Tensta-Konsthall-Abstract-Possible-English-Guide.Pdf
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Abstract Possible: The Stockholm Synergies Tensta konsthall 12.1—22.4.2012 Doug Ashford Dorit Margreiter Claire Barclay Åsa Norberg/Jennie Sundén José León Cerrillo Mai-Thu Perret Yto Barrada Falke Pisano Matias Faldbakken Walid Raad Priscila Fernandes Emily Roysdon Zachary Formwalt Tommy Støckel Liam Gillick/Anton Vidokle Mika Tajima Goldin+Senneby Haegue Yang Wade Guyton Iman Issa Gunilla Klingberg Wikipedia Tensta Konsthall translate Konica Minolta 1 Abstraction is a visual strategy used in Bukowskis) and withdrawal strategies many cultures at different times in history. (in a seminar room at the Center for In the Muslim world there is a particularly Fashion Studies, Stockholm University). prominent tradition of abstraction. As Formal abstraction encompasses painting, an aesthetic category, abstraction was sculpture, installations and video that first used by the classic avant-garde in the reflect abstract languages, especially West in the early twentieth century. In this geometric abstraction, which often recalls capacity it is intimately connected with the classic avant-garde’s development social and political utopias, both material of a novel visual expression. But also and transcendental. Since then, one of performative takes on abstraction. the key characteristics of abstraction has Economic abstraction concerns art been its capacity for self-reflection as an and economy, taking up the genuine artistic and intellectual technique, with abstract value of money. Locating one part multiple expressions beyond the visual of Abstract Possible: The Stockholm arts. Abstract Possible: The Stockholm Synergies at Bukowskis makes it possible Synergies suggests that we pay attention to imply as well as concretely point to and reconsider certain crucial aspects out economic connections and discuss of the phenomena of abstraction as changes in the structures of art funding, manifested in contemporary art. Abstract specifically transformations concerning Possible: The Stockholm Synergies the commercial art markets such as follows, examines and complicates three auction houses—the secondary market— prominent tendencies: formal abstraction, moving into the primary market— economic abstraction and “withdrawal- traditionally the sphere of galleries. The strategies” (Latin abstrahere, to art works at Bukowskis will be for sale for withdraw). set prices and thanks to the generosity of Each “strand” is loosely connected the participating artists Tensta konsthall with one of the three locations which will be paid a fee for the exhibition. The form part of the project in Stockholm: fee is funding the report Contemporary formal abstraction (Tensta konsthall), Art and its Commercial Markets: A economic abstraction (the auction house Report on Current Conditions and Future Scenarios, which will be released are planned at Eastside Projects in at the end of January. A symposium Birmingham and Künstlerhaus Stuttgart. will mark the release of the report www.abstractpossible.org and a subsequent debate will bring up Over the last fifteen years, a plethora of the specific conditions of funding for examples of formal abstraction, both contemporary art in Sweden. geometric and expressive, have been visible “Withdrawal” refers to the wave of in exhibitions, site-specific installations, artists’ initiatives and strategies during the publications, and other projects. This last fifteen years that have deliberately not work often seems to buy into the idea joined what we can call the “mainstream” of unproblematic aesthetic enjoyment, in order to create a greater degree of ultra-subjectivity and certain visual codes self-determination for the artists. The which are taken at face value, as style university in general and the seminar rather than structure and ideology. But room specifically can, as the artist and in addition to the many cases in which writer Catherine M. Lord argues in a text geometric abstraction in art and design on a poster by Emily Roysdon, be seen as today becomes a lifestyle indicator, artists examples of “spaces apart” which allow contemplate and engage with the legacy for other kinds of interactions than those of modernist abstraction, also formally, characterizing the rest of society. At the as the result of highly specific artistic Center for Fashion Studies, two artworks and ideological trajectories. One of the will “cohabit” with students, staff and questions raised by Abstract Possible faculty in their day-to-day working is exactly what it means to revisit these environment for two years. trajectories from today’s point of view. Abstract Possible is a research project And yet, as these works show, that aims to explore notions of abstraction, abstraction is more than