s a lot like being a young entre Museum – the interviews were conducted out of an interest in the collective identity of the respec lectors tive institutions. From this will come a thorough introduction to the institutions of St. Louis and a being a young twenty-something’t make something artist. out Even of nothing.if your - cross-section of the many individual voices that make up the omnipotent voice of the institution at large. motives are pure, it - preneur: you can The Manual of Contemporary Art Style. After Adam BrooksStudy Section who, at of the this time, issue was focuses the curator on the of methodical the corporate practice Refco of collection,art collecting. a contemporary In 2003, I interned photog with ’s One of the books I came across is featured in this issue, raphy collection in Chicago and New York. For the first time, I realized what it took to care for an artwork and especially for a collection. Works displayed in the offices and hallways offered an alternative art viewing Pablo Helguera experience because much office paraphernalia arbitrarily cropped the artworks that hung on the walls. There was reading this book I was incredibly confused. By the time it was . though one work stored at the office that would not leave me alone: a Polaroid of an unmade bed. It was the over, my heart was a balloon that had been inflated with heliManual Title um and popped right before release. What stifled me, as a pre of the ofmatter 1989 is by that Felix I spent Gonzalez-Torres. a lot of time withHis handwritingthis work because captioned I needed the image, to. I do “Suddenly not know we what had it all takes the totime.” collect, The fact what makes one pick this or the other, but being in such close proximity tend collector and a real artist, was the deadpan portrayal of art ’s good advice with his tacit disapproval. I was still does to this day. Deep inside, I hope this is the kind of connection collectors have with an artwork. Later, in 2006 the world characters flattened’s intointerview calculating with chessPablo pieces. Helguera, Coupled and to entire Refco collection was auctioned at Christie’s. I have no idea where that work is now, but I still care for it a great deal. with a heavy dose of truth about the art world, it was difficultd tolen reconcile the author i R senior editor In addition to the - relieved to read Georgia im - out to be a particularly fulfilling interview experience. Elsewhere in this issue, Walid Sadek from Lebanon offers an insightful finally understand what I was supposedT to take away from the Study Section, talking to Pablo Helguera about I was happy to feel, in the end, like I was in on the joke, so to speak. introduction and the first translation of an excerpt from Moustafa Farroukh’s autobiography; Laura Fried speaks to Nato rom ’d like to think that every f - Thompson and Juan William Chavez to Charles Esche, Kierstin Niemann and Stephanie Smith about their recent proj te o ” that we accumulate, ects in the States traveling and exploring the everyday settings where democracy, stereotypes and art are negotiated.- N “things to this artwork For this issue, I would like to thank Jennifer Gaby, Rachel Gagnon, Mike Venso, Kimberly Singer, and Mara Hermano Just as Joseph Bueys said everyone is an artist, I made sense at the time and it The Pablo Helguera Manual of Contemporary Art Style one could be a collector, but that seems hard to swallow. Surely we all for their assistance in coordinating the St. Louis institutional interviews; Lydia Hatziiakovou for always providingNo are collectors when it comes to the many me with material needed for Christos Savvidis’ interview; George A. Harris for patiently breaking down for me but the reality of art collecting is a game of private wealth, institu the notion of mutual funds in order to interview Rik Reinking; Mariana Huerta for responding promptly to tional resources, and fuzzy ideas of public interest thrown at artists often in a way that leverages something against them. In truth, the all my emails; Eve Therond and most importantly Catherine Goffeau whose assistance with the Sindika role of the collector in contemporary art is one that is hard to Dokolo interview was underlying; Dairne O’Sullivan; Jorge Pinto; Walter Robinson; Kierstin Niemann relate to if you or someone’ve close tried to to you show is notin this in that-issue, position turned of privilege, but I learned not to dwell on this for too long. for being on top of the situation; Negar Azimi, Lara Baladi, Nigol Bezjian and especially Rasha Salti

for her time, generosity, guidance and for leading me to Walid Sadek as well Hanni Farroukh The reason being, as we -

for welcoming and accepting my invitation and finally everybody for surviving my emails. the collection is an entity —and and an opportunityplenty of time all toits own, - a space as much for discourse as anything else. There is still plenty missing from a great discussion on col — but represented here are muse Note lecting contemporary art editor-in-chief supplement it f um collections, private collections, corporate ro collections, and most intriguingly alternative m models of contemporary art collections. Also, I would likeGeorgia to thank Hesse McGraw, curatorKotretsos of Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, NE and Shannon Stratton, direc Additionally, we have compiled tor and chief curator of Three Walls in Chicago, IL for making Boot interviews with the institutions of St. Louis, as well as two curators Print Volume 1/Issue 2 available to their visitors at their spaces. focused in different ways on regionalism in the United States during an election year, Nato Thank you to my beloved and indispensable crew, Juan, Thompson and Charles Tim, and Bryan for making Boot Print shine on newsprint, Esche. Along with all of Joe who loves to point out my mistakes and Liz, whose the recent Boots events, I hope these interviews commitment is promising. And last but not least - find their way to -the the Boot Print advertisers for making us float, and young collector that still has the ambi to our St. Louis donors who put us through tion it takes to the press and help us get Boot Print to you. become the Queen of the chess b o a r d . BP

BP Each dart is attentively placed on a map that guides the focus of every issue. A diverse body of invited contributors discuss various proj ects and ideas with an eclecticIssue 1assembly is the manifestation of Boot Print of participants. six hustling months.

At the same time, the members of the Boot Print team, who are all practic - ing artists, are teaching themselves to meet creative needsBoot and Print aspirations Volume 2 on a Note from Juan William Chávez personal level as well. It’s a healthy collaboration, a moderated exchange of ideas director of Boots Contemporary Art Space between Juan, Tim, and myself – their input, perspective and clarity of thought adds to - the critical conversation we are sharing with you. At this point I would like to introduce you to Elizabeth Wolfson, the latest member of the Boot Print team, and welcome her In thinking about the third issue— still of Boot someone as the Editorial Assistant. Liz is joining us from St. Louis where she will begin her MA at St. - Print, I made it a point to think like some Louis University in the American Studies Department where her main area of interest will “young col be post-Minimalist American art. Also, on behalf of the entire crew, Congratulations to Tim one who might actually be interested in Dana Turkovic, and Dylan Mortimer.

- Williams, Brett Anschultz, Brandon McKinley, Mike Hess, Ryan Special thanks this season goes out to: for his acceptance at the Bard College MFA studio program. May the Art Gods be with him. - building an art collection After a triumphant freshman year, Boots like me, a young twenty-something with lim returned from the summer sabbatical ready For this issue, Boots as an entity interviewed four established art institutions in St. Louis. Focusing ited resources, but with the ambition to collect. on the mission and programming of the institution – The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, not only to sustain the first year’s intensity, Reading books and searching out The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, Laumeier Sculpture Park, and the Mildred Lane Kemper Art - ” groups, I found it not much easier than but also to stoke the engines even hotter lectors ’s a lot like being a young entre Museum – the interviews were conducted out of an interest in the collective identity of the respec for the sophomore effort. We accomplished being a young twenty-something’t make something artist. out Even of nothing.if your tive institutions. From this will come a thorough introduction to the institutions of St. Louis and a - this by kicking off the season with two exhibi- cross-section of the many individual voices that make up the omnipotent voice of the institution at large. motives are pure, it - tions and a Pedestrian Project. We took a trip preneur: you can down south for Art Basel, and then finished off The Manual of Contemporary Art Style. After Adam BrooksStudy Section who, at of the this time, issue was focuses the curator on the of methodical the corporate practice Refco of collection,art collecting. a contemporary In 2003, I interned photog with ’s 2007 by ringing in the New Year, where your One of the books I came across is featured in this issue, raphy collection in Chicago and New York. For the first time, I realized what it took to care for an artwork humble Boots director curated White Flag Pablo Helguera and especially for a collection. Works displayed in the offices and hallways offered an alternative art viewing Project’s annual New Year’s Eve party, which experience because much office paraphernalia arbitrarily cropped the artworks that hung on the walls. There was reading this book I was incredibly confused. By the time it was . though one work stored at the office that would not leave me alone: a Polaroid of an unmade bed. It was the went off in fine style. In addition, 2007 brought over, my heart was a balloon that had been inflated with heliManual Title new faces to town, and a bevy of new plans um and popped right before release. What stifled me, as a pre of the ofmatter 1989 is by that Felix I spent Gonzalez-Torres. a lot of time withHis handwritingthis work because captioned I needed the image, to. I do “Suddenly not know we what had it all takes the totime.” collect, The fact that will further fuel the ongoing rocket ride what makes one pick this or the other, but being in such close proximity tend collector and a real artist, was the deadpan portrayal of art ’s good advice with his tacit disapproval. I was that is Boots Contemporary Art Space. still does to this day. Deep inside, I hope this is the kind of connection collectors have with an artwork. Later, in 2006 the world characters flattened’s intointerview calculating with chessPablo pieces. Helguera, Coupled and to entire Refco collection was auctioned at Christie’s. I have no idea where that work is now, but I still care for it a great deal. with a heavy dose of truth about the art world, it was difficult to Our first show of the season was brought to reconcile the author Pedestrian Project us by Kansas City-based artist Dylan Mortimer, In addition to the - relieved to read Georgia - by Juan William Chávez whose show Amen Bitch explored the results

out to be a particularly fulfilling interview experience. Elsewhere in this issue, Walid Sadek from Lebanon offers an insightful finally understand what I was supposed to take away from the of Christianity and hip-hop meeting at the pul- Study Section, talking to Pablo Helguera about I was happy to feel, in the end, like I was in on the joke, so to speak. introduction and the first translation of an excerpt from Moustafa Farroukh’s autobiography; Laura Fried speaks to Nato ’d like to think that every pit. In addition to the obligatory bling, fallen - Thompson and Juan William Chavez to Charles Esche, Kierstin Niemann and Stephanie Smith about their recent proj hip-hop martyrs Biggie “the Notorious B.I.G.” ” that we accumulate, Smalls and Tupac Shakur were depicted in ects in the States traveling and exploring the everyday settings where democracy, stereotypes and art are negotiated.- “things bulletproof stained glass. Next, local indepen- to this dent curator Dana Turkovic along with artists artwork Brandon Anschultz and John Watson collabo- For this issue, I would like to thank Jennifer Gaby, Rachel Gagnon, Mike Venso, Kimberly Singer, and Mara Hermano Just as Joseph Bueys said everyone is an artist, I made sense at the time and it rated to create a cohesive viewing environ- The Pablo Helguera Manual of Contemporary Art Style one could be a collector, but that seems hard to swallow. Surely we all for their assistance in coordinating the St. Louis institutional interviews; Lydia Hatziiakovou for always providingNo ment. In their show Amass, Anschultz and are collectors when it comes to the many Watson designed viewing stations where audi- me with material needed for Christos Savvidis’ interview; George A. Harris for patiently breaking down for me but the reality of art collecting is a game of private wealth, institu ence members could watch the myriad video tional resources, and fuzzy ideas of public interest thrown at artists the notion of mutual funds in order to interview Rik Reinking; Mariana Huerta for responding promptly to pieces, which Turkovic selected, including Iain often in a way that leverages something against them. In truth, the all my emails; Eve Therond and most importantly Catherine Goffeau whose assistance with the Sindika Forsyth and Jane Pollard among others. With role of the collector in contemporary art is one that is hard to the return of the Pedestrian Project, Brett Dokolo interview was underlying; Dairne O’Sullivan; Jorge Pinto; Walter Robinson; Kierstin Niemann relate to if you or someone close to you is not in that position ’ve tried to show in this -issue, Williams’s Future Hole gave street level view- turned of privilege, but I learned not to dwell on this for too long. for being on top of the situation; Negar Azimi, Lara Baladi, Nigol Bezjian and especially Rasha Salti ers the opportunity to jump into the Boots DeLorean and explore the future through for her time, generosity, guidance and for leading me to Walid Sadek as well Hanni Farroukh The reason being, as we - animation. for welcoming and accepting my invitation and finally everybody for surviving my emails. the collection is an entity —and and an opportunityplenty of time all toits own, - a space as much for discourse as anything else. There Since all work and no play makes directors is still plenty missing from a great discussion on col — but represented here are muse dull boys, we headed to sunny Miami for lecting contemporary art Art Basel with fellow artist-director Matthew supplement it Strauss from White Flag Projects. It was a um collections, private collections, corporate great chance to meet up with Boots agent Jon collections, and most intriguingly alternative Peck, who invited us to the release party for models of contemporary art collections. Also, I would like to thank Hesse McGraw, curator of Bemis Center the book Miami Contemporary Artists, in which Peck was recently featured. Besides the blind- for Contemporary Art in Omaha, NE and Shannon Stratton, direc Additionally, we have compiled ing and overwhelming amount of art, I do rec- interviews with the institutions of tor and chief curator of Three Walls in Chicago, IL for making Boot ommend the sandwich shop across the street St. Louis, as well as two curators Print Volume 1/Issue 2 available to their visitors at their spaces. from the Deuce. We sent 2007 out in fine focused in different ways on Brett Williams style with White Flag Projects’s Juan William Future Hole regionalism in the United States Chavez’s Communist New Year’s eve party, street view and detail during an election year, Nato Thank you to my beloved and indispensable crew, Juan, featuring video projected propaganda, the Bay Thompson and Charles of Pigs roast, Lenin’s Tomb open ice bar, and Tim, and Bryan for making Boot Print shine on newsprint, Esche. Along with all of yes, the ride-able atom bomb. It was a face- the recent Boots events, Joe who loves to point out my mistakes and Liz, whose melting fiesta, Commie style, of the sort never I hope these interviews commitment is promising. And last but not least to be forgotten. Thanks again White Flag for - find their way to the - the invitation. the Boot Print advertisers for making us float, and young collector that are drawn by the 60s still has the ambi sci-fi sound composi- to our St. Louis donors who put us through Boots looks forward to shedding the inau- tion it takes to O n c e tions played on an outdoor gural booster and beginning our voyage to the press and help us get Boot Print to you. become the a g a i n loudspeaker and set to the explore and expand our mission as an art lab. Queen of s u c c u m b - glowing abstractions from several Our freshman year demonstrated the dynamic the chess ing to the desires short video animations. Inspired by potential and importance of a contemporary b o a r d . of the wander- his day job where he installs video projec- art space located in the middle, serving as a BP ing pedestrian, Boots has invited St. Louis tions of views through a microscope, Williams weigh station for artists and curators as they based artist Brett Williams to participate in brings an unconventional and controlled view- travel the byways of the national and interna- our second installment of the Pedestrian ing experience that crack heads, antique shop- tional art community. Boots is always open to BP Project and Future Hole was his vision. pers, hipsters on bikes, building rehabbers and those who wish to contribute to the dialogue, The name says it all. From the glowing win- anybody else that walks by can enjoy. and we look forward to new conversations. dowpane, like a prescient dream, the future On that note, Boots would like to extend comes to those who peer through the look- For those of you that are unfamiliar, the a warm, curatorial man-hug to Anthony ing glass. A microscopic view into an undeter- Pedestrian Project is Boots’ way of problem Huberman, the Contemporary Art Museum mined time and place where moving geometric solving and pays homage to the returning street St. Louis’s new chief curator. We welcome shapes juxtaposed with organic form, rippled traffic of Cherokee while taking the month to the curatorial vision he brings to St. Louis. and vibrated to electronic sounds. focus on the upcoming Boot Print release, art- ist residency, or institutional collaboration, all of Starting in 2008, a new way to stay informed In response to the first Pedestrian Project, which collided this winter. Although the gallery and support Boots’ activities is to become a There’s nothing to see here, by Mike Shuh, which is closed, the Pedestrian Project is still a reason member. Memberships will make possible the beckoned and shooed away visitors with a to come and peer in as you walk down and continuation of our exhibitions, bring inter- calm and playful demeanor, Williams’ instal- visit Cherokee Street. BP national artists-in-residence to St. Louis, and lation is decidedly more inviting. Pedestrians keep your Boot Print coming. For further details, see the back page of this issue. BP Amen Bitch: Light-Love-Life... BLING! by Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt

Above: Amen Bitch brass, aluminum, rhinestones 2007 Contemporary Hip Hop culture concelebrates the dialectic Bernard of Clarivaux or Christopher Wren. They are more like between celebrating life and underscoring survival. Suffering and the pizazzy blings that Vegas brings, or even a Christmas tree. celebration are two sides of the same coin. Just as in Christ’s This Light is delight, the delight of living, desperate living; if the day, that coin is minted by and belongs to Caesar. Christ usually sun goes out so do we. Concurrently, it signifies the enlight- spoke in parables, but this is no parable. Jesus uses the coin, a enment through a God that becomes human. Vulgarity is an real piece of money. It could buy food, a lawyer, flattery, a fake essential part of this art. This is the eternal honeymoon of para- smile, and pay the rent. This raw analogy refuses to gloss over dise. Biblically, Christ is not the husband of the Church. He is all the vulgarity of that saying “keeping it real.” the bridegroom forever. This is the crux of Western Mysticism. Heaven is not merely a dry concept. Yet sadder realities are Hip Hop culture is cool. As art, great art, it seduces and affects always present. A bullet-proof preacher’s robe underscores the its lovers. But, that raw reality of Caesar’s coin points to an extremely focused sobriety of the inebriation of Christ’s love. economy that once enslaved the progenitors of Hip Hop. The Some people actually do practice the interpenetration of life power of art speaks for itself. This musical synthesis of Africa and and love. Love unlimited can lead to the ultimate sacrifice. The America parts the waves of the Red Sea of slavery. Freedom is preacher’s robe reminds us all of the heroic death, the martyr- on the other side, not fully achieved yet fully existing in art. dom of Martin Luther King. Christ-like not only in word, but in Vulgarity, the language of the slave quarters and the projects is truth and deed. the music that defines American culture to the world. The bullet-proof stained glass windows of Tupac Shakur and The Resurrection comes continually through a Crucifixion, Biggie Smalls visually sing as they Bling a more solemn chord. but it is not the Crucifixion of the missionary position. African Both Biggie and Tupac are placed in that zone of luminosity, Americans never gave up their own cultural roots, these living luminous with the primal light of enlightenment. The sky is blue, words, make transcendence as immanent heart-beats that keep but neither is it day nor night. The lead lines, which actually the body-soul unity from being torn apart. The inner person function to hold the pieces of glass together, are visually held in struggles to stay free. a tension that seems simultaneously to break the picture apart. The push-pull between explosive fragmentation and cohesive Dylan Mortimer intuits this range of sorrow/joy through his composition is one of Hip Hop’s most meaningful and enigmatic borrowing of subject matter and materials. Gold as price tag appeals. Here it becomes an object of contemplation. Bullet-Proof Preacher’s Robe flaunts success in Caesar’s face. Gold as color proclaims celebra- bullet-proof vest, preacher’s robe tory presence. Gold as color in Christian Art signifies the types These fragile shards of glass, while vulnerable, each on its own 2007 of light, reflective, refractive, redemptive. Christ is redemptive can also cut. This is the extreme pathos of male posturing. pre-eternal light. The light of Genesis 1:3 is Physical essence. The balance of power in the undeclared wars of the streets is The light of Genesis 1:14-18 is the sun, moon, stars, etc. just as influenced by the invisible hand of real estate as gang- speak. The irony is that Caesar owns the turf… cynically Caesar Arthur Danto’s book “The Transfiguration of the will denounce displays of machismo, yet still need troops for Commonplace” takes the peak moment of Christ’s earthly min- Caesar’s wars. istry before the Resurrection to be, not just the crucifixion but the Transfiguration. Why? Because the Divine-Human artist in The middle class is shielded from the “vulgarity” of any direct Christ used this moment as a way to show himself as the pre- impact by a more subtle system of power plays. Yet in these eternal light source itself. Why? Because the fragile humanity of windows, it is the halo on both men that amplifies the visual his apostles would have to have something huge to get them hymn of sanctity into a symbolically glowing emblem of saint- through the Crucifixion to the Resurrection. This for Danto hood: The Crucifixion of life, the Resurrection from death, and becomes a metaphor for all that is best in Art. the Transfiguration through art.

Now, back to Vulgarity. Here Vulgar means everyday usage. Something inside and outside of Church-speak, street-speak, The Vulgate was St. Jerome’s translation of the Bible. He trans- and art-speak is here. Every one of us needs heroes or Saints. lated it from Koine Greek into street Latin. Originally the gos- These hallows say it all, like crowns, or laurel leaves given at the pels were all written in Koine-Greek. Christ spoke Aramaic. He end of the Greek Olympics. Their race is over. Both Biggie and read Hebrew. And may have spoken Koine, because this was Tupac are saying individually the same quote from St. Paul: the lingua franca of the entire Mediterranean world during his lifetime. “I have fought the good fight I have finished the race Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur during installation Hip Hop’s visuals are called Bling. As you can see, Mortimer’s art I have kept the faith stained glass, bullet proof glass, light is as classically Christian as a stained glass window, and strongly Therefore there is for me, a Crown of Righteousness.” 2007 representative of the Hip Hop aesthetic of Bling. Vulgarity? 1 Timothy 4:7 HALLEFUCKINGLUJAH- yes. HALLEFUCKINGLUJAH The gallery presents the art, but the street is the cooker. From a Amen, Amen, Amen. formal visual perspective these gold-glowing spangled rhinestone pendants are definitely not within the aesthetic proscriptions of

