2013 C#13 Modern & Contemporary Art Magazine C#13 O $PWFSJNBHF"MGSFEP+BBS 7FOF[JB 7FOF[JB EFUBJM Acknowledgements Contributors Project Managers Misha Michael Regina Lazarenko Editors Amy Bower Natasha Cheung Shmoyel Siddiqui Valerie Genty Yvonne Kook Weskott Designers Carrie Engerrand Kali McMillan Shahrzad Ghorban Zoie Yung Illustrator Zoie Yung C# 13 Advisory Board Alexandra Schoolman Cassie Edlefsen Lasch Diane Vivona Emily Labarge John Slyce Michele Robecchi Rachel Farquharson Christie's Education Staff Advisory Board John Slyce Kiri Cragin Thea Philips Freelance C#13 App Developer Pietro Romanelli JJ INDEX I Editor’s Note i British Art 29 Acknowledgements ii Kali McMillan Index iii Index iv Venice C#13 Emerging Artists 58 Robert Mapplethorpe's Au Debut (works form 1970 to 1979) Artist feature on Stephanie Roland at Xavier Hufkens Gallery Artist feature on De Monseignat The Fondation Beyeler Review Artist feature on Ron Muek LITE Art Fair Basel Review Beirut Art Center Review HK Art Basel review Interview with Vito Acconci More than Ink and Brush Interview with Pak Sheun Chuen Selling Out to Big Oil? Steve McQueen's Retrospective at Schaulager, Basel The Frozen Beginnings of Art Contemporary Arts as Alternative Culture Interview with Lee Kit (in traditional Chinese) A Failure to Communicate Are You Alright? Exhibition Review A Failure to Communicate Notes on Oreet Ashrey Keith Haring at Musee D’Art Moderne Sharjah Biennale Review i - Alfredo Jaar, Venezia, Venezia 2013, metal, grey resin, pigment- ed water, 5 x 5m, Chile Pavilion, Arsenale, Venice - - - - AJ: - Alfredo Jaar: - - - - - - Venezia, Venezia AJ- - - - 2 What France and Germany have done is at a su- AJ - - - - - - AJ - AJ- - - Detail of Alfredo Jaar, Venezia, Venezia, 2013 SB: - AJ - - - - Image one: picture of Lucio Fontana - standing in the middle of his destroyed studio All images courtesy of the artist Venezia, Venezia The volatile and tense nature of the artist, Lucio Fontana, precariously poised incessant global dynamics has always been amidst the ruins of his Milan studio in the a suBject that has captivated Alfredo Jaar. immediate aftermath of World War II. Whether about exile and migration, violence and The image evokes a memory, a moment penury, or other plights of global or ideological in history when the world was emerging from incompatiBility, his critical outlook evokes a the calamities and destructions of war. And yet reassessment of established conventions and it equally recalls an historic cultural moment: at complacency. a time when Italy had collapsed, having lost the Nearly thirty years ago, in 1986, Jaar war and gained a global reputation as a Fascist was invited to show his work in the ‘Aperto’, or state, a remarkaBle group of intellectuals – ‘Open’ section of the Venice Biennale, becoming writers, filmmakers, and artists alike – rebuilt the first Latin American to participate in the Italian culture from its very foundations in less international exhibition. Nearly thirty years than 20 years. Creating a cultural revolution, later, he returns to the ethereal city of water they reintroduced a ‘new’ Italy to the world and and stone to represent his native Chile at the ultimately, changed the course of history. The 55th edition of the exposition. For this year’s image is an homage to all these intellectuals in Biennale, Jaar has produced his most elaborate the single embodiment of Lucio Fontana; but and costly project to date. His evocative site- more importantly, the radiating photograph specific installation, Venezia, Venezia, guides serves as an opening statement to the the audience through a subtle arrangement of time and space, a theatrical play of light and and culture within society. dark, and over an arching passage reminiscent Beyond this image of both destruction of the iconic bridges of Venice. and revitalisation, the audience is immediately the pavilion, the viewer is met By the ascending steps of a Bridge, one confronted by a suspended lightbox, suggestive of the many iconic passages found illuminating a black and white photograph amid across Venice. In evoking the character of the dimmed atmosphere of the space. Measuring the city, the spectator is invited to reengage 2.5m x 2.5m, this vast scale projection depicts with the present space that they occupy, with an image from 1946 of Argentine-born Italian the memories of the past resonant in their thoughts as they advance to the next part of the structures still stand, amongst a