a formal taking contemporary art as its starting construction. The concept of abstraction point. Since 2010 the project has developed has—within a Marxist framework—also in three locations: Malmö konsthall, been applied to all relations within a Museo Tamayo in Mexico City and the capitalist system. As of late, this has been White Space in Zurich. Further iterations extended to the logic and distortion of 2 Abstract Possible: The Stockholm Synergies scale engendered by the post-Fordist/late and entering the art terrain “at an capitalist economy. Working conditions, angle”, often with the aim of creating and conditions of production, are other more space for maneouvering through pertinent points of reference here. The self-organised initiatives. Artists seem abstract nature of modern finance has to need a space apart today, through been addressed by theoretician Sven “withdrawn” initiatives in the field of Lütticken, whose text Living with cultural production. These developments Abstraction moves between abstract art have been discussed in terms of “strategic and an increasingly abstracted world. He essentialism” as well as “strategic discusses how abstraction is implemented separatism”. Sometimes it seems to be a universally through capitalism, drawing reaction to pressures of spectacularization connections, for example, between the and access, at other times it seems to draw abstraction of social and economic on specific art historical developments. conditions and those mechanisms that Perhaps we can begin to think of these turn abstract concepts into code. All abstract and opaque strategies and this is happening within a culture and an tactics as an indication of a different economy in which we literally “live under “post-postmodern” critical paradigm abstraction”, although the economic challenging the enlightenment trust recession has more recently called such in transparency? Or is it yet another abstraction into relief. In which case phenomenon obscuring our view of the we have to acknowledge abstraction world? as omnipresent, not unlike the ideal of transparency in liberal democracies. What then is the potential of abstraction in such a contested territory? The use of strategies of withdrawal among artists and other cultural producers is an easily observable phenomenon in today’s art world. This kind of abstraction is a conscious method of obscuring Parts of the exhibition will also run The Center for Fashion Studies, concurrently at Bukowskis auction house Stockholm University (27.1—12.2): (12.1.2012—12.2013): Doug Ashford Mai-Thu Perret Claire Barclay Emily Roysdon José León Cerrillo Matias Faldbakken For opening hours and further Priscila Fernandes information visit Zachary Formwalt www.tenstakonsthall.se Liam Gillick Goldin+Senneby Wade Guyton Iman Issa Gunilla Klingberg Dorit Margreiter Åsa Norberg/Jennie Sundén Mai-Thu Perret Falke Pisano Emily Roysdon Tommy Støckel Mika Tajima translate 3 Contemporary Art and its Commercial Noah Horowitz, Suhail Malik/Andrea Markets: A Report on Current Phillips, Alain Quemin and Olav Velthuis. Conditions and Future Scenarios is Design by Metahaven. published by Sternberg Press and Tensta konsthall as part of Abstract Possible: The Stockholm Synergies. This report maps and analyses the complex and contested entanglements of contemporary art and its commercial markets. Contemporary art as an asset category and celebrity accessory, the rise of the art fair, and the increased competition of auction houses are among the phenomena which are discussed by academics, theoreticians and artists. While some of the contributions show how the market’s globalization, and commercialization both reflect and propel the way art is produced, presented, and perceived, others downplay the impact of these developments and argue that the market’s structure has essentially remained the same. All the texts trigger the question: What will art look like in 2022 and how will artists operate? A symposium on the occasion of the report’s release will take place on 28.1. Edited by Olav Velthuis and Maria Lind. Contributions by Stefano Baia- Curioni, Karen van den Berg/Ursula Pasero, Isabelle Graw, Goldin+Senneby, What Lies in the Future for increased eight times between 1998-2008. Contemporary Art? Debate on art In this situation, what will happen with funding in Sweden—today and ten contemporary art? What kind of art and years hence will take place at Tensta which artists will be privileged and which konsthall on 23.2. During recent will be disregarded? Representatives from decades, both the public and the private public and private agents in Sweden have infrastructures of art have undergone been invited to present their prospects and changes that have affected how art is the risks involved. What will the situation produced, presented and perceived.