6 Amass by Dana Turkovic

In an interview talking about his art practice, Rikrit Tiravanija move, the museum as a setting for crossings of art and life, and The final result was video and object interacting, presenting an once said, “It is not what you see that is important but what takes the museum as a laboratory, which he hoped would turn every- atmosphere combining both pure collaboration and relational place between people.” Building on the ideas behind Tiravanija’s day life into “an architecture of situations.”2 For Amass, unlike encounter, touching upon Bourriaud’s thoughts on coherent practice, my exhibition hosted by Boots Contemporary Art traditional film and video installation, I invited Anschultz and units or structures: the sculpture and video providing the “inde- Space last November sought to address three key issues of Watson to design objects that were functional and served as pendent entity,” and the exhibition design i.e. seating arrange- connectivity and containment: inner complexity, evolution of conceptual support, that provided an engagement between the ments for viewers supplies its “inner dependency.”4 exhibition design and display, and cooperation. The exhibition architectural objects and the artworks, presenting a formal dia- expressed the connective possibilities with both evolutional dis- logue between artists. On this same point, art critic Christopher plays and dynamic interactive social environments. Paired with a Knight said of a like-minded exhibition in LA in 2004, “Art is a group exhibition of current video art, I invited many shows into social activity rather than a discrete object. In the end the cura- the show, the effect reminiscent of a Russian Matryoshka doll torial project is primarily about materials, otherwise it might as by concealing other exhibitions within the exhibition, using col- well be called anthropology or sociology.”3 lective encounter, collaborative structures and the gallery space as outer shell. This provided both a physical and metaphysical containment, a current preoccupation of the gallery space as social environment. Amass included artists Brandon Anschultz The installation sought to produce a combination of experien- and John Watson as “exhibition designers” and new video work tial situations, not allowing itself to be reduced to an individual by Sarah Baker, Kim Collmer, Chris Doyle, Iain Forsyth and Jane object, but relying solely on the cooperation of these experi- Pollard, Wendy Mason, Brandon Morse, and Pascual Sisto. The ential elements. Through a multiplicity of complex physical and title is a reference to, in its most direct translation, a metaphor conceptual associations, it worked to traverse the boundaries for curating an exhibition: to gather artwork, to assemble ideas, of artistic and everyday occurrence, creating an acute aware- to group, and to collect. By commissioning two local artists to ness of the notion between public and private, and question- design “sculptural support” that invited, and in some ways, com- ing the conventional configurations or expectations of how we pelled the audience to assemble and come together as viewers, view video art. At the heart of Amass was a preoccupation with Amass offered a series of smaller interactions within a larger Amass, however, kept this in mind by brutally extending my some of the concerns voiced by architect Cedric Price, whereby shared experience. role as curator, by providing a curatorial framework for layers he writes: “there is a need for more collaboration between dif- of inner complexity to reveal themselves through the concept ferent models which might cultivate a spirit of difference and of a unique situation for both response and conversation. For allow disparate conditions to thrive both through protection example, in Boots’ main space, Anschultz built beautifully craft- and exposure.”5 Taking Price’s idea as a point of reference, its ed functional items such as benches, pedestal inspired tables, the particular notions of “protection”, and “exposure” that I and headphone stands. In one instance he created a circular find most suitably defines the exhibition’s ultimate purpose. video stand that hosted three monitors and nine headphones. What I mean by using these complimentary terms in reference By wearing the headphones the viewer slipped into a singu- to Amass, is that it sought to recognize and/or utilize the built lar, private experience, yet fully aware of the group growing in layers of both institutional, curatorial, and artistic endeavor, around them, creating an encounter that was both private and protecting each role, yet working to reveal new ways of view- public. Additionally, Anschultzs’ sculptural intervention provided ing. These models of conceptualization were communally driv- In 2004, while studying in London, I attended an exhibition other inter-subjective encounters – in both the production of ing the exhibition, using the Matroyshka doll as a metaphor, and at MOT International that explored a variation of these ideas. his own work (the pedestal), the artist’s video piece, and ulti- combining its physical structure with the ideas of collaboration. Aptly titled, Russian Doll, the installation was a series of works mately the viewer’s reception of it experienced together as a Amass was a collection of things within a thing, which opened with an overly literal definition of containment. Writing about social entity. His installation allowed for complex associations to to another thing, containing some other thing. his concept, director Chris Hammond writes: “MOT acted as a come together in one space, connecting the video work with vessel for its curatorial project, accommodating the artist, then display. Anschultz pinpointed and exploited the meeting place Amass will be traveling to Monte Vista Projects in Los Angeles in extended that thought so that an artists work might, physically between these art forms, yet he maintained his own artistic and February 2009. or conceptually, accommodate or be accommodated by that of material language. The entry gallery housed a sculptural collabo- another’s.”1 My particular interest in the Matroyshka model in ration between artists John Watson and Brandon Morse that Bourriaud, N. (1998) Relational Aesthetics. Dijon, Les Presses du Reel. reference to Amass was that it provided the structure to pres- illustrated my intention behind the combination of collaborative Hammond, C. (2004) www.motinternational.org/russian-doll.html ent complex associations, a puzzle wrapped in a mystery inside structures and the phenomena of collective spectatorship chal- Knight, C. (July 9, 2004) The Thought That Counts, Gallery Reviews, LA Times. Accessed April 2008, available from www.sisterla.com an enigma, the center as soul, a more poetic and ephemeral lenging them to act as both artist and enabler, and opening up Obrist, H. (1998) Eyebeam, Blast, Alexander Dorner. Accessed April 2008, avail- situation. I was also interested in a sort of institutional critique: their practice to facilitate each others visual language. Watson able from www.thing.net/eyebeam/msg00373.html Boots as the outer layer with a projected mission, myself as worked closely with Morse to create an installation that incor- Steenson, M. (August 2007) Cedric Price’s Generator. Accessed April 2008, avail- able from www.conceptualdevice.com/2007/08/cedric_prices_generator.html curator, then the two exhibition designers reveal themselves as porated, housed and accommodated his video work. Watson the mediating figures, and the artists at the center that cover the constructed furniture that encouraged viewers to sit and engage 1 Chris Hammond, “Russian Doll” (2004), core – finally the receiver or viewer as soul. The challenge was with one another while having a simultaneous viewing experi- www.motinternational.org/russian-doll.html (Accessed April 2008) creating an exhibition that illustrated this system and provided a ence of Morse’s videos. He cobbled together sports inspired 2 Hans Ulrich Obrist, “Eyebeam, Blast, Alexander Dorner” (1998), visual effect for each of the complimentary transferences. bleachers of found wood and other structural fragments, a www.thing.net/eyebeam/msg00373.html (Accessed April 2008) 3 Christopher Knight, “The Thought That Counts”, LA Times, pseudo-entertainment center and white washed projection (July 9, 2004) www.sisterla.com (Accessed April 2008) Even before French art critic and curator Nicholas Bourriaud screen tying perfectly to the content of Morse’s work. Both 4 Nicholas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics (Dijon, Les Presses du Reel, 1998) coined “relational aesthetics,” Alexander Dorner, who in the artists reference architecture in their work, by using a combina- 5 Molly Steenson, “Cedric Price’s Generator” (August 2007), www.conceptualdevice.com/2007/08/cedric_prices_generator.html 1920s directed the Hanover Museum, supported early relation- tion of evolving linear shapes and collapsible obsessively built (Accessed April 2008) al models. Some of his original ideas included museums on the forms, they both employ an ability to create and define space.

7 The Power of 4: St. Louis by Boots Contemporary Art Space (Questions by Juan William Chavez, Georgia Kotretsos and Tim Ridlen)

With an increased number of reputable and well-established arts institutions, St. Louis has a bur- for the Arts, the Laumeier Sculpture Park, and the Mildred Lane Kemper Museum, respectively. geoning class of arts professionals and institutional laborers. Despite this influx, there is a tendency To do this, we have asked several employees of each institution one question, and we hope that to consider only the careers of a few key personas; however, every institution consists of a team each will keep in mind the mission and aims of the larger institution, while still providing individual including curators, board members, directors, visitor services personnel, etc.. From top down and sincere answers. What will appear in print is a question and answer text presented as the or bottom up, everyone puts a bit of him or herself into creating the face of a museum, gallery, Institutional voice. In a way, these interviews are meant as an experiment to solidify and contex- foundation, or artist-run space. For better or worse, a collective identity emerges from the efforts tualize the identity of each of St. Louis’s admirable institutions, and to reflect critically on what an of every individual. It is that identity we hope to reveal by conducting these interviews with the institutional identity is in St. Louis today. institutions themselves — The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, the Pulitzer Foundation Photo: Helene Binet Helene Photo:

ONE TWO Pettus Robert Photo: THREE FOUR Vito Acconci Acconci Vito Photo: Stan Strembicki Stan Photo: Face of the Earth the of Face

St. Art Contemporary for Foundation Pulitzer T P S Laumeier Art Kemper Lane Mildred a c he u r

Louis k the lpture Museum Museum

Arts

Laumeier Sculpture Park was born from a gift made by Mrs. Henry Laumeier of Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect her 72-acre estate to the people of St. Louis Tadao Ando and situated in St. Louis’ Grand County and the greater metropolitan area. Center district, The Pulitzer Foundation With direct support of a group of innova- for the Arts presents changing exhibitions tive community leaders and many generous The Mildred Lane Kemper Art and engages in a variety of programming initia- friends, Laumeier has developed into what it Museum, part of the Sam Fox School of The Contemporary Art Museum St. tives involving the visual, literary, and perform- is today — an internationally-recognized open- Design and Visual Arts, is committed to devel- Louis is one of the leading voices in the world ing arts. The Pulitzer possesses some of the air museum. It is Laumeier’s mission to initiate oping and preserving its fine art collection of contemporary art. The Contemporary is same characteristics of a traditional museum: a lifelong process of cultural awareness, enrich with a continued emphasis on the art of our dedicated to exhibiting the visual arts and art- it has galleries that are open to the public, it lives, and inspire creative thinking by actively time; inspiring social and intellectual inquiry ists of our time and to producing nationally presents changing exhibitions, and it aims to engaging people in experiences of sculpture into the connections between art and con- recognized education programs. As a non-col- lecting institution, the Contemporary focuses educate the public in various facets of the arts. and nature simultaneously. temporary life through excellence in scholar- its efforts on showing three to six major exhibi- However, the Pulitzer is a non-collecting insti- ship, education, and exhibition; and engaging tions a year, in addition to a number of shorter tution whose mission also focuses on present- Glen Gentele, Director audiences on campus, in the local community, projects, featuring local, national and interna- ing programs that explore the interrelationship and beyond. The Mildred Lane Kemper Art tional, well-known and “newly established” of art and architecture, principles of museum BP: Laumeier Sculpture Park was founded in Museum dates back to 1881 with the founding artists from diverse backgrounds, working in all practice, and a personalized experience with 1977, before any of the other contemporary of the St. Louis School and Museum of Fine types of media. the arts. art institutions existed in the city. How has the Arts at Washington University. Its collection institution evolved with time, what role does it was formed in large part by acquiring signifi- Paul Ha, Director Emily Rauh Pulitzer, Founder & fill in St. Louis today and what should we look cant works by artists of the time, a legacy that Chairman out for in the near future? continues today. BP: The Contemporary’s programming invests a great deal in the interest of the young and emerging artists of St. Louis by creating the BP: Why did you found the Pulitzer GG: At the heart of Laumeier Sculpture Park Carmon Colangelo, Dean of the Emerson Visiting Critics and Curators Series, Foundation? Why in St. Louis? And why Tadao is the interplay of people, sculpture, nature, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual the Great Rivers Biennial, the City-Wide Open Ando? and education. The institutional vision is to Arts Studios, and much more. In addition it also create a cultural legacy for art and nature that creates outlets of parallel activities for young ERP: To answer your questions in reverse future generations will experience in one of BP: How has the New Mildred Lane Kemper patrons such as the Contemporary Collectors order: Tadao Ando was selected by my hus- America’s great open-air museums. Laumeier Art Museum affected the San Fox School of program. Why are these activities also impor- band and me to renovate a former automobile evolved out of the environmental art move- Design & Visual Arts at Washington University tant to the mission of the Contemporary? factory and showroom which was on the site ment of the 1960s and 1970s. The institution and particularly the MFA program? now occupied by Channel 9. We chose him was founded in 1976; incorporated in 1977; PH: As the Director of a contemporary because his work and aesthetic appealed to and has developed into an important inter- CC: The New Mildred Lane Kemper Art art museum, I feel that supporting young and both of us. We wanted to help with the rede- national cultural entity offering perspectives Museum has had a profound impact on the emerging artists should be one of the main focuses of this institution. Additionally, we velopment of Grand Center, a part of St. Louis on the art of today and about the history of MFA program in the Graduate School of Art recognize the important responsibility of sup- that meant a great deal to my husband. I, like important issues in art – specifically in the field at the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual porting the local artists, through exhibitions, my late husband, live in St Louis and care that of sculpture. As a destination, people come to Arts. The thoughtfully curated exhibitions of financial support, and access. The Emerson the city thrives. The Pulitzer Foundation for the experience ingenuity, community, and current contemporary art present a consistently high Visiting Critics and Curators series is not only Arts evolved from these early plans. examples of contemporary sculpture merged level of work by leading national and inter- great for the general audience members who with, and complemented by, the beauty and national artists. The new media series such attend the lectures, but also because the critics William Bush, President timelessness of nature. as [Grid < > Matrix] and Window | Interface make studio visits with the local artists—this is have provided significant examples in many a great way for artists here to introduce their BP: The Pulitzer has played a pioneering role Laumeier is accredited by the American genres of this medium, from work by Peter work to the curators. We’ve had critics and in the rebirth of the St. Louis art community. Association of Museums and serves over Campus, a pioneer in both video art and com- curators visit us from all over the country — What were the goals in the beginning, and 300,000 guests annually with free admission to puter-enhanced digital photography, and Julius New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Boston, and Miami Through our what are the goals now? What have been the the 105-acre site. The museum continues to Popp’s entrancing installation, Bit Fall, to the Flat Files program, the locals (both artists and great successes, and what great successes are preserve the concept of free access to cultural provocative video pieces of Andrea Fraser. non-artists) have a resource for connecting to yet to come? enrichment for all; park land for family fun; and Reality Bites and On the Margins each have

continued on page 9 continued on page 9 continued on page 9 continued on page 9 8 Kemper Laumeier Pulitzer the artists that live and work in Contemporary TWOWB: We only opened in the art of our time in an environ- ONE THREE FOURpresented responses to political the Midwest. The City-Wide October of 2001. Our devel- ment like no other. The institu- change, war and disaster while Open Studios program allows opment in this short period of tion provides an alternative to Beauty and the Blonde examined the regular Joe and Jane who time is very different from that the white-cube experience and an ubiquitous American cultural normally wouldn’t get to do a of other art institutions: instead offers significant opportunities phenomenon. In the context of studio visit or to interact with of following existing role models, for emerging, mid-career and the unique structure of the Sam an artist to do just that. Almost we are defining ourselves insti- established artists. In addition, Fox School that includes the everything we do is to recognize Laumeier is proud to serve a and to celebrate the artists of tutionally as we go. Initially, the Colleges of Art and Architecture, broad constituency that includes our generation and to provide only givens were: the Founder’s hosting shows such as the retro- ways to introduce them and desire to create a sanctuary for art advocates, families, school spective, Eero Saarinen: Shaping their work to the general pub- the public and a laboratory for and travel groups, children, the Future (spring 2009) and lic. Our openings have become the arts, the outstanding building young adults, seniors, profession- other upcoming exhibitions quite the scene and it is a great by Tadao Ando (who, interest- als, park lovers, leisure seekers curated by architecture as well as night for the local artists to meet ingly enough, called it “a place of possibilities”), and fitness enthusiasts. art faculty, the Kemper Art Museum provides the visiting out-of-town artists and the location, Grand Center, St. Louis’ unique, collaborative learning opportunities for and for the locals to meet other emerging arts district. Laumeier Sculpture Park (the non-profit orga- students and faculty alike. local artists who are making this nization) works in partnership with St. Louis city so vibrant. The Collector’s Since the opening, we have constituted a track County Parks and Recreation. Current and Sabine Eckmann, Director and Chief group is important to us in that, record, which, I believe, fulfills the initial expec- future work focuses on providing an integrated Curator through travels and visits, I want framework for the flexible growth and devel- to show that many cities outside tation and vision. The Pulitzer has created a opment of the institution as a unique, sustain- BP: How crucial is the first year to a cultural St. Louis have created a huge sustained program of ambitious exhibitions: able community asset and attraction. Initiatives economic boon for those cit- each of them strongly reacts to the architecture institution of this caliber and how can it lay include park land preservation; new facilities; ies. We’ve traveled to Miami, and receives conceptual and visual strength in a foundation of a distinct vision and identity improved infrastructure; and expanded exhibi- Pittsburgh, Chicago, and New York, where return. In relation to these exhibitions, the St. among the other institutions in the city in such tion, education and public programs. We look art has positively impacted the economy. It is Louis Symphony Orchestra and the Pulitzer a short period? forward to seeing you and to your continued also important for us as a contemporary art have developed a distinguished program of support and enjoyment of the park. museum to instill upon the potential art collec- contemporary chamber music, and we are cur- SE: I believe that the first year is quite tor the joy of collecting contemporary art. The rently exploring collaborative possibilities with important insofar as it has to be used to thrill of buying that painting or drawing comes John Wuest, Board of Directors Chair the Poetry Foundation in Chicago and with convey new programmatic initiatives to the from the direct impact you might have on that local, national, and international public. They Cinema St. Louis. We also have very strong artist’s life — that you may be helping that art- BP: Given that the Sculpture Park deals in make up the specific identity of the Kemper ambitions for the development of our website ist to pay rent or to buy paint to create their permanent and large scale sculptures as well as distinct from other cultural institutions in St. next piece. I feel one of the greatest perks in and are playing an increasing role in the com- as exhibitions, what is the relationship of the Louis laying the ground work for meaningful being involved in contemporary art is that we munity of museums and universities. institution to benefactors, donors, and collec- collaboration. On a local level, we presented get to interact with the artists directly. Through tors in the community? the Kemper’s identity through exhibitions the Great Rivers Biennial, we expose the works If you will, we continuously create particular that have a strong conceptual and thematic of local artists to the visiting jurors, and we sup- formats for pilot projects, which go beyond the JW: Laumeier Sculpture Park has a thirty- focus, yet also aim to introduce to St. Louis port them financially by giving each of the three possibilities of most traditional arts institutions. year history of working with amazing artists, audiences to important international artistic artists $20,000. But most importantly, we give Besides maintaining an experimental approach the artists the experience of working with a patrons, collectors, corporations, foundations, practices. On a national and international level, in our ongoing programs, we are now exploring museum and its staff in producing an exhibition. community groups and government officials. we have voiced our identity through scholarly our potential in the field of community engage- Many of the artists haven’t had the experience Our supporters have embraced initiatives contributions in exhibition catalogues. of working with a curator or considering what ment — in this endeavor, the George Warren that range from launching the institution to Brown School of Social Work at Washington should be written about their work. The expe- developing the organization over the years on The overall goal for exhibitions was to develop University is joining forces with us. On the rience is invaluable in helping them grow as art- every level. These partnerships underscore the a diversified, vigorous, and stimulating program ists. There is positive energy in St. Louis right long run, both institutions hope to create a institution’s core belief, which is to serve and that balances modern and contemporary now for the visual arts. There is an important web forum for a discussion of this question on support, mentor and enrich the lives of others, art and speaks to the Washington University encyclopedic collecting institution (St. Louis a national level. Further aspects of expansion and in doing so positively affect the community academic community as well as local, national, Art Museum), a distinguished university art are also being discussed, including increased as a whole. and international audiences. We launched museum (Kemper), exciting alternative spaces collaboration with several institutions such (Boots Contemporary Art Space, White Flag three programmatic initiatives: First, the as the Saint Louis Art Museum and Harvard I believe important relationships continue to Projects), a great space solely committed to Museum organizes permanent and temporary University. develop because supporters of Laumeier share local art (Regional Arts Commission), and then exhibitions of the institution’s collection you have the Contemporary — an institution the commitment, enthusiasm and advocacy for that explore the collection through a variety committed to contemporary art. I feel fortu- Matthias Waschek, Director the institution that ultimately helps to make St. of interpretive frameworks, highlighting its nate to be here now and I know that everyone Louis great. Our friends are our ambassadors depth and contemporary relevance. Second, at the Contemporary is eager and looks for- BP: Going through the members of the staff to the larger local, national and international the Museum is developing, implementing, ward to doing more for our community. on the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts web- community. We are honored by these reward- and hosting national and international loan site for our interviews, it became apparent ing relationships. exhibitions that engage in new scholarship and Anthony Huberman, Chief Curator that there wasn’t a Chief curatorial position bring to campus important artworks. Third, as filled within the institution. How are the exhibi- Jennifer Duncan, Deputy Director one unit of the Sam Fox School of Design & BP: As the most recent curatorial hire, what tions curated and do individual roles ever shift Visual Arts, the Museum organizes exhibitions new attitudes, ideas, projects, or positions have among the staff? BP: What kind of special events or programs that explore significant practices and ideas in you brought to the Contemporary? does Laumeier partake in that might be unique contemporary art and architecture with an MW: Indeed, we don’t have a curator in the to an outdoor sculpture park? What kind of AH: I’ve been in Saint Louis since August emphasis on cross-disciplinary approaches special considerations are there in the planning and have been working on putting together a traditional sense. The main reason for this is and new media. All of these programs share new curatorial program for the Contemporary. that our building has a very strong architectural of such events? the common aim to further discussion about I was inspired by the city and the paradoxi- presence, which makes Tadao Ando a “silent the impact of aesthetics on ourselves, and the cal reality of our split personality: an interest in co-curator.” The different sizes of our galleries, JD: Laumeier Sculpture Park produces sev- institution of the museum and its practices. addressing a local audience and that of reach- their respective ambient light (we avoid artificial eral special events and public programs in the ing a national and international one. Our pro- light wherever and whenever we can) and the course of a year. In May, on Mother’s Day The first round of exhibitions focused on gram needs to be both “here” and “there”; we relationship between the gallery spaces don’t weekend each year, we hold our annual Art the specificity of new media arts ([Grid < > face two directions simultaneously, and our allow for a traditional museum narration. Every Fair where 150 artists from across the coun- Matrix], Window | Interface), the contemporary curatorial program is focused on serving those work is placed with a specific architectural con- try exhibit and sell their work to 15,000 event trajectory of political avant-garde aesthetics audiences side-by-side. text in mind — no curatorial intent can ever visitors. When planning this large-scale event, (Reality Bites), an exploration into the artistic breach that. The reward is remarkable, as every we try to place the grand-scale tents, enter- significance of painting today (Thaddeus So, the over-arching method of the exhibi- tainment and concessions in harmony with Strode), as well as artistic positions that tions program is based on a system of pairs art work we have been installing in our galler- our collection of monumental sculptures. We embrace institutional critique (Andrea Fraser). and parallels and unfolds with two artists at a ies springs to life in a phenomenal way. In that select artists whose work is of high quality and time and in two distinct rhythms juxtaposed sense, the aesthetic experience of art is more These thematic and monographic exhibitions accessible to the general public for viewing and encountered side-by-side. In the Main important to us than the visitors’ learning about and accompanying publications, are meant Galleries will be shows by two artists. It’s a an art historical concept or a curatorial idea. and purchase. With inclement weather, which to visualize contemporary approaches to kunsthalle model of artist-centered projects, is a frequent occurrence in the springtime, the historical art, stimulate innovative art historical impact on our grounds from 15,000 people featuring newly commissioned works, large- All this said, our exhibitions are nevertheless and theoretical inquiries, and encourage visual can be significant. We make sure to plan, pre- scale, site-specific installation, surveys or exist- based on concepts, though they are viewer or and intellectual engagements with the object pare for and address those situations with the ing works, and significant publications. Lasting perception-oriented concepts. The material we of art. three months and changing three times per help of the St. Louis County Parks operations make available, in essence web-catalogues and year, each exhibition features two artists staff who partner with us to maintain and pre- hard copy brochures, are supposed to help our Lutz Koepnick, Curator of — conceived as a single show, as two sepa- serve the park for the public. New Media rate monographs, or as a collaborative project. visitors without directing them. As we don’t Running alongside the Main Galleries is The provide labels (considered as intrusions in the In early summer, the Music + Movies series BP: Among institutions in the city, the Front Room, a space for short exhibitions by aesthetic experience) we specifically train our at our amphitheatre pairs a local band and a Kemper is unique in its focus on new media. artists and others. These projects remain reac- gallery assistants to respond to questions that movie “under-the-stars,” presented on a large, Was there a conscious effort to take up where tive, nimble and provisional. From a two-week visitors might have. inflatable screen. People bring lawn chairs or exhibition to an hour-long performance, proj- other institutions left off with regard to new blankets, and either picnic or purchase conces- media?