diminutive installation. cluster of only 28 foreign pavilions included in the entire Giardini. And with the increasing steps, setting the stage for a unique spectacle. popularity of the event, 160 participating Under the shining spotlights, a prodigious nations are forced to search the Arsenale or a dislocated area in the labyrinth of Venice for a width, and rising one metre in height, becomes space to rent at tremendous prices. a dramatic arena for an historic utopia and a In Venezia, Venezia, the disappearance conceptual contingency for reconstruction. of the entire Giardini infrastructure into the Filled to its capacity with turbid green water water is a critical stance against the Biennale that mimics the canals of Venice, the surface model. Drowning the model eradicates of the pool begins to flurry as a perfect replica the inadequacy of the Biennale’s outdated of the Biennale’s Giardini space emerges from propensity of gloBal hierarchy in the face of the water. At a 1:60 scale, the model structure current contemporary culture’s globalised made from grey resin rises above the surface nature. In dialogue with the photograph momentarily, leaving the audience just enough of Fontana standing atop his demolished time to recognise the view before swiftly sinking studio, the evanescent Giardini becomes a back into the opaque water and disappearing conceptual opportunity for new possibilities and completely. At three-minute intervals, the reconstruction. performance is repeated, bringing the water Nevertheless, of the handful of back to its ominous, motionless state. permanent pavilions set up in the Giardini, only The Giardini model becomes a physical two are dedicated to Asian countries, and not manifestation of the complexities of globalism. a single one to an African nation, save Egypt As the structure arises from the water, so too do which is North African. As the archaic structures all the vulnerabilities of its template. of the Giardini endure the test of time, the Following the inauguration of the spectacle of an everlasting Western hegemony exhibition in 1985, the countries invited to build undoubtedly becomes a strong undercurrent in Jaar’s installation. The Giardini therefore as 1907, consequently expressing the monarchic becomes not only a reflection of an obsolete order of the time. Today, these antiquated blueprint, but also a mirrored reality of the world we occupy today. In an ever-increasingly the Venice Biennale, but of nationalism and globalised world where the potential for globalization also, and the relationship between international democratization and economic nations that are and are not represented in the Giardini. a subversion of democracy and a discrepancy in underdeveloped nations. Shmoyel Siddiqui As such, Jaar seeks to criticise the way culture replicates so perfectly the imbalances of our world. In a field of creativity, he creates a new canvas; an empty pool without the physical traces of an old-fashioned Biennale model, only a ghost of what was, in the Brief emergence of the Giardini. The installation piece is an invitation for the spectator and the institution alike, to propose an adequate world stage, compatible with today’s culture in all its global Alfredo Jaar, Venezia, Venezia 2013 complexities. (Installation view) Metal, grey resin, pigmented water, 5m x 5m Venezia, Venezia is therefore an Chile Pavilion, Arsenale, Venice instigation into the re-imagining not only of All images are courtesy of the the artist Odires Mlászho at the Brazilian Pavilion Brazilian artist Odires Mlászho is one of Blind Books - Inside/Out- side- ice Biennale. Curated by Luis Pérez-Oramas the Encyclopedia Britannica: exchange between audience, work, and mem- bers of the institution - ideas drawn directly from The Imminence of the Poetic - - Tripartite Unity - Concave/Convex and Lygia Clark’s Soft Work - - - - and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, two artists he con- sidered to be masters of the technique. Born - es Mlászho is an anagram of his own name - This anagram indicates the twist he takes on - - - - tus as a mechanistic extension of the eye. its subject, limits of knowledge are stretched. creation rather than an illusionistic reality. Mo- - - duction through series and sequences in order to - - - - - - tomontage is most clearly demonstrated It can be argued that the con- Encyclopedia Bri- tannica - between one, an-other, and the Other. One - - ble disjuncture that connect: with language.