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RES ART WORLD / WORLD ART NO:3 MAY 2009 CONTENTS COVER (detail) Vik Muniz, Action Photo, after Hans Namuth INTERVIEW WITH VIK MUNIZ KATHY BATTISTA (Pictures of Chocolate), 1997 Cibachrome print, 60 x 48 in / 152.4 x 121.9 cm INTERVIEW WITH SEMİHA BERKSOY HANS ULRICH OBRIST © Vik Muniz / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY WHAT IS CONTEMPORARY IN CONTEMPORARY RUSSIAN ART OLESYA TURKINA A REVIEW OF THE TAIPEI BIENNIAL 2008: NO:3 MAY 2009 (WHEN) GLOBAL ATTACKS ON A LOCAL PARADISE ADNAN YILDIZ INTERVIEW WITH RAINER FUCHS AND PETER KOGLER RES INTERVIEW WITH JAMES COHAN DEBORA WARNER NO EXCEPTION FOR CONTEMPORARY ART: WHY AN EXHIBITION OF THE PRISHTINA ART SCENE COULD NOT OPEN IN BELGRADE SEZGİN BOYNİK VIK MUNIZ / THE CONTEMPORARY ARTS LIBRARY IN PRISHTINA/BERLIN JUDITH RAUM, FITORE ISUFI-KOJA, ‹Z ÖZTAT STATES AND TRAITS OF SERBIAN ART SCENE NIKOLA SUICA SEMİHA BERKSOY INTERVIEW WITH FULYA ERDEMCİ / SKOR BORGA KANTÜRK INTERVIEW WITH SOLMAZ SHAHBAZI ASHKAN SEPAHVAND KOONS IN VERSAILLES SABINE BOEHL SPACES BETWEEN SPACES: AYŞE ERKMEN—WEGGEFÄHRTEN ADNAN YILDIZ / PETER KOGLER BJØRN MELHUS AT THE AMERICAN HOSPITAL’S OPERATION ROOM LILIANA RODRIGUES DER NITSCH UND SEINE FREUNDE (NITSCH AND FRIENDS) FREYA MARTIN SOLMAZ SHAHBAZI RES Art World / World Art Publisher: Dirimart Abdi ‹pekçi Caddesi 7/4 Niflantaş› 34367 Istanbul TR T: +90 212 291 3434 F: +90 212 219 6400 [email protected] www.resartworld.com www.dirimart.org Not for sale Review biannual Not to be cited without permission of the author/s and RES Art World / World Art ISBN 978-605-5815-05-9 Editors: M. Azrâ Genim, Micha O. Goebig Layout Design and Art Direction: Emre Ç›k›noğlu, BEK Graphic Design: P›nar Akkurt, BEK Design Consultant: Bülent Erkmen Pre-press: BEK Design and Consultancy Ltd Printing and Binding: Mas Matbaac›l›k Hamidiye Mahallesi So€uksu Caddesi No:3 Ka€›thane Istanbul Turkey T: +90 212 294 1000 F: +90 212 294 9080 1 MAY 2009 EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION RES You are holding the third issue of Dirimart Gallery’s biannual publication RES Art World/World Art. In recent months, our readers have showered us with the question when the next issue will be out. We are very pleased to see that RES has become highly esteemed in such a short period of time. In this issue, we continue our interviews with figureheads from the world of contemporary art. Our highlights include an interview by Kathy Battista, Director of Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s Institute of Art in New York, with Vik Muniz at his studio; Hans Ulrich Obrist’s interview with opera singer and painter Semiha Berksoy who passed away in 2004; a RES interview with Peter Kogler whose works were most recently exhibited at the MUMOK, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, and with the co-curator of this exhibition, Rainer Fuchs; and last but not least, Ashkan Sepahvand’s interview with Iranian artist Solmaz Shahbazi. Debora Warner met James Cohan, who has recently opened a new gallery in Shanghai, while Borga Kantürk spoke with the newly appointed director of the SKOR, Foundation Art and Public Space, Fulya Erdemci, about public art and their forthcoming projects. The curator of the Russian Pavilion at the 48th Venice Biennial (1999), Olesya Turkina, takes a comprehensive look at the contemporary art scene in Russia and Nikola Suica at that in Serbia while Sezgin Boynik touches on the subject of the problematic relationship of contemporary art and nationalism, based on an exhibition that failed to open on the Prishtina–Belgrade axis. The Contemporary Arts Library Prishtina / Berlin project, which was created under the initiative of the three young artists Judith Raum, Fitore Isufi-Koja and İz Öztat, offers an overview of contemporary art in Kosovo. Adnan Yıldız contributed two pieces to this issue: he describes his impressions of the Taipei Biennial 2008 held under the curatorship of Manray Hsu and Vasıf Kortun, and comments on Ayşe Erkmen’s retrospective show Weggefährten (Travel Companions) staged at Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin. Sabine Boehl offers an account of Jeff Koons’ controversial exhibition held at the Palace of Versailles last year while Liliana Rodrigues writes about Bjørn Melhus’ exhibition at the American Hospital’s Operation Room in Istanbul. The guests of this issue’s book review section are Freya Martin, with her book titled Der Nitsch und seine Freunde (Nitsch and Friends) about Hermann Nitsch, and Pelin Derviş, Director of Garanti Gallery, Istanbul, about the exhibition