continued on page 10 continued on page 10 continued on page 10 continued on page 10 9 Kemper Laumeier Pulitzer ects by lesser-established artists Contemporary TWOIn the past, we worked with sions once they arrive. For these ONE THREE FOURLK: The Kemper’s focus on will include site-specific interven- artists, such as Richard Serra, events, we light several of our new media since its opening tions, events, continuous screen- Ellsworth Kelly and Hiroshi largest sculptures, which provide was indeed a conscious effort to ings, as well as short exhibitions Sugimoto, who installed their the audience with an experience bring work in new media to the of paintings, drawings, or sculp- works in our galleries. A lot of they wouldn’t have at any other attention of a larger public and tures. The gallery also becomes a installations have been devel- venue. Other events include a site for a carte blanche, whereby initiate productive conversations oped by myself (and in close fall fundraiser each year, as well local, national, and international about what we might want to artist-run spaces, record shops, connection with the board), as smaller public programs. For call new media (as compared to publishers, freelance curators, whereas the current one, Dan each event and program, the goal “old” ones) in the first place. In designers, and others occupy Flavin: Constructed Light is the first is to bring people to Laumeier the continued absence of firmly and inhabit an independent to be installed by a guest cura- for a memorable experience developed and shared standards space within the museum. These tor. Tiffany Bell, who also wrote that enhances their time here about the quality, success, and ongoing projects encourage Flavin’s catalogue raisonné, pre- and delights them in unexpected meaning of new media work, improvisation, collaboration, and sented two different exhibition concepts in ways. the Kemper has decided to pursue its series of speculation and as a series they reaction to initial conversations. We opted exhibitions on new media aesthetics in order to follow loose associations from for the version that was the most in tune with Kim Humphries, Director of explore the general relationship between tech- one to the next. Ando’s architecture. Installations and Collections nologies and the arts today and incite fruitful Management Juxtaposed and encountered debates about the aesthetic specificity of work side by side, the pairs of art- All this said, my directorial duties, as different done with the help of advanced technologies. works, artists, and exhibitions as they might be from the duties of directors BP: The museum is a unique visual library Because the exhibition of such work is often offer a richer and more dynamic at institutions where fundraising is concerned, of large-scale outdoor sculptures. What spe- in need of substantial conceptual framing, the relationship to contemporary don’t end with the conception of installations. cial attention is required from works in an out- Kemper’s role as a university museum was per- art. This approach to building an All our programs are closely related to these door setting? Also, how is this collection used ceived as an ideal platform to launch such an exhibition program will create a more recog- installations and, along with our very small team to inspire the young generation of artists in the exploration. The exhibition of new media work nizable identity for The Contemporary and will of collaborators, we are continuously preparing city and what opportunities are presented to is accompanied by various publications, educa- strengthen its reputation as an artist-centered for activities outside our building. local and international artists? tional programs, lecture series, workshops, and institution that presents the most relevant and seminars in order to connect diverse audiences experimental developments in contemporary Camran Mani, Curatorial Assistant KH: An outdoor sculpture collection art through an ambitious schedule of dynamic with each other and provide a space for criti- requires an approach as varied as the types of programs. cal reflection about the material on display. All BP: Is Tadao Ando’s architectural vessel work, materials and conceptual underpinnings this is indeed meant to take up where other Laura Fried, Assistant curator taken into consideration in the exhibition pro- that artists choose to work with. Earthworks institutions in the city have left off with regard gramming? Is there a dialogue between the by Ian Hamilton Finlay, Frances Whitehead and to new media. We are now also discussing the BP: From a curator’s perspective, what are artworks and the architecture desired by the Beverly Pepper – art that is nature (plants, trees possibilities of acquiring new media work more the added benefits and challenges of a contem- curatorial team? and grass) – are sculptures that require a kind systematically in order to fill another perceived porary institution given the variety of new and of care most indoor-oriented museums do not gap: the absence of any extensive new media strange media that artists use today? (Everything CM: The Pulitzer was founded on dialogue need to address. Other works of steel, paint, collection in the area, public or private. from video art, to billboards, to installations, to between art and architecture — on collabo- stone and ceramics require more traditional performances, etc.) ration between Ellsworth Kelly, Richard Serra, approaches to their conservation and main- Critics and scholars today often argue about and Tadao Ando — and that kind of dialogue tenance. We have unique works fabricated in LF: Indeed, in recent decades artists have the newness of new media, about the bound- remains a guiding principle for us. Hopefully wood as well. Robert Stackhouse describes continued to broaden the possibilities for and ary between old and new, about the curious boundaries of contemporary art practice. In that came across with our exhibition Water his piece (St. Louie Bones) in the collection as rhetoric of progress that seems to energize the response, the curating, teaching, and reception — unless you saw the artwork in relation to permanent. To assure that is the case, he has concept and practice of new media art. With its of art and visual culture are no longer neces- the water in our building, the selection of art- supplied Laumeier with precise plans for the unique focus on new media, the Kemper seeks sarily rooted to traditional aesthetics or forms works were arbitrary to the point of absurdity. sculpture and the empowerment to rebuild to insert itself into these debates. The focus is a of presentation. As you say, the breadth of But that’s not to say we want all the art to look and resurface the work as required into the product of a deliberate effort to help survey the new media in contemporary art challenges us site-specific. I think we would just as soon have future. On the other end of the spectrum are terrain for university and non-university public to negotiate how that work is presented, and the site seem art-specific. works in the collection that include notions of alike, probe meanings and formal strategies of how it captures the imagination of the viewer, age and decay as part of their core concept. very recent artistic productions, and invite audi- within the space of our galleries. As a curator, a Rachel Gagnon, Public Relations and ences to engage with work that—though much particular challenge with much of today’s inno- Website Coordinator Laumeier has exhibited artwork of significant vative and charged art — from performance, to talked-about—continues to pose tremendous art historical importance as well as challenging off-site, guerilla-style displays on wheat-pastes challenges to be exhibited and therefore has or billboards, to net art or design — becomes BP: Are any steps taken towards making alli- work coming from a current critical discourse. rarely been seen in museums in the area. the presentation of those images and ideas ances and collaborations with other institutions The collection contains works of great range within our walls. At the Contemporary, we or art spaces in St. Louis? Is this in the founda- – from Alexander Liberman’s monumental Michael Murawski, Coordinator of strive to showcase new art and ideas in a series tion’s agenda? steel sculpture The Way (1980), to Ursula von Education and Public Programs of shows structured on the kunsthalle model Rydingsvard’s site-specific installation, Untitled of rigorous, artist-centered — and often art- RG: It is very much a part of the Pulitzer’s (1988), to Tony Tasset’s glaring, surreal BP: What level of viewer and audience ist-driven — exhibitions. In our commitment mission to build strong ties with other arts insti- 12 foot Eye (2007). Indoor exhibitions pres- mediation does the Kemper adopt as standard to supporting new commissions, site-specific tutions in the St. Louis area. One of the ways ent a varied and informative point-of-view that operating procedure? In other words, where is installations, and artist-museum collaboration, we’re currently involved in this is through our enriches the scope of the outdoor experience. that threshold between first hand experience we aim to engender a rich and productive dia- co-authored weblog with our neighbor, the Recent solo exhibitions by international artists logue between the art and the space and the and historical object at the Kemper? Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. With seen for the first time in the region include public. And yet, our mission to celebrate and support a visual culture that is both fluid and alternating posts each day, we try to give read- Robert Chambers, Joseph Havel, Karyn Olivier, MM: The ways in which people are access- unstable also challenges us to respond with ers a candid look at the behind-the-scenes Tobias Putrih, and Deborah Aschheim, among ing and experiencing art today are constantly perhaps a more reactive curatorial program, workings of both of our institutions and show- others. The Kranzberg Exhibition Series each changing, and I think that it is so important for one that also exists off-site or in-circulation, case our similarities and differences. summer is dedicated specifically to artists from museums to be actively involved in issues of outside and alongside our main galleries. In par- the Saint Louis region. Laumeier’s innovative pro- how we view and think about art. The Kemper ticular, I am thrilled and inspired by our brand- We have also started working with a group grams make featured artists accessible through Art Museum’s educational programs are devel- new Front Room gallery — a space designed consisting of public relations coordinators from workshops, studio visits, lectures and tours. oped with the goal of creating an open learn- for just such flexibility and experimentation. various not-for-profit visual art spaces in St. We provide opportunities for local artists ing environment that values the direct interac- Lasting anywhere from a few days to a few Louis. Meetings are held regularly to discuss to work directly with us on the creation and tions and experiences visitors have with works weeks, these Front Room projects, presented ways we can strategically raise the profile of installation of these exhibitions. In addition, in tandem but never in conjunction with our of art—and with each other. In my position the arts in St Louis, both collectively and for professional internships are offered to students larger sustained exhibitions, aim to echo the as Coordinator of Education, I am constantly elasticity and simultaneity of contemporary our individual institutions. The idea is to not seeking greater knowledge and experience thinking about the visitor experience and the culture, as we feature a wide range of artists only build awareness about what we all have in museums. role that educational programs (docent tours, in a restless series of installations, screenings, to offer, but to also further connect our institu- gallery talks, school visits, etc.) and interpretive performances, and interventions. tions to each other and create a network we Clara Collins Coleman, Curator of materials (wall text, labels, podcasts, etc.) have can all rely on and learn from. So far through Interpretation in facilitating that experience—without getting Kathryn Adamchick, Director of these meetings, we’ve created an “Arts Map” in the way or becoming too didactic. Education for visitors to use, and it will be exciting to see BP: We find the title of your position par- how we continue to grow from there. ticularly interesting; please take us through the Especially with modern and contemporary BP: As the director of Education, what demo- role of the Curator of Interpretation. How do art—which is still a somewhat uncomfortable graphics is the Contemporary actively reaching Lisa Harper Chang, Manager of you negotiate the sensitivity of such a role? realm for some visitors—it is so important to out to? Who is the main audience of an institu- Community Engagement tion like the Contemporary? How would you value the experience of exploring and freely characterize the challenges of a contemporary CC: As Curator of Interpretation for exchanging ideas about the works on display Midwestern US art institution when it comes BP: Your position was recently created and Laumeier Sculpture Park, I am responsible for while providing for an informed perspective. to addressing and/or educating an audience? is co-financed between the Pulitzer Foundation the Docent training and tour program, edu- Currently, I’m teaching a University College for the Arts and the Brown School of Social cational community collaborations, partner- course on the process of “looking at art,” and KA: As an educator my goal is to reach Work at Washington University. How did this ships and volunteers as well as the develop- we’ve been engaging in some exciting discus- out to the widest possible audience. Limited collaboration come to be and what should we ment and implementation of future integrated sions about empowering the role of the view- resources sometimes require me to make be expecting to see in relation to the broader programs for audiences of all ages. I work er/participant in this experience. We’ve also continued on page 11 continued on page 11 continued on page 11 continued on page 11 10 Kemper Laumeier Pulitzer choices regarding priorities. As a Contemporary TWOcommunity of St. Louis from the closely with my colleagues to ONE THREE FOURbeen engaging in some open result the primary audience that I foundation? fulfill the museum’s mission by and interesting dialogues in the program for is the teen and adult providing interpretation and galleries about particular works audiences. In doing so I hope the LHC: My position is best education programs that serve of art. Throughout my experi- teens will stay engaged through described as an experiment in various sectors of the public on a ences and research in museum their adult years, that adults will community building between regular basis, both on site at the communicate the importance of teaching, I am increasingly find- the Pulitzer Foundation for the museum and in the community. the arts to their kids, and all will ing that it is these in-depth dia- continue to stay involved in the Arts and the George Warren My title embodies the essence of logues, informed conversations, arts throughout their lifetime. Brown School of Social Work the museum’s educational role, and shared experiences that can Of course we’re also involved at Washington University in St. communicating and inspiring provide for the most meaningful in many school collaborations, Louis. The Pulitzer Foundation dialogue about works of art in visit to an art museum. community outreach initiatives, is physically placed at the cross- Laumeier’s collection, and striv- artist residencies, and other pro- roads of cultural and economic ing to expand visitor participa- Kimberly Singer, grams that serve younger and revitalization efforts and neighborhoods that tion through stimulating learning Manager of Marketing, Visitor older audiences. are suffering from neglect. We believe that the experiences. I like the “ArtLex” Services, combination of social work, which is guided by a definition; it is succinct and describes the basis and Events I don’t think the challenges code of ethics rooted in the principles of social of our docent-training program. Laumeier I face are unique to being at a justice and community, and the arts, which, at docents, as tour guides, act as interpreters of Midwestern contemporary art BP: How does the Kemper’s unique location institution. It’s more of an edu- various levels, run the risk of being viewed by the collection, linking artists, curators and visi- on the campus of Washington University affect cation, or socio-economic issue. the general populace as either extraneous or tors. “Interpretation is a stage in the work of the educational and public programming goals? I find visitors are looking for a elitist, can be a powerful tool for social inclu- art criticism following the describing and ana- dialogue. My role is to challenge sion. lyzing of an artwork, in which one identifies the KS: The Kemper Art Museum enjoys a them, to get them thinking dif- work’s expressive qualities, or the meaning, number of advantages due to its being a part ferently. As this experiment evolves, we hope to see a or the mood, or idea communicated to the of Washington University that impact our strengthening of the bonds between the vari- viewer. A work of art can be very complicated approach to education and public program- Katrina Hallowell, Program Assistant ous populations within St. Louis, an admittedly and may be interpreted in different ways by ming. Being a university museum has really lofty and difficult outcome to measure. We different people.” www.artlex.com allowed our institution to maintain a strong BP: As Program Assistant, your role is to act also hope to create a forum to continue the as a liaison between the exhibitions on view educational mission throughout its history, practical, academic, and professional explora- My interesting title reflects my role in creating and the audience that visits the institution. How and we aim for programming to be intellectu- can curatorial practice meet with education at tion of the historically-intimate and significant a model to fulfill our mission — to initiate a ally challenging to both our campus and public any given point within a museum setting? relationship between the arts and society. If this lifelong process of cultural awareness, enrich audiences, which we balance with our intention experiment succeeds, we will contribute to the lives, and inspire creative thinking by actively to remain appealing and accessible to all. We KH: When planning programs that support development of a new community standard engaging people in experiences of art and also realize that we are in a sense a public face museum exhibitions, I think it is important not in which arts institutions develop meaningful nature simultaneously. of the university and have a lot of direct pub- to be too literal in translation. There are plenty partnerships with their community and through lic and community interaction through school of resources available that address artistic prac- these partnerships promote the value of arts Perhaps implicit in the role of a museum edu- tours and group visits and special events. We tices and provide factual information about and culture in society. cator/interpreter is the ability or capability to always try to remain aware of this role and we artists and I think programs should work to perceive and respond in a sensitive manner to do hope that when people come away with investigate concepts and raise questions that Tim Reichman, Visitor Services the attitudes, feelings, or circumstances of the are brought up by the exhibition. It is more a good experience that it reflects well on the artist and visitors – as well as my role as part interesting to explore tangential relationships university too. spurred by the exhibition, or artist, than to try BP: The evident lack of signage in the galler- of a team to meet the goals and objectives of and develop programs that explain theories ies plays a vital role in retaining the high aes- Laumeier’s education department. But we do consider the university community and concepts. thetic of the interior, yet it may puzzle visitors to be our primary audience, and tailor some at first. What does the Visitor Services do to Karen Mullen, Curator of Education events and educational opportunities as out- Programming works closely with Curatorial assist, orient and inform the visitors? reach to scholars or students. We think it’s to understand their process in realizing exhibi- BP: What is the educational focus of LSP? important to be a part of the campus in mean- tions. However, as educators, we translate the TR: The architecture’s serene and contem- ingful ways, so we create opportunities to fos- curatorial rhetoric into concepts and theories plative space permits artwork to be experi- KM: Laumeier’s Education Department ter that interaction; one example of how this is that relate to everyday life. It is important to enced in a very personal way. Our efforts are believes students expand their critical and put into practice is our Teaching Gallery, which create programs that appeal to and engage a simply to provide visitors with a level of com- creative thinking skills through explorations broad audience. I try to investigate and experi- allows faculty and students to integrate works fort that supports the idea of exploring our gal- with contemporary art. By interacting with the ment different approaches to learning for vari- from the Museum’s collection into undergradu- ous age groups, interests and demographics. leries from this personal point of view. We pro- park’s diverse collection and exploring a full ate and graduate curricula through a designated My interest lies in the cross over between vide historical and curatorial information (if that range of artistic disciplines and media, students installation space. BP is desired) both conversationally and through will acquire knowledge and understanding of a

audiences and highlighting connections that are Strembicki Stan Photo: Museum Art Kemper the at Library Kranzberg Nancy and Kenneth The at times obscured. printed material, but even these come with a full range of artistic disciplines and media with consideration for the visitor’s perspective. We which to express themselves clearly and effec- Kiersten Torrez, Visitor Services don’t wish to lead a guest to a specific conclu- tively. As the Curator of Education at Laumeier and Retail Operations Coordinator sion, but rather we prefer them to find their Sculpture Park, I oversee all the activities of the own path to a more personal discovery. BP education department. My primary responsi- BP: Being the first person a visitor meets, bilities include development and management

what does an audience member expect upon Pettus Robert Photo: of Art Camp, art classes and special art proj- entering the Museum? ects for Art Fair and other public programs at KT: Being in the foreground of the Laumeier.Reaching underserved communities Contemporary, I strive to make our visitors’ throughout the St. Louis area with educational experiences as enjoyable as possible. Guests to opportunities and cultural programming is a the museum are warmly greeted with a smile. priority for Laumeier Sculpture Park’s educa- I briefly orient them with the space and direct tion department. We strive to engage students them towards the gallery guides, which accom- of all ages with informal and formal learning pany each of our exhibits. I then make myself experiences and seek to enrich the lives of available to answer a wide array of questions, individuals with these opportunities. BP be it exhibition related, a restaurant recom-

mendation or directions to other art institu- Park Sculpture Laumeier tions in town. BP Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis St. Museum Art Contemporary

11 Creating Public & Private Art Collections: Interview with Helene Zucker Seeman by Georgia Kotretsos

Helene Zucker Seeman has commissioned My course is offered in the School of to purchase an object because it speaks to individuals who create work in their studios and implemented numerous large-scale pub- Continuing Education, so not all of the students them directly and personally, not because it but who need others to do their public rela- lic art installations, built a $20 million, 10,000- are enrolled in degree programs. I have from may appreciate in value. Most contemporary tions for them. I have found in my experience, work art collection, and published and lectured time to time lectured on the specifics of cor- art does not appreciate in value. It would be that it is a rare artist indeed who can create on contemporary art and archival research. She porate collecting and art commissions. Having a wonderful “bonus” if the object/artist does AND do his own marketing. Some artists are has expertise in the business of art marketing said the above, The School of Continuing become important, but that is not why it is good business people, but generally this part and art collections and has used that exper- Education at NYU attracts a very diverse, fasci- being purchased. I am hired because my cli- of the profession diverts them from the work tise to advise clients in the corporate and aca- nating audience. ents are familiar with my eye, trust my eye, and of creating. demic-institutional setting. Her course, Creating know I have a strong track record over many Public & Private Art Collections at New York The students who enroll in my class are from years, BUT not because I am guaranteeing that I am very supportive of the art gallery system. University, on advising art collecting is one of many backgrounds and numerous countries. the work they purchase will appreciate. Art dealers put themselves on the line by rep- the few attempts to actually teach the skills of The first thing we do is introduce ourselves resenting or exhibiting an artist’s work because building and acquiring an art collection. and outline our backgrounds. It is a wonderful Good collectors spend a lot of time looking they believe in it. This is how people come to opportunity for the students to network, etc. at many different types of art; they are pas- see the work. I believe art is experiential. One The course covers exactly how one could Ages vary from graduate students to adults sionate about the “hunt” and always excited to should be able to visit a space & spend time conceive of and create an art collection, how changing careers. Typically, there will be a discover something new. communing with the work(s). As I have trav- to define a collection and obtain, maintain, and group of students taking the course towards eled I have visited many towns where I learn display art (and deaccession when appropri- their appraisal degree/certification. The course GK: Once you help one of your clients to about a “famous” artist. Sometimes this famous ate). Questions such as these are addressed is an elective. One of the particular challenges develop an eye, what’s the next step? How artist is just selling through word of mouth in and discussed in her class: Why do Individuals for me when teaching a Continuing Education often are they prepared to commit to what his/her own immediate part of the world. They collect art? Why and what does corporate course is that there is a wide degree of knowl- it takes to build and maintain a collection? may even be profiting and living totally off the America collect? Who buys art for public and edge in each class. Some of the students have Different budgets buy different art, what are sale of their artwork. BUT often they are not private collections? How does one obtain art- not had much exposure to the field of art, the types of collections out there and to what known outside their small area because they work for collections? Commissions? How does and are taking the course to determine if this kind of budgets do they correspond? have not had the opportunity to have a pub- one determine the value of collections? How is a profession for them to pursue. Some are lic exhibition. Their work has really not been does one utilize collections for Public Relations already professionals with extensive art back- HZS: A corporation and an individual work marketed. purposes? And much more. grounds. a bit differently when it comes to budgeting. In a corporation there is usually a finite amount of Once an artist completes a series of works, Georgia Kotretsos: While reading the To elaborate further on the student body: I money they will give you to spend. The advi- he/she wants to get their message out into the Creating Public & Private Art Collections have had art gallery owners/directors from as sor is given a budget (or negotiates a budget) larger world. Galleries and art advisors are very course curriculum, I began to wonder why this far away as Spain and Columbia that want to and it is up to that advisor to split the mon- important in spreading the word to clients, isn’t part of a basic BFA degree? The study of learn more about the business of art, lawyers ies up and make it work. In other words, you museums and the press. art should be grounded in a thorough knowl- and investment professionals that are thinking are responsible for purchasing enough art for edge of all its mechanisms and the collec- about creating art collections for clients or their the locations you have identified as worthy. As we all know, the processes of disseminat- tion of art is one of them. Traditionally, there firms, corporate curators seeking additional Sometimes, if I find something absolutely per- ing information are rapidly changing, and the would be a middleman between the artist and professional information, a C.E.O.’s wife who fect and I know it will cause me to go over Internet has become a major player in getting a collector, but grasping art from production was contemplating starting up an art consult- budget or run short on artwork, I will go to the visuals of an artists work out into the world. to consumption at an early stage is invaluable ing service, designers looking to expand their executive and have a discussion. Many people are now purchasing from the to a young artist. Museums or auction houses expertise, individuals in private enterprise who Internet, but I would caution anyone planning occasionally may offer seminars, or talks on are building art collections for their small cor- For a private client I begin by asking what kind to proceed in this manner. One should never how one could build an art collection to their porations, private collectors that were seeking of price range they are comfortable with; what purchase a work without seeing it in person members or to the general public. Is a course more knowledge, graduate students looking to did they have in mind. Sometimes it is a fright- first. So if you see something online that you specifically on how one can create a public or become art advisors. In each class, I often also ening concept for someone to think they are think you can’t live without, do take it on private collection a fairly new idea in tertiary teach students from overseas (Asian countries). beginning a “collection.” This is a concept that approval before making the final commitment. education? Who are the students in this case They are interested in the art profession and grows over time as they acquire more work, Any reputable artist or gallery will be comfort- and why do they sign up for this course? have been told that there are not any courses and catch the collecting fever. able with this arrangement. in their home countries that relate to their Helene Zucker Seeman: I do agree that interest in this field. (Korea, Japan, China). Usually people give me lower numbers than GK: Even more now than ever before, this type of course should be a part of the basic they end up spending. Once a price range is collectors are constructing spectacular BFA degree. The focus is just elsewhere and I don’t know why, but art collecting is per- defined and you show work in that range, you museum like settings to house their own art courses regarding creating collections (when ceived as mystical — advisors are these magical may often be asked to show the client works collections. How does this impact the art- and IF offered) seem to be electives. Maybe beings who direct people to what they should that are just a bit higher priced, etc. People like works in the collection, the collected artists this focus is not perceived as being “pure” be passionate about. The people signing up to feel they have seen a very wide scope of and the traditional museum industry? enough. But one of the major problems, I think, for the class want to demystify the process material & prices so they can judge for them- is that there is little discussion of how to look for themselves, and get some hard facts and selves what the art is worth to them. I think HZS: The issue of collectors constructing at art... How to see and absorb… AND most procedural information. I hope I am helping this is good, and I do encourage this type of spectacular museums to house their personal importantly I am not sure that students really towards this end. research and looking. collections has received an enormous amount understand that fundamentally they need to be of press in the past year. I think this is a very out looking all the time. Educating one’s eye is GK: What sort of qualities should one look I do occasionally have a client who won’t difficult subject. On one hand we can look at the primary objective, and to do this takes time for in a potential collector? What kinds of peo- define a budget for me, so I need to define it all the amazing collections that were formed in and energy and PASSION. ple make “good” candidates? for myself by showing a wide range of works this manner (just here in New York: the Frick, with varying price levels. When people see The Guggenheim, The Whitney). It is wonder- As an aside, another course that should be HZS: Based on my experience, the best col- something they love, even if it is more then ful if premier works of art will be together in REQUIRED of fine art majors is the business lectors have a PASSION for what they like. they anticipated spending, they often make a public setting. However, as far as contempo- of art. I was director of the Prudential Art This passion is emotional, it is not something the stretch and purchase the work. During this rary art is concerned, one doesn’t know just Program for 20 years and often I would lecture you can easily define. It is not concrete; it is process, certain aesthetic preferences will begin which works will be worth viewing in a few to university art students about the BUSINESS a feeling that a person gets when they come to be defined. Often what a client THINKS he/ decades. I am just not totally convinced that of art. Artists I found really need to be taught across an object that excites their emotions, she wants is not what is finally selected. I enjoy all of these contemporary collections, each in about the business side. There is definitely their senses. It is, as we all know, a very person- the challenge of visiting a client’s surroundings a separate building, will attract enough visitors more of this now, (I found Dan Cameron’s al feeling. Often two people can share this pas- (office or home), speaking with them about long term. essay in Boot Print Vol.1/Issue 2 interesting). sion together. Maybe one turned the other on their interests, and then determining for myself Artists are, for the most part, doing studio to the interest. Some people I work with have what types of art they will enjoy most. I also think it is important to view works of courses, etc. and not learning how to market not been looking at art for a long time; they different time periods. One moment in time themselves because it was/is not considered are new to the “collecting” mentality. They hire There are as many types of collections as informs another. For this reason, I often pre- “pure.” Many do not have the basic tools of me to educate them so they can develop an there are individuals! fer visiting a larger museum where I can see how to approach the public/galleries etc. eye, and so they can determine what they per- different time periods of art in one location. sonally respond to. There is a huge amount of GK: What role do a) art dealers, b) art I enjoy the process of comparing art of differ- I spend time in my course discussing the issues material in this world, and it is important for a brokers and c) art consultants play in the art ent generations and how artists learned from of passion and the collecting mentality, i.e. what client to discern what is of interest to them. world? How much power do they really have and played off each other. This continuity of makes people collect. What makes some pas- in terms of what’s sold and what’s bought and education is important. Even if I am visiting sionate about toys and others passionate about I am not interested in working with individu- by whom? the museum to see one specific exhibition, it swords. This is a very important psychological als who are collecting art for a future profit. is wonderful to glimpse others on the way to discussion which I think needs to occur; it is This is not a true collector in my mind. They HZS: Art professionals (art gallery owners, the show I will visit. In this way new interests basic to the understanding of collecting art. My might as well be collecting stocks. I guess one art advisors) have a huge amount of power are often born. students seem to be surprised by this concept, could argue that there can be a passion here when it comes to what is bought and sold in and very interested in the discussion. as well, but it is not one I relate to. I tell people the marketplace. Artists are basically solitary continued on page 23 12 The Fair View: Interview with Christos Savvidis by Georgia Kotretsos

photo: photo: after having received warm feedback from Another important factor is the profile of of a demanding, complex and multifaceted international and local galleries. The fair will the collectors invited, which we try to match short-term event, and at the same time help Vangelis Rassias Vangelis collaborate once more with Greek and inter- with the participating galleries’ profile. Towards to construe the market implications that a fair national art professionals, among them Marina this end, we collaborate with special VIP advi- is governed by. Fokidis, Bettina Busse, Sarah Belden, and Isabella sors who assist us in selecting the VIP guests. Bortolozzi, in order to deliver a rich, stimulating Specifically, Art Athina does not focus only on GK: I’m particularly a big fan of the curated program of projects and events that balance a established collectors (Greek or foreign), but at exhibitions at Art Athina. Why is this approach commercial and curatorial approach. the same time invests in fostering a relationship a good chunk of the fair itself? What do you with an emerging class of young Greek buyers wish to achieve by presenting art to the visitors Art Athina: 23-25 May, 2008 that may not have become conscious collec- of the fair in this manner? www.art-athina.gr tors yet, but are increasingly showing interest in contemporary art. CS: I assume you are referring to Open Plan This online interview was completed in April and the Garage Project, and not the offsite 2008. My goal this year as Artistic Director of Art exhibitions. So let’s have a closer look: Athina is to raise the program’s quality even Open Plan is Art Athina’s curatorial section, Georgia Kotretsos: You were appointed higher in order to sustain a more lasting rela- with a strong exhibition approach. The invited Photo of Christos Savvidis the Art Director of Art Athina in 2006, yet you tionship with the Greek market. curator — Bettina Busse (Berlin) in the 2008 only launched the Restart of the fair with the edition — invites interesting international art Christos Savvidis has been the Director of 13th Art Athina in 2007. By that time and under GK: Does an Art Director of an art fair need galleries to exhibit sculptures and installations. ArtBOX since 1999, a creative arts management your watch, the fair had undergone a major more than an art background? Are entrepre- The aim is to stretch the limits of the traditional office in Thessaloniki, Greece. He is a founding face-lift. You particularly focused on energiz- neurial qualifications part of the job require- art fair and to offer new opportunities to buy- partner of the Forum for European Cultural ing important Greek and foreign collectors in ments? And if so, why? ers. After 2007 when it was part of the newly Exchanges a non profit organization also based order to achieve dynamic sales in a constantly introduced program and curated by Sotirios in Thessaloniki; the artistic director of Action expanding market. How does a courtship of CS: If entrepreneurial qualifications are a Bahtsetzis (Greece) and Cecilia Canziani (Italy), Field Kodra since 2004, an annual visual arts this kind begin, evolve and grow? What does it prerequisite for any business venture, it is also this year’s Open Plan comes back with an even festival in Thessaloniki as well; and finally the take from your end to deliver the goods at the what is in great part demanded for the man- stronger exhibition feel. Artistic Director of Art Athina, the international end of the day? agement of art and the art market. contemporary art fair of Athens, since 2006. The Garage Project on the other hand aims Christo Savvidis: The best way for an art The role of an “artistic director” is not always to present the dynamics of the local art scene. Art Athina was first established in 1994 by fair to attract and sustain a long-lasting relation- exactly the same and does not always call for Through the exhibition that takes place in the the Hellenic Art Galleries Association, making ship with collectors is to offer a high quality the same qualifications. In some cases, the artis- venue’s internal parking lot (curated by Nandja it among the oldest contemporary art fairs in artistic program that includes good galleries tic director is solely responsible for designing Argyropoulou in 2007 and Marina Fokidis in Europe. The fair played a decisive role in the — of course — but also a stimulating program the artistic program. In other cases — as in Art 2008), it is made evident to the visitors — local creation of a dynamic art market in Greece. Art of parallel events. When this is topped up with Athina’s two most recent versions — much and international — that there is a considerable Athina successfully launched its Restart in May the fair’s unique character, as well as with top more is required. The general directives and mobility that energizes the Greek art scene. 2007, following a necessary one-year pause quality services (warm hospitality and friendly policy of the fair, its main program, the parallel This section moves away from the typical exhi- in order to regroup its forces and review its environment), then the whole package can be exhibitions and events, and the coordination bition format and presents art works installed goals in relation to the international art market. very attractive. of those as a whole call for entrepreneurial in stimulating ways – performances, music con- This year, the fair makes a dynamic comeback qualifications that guarantee the organization continued on page 23

Between the Bosphorus and Madison Avenue: A Conversation with Orhan Taner by Juozas Cernius

about business tactics, philosophies, and the assumes a parental role. Dealers, critics, cura- ultimate mastermind behind “bringing up” this challenges of starting a business in a sensitive tors, sponsors — what I call the contempre- new creature. This phenomonon, by the way, political and cultural climate. neurs, as a group —- become the collector’s is not limited to contemporary art. best allies in her endeavor of raising this child. Juozas Cernius: You mention on the Where the artist stands in this model is yet to Specifically in Turkey, here, art is being pro- Culture Ventures website that the process of be seen. I say this because, unless the artist duced which is thematically very appealing to buying an artwork is a significant part of the takes a proactive role in this new order, he will the Western eye. It is exotic and sometimes transaction. Along with the object itself, the be no more than a surrogate mother. controversial, but never too exotic and never buyer has an opportunity to connect to “pres- too controversial. It’s like having a great friend tige, affluence, and pleasure.” This is a promise JC: The business of art is international; who loves to party but never gets sick and and hope of many people transacting in the art Turkey is in many ways a mix of East and West. pukes. Art from Turkey and this region of world all the time, to varying degrees of suc- However, the crossover can prove complex, as the world will make great friends — I am a cess. As the professional facilitating the trans- many aspects of contemporary art, as under- believer. action, where do you find the art and where stood in Europe and the Americas, would be do you find the collector? What is the ideal unwelcome or misunderstood. Are you taking JC: If success in the art world is about cul- Photo of Orhan Taner candidate for a new collector? an internationalist idea into your business and tivating relationships, and yet no relationship Orhan Taner has acted as the Director of interest in art? Do you have a policy to address is unconditional, how do you weather the Contemporary Istanbul Art Fair since 2006 Orhan Taner: The ideal candidate for a the cultural sensitivities of the countries you do gloomy tidings of recession or an unstable and has recently founded Culture Ventures new collector has multiple objectives, and business in? economy? How do you bring comfort to the (www.cultureventures.com), an international thus needs to be multi-talented. She needs to nervous collector? art advisory company based in Istanbul that possess the skill set to attach the “ownership OT: I have a two-year old son, and we are counts among its clients art fairs, art events, experience” to the artwork. This experience in the process of shopping for pre-school OT: Well, I believe it is better to have few sponsors, partners, collectors, museums, gal- starts with the whole hoopla around acquisi- programs. We recently attended a workshop friends than none during times of uncertainty. leries, etc., worldwide. His business and art tion process and lasts until the eventual sale. organized by the International Community It is precisely those relationships cultivated activities have led him to international centers, We therefore see the “value” of an artwork School in Istanbul, where the discussion was on around the artwork, which will act as a buffer including frequent stops in New York where becoming more independent from its creator, “the advantages and disadvantages of being a during the gloomy tidings. Contemporary art in he once was the former Managing Director of i.e. the artist, and becoming a function of the kid of an expatriate family, moving around the its “classical sense” is certainly not recession- Bankers Trust Company, a New York-based total “experience,” which can be attached to it world every three to four years.” I believe that proof, not only in terms of value, but in pure investment banking firm. Inspired to greater by the collector. This is the general framework what can be said for that kid can also be said artistic sense as well. However, one would involvement in the art world, he began devel- I use when I argue that the “currencies” in the for the artwork. I have earlier established my — in a sense — purchase “insurance” as the oping Contempreneur, a magazine for the art art trade are no longer Euros or Dollars only, point about “living art” in my answer to your totality of the experiences around the art is industry, loosely inspired by The Economist. In but also affluence, prestige, and pleasure. As a previous question. The more the art moves bundled together. September 2007, Taner was selected and fea- result of this “bundling of experiences” around around, the better educated it will get. The art tured as being one of ‘The 20 Most Powerful the artwork, the artwork itself becomes almost itself will learn the cultural sensitivities rather JC: Founding a new publication is a tremen- Figures in Turkish Contemporary Art Scene’ a living creature. It develops a memory, and than the dealer. Of course, I am speaking here dous commitment. Over the years you must by Forbes Magazine. Based on all the above, I perhaps ambitions of its own. The new ideal about the overall experience of the artwork. have discovered veins of interest linking many met with him online to ask him a few questions collector (individual or institutional) therefore The owner, or the collector, is the parent, the continued on page 23 13 A Collector’s Carte Blanche: An Interview with Barbara Steiner of Leipzig’s Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst by Tim Ridlen Courtesy: Museum of Contemporary Art Leipzig Art Contemporary of Museum Courtesy:

KW – Hommage à Klaus Werner Curated by Heidi Stecker and Barbara Steiner

The museum is central to the — perhaps was founded in 1996 as a non-profit limited Industry (BDI), which consists mainly of 50 West- ten or suppressed artistic positions such as old-fashioned — idea of the collection. Most company; in 2003 it turned into a private foun- German masterpieces from the late 1940s to Michael Morgner or Strawalde, together with wealthy collectors have some relationship with dation. 1960s by artists such as Willi Baumeister, Julius the dream of building a bridge between East one if not several institutions to which they Bissier, Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Hans Hartung, and West, the older and younger generation. bequeath their life’s thoughtful philanthropic Regarding the collection of the GfZK, the Gerhard Hoehme, Bernard Schultze, and Emil gestures or fickle whims, whichever the case Carte Blanche project, and the relationship Schumacher. After the Second World War the During the 1990s pieces by widely known may be. In art world lore, this has taken the between the museum and the collector, I Cultural Circle of the Association of German private German collectors such as Paul Maenz form of a delicate dance, a struggle for influ- spoke via email with Barbara Steiner, the muse- Industry decided to start a collection of — at or Arend Oetker came into the gallery. Paul ence and patronage. When I heard about a um’s Director. that time — contemporary art, which stood Maenz, who was in the 1960s and 1970s one series of exhibitions that throws caution to the for national recovery and an alliance with the of the leading German gallerists, donated sig- wind and gives the museum over to the col- Tim Ridlen: The Collection of the GfZK international world. “Informelle Malerei” com- nificant pieces by the artists group “Mülheimer lector — or so I thought from the overstated came about under unique circumstances parable to Abstract Expressionism embod- Freiheit” – Georg Jiri Dokoupil and Walter headlines and zealous comment threads — I after the collapse of the German Democratic ied freedom and individualism exceeding the Dahn. Arend Oetker brought pieces by apathetically accepted it as the evolving condi- Republic. The collection will always be framed national borders. It formed the basis for the Rosemarie Trockel, Günther Förg and Martin tion of private influence and public interest. It by that particular historical moment. What subsequent collection of our museum. Pieces Kippenberger to the collection. When the gal- was the Carte Blanche project at the Galerie potential do semi-public collections have for of the former “Zentrum für Kunstausstellungen lery opened its first building, pieces by young, für Zeitgenössische Kunst (GfZK) in Leipzig, representing a collective history or identity that der DDR” (Centre for art exhibitions in the internationally working contemporary artists but it wasn’t the conceit I initially took it to be. perhaps a private collection does not? GDR) were offered to the founding director were purchased, in most of the cases with of the GfZK. Klaus Werner decided for artists the support of the Friends Organization of The collection of the GfZK is compelling in Barbara Steiner: The history of our col- such as Hubertus Giebe, Hartwig Ebersbach, the GfZK. A number of artworks by Olafur its own right. In the formerly East German city lection mirrors the social changes since the Werner Stötzel, Friedrich B. Henkel, who are, Eliasson, Tobias Rehberger, Neo Rauch, of Leipzig, the collection has a very particular revolution in 1989. It ranges from an interest in with the exception of Ebersnach, lesser known Christine Hill, Sarah Morris, and Sarah Sze relationship to history, but also to the public West German art of the Cold War, dissident artists. Other acquisitions included outstanding complemented the permanent loans including and private entities of the city. The GfZK is art from the GDR to Western and American works that had not been favored with official works by Andreas Gursky, Andreas Slominski technically a Public Private Partnership, which art from the 1990s and contemporary art from recognition in former East Germany, such as and other pieces by Tobias Rehberger and means that funding comes equally from the post-communist countries. Harald Metzkes’ “Tischgesellschaft.” The same Neo Rauch. This part of the collection clearly City of Leipzig, the Free State of Saxony and applies for Carlfriedrich Claus’s drawings. followed the tendency of bringing western art the Supporters Group, consisting in principle At its core are artworks donated by the Already in these founding years there was a to the East. In 2003, the enhanced presentation of monies from Arend Oetker. The Museum Cultural Circle of the Association of German clear aspiration for the rehabilitation of forgot- of artists from post-communist countries in the

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14 continued from page 14

Gallery’s program was made a public issue, BS: The loss of interest is slowly but surely museum. This relationship will have to become TR: The complimentary program, “CB dis- art works from these countries came into the maneuvering public art institutions out of the the subject for debate, argument and nego- cursive,” is meant to be the place where the collection. Now the collection policy is tightly limelight of social recognition and visibility. This tiation – as I already mentioned conducted in public interest can step in and discuss what is connected to the exhibition program (tempo- is also having effects on the concept of a public public. I don’t know who will be the winner happening with the Carte Blanche exhibitions. I rary exhibitions). Pieces donated by artists such sphere in which various social groups articu- – the private or the public sector — if there imagine this is where the public interest intends as Slaven Tolj, Zdenko Buzek, Sejla Kameric, late, pursue and defend their interests. Private will be a winner at all. Maybe this is not the to hold its ground. Is this ground large enough Kristina Leko or Igor Savchenko came into the individuals may enter into such debates, but most important question but rather that we for equal footing? Is this a further division of gallery. An additional focus lies on art works are not obliged to do so. The key-notion of keep each other in sight, still having an interest labor between public and private interests, rel- that were produced in Leipzig or are themati- our project therefore is again: publicity. The in each other. egating one to the production of exhibitions cally related to Leipzig, such as Johanna Kandl’s phenomenon we are examining is certainly not and the other to discourse around them? painting “Augustusplatz,” Via Lewandowsky’s new but the way we are dealing with it in pub- TR: I have noticed several museums or neon piece “Socialism wins,” Dorit Margreiter’s lic tries to mark a methodological difference. institutions that include programs for educat- BS: The public process starts much earlier. film about Leipzig’s modern architecture and ing and encouraging young collectors as part We have set up and have communicated the design or Dora Gracia’s work about the Stasi- But maybe I should first describe the project: of their education initiatives. Presumably it is in project in public right from its beginning. “CB past (secret police). The aim is to connect For 2008/09, we invited enterprises and collec- the institutions’ interest to foster new collec- discursive” plays an additional important role. global issues and globally working artists with tors to explain the basis of their commitment tors and private interests in the art world, as It allows us to bring in other voices and to dis- the particular history and tradition that the to art. Each of these embodies in exemplary the public institution could not survive without cuss the “art market,” “sponsoring,” “patron- GfZK is also a part of. form a particular position in their association new private interests in the arts. It seems to age,” “the labeling of art,” “cultural politics” and with art. We look at them as “model cases.” All reflect the interdependency of private collec- “private houses for art.” It offers a platform, The second building of the gallery designed have a relationship to Leipzig and/or to GfZK tors and public institutions. Can you talk a little an extension to our program where we can by AS-IF architects opened new possibilities but their activities spread beyond the local. about the museum’s role and responsibility as comment on the CB exhibitions. I don’t see a to the foundation’s collection. 2005 began The invited participants are indeed given carte an educator to the private sector? division between the production of exhibitions the preparations for the pilot-project “The blanche (CB). The museum’s infrastructure is and the discourses around them. Please note: New Collection.” As any other collection, ours made available to those invited, and in return BS: I like the idea that the institution takes Most of the protagonists of CB didn’t choose must be seen in its heterogeneity as an echo the latter assume all the costs for their project. up an active role in education processes, other curators, they chose us. This implies a of specific social interests. The intention of the GfZK is providing an introduction to the fun- although this should not be done on the basis direct involvement. project is therefore to sketch out the changes damental issues under scrutiny in its opening of a patronizing attitude. I look at it more as and ruptures in the modes of perception, in exhibition (“Friendly Enemies”), preparing the education at eye-height. Let us take CB as an TR: So, let me ask you about the role of criteria, and their impact on collecting art. The conceptual framework in which the project is example: It has been a controversial project curators then. Obviously this role is fluid in overall aim is to prompt a lively and public contained, communicating this to the outside from the beginning. We and our partners are its history and context, but how does the CB discussion about artistic quality, socio-cultural world and holding a series of accompanying confronted with ideas each of us might not fol- project position curators and collectors in rela- values and value systems, cultural consensus events (“CB discursive,” e.g. lectures, panels, low ourselves. People ask us quite often: What tion to one another? How is it different from or or dissent. The still conflicting relationship trips) to examine the role and the significance happens if one of our collaborators proposes similar to the prevalent ideas about these roles between east and west is taken as a (concep- of private commitment to art. The aim is to anything we find morally problematic? First as powerbrokers? tual) starting point. In 2006, the first exhibi- stimulate a debate on the working conditions we would try to convince them NOT to do tion within “The New Collection” was named of institutions, overt and hidden costs, the rela- it, we would like to discuss the consequences BS: Well, it has a lot to do with power. Still. “German Histories”; the second is dedicated tionship between private and public involve- for us and for him/her, exchanging arguments. Correctly, the CB project positions curators to the founding director, Klaus Werner (“KW ment. CB is considered to be a research proj- If he/she insists to continue we would accept and collectors in relation to one another, they — Hommage à Klaus Werner). Following ect in a line of projects we did before and will BUT we would also immediately start a public are forced to negotiate their concerns. This these presentations, further interpretations will do in the future. After CB we want to focus on debate about the problematic aspects. implies the necessity to set up limits and bor- be developed in close collaborations with art- alternative economic models, which have been ders and includes all kinds of irritations, which ists, designers and teachers. developed by artists. Giving a Carte Blanche doesn’t mean that we, might result out of these processes. It is difficult the curators of the GfZK lean back and step to foresee the output of CB. Generally speak- The biggest difference I see between our Economic questions will be constantly raised out of the debate. To put it differently: We ing I think art institutions shouldn’t slip into a collection and a private one lies in the notion within the program, in relation to art, art insti- are challenging our partners and they are chal- defensive role. I prefer a more active approach, of publicity, understood as public debate and tutions, art market, and the politics of visibility. lenging us. You could also say this is a mutually which takes failures into consideration. If we negotiations of potential common concerns, Not all 4 private collectors want to show their educating process. During the course of the don’t take up any risk we will become dispens- values and areas of identification. collection, e.g. one decided for an older art- projects, expectations and limits will be con- able, to put it differently: the institutions would ist from West-Berlin, Dieter Finke, who was stantly negotiated. And for sure there will be a lose their credibility and necessity. Who would TR: As you say, the GfZK is like any other quite known in the 1960s and 1970s but who lot of limitations on all sides. need them any longer? I am very much inter- collection an “echo of specific social interests,” is nowadays – as this collector says – highly ested in the (public) potential of art institutions, but from an American perspective where underestimated and almost invisible. The One more remark regarding our educa- especially in museums, and our program can museums depend mostly on private support “Circle of Friends of Hans Brosch” promotes tion program: Our education addresses more be seen as a contribution to find out what that even for “public” institutions (they are not an artist who wasn’t allowed to work in the groups and individuals than the above-men- potential is. BP public per se, but rather simply non-profit), GDR and left to the west of Germany in the tioned younger and older collectors (actually on what ground does any collection defend its 1980s. However, his expectations for financial there are hardly any). We work at a very early claim to the broader social interests? success have not been fulfilled. Despite his stage with children (+3 years), young people unique role in the dissident scene of the GDR, and adults coming from various cultural back- BS: The collection mirrors the changes, the Brosch hasn’t exhibited his artworks in major grounds and we collaborate with schools and hopes, the desire and expectations connected museums since the political changes. The two kindergartens. to it. Spheres of interest (one can also speak collectors who will present parts of their col- Courtesy: Museum of Contemporary Art Leipzig Art Contemporary of Museum Courtesy: about ideologies) are unavoidably inscribed lection want to raise a debate about collect- in collections, collections in the States are no ing, the responsibility of the collector, and his exception. Publicness comes in the moment or her relationship to the art market. One of these interests are put on display gaining vis- the two commercial galleries involved is going ibility and debate through a (heterogeneous) to exhibit the strategic decisions of its partici- public. pation at art fairs. The companies involved in the Carte Blanche project either show their TR: Carte Blanche is an experiment in pub- initiatives (such as awards for younger artists), lic and private resources for art institutions. their (particular) collection and/or the way Paraphrasing your comments elsewhere, the they work with the collection (for internal and biggest problem in the public-private relation- external use). ship has not been the influence of private col- lectors on the public interest, but rather a loss Apart from all this, we are interested in how of interest in public institutions at all on the such an interaction between the private and part of these private collectors. Is Cart Blanche the public sector might look, and what the a strategic move to retain the interest of pri- consequences of such forms of cooperation vate collectors in the public sphere? If so, is it a would be for the development of art and its “win” for the private collector over the public? institutions, especially when considered against the background of the establishment of our Friendly Enemies Curated by Barbara Steiner, Ilina Koralova., Andreja Hribernik, Julia Schäfer

15 A Collection at Work: An Interview with Friedhelm Hütte of the Deutsche Bank Collection by Tim Ridlen Courtesy: Deutsche Bank Deutsche Courtesy:

Above: Deutsche Bank

It is often bemoaned that corporations across works. Deutsche Bank has built an identity as FH: The DB Collection has always mirrored FH: The Deutsche Bank does not collect the globe have many of the same rights as a great patron and exhibitor of the arts. Why movements of contemporary art because for investment reasons, but merely for cultural individuals, yet they have so much power over does the Deutsche Bank collect art today? we always adapt our collection to impor- enrichment. We collect to show artworks to concrete and cultural spaces that they forego tant developments in the current art world. an audience that otherwise wouldn’t have the a proportionate amount of responsibility. Like Friedhelm Hütte: Art’s ability to reflect Consequently, it consists of works on paper, possibility to enjoy them in the original. Our many collections, the corporate collection lies upon the past, visualize current developments paintings and sculptures spanning a century, second aim is to support young artists by buy- somewhere between the public and the pri- and open our eyes to the future are qualities from the post-war era to the present day. ing and promoting their works. We do so, for vate with its mixed bag of financial interest and that Deutsche Bank values. The collection Due to the fact that we focus on work that instance, by supporting the Villa Romana in good intention. For this reason, one must take offers a unique and memorable encounter responds to socially relevant topics, our collec- Florence. Each year the Patrons’ Association them at their word when they say they work with contemporary art and an opportunity tion reflects the developments of art as well as of Villa Romana makes it possible for artists for cultural enrichment and not investment. to experience the work of some of the most of society. from Germany to live in Florence for a period important artists of our time outside of an art of study. Founded in 1905 by Max Klinger, Deutsche Bank spent almost €6.5 million on museum. TR: What kind of thought goes into the the Villa Romana Fellowship is not just the art in 2006, and judging from the Corporate acquisition of new works with such a large col- oldest German art prize, but also represents Social Responsibility Report of that year, TR: And furthermore, how does the collec- lection? Deutsche Bank’s longest cultural commitment: Deutsche Bank is optimistic about its financial tion express the brand identity of the bank? For more than 80 years now we have sup- commitment to the arts along with its other FH: Our main focus is on supporting young ported this renowned award for contemporary commitments to global sustainability and com- FH: Our company stands for pursuing excel- promising talents who experiment with their art in Germany. In April of this year, we will munity development. Although I don’t spend lence, leveraging unique insights, delivering own creativity and with innovative ideas. Apart show works by the current fellows of the Villa much time perusing the public initiatives innovative solutions and building long-term from that, we are also interested in new works Romana at the Deutsche Guggenheim, our of high-profile corporations, I must say it is relationships. The Deutsche Bank Collection by specific artists who are already represented Berlin-based jointed venture with the Solomon impressive that they have a Corporate Social implements these outstanding qualities com- in our collection to document their develop- R. Guggenheim Foundation. Responsibility Report at all, and their broad pletely, for example we unite our energies and ment. support of the arts as a part of that responsibil- expertise by collaborating with Deutsche Bank TR: Has the DB Collection ever sold a work ity should not be overlooked. branches and museums all over the world. Thus TR: The most important concern for an artist from the collection? we generate the right results for our world- might be the life of an artwork in the hands of a The bank launched its collection in 1979 and wide clients and leverage unique insights. Also, collector. So, where is the collection shown? Is FH: We normally don’t sell any works is presently the largest corporate collection in we want to stimulate, provoke and prompt dis- any of the work in storage or is it all on show? because we see every single piece as part of the world with over 50,000 works. They have cussion, show that we are a part of the modern the history of the collection representing a exhibition spaces on five continents including a world. FH: It’s very important for us to show as certain thought or idea. We only make rare joint venture with the Solomon R. Guggenheim many works as possible because we want to exceptions, for example when an employee Foundation in Berlin aptly branded Deutsche TR: The focus of the Deutsche Bank give our clients and colleagues the possibility to has lived together with the artwork in his office Guggenheim. Besides the collection and Collection is works on paper. Why is that? experience and enjoy our artworks. Thus, we for several years and become so fond of it that exhibition of contemporary works, mostly on always try to put at least 90% of our collection he wants to buy it when he retires. In that case, paper, the Deutsche Bank has been a long FH: We focus on works on paper because on show. Currently you can see the works in we achieve our aim of helping our colleagues time sponsor of art fairs and biennial exhibi- paper is the general medium for first ideas. our branches all over the world, in our own to become art lovers! tions, and for this reason likely needs no intro- The innovative potential is in keeping with our exhibitions (e.g. at the Deutsche Guggenheim) duction to a European audience. Friedhelm motto “Art works,” because we believe in con- or in various museums that received loans. We are now planning to sell some selected Hütte, the Director of Deutsche Bank Art, was tinuous change and improvements. Paper as an prints — editions from the bank itself — to kind enough to participate in this interview image carrier has links to all eras of the arts TR: Collections (in general) often serve to colleagues and to donate the proceeds to a via email. from architecture to music, and at the same preserve works that might otherwise be lost. non-profit organization. time this medium reflects our close ties to the On the other hand, corporate and private col- Tim Ridlen: The Deutsche Bank business world. lections potentially go unappreciated either TR: And finally, what is the annual budget Collection has branches in New York, Sydney, because the collection is seen simply as an specifically for the collection? Tokyo, London, Zurich, Milan, Luxembourg, TR: Does the current state of the DB investment, or else the collection sits silently in Düsseldorf, and Leipzig, in addition to its head- Collection represent the vision of one individ- the halls and offices of a few businesses. What FH: We prefer not to talk about simple fig- quarters in Frankfurt—not to mention the ual, such as the founder, or a recent innovator, social responsibility does the DB Collection ures, because they distract from what is really Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin. It is the largest or has it grown so large as to efface any one have to the public and to the artists? important: the artworks! BP corporate collection today with over 50,000 vision?