Becoming Istanbul at the German Architecture Museum (DAM) in Frankfurt and the accompanying publication. We hope you will enjoy this issue as well as our fourth issue due out in September when Istanbul hosts the 11th International Istanbul Biennial. M. AZR GENIM EDITOR 3 MAY 2009 INTERVIEW WITH VIK MUNIZ RES me a screwdriver when I was seven years old and I opened all the electrical appliances in the house, including the television. It is always good to see what is inside. And I remember the moment stuck in my mind about these places behind images where insects live or you have this secret life of a painting. Later on, when I became an artist, I realized that the side of the artwork you are most familiar with is the one you build. So there was this childhood curiosity about the back. It reminds me of the story of Picasso when somebody asked him to make a drawing at a café in Paris and said, “I’ll pay you anything you want.” So he said, “Okay”, and he drew this pigeon and gave it to this collector and then she said, “How KATHY BATTISTA much do I owe you?” and he said “Thirty thousand dollars.” And she said, “Well, it took you just a few seconds to make it.” and he said, “No madam, it took me a lifetime.” Obviously, thirty years ago, if I had KATHY BATTISTA The first thing I want to ask you about is your process because you often work in series. Do approached the curator or conservation department of a museum and asked them to look at the back you start and finish a series or do you work concurrently on several of them? of a masterwork they would probably have said no. It is just how these things develop from when I was seven years old. Now I am 47. So forty years later I can use some of that because it was there somehow in VIK MUNIZ One thing about process is that in my case it is not so much about process in a way that what that soup that I am actually still picking things from. starts with an idea ends up with an object or an image, but it’s more an exercise in process development. I am even more curious about how to start and end things in different ways all the time than to I believe my most successful work to date is where I can get something that has been with me for a long even think about the process as a way of making art objects. So with that in mind I always try to go time, that has been brewing there for quite a while, and then at one point it just occurs to me that I can backwards—to start with subjects and get to the material or to start with material and then get to the do something, but I do not have to rush it. This is also the benefit of being a successful artist. What I subjects. I think things usually happen when you just allow yourself space for these things to happen. mean by successful artist is that you have your house, you can pay your rent, you have a comfortable Basically I don’t set myself any rules. The thing that excites me the most when I’m working is when I find life. I am not a multi-millionaire. I come from a working class family in Brazil and I live very well. a completely different way to go about the making of something. Although I am a conceptual artist there is a lot of room for spontaneity in this. Like this last series at the gallery. Another series is Pictures of Dust that I showed at the Whitney. I was living in Paris twelve years before that and I went to visit this show at Beaubourg where they had minimalism. Actually it is funny because KB Verso. they had a collection of international style furniture. I like modernism and I like minimalism—these are like driving forces behind my work, especially minimalism. We will go into that later… They had a VM Yes, Verso. If I had not been at the museum at the right time to ask the right person if I could see major strike of maintenance there. For two months they had not done anything. I was reading this book the back of this first artwork, those things would not have happened. On the other hand, I like the by George Didi Huberman called Phasm, where he talks about things that grow inside cases of glass metaphor… Do you know the Chinese scholar stones? I collect them. (He brings out a scholar stone.) at the Jardins des Plantes as some kind of species. In that book he also talks about minimalism, but it Chinese scholars who practice calligraphy always have one of these. It is just an expression that is took me eleven years. This show was so beautiful because they had the Barcelona chairs and there was found in nature. The idea that you can wander around and find things in their raw state makes you this thin layer of dust and it looked like they were made out of marble.