16 In the Spirit of Mutual Funds: Interview with Collector Rik Reinking by Georgia Kotretsos Courtesy: Artfonds 21 Collection 21 Artfonds Courtesy: Rik Reinking is a German art collector, dealer GK: And finally, let’s get down to business and curator who reportedly acquired his first with the basics for those interested out there: artwork at the age of 16, a self-portrait of the What is the fund’s per share net asset value? painter Horst Janssen, for 250 DM. RR: We have not yet spent money on an 15 years later, in April 2007, Rik Reinking, expert opinion on the question of net asset along with Dr. Martin Bouchon, Kilian Bumiller, value (NAV), but according to our own careful Prof. Dr. Ronald Moeder and Stefanie Laves estimates, the net asset value of the company de Gerbaldo founded the Artfonds 21 AG - a consisting of the acquired pieces of art and the German stock corporation with a share capital remaining cash amount of about EUR 30,000 of Euro 57,500 that collects and trades modern amounts to at least EUR 300,000, i.e. about artworks of all kinds. Despite the entrepreneur- EUR 31.25 for each share. That is the reason ial orientation of the company, it is the inten- why we sell the new shares for EUR 30. tion to acquire only art of outstanding artistic quality, and that goal has clearly prevailed. GK: Are the fund shares redeemable or sale- able at the current NAV at any time? The artists and the artworks acquired by Artfonds 21 AG, are selected by Rik Reinking, RR: As of today the shares are not redeem himself. The corporation supports the artists by able but they are certainly saleable. Should arranging contacts with galleries, other collec- any of the shareholders wish to sell the stock tors and museums. we will assist in this process. In the mid-term we intend to list Artfonds 21 AG shares on the After a considerable increase in the market Open Market of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. value, the acquired artworks are then partly The shares will therefore become tradable sold in order to realize the increase in value much easier then. and to generate the financial means for new acquisitions. GK: Is the trading of Artfonds 21 AG open to all shareholders and if yes, how? Can you As stated on the Artfonds website please provide our Boot Print readers with a (ww.artfonds-21.com), the artists and their bar chart of the fund’s annual total returns? gallery owners have two possibilities to par- ticipate in the increase of the market value. RR: Since we started our business only in Firstly, they have the possibility to contribute Maurizio Cattelan “Strategie”, 1990. April 2007, we currently only have a track pieces of art as a contribution in kind against Zeitschriften und Aluminium (neunteilig), ca. 74,5 x 79 x 20,5 cm record as to our first purchases. We have not shares in Artfonds 21 AG. Secondly, they can yet made any exits and therefore cannot pro- become a partner in the partnership Artfonds We thereby aspire to create a dynamic unity RR: It is certainly not our intention to threaten vide any return figures. We think, however, 21 Künstler GbR who shall receive 10 % of the of numerous investors and selected artists with anyone. We rather want to create a new active that it is quite obvious that the investment annual profits of Artfonds 21 AG. The contri- the intention to democratize the collecting of market participant by inviting private investors, into young promising art positions can result bution to the partnership consists of a discount art and the participation in market develop- who for the largest part have never been active in return opportunities that are above nor- when Artfonds 21 AG purchases pieces of art ments. in the art market, to provide us with funds in mal average provided the investor has some from the respective artists. amounts between EUR 2,400 and EUR 30,000. patience. GK: Artists are not particularly known to be As of today the company is still small financially. This online interview was completed in the savviest business people in the art industry, We have collected EUR 239,000 and intend GK: How could one get a hold of an Artfonds February 2008. yet you created an art fund that recognizes art- to raise an additional EUR 700,000 this year. 21 AG prospectus, where the a) investment works as capital while still in the artist’s hands. I About one third of the raised funds have been objectives, b) principal investment strategies, Georgia Kotretsos: On one hand there find the notion itself dynamite, but after looking invested in well-established positions such as a c) principal risks, d) performance, e) fees and is the Reinking Collection and on the other at this carefully, it all comes down to plain and sculpture of Maurizio Cattelan and the edition expenses, f) after-tax returns, and g) invest- Artfonds 21 AG and Artfonds 21 Künstler simple risky business, no? Is it an opportunity MAT from 1964 with pieces by Jean Tinguely, ment requirements will be clearly stated? GbR. The first represents a traditional method for artists to capitalize on their assets or a risky Man Ray, Niki de Saint Phalle, Daniel Spoerri of building an art collection and the second venture into the unknown? to name a few. The other two thirds have RR: So far the shares have only been a unique model of a German stock corpora- been invested in young promising artists such offered by way of a private placement with- tion that collects and trades art by seeking the RR: We have created two ways for artists as Amie Dicke, Dimitris Tzamouranis, Johannes out a prospectus. Starting in mid-April 2008. active participation of artists and gallerists in to participate in the company: they can either Esper, Mark Jenkins, Daniel Man, Baldur Burwitz The new shares will be offered by way of a the increase of the market value. Artfonds was contribute their artworks into Artfonds 21 AG or ZEVS. public offering in Germany and private place- only founded in April 2007 with a share capital as a contribution in kind and receive shares in ments in other countries. We will therefore of Euro 57.500, but my notes tell me you’ve the company, or they can become a member GK: What percentage of the shares do publish a properly filed and approved prospec- been an aspiring collector since you were 16. of a separate partnership (Artfonds 21 Künstler the founding members of Artfonds 21 AG, tus in mid-April 2008 in connection with the I am interested in hearing how you got from GbR) which will receive 10 % of the profits of namely Dr. Martin Bouchon, Kilian Bumiller, new capital increase. The prospectus and our point A to point B and why? Artfonds 21 AG. In order to become a mem- Prof. Dr. Ronald Moeder and Stefanie Laves de first final annual accounts will be published on ber of this partnership the artists sell us their Gerbaldo and you own? our home page www.artfonds-21.com. The Rik Reinking: My own personal collection pieces of art at a discount. As of now, three prospectus will inform amongst others about is indeed a traditional way to build a private artists have become a member of this partner- As of today, Artfonds 21 AG has about twen- the investments objectives and strategies and art collection and will remain so in the future. ship: Dimitris Tzamouranis, Johannes Esper and ty shareholders. Dr. Martin Bouchon and one fees and expenses as well as the investment With Artfonds 21 AG I created together with Daniel Man. The idea behind this model is that other private investor each hold about 22% of requirements. BP Dr. Martin Bouchon, a capital markets lawyer, the artists sacrifice a part of the income today the shares. Kilian Bumiller, myself and another

a new vehicle for a joint art collection. I am in order to receive in the future regular profit private investor each hold about 10% of the Collection Reinking Rik Courtesy: responsible for the selection, purchase and sale distributions from Artfonds 21 AG. This model shares. The other 25% of the shares are held of the art whereas Dr. Bouchon is responsible is highly accepted and appreciated by the art- by 15 shareholders, amongst others Prof. Dr. for financial, legal and other administrative mat- ists. Ronald Moeder (1%) and Stefanie Laves de ters. We invite numerous private investors to Gerbaldo (4%). make a capital contribution into the fund, enjoy GK: One thing that paints quite an empow- the art we invest in and hopefully also profit ering picture for artists is that it includes them The shareholders meeting scheduled for from a growth in market value of the pieces of in the market’s fun. If we take this a bit further, March 15, 2008 will vote on a new capital art we bought at the same time. At the same though, by thinking big in terms of number of increase. Each share with a notional value of time we also invite the artists and their gallery artists involved in this, it could potentially have EUR 25 will be sold at a price of EUR 30. The owners in whose work we invest to join the an impact on the market. Who do you think minimum investment will be 80 shares for EUR company as shareholders. The clear advantage would be first to find this scenario threatening 2,400 and the maximum investment will be for the artists is that they continue to profit and why? 1,000 shares for EUR 30,000. In exceptional from a long-term increase in market value of cases we will also accept higher investments. their works by participating in the secondary market.

Violin Joe Jones

17 Taking Matters Into One’s Own Hands: Interview with Collector Eugenio López Alonso by Georgia Kotretsos

What began almost a decade ago with Eugenio Europe, publishing catalogs/journals and even Supporting editorial projects is very impor- bers of the board of different institutions such López Alonso’s independent passion for art funding Latin American art courses at art col- tant for us because one of our main goals is as the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, has evolved today into Fundación/Colección leges and art schools outside of Mexico. In to stimulate investigation and formal studies MOCA, LACMA, and Tate among others. Jumex, one of the leading contemporary art addition, you invite twenty-five curators from about contemporary art. That’s why we have We’ve also received important curators and collections not only in Mexico, but also on abroad annually to visit your collection. What’s supported artists’ books such as Show Titles collectors such as Frédéric Bonnet, Phillipe the international scene. Fundación/Colección the fire behind this energy? You’ve taken Vol. 1 2000-2006, Stefan Brüggemann’s book; Vergne, Yasmil Raymond and Doryun Chong, Jumex is located adjacent to the juice factory matters into your own hands, please enlight- Ciudad Moderna by Terence Gower; Diez Olga Viso, Mari Carmen Ramírez and Richard complex operated by the Jumex Corporation, en the Boot Print readers on what you’ve Cuadras alrededor del Estudio by Francis Alÿs; Flood just to mention a few. set in an industrial zone in Ecatepec, in the accomplished... It might have gone underneath Melanie Smith‘s Ciudad Espiral, and others. We State of Mexico, on the outskirts of greater our radar — an exhibition we all might have have also supported publishing catalogs like For our curatorial program, once a year we Mexico City. This site includes a main gallery seen, or a book we might have read or even Gabriel Orozco’s Museo del Palacio de Bellas invite a guest curator to do an interpretation with over 1400 square meters of exhibition a class we might have taken, could have been Artes, Cadáver Exquisito by Thomas Glassford, of La Colección Jumex and organize an exhi- space, as well as offices, a library, and storage the result of your passion for Latin American Goth by Dr. Lakra, and Visión antiderrapante bition. Theory of Leisure was the first reading for the entire collection, which now numbers contemporary art. by Pablo Vargas-Lugo, among others. of the collection and had Dan Cameron as its more than 1,800 works of all disciplines. The guest curator, (January 31 - August 31, 2002). permanent collection originally consisted of key Eugenio López Alonso: I’d say that the About the curators you mentioned, every year This year Jessica Morgan from the Tate Modern works from the 1960s that belonged to move- force behind all this work, behind what we about 150 curators, museum directors and art- will be curating the sixth interpretation of La ments like Minimalism and Conceptual Art. are doing at the Fundación/Colección Jumex ists from around the world come to visit our Colección Jumex opening in September 2008. Over time, works by artists active in the 1990s comes out of a conviction, out of a dedication facilities and exhibits on their own. We don’t were added to the collection with works from to the arts in Mexico and in the world. When I have a specific tracking system about our visi- Because of the subsequent creation of the Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Brazil, as well as began to get involved in contemporary art and tors, but I could mention outstanding people Fundación Jumex, which works hand in hand new works by emerging artists from Mexico. to put together La Colección Jumex, I knew such as Joël Girard from Centre Pompidou, with La Coleccion Jumex. and the arrival there was really nothing like it in the country Henry Muñoz III, Museo Alameda, and mem- continued on page 19

In other words, La Colección is the larg- and I wanted there to be a way for people in Jumex Fundación/Collección of courtesy Photo est private art collection in Latin America Mexico to get closer to international contem- and the largest collection of Latin American porary art, to participate in it. art in the world. I feel it’s necessary to name drop a few Latin American artists in the col- Fundación/Colección Jumex has supported lection such as Gabriel Orozco, Francis Alÿs, many great artistic projects such as Obstruction Miguel Calderón, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Daniel in the Highway, a Project by Santiago Sierra Guzmán, Minerva Cuevas, Dr. Lakra, Pablo in Mexico City’s South Peripheral Ring; Vargas-Lugo, Luis Felipe Ortega, Gabriel Kuri, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer / Pabellón Mexico Jorge Méndez-Blake, Carlos Amorales as well at The Venice Biennale; and Spider Galaxy, a as international ones: Douglas Gordon, Olafur PERFORMA and Fundación/Colección Jumex Eliasson, Ugo Rondinone, Thomas Hirschhorn, commission featured in Mexico, New York and Sharon Lockhart, Fischli & Weiss, Louise Lawler, within a few months also San Antonio. Paul McCarthy, Urs Fischer, Doug Aitken, Vija Celmins, Wilhelm Sasnal, Wolfgang Tillmans, About exhibitions, we supported Pocket Sherrie Levine, Richard Pettibone and many Universe by Armin Keller at the Hammer more. Museum, Francis Alÿs exhibition, and Gabriel Orozco at the Palacio de Bellas Artes just to Georgia Kotretsos: My research tells mention a few, and we also provide annual me that Latin American contemporary art support to contemporary art institutions in as we know it today has a great deal to do the form of grants so they can support their with you, from backing grandiose experimen- artistic and educational programming. Some of tal and conceptual installations to backing solo these institutions include Museo Tamayo Arte and group exhibitions in Mexico and abroad, Contemporáneo, Oficina para Proyectos de as well as sponsoring Latin American-focused Arte, Museo Experimental EL ECO and Casa museum programs in the US, circulating Latin del Lago among others. artworks, promoting exhibitions in the US and

Exterior view of Fundación/Colección Jumex

Collector Eugenio López Alonso and Executive Director of Fundación/Colección Jumex, Abaseh Mirvali

18 Photo courtesy of Fundación/Collección Jumex Fundación/Collección of courtesy Photo

Library of Fundación/Colección Jumex Photo courtesy of Fundación/Collección Jumex Fundación/Collección of courtesy Photo

expanding the field of contemporary art appre- artists, but to those from across the globe. ciation through diverse and innovative pro- Definitely, I don’t think of art as a matter of gramming to create new alliances and enhance nations or frontiers. We can’t compare our- the ones we already made. Social responsibility selves to New York, but we really aren’t that is crucial for us, as we believe in sharing with far behind! our community what we have been privileged in creating. The people that visit us, whether GK: How well do you know your artists? Is it they are art professionals or people from the all business or do you party with them? neighborhood, are generally amazed by our space, by our programs and by the collection. ELA: Beyond just collecting works of art, I So I think we have had a really positive impact appreciate getting to know the artists, so yes, on the vision people have of Latin America I am friends with several of those whose work when they think of contemporary art. We have I’ve collected. I enjoy our conversations, which supported a lot of spaces and artists, enabling often allow me to understand their work in dif- them to move forward, and through all these ferent ways; there’s always a new way of look- collaborations, we’ve also learned a lot about ing at things, something new to learn. Besides, Reception area of Fundación/Collección Jumex our own ideas and goals. my team at La Colección has developed a continued from page 18 decade. A few people have been crucial to its great relationship with the artists because a creation and I am grateful to them. I must also As part of this learning process, our institu- nice group of them participate in the work- of Abaseh Mirvali to the team as Executive thank Abaseh as she has shaped the Fundación tion has grown, and with each new goal we shops, lectures and conferences in our educa- Director of both, we’ve been able to expand Jumex, gave it a legal structure, and we are meet we further expand our horizons. We see tional programs. our support for other institutions, artists and now growing much faster and expanding our the new space that the Fundación/Colección exhibitions. It is an important part of our mis- programming in every area ambitiously. She is Jumex is building in Mexico City as a satellite GK: Do you live with any artworks of La sion to be able to help Mexican students with also the person that is leading the expansion of our current gallery in Ecatepec. We have Coleccion Jumex? If yes, what is that like for their studies abroad, as well as to assist other project in the city. built an important library focusing on contem- you, living with the art, I mean? art institutions in creating exhibitions, catalogs porary art and we’ll have a better facility for and exhibition programming. I met Estella when I was 26 and she helped that, and students and others won’t have to ELA: Art is one of the most important things me to get in touch with a lot of people around travel so far to consult these materials. We’ll in my life, and that is the reason I always try Beyond the Fundación/Colección Jumex, I the artistic scene in LA. She, as many people also have more space dedicated to educational to have art around me wherever I am. I enjoy have become closely involved in a few major I’ve known through my life, shared her knowl- programming, for offices, and of course, there having pieces not only in my house or apart- spaces in the US, including the New Museum in edge about contemporary art with me. will be a cutting edge exhibition space for the ment but I also enjoy looking at them in some New York and the Museum of Contemporary Collection. We want to reach new audiences of the Grupo Jumex offices and at offices of Art in Los Angeles. I like to stay active and cur- GK: How did the closing of the Mexico City’s and a more central location is surely going to some good friends who like myself, appreciate rent to have a sense of what is going on in the Centro Cultural/Arte Contemporaneo in the allow that, though we aren’t going to ignore contemporary art. art world, wherever it is happening. late 90s impact the artists? How did the open- our current space, which will still offer pro- ing of La Coleccion Jumex exhibition space gramming to all audiences. For me, living with art is a full day experience, GK: What has taken you from the family at the Jumex industrial complex impact the I always find something new in each piece, business to the art world? Talk to me about views of international art professionals on Latin We hope to open the new space in 2011, selecting the pieces to be in my spaces, tak- your encounter with art dealer Estella Provas American contemporary art? What is your and thus be able to celebrate the first decade ing them to different places are very important in Beverly Hills back in 1993. How old were vision and mission of the new space? of the Colección Jumex in two places simulta- decisions to me. The best and more adequate you then? neously. spaces are devoted to them in my house, ELA: To lose any space dedicated to art is they’re the stars! ELA: My life has always been connected to really unfortunate, and even more so when GK: Is Mexico City the New York for Latin art, first as a side interest, really, and then as that space organized exhibitions as important American artists or for everybody? At this moment in my apartment in Mexico my absolute passion and my life. I began learn- as those that appeared at the CC/AC. Yes, I City I have different art pieces from artists such ing more about contemporary art in the 90s, do think it was a tremendous loss for artists ELA: I think Mexico City has a tremendous as Francis Alÿs, Carl André, Louise Bourgeois, and that’s really when things got more serious and for the public. amount to offer artists. It is an excellent place Andreas Gursky, Jim Hodges, Jasper Jones, and structured. All of this closely follows the to get work done, to learn new things and to Donald Judd, Louise Lawler, Sherrie Levine, expansion of the company, and actually, my But our space hasn’t really sought to replace show work because here we have such a wide Paul McCarthy, Gabriel Orozco, Raymond family has always supported this project of any other institution or cast anyone else in variety of cultural institutions. And this oppor- Pettibone, Rudolf Stingel and Cy Twombly to mine, especially as it has grown over the past our shadow; instead we are just focusing on tunity doesn’t only extend to Latin American mention some of them. BP

19 Building a Collection of Contemporary Art in Africa: Interview with Collector Sindika Dokolo by Shannon Fitzgerald Courtesy: Foundation Sindika Dokolo Sindika Foundation Courtesy:

Fernando Alvim, Sindika Dokolo, Simon Njami

Sindika Dokolo is a Congolese-born, Luanda- major Belgian collector of pre-Colombian and tance made available to the African public. I have access to the art world. My ambition is based businessman, community leader, activ- what used to be called “primitive African art”. thought about it; it was ten times over my bud- to constitute over the years the best possible ist, and art collector who began building I used to spend all my week ends at his place get, but I realized it was important and decided contemporary collection in Africa. Not the upon one of the most important collections in Waterloo near Brussels. I was only a child, to do it. I bought around six hundred pieces in most expensive one or the biggest one in vol- of contemporary art in Africa in 2003. He but he took me in like a friend and shared his one go and decided to incorporate 250 works ume, but the one that stimulates and enriches founded the Sindika Dokolo African Collection passion with me. He taught me that objects in the Sindika Dokolo collection that I really the best the African art scene. of Contemporary Art (SDACCA) based in have a soul and can carry a meaning so strong liked. I decided to donate the rest to the future Luanda, Angola with the goal of exposing the they can mark your life in unexpected ways. museum of contemporary art of Luanda. Since SF: Now that you have housed the collection African public to its own contemporary pro- He gave me the bug of collecting. then, the collection grew, it has now about a in Luanda, Angola and created a public forum duction. Since its inception, the foundation thousand pieces. for ideas and exhibitions, moving forward, how has launched the first African Triennnial in the Years later, in Paris, I stumbled upon a Jean- do you build upon what you have acquired and heart of the continent. Plans are underway Michel Basquiat while searching for an apart- SF: Was the most important goal of acquir- have impact locally? for the Triennial De Luanda in 2010 and Mr. ment. Being exposed to Basquiat’s painting for ing this collection to return it to Africa, particu- Dokolo’s dream of creating the first Centre the first time was such an incredible moment, I larly sub-Saharan Africa? SD: I am completely obsessed with the idea for Contemporary Art in Luanda in 2012 is remember it as if it happened in slow motion. of creating a museum of contemporary art in becoming a reality. Works from the collec- Art had never made me feel that way before. SD: I am very proud of the collection. Yet Luanda. I think it is the next step. I am also tion were featured in the first official African The painting revealed very intimate and con- I think it manages to be more than a number interested in establishing a museum in Congo. Pavillion at the 52nd Venice Biennale of con- fused feelings, and yet in a deep and crystal of aesthetic objects put together because of Right now, the art market in Angola and Congo temporary art in 2007 in an exhibition entitled clear way. It explored feelings in ways I never how it is exposed to an African audience. It (less in Angola) remains decorative and schol- Check List-Luanda Pop, curated by Fenando thought possible — stress, strength, emo- interacts with it, confronts it, celebrates it, arly with the only objective being able to make Alvim and Simon Njami. The collection boasts tion, identity, fear, violence, sex. I realized at challenges it. Try to imagine for a second a something beautiful, sell it, and make a living. If works by some of the most prominent African that moment how colours on a canvas could situation where none of the masterpieces of I could use the critical mass of the collection artists with international visibility such as express human emotions in such an accurate Indiana, Lichtenstein, Warhol, or Rothko would to create a market based on a stronger artis- Kendell Geers, Ghada Amer, Yinka Shonibare, way, while words seem too limited, too clum- be available on American soil. What would be tic perspective, I think it would already be an Billi Bidjocka, Ingrid Mwangi, William Kentridge, sy. Later, after much hunting and negotiation, I the impact on European societies and people amazing achievement. Olu Oguibe, Marlene Dumas, Chris Ofili, and eventually acquired it, which I think must have if you took away Da Vinci, Vermeer, Vangogh, Pascale Marthine Tayou, among others. Of cost as much as the entire collection. Pharynx is Manet, Schiele, Giacometti, Picasso, Gaudi, SF: The collection has grown significantly equal importance is the support and platform a very special piece to me. It has changed the Duchamp on the one hand and Hirst, Soulage, since 2003 with your additions. What is the provided to artists not as well known and way I look at art and relate to it, it has revealed Beuys, Fontana, Lucian Freud on the other philosophy behind building the collection and emerging Angolan artists. In addition to the to me how powerful, intense and yet beau- hand. Well that is the cultural desert, the civili- creating the Sindika Dokolo Foundation in African art collected, Mr. Dokolo is commit- tiful and minimal contemporary art could be, zational nightmare that the foundation is trying Luanda? ted to including important art by artists such as it has taught me what African contemporary to eradicate. Andy Warhol and Basquiat not before made art should be : expressive, audacious, rhythmic, SD: In the collection, I have a personal and accessible in Africa. With the rise in interna- sensual, universal. Angola, which has only been independent intimate relationship with each object and at tional group exhibitions across the globe, since 1975, has been destroyed by the several the same time the collection has an existence perhaps Luanda will become the next critical SF: Until recently, the most important collec- wars it’s had to face. First against the colonial- of its own because its main goal is to expose destination for curators, collectors, and art tions of contemporary African art were based ist Portuguese, then against the racist South the African public to its contemporary creation. enthusiasts. in Europe: the Jean Pigozzi Collection in France Africa of the 80s and finally against internation- When I buy art, I don’t imagine how it would and the Hans Bogatzke Collection in Belgium. ally backed rebels. Despite all the suffering and look like in my living room, since its objective is In 2003, you acquired the private collection destruction, it is a country that is recovering to be exhibited. I also have to consider its per- of the late German collector Hans Bogatzke from its wounds. Contrary to what people tinence with other pieces that I already have. Shannon Fitzgerald: What first led you based in Belgium. How did that come about? think, the reason for this spectacular rebirth is to begin collecting art? not the price of oil, but it is the inner strength Yet, at the end of the day I’m not a museum, SD: It begins with my friendship with Angolan of the Angolan people. Angolans are deter- I’m a collector. I like art in a very personal way. Sindika Dokolo: My parents had a lot to artist and curator Fernando Avlim. He is an mined and lively, they are altruist and strong. I would never buy art that I don’t approve of do with it. My father was Congolese, my moth- incredible human being : very generous and yet They are also sensitive and passionate about or that doesn’t seduce me or attract me. There er is Danish, I grew up in Paris. Our house has demanding, highly productive, resourceful, and their country and their culture. Our first presi- are several aspects that I personally consider therefore always been an interesting cultural creative. He has an amazing ability to mix art, dent, Agostinho Neto, was a poet. His poems when I buy a work of art. The aesthetic has to mix. These different backgrounds have induced politics, philosophy, and identity at the same about his country and the fight for freedom please me of course, but most important for very early a strong subjectivity and personality time. He introduced me to emerging artists not only for us but for Namibia, South Africa me are the artistic “language” of the artist ( is in my taste. My parents took me to museums and the Bogatzke collection. Right after 9-11, I and Zimbabwe who only overruled apartheid it dominated or still too intuitive), the meaning, around the world, I had the chance to discover received the terrible news of Bogatzke’s pass- in the 80s and 90s are taught in all the Angolan the dialogue between the work and its audi- Athens and the Greek classical aesthetic, the ing. Soon after, Alvim contacted me and asked schools. At the peak of the war, when there ence, the elegance of the artist, his universal Prado and the Louvre at a very early age. me to buy the collection. It was an urgent wasn’t enough food, the government was ambition and the credibility of his approach. request based on his desire to protect the col- importing musical instruments from Bulgaria The second influence comes from one of my lection as a whole and bring it to Africa where and bringing in Russian ballet professors from SF: Your collection was recently featured in father’s closest friends, Mr. Jean Cambier, a it would be the first collection of that impor- Russia. Such a people needs and deserves to the exhibition Check List-Luanda Pop, for the

continued on page 21 20 Courtesy: Foundation Sindika Dokolo Sindika Foundation Courtesy: Dokolo Sindika Foundation Courtesy:

African Pavilion of the 52nd Bienale of Venice /How to blow up two heads at once, Yinka Shonibare, 2006 Triennial Luanda/Educational program at Soso Correio

continued from page 20 African Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale. a living aesthetic statement and the ultimate Artists like Ghada Amer, Tracey Rose, Ingrid Africa and civil war, reconstruction and eco- It was curated by Fernando Avlim and romantic hero. I think he is even more iconic Mwangi, Minnette Vári or Marlene Dumas are nomic stabilization mixed with urban explo- Cameroonian, Paris-based Simon Njami. What than Nelson Mandela. I was walking down the super skilled artists. As empowered African sion, and structurally, political approach of cul- was the most significant thing about that expe- street in London and bumped into the picture women, they also explore and confront the ture, a philosophical need for self-affirmation rience that has stayed with you? in a gallery. It managed to convey everything boundaries of our male controlled societies and identity and cultural determination. Ali was about without even depicting his face. and invite us in their world where death, sex, SD: Alvim and Njami are strong curators with Wow! I thought it showed the genius of the gender or race are redefined by them with a The other distinction has to do with the way strong ideas, and they took a risk and created a subject as well as that of the artist. Let’s not unique accuracy and liberty of approach that is the event interacts with the city and its popu- great exhibition; I am proud of that. Our objec- forget what a brilliant artist Warhol was before bound to make us evolve. lation. There is such a thirst for novelty and tive was to show what Luanda Pop is about, being recuperated as a show off artefact by national culture that the whole population and to celebrate the fact that for once it was yuppies who have no interest in art. The same works internationally with artists without limits of age or social groups celebrates Africans (curators, artists, patrons) who got to like Jenny Savile, Vanessa Beecroft, Tracey creativity and cultural richness. invite and show Africa to a western audience It resonated on another level too. Why is it Emin, Shirin Neshat or Nikki de St Phale. and not the other way around. However, after that Africans do not have access to univer- It happens in 15 different spaces in the city, all the controversy surrounding the African sal culture? How come we have never seen SF: Do you envision your collection growing it is very contemporary, and it promotes vari- Pavilion in Venice, I decided to focus on the Karel Appel, Calder, Basquiat, and Warhol? So with more North African Artists in the future? ous media of expression: video, performances, mission of the Foundation, its role in Africa, and I bought it, took it to Luanda, and included it in theatre, contemporary dance, design, and even how it could have the most impact there. For the Triennial. It’s been printed on an out board SD: For various reasons, North Africa is a fashion. It works a little bit like a carnival in the now, I strive to affect change on the ground, in the street for months and people loved it. very prolific area for interesting art. sense that it is popular and inclusive, the whole where it is so necessary and worthy. This trend In this new context, it became a cultural refer- city beats to the rhythm of the Triennial — 3 of saying that Africa’s worst enemies are its ence, a symbol of the Luanda Pop experience. First, it’s geographically linked to the months before and 3 months after. About 100 elites is shameful, stupid and racist. It’s all the Mediterranean region and is thus an interface billboards in the city are offered to the Triennial more sad when these simplistic theories are SF: Your collection includes many women between continents (Europe, Middle East, community during 6 months. We expose art or developed by Africans. artists – women artists who are breaking down Africa) that have differences in culture, religion, cultural information everywhere in the streets. boundaries, challenging perceptions, and gain- perception of global issues. Topics such as Art invites itself in the urban jungle of Luanda SF: Are you interested in expanding your ing visibility like no other time in our history. religion and civilization gaps, geopolitics, migra- and feeds a new cultural fact: Luanda Pop. collection to include artists of the European How do you see the role of women artists and tions, social and cultural issues like women’s and/or American Diaspora in your collection? their support improving in Africa? status and self-affirmation constitute very inter- SF: Looking forward, what do you hope to esting grounds for exploration for pertinent achieve for the Triennial De Luanda 2010? SD: The only reason why I differentiate SD: I’m interested in art that confronts soci- new artists. African art from art in general is because I can ety with its flaws, injustices, identity and moral SD: My hope is that it will be as good as the not accept to live in a continent that has no issues. Whether because of culture, religion or Northern Africa is also very interesting first one in terms of freshness and impact on reference, no point of view no perspective, more generally sub-development linked issues, because of the importance of emigration Angolan society. My dreams are many: I want past or present. Not only do I want to buy art women’s status in Africa is, as the oppressed towards Europe after the Second World War. to organize a Basquiat exhibition in Luanda from the Diaspora ( I never actually do it con- often are when they fight, in an ideal position A lot of young artists of Northern African ori- as soon as we have a proper venue; I want sciously), but I want to buy art without bound- for severe questioning and confrontation. Even gin who are European born with African back- to launch an artist-in-residence program in aries. Maybe not within the collection, but as I more so when it comes to artistic practice. I ground make stunning works and proposals the desert of Namibe (South of Angola) on tried to express before, my point is to make like it when artists’ proposals disturb, challenge, related to issues such as identity and confront a site that we identified with my friend Miquel an African collection of art, not a collection create polemics. It induces a dimension of the old continent from within — about its eth- Barcelo; I want to invite for the Triennial artists of African art. By the way, one of the great- intensity and necessity that makes the artwork ics, its capacity to absorb novelty and regen- that don’t necessarily have connections with est things I bought last year was a Chris Ofili. not only interesting in itself, but also pertinent erate itself and to live the true meaning of the African Art scene but that I like, such as Its as big as a postage stamp. I love it, it is my within its historical and societal context. the concept of global plurality. Artists such as Anish Kapoor, Banksy, or even Damian Hirst, favourite. His work inspires me to look further. Zoulikha Bouabdellah, Fatmi Mounir or Kader and why not living legends like Cy Twombly I want to start a significant African-American Confronting people’s established ideas Attia are very interesting in that perspective. or Lucian Freud. I realize that it might be dif- collection and try to gain a larger perspective. I requires courage. Without wanting to sound ficult to organize, but my paradox as a collector am beginning a long road trip in this endeavour sexist, I think female artists are often more SF: What is distinct about the Triennial De is that I have very little interest in the market. that I hope will last a life time. courageous than male and tend to be more Luanda, specifically in respect to the Dakar What I love is art and what interests me is accurate when exploring sensitive areas. Biennial, the Cairo Biennial, and the now how art works on people, how it impacts and SF: In addition to your Jean-Michel Basquiat, defunct Johannesburg Biennial? interacts with them, and how it changes them. you have an Andy Warhol in your collection. The women artists I’ve had the chance to Art is universal, and the best possible art is the What is your interest in that work specifically? meet seemed, as people, very coherent with SD: The particularity of the Triennial is that it most universal one, the one that will constitute their work, while men sometimes manage corresponds to an artistic movement that we the common asset of human kind and mark its SD: Muhammad Ali is without a doubt one to take some distance more easily. Maybe called “Luanda Pop.” Luanda Pop was part of time. Therefore, by not considering the impor- of the most iconic persons of the twentieth because being a woman, whether you are the name of the African Pavilion in the 52nd tance of sharing that fundamental asset with century: first, I love boxing, I used to be a African or American, is still a challenge in our Biennale of Venice. This movement is conjec- the Africans, the developed world confiscates boxer and I was born in Kinshasa a little bit modern societies. turally the result of several factors: peace after a little bit of our humanity. My opinion, and the before the rumble in the jungle. Second, he is 30 years of war against apartheid in South battle of my foundation, is that it is true that

continued on page 22 21 continued from page 21

being very poor and still unable to provide for art can be for people in our modern societ- duction within a vast continent. Do you see SF: In conclusion, Is there anything else about our own populations, we need food, medicines ies. That’s why one of the projects that has your work as contributing to the reposition of your collecting philosophy or your foundation and assistance, but at the same time, as long already been defined is a series of works by art historical discourse? you would like to share? as we don’t get books, professors, and as long the Cameroonian artist Bili Bidjocka, where he as the world doesn’t help us create museums reflects and echoes between his perspective as SD: Strong and lively art expression exist- SD: One cannot understand Luanda Pop if where we can see the treasures of our past an artist and Joseph Beuys’s. ed in Africa before post modernists tried to they don’t understand that I am a collector on cultures — Delacroix, Picasso, Lucio Fontana analyze or categorize it. I think it is time for a mission. or Warhol — the need for assistance will never I would also like to invite Ghada Amer Africa, for good or for bad, to be defined by stop. That is also the logic of the Triennial and to make a landscape that could stay like a the Africans themselves. Curators and intellec- My perspective is clearly political, the aim of I hope it will be a success in bringing these work of art for the city of Luanda, as well as tuals like Okwui Enwezor, Simon Njami, and the Foundation is to raise awareness within important issues forward, both for the public Miquel Barcelo and Chris Ofili. Besides that, Olu Oguibe, artists like Bidjocka, Alvim, Tayou, the African public opinion and set a battlefield and the art world. I would like some of the African artists that I Mofokeng, politicians and all Africans that have where post independent Africans will be able find critically important for any young African a strong opinion about the matter constitute to contribute to the well-being of future gen- SF: Can you share with us names of artists to know about to participate in the Triennial and enrich the mosaic of Africanness in the erations. The collection is a cultural weapon that will be participating? and leave a trace of their passage. People like twenty-first century. By creating an opportunity around which Luanda Pop gravitates. It works Kendell Geers, Ingrid Mwangi, Olu Oguibe, El for all these people to gather and along with like an electroshock, questioning our percep- SD: Being originally from the DRC, I would Anatsui, Oladele Bamgboyé, Tracey Rose, Julie the African public reflect through their work tion of the “established fact,” wherever it pre- like to create some bridges with my country Mehretu, Marlene Dumas, Wangeshi Mutu and on these fundamental and existential issues, vents us from getting closer to our goal. of origin where contemporary art is struggling Sue Williamson are fundamental. the collection participates actively in enabling so much to have a proper scene, market and Africans to take back control of the discourse I want my children, their cousins and friends, public. Certain groups of young artists — like SF: Are there plans underway to document and about African modernity. to have a clear consciousness of themselves. I Lybrists and Eza possibly in Kinshasa or the publish your collection in a printed catalogue? want them to have an intelligent and demand- Vicanos in Lubumbashi — are trying to orga- Fifty years after our independences, we are ing look on the world, and most of all, I want nize the Congolese scene but are still fragile SD: We are currently working on several still looking at ourselves through the eyes of that look to be their own. and need exposure. The Triennial de Luanda projects regarding the content of the collection. others. The way to correct that is, in the long would be a great opportunity to invite them First, there is a catalogue that should be ready term, to work on culture, awareness, and self- SF: Such hope, optimism, vision, and hard to join and become a part of Luanda Pop by for the end of the year. We are also working consciousness That is why one of the aims of work goes a long way. I look forward to the receiving some of our experience and partici- on a website that is almost finished, and on a the Foundation is to make knowledge about future of contemporary art in Luanda and pating in our quest for our own contempo- documentary film about Luanda Pop. The dif- our history, philosophers, and artists available beyond! Thank you Sindika! ranety, aesthetic and Africanness. ficulty with the catalogue is that there is too to the public. With time, we might be able much to show and to explain. With the help to free ourselves from the “referent,” the Luanda Pop and the Triennial are not about of friends like Simon Njami and Iris Buchholz big brother inside ourselves that is constantly For more information about the Sindika selling art or desperately trying to prove to the I’m nevertheless very enthusiastic about that watching us and judging from a perspective Dokolo Foundation, please visit the website at: world that African contemporaneity exists. It’s project. that is not ours. In the art field, it is the same http://www.sindikadokolofoundation.org/ a time and a place that invites artists to inter- logic, trying to create a market by giving the act with a public they never expected to exist. SF: This moment in contemporary art rep- opportunity to young artists to have access It’s a place where art comes first and artists resents an exciting juncture as the visibility to the world, to the history of art, but also don’t need to justify themselves or become of a contemporary Africa and contemporary to confront them with their public, we are merchants. It’s the ideal place for experimen- African art continues to shape and define per- helping them to participate in that redefinition tal proposals and deep reflection on what ceptions about the aesthetic and cultural pro- of ourselves by ourselves.

A Contested Collection by Seoidín O’Sullivan

Hugh Lane is best known for establishing Lane Hugh The Gallery, City Dublin Courtesy: Monet, Rousseau and Degas. Lane was a gen- Dublin’s Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, erous collector. Lucy Mc Diarmid states in The the first known public gallery of modern art Irish Art of Controversy that, “He removed all in the world. This year, in an exclusive and the modern paintings he bought, more than momentous occasion, the Gallery will feature 39, from the capitalistic world of investments, all 39 pieces of the Hugh Lane Gift. For the risks, bargains, fortunes made and lost, and put first time in a century the entire collection will them into the gift economy that was quite dif- be permanently displayed in Ireland’s capital, in ferent.” 3 accordance with the last wishes of Hugh Lane himself. Dublin Corporation, as the City Council was then known, formed a committee to raise the Born in 1875 in Cork, Hugh Lane was a suc- necessary funds for the new building, but over cessful art collector and dealer. Passionate, the five years, attempts to secure a building driven and self-taught with a keen sense of the were largely unsuccessful. More than one third market, he quickly acquired a small fortune. of Dublin’s poor lived in slums; support for the With these profits, he built up an impres- modern art gallery was met with complaints of sive modern art collection. As a collector, his wasted funds that support the cultural elite. The intention was to expose his art collection to most successful idea for the proposed building the public by removing it from the private was for a building over the Liffey River, like that collector’s domain. His inspiration and motiva- of the Uffizi gallery in Florence. It was pointed tion was that an Irish modern art gallery was out to Lane that nobody went across the river important to inspire and develop young Irish except the workers. “Lane said that was the artists. He claimed, “Such a gallery of modern whole idea: the workers would help a) build art would be necessary to the student if we the gallery and b) benefit by seeing the pic- are to have a distinct school of Irish painting in tures. Both the Irish Independent and Catholic Ireland, for it’s one’s contemporaries that teach papers like The Standard said that if the workers one the most.”1 were educated beyond the station in life that God had seen fit to call them, who then would The Municipal Gallery of Modern Art was work.”4 The creation of employment through established and opened on January 1908 in the building of a Municipal Gallery achieved the temporary premises in Clonmel House, Dublin. support of Irish socialist leaders, Plunkett and Hugh Lane offered his conditional gift of 39 Connolly. (Both were later assasinated during paintings to the Dublin Municipality if a suit- the Easter Rising of 1916). Building the gallery able permanent building was found to house was then alleged to be a communist plot. the art collection and “on the condition that they are always on view free to the public.”2 A frustrated Lane removed his conditional Amongst the 39 works that made up Lane’s gift on 27 September 1913 in order to put the gift were paintings by Corot, Renoir, Manet, Dublin Corporation under pressure to build Above: Hugh Lane the gallery. He then offered his collection to the London National Gallery for display but some

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22 of the modern paintings including Renoirs Les Lane Hugh The Gallery, City Dublin Courtesy: return of Hugh Lane Collection attempted to When I ask Barbra Dawson, director of The Parapluies were deemed unworthy by London negotiate the rightful ownership of the works. Hugh Lane Gallery, if the theft at the Tate and not exhibited. Insulted, Lane withdrew So how did Dublin eventually convince London helped to accelerate the process of negotia- his gift stating, “I should never have dreamed to share the paintings? tion, she responds, “Yes, definitely,” reminding of submitting my pictures to the board who me that the Irish were seen to be a serious have no competence as experts in Modern It was in 1959, 44 years after Hugh Lane’s threat at this time in England. IRA bombings Painting.”5 In February 1914, Lane was elected Death that the first agreement was made were going on in London, Belfast and the bor- to the post of Director to the National Gallery between the Irish and British governments der regions of Ulster in the 1950s. of Ireland, where he chose to forgo his salary of regarding the collection. It seems like it was £500 and put it into the grant for the purchase a long process of negotiation from 1908 to My father tells me that when he was twelve of the Irish National Gallery’s pictures. 1959. And indeed it was. Long enough to force he visited the Hugh Lane Collection in Dublin action. On April 12, 1956, two Irish students and remembers seeing Les Parapluies. He had On May 1, 1915, the Lusitanian passenger and stole one of the 39 contested Lane paintings read locally that at that time only a portion of cargo ship departed New York City bound for from the Tate Gallery in London. Paul Hogan the collection was displayed in Dublin, and it Liverpool. Hugh Lane was on his return from and his companion in theft stole the Jour D’Ete was seen as a point of national pride that the New York having just bought Sargent’s President by Berthe Morisot. agreement had been won and that England had Woodrow Wilson, which is now housed in the been made to share the collection. As a result, Irish National Gallery. Unknown to her pas- “The paintings were hung on chains and pro- many people who had never visited a gallery sengers the cargo consisted of munitions and viding you could unhook it, it was relatively made the effort and viewed some of the Hugh supplies destined for the British war effort. On easy to take it off the wall but taking it out the Lane collection displayed at the gallery. May 7, as the ship neared the coast of Ireland, it Les Parapluies gallery was something else again. The approach was torpedoed by a German submarine. Hugh Pierre-Auguste Renoir we adopted was the most obvious one, the In June and July of this year, Hugh Lanes col- Lane was drowned with 1,198 of the 1,959 Sir Hugh Lane Bequest 1917 on loan from The theory that normal behavior attracts no atten- lection of 39 pictures can be seen in its entirety people aboard. National Gallery, London since 1979 tion. I was an art student and I had a portfolio for the first time since 1908 (www.hughlane. and I had established certain rights in the gal- ie). They will be hung in The Hugh Lane Dublin In his will Lane left his 39 paintings to London’s On Easter Sunday I stepped out of the gallery lery but I had been working there for some City Gallery and for those two months when National Gallery in order to found a collection for my lunch break. On the back of a truck out- days and I was a familiar figure so I was allowed visitors ask for Renoir’s Les Parapluies I can of modern continental art. Later a codicil to his side was a man singing The Foggy Dew, with to move through the gallery and extraordinarily point them in the direction of where the paint- will found in his desk at the National Gallery of which you may be familiar (Sinead O’Connor out of the gallery with this valuable painting. ing is hung. Ireland stated: “Hugh Lane. 3 February 1915. and The Chieftains do a great version of the This is a codicil to my last will to the effect song): “Ultimately we intended giving it back because that the group of pictures, now at the London of course the intention was purely to attract 1 Corporation of London Art Gallery, Catalogue of Exhibition of a Selection of Works by Irish Painters, National Gallery, which I had bequeathed to As down the glen one Easter morn attention and publicity. We expected to be Guildhall, 1904. that institution, I now bequeath to the city of To a city fair rode I, apprehended, my friend and I, and to our sur- 2 Hugh Lane, Letter to the Town Clerk, 15 November Dublin, providing that a suitable building is pro- There armed lines of marching men prise we were not apprehended and at that 1912. 3 Lucy McDiarmid, The Irish Art of Controversy,Cornell 6 vided for them within five years of my death.” In squadrons passed me by. point you could say that the plan went seri- University Press, 2005 The codicil was signed but not witnessed and No pipe did hum, no battle drum ously awry. We actually got away with it and 4 Ciaran Mc Gonagle, RTE Radio archive John Bowman show, April, 2008. under British Law was not recognized. All 39 Did sound its loud tattoo showed a clean pair of heels to the gallery and 5 Dawson , The National Gallery Archive , Images and works went to the London National Gallery. But the Angelus’ bells o’er the Liffey swells to anyone who was in pursuit. But the aim was Insights, 1993. Rang out in the foggy dew. to attract publicity and get public bodies inter- 6 Hugh Lane, Letter, 1915 (Dawson , The National Gallery I work part time in an art bookshop in The ested in passing votes and that sort of thing.”7 Archive , Images and Insights, 1993) 7 Hugh Lane Dublin City Gallery. Visitors People were amassed and waving Irish Paul Hogan, RTE Radio archive, John Bowman show, April, 2008. often approach me with postcards of Jean Tricolor flags for this was a celebration of the They had a reporter waiting outside to record 8 Paul Hogan, RTE Radio archive John Bowman show, Augustus Renoir’s painting Les Parapluies (The Easter Rising of 1916. A march commemorat- the theft for the English and Irish media. The April, 2008. Umbrellas) or Theodore Rousseau’s Moonlight ing the uprising took place, and afterwards, statement they left made headlines: “The and the Bathers or Degas’ Beach Scene, asking Sinn Feín president Gerry Adams addressed authority for this action is the codicil to the will me where the paintings can be found, as they the gathering outside the General Post Office, of Hugh Lane, dated 1915, bequeathing the 39 have not seen them. I explain the story of the the Headquarters of the Rising. It was during treasures to the City of Dublin. This action has contested collection. this revolutionary period that supporters of the been taken in the Irish National Interest.” 8

Seeman Savvidis Taner continued from page 12 continued from page 13 continued from page 13

In some way the advent of new, smaller certs, DJ sets etc. – that aim to illustrate the CS: No, it definitely does not come down different types of people. Did you discover more specialized museums is diluting the “rhythm” of the Greek art scene. Also, it ulti- to sales alone. A successful art fair’s scope is something that was neglected or over- public’s viewing experience. There are only mately functions as a “teaser” for a younger much broader and the spill-over effects are looked in other publications? In an art world so many hours in a day, visit one museum and hipper audience that might multifarious; it is not just that can seem so saturated, what makes and you are choosing to forgo another. not visit the fair otherwise. sales, but mostly the collab- Contempreneur unique? However, it can also be argued that it is orations, contacts and net- educational as well as FUN to visit an entire In 2007 especially, the Garage working during the art fair museum devoted to a specific era or one Project titled “I Syghroni between local and interna- artist. Elliniki Skini” (The Greek tional galleries (this benefits Contemporary Arts Scene) especially local ones that OT: I am still working on developing Established museums are very concerned discussed the tension between don’t do art fairs abroad), Contempreneur. This is a term I coined for about the popular trend towards creating the local and the international artists, curators and art all actors of the contemporary art world, one’s own museum rather then donating to that Greek artists experience professionals that in the globally, with an entrepreneurial sprit and an existing institution, and it is interesting to through their work. long run make the invest- approach to things. I am a contempreneur, observe the creative ways that our major ment worthwhile. And by so are the publishers and the editor of Boot museums are trying to buck this trend. BP GK: What role, if any, does the term “investment,” Print. So are the tens of thousands of art Art Athina play in the Balkans I don’t mean the time and dealers, fair or museum directors, curators, and the broader European art money invested by par- auctioneers, publishers, editors, you name fair map? ticipating galleries only, but them. It is a big industry with hundreds of the faith invested by the thousands of players around the globe. There CS: Art Athina does not “spe- local art scene, especially is still no common publication or web por- cialize” in the Balkans; however, when we are talking about tal. Contempreneur aims to be the industry we always keep a close eye in the region a country that is “off the beaten track.” magazine, and not an arts magazine — God since there are a lot of interesting artists, even Art Athina is a huge opportunity for the local forbid. No art critiques, but a lot of business though there are not that many galleries. arts community to forge new relationships news and philosophical discussions as we with international players and for the interna- are now involved in. I would also envisage GK: What determines the success of an art tional art scene to broaden its scope of inter- that a huge number of peripheral readership fair? Does it all simply come down to sales? est to new “unexplored” territories, and to among wanna-be’s to develop which will renew itself.BP force us to “soften” the industry focus. In that sense it is very similar to The Economist. You find the best job postings and statistics in there, but can still read it casually on an airplane. I am open to ideas.BP

23 The Artist Who Told on the Art World: Pablo Helguera by Georgia Kotretsos

Pablo Helguera is a New York-based artist working with instal- Inc. Books Pinto Jorge Courtesy conversation piece. You go in great length covering a broad lation, sculpture, photography, drawing and performance. His spectrum of AW interactions and social scenarios ranging from work considers the relationship, between history, cultural pro- bodily propriety, decorum, code of artistic civility, to form of duction and language. Helguera fictionalizes the real, generating dress, address and demeanor. Aren’t you curious why all these commentary and discussion about our surrounding cultural real- rules serve as the cannon? What’s behind the AW etiquette? ity and relationship to time. His work often adopts the form of lectures, museum display strategies, musical performances and PH: That is indeed a fascinating question – one that would written fiction. be best answered by someone who would be simultaneously versed in anthropological, sociological, economical and art the- On this note, Helguera is also the author of The Pablo Helguera’s ory – but so far I haven’t found many people like that. Social Manual of Contemporary Art Style, a pretty puzzling reading for behavior in the art world results as a combination of factors, those who do not read between the lines. I am personally a such as career motivations, financial interests, psychological devoted fan, simply because constructive dialogues and prepos- obsessions, and the always intangible interest in art. But because terous art arguments can depart from this book. Picking it up, the global phenomenon of things like art fairs, the 24/7 cycle of reading it, writing on the margins, drawing on the diagrams and biennials, and the “festivalist” artist is so new, we have very little graphs, laughing out loud, disagreeing with it was easy, but letting critical tools to analyze and understand how all these factors go before talking to the artist himself was not. It has a unique intermix to make the art world behave the way it does. bird-watching quality to it from an artist who’s looked closely at the art world. It’s an “essential guide for artists, curators and This is partially why the book somewhat launched another critics,” as it says on the cover, or a one-of-a-kind conversation project of mine, the Helguera Center for Artworld Studies, art piece, and plausibly a great tool to sociologists, anthropolo- which puts forth the notion that the art world has become a gists and psychologists. sufficiently large communal entity to demand its own field of academic studies (not to be confused with art history, art edu- This online interview was completed in March 2008. cation or studio art). I am currently looking for scholars with interests in this new field that may want to submit papers to a Georgia Kotretsos: Is this book based on your own spec- conference that this Center will organize sometime in the Fall Pablo Helguera’s Manual of Contemporary Art Style ulations of the Art World (AW) or is it an example of artistic in New York. The conference, as you may gather, is a bit in the research? And if it is the latter, what was your method, your same spirit as the manual – trying not to take ourselves too time frame, the form in which all this information was collected seriously while at the same time being completely serious – just and then analyzed? GK: Fair enough! Nonetheless, you manage to tap into the like art tends to be. career anxiety and neurosis of the contemporary A, B, C or D Pablo Helguera: I never speculate – speculating is a risky level artist in an amusing manner. It has an older brotherly kind GK: Let’s take a close look at art schools then. You define business, especially if you are writing a “how to” book. Nor did of tone to it – enlightening young artists on what’s ahead of art schools as “…institutions that teach nineteenth century I do any scientific research to write my book. them on an emotional and professional level if they choose to art techniques, twentieth century art history, and ask students commit to a career in the AW. Was the manual actually writ- to pay tuitions at the rate of the upcoming century, with the Rather, after having been involved in the art world for two ten for that kind of audience, or is it an inside joke for people assumption that art students will be able to navigate the present decades, I realized I had accumulated a number of insights and already invested in the scene? on their own.” Nice! Why isn’t the content of the Manual taught information that could be useful to share, particularly for young at art schools? Isn’t this the age of the Pop Idol, where one has artists. I felt that the art world was governed by unspoken social PH: It was actually written for both. As someone who has to sing good, look good, dance good? Why isn’t the educational rules that no one seems to explicitly talk about, and I thought been doing art education for two decades, one of the prin- system frank with aspiring artists? it would be useful to spell it out. I suspected that once I did ciples that guides me is that nothing is more revelatory for a so the result would automatically show the contradictions and self-proclaimed connoisseur than a discussion about the very PH: Actually, I am now afraid of the opposite: that the man- absurdities of social life in the art world. The information flowed basic ideas about his or her profession, because those simple ual will be taken as “the” word on how to make it in the art freely, quickly, and orderly, once I set to work. I tried to maintain questions tend to address the most difficult issues (this is why world. I happened to read blog entries written by two random the didactic tone of traditional social manuals – and that was explaining the world to a child tends to be very hard). So an art students who had gotten their hands on the manual, saying perhaps the hardest part. introductory book for the art world novice can be equally edu- to each other that the manual had told them everything they cational to the expert, in the sense that it can reveal new insights needed to know about the art profession. The underlying irony Judging from the overwhelming response for the book, I think on how we regard the basic rules of it – which is what the of the text had been completely lost to them. And the truth of it must have touched a nerve of some kind. manual tries to do. the matter is that while the manual truthfully exposes quite a variety of situations in the art world, in its instructional format GK: Speaking of unspoken social rules, there is a topic a tra- I always wished that someone had written this book when also tries to exemplify, as some reviewer rightfully observed, ditional art guide wouldn’t touch on: “sexuality.” You discuss it, I was in my student years – it would have saved me a lot of how to attain the worst kind of success – the one that is solely you offer your fair opinion when it matters, you have fun with it; aggravation and embarrassment. driven by blind ambition, careerism, insincerity and affectation, however, your approach still rates PG. So, let’s take this a step of which the art world is saturated. This is partially a byproduct further by thinking outside the book for a moment, how big The actual tone of the book is borrowed from traditional of the ineptitude of the art school system, which provides you of a role do sexual relationships and sexual orientation play in etiquette manuals, most particularly from the one of Antonio tools that are mostly irrelevant when you have to deal with career-building in the AW? Carreño, a Venezuelan etiquette expert who wrote “the” social the reality you encounter out there when you graduate. The etiquette manual in the 1930s and which has since then been moment an artist leaves art school is, I think, the most difficult PH: The book does describe pretty clearly what happens with the manual de rigueur in the Spanish language. The tone of of one’s career – it certainly was like that for me. You face very the lover of a successful artist, curatorial assistants who sleep Carreño’s manual is professorial and stern, and of course old- difficult questions about your personal relationship with art, and with famous artists, and other explicit situations. But ok, let’s fashioned, with some regulations and claims that are outright usually you have no choice but to take the cues from the world speak about sex. ridiculous and entertaining (such as “a lady shall never sit on the around you. And it is clear that for most young artists the mean- windowsill of her apartment, because people may think she is ing of art simply is inextricably linked to the need of joining an Some contemporary art etiquette theorists argue that artists a lost woman,” or “husband and wife must turn off the lights of elite. Schools seem to place little emphasis on what should be who excel at oral sex have greater chances at getting into the their bedchamber before undressing,”). the most important part of everything, which is to learn how to Whitney Biennial. Similarly, if you happen to be bisexual, you appreciate art and look at an art career not as an art race, but have the added advantage of seducing both female and male Julio Torri, a Mexican writer from the beginning of the century as a language that must fulfill one’s intellect and creativity before curators. Artists of exotic origin have an advantage at seducing who no one reads anymore today (but me, I guess) once wrote it fulfills one’s ego. “global conceptualist” type curators. that melancholy is the complement of irony. Without necessar- ily intending it to be so, I simply wrote a book that complained In other words, my greatest wish would be that everyone However, none of this is true. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, about the cynicism in the art world while at the same time trying would do exactly the opposite of what the manual suggests they though? While sexual seduction does work to expedite cer- not to take it too seriously, and only in retrospect I realize that do, because otherwise you fall again into continuing the same tain professional relationships, straight quid pro quo sex-career the tone of the book is a mixture of the conflicted sentiments ridiculous behavior that the art world encourages and rewards. favors have more limitations than one would imagine. For one that Torri addresses. It is nothing other than my own (and I thing, if the artist or curator in question is decidedly medio- would say our collective) mixed feelings about the art world My brother, who was a writer, once wrote: “If I ever wrote a cre, no sexual prestidigitation will get them very far. Unless you and its social rules: they tend to be absurd and conservative and book about how to succeed in life, and if the book turned out make that part of your work, such as when Andrea Fraser offers careerist, and yet we agree to conform by them. to be successful, I would feel a total failure.” And that is exactly herself as a sexual prize to an eager collector. But that is more how I feel. BP of a metaphor of the actual prostitution that we all engage in, in GK: It is apparent that the book has been modeled after the art world, isn’t it? traditional etiquette manuals, and that’s what makes it a great

24 Speech as Strategy: Laura Fried IMs Nato Thompson on Discursive Space and Democracy in America by Laura Fried

In the Spring of 2008, Nato Thompson, Curator and Producer Time. Creative and artist the Courtesy Boudreau. Meghan by Photograph LF: Exactly. This is a particular practice you’ve long engaged as at Creative Time, traveled to Baltimore, Chicago, New Orleans, a curator — from the Interventionists to your 2004 Art Journal Los Angeles, and back to New York to host a series of Town piece (if you don’t mind my citing it), where you commissioned Halls on the subject of democracy in America. Through a series four artists/collectives to operate within the traditionally narrow of “Town Hall Meetings,” commissioned projects around the art historical textual frame... You are quite explicit in your move country (including the Democratic and Republican National beyond mere “institutional critique,” which historically operated Conventions), and a mobile ”Convergence Center” that to examine the power structures of cultural institutions. In this will travel to different boroughs in New York City this fall, move, it seems natural that “visuality” as a strategy isn’t neces- Democracy promises active participation and discussion. On sarily the only option. the eve of the November elections, Thompson investigates the nation’s democratic tradition through an array of artistic and NT: Well right. I think institutional critique benefits from Pierre activist strategies that take shape in a multi-faceted, national Bourdieu’s analysis of discursive formations. That is, he under- program of exhibitions and events. Here, Thompson and Laura stood that power is produced within particular niches of society. Fried catch up via Instant Messenger after Thompson’s state- The term “art world” already implies a sort of kingdom within a wide, town-hall tour… larger kingdom; however, institutional critique also suffers from being so dependent on that which it criticizes. That is to say, while power does exist inside the white cube, it exists outside Laura Fried: Nato! of it as well. To be quite honest, this awareness of how one can move between discursive fields is amazing and complicated. For Nato Thompson: oh! capital and other forms of power exist as an umbrella as well as within the walls of our separate fields of operation. NT: hello LF: Switching gears a wee bit, I wonder if I might ask about NT: I had the wrong IM. the function and conditions of speech-making in contemporary art practice/cultural production right now. Some of these artists LF: Oh right, absolutlmf... a sad IM screen name from college in Democracy are clearly invested in this strategy... and Creative Time, as I understand it, will also be hosting a series of programs NT: So how do we do this? and events centered on speechmaking in New York City this spring. Might I ask you to address this... well, certainly not a new LF: Well I guess I’ll start Mark Tribe, Port Huron Project 3: We Must Name the System phenomenon… but this kind of practice right now? 2007. NT: Fair nuff NT: My fellow curator at Creative Time, Mark Beasley, is NT: Sure. So, we invited about 15 to 20 people from each city working on a great project on the voice in contemporary art and asked them five questions. We tried to achieve a range of LF: First, thanks so much for meeting with me over IM for titled Hey Hey Glossolalia. We realized that we are both inter- practices (like I said), as there are tons of folks one could invite. this interview. ested in work dealing with speech and speech acts and it has We also wanted to have a range of scale, so cities like Baltimore forced us to consider why so much work like this is being made. and New Orleans have a different composition than cities like NT: Well you are quite welcome. It is my first IM interview I think this interest comes out of a tradition of the political (the L.A., Chicago and New Orleans. Our questions focused on parts ever. soap box) as well as the inter-disciplinary (the lecture) and also of political practices that can be shared across disciplines (audi- on the desire to communicate. I think we are feeling out of ence, economies, history and social movements). In essence, it LF: Me too! So, are you officially returned from the first leg of touch with each other, and the speech is often a way of con- could be seen as a group interview but amazing things came the Democracy in America tour? necting with a sense of urgency. Currently, 1968 is very much in from it. the air and this enthusiasm for a period filled with speeches and NT: Yes. We just finished the first phase, which we are calling an activated civic body is tinged with both nostalgia and envy. LF: And what, as we look forward to this project’s upcom- the Town Hall talks. How do we deal with these conditions in the contemporary ing events and programs, can we anticipate in the next months moment? How do we speak to each other? How can we make leading up to November? LF: Right. We ran into each other in sunny Los Angeles sense of the times we live in? I think these questions motivate recently, where you were just about to host another town hall this focus on speech. NT: Well, the second phase of this project involves com- meeting with local artists and activists... missioning three sets of artists to do projects on the subject of LF: Indeed. I think the Town Hall talks offer a particularly apt democracy across the United States. We have Mark Tribe doing NT: Yes, in sunny Los Angeles. strategy for pressuring this very issue — our urgent need and speech reenactments of New Left speeches, we have Sharon desire to communicate... Hayes doing a project on public space and the role of the LF: Could you tell me a little about the group make-up? I queer figure in public speech in the cities where the Republican remember that you seemed pleased that a condition of these NT: Something that became apparent in our talks was the National Conventions and Democratic National Conventions town halls was that they operated somewhat to the exclusion degree to which much art activism has turned to conditions are happening (St. Paul and Denver) and finally, we are doing a of your typical art world personalities. produced inside the cities they live in. The question of gentrifica- project in Austin, Texas collaborating with the Blanton Museum tion came up quite a lot. As did worries about jobs and what is on a project on capital punishment and the prison system with LF: (btw: is that a Yinka Shonibare IM icon you have there?) often referred to “precarity” in Western Europe (the political artists Rodney McMillan and Olga Koumoundouras. Wheh! It is condition produced through neo-liberalism of keeping people in a lot. Each location in the country has an institutional partner NT: yup. a state of financial ruin). It is interesting to see this in a time of and its part of an overall strategy of Creative Time to do proj- an unpopular war as many people are wondering, “Why aren’t ects across the country as well as in New York City. NT: I wouldn’t say at the exclusion of art world types, but people protesting the war?” Well, I think a lot of folks are feel- more that we put an emphasis on bringing a diverse range ing a type of very personal domestic war happening in their LF: …which is a thrilling new direction for Creative Time, it of approaches (both cultural and political) that work in what neighborhoods. I guess it makes me wonder: how can we link seems, particularly on the heels of the incredible success with might be called the infrastructure of political cultural produc- these battles in the city to the larger geopolitical battles like Iraq Waiting for Godot in New Orleans with Paul Chan. I remember tion. I should say that I organized these talks with Daniel Tucker and neoliberalism? that you and Paul hosted a series of workshops and town halls who edits an incredible magazine in Chicago named AREA. Our there in New Orleans, as well... To me, Democracy seems like hope was to take the psychic temperature of a wide variety of LF: These participants in the Town Halls — might I ask what a natural development of your focused curatorial practice — in practitioners ranging from youth media to education to theater strategies they themselves are adopting to address these con- particular, a practice that seeks to move outside the museum’s to post-MFA critical art practice to community based work to cerns, ask these very questions, for instance? walls and into the realm of what I have often heard you refer to radio and web-based. Ultimately, there is a deep politics in ‘who’ as the broader sphere of cultural production and participatory is in the room so we were aware that we wanted to keep a NT: Currently I think many are working on issues they can practices. wide array of approaches so as to not hem in what we meant focus on. There are so many from prisons, to AIDS, to gentri- by culture or politics. fication, to youth education, to post-Katrina New Orleans, to NT: Yes, absolutely. Working at Creative Time (I previously survival. At the same time, I felt a profound return to the local. worked at MASS MoCA) has allowed some flexibility in engag- LF: Of course. I understand these conversations took That was very much in the air. ing with work outside. Not simply in terms of just being outside place with you and Daniel also in Baltimore, Chicago, New the walls of a museum, but also, to some degree, outside a dis- Orleans, Los Angeles and NYC, in part to measure a conscious- LF: Well... it seems we might have hit our word limit here. A cursive frame. We can engage with culture on a more abstract ness at the end of this presidential era and looking forward to provocative note to end on though, I think. level that doesn’t have to mean just art but can also mean mul- the November elections. But could you elaborate on the struc- tiple other things that have political resonance. ture of these town halls? NT: Ok Laura. I should run. This was fun. BP

25 Expedition into the Heartland: Interview with Charles Esche, Kerstin Niemann and Stephanie Smith by Juan William Chavez photo: Yuriy Rumiantsev

Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

Heartland is an interdisciplinary project in Eindhoven featuring and Rhoades. The first purchase I made when I arrived was a we will arrive at the same conclusions they did, but doing it for existing and newly commissioned art works and an international completion of this project with a major Paul McCarthy. yourself adds another dimension. This is not only in finding a few music program called Into the Heart of Music. The project is artists who are not on the existing radar, but also, more impor- dedicated to art and music that emerges out of the area’s rich This background made me curious about what was happening tantly, being able to represent the exhibition to our audiences in cultural and geographic diversity. The program also includes a in the zone between the east and west coasts of the U.S. Such a more complex way. Having spent time in Detroit or Memphis series of debates and lectures, two publications, an artists-in- a speculation rhymed with other changes that I was introducing helps us to understand an artist more fully, and even to chal- residency program and various special projects with local and to the museum, following new geographic leads into the former lenge my existing parameters of art by learning a new context. international partners. It is the first time that a project of this socialist part of Europe and the Middle East. These areas are rich It therefore becomes refreshing for me as a curator and chal- scope has been initiated in Eindhoven. The official premiere / in history and recent socio-political change, and this has given lenges my own assumptions. I hope this works also for Kerstin opening is scheduled October 3 and 4 in Eindhoven where the the artists renewed energy and possibility. I wondered if the and Stephanie Smith, who came with us to Detroit recently. project will run until January 25th, 2009. same was true in the centre of the Unites States and was any- way fascinated by this huge geographic area which was so little Part of the project was also to invite artists from the Netherlands After that, part of the exhibition will travel to Chicago. The represented in our cultural understanding of the world’s major who might be interested in making a work for the show based collaboration between the Van Abbemuseum and the Smart artistic (and economic) power. So, curiosity was a big part of it. on a residency in different parts of the region. Our first trip was Museum promises to combine insider and outsider perspectives …and why now? Well, I wanted to do this show about the with an artist, Otto Berchem, who subsequently has had a two- on visual culture in the region in which individual artworks will region at the same time as the presidential elections were hap- month stay in Memphis. Other artists will be staying in Lowndes be related to each other while being able to speak clearly about pening. For many people in Western Europe, these elections County, Alabama; Chicago and Minneapolis. We might also try particular cultural, social and natural phenomena. Curators have a direct effect yet there is a large degree of ignorance to get a Saint Louis residency for the return of the exhibition at Charles Esche (director Van Abbemuseum), Kerstin Niemann about the cultures and places that make up the majority of the the Smart Museum of Art, Chicago in autumn 2009. (research curator, Van Abbemuseum) and Stephanie Smith (co- United States. I thought it would be thought provoking to look curator of Heartland and director of collections and exhibitions at the “Heartland” just at this moment and hopefully to find JWC: Looking at the research trip blog and viewing the imag- curator of Contemporary Art Smart Museum at the University a more nuanced picture than we currently have of the middle es of the different places you went and the variety of people of Chicago) took some time out to talk to Boot Print about the of America. that you met, there is a strong social component. Will this social Heartland. data be included in the exhibition? If so, how? JWC: Let’s focus on your research approach and the fact that Juan William Chàvez: In recent years, the U.S. heartland you and colleagues went “out on the road.” This goes beyond CE: I think there is inevitably a strong social component in our has been the focus of international media, from the catastrophic and challenges the usual exhibition research approach. Is this experience of the research trips. You can’t spend time in Saint effects of Hurricane Katrina to the swing states in the past elec- the first time you took this direction? Have you employed this Louis or Mississippi without trying to come to terms with the tions. How does contemporary art fit into all of this? What trig- method in previous projects? history of European settlement, racial division, economic hard- gered the project? Why the Heartland and why now? ship and urban or rural change. Some things were very striking, CE: The idea of going “out on the road” seemed crucial if we especially when you are first confronted with the history of seg- Charles Esche: The project grew out of two contrast- were to get behind some of the more obvious stereotypes or regation or the dramatic development of city centers. This was ing motivations. The first is related to the history of the Van clichés of the region. I am used to this way of working, having fascinating and compelling to discover and I am very pleased we Abbemuseum’s collection and the way it has represented US done it in central Europe, South East Asia and the Middle East were able to document it in the blog. It also forms part of the art in the Netherlands since the 1960s. The museum was the for projects before. It is basically a way to experience the con- background knowledge that the research trip offered to us. first to show artists such as Warhol and Nauman in our country text and make decisions for yourself that you can stand behind. and was instrumental in establishing an interest in such work The alternatives would be to rely on secondary sources such as In the exhibition, much of this will not be so visible because at here. In the 1990s, my predecessor at the museum Jan Debbaut magazines or on the filtering process of the commercial galler- that stage the curators hand over to the artists and their works. switched his attention to the west coast and collected Kelley ies. Both of these are valid systems of information and, in part, It is important that the curatorial work informs but does not

continued on page 27

26 continued from page 26 get in the way of the imaginations of the audience members. was the fascination of a European with a protestant upbringing with our current communications technologies, it’s becoming They will be encountering the works and probably the subject finding out more about diverse religious identities and the con- ever-easier to base influential cultural activities in places that matter for the first time and need to be able to make their own temporary growth of small community churches as real estate have traditionally either functioned as cultural centers, or been sense of it all. However, there will be two aspects of the project development businesses. perceived as such. Of course, we have to be careful not to make that will include more of the contextual material we discovered. empty claims or those that could be perceived as boosterism or propaganda. Still especially in a globalized moment when so One will be in the publication that we will make for the presen- Certainly riding on clichés and stereotypes that already exist many different kinds of experiences are getting blended into one tation in Chicago in 2009. The current plans for this are to make about a particular place or institution does not help to further relatively undifferentiated field, there’s a real power support- it more of a reader in which we can ask various thinkers from an exchange of knowledge and understanding for the specificity ing specific kinds of local knowledge. There’s a power in seeing urban planning to politics to write about our “heartland.” These and diversity of this region, but it enables us to contextualize it what exists right here, right now that is distinct and fertile and essays would form a parallel narrative to illustrations of the art- within the process of our research. We can apply it as a tool worth tending. There’s a real power in making the most of local ists’ work. The second more “social” element will be a critical with which we are able to develop profound references or use resources. There’s a real power in using that base and building archive of independent or self-organized spaces from various it to approach a subject from another angle. alliances with others around the world, whether in historical cities including, we hope, Boots in Saint Louis. This archive will “centers” or in other newly-revitalized “peripheries.” That last occupy a room within the Van Abbemuseum exhibition and be I would be curious to know what you would go and visit if you part is one of the keys, I think: making work that happens in modified for the presentation at the Smart Museum. arrive the first time in Berlin or Amsterdam. regions like the Midwest visible to our peers in the region and to others around the world, opening and maintaining a flow of JWC: One thing I found fascinating was the Mark Twain JWC: What role did your Midwest background, cultural as well critical dialogue so we both contribute to and are inflected by a larger conversation and don’t slide into more of a blindered, approach to the Research trip. By that I mean following the as professional, play in the Heartland project? You grew up in St. old-school sort of regionalism, (e.g. “The New York School”). Mississippi River and going by word of mouth, all of which was Louis and you live in Chicago – did you find any new discoveries nicely documented on the Heartland Research Trip Blog. Why in these two locations through the Heartland research? You asked about new discoveries. There’s one particularly this approach, and what were the pros and cons? interesting development that may not show up in the show Stephanie Smith: I’ve been in Chicago since 1998, and yes, itself, but certainly will intersect with the Heartland project Kerstin Niemann: Following the Mississippi River seemed I grew up in St. Louis. As co-curator of the project along with in some way. Dan Wang and Brett Bloom, two artists who to be the most logical red thread for our research trip since we Charles and Kerstin, one of my roles has been to serve as local were once based in Chicago and who remain involved with had already decided to investigate the arts, culture and music in informant and interlocutor, sharing my own knowledge and also the experimental space Mess Hall, have recently moved into the “heart” of America. The Mississippi resembled for us some- asking questions to help shape the parameters of the project, Wisconsin and southern Illinois, respectively. These are areas thing like the 3rd coast, in opposition to the cultural identity of the directions of the research, and the form of the shows. (It that could be classified as peripheral within the larger region, the west and east coast, an overlooked area of cultural poten- will open first in Eindhoven and then we’ll work together to which is usually itself thought of as peripheral to, say, the art scenes of the coasts. They and others have been thinking about tials. Referring to the word of mouth strategy was definitely re-conceive the show for the Smart Museum in Chicago in fall how to link up radical cultural practitioners across the region. something that was inspired by Mark Twain’s main premises in 2009.) My knowledge is biased and partial, of course, but I know So, a group of locals and visitors including folks from 16 Beaver Huckleberry Finn, that he wants to get across the young boy’s it’s been helpful in bringing key artists and ideas into the mix. By in NYC and the theorist Brian Holmes will be hosting a travel- belief in the right thing to do even though the majority of soci- the same token, I’ve learned a great deal from my colleagues. ing series of events/conversations/activities around the region ety believed it was wrong. This meant that we tried to avoid Our research and ongoing conversations are helping me to in June. They’ll be moving through cities like Chicago, towns contacting and planning around established institutions (e.g. rethink many things about my own sense of the region, and it’s like Champaign-Urbana, and rural areas. I’ll be joining them for galleries, private collections, museums, etc.) and relied upon a been quite exciting to learn together about what’s happening in some of this. It dovetails quite beautifully into the conversations more informal network that we tried to discover. Trying to find other cities that none of us knew in advance, like Detroit and we’d been having through Heartland about centers/peripheries. our own strategies of communication and travels — though Memphis. To answer the second part of your question: Yes, I’ll blog about this as it happens. they sometimes seemed to drag us off our main course and through the lens of this research I’ve been thinking differently took longer than expected — meant reaching out to word-of- about things in both Chicago and St. Louis. It’s helped me to To wrap up, one of the wonderful things about the project has look at familiar places, people, and art in fresh ways and with a mouth contacts and recommendations of others. This method been the ways that it’s opened up lines of research that I think different quality of attention. It’s sparked some fascinating con- will remain vital and in flux through the whole course of the certainly allowed and still is allowing us to get to know a variety versations with my family and with my colleagues. I’ve never project as it opens in Europe and then is re-thought for presen- of art related spaces that we would have initially never thought before spent so much time talking about questions like these: tation back in the Heartland itself. I feel that in some ways we’re of (performing art centers, centers for the development of the what does it mean to be based in the Midwest right now? How just beginning to understand some of the potential implications arts, intentional art communities, interdisciplinary institutions does that help or hinder the work that we do? How does it feed of our research, and of course the process has raised many and other forms of associations and foundations) and culturally into a sense of self? How does it shape the nature of one’s prac- more possible topics to explore than we’ve had time to pursue. engaged people that you will not find during research on the tice as a cultural producer? The research has also introduced me It’s been a rich process so far and I’m glad that it will continue internet. The disadvantages of this method certainly are that if to artists and spaces in each city. This is less true in Chicago. Still, over the coming years. BP you only follow one line of recommendations and communica- the process has shifted me out of some of my usual patterns of tions you may only stay in this circle of art lovers or culturally circulation – which range from studios, galleries, and museums interested people. Though at the end I think we engaged as to more exploratory spaces like the Experimental Station, Von much in both the “off-scene” and the established art world. Zweck, and Mess Hall – and into some of the newer spaces like Incubate and Alogon. They’re both run by young artists as do- Nevertheless, we followed the Mississippi from South to North, it-yourself projects, albeit with quite different agendas: Incubate what some people referred to as the opposite direction! seems to me to be a new generation’s take on the socially- engaged, generosity-based practices that have such a rich his- JWC: All contemporary art related visits aside, I couldn’t help tory in Chicago, where Alogon seems more of a classic apart- noticing the “exotic” feel of the research trip documentation ment space. In St. Louis, the process has had a different flavor. (Bellevue Christian Baptist Church, hometown of Mark Twain It’s been less about seeing my home turf in a new way. Instead, and Graceland) on the blog. Surely these photos play into a cli- I’m starting to triangulate a sense of the city’s cultural geography ché image of the Heartland, but I’m curious what role did these based in part on childhood memories and in part on two kinds visits play in the research? of experiences as an adult — time in the suburbs with my fam- ily, and time in the city looking at art. The Heartland research KN: Among others, we decided to start out the research has given me new fodder for the latter, for I’ve been following of this project upon our own preconceptions and stereotypes the activities of the Pulitzer and the Contemporary for a long time, but only learned about Boots and Matt Strauss’s gorgeous about particular histories and social structures in the Heartland Charles and Kerstin in St. Louis White Flag Projects through the Heartland research. Because region. of the overall frame of the project, I’m starting to bridge these facets of my experience of the city. And that ties right back into During the first research trip in summer 2007, we were amazed those questions about what it means to make work in and/or by the density of churches per square foot in comparison to about these places right now. the number of inhabitants. To go to Bellevue Christian Baptist Church was actually a recommendation of a local Memphian. JWC: In one of your Blog entries you mentioned that “...One I took the chance and visited and was amazed by this — yet of our other big conversations of late has been about how one unknown to me — world of commercialized way of featur- might rethink notions of ‘centers’ and ‘peripheries’ in relation to ing certain religious beliefs. It is indeed amazing to hear people places like the Midwest.” Could you please share with the Boot talk about attending church-planter programs and establishing Print readers your take and thoughts on the notion of “center” and “periphery” and has there been any changes or confirma- churches in areas of communities that are less established in tions in your thoughts during the Heartland research trip? the city. Maybe one can perceive the growing number of small community churches in the last years as a new form of gentrify- SS: This is a crucial conversation and one that I think hooks into ing less developed areas of a city. Looking back, I assume this the way you are approaching Boots and Boot Print. Especially Scene from the Heartland

27 Ill with Home: on the autobiography of Moustafa Farroukh by Walid Sadek

Moustafa Farroukh1 is a story worth listening to. Born in Beirut in 1901 to a humble Muslim It was my fourth time in Rome, the cradle of Sunni family, he managed through sheer dili- art. There my soul dwells. There where art is so gence and the help of a few to travel, study and is my home and my chosen land. There where turn into one of the first Lebanese artists who beauty is so is my country, my family and my kin; could claim an operative ambition. Although for I cannot comprehend country, neither love prolific as a painter and draftsman, his most sig- nor kin without the prerequisite and founding nificant, because troubled, contribution is argu- concept of a lofty and exalted beauty. There, ably his autobiography published posthumously and no where else, can one overcome the lim- in 1986 under the title Tariki Ilal Fen (My Path its and obstacles of idols, racial discrimination to Art).2 and religious sectarianism concocted and then reproduced by a few miserly politicians. I say: Farroukh’s autobiography is strung tight across were humans to sincerely espouse the love a river of failure. For him the Arab-Islamic past of the good, the true and the beautiful, they is a constant reminder of a decadent present would have been blessed with unending felic- oblivious to mourning. In chapter 21 of his ity. And yet paltry, narrowly materialistic and autobiography entitled “Rihla ila Bilad al Majd oblivious to life’s beauty and pleasure as they al Mafkoud” (or Journey to the Land of Lost are, they turned away from the truth in search Glory), later developed into a separate book, he of material wealth. Lost and spent, they wasted lays down the basis of his cultural despondency: their lives licking rasps and drinking nothing but “The plain truth is that we live on the margins their own blood. of life. We do not contribute effectually to the development of civilization, we merely exploit In Rome, I sought the company of my teacher it.”3 Such is the tenor of his statements jotted and found him as always diligently at work in down throughout a journey made in 1930 dur- his studio on which door he had written Pax ing which he spent a week in Seville, five days E Sacrum. Yes, by God it is peace out of sacri- in Cordoba, two days in Madrid, one day in fice. Is there anything more dignified than the Toledo, four days in Barcelona and a crucial sincere contemplation of God’s glorious work nineteen days in Grenada. There, in Andalusia, and of the beauty which lives in even the most he meets his origins. Belated, he describes as insignificant detail? I found my teacher, still “wondrous monuments and poignant history”4 active while nearing his sixties, engrossed in the a world from which he is barred but which he act of drawing a little branch with a few with- will unwaveringly claim as his own. In Andalusia ered leaves. Astonished, I asked why he squan- he beholds his true childhood, his innocence. ders his time with such a trifle? He laughed and There he discovers that he is in fact of a higher then answered: I wish I could reach an under- Book cover - Courtesy of Hanni Farroukh birth. There, he meets an ancient and lofty cul- standing of this paltry desiccated branch and ture which he then claims as his true parent. of the nonplussing precision, beauty and awe Such is Farroukh’s family romance in which he Moustafa Farroukh (1901-1957), nought unless by God). Or someone says that that it contains. is finally discovered by an ideal and exalted Bayna Yaday al‘Awda Ilal Watan such a sorry incident is fated only to hear those parent, Andalusia, allowing him to finally turn (Homebound) in Tariki Ilal Fen (My around him repeat the same litany. Or some- There I was, in a sort of prayer raised towards 5 his biological parents into foster parents. The Path to Art), Nawfal Institute, one jumps on the tram, wedges his soiled bags Him the almighty creator by these modest and exorbitant price to pay for such a childhood Beirut, 1986, pp. 188-191. among the riders and says: Ma’leych choo Sar withered leaves in an anagogical manner. In found and then forever lost in Arab-Islamic (No harm done) while still another walks the their creases wisdom and philosophy, in their antiquity becomes for the artist his Medal of Time to go home; I left Paris, a city which crowded aisle flicking a chain around his index midst secrets, in their zigzagging silent praise, Honor. In the final chapter of his autobiogra- nourished me with art and science and taught finger hitting you in the face or on the hand. in their colors an eloquent sermon and in their phy, translated here below, Farroukh’s dilemma me about life much I did not suspect. For her I To show annoyance is useless for the reply is cohesion all of wisdom and all of knowledge. is exacerbated. Graduated, he is homebound. harbor unending gratitude. The West is a com- quick and repeated by all: Ma’leych choo Sar. What more could I ask for? In them I find my His words of farewell to European culture are modious place of learning. Literature, science And how often is one poked by a cane tucked prayer niche, read my book, chant, learn my anxiously soaked in unmitigated admiration. and the arts find a place therein as part of living. under the arm of some bully hanging about the lesson and praise the almighty, benevolent and Paris, a metonym for Western culture, is ideal- The West schools in how to tread sidewalks, sidewalk shooting at the breeze with his fel- merciful Lord… It is now, my teacher, that I ized while the Orient, metonymically displaced how to sit in a club, how to enter an establish- lows. A remark no matter how polite is quickly understand the words you wrote on your stu- unto defeatist fatalism, is a beautiful land irre- ment and how to address others. It also teach- rebuked with a stern: Ma’leych choo Sar. Also dio door. mediably lost to the ignorant few or many. es basic tenets of salubrity such as to follow on the tram, men and often women are quick Notable is Farroukh’s insistence on salubrity. posted directions and wipe the soles of one’s to chide one another for not offering their seat I often asked my teacher if he thought or even The impeccable streets of Paris and manners of shoes before stepping into an establishment. It to those supposedly more deserving but only suspected that we were lost in how we think, if Parisians he describes must be understood as also teaches one not to spit outside designated in a hypocritical display of good manners. Such it were all little more than futile delusions? Are the migrating ideal image of a city and a culture spots, respect others and take their comfort is the selfishness which characterizes this beau- we right in what we think, feel and perceive? that most probably was but will never come into consideration. Many countries in the West tiful land… Yes, beautiful it is and yes many are Inevitably, we would concur that the exam- to be again in the Orient. Factually speaking, have by now forgotten that men do urinate the unclean who live amidst her good folk. Yet ined life artists live, led by that furtive sensation Claude Dufresne’s historical research on the against walls whenever and however they a land where every wrong is remedied with the which caresses their souls, is a life worth living! city of Paris allows in part such an interpreta- please. They forgot that a man can raise his fateful Ma’leych choo Sar is a land unlucky and tion.6 For he argues that even with the notice- voice late at night in a sudden whim to bellow doomed. Perhaps Ma’leych choo Sar it is. For 1 Moustafa Farroukh (1901-1957) a Lebanese painter and able progress beginning with the late 19th cen- an improvised song of lament without regard this land where the many are unable to deter essayist graduated from the Royal College of Fine Arts in tury and following regulations by Mr. Eugène for the comfort of others be they infants or the few from corruption is not worthy of living. Rome in 1927. He returned to Lebanon in 1932 and led Poubelle, prefect of the Seine, Paris was still invalids. Even I, while in Paris, forgot the sight of Ma’leych choo Sar! a successful career primarily as a portraitist. Next to his and in many of its quarters an unregulated and rubbish heaped on roadbeds and pavements, autobiography, his most significant essays are published in unsalubrious city. Yet, Farroukh’s words are forgot litter flung from windows on the heads Al fen Wal Hayat (Art and Life), Dar Al ‘Elem Lil Malayeen, And I say, strange as it may sound, that never Beirut, 1967 and Rihla Ila Bilad Al Majd Al Mafkoud (Journey more than actual observations. They are a dec- of passersby. I even forgot how some dig into when returning home from the West did I feel to the Land of Lost Glory) first published in 1932 by Dar Al laration of love for a possible future well under their nostrils with eager fingers burrowing and the happiness or felicity one usually expects or Kashaf, Beirut and then in a second edition in 1982 by Dar way he saw in the West. His return home is excavating in plain sight and for all to see. Also presumes. Quite on the contrary, it is a feeling Al Moufid, Beirut. 2 Farroukh, Moustafa, Tariki Ilal Fen (My Path to Art), therefore moreover a forced, or in the least an forgotten are shop owners who, with impunity, of dejection that grips me. Not because of any undesired, severance with a civilization on the occupy sidewalks with stacked goods leaving Institute Nawfal, Beirut, 1986. hatred I harbor towards my country, but rather 3 Tariki Ilal Fen, 178. march. Homebound he is also literally home- no passage for pedestrians, or beggars who because I am pained by the spectacle of regres- 4 Tariki Ilal Fen, 178. sick, namely already in the throes of an Orient for alms do the same as they stretch their legs sion, decadence and that general reluctance to 5 Freud writes: “Indeed the whole effort at replacing the living in the past. So he procrastinates. He visits and around them sprinkle their children. The desist from bad habits which we seem to hold real father by a superior one is only an expression of the Italy to meet his teacher and declare yet again government here in Paris disallows mendicants on to like a miser to a penny. It is what hurts child’s longing for the happy, vanished days when his father seemed to him the noblest and strongest of men and his his allegiance to the true, the good and the who carry contagious diseases from freely min- every loyal native or at least him who respects beautiful. Farroukh’s autobiography ends with gling with the population, while the wheelers mother the dearest and loveliest of women... and his fan- himself and whishes to resemble humans… tasy is no more than the expression of a regret that those his elegiac visit to his teacher’s studio. Yet he and dealers among our public health officials happy days have gone.” Freud, Sigmund, Family Romance in lives on. In Beirut, he continues to write and could not care less. I left Paris by way of Italy the birthplace of art. The Standard edition of the complete psychological works of exhort his fellow countrymen to awaken. More There I went to gather art. Can a student ever Sigmund Freud, translated from the German under the gen- eral editorship of James Strachey ; in collaboration with Anna importantly, he gradually finds a profound In the Orient, a person is of no value and be quenched? Can an artist ever be satiated? modesty and learns to paint from observation without a distinct presence. Fatalism, flippantly Freud ; assisted by Alex Strachey and Alan Tyson ; Editorial Are there limits to art? And can an academic assistant: Angela Richards, Vol. IX, 241. rather than rhetorically. His many small land- invoked, remains the basic operative modality degree be terminal? Art is the image of life; 6 Dufresne, Claude, Paris, Capitale de la Pollution (Paris, scape paintings of Beirut and the vicinity stand in social interactions. For instance, a man lug- incommensurable and fathomless. Is one short the capital of pollution) in Historia, march, 2001, 20-24 as a testimony to a painter who, while remain- ging steel bars through a busy market knocks life span sufficient to grasp such a vast and wel- which includes some astonishing photographs of the less than hygienic streets of Paris from between the two World ing a moralist in his essays and public speeches, people around, could even pluck someone’s coming life? Bacon, God rest his soul, was right wars. discovered how to paint the world in order to eye out and yet all he has to say is: La Hawla when he said that the more I study the more simply live in it. wa la Qoowwata Illa Billah (Ability and power is ignorant I feel. 28 The Ones Who Helped Get the Word Out! by Georgia Kotretsos

On a rainy and cold night on Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 the St. Louis community came to meet and greet the Boots Director, Juan William Chavez and Boot Print’s Editor-in-Chief, Georgia Kotretsos at the Boots Contemporary Art Space. The evening was hosted by St. Louis-based Independent curator, Shannon Fitzgerald and Director of Community Art Programs & Public Art Initiatives of the Regional Arts Commission, Roseann Weiss.

Brandon Anschultz, Harper Barnes, Emily Blumenfeld & David Lowey, Nanette E. Boileau, David Bonetti, Saskya & Michael Byron, Edna Campos Gravenhorst, Bill & Amy Carson, Jean Cavender, Sarah Colby & Kim Humphries, Ellen & Durb Curlee, Jill Downen, Jeff Edwards, Brigid Flynn, Malcolm Gay & Jasmine Aber, Glen Gentele, Stephanie & Web Homer, Meredith & Jeff McKinley, Cipriano Medina, Benton Park Associate - Lawrence Group, Jen & David Meyer, Susan & Rob Werremeyer joined us for a glass of wine that evening. It was the moment the St. Louis community came together to support Boot Print – their generosity reflects the art community of the city we operate from. We thank them for caring, for wanting to sustain this art publication, and for aspiring to see it grow.

As the editor of Boot Print, I thank you for believing in this project, for backing it up and for making it yours. It does take a village to raise a child, and this one has a long way to go. Your commitment alongside my dedication to this publication can only have promising results. I often refer to Boot Print as my “Labor of Love,” but from the moment Shannon and Roseann offered to organize and host the event to the moment I addressed you all that evening and saw you going back to the office raising the stakes for what we stand by at Boots, I was humbled.

Special thanks goes to Shannon Fitzgerald for seeing value in Boot Print, to Roseann Weiss for recruiting supporters, to Katherine Chavez who is always there for Boots, to Patricia Daus for handling the event like a pro, to Carol Baker who made everybody feel welcome, to Mango who offered delicious hors d’oeuvres and Mangia Italiano for the wine we all cheered with that evening, and finally to Dan Cameron, Mary Jane Jacob, and David Bonetti for their encouraging words.

Boot Print is a refreshing and exciting addition to the national panorama of artist-run presses: both regional and international, it manages to cover a wide berth while staying true to St. Louis. A real find!

Dan Cameron Independent Curator, NY

There’s no course for contemporary art practice, if there’s no discourse. For this, periodicals are a tested mode, at times causing shock waves on the scene. There’s often talk of starting a publication, but then things get bogged down. So why would anyone who cares about contemporary art discourse not want to see the success of bootprint continue! The by-the-bootstrap effort that made the gallery, makes the publication, and it needs to go on....

Mary Jane Jacob Professor and Executive Director, Exhibitions and Events/Exhibition Studies School of the Art Institute of Chicago

In every generation, there are ambitious new voices that open galleries and publish books and magazines about art and culture. Usually, such efforts occur in major metropolitan centers - Paris, London, New York, San Francisco, Mexico City, Tokyo. Boots is one of those up-by-its-own-bootstraps non- profit galleries. AND it also publishes Boot Print, a magazine that comes in both online and hard copy formats. One of the remarkable things about it is that it is happening in St. Louis, Missouri, a place not ordinarily noted for the sophistication of its cultural discourse. The gallery’s programming and its publication add immeasurably to the cultural life of the local community, and, through the miracle of today’s technology, that “local” community can exist anywhere there’s an internet connection.”

David Bonetti Visual arts critic St. Louis Post-dispatch This issue of Boot Print was made possible by:

Boots Passport Boots Benefactors Boots Ambassadors Mary Strauss Ellen & Durb Curlee Jill and Dan McGuire Nancy Kranzberg William C. Schiller

Boots Citizens Boots Friends Boots Artists Nanette E. Boileau Patrick Barlow Brandon Anschultz Jean Cavender Emily Blumenfeld Jill Downen Sarah Colby & Kim Humphries Malcolm Gay & Jasmine Aber Clyde Themal Jeff Edwards Glen Gentele Shannon Fitzgerald Amy Drummond and Bill Carson Brigid Flynn Stephanie & Web Homer Roseann Weiss Meredith & Jeff McKinley Jen Meyer Karin Moody 29 SEPTEMBER 20 – OCTOBER 26, 2008 www.whiteflagprojects.org

4568 Manchester Avenue | St. Louis, Missouri 63110 | p. 314.531.3442

30 Exhibitions and Events

Betty Rymer Gallery 280 South Columbus Drive Chicago, Illinois 60603 312.443.3703 • email: [email protected] Gallery Hours: Tuesday–Saturday, 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. Sullivan Galleries 33 S. State Street, 7th floor, Chicago, Illinois 60603 312.629.6635 • email: [email protected] Gallery Hours: Tuesday–Saturday, 11:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m. www.saic.edu/exhibitions

Visiting Artists Program 37 S. Wabash Avenue, 12th floor, Suite 1220 Chicago, Illinois 60603 312.899.5185 • email: [email protected] www.saic.edu/vap

Dexter Sinister The Enamels June-July

Hannes Schmidt September-October

Frederic D. with Fubi Karlsson November-December

Selections from the Collection of Jefferson Godard January-February

NICE & FIT Brunnenstrasse 13 / links & rechts / 10119 Berlin t +4930 440 45976 / www.niceandfitgallery.com

The Kemper Art Museum features cutting-edge special exhibitions, exceptional educational resources, The and an outstanding collection of 19th-, 20th-, and 21st-century European and American art. A stimulating and unique site to experience art, culture, and education in St. Louis, located on Washington University’s Danforth campus near the corner of Skinker Front & Forsyth Blvds. FREE and open to the public 11-6 every day except Tuesday, open 11-8 on Friday. Visitor parking available; easy MetroLink access Room (one block south of Skinker station). Short exhibitions by artists and others

kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu

above: Guests mingle at a Museum event as reflected in Olafur Eliasson’s Your Imploded View (2001) in the Saligman Family Atrium. Photo by Whitney Curtis. Upcoming in Fall 2008 Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury

3750 WASHINGTON BOULEVARD ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI 63108 314.535.4660 www.contemporarystl.org

31 Floorplan

